Ben didn’t realize how he was watching for Francine until he saw her coming down the hallway. But then she was there and he was glad.
Without thinking whether he should or shouldn’t, he went to meet her. She had an outward look of calm as a nurse should, but her lips trembled when she pushed them up in a smile. She had washed her hands, but Woody’s blood still stained her clothes, as it did his and his mother’s.
He wanted to ask where she’d been. Why she hadn’t come to wait with them. But he held back the words. He couldn’t be sure she had the same need to see him as he had to see her. But her eyes did seek his and not turn away. He let her speak first.
“Granny Em says the doctor told you Woody was going to be all right.” It wasn’t a question, but she sounded as if she needed to be assured it was true.
“The doctor talked with Ma a little while ago. Claimed Woody was lucky. An inch or two to the right and he’d have been gone. Said it was a wonder he didn’t bleed out.” Ben pulled in a breath that even now felt shaky when he thought about losing Woody. “We have you to thank for that.”
“Or you.” She put her hand on Ben’s arm. “You knew what to do.”
“Too well.” The gunshot echoed in his head. He’d wanted to leave those sounds behind forever. “But I didn’t want to need my medic training here. Not for my brother.”
“Of course not.” She hesitated and then asked, “Are you all right?”
He knew what she meant, but he didn’t know how to answer. The sound of that gunshot had brought back too many bad memories, but that wasn’t a burden he needed to thrust off on her.
She seemed to sense his reluctance to answer and changed her question. “All of you? Becca and Sadie? Your mother?” She peered around him at them.
He looked back too. Sadie leaned against his mother, her eyes wide and scared. Becca slouched in one of the wooden chairs, obviously exhausted. His mother, on the other hand, was the strong, steady rock she always was. She’d been through her own kind of wars and dealt with each new battle with a resigned endurance.
“Go talk to them.” He stepped to the side to let her past him.
She stooped to hug Sadie and then grasped his mother’s hand as Ma told her what the doctor said. Last she turned to Becca and offered to find her a place to lie down.
Before Becca could answer, his mother spoke up. “No need in that. Ben can take you and Sadie to the house now that we know Woody is going to be all right.”
“I’m fine.” Becca stood up and stretched her back. “I want to stay.”
“What you want don’t matter right now. Somebody has to go home to see to things and that has to be you and Ben. Come morning, Ben can bring you back down if’n you feel the need to be here.” Ma settled her eyes on Becca a moment, then looked over at Ben. “I expect Nurse Howard could use a way back to the center and Granny Em back to the mountain.”
“Granny Em left a bit ago,” Francine said. “Told me to catch up with her after I talked with you and she’d make sure I didn’t get lost on the way.”
“No need in that.” Ma’s face was set. “Ben has that truck.”
Becca looked ready to argue, but one look at Ma’s face and she merely nodded.
“Let me find the nurse.” Francine looked from Becca to Ben. “Maybe you can see Woody before you leave.”
A few minutes later, a nurse led Becca and Ben back a corridor to Woody’s room. Sadie, too young to visit, stayed with Ma. The nurse promised Ma she could sit with Woody through the night.
The woman Francine introduced as Nurse Williams warned them Woody would be weak and still under the influence of the anesthesia. “Even if he’s awake, he may not respond with much sense.”
Becca stopped and hung back at the door into the hospital room with beds divided by curtains.
Ben put his arm around her and kept his voice low. “It will be okay.”
“How do you know?” Becca blinked away tears. “Anything could still happen.”
“In the army if the boys made it through the first round of treatment, they nearly always continued to get better.”
“Nearly always.”
“But some of those wounds were ten times worse than Woody’s. Come on. Smile in case he’s awake.” He urged her through the door while making sure to hide the worry on his own face.
Woody looked almost as pale as the sheet pulled up over him. His eyes were closed and that made him look so young. Like a child tucked in for a nap. Woody was never that still.
The nurse checked his pulse. “He can probably hear you whether he can respond or not.”
Becca blinked back tears and pasted on a smile. “Woodrow Locke, what in the world are you trying to do? Scare me to death? You know that’s not good for a woman in my condition.”
A slight lift of the corners of Woody’s lips showed he did hear her. Ben took his hand and squeezed it. “You’ll be fine as long as you do what the nurses say.” Ben kept his voice light too.
