Five Smooth Stones

  "I'm going to. I'm—I'm damned well going to. I couldn't have stood it, Suds, I couldn't—"

  Suds beckoned to Chuck over her shoulder. "See if you can rustle up a nurse—"

  When the nurse appeared, Suds gave a brief order, and in a moment she returned with a half-filled paper cup.

  "Just stop blubbering long enough to drink this, Sara. Come on. Doctor's orders—"

  The hand that took the cup was shaking, but between them, they got it to her mouth. She drank, drew a deep breath, shuddered, then looked at Suds with brimming eyes. "Whiskey," she said. "You won—wonderful man."

  "What else? You were expecting champagne, maybe?"

  She gave an exhausted sigh, hiccoughed, and said, "Now may I see him, Suds?"

  Sutherland looked across at Brad for help, then at Chuck. "Not now, Sara. Later."

  "Let Peg take you back to the hotel now, Sara," said Brad. "It must be three days since you've really slept."

  Sara did not turn her head, but kept her eyes on Sudsy's face. "Why not? Why not, Suds? You—you let me see him the other day. You let me look at him. I even touched him. Why not now?"

  "He's asleep—"

  "Then it's all right. I can just peek—w

  "Sara, even yesterday we weren't sure. Now he's really beginning to rally. The next time he wakes, I think it will be to a pretty complete awareness. And Sara, pet, it is absolutely necessary that he be kept quiet, that he see no one for a little while, that nothing disturb or excite him."

  "You damned doctors! Just a peek. I'll just peek around the screen."

  Suds sighed and stood up. "You will, anyhow, even if you have to sneak back. You might as well do it legally. Come on, Stoopid. Meet us at the elevator, Peg?"

  "If I can walk that far." Peg put her arm around Brad and

  leaned against him, smiling. "We're shook, dear Doctor. We're shook up as hell. Sara's not the only one who wants to bawl with relief."

  "Let's all bawl," said Brad. "While Chuck prays."

  Chuck grinned at him. "There's an appalling amount ol disrespect for the clergy around here." They were walking to the door. "Show me anyone in this room who hasn't been. Praying, that is. Even you, you blasted heathen."

  "Even I," said Brad quietly, and took Sara's hand as they walked down the corridor.

  ***

  At the door of David's room Suds said, "One toot and you're oot—"

  "I promise."

  He made her wait while he went into the room and around the folding screen just inside the door, then came back and motioned her forward. She stood beside him just inside the screen, and he heard her catch her breath. A nurse who had stood when they entered smiled reassuringly at them. There was a feather-light touch on his arm, and he looked down. Sara was looking up at him, and he turned away from her eyes, nodded helplessly and watched her tiptoe slowly forward, almost like someone who is afraid. She stood beside the bed for a long minute, then stooped and touched David's bruised and swollen cheek softly with her lips. So light was the touch that even had he been awake it would scarcely have been felt. She turned and tiptoed past Sudsy and into the hall, and he closed the door gently behind them.

  Peg was waiting at the elevator. "Come on, hon. Brad and Chuck have gone on. Bed for you. Orders, Doctor?"

  "Yes," said Suds. "A warm bath, tea and graveyard stew sent up, no calls, and one of the pills I'll have the pharmacy deliver. If you're not asleep in an hour, take the second one." He tried to glare authoritatively at Sara, was defeated utterly by her smile, and said, "Beat it, you guys. I've got work to do."

  ***

  Each time she had entered the hotel room since her arrival, she had given thanks for Peg Willis's understanding. "Brad wanted you with us," Peg had said. "But I told him I knew you better than he did. There's a room waiting for you at the Sheraton-Plaza. All paid for. And no back talk. No one can fussbudget over you. And I throw up every morning."

  Sara knew now what Peg's warm, confident smile at the airport must have cost in effort. "David's here," had been her first words. "At the Endicott Hospital. The Sutherland Clinic and every specialist available have taken over."

  "Is he going to die, Peg?" She remembered now she hadn't even said "Hello" or "Glad to see you."

  "Not if a whole damned squad of the best doctors and surgeons in the country can help it—"

  "Surgeons! Peg, Peg—"

  "We're due at Sudsy's father's office as scon as we check you in at the hotel. Suds arranged it. He'll brief you."

