Sweet Everlasting

  “She can’t say a single word,” her girlfriend amplified.

  Reverend Ewing looked thrilled. “ ‘They brought Him to a dumb man, possessed with a devil,’ ” he cried rapturously. “ ‘And the multitudes marveled, saying it was never so seen in Israel.’ ” Carrie was pushing futilely against his shoulders, straining away from him as far as she could, but he had one hand around the back of her neck and one hand on her throat. In profile, they looked like a man and woman battling each other to the death.

  “Child, where’s your faith? Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do you believe it?”

  Carrie nodded, and hauled on the grip he had on her throat. She was nearly the same height as the reverend, but about seventy pounds lighter. In a swift, unexpected move, he pushed her in front of him and held her by her hair, so that she faced his gaping, wide-eyed congregation head-on. Her shawl slipped off one shoulder; she stood straight and tall and quaking in a patched dress, hatless, bright hair blown awry by the wind. Tyler’s hands clenched into murderous fists.

  “Don’t.” Stoneman grabbed his arm and held fast. “You’ll just make it worse. I don’t think this’ll last long.”

  “Pray with me! Lift your voices up to the Lord for this poor mute girl. She has faith, she believes! Jesus, we beseech You, cast the devil out so that she might speak Your name and praise You. For he that believeth in You, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever liveth and believeth in You shall never die. Believest thou this?” The crowd answered with heartfelt yeas. “Believest thou this?” He gave Carrie a violent shake. Her eyes glittered; she tried to nod.

  “She believes! Let us pray!” He pushed her down to her knees. Standing behind her, big hands wrapped around her shoulders, he began to pray in earnest. It went on and on, and every minute Tyler thought he would stop it, rush the stage, and put an end to this ridiculous travesty. Again and again he wavered. Was Stoneman right, would he only make it worse? He couldn’t decide, and his indecision tortured him. He glanced back at her stepfather. He’d covered his head with his hands and buried it between his knees; he was either in deep distress or lost in fervent prayer.

  “Will she speak?” Reverend Ewing beseeched the multitude. “Lift up your voices for her! Will she speak?” “Yes!” they chanted in answer. He roared out the question again—again—again. Each time, louder and louder, they returned a rousing affirmation.

  Stoneman had Ty by the arm again. “Don’t. Leave it,” he warned. “It’s better, I think—”

  Reverend Ewing released Carrie and held up his arms for silence. Immediately a hushed, expectant stillness descended. Quiet now, dramatically calm, the reverend asked, “Is your faith strong enough? The Lord is waiting. Heal thyself now, woman.” Suddenly he shouted out one word. “Speak!”

  In the startled silence Carrie raised her chin. Her face was a white mask of anguish. She opened her mouth, and there was an airless, breathless moment of suspense. Then she dropped her head in defeat, and from the congregation rose a spontaneous wail of disappointment.

  Reverend Ewing stepped away from her in haste. “Your faith has failed you,” he chided reproachfully. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores—”

  Carrie scrambled to her feet. The reverend made a move to stop her, but she sidestepped him. She saw his son at one end of the platform, and she whirled, and dashed for the other. A roar went up from the mob, and for a wild second Tyler thought they would try to catch her, drag her back and wring more “faith” out of her. But they leaned away from her panicked flight and let her go. She ran on a mad diagonal toward the pine woods fifty yards away—the same escape route Broom had used half an hour ago.

  Stoneman was saying something, but Tyler didn’t hear because he was already striding away, shouldering through a knot of snickering young boys, stepping carefully to avoid treading on anybody. But he kept Carrie in sight, and made a straight path for the opening in the thicket at the edge of the woods through which she’d disappeared. Once out of the crowd, he broke into a run, or as much of one as he could manage nowadays on his bad leg. He reached the edge of the field and ducked into the trees. In the sudden dimness he could see nothing but black, blowing branches and dense undergrowth. There was a path of sorts; he trotted along it, limping, trying to see ahead through the coarse tangle. He paused to cup his hands and shout, “Carrie, it’s Dr. Wilkes! Carrie!” Silence. He felt foolish when he realized he was waiting for her to answer. He started running again.

