The Thorn Healer

by Pepper D. Basham

  Jess’ lips tipped at the compliment. “Well, my grandpa trusts Mr. Reinhold enough to send him here with me to help your mama. Do you think if my grandpa trusts him, you can too?”

  The boy examined August from head to toe. “All right.” The boy drew out the words. “I’ll trust ya, then.”

  August’s smile spread and he offered his hand. The boy shook it, sealing the deal, his gaze sober, fingers squeezing tight. Somehow August felt certain he’d gained a friend with the help of the persnickety Jessica Ross. “Go on, now, son. See to the basil for Nurse Ross.”

  “Take Scraps with you so he won’t be in the way,” Jessica called after, but Scraps already ran out the door at the boy’s heels.

  “You’re a good liar,” August said, glancing over at her as he reached to check the water.

  Jess sent him a sideways glance. “I never said I trusted you. I said my grandpa does. It wasn’t a lie.” Her attention flickered to his, and for the briefest moment, softened the hardened edges around her face. Beautiful. She cleared her throat. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to check Eliza, so I’d appreciate if you and your smirk would slide right out that front door.”

  “I need you to promise me, Jesse.” The mother’s voice moaned into the conversation as her body writhed against another contraction and sweat beads pearled across her forehead. “Please.”

  August snatched a cloth from the lukewarm pot over the stove and waved it in the air to cool. He’d assisted in his sister’s delivery of his tiny niece, a whisper of a child who barely lived two months. Any small service of assistance mattered at this crucial time.

  In a few strides, he crossed the room and placed the cloth in Jessica’s hand.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, touching the linen to Mrs. Larson’s skin as her tension subsided into a shivering sigh against the pillows. “The pains are close, Eliza. It shouldn’t be long now.”

  “That’s right.” Mrs. Larson grabbed at Jessica’s free hand, drawing it to her chest. “Not long. So... so I need you to promise, about the younguns.” Her breath punctuated each word. “You’ll promise me, won’t you?”

  “Promise you what, Eliza?”

  “You’ll take ‘em.” The mother’s voice moaned out the phrase. “You’ll promise to take keer of my young’uns.”

  Jessica’s eyes pinched closed for a moment and August began to put the pieces together.

  Jessica tried to pull back. “I need you to fight, Liza. For your children.”

  The woman, as frail as she seemed, held Jessica in a vice. “Joshua’s already called me home. I’ve seen it in my dreams. I’m going to him.”

  The superstition of the mountains crept into her voice and waited in the wings, cloaked in a black robe and a sickle. August stayed the chills with a prayer.

  “You know as well as I that sometimes, dreams are only dreams.” Jessica shook the hand Eliza held. “God expects us to use good sense too. He’s given you these children, and He knows they need a mother.”

  “He wants you to be their mother.”

  ***

  “What?” Jessica replayed the sentence whispered by her high school friend, but the words and meaning came back as almost incomprehensible.

  Mother? Jessica? No! She’d never been good with children and she didn’t plan to practice on two would-be orphans at a mother’s dying request. Eliza Larson had to survive.

  “I seen it in my dreams but I didn’t know it ʼtwas you, Jesse. All make sense now.” Eliza sighed back into the pillows for a momentary reprieve from her pangs but tensed again almost immediately.

  Jess tried to loosen the woman’s hold, but her fingers gripped as tightly as the desperation in her eyes. Jess groaned and severed her gaze from Eliza’s, searching for some help—anything from anyone, even traitor August Reinhold.

  His eyes captured her with their tenderness, sending strength and a sweet taste of calm over the coils of tension under her skin. An unwelcome flutter slid in between Jess’ internal panic and utter disdain.

  She stifled a grimace at the memory of Jude’s honest declaration about August being a ‘stinkin’ German.’ Paired with his gentle nature and ready smile, she found it more and more difficult to hate him. As much as every scar inside her cried out in protest, she couldn’t tend to a dying mother and a grieving seven-year-old by herself.

