“Forestry held a town meeting right away and asked the locals not to hunt the bear—they wanted to trap and remove it. They might as well have asked them not to take a breath. Bud Burnham accidentally shot out Ray Gilmore’s knee. That was a god-awful mess. He still has a peg leg. Never got mad at Bud though—which is another thing about that period. They took it as a perilous time and knew there would be risks, what with every jittery person in town carrying a loaded gun and jumping at shadows.
“They got a black bear. Shot her dead. Some Forestry people backtracked her trail and found two cubs that had to be transported to a game refuge. One of Mama’s paws was deformed—she was missing two claws and pads. She might have had an accident or fight years earlier and she was fully healed. But see, her claws didn’t match the injury. She hadn’t mauled the logger. They got the wrong bear.”
“Did they go back out?”
“Nope. Blood lust satisfied, they all went home. Then they told their families that no matter, they should always be on the lookout for a bear that comes this far down into the valley. You never know.”
He leaned on the swing, head back, thinking through the logic. Then he came forward and said, “You remind me of my grandmother.”
She smiled. “You old sweet-talker.”
“She used to talk to me while she ironed, and she ironed all the time. She ironed everything. That’s when she’d tell me stories from her childhood.”
June realized she’d been talking for a couple of hours. It was dusk and would soon be dark. She shivered as the chill crept into the air, and she wondered what she was to do with him after dark. Invite him in for dinner? Offer to drive him back to wherever he’d left his vehicle?
“Tell me something about yourself,” she said. “Anything.”
“Hmm. Well, if things were different, I might ask you out to a fancy restaurant for dinner.”
“That’s really not about you, now, is it?”
“That’s about the best I can do right now.”
“Okay…. How different would things have to be?” she asked.
“Very.” He laughed. “I’ll bet you look incredible in—what do they call ’em? A little black dress?”
“That’s what they call them, and I don’t have one. I used to, but—” But I stopped having dates. “We don’t have a fancy restaurant around here anyway.”
“But things would be different, remember. Do you dance?”
“I don’t remember.”
He laughed again. “We could get us one of those floor maps with the feet on ’em. Or fake it.”
“There’s no dancing around here, either.”
“You look like a dancer. Long legged and skinny.”
“Great come-on, Jim. Skinny. You should throw in flat chested for good measure.”
“I like skinny girls….” he murmured.
“Fortunately, I like stupid guys….”
He began to glower, then slowly a broad smile took over. “I’m smarter than I look. I just don’t want you to notice…I’m seducing you.”
“Well, lucky you, I didn’t notice. At all.”
“So, what have people said about you?”
She thought for a minute. “That I’m sturdy. And plain.”
“Plain?” he repeated, shocked. “Gimme a break!”
“In fact, it was Arlise Cruise, the mother of my childhood rival and nemesis, Nancy Cruise—no relation to Tom. She used to say things like, ‘She does real well for a plain girl.’ God, she hated me.”
“You must have gotten all the good-looking boys.”
“I got at least one, who played touch tag with me and Nancy all through school. If I ever see him again I’m going to sedate and torture him.”
“There’s nothing more pure than a woman’s revenge, now is there.”
“You don’t want to cross me,” she said threateningly. She shivered again.
“We’d better decide,” he suggested.
“Decide what?”
“If I’m going in or going away.”
“I’d like to shiver for a few more minutes, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Take your time,” he said. But he stood, reached out a hand to her and drew her slowly to her feet. “Take all the time you need,” he said, pulling her closer.
“Inviting you in might be moving a little too fast, even for us. After all, I only know you by way of a criminal gunshot wound.”
That made him laugh, but low in his throat. She moved closer to him, just as he moved his hands to her hips, drawing her. It was better…warmer against him. He slipped an arm around her waist, and with his other hand, lifted her chin. In the twilight, he looked down into her eyes. “You’re beautiful…for a skinny girl….”
“You’re not that bad looking…for a dope….” she answered.
He bent his head, his lips just barely touching hers…
The phone rang.
His head immediately snapped up as though the sound were a signal. He scanned the tree line but held her against him. “It’s okay,” she whispered. But still he searched his surroundings, his eyes narrowed, his body tense. “We’ll let the machine get it,” she said, but she couldn’t seem to recapture his attention. It was the only time she’d ever seen a man appear to prowl while standing completely still. “Oh, hell,” she said, reaching up and plunging her fingers into the thick hair at his temples, pulling his mouth down to meet hers, where his initial surprise melted into unmistakable appreciation.
June’s first thought was that it had been too damn long since she’d been kissed like this, then that she’d never been kissed like this. As she opened her mouth under his probing tongue she said a quick silent prayer that she was right about this guy, that he was really a good man. Because whatever he turned out to be, she was already locked in pretty tight.
The phone’s final ring was cut in half by the clicking of the answering machine as it picked up. Then there was the familiar beep. And then John Stone’s voice, a breathless, frantic edge to it. “June? June, if you’re there, pick up! June, I’m on my way out to 482. There’s been an accident! We have injuries.”
“Damn!” June said, pulling out of Jim’s embrace. “Why now?” She nearly tipped over her wicker rocker trying to get into the house to grab the phone. “John! I’m here! Go ahead!”