  The woods ended abruptly. Rounding the last turn in the path, he saw her in silhouette against a dry hillside pasture, yellow in the fading sun and dotted with dark clumps of juniper. She was standing stock still; something in her posture made him halt when he was still a dozen paces away.

  In a too-casual voice, he greeted her. “Carrie, hello. I’m glad you stopped.” She made no movement, no gesture. He started toward her slowly, limping, holding her gaze. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while.” Beside her, parallel to the path, the long, rotting trunk of a beech tree made a perfect seat. He kept coming. She didn’t move, but her eyes darkened with every step he took. He made a gesture toward the fallen tree with his hand—to indicate his destination. When he was six feet away, he realized she was going to bolt.

  Immediately he put an extra hitch in his gait. “Mind giving me a hand?” he muttered, not looking at her. “Sorry—leg still gives out on me every now and then. Damn nuisance.” He was hobbling like an old man, probably overdoing it.

  But it worked. She rushed toward him and took hold of his forearm, guiding him toward the log. With an exaggerated groan, he sat. Even kneaded his thigh with both hands. It really did ache; he wasn’t a complete humbug. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her standing over him uncertainly, twisting her hands. He smiled at her. “Think I should’ve let the reverend take a crack at me, too?”

  A long army of emotions paraded across her finely molded features: dismay and embarrassment, surprise, relief—and finally, miraculously, amusement. Tyler sat back and grinned at her, conscious of an immense feeling of relief. “Are you all right, Carrie? Really? Good, I’m glad. Would you like to sit down?”

  The idea seemed to intrigue, not frighten her. She considered it in her forthright, guileless way. Presently she gave a little nod, gathered her skirts, and settled beside him.

  Her face was almost serene now, but he would see faint trails on her cheeks where tears had recently dried. He spoke tentatively, unsure of his ground—for if she had any faith at all in a man like Ewing’s power to heal, then he had no right to shake it. At the same time, he felt a compulsion to comfort her.

  “You know, I don’t think he really cured anybody back there. Not permanently, anyway. I suppose such things are possible, but something tells me Reverend Ewing’s not the man for the job.” Although she didn’t look away, for once he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Of course, some people might say I’m prejudiced,” he pointed out, trying to make her smile. “Some might say I’m just trying to keep the reverend from horning in on my territory.” She did smile, but he could tell it was an effort in politeness. “Carrie,” he said gently, “are you very disappointed?”

  She shook her head. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled out a stubby pencil and a cheap, dog-eared notebook. She scribbled something and handed the notebook to him. No, for I knew it wouldn’t work. Taking the notebook back, she wrote something else, crossed part of it out, and wrote again. I was embarrassed.

  He saw that at first she’d written “ashamed,” but then scratched over it. “Because of all the people?” he guessed. “Because of what they were expecting, not you.”

  She nodded faintly. Her cheeks pinkened, as if she were remembering the ugly scene.

  “But it wasn’t your failure.” She nodded again—she already knew that. He was glad, but unsure now what to s
ay to console her. A memory came back to him, a private humiliation he hadn’t consciously thought of in years.

  “When I was about eight years old, Carrie, my mother thought it would be a fine idea to send me away to boarding school in France. The fact that it was the middle of the term and I didn’t know a word of French didn’t figure in the decision.” He faced her, propping his bad leg on the log between them and wrapping his arms around his knee. “On my first day, my very first day, I was late getting to class—I can’t remember why anymore. The headmaster stood me up in front of everybody and demanded to know why I was tardy. ‘My watch is slow,’ I said, or thought I said—Ma montre retarde. Only I forgot the word for watch and I said, Ma morse retarde. Know what morse means?” She shook her head. “It means ‘walrus.’ My walrus is slow, I announced to all my new classmates.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide with pity and distress—then laughter. “You think that’s funny?” he demanded, taking mock umbrage. She shook her head quickly, anxious to reassure him. He grinned. “No, and it wasn’t funny then, believe me. I’ll never forget how they laughed at me, Carrie, never, not if I live to be a hundred.”