  Eliza tensed through another contraction ending in a jolt of quiet. The woman’s weak breaths rose and fell in shallow puffs. Her complexion looked pasty, and Jess acknowledged the familiar shades of death fingering closer with each passing second.

  “The baby’s comin’.” Eliza moaned and sent Jessica into motion.

  She barely heard August slip from the room to leave them in privacy. Eliza pushed, but the effort weakened her even more, barely moving the baby along.

  “Stay with me, Eliza. The baby is almost here. I need you to give me one or two more pushes and we’ll be finished.”

  “I can’t.” The woman’s cry puddled out on a whimper.

  “Did your dream say the baby was going to die too?” The statement snatched the woman’s full focus. “Because that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t get him out of the birth canal very soon.”

  The edge in Jessica’s words punctured whatever state left Eliza powerless, and with a cry loud enough to shake Jess’ bones, the woman pushed the baby clean out of her body. Jess caught the crying bundle in a towel by the bed, staring at the tiny person in wonder.

  This... miracle never grew commonplace.

  “A girl.” Jess whispered and looked up. “You have a girl, Eliza.”

  “Good. She’ll make you a fine daughter.” Eliza’s voice fainted into a whisper, her breath rasped and ragged.

  “No, no.” Jess leaned forward. “You need to get well and be the mother for this little one.” Jess pressed the baby into Eliza’s arms, hoping the tactile awareness would shake Eliza’s hold on her gloomy end.

  The woman touched the baby’s face and with a sluggish familiarity, moved the little one to her breast to quell the desperate cries. After a few attempts, the quiet sound of suckling hummed in chorus with the crackling fire. Jess breathed a sigh of relief and went to work, finalizing the birthing process.

  As the placenta expelled, another burst of blood followed.

  No. How on earth could the woman have known she would hemorrhage?

  Eliza moaned, a pitiful sound, and Jessica sent a frenzied look about the tiny cabin for anything cold. Something to perhaps slow the bleeding? Her view offered nothing.

  The contented hums of the suckling baby couldn’t overshadow Eliza’s breaths, growing shallower.

  “Do you need anything, Nurse Ross?”

  August’s face appeared in the doorway, but before Jess could send him away, Eliza grasped Jess’ arm in a feeble hold. “I feel my life leavin’. Promise me you’ll take care of my young’uns.”

  The request hit Jess in the stomach all over again. If she didn’t think she’d hasten the woman’s decline, she’d shake some sense into her, but the shadows beneath her eyes and the pallor of her face kept the edge out of Jess’ voice. “You want to give me a helpless newborn and an impressionable seven-year-old? You’ve known me my whole life. I’ve never been very good with children.”

  Eliza smiled in a resigned, knowing sort of way, as if Jessica had accepted the awesome responsibility without question. She patted Jessica’s hand before her fingers dropped to her lap. “I have every faith you’re the one for my sweet young’uns.” Her eyes lit with a small spark and she moved a weak finger down the baby’s cheek. “Faith.” She drew in a shallow breath. “Call her Faith. May she be a stronger woman than her mama.”

  “Eliza, please—”

  The woman sank further down into the bed, her shoulders slumping low and her energy waning with the loss of blood. Dying. Helpless. Fire exploded up through Jess’ middle. All she could do was watch Eliza die, just like she’d done hundreds of times with the soldiers in her care. Why did she h
ave to feel so helpless all of the time?

  “Where’s Jude? I need to talk to Jude.” Eliza’s words teetered to a higher pitch, rising on Jude’s name.

  “I’ll get him,” August replied from the doorway, turning to leave.

  “No.” Jessica stepped forward. “He shouldn’t be here for this.” She gestured back toward the bed. “Not for this.”

  August’s pale blue eyes took on a steely glint. “His mother has asked for him. I will not refuse her request.”

  Jess stepped closer, lowering her voice. “She has less than five minutes at the rate she’s bleeding out. A little boy doesn’t need to—”

  “No. He should be with her.” His words hardened in command and Jessica stepped back.

  After the light-hearted banter he’d shown since she first met him, his curt reaction took her by surprise. Before she could respond, he’d ushered the little boy into the room and to his mother’s side.