  But Sudsy's father hadn't been there; he'd been in surgery at Endicott Hospital with David.

  She told herself now not to think about the all-night vigil in the lounge on the second floor. It's over, she told herself, it's over; and knew it would never be over in her mind, that she could never dismiss it. The nurses who didn't know anything or if they knew would not say; the coffee they brought throughout the night; Brad arriving and he and Chuck going and returning every few minutes to answer telephone calls until someone brought a portable phone with a polite, hellishly irritating buzz instead of a ring, and plugged it into a wall connection in the lounge. The calls from New Orleans that Brad took, and from Atlanta and Montgomery and New York. A call from Hunter Travis in London; the person-to-person call to her from Vermont, and Tom Evans's voice, "Sara. What happened? How is he? What can I do? I can start down now—" She broke then, and Chuck took the telephone from her gently. "Tom. Chuck here. We don't know much yet.... We thought you were in Mississippi.... I'll call you later tomorrow... I mean today...."

  She remembered saying stupidly when Chuck hung up, "Mississippi?"

  "He took a group of students down there this summer to help rebuild bombed Negro churches and homes. He came back a few days ago to make some speeches and pick up more recruits."

  "Oh. Of course." It had seemed natural then, as though she should have known it. "I've been away so damned long. Really away—"

  She remembered the electric moment when a nurse passing the door had said to someone down the hall, "Is twenty-one ready for the patient?" Brad's grip on her arm and around her waist when he overtook her at the door was painfully hard and tight. She did not try to free herself, because her body suddenly became limp and unmanageable and she leaned against him, trembling, while Chuck stood quietly beside them.

  All that was David on the gurney that rolled past the door had been a long, strong brown arm stretched beside a swaddled form, a tube leading from a vein in the crook of the elbow to a bottle held high by an orderly, the hand lax and quiet. All the rest was white, distorted, except for the bruised chin and battered lips, the whole a nightmare figure of bandages and plaster and tubes, tubes, tubes, and a cloth over the eyes. She heard herself say, "He's not breathing. God in heaven, Brad, he's not breathing!" and heard Brad answer in a whisper, "Yes, he is, my dear. Of course he is. I think there's a body cast—"

  Suds came in then, in sneakers and" limp, green, pajama-like suit, gray-faced, drinking black coffee in great greedy gulps, too exhausted to smile, saying as he set the cup down: "So far, so good, chums. Two nurses, each shift, around the clock for twenty-four hours. We'll know more then." A Sudsy Sutherland grown old looked at Chuck and said, "We've done everything humanly possible—"

  It was all right to remember it now, lying in a tepid bath, all right to remember these last few days because she had known when she stood by David's bed an hour ago that he would live. And that was all that mattered, that and the knowledge that he was near, that her thoughts did not have to reach across a continent, a great sea, to touch him; he was no longer in some corner of hell, some dark inferno; he was near, and if she wanted, she could go now and stand outside the door of a room in which he lay, alive and near. Suddenly, she was crying again, not the racking sobs that had torn at her in the cab with Hunter, or in Sudsy's arms at the hospital, not sobs at all, really, just warm tears coursing down her cheeks, healing her.

  ***

  Consciousness began to sort itself into segments of ti
me, day and night, then divisions of day: morning, noon, and night; then hours. Pain and consciousness were one entity at first, then became separate, and consciousness was the master, the pain something that an effort of will could keep subordinate. There were nurses, orderlies, an exhausting succession of doctors, and a quiet, authoritative Sudsy he had never known before, a Sudsy who seemed omnipresent, who only when they were alone was the hesitantly earnest, diffident, unconsciously humorous companion of years before.

  They told him not to talk, and he obeyed because he was too tired to talk except to answer necessary questions; the urgency to communicate he had felt when consciousness first returned was gone. He knew there must be extensive trouble in his pain-racked body, but was content for a while to let the various short, tall, fat, lean, warm, cool, competent men who came in each day worry about it.

  He did not keep track of the days because measured time was unimportant. He was mildly surprised the first morning the nurse fed him boiled egg and bits of toast to realize that he had felt no hunger but that the food was good in a way food had never been good before. It was that morning Sudsy came in and nodded at the nurse, who was gone with a quiet rustle, leaving them alone.

