The pup wiggled all over and tried to lick her face. That made Francine laugh. The dog beside Ben surprised him by easing closer to the woman to lean against her leg. The other pup, left alone in the truck, began whining. Ben could sympathize. He was feeling a little left out too.
He wanted to be like the collie and step closer. Brush shoulders with Francine. Her laughter lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle like creek water chasing through the sunshine. He kept smiling too like some kind of idiot, but he didn’t try to wipe the smile off his face. It felt too good.
She must have heard the other pup whine, because she pushed the pup she was holding into Ben’s hands and opened the truck door to scoop up the other puppy.
“Aww, poor little thing is scared to death.” She rubbed the puppy’s ears. “I bet he’s never been away from his mother.”
The pup in his hands was going crazy trying to get back to Francine, so he put him back in the truck. “You’ve had your turn,” he told him. He ignored the pup’s wails as he looked back at Francine stroking the runt pup and wished for a turn of his own.
It could be he’d made a mistake bringing her the dog. He wanted her to have the dog, but he should have let Woody bring it. This woman was messing with his heart’s equilibrium like no female he’d ever met. Some things were best avoided. Like poison sumac.
But he was here now and nothing for it but to clamp down on his feelings and play out the scene. “That was the runt of the litter, but I’m thinking that’s the one Sadie will want. She has a soft place for little things.”
Francine held the pup up to her face and the pup licked her nose. “Goodness, I’ve never had such a face washing.”
The dog at her feet lifted a paw to touch her leg as if to keep her from forgetting about him. Ben restrained the impulse to reach across and do the same by touching her arm. He’d come to give her a dog. Nothing else. Especially not his heart. He needed to stop thinking of her as Francine with the eyes that made his knees weak. She was Nurse Howard and that was all.
She leaned down to pat the collie’s head.
“Be careful. He might snap at the pup,” Ben warned.
But the dog just nosed the pup and then pushed past it to nuzzle Francine’s arm.
“Oh, he’s too good a dog for that.” She straightened up after ruffling the collie’s ears and handed the pup back to Ben. “Thank you for bringing them by for me to see, but did you need anything else? Is your arm bothering you?”
“I’m not in need of your nursing services.” At least that much was true. “It’s this dog.” He nodded toward the collie. “He needs a home. His owner was threatening to get rid of him once and for all.”
“You mean shoot him?” She looked horrified.
“That’s one way to get rid of a dog.”
“A sweet dog like this?” She laid her hand on the collie’s head as if to protect him.
“Dogs are almost as plentiful as rocks up here in the hills. And this one can’t even earn his rations by claiming to be a hunting dog.”
“Collies are herders, aren’t they?”
“Some are. Don’t know if this one is. The man I got him from said about all he could say for him was that he was a snake dog.”
“He kills snakes?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in action. He could just bark at them.”
“As long as he kept them out of the paths, I’d be happy. Good dog.” She stroked the dog’s head. “When Jeralene gets here, I’ll ask if she knows anybody who wants a dog.”
When she straightened up, the dog put his paw on her leg again.
“I think he likes you.” The dog wasn’t the only one. Ben hesitated, feeling like a schoolboy afraid to ask a girl to the church picnic. “The fact is, I told him on the way over here that you’d be the perfect person for him.”
“Me?” Her eyes flew open wider as she looked from the dog to Ben. She shook her head. “Oh, no. As nice as he is, I can’t have a dog.”
“Why not?” He fastened his gaze on her and she didn’t look away. “I know Mrs. Breckinridge is fond of animals and that some nurses have dogs like Sarge here.”
“Did you name him Sarge?” She looked down at the dog, but not before he saw the smile sneaking out on her lips.
“Seemed a good name.”
“He doesn’t look much like a Sarge to me.”
“No?” He watched her stroking the dog and smiled. “The thing is, he made me think of this nurse I know. A person wouldn’t be thinking she looked much like a Sarge either.”
“You have to stop calling me that.” She looked up at him. “Please.”
“Fair enough. I slipped the name right off you onto the dog. I’m thinking he’ll like the name and being your dog.”