  She nodded her understanding. There was no need for him to complete the circle, explain the moral of his little story—that even though it hadn’t been in any way his fault, the childhood incident had mortified him, as Reverend Ewing and the crowd had mortified her. In all likelihood they would both take those fiery hot memories to their graves.

  They fell silent. A moment later she wrote in her notebook, Thank you.

  “For what?”

  Telling me that.

  “You’re welcome.”

  With the tablet on her knee, she wrote, People, then crossed it out. She wrote, Sometimes, and crossed that out, too. He could feel her indecision floating between them like a fog, obscuring the faint ties of trust he had thought were beginning to connect them.

  She turned the page and scribbled something else.

  “ ‘How are you?’ ” Tyler read aloud. “ ‘How is your—’ ” He bent closer, squinting at the last word. Nuralja, she’d written. “Ah!” He glanced up to see her blushing. “Much better,” he said quickly. “The neuralgia’s all but disappeared; in fact, I haven’t had a spell in weeks.” She put her hands together in a glad, grateful gesture.

  “I wanted to thank you for your gift.” She wrinkled her forehead. “The flowers,” he reminded her. “I liked them very much.” Her smile was enchanting. She really was lovely. “Dr. Stoneman tells me you know everything about flowers and trees and birds and animals.”

  She made a humorous face and looked up at the blowing treetops, then back at him with a rueful smile. On her notepad she scribbled, How I wish.

  “I think you’re being modest.” He glanced around. Across the path, a short clump of bluish, hairy-stalked wildflowers sprouted under a spindly laurel bush. Buttercups, he’d have labeled them, except that they weren’t yellow. “What are those?” he challenged, pointing.

  She grinned. Hepatica, she wrote. Easy.

  “You see? You know everything. Now me, I’d rather not know what they’re called.” She arched her eyebrows in amazement. “No, I’d rather not know. I tried to learn once, but it was too depressing. Whenever I’d see a really beautiful specimen and look it up in a book, it always turned out to be called ‘dogbane’ or ‘bladderwort.’ ”

  She laughed with her whole face, shoulders shaking, covering her mouth again with her hand. The uselessness of the gesture struck Tyler all at once, sobering him and turning his pleasure in making her laugh into a vague melancholy.

  She wrote, Bastard-toadflax is pretty! She thought for a second. So is mad-dog skullcap! She lifted dancing eyes, and saw his expression. Her smile faltered.

  “Has a doctor ever examined your throat, Carrie?” She bent her head; he couldn’t read her still profile. He watched her draw tight X’s around all the borders of the page she’d been writing on. “There could be any number of reasons why you’re not able to speak,” he persisted quietly. “An injury to the vocal cords or the laryngeal cartilages. A tumor, a lesion. Trauma from swallowing something corrosive.” Hysteria, he thought but didn’t say. “If you’d let me examine you, I might be able to help you.” She stayed motionless except for the compulsive X-making, darker now, the pencil bearing down hard. “There’s an instrument we use called a laryngoscope. It’s nothing but a little mirror mounted at an angle on a metal stem about this long. It doesn’t hurt, I promise you. It gives me a good view of the cords and the trachea, that’s all.” He waited, but she still didn’t look up. “Tell me this. Are you able to whisper?”

  She ripped out the X’d-over page of her notebook in a quick slashing movement and scrawled NO on a new one in block letters. Then she shot to her feet.

  “Wait.” He stood up more slowly, not because of his leg as much as to keep her from streaking away like a flushed partridge. “Hold on. Wait now, Carrie, talk to me.”

  She looked at him for a few seconds, as if weighing the threat. Apparently he didn’t present much of one, because she looked away from him long enough to scribble in her notebook again. When she finished, she tore off the sheet and handed it to him.

  Thank you for being nice to me. I can’t talk I can’t, you can’t help me.

  When he looked back up, she was halfway across the yellow pasture, long legs striding away fast.

  6

  GENTLY—GENTLY. DON’T BE scared, little hawk, it’s all right. Easy, almost done. There!