  Jude never hesitated but took his mother’s outstretched hand with a sweet smile. And Jessica’s heart pinched in knots from the site of the contented baby in Eliza’s arms and the little boy facing a man’s heartache.

  How could God allow this? What earthly good could any of this do? Her heart fisted tight against the remnants of her childhood faith. Nothing.

  “Come close, boy.” Eliza urged Jude closer with a gentle tug. “This is your little sister, Faith. Help take care of her.”

  Warmth invaded Jessica’s vision, blurring the scene into fog and whispers.

  “I will, Mama. I always try to help you.”

  Jude’s simple reply nudged a tear free and the dam of self-control threatened to burst with so many unshed tears she nearly turned and left the house, but August’s presence at her side kept her firmly in place. She couldn’t leave a strange man alone with this dying mother.

  Eliza’s smile quivered with the fight to speak, to breathe. “You’ve always been a good boy and I... I have a special job for you now.”

  The words grew softer, frail as the baby’s tiny fingers flexing open and closed against the blanket as she suckled.

  “Your daddy’s calling me to join him so I must go.”

  “Is he callin’ me too?”

  Jess pinched her eyes closed against the scene but the question lingered with longing. Oh, the poor, sweet boy!

  “No, he ‘spects you to grow up and be... be a strong man, like... him.” Her voice faltered, and her hand dropped its hold on the boy’s. “You and Faith is going to belong to Miss Jessica.”

  Jude raised those clear gray eyes to her, the stare searching for answers Jessica didn’t even have the strength to voice. Words and promises scratched her throat for release. Anything to comfort the confusion on Jude’s little face.

  “Love ya, boy.”

  “Mama?”

  But there was no response.

  Chapter Seven

  Thunder hounded her steps down the mountain trail, like gunfire reverberating in her skull and skittering a violent cold sweat over her skin. The limp in her stride and newborn in her arms slowed her pace, but nothing could ease the erratic taste of fear gripping her breath with each thunder clash.

  Visions burst at every explosion. A dying nurse in her arms, bleeding from an abdominal wound from a shell. A soldier fighting for breath from the ravages of a gas attack. Dark German eyes piercing hers before seizing her mouth in a violent kiss, stripping her of the distance and strength she’d coveted for years. Three pulls of a trigger as she fired a pistol into the head of a man trying to kill her brother. One. Two. Three.

  She cringed against the hateful, haunting memories and attempted to quicken her pace, only to stumble.

  August caught her by the arm, steadied her, and then quickly released her. She nodded a reluctant thanks before forging ahead, the sound of August’s gentle voice as he spoke to Jude about the hound, Scrubs, at the boys’ side whishing a gentle distracting to her terror. She focused on August’s voice, attempting to allow the comfort and calm of his mellow base drive the panic away, but another boom of thunder jolted her pulse.

  The darkened sky promised a deluge. Soon.

  “We need to hurry.”

  August turned to her, those eyes so pale and gentle, they somehow softened her scowl. She couldn’t shake the memories of his care for Eliza’s body as he quietly helped her wrap it until Granny Painter or one of her midwife apprentices came to prepare it for the wake. She’d notify Clive at the general store, and then mountain people would crawl out of the hollows and cabins to pay their respects. And, of course, someone would have to dig the grave. Eliza had no family, no kin apart from the two children who now belonged to Jessica.

  She tried to wrap her mind around that thought, but a closer boom of thunder blasted her mind with white fear, sending a seizure-like tremor through her and waking the baby. The farmhouse rose before her around the tree line path, across the field. Pinpricks clawed at her spine, like the cold steel of a pistol at her neck. Her throat strangled. She hobbled faster. The baby started to whimper, but Jess couldn’t stop.

  An overwhelming panic rose above logic and understanding. It gripped her senses and left her practically paralyzed... unless she could get to the house before the storm grew any closer. Before she lost her last remnant of control.

  Another clap of thunder nearly crippled her to the ground, but August caught her again.

  He looked down into her face, his brow crinkled with concern.