  "By God," said Suds. "You've got brown eyes. First time we've really been able to see 'em. I'd almost forgotten."

  "Yeah. And I can talk."

  "Sure you can. All that breakfast. A whole egg, dad, and a piece of toast. The nurse is ecstatic."

  "Suds, what the hell—"

  "Just because you're able to talk doesn't mean you have to go overboard and chatter—" Suds moved from the foot of the bed, and standing by the side, took David's wrist between his fingers.

  "For God's sake, leave my pulse alone. It's worn out—"

  "It's good, chum, all things considered; it's damned good."

  "You want to tell me what the hell's going on below my neck or keep it a secret?"

  "If I could do that I would, but it's better to know than to wonder. As I used to tell all the gals. First, David, it's not as bad as it will sound. You'll be O.K."

  "Say 'patience' and I'll punch you in the eye the first day up—"

  "Feisty, aren't you? And therefore improving. Your leg, David—"

  "My good one, damn it—"

  "Your good one. It took a slug in the knee. Later there'll have to be more surgery to lessen the stiffness. Maybe an artificial kneecap. We thought at first it was a goner."

  "Hell."

  "Pretty much so, pal. I tried to fob this job of telling you off on my father, but he wouldn't have any part of it. Your shoulder also took a slug. Which you know, of course. You won't pitch any no-hitters, dad—"

  "I never did."

  "You always talked a good one. Anyhow, we can't tell yet whether we're through with the shoulder or not. There were some busted ribs, and a lung puncture—"

  "Is that why I hurt when I breathe?"

  "Yup. And there was kidney damage—"

  "You mean I've still got kidneys? They're about ten-time losers—"

  "Will you shut up! There were two fractured vertebrae— wait, David. Don't panic. Actually, except for the body cast, they're the least serious. It always scares people to tell 'em they have a broken back, but there was no spinal cord or nerve damage. Just bear in mind you wouldn't be having all that pain in your leg if there had been."

  "Well, goody." David was quiet for a long time, his eyes closed, and Sudsy did not speak. Then David said, "Those guys that jumped me; it'll break their hearts." After another long silent minute he said, "That all? Because if it is, I've got something—"

  "Not quite all. You have a skull fracture, but not too bad a one. You've lost two teeth. Those can be taken care of while you're in the hospital."

  Now David opened his eyes and looked directly at Suds. "How long, dad?"

  "Before you're well?"

  "I don't dare ask that. Before I'm out"

  "We don't know. For sure, that is. Weeks, let's say."

  David tried to laugh, winced, and said, "Weeks, hell! Months, pal, and you damned well know it."

  "I'm afraid I do, David." Suds left the side of the bed, walked to the window, then stood at the bureau, leafing through a stack of telegrams and mail, not looking at David. "Lots of telegrams and mail, dad, when you're up to it." His words were mumbled, close to indistinct. When he turned at last to the bed, he saw a man lying very quietly, eyes open and fixed on the distant wall, no expression on a face that still bore bruises and swellings.

  "David," he said gently, "if there was anything in God's world I could do, anything, I would." The other's eyes did not move, nor did the head turn, and Suds went on, hesitantly, slowly. "I remember, a long time ago, a real great character saying to me, 'Jesus have moicy! How can one sorry little piece of a guy have so much stupidness in him!' That was me, by God, Clifton Sutherland, the sorry little piece of a guy who's managed to prove the stupidity these last few years. It's been rough, finding that out this past week, David—"

  Now the head turned slowly on the pillow, and Suds was looking down into eyes that carried the smile the swollen lips could not manage.

  "What the hell you talking about, Stoopid! Go heal the sick, and tell 'em out there I want more than one lousy li'l ol' egg for lunch—"

  Just as Suds was leaving, David said, "Brad?"

  "Brad's in Cainsville. You'll see him as soon as he gets back. I'm ordering a shot for you now, for sleep. To be administered after an egg and a half for lunch."

  "Bastard. Listen, Suds."

  "No more talk now—"

  "Damn it, listen. I've got something else wrong with me."

  Hand on the doorknob, Sudsy turned. "You can't have—"

  "The hell I can't. I've got a stomach ulcer."

