We arrived back in Troublesome just before dark. The old mountain doc toted me back through the woods on his horse, seeing me safely to my cabin.
Before he left, I caught him staring at my crumpled clothes, unkempt hair, and fallen braids.
He dug into his coat. “I almost forget, Bluet. I picked these up for you in the commissary.” He handed me two satin ribbons. “Uh, yes… Your hair ribbons were lost during the exam.” He reddened.
Weren’t no ribbons in my plaits, just twine. But I marveled at the lovely new white garlands, murmured a thank you that surprised me despite the intent in his wise eyes that the gifts were meant to bribe me into more testing. Generous, but it would all change if I refused.
My eyes searched the yard, landing over past Junia’s stall where the preacher lay in his shallow grave. A shiver latched hold and rolled violently across my shoulders.
Alarmed, Doc said, “You’re cold. Let me get a blanket from the pannier.”
Instantly, I took a step back, wanting to take my leave. “I’m okay, sir.”
The doc pushed up his slipping spectacles and leaned in closer to make sure of just that. “I can make you better than okay. Dr. Mills and I believe we can cure you. There’s a good chance, Bluet.”
It seemed far-fetched.
“Well, good evening. Rest well. I’ll get a basket of food to you soon, and then I’ll be back for you within the month, about the third week in June,” he promised and mounted his horse, not waiting for my reply.
Pa was asleep inside. He fluttered his lids, and I whispered, “Go back to sleep. I’m just getting my reading material together for next week, then going to tend to Junia.”
I set down my heavy bonnet beside the door, peeking inside at the gifts. Pa mumbled faintly and coughed, and I could see he’d gone to bed bone-tired, covered in the coal dust, though it looked like he’d at least given his face and arms a half-hearted swipe with a clean cloth.
“Shh, rest another hour,” I said and covered him with his sheet.
Squinting, he groped for my arm. “You… Are you well, Daughter? He take care of you?”
“Yes, sir. Close your eyes now.” I hurried to tuck the coarse muslin over him, not wanting to alarm or disturb him with the worries of the day, hoping he’d rest a little more—hoping he wouldn’t see what they’d done to me in my eyes.
He hitched his thumb to the stool where he’d laid a coal-blackened envelope addressed to R.C. Cole. “Beck passed that to me for the fire-watcher boy,” Pa said sleepily.
Outside, I picked up my book satchel and carefully packed Doc’s bottles, the honey, and R.C.’s letter into it, then went to see Junia.
The mule bobbed her head, blowing, whinnying in loud brays, eager to see me. I unlatched the gate and led her out of the shed. She nuzzled my chin, stretched her neck for a scratch, then dropped beside me to roll in the grass.
Junia romped for a good while before I rounded her back into the stall to feed her. The gate wobbled and I fussed with it, sneaking glimpses to the grave. Pa’d tried to fix the door the day he’d buried the preacher, but the old stall guard needed a new post and stronger latch. After I’d finally secured it, I leaned back over to grab the soap, towel, and an old hand mirror of Mama’s from the bin, then picked up my lantern and headed over to the creek to bathe, the warm spring day dropping behind the hills, a cooling curtain quivering on its tail.
Wary, I inspected my arms and searched all over. I’d read about medicine and what doctors do. But it was unsettling that it had been done to me. My parents and other folks in the hills cured themselves with nature—tonics, roots, barks, and herbs—unless some stubborn ailment didn’t right itself from the homemade potions. They rarely called upon Doc.
I held the mirror up to my face. No matter how many times I’d looked, it always hurt like seeing something horrible for the first time. My skin was still darkened from the hard day, bruised a deep blue. How could the doctors ever change it? I was sure even the strongest potion couldn’t do that.
Moving the angle of the looking glass to my backside, I checked my shoulders, calves, and bottom. Satisfied I wasn’t permanently harmed and had scratches mostly on my pride, I dried myself with a towel.