“You mean Nurse Francine?” Woody’s voice was barely above a whisper, but there was no denying the teasing sound in it or in his eyes when they flickered open.
Ben could feel both Becca and Nurse Williams giving him curious looks, but he did his best to act like he didn’t know what Woody meant, even though he did. He had let Francine’s name slip out into the open. “Whichever nurse is trying to help you.”
Woody’s lips curled up even more. “Francine ain’t mean. She’s a dream.”
“I don’t know what they gave you, but it better wear off soon before you get in trouble.”
Woody’s smile faded. “I reckon I’m already in trouble. Coy was a better shot, I’d be dead as a doornail.”
“Coy? Who’s Coy?”
Woody shifted uneasily as though the bed had suddenly gotten too hard. He groaned and shut his eyes. The nurse took hold of Ben’s arm and pulled him away from the bed. “Not now, Mr. Locke. Questions will have to wait.”
Ben took a deep breath. “Yes, ma’am. I understand.”
Nurse Williams gave him a stern look. “All right then. Two more minutes. Then you’ll have to leave.”
“Where’s Ma?” Woody asked Becca.
“She’s waitin’ out front with Sadie. She’ll come on back to sit with you when we leave. Ma says we have to go home to take care of things.”
“Good. Bruiser’s probably half starved by now.”
“I’ll feed him a few days, but then you best get on home and do it yourself. That pup is a trial and tribulation,” Becca said.
Woody was smiling again. “Just like me.”
“Ain’t that the truth!” Becca brushed her lips across Woody’s cheek. “You do like Ben said and mind the nurses. We better go mind Ma.”
The collie was waiting by the door when they went out. Francine patted the truck bed and the dog hopped in. “I can ride back here too.” She started to climb into the back of the truck.
“Nope. Sarge will be fine.” Ben stepped in front of her to slam the tailgate closed. “You ride up front.”
“But it’ll be crowded. Especially after you pick up Granny Em.”
“Who knows if we’ll even see her. She has her own shortcuts home, but if we do, we’ll make room. Sadie can sit in Becca’s lap.”
“You ain’t looked at me lately, Ben.” Becca smoothed her dress over her growing stomach. “I done lost my lap.”
“I can sit in Nurse Howard’s lap.” Sadie took Francine’s hand. “She’s got lots of lap.”
“I do. And it’s all yours right now.” Francine stood back for Becca to get in first, but Becca motioned her toward the door.
“Sorry, Nurse Howard, but you’ll have to do the scooting on the seat. I do well to climb in and cling to the door,” Becca said.
So Francine ended up next to Ben. Then when they did see Granny Em making her slow progress through Hyden, Francine scooted closer to Ben to make room for the old woman. Her arm was warm against his. He gripped the steering wheel and fought the crazy urge to put an arm around her.
Instead he leaned to look at Granny Em squeezed between Francine and Becca. “Who’s Coy?”
“Plenty of Coys here in the hills. Right common name.” Granny Em kept her face forward.
The old woman wasn’t going to give up any information easily. “You know the Coy I mean. The one that shot Woody.”
“I weren’t close to the boy. Didn’t see ’ary a thing.” She turned her head toward him. He could barely see her face in the light reflected from the dash, but he could feel her scrutiny. “’Cepting you and this ’un here licking sorghum sticks.”
Francine spoke up. “If you know who it was, Granny Em, shouldn’t you tell the sheriff?”
“Folks sometimes do that.” Granny Em nodded. “If they know. I told you I weren’t close to the boy. Could be he can tell you more’n me.”
“Could be.” Ben stared out at the road as an uneasy silence settled over them in the truck.
Sadie started sniffling. “I want Ma.”
“There, there.” Francine stroked Sadie’s head and spoke softly. “Becca and Ben will take care of you.”
Ben noted her using his first name, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that. He needed to take care of Sadie and Becca. Maybe even Granny Em. Francine didn’t need him to take care of her, but the thought was in his head that he wouldn’t mind adding her to the list. He thought about the college catalog he got in the mail a few weeks ago, but college wasn’t going anywhere. The GI Bill would still be there next year if he could work out a way to go to school and take care of his family. Right now, family came first.
Granny Em gave Sadie’s knee a poke. “You’s too big to do all that tear making.”