“Four-eighty-two, about three-tenths of a mile past Old Mill Road. Mike Dickson found them and is administering first aid. He called Tom Toopeek, who called me, and I’m calling you. You should radio Elmer from the car.”
“Paramedics?” She was so accustomed to calling Elmer for help, she didn’t even question this order, though a third doctor on the scene was a crowd.
“Tom radioed for them. According to Tom, we have two victims, one unconscious and one conscious but disoriented, possible internal injuries but no apparent compound fractures. Stable pulses and respirations, but that’s the extent of vitals Mike Dickson is capable of reporting.”
“One car?”
“Yep. Off the road at a curve. Right at dusk. How far are you from there?”
“Ten minutes, maybe less.”
“I’ll beat you there, so drive carefully. Isn’t that the bad spot where…?”
“Angel’s Pass. Do we know the victims?” she asked reflexively. She almost always knew the victims. There was the sound of air, almost as though John keyed the mike on and off, but he was calling from a cell phone, so there was no mike. “John?”
“June, it’s Judge and Birdie.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Just drive carefully.”
Fourteen
June’s head was empty but for the repetitive urgent prayer, Dear God, let them be okay, dear God, please… She drove too fast and knew it, but couldn’t seem to slow herself down. She forgot all about Elmer. When she arrived at the scene everything stopped and she shifted into an eerie slow motion, she entered a sluggish dream state. The lights from Tom’s Range Rover and John’s BMW i
lluminated the scene—rising smoke and dust, the steaming wreckage of mangled metal ground up against the tree line.
There, crouched in the headlight beams, John and Tom hovered over a backboard. June couldn’t make her legs move; her feet were leaden. It seemed like hours before she got to the others. And when she did arrive, she couldn’t quite make sense of the situation. Birdie lay supine, a collar on her neck, a reddened rag on her brow, her beautiful, thick, wiry silver hair matted and stained with blood.
June heard muffled voices, but couldn’t make out the words.
Beside Birdie, sitting on the ground, looking ancient and vulnerable rather than imposing and authoritative, was Judge. Dazed. Hunched. A trickle of blood and spittle dripping down his chin. He resembled a nursing home patient more than a judge.
Again she heard the muffled sounds. She saw that the noise was coming from Tom and John, but she couldn’t quite hear them. They were shouting at her, but sounded as though they were underwater. Their hands on Birdie, faces turned toward her, they garbled incomprehensible words.
Then, like a vacuum, the fog was sucked away and both her vision and hearing became suddenly acute.
“June! I need an IV set up and Ringer’s solution!” John shouted.
“June! We need oxygen here!” Tom yelled.
Instantly she knew. They were using the collar, backboard and first aid equipment out of Tom’s Rover and John’s medical bag, but June carried the bulk of the ambulance supplies in her Jeep.
Mike Dickson came out of nowhere and was at her side, prodding her. His voice was calm, steady. “Come on, June, you can show me what John needs. Let’s get the stuff out of your Jeep.”
She came back to herself then. Birdie and Judge became emergency patients and she became a functional doctor. If anyone had noticed that she’d been stunned senseless and temporarily useless, they didn’t say anything.
Many hours later, as dawn was breaking, June examined Birdie for the tenth time. They were safely admitted into a hospital room and no longer on the ground beside devastating wreckage.
“Did you see any angels, Birdie?” June asked, flicking the light rapidly across the elderly woman’s opened eyes.
“No, but I saw stars.”
“I’ll bet. Pupils are equal and reactive. You had a nice clunk on the head, and a long rest. Slept like a curled up kitten all night long.”
“She never left your side,” Elmer said.
“Judge?” Birdie wanted to know.
“He’s fine. He’s having some X rays, then he’ll be back.”
Birdie gripped June’s wrist. “It’s Judge, June. He had a stroke or something.”
June frowned. “There’s no evidence of a stroke, Birdie. He was a little disoriented after—”
“He was disoriented before! I tried to get his attention, but he had that glazed-over look on his face, like he gets when he’s thinking about some complicated court case or baseball, and he doesn’t hear a word I’m saying. But instead of snapping out of it, he veered right off the road. Right at that sharp curve. Something’s wrong with his head. I mean, more so than usual.”
“It’s okay, Birdie,” June said calmly. “That’s exactly why we’re keeping him. We’ll get some blood, take some X rays. I think I’m going to have Elmer drive him down to Ukiah for an MRI, and maybe, based on what you’ve said, we’ll have him see a neurologist.”
“June, you need to check him for a brain tumor. And Alzheimer’s. And—”
“Birdie, slow down. Don’t get yourself too excited. You’re a patient, too. A patient who’s been unconscious all night. Now, I’ll get the nurse to bring you a pen and paper, and when you think of something you want me to check, you write it down. For the time being, I need for you to be calm.”
Birdie took a deep breath. “I know you’ll take good care of him, June.”
“And of you.” She patted her hand reassuringly. “Think you can relax? Or should I get you a little something?”
“I’ll be fine, once I see Judge again.”