When I got back to the cabin, Pa was rambling about, dressing for the mine.
“Pa, it’s Saturday, do you have to go? Let me fix you some supper—”
“There’s no time, Daughter. There’s a special meeting tonight before work.”
He meant secret and a union meeting at that. Those type of gatherings were as dangerous as cave-ins, explosions, and the miner’s lung, and what the Company feared and fought fiercely against. The men clamoring for safer working conditions and more pay were the greatest danger to a mining company. And if the Company got word, they’d shut the meetings down with threats and violence, burn a miner’s house or two, or make the leader of those talks disappear.
Pa plowed his socked feet into his boots by the door. “You do okay in the city, Cussy?” He glanced at me.
I wanted to fuss at him like Mama’d done when he had those meetings, beg him not to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to argue with him or worry him none about my day. He had enough of that already.
Pulling the dirty sheets off his bed, I said, “Yes, sir. They took themselves blood and skin samples is all.” Bent to the mattress, I balled up his linens and glimpsed over my shoulder. Seeing his alarm, I added, “Didn’t hurt none. Just some scratches.”
“Put some salve on it. And that reminds me. I mean to rent Murphy’s horse this week and take the sickle and clean up some of your trails. Thin it all and cut back the briars for you.”
“Much obliged.” I appreciated he would do that for me and Junia. I picked up his lunch bucket and packed Doc’s pear and cheese inside, adding a biscuit from the stove.
He grunted something I couldn’t understand, grabbed his coat and bucket, then slipped out the door with a good night trailing over his shoulder, his hat lit and leading him onto a soft, wide path that disappeared into the fog, the tall silent pines soldiering him.
My belly rumbled, and starved, I gobbled down the rest of the cold, stale biscuits I’d baked this morning. Full, I put on fresh bedsheets, boiled Pa’s dirty ones, hauled in his bath, and hurried through my chores. Last, I gathered strips of old fabric and scrubbed them with lye, boiled and rinsed and hung them to dry by the woodstove.
Soon, my mind returned to the hospital, and I went over to the mirror and stared and ran a light hand over myself, my face darkening as I tried to imagine what the doctors had done, how much of me they’d taken.
Exhausted in the bone but fully awake in my mind, I looked around for something, anything, to scrub, to wash away the soils of the day. Up in the loft, I shrugged off my clothing and necessaries, changed, and carried the clothes downstairs. When I had washed and rinsed the garments, scoured and scrubbed them again and then once again, until the fires sparked from my raw, bleeding hands and cleansed the day’s muddle, my troubled thoughts, only then did I stop.
Satisfied, I rubbed my cramped hands with horse liniment, then sat down and pored through reading material, the newest loans and newsprint. The Louisville Times had an article about a fire in the Jefferson Memorial Forest that rangers had battled bravely. Excited for the find, I folded the newspaper to save for R.C.
I put aside a health pamphlet on baby care for Angeline, then went over and pulled one of Mama’s novels from the bookshelf. It had been her favorite and mine too, and I clutched it to my chest, suddenly deciding just what I’d do with it. That it would be the boldest thing I’d ever done didn’t matter after the hardness of today. Feeling giddy, I packed it with the others.
I remembered Winnie’s student asking about the pie recipe and wrote out two different ones for her sister on a scrap of paper and tucked it in my bag.
Pleased, I settled back into the chair to read my other favorite, the National Geographic, slowly picking up every word, soaking up all the articles of peoples and faraway places, searching the smart magazine for others like me.
Hours later, I rolled up the dried strips of fabric, got my book satchel, and pulled out the medicine. My hands shook a little holding the precious bottles of laudanum, honey, and alcohol.
I moved over to the stove, reached above to the shelf for Loretta’s willow bark. Filled with renewed strength and gratitude, I carefully wrapped it and Doc’s gifts and tucked them into my bags.
Worth more than gold, more than chickens, it was exactly what Mr. Moffit needed to live, and what the Moffit family couldn’t live without.