  Sudsy came to the foot of the bed, stood glaring down at his patient. "Why in the name of heaven didn't you tell—"

  "Maybe it's duodenal. And how could I-—"

  "We'll fix you, sonny boy; we'll fix you. My father's old-fashioned about handling ulcers. Graveyard stew—"

  "What's—"

  "Custards, pureed vegetables, no seasonings—I told you not to talk. See what it's got you."

  "Double bastard. Gumbo tomorrow? Tell Peg."

  "Maybe, pal. Maybe. As a special treat. Now shut up before I find out you've got coccidioidomycosis or something—"

  CHAPTER 85

  The Drs. Sutherland, father and son, remained chary of visitor privileges for their patient, and it was not until the day after Sudsy's disclosure of his many injuries that David woke

  from a fitful, image-filled nap to find Brad standing quietly at the foot of the bed, looking down at him.

  "Hi, Chief!" His lips were manageable now, almost normal, and his eyes no longer near-slits surrounded by puffed flesh.

  "Hi, brat." Brad's smile was gentle. "Don't get up. I'll find a chair."

  "Jokes, yet. Practically at a guy's deathbed. Damn, I'm glad to see you.'"

  "Must have been like solitary confinement." Brad pulled the room's one armchair close to the bed and sat, stretching long legs. "You're not to talk much. Sudsy's orders. You feel pretty tough?"

  "Not too bad. I hurt like hell, if that's what you mean."

  Brad winced. "God! I can imagine."

  "Keep it there, in your imagination. Damn it, I'm glad to see you. I've already said that, haven't I?"

  "I can do with hearing it a hell of a lot of times, son. Peg's acting up rough because she can't hear it, too. She's down the line a way on the waiting list. Suds said I could come and ease your mind about all that happened. If—"

  "You didn't upset me. F'cris'sake, tell me all there is and upset the hell out of me. Now I'm getting better I'm getting curious. At first I didn't give a damn."

  "Just being alive was probably enough—"

  "And that wasn't such a much, brother, believe me."

  "Did Suds tell you Luke's going to be O.K.?"

  "Yes. Couple of years ago, it seems like. I was sort of co
ming in and out of the fog every so often and I heard him say, 'Brad says to tell you Luke's all right.' "

  "He's in New York Medical Center. Wait. You've used up your quota of talk. I'll start at the beginning. Do you have any amnesia for what preceded the attack?"

  "I wish to God I did. The last I remember they set the dogs on me when I was lying on the ground."

  "No, they didn't. Now, once and for all, be quiet You can ask questions another time. First, the U.S. Army was damned near breathtaking in its efficiency. They had an ambulance— the one that took Fred Winters to Veterans Hospital—at Dr. Anderson's right after you left. You were headed for Tether's End, and there wasn't any telephone there anymore. Just after I finished talking to Anderson, we got word that there were two or three cars prowling around the outskirts of the town with three or four whites in each car with rifles. I got the wind up and notified the Army, and asked them to check Tether's End while they were scouting and send you the hell back to town. You were a damned fool to go—never mind. I'll bawl you out when you're better. We come now to the dogs."

  "Now? So soon?"

  "Or almost now. Early in the evening Abraham Towers called his nephew and told him to get Miz Towers down to their house if they had to carry her. Now, one doesn't take Miz Towers anywhere that Tinker doesn't go too. I'd hate to be the one to argue the point with him. Once she's safe inside and bedded down, he relaxes and gets reacquainted with his daughter."

  "His what?"

  "Daughter. Half red-bone hound, half Tinker. A noble beast, if strange and fearful looking. Jim's wife won't have dogs in the house, so Tinker sleeps on the porch. Every time the old lady's been there—not many—he waits till everything's quiet and then takes off for a quick run home and a look-see that everything's all right there. Then comes back. He's got sense enough to know the old lady's safe. The night you got it, his daughter, Sheba, decided to go along."

  "Man! This is doing me more good than every damned pill they've given me—"

  "I rather thought it would. The men in the Army jeep said they heard the shots. They were headed put Calhoun. The dogs went by them like a couple of hares. Then they saw the headlights of the car just west of Tether's End. When they were close enough, just at the top of that little rise in the road, they saw what was going on. Dogs, men, yells, shouts, then men running and dogs after them and you lying on the ground, a bloody mess. They literally, for a minute, didn't know whom to rescue."