That just made Sadie cry harder. Francine put her hand over Sadie’s knees, as if to ward off any more pokes.
“Coddling a body cheats ’em out of finding their own strength.” Granny Em stared out the windshield and didn’t look toward Francine.
Ben started to say something, but Francine spoke first, her voice low and even. “There are times for growing stronger and times for comforting, and sometimes both times see a few tears.”
Ben could feel Francine tightening her arms around Sadie.
“And times to get on home.” Becca spoke up after being unusually quiet. “This baby is kicking up a storm. He’s hungry.”
That made Sadie giggle through her tears and the mood in the truck lightened as Ben turned toward the Beech Fork Center.
“You can let me out and I can walk from here,” Fran said. “You’ll get home faster that way.”
“Oh, me and little Carl won’t starve that fast,” Becca said. “Will we?”
“No not that fast.” A smile was in Fran’s voice. “But you do need to eat, and remember, smaller meals to keep the heartburn down. That and Granny Em’s dogwood bark.”
Francine was making peace with Granny Em, but Ben still had questions that he was going to ask the old woman before she headed up the hill to her cabin. She knew more than she was telling.
At the center, Ben stopped and opened his door. “Best you get out on this side. Be easier for Granny Em and Becca.”
“Thank you for that, brother,” Becca said.
Sarge leaped to the ground the second the truck stopped and sat down to wait for Francine. She gave Sadie another hug before she scooted under the steering wheel to get out.
Ben helped her down off the running board. “I’m sorry the day ended hard.”
“Woody getting better is all that matters now.” She hesitated, then touched his arm. “Let me know if there’s any way I can help. With Sadie or Becca. I’m very fond of both of them. And Woody too.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she had any little bit of that affection for him, but he swallowed the words. “You’ve done a lot already.”
She stepped back then and he missed the warmth of her hand on his arm. Nothing for it but to climb back in the truck. Do what he had to do for his family. He needed to push these crazy feelings for her out of his head. They were from different worlds. But he couldn’t keep from looking in the side mirror at her one more time as he drove away.
He got the truck as close to the house as he could so Becca and Sadie wouldn’t have to walk as far. Then he sent them on ahead while he walked with Granny Em toward her place.
“Ain’t no need you walkin’ with me,” Granny Em said. “I know the way.”
Ben kept walking beside her. “You know more than that.”
“Could be I do.”
She didn’t say any more as she continued climbing up the hill. The path was so narrow Ben had to walk behind her. He hadn’t been to her place since he came home, even though his mother had suggested more than once that he go up that way to see if the old woman needed repairs done on her cabin before winter. Maybe if he had, she’d be more ready to talk now.
Ben tried to wait her out, but finally he said, “Are you going to tell me?”
She let out a sigh. “I ain’t knowin’ anything for sure and certain. But the Caudills’ shine still got axed by the Feds a week or two ago. Could be they were of a mind that somebody told where it was.”
“Woody?”
Granny Em stopped walking and turned to peer up at Ben. Just enough moonlight slipped through the trees that he could see her face.
“The boy is all over these hills. Prob’ly could lead you straight to a dozen stills. I figure he ain’t the kind to tell, but them Caudills might be thinkin’ diff’rent. I hear tell that trader feller you bought that vehicle from is thick with the revenuers and Woody’s been tradin’ with him some. Folks is wondering what he’s trading.” She hesitated a bare second. “Don’t reckon you know?”
“No.”
“Could just be purty rocks. City folks get all stirred up over shiny rocks.” She grabbed his arm with her bony fingers. “But one thing you keep in mind, Benjamin Locke. Don’t you be getting yo’self involved in no feud. All that comes from that is more dying.”
“Whoever shot Woody needs to pay for it.”
“I ain’t denying that, but could be that nurse girl is right. Let the sheriff handle it.” She gave his arm a shake and turned him loose. “Now you git on home. I been goin’ up this hill on my own two feet since afore your pa was born. I ain’t needin’ nobody to show me the way. That Sadie child might need a mite more coddling. Could be that nurse was right about that too.” She peered up at him in the moonlight. “That nurse, she’s a right purty thing, ain’t she? You best guard your heart.”
She turned to head on up the path. Then she looked back over her shoulder. “If’n it ain’t already too late.”