  “I need to get inside.” Words squeezed through her tightening throat. “Please.”

  August looked up at the sky, then to the front door, and back at Jess’ face. She didn’t have time for him to sort out the problem, or her weaknesses. She’d already swallowed two gallons of pride saying “please” to the man.

  She attempted to jerk free from his hold and take the final steps to the house before her body became immovable, but August swept her and the baby up in his arms and crossed the final expanse to the back porch steps just as the sky opened.

  He placed her down on the porch, his unnerving stare almost distracting her from the panic lacing each breath she took. She slung the door open, ushered Jude inside, and turned to August, who stood at the threshold, unmoving.

  Her fingers dug into the wood of the door, but she couldn’t quite take her gaze from his.

  “You are safe.”

  His whisper, the compassion softening the sharp edges of his jaw, clashed against her assumptions and desperate need to hate him. Safe?

  Lightning flashed behind him and the thunder cracked in unison, lighting the sky and reigniting the terror.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say before slamming the door in his face. Maybe she said it. The blackness on the fringes of her thoughts sifted memory and present into a murky mess. She needed to hide.

  “What are you doing?” Her grandmother’s voice filtered in through the coming fog.

  Jess turned to her and pushed the crying baby into her grandmother’s arms and then, as the darkness started closing in on her vision and the sounds of gunfire eclipsed all other noise, she fumbled up the stairs to her room, opened the tiny closet, and closed herself inside.

  ***

  August walked up Spring Street over the well-worn train tracks glistening with fresh rain. He’d learned summer rains arrived in a hurry but ended as quickly, leaving the earthy smells of wet grass and flowers mingling in the damp air. He stopped at the corner of the Hot Spring’s depot and drew in a fresh breath of honeysuckle air. The small town stretched before him, buildings huddled around a narrow, dirt-stained main street, which had grown only a little since his people had ‘invaded’ this tiny corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  Behind him extended the long bridge over the French Broad, a steel edifice he and his comrades succeeded in repairing after the flood left the bridge gnarled and broken. The mountains, shields of gray and blue, rose on every side, cradling the town and its five hundred natives.

  August shoved his hands in his pockets and
completed the short walk along the twelve-foot wooden fence to the entry gate. His feet hesitated each time he crossed the threshold back behind the fence, the temporary freedom of the day stolen with one step. He looked back over his shoulder before entering his confinement for the night. His thoughts turned back to the afternoon’s tragic scene and Jessica Ross’ behavior—her fathomless emerald eyes seized with terror. Confinement came in all shape and sizes. For some, it was wooden fences and barbed wire, for others... bitterness and fear.

  The woman posed an interesting quandary. For a few moments, she’d softened her defenses, allowing him to see behind her protective wall of resentment. Gentleness and a deep-set compassion flowed from her interactions with and her glances to Jude. She carried a strength, an almost indomitable courage in each step she took, even against the pull of her limp. But her strength bowed to the weight of helplessness, both during Eliza’s birth and then... during the storm.

  Everything within him stood to assistance, readied to give whatever she needed to snatch the fear from those evergreen eyes. What haunted her? August knew some of the stories her grandparents shared, but had something much worse ripped through her strength to inspire such terror?

  A movement along the fence line, shadowed gray clouds in the storm-waning sky, slowed August’s pace toward the camp gate. The silhouette crept along the fence, head bent low as if searching for something lost along the ground.

  There was a distant familiarity to his gait and lean physique. August moved toward the man, but the shadowed figure must have heard his approach and scampered away until he disappeared over the edge of road down toward the river.

  August waited, watching the shadows a little longer to see if the man might emerge. Though his countryman’s arrival in Hot Springs came with a general sense of good feeling, or at the least indifference, there were always those whose losses and fears bent their sensibilities toward a darker turn.

  Sinister? Dangerous?

  One last glance over his shoulder afforded an orange-hewn main street. A figure leaned against the Tavern wall, smoke trailing from his cigarette, his dark eyes trained on the camp. On August. Davis, the man August saw in Kimp’s store, the one with such a severe grudge against him and his countrymen.