“I told you I can’t have a dog.”
“But I didn’t believe you and neither did Sarge. Just look how he’s watching you. He thinks he’s yours already.”
She looked sorry as she shook her head. “Nurse Dawson doesn’t like dogs. She would veto the idea hands down.”
“She’s my supervisor while I’m training.”
“Supervising your nursing, but not your life. You can make some choices on your own, can’t you? Like what you eat for breakfast or how to keep snakes out of the yard.”
She smiled then and he was pretty sure he had her convinced, even as she shook her head again. “But I’ve got to go to Lexington next month to take my midwifery exam. I couldn’t ask Nurse Dawson to take care of a dog while I was gone.”
“We’d be glad to keep Sarge for a spell in that event. But the dog’s yours. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we got here, and he really doesn’t want to go home with these noisy pups.” Ben nodded toward the truck where the pups were making a racket again.
“You’re very convincing, Mr. Locke.” She laughed. “All right. But if Nurse Dawson makes me sleep on the porch, I’m going to blame you.”
“Porches make a fine sleeping place this time of the year. You can hear the frogs in the creek and the owls on the hunt.”
“Are you sure you’re not a salesman?” But she was still smiling.
So was he. Inside and out. He knelt down in front of the dog. “She’s the one I told you about, Sarge. You take good care of her, hear?”
The dog barked twice, almost like he was saying “yes sir,” and licked his hand. Guess that made Ben the general. Then the dog moved closer to Francine. It was useless, Ben trying to keep her given name out of his thoughts. As long as he could keep from saying it out loud.
Ben stood up and opened the truck door. He pushed the pups back and climbed in. He felt a wet spot under him where one of the pups had obviously needed to be out on the ground instead of in the truck, but even that didn’t wipe the smile off his face.
Before he could think better of it, he leaned out the window. “The Hoskins over in the next holler are having a sorghum stir-off next week. If nobody’s having a baby, you and Sarge ought to come.”
“I don’t know that family. They must not live in our district.”
“Probably more over toward Possum Bend, but it’s not all that far.”
“I’d get lost for sure trying to get there.” She shrugged with a smile.
“We could swing by and get you.” He couldn’t believe he was saying that, but he wasn’t sorry. Not a bit. But at the same time he figured he’d better add on some words to keep her from thinking he was asking her for a date. She’d never say yes to a date. “Becca and Woody want to go. Not sure about Ma and Sadie, but we can always make room for one more.” He patted the ledge of the open window. “I got a truck.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “I would like to see how they make sorghum. If we don’t have a laying in then.”
His own cheeks felt a little warm too. Maybe three years toting a gun across Europe had made him forget how to talk to a woman. He slid the pups back over on the passenger side and pushed in the clutch. He’d said enough. Maybe too much. He shifted the truck into gear and with a wave let the truck roll away from her. He looked in the rearview mirror before he got out of sight. She was still standing there, her hand on the dog’s head.
“Take care of her, Sarge.” He felt silly saying the words out loud, but nobody was around to hear him except the pups and the Lord. And the good Lord heard everything, whether you said it out loud or just let it sneak through your head.
He hadn’t gone far when he spotted Granny Em walking up the creek with her gathering basket on her arm. She was moving slow, like each step cost her more effort than she had to give.
He tapped the brakes and rolled to a stop beside her. “Want a ride up the hill, Granny?”
She stepped over to the truck. “Benjamin Locke. What you doin’ with this contraption?”
She sounded surprised, and as best Ben could remember, surprise wasn’t something Granny Em often showed. She was like an ancient pine tree that just stood still in its place and took in everything that went on around it. Not that Granny Em stayed in one place. She might be on any hill on any day. The years piling up on her hadn’t stopped that.
His mother said the old woman might have been married once upon a time, but it was so long ago, nobody was sure. And Granny Em never admitted to it. Some even claimed she’d had a baby once that hadn’t survived. Others weren’t sure she hadn’t just crawled out of a cave up here on this mountain already old.