  Carrie let her breath out in slow relief and laid the panting kestrel on its side in her lap. Despite the seriousness of the moment, she almost smiled because he looked so comical, like a tiny bird-ghost, bound from his neck to his tail feathers in the foot of one of her old white stockings. She’d cut a hole in the top for his head and one in the middle for his poor broken leg, which crooked out at a pitiful angle, snapped in two between the elbow and the foot. The sock would calm him and hold him steady while she tended to his leg. Thank goodness the bone hadn’t punched through the skin; at least she wouldn’t have to worry about infection. She’d found him this morning, tangled in the burs of a burdock plant behind the springhouse. He’d probably broken his leg thrashing around to free himself. When she’d disentangled him, he’d been too exhausted to move.

  Now he was breathing too fast. Using the medicine dropper Dr. Stoneman had given her years ago, she coaxed a drink of sugar water into the sparrow hawk’s beak, to settle him down. Her instruments were all ready and laid out on a towel on the flat top of the silvered chestnut stump beside her. She’d cut strips of gauze ahead of time, guessing the lengths she would need, and fashioned and fitted a tiny splint from a piece of cardboard—because wood, even matchsticks, she’d learned from experience, were much too heavy for a small bird. Now she took a thin square of gauze and laid it over the kestrel’s head—he’d be calmer if he couldn’t see her movements—and set to work.

  Steady, quiet hands. Absolutely calm. Firm, but not too firm; a bird’s legs were hollow, you could snap a fragile bone yourself if you weren’t careful. Slowly and very gently she fitted her L-shaped splint along the outside of the kestrel’s leg, from shoulder to claw. He squirmed for a second; she let her hands go still. Her own steady breathing and the warmth of her body soothed him. The little tab at the bottom of the splint curled up perfectly, she saw with satisfaction—she’d wrapped it around a pencil earlier, so it would roll around the stalky leg just right.

  Now the hard part: holding everything in place with one hand and winding a gauze strip around leg and splint with the other. This was where the blindfold came in handy, for she had to hold one end of the binding strip in her teeth in order to tie a strong but gentle knot.

  Done. She snipped off the extra bit of gauze and surveyed her handiwork. The splint made a little cradle for the kestrel’s leg to rest in; now he’d be able to perch, sit flat on the ground, or—by tomorrow—move around without hurting himself. She slipp
ed the square of cloth from his head. There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Oh, what a handsome boy you are! The beady eye in his black-and-white face glittered up at her. Lifting him, she carried him to his box and set him on the bed she’d made out of shredded cotton. Using scissors, she cut the sock away. He fluttered his wings feebly for a few seconds, then lay quiet.

  So beautiful, Carrie thought. No bigger than a robin, but how much wilder he looked with his hawk’s beak, his speckled breast, and rusty-red tail. The bluish wings told her he was a male. For a moment she thought of naming him—but no. In two weeks his leg would heal, and she’d set him free. Once you named a wildling you made it yours, and that was wrong; they didn’t belong to anyone but themselves. She remembered the big crow she’d taken care of last spring, who’d broken his wing from flying into the cabin window. She’d kept him for a month and then let him go. Tried to let him go, rather. Three times she’d set him free, and three times he flew right back to her. The fourth time, she couldn’t stop crying. To tell the truth, if he’d come back then, she’d have had to let him stay.

  But in the main it was no good to try to keep wildlings, no matter how much you wanted to or how lonely you might be, because they were happier being free. You could be as kind and gentle as a lamb, but there was no substitute for Mother Nature, and trying to hold on to a wildling could turn out hurtful and not at all what you intended.

  She straightened, and covered the hawk’s box with a cloth, for warmth. She would come back in a few hours to check on him, give him some water, and try to get a little food into him. If he wouldn’t eat tonight, he surely would tomorrow. She couldn’t see anything wrong with him except for his broken leg, and she’d fixed that. She had high hopes for his full recovery.

  She kept her wildling care log with her other notebooks—her Record of Specimens of the Wiggins Museum of Natural History, her bird identification ledger, and her personal journal—wrapped in a piece of canvas and stowed under a corner of the big weathered boulder that made up one whole side of the hospital. With her usual care, she wrote down the details of her discovery of the kestrel, his injury, her treatment and expectations for his recuperation. After that she tidied up, putting things away in the watertight boxes she’d made and fitted into rough, hand-stacked stone shelves.