“He should be up in a little bit. And I’ll be back shortly.”
June left the hospital room and leaned wearily against the wall just outside. It was barely after dawn, but she hadn’t so much as dozed all night.
By the time the ambulance had taken Birdie and Judge away and she’d had a chance to really look at their demolished car, she’d felt a huge surge of panic. They shouldn’t have come out of that mess alive, much less in the condition they were both in, which was stable. The car had been crushed around a thick tree and there was no windshield or front seat. And if Mike Dickson hadn’t come across them, they could have both died, or wandered off, or who knows what. Mike usually avoided 482 going to and from his orchard, for exactly that reason. It was a touchy stretch of road. They hadn’t had any fatalities there since June had returned to Grace Valley, but they’d had a few serious accidents.
She remembered too clearly her reaction when she’d seen the wreck, when the fear of losing Birdie had hit her. Some things you just never prepare for. She loved Birdie so, depended on her so—two things she took completely for granted. At that moment, fear had ripped through her like a hunting knife. Birdie had been her mother’s best friend for thirty years or more, June’s godmother, the mother of June’s high school sweetheart, and finally, June’s replacement mother after Marilyn’s death. But June wasn’t alone in her love for Birdie. The whole town adored her.
June closed her eyes. Just the memory of blood on her dear friend’s silver pin curls was enough to bring her to her knees. She said a little prayer of thanks that they were, so far, all right.
“She’s going to be fine,” Elmer said, sneaking quietly out of the room. “I bet that old coot she’s married to has a carotid occlusion. Bet he got dizzy and confused and hit some soft shoulder right there at that turn.”
“Good guess,” she said tiredly. “Dad. I froze.”
“I would’ve, too.”
“No, Dad. I froze. I couldn’t get out of the car. Then I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk, couldn’t hear John and Tom shouting at me.”
“I bet. I would’ve been worse.”
“Dad, you don’t—”
“June, I do! Don’t overthink this! They’re family! You had a panic response. It happens…even to doctors.”
“It’s never happened to me before.”
“Lucky you,” Elmer said.
“Are you saying it’s happened to you?”
“I can remember once or twice, but not the circumstances. I do remember thinking I’d lost my ability to be functional and objective. As time went by I realized I was only in shock for seconds, but seconds that seemed like minutes. You need some rest.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine now, I mean. I’m not leaving till I’m sure they’re okay. And I have patients.”
“You do your early rounds and I’ll take your patients. Me and John. Besides, I’d like a chance to work with him, see how he functions around there. Based on your—”
“Oh Dad, I’m sorry! I meant to tell you, I talked to his old nurse. She was with him for several years and sings his praises. Apparently he went through a nasty divorce, had an ex-wife who wouldn’t let the divorce proceed and got into a nasty conflict of ideas with Fairfield. But as for skill and patient rapport, he is supposedly a minor god.”
Elmer chewed on this a moment. “He’s sort of goofy for a god, don’t you think?”
“Sometimes.” She laughed and confided conspiratorially, “Jessie says he’s a nerd. Or was that dork? But a good doctor. She likes working with him.”
This made Elmer smile. “Little bald girl can sure call ’em, can’t she?”
“That aside, I would appreciate it if you’d take some of my morning patients, Dad. John would be glad to, but if you could just help out, I should be in by—”
“Take your time, honey. I know pulling Birdie and Judge out of a ditch just about took ten years off your life.”
“At least. And if you don??
?t mind, I’d like to go by my house, take a shower, let Sadie have a pee—that sort of thing. Poor Sadie…”
“She’s going to have to learn how to be a doctor’s dog.”
June looked in on a few patients, then got herself a cup of coffee. She stood in front of the nursery window, holding her steaming cup. Musing. Nothing could replace newborns for musing.
When John’s call had come the night before, she’d rushed out of the house only to find the porch deserted. Jim had gone. She’d called out to him, but there had been no answer, and she’d had no time to wait. Sadie just looked toward the road. June had put Sadie in the house and jumped in her Jeep, making tracks. He hadn’t been walking down the long drive, nor had she seen any vehicle. There wasn’t any time to think about him again until dawn.
Now it seemed as if he were some apparition. She wouldn’t mind, as long as he made regular visits. Maybe that was how Mrs. Muir felt. But could you still taste the apparition’s kiss long after you’d licked your lips clean? Still feel the ghost’s arms around you? Smell his hair?
“Any of these yours?” a voice behind her asked.
She turned. “Blake! I was waiting around to see you, I was trying to get out of making a proper appointment. Aren’t you here awfully early?”
“I had a delivery. A stubborn one.”
“Everybody okay?”
“We are now. What are you doing here at the crack of dawn?”
“There was a car accident. An awful experience. Two old friends—Judge and Birdie Forrest. But they’re doing well now. I need to speak to you, Blake, if you have a few minutes.”
“No better time than now. The office doesn’t open till eight, I’ve already made my rounds and no one is in labor.”
“It’s a personal favor I’m asking….”
“Whatever you need, June.”
“If we could find an empty room somewhere, or maybe even a stall in the ER…”
“Why don’t you tell me what you—”
“A diaphragm,” she whispered.