But she had aged while Ben was gone. Wrinkles lined every inch of her leathery face now. Her shoulders were stooped and she favored one of her legs with a limp. Her hair was a bush of gray tucked into a bun at the back of her neck with plenty of unruly strands springing free of her hairpins.
In spite of her unkempt appearance, she had an air about her. Mountain pride, Ben’s mother called it. As necessary as food and water if a woman was going to survive in these hills.
“I bought me a truck,” he told her now. “Get on in and you can be the first person I give a ride. Just watch out for the pups.”
“Pups.” She tiptoed up on the running board to peer inside. Her wrinkles crinkled up in a smile. “Well, if you ain’t about to set Ruthena on her ear with them critters.”
“But Sadie will be happy.”
“That child’ll be in hog heaven for sure. What with two of ’em.”
She stepped down off the running board to open the door. Ben held the pups back while the old woman set her basket in the seat and clambered in beside it. She moved spryer than he thought she could. But then she was so thin, she didn’t have much to lift up into the truck. He had to wonder if she’d been eating anything.
He peered into her basket filled with dandelion leaves and some bark. “Find anything good today?”
“Pickings was kinda slim, but I beat the squirrels to a few hickory nuts. They’s down in the bottom there ’neath those greens.” She lifted both the pups up into her lap. “Looks like your pickings was some better.”
“Took this one dog off Shorty Johnson’s hands so he threw in the pups too.” That was sort of the way of it.
“Shorty’s not generally so giving.” Granny Em’s eyes narrowed a bit. “I’ll fix you up a dose to get rid of the worms. Coming from Shorty, these’n is bound to have worms.” She looked out the rear window toward the truck bed. “What happened to the other critter? He jump out the window?”
“I gave him away already.” Too late he realized it might have been better to not mention the collie dog. “To somebody who needed a dog.”
“I used to have a dog. Long time back. Went ev’rywhere with me. Even learned how to sniff out ginseng root. Mighty handy that way. That old dog was fine company.”
“How come you never got another dog?” Ben glanced over at her. Both the pups were lying peaceful as anything in her lap.
“Too much trouble feedin’ ’em. Dogs ain’t good ’bout eatin’ greens and the like.”
“I guess not.” He hit a rock that bounced Granny Em up off the seat. She kept her hands over the pups.
“I hear tell these contraptions can be a body’s death.” She didn’t sound worried. “One way to go’s as good as another, I reckon.”
Ben laughed. “I’ll pay more mind to the road and try to miss the bumps.”
“They ain’t no road out there to pay mind to. I can’t see no way you can git this thing up to your house.”
“Not yet. But I’ll work on that.”
“Roads’ll ruin these hills. Cuttin’ the trees and all. Trees is what holds it all in place.”
“You could be right.” Ben twisted the wheel to spin around one of those trees and head up the hill.
“Ain’t no could be about it.”
Ben didn’t argue with her. The roads would come whether they wanted them to or not. That was just the way things were. When the trees got too thick, he pulled the truck between two of them and turned off the key. The truck shuddered to a stop.
“Guess we’ll have to shanks’ mare it from here.” He got out and went around to open the door for her. She handed him the pups and he set them down on the ground while he helped her out. The woman didn’t feel like she weighed much more than Sadie. “Why don’t you come on up the path with me? Ma was cooking apples and green beans. She might even have fried apple pies.”
“That’s right temptin’.” She reached for her basket. “But I reckon I’ll go on in and fix up that dose for them there pups ’fore they give Sadie the worms too and have her punying around agin. If I get it done ’fore night falls, I might come on back down the hill. It ain’t a far step.”
“That’d be kindly of you.” Ben picked up the little pup before it could run under the truck to hide. He stuck it inside his shirt.
She looped her basket on her arm and started up the hill toward her house. Then she looked back at him. “Reckon I better make three doses so’s you can give one of them to that nurse girl. In case they don’t have nothing for dog worms in their medicine chest.” When Ben just looked at her without saying anything, she went on. “Did the girl like the dog?”
“How’d you know I gave it to her?”
“Some things ain’t hard to figure out.” She gave a little laugh as she turned back up the path toward her house. “No indeedy. Not hard at all.”