Clover (6 page)

He stopped himself from thinking further.

“Don’t worry ’bout Miri, Doc. I’ll take care o’ her.”

Galen looked warmly into the eyes of the man whom he had once decked with a solid right hand to the jaw. He had seen Lem in so many guises, from war hero, farmer—boozer and local troublemaker—recovering alcoholic and trusted friend. Now he would be fulfilling another role: the sole caretaker of Safehaven.

Nancy and Edison entered the cottage.

Nancy looked around. “Where’s Miriam?”

Caddler pointed to the girl’s room.

“She’s still asleep. I didn’t think I should wake her.”

He didn’t tell them what he had found when he first entered Ben’s room.

“I’ll take care of the arrangements, Dr. Galen,” Lachlan said. “He’s owed a veteran’s and trooper’s funeral.”

He held Diane’s hand tightly. He had seen death in many forms. Maybe Ben had the right kind, if there ever was a right kind.

Edison nodded.

“I’ll call the stone mason in Tunkhannock for the headstone and engraving.”

He and Nancy held hands as they looked upon their neighbor and friend. Then Nancy and Sandy went to Miriam’s room and quietly opened the door. As Lem said, she was still asleep, the she-wolf sprawled at her feet, awake, eyes watchful but unmoving. Both women caught the scent of orange blossoms.

Nancy’s foot scraped against a paper on the floor and she bent over to pick it up. By now nothing surprised her in Miri’s drawings. This one showed them all standing around Ben’s bed, a death scene tableau.

But who was the young woman wearing a tiara of blossoms?

She folded the paper and put it in her coat pocket.

Back at the house they all sat quietly in the living room.

“Could this have been prevented, Galen?”

Nancy asked the question he never wanted to hear. He caught Sandy watching him.

He shook his head.

Sandy understood Galen’s anguish as a doctor. She reached out to him, placed her hand on his, and whispered, “Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.”

Snowflakes whirled in spiral swirls that cold November morning
.

She spied him through the flurried haze and knew he wanted her. So did the others. Her life was either feast or famine. Today was her lucky day
.

She desired only the best, not some plain Tom, Buck or Harry who would fawn over her but fail in the clinches. A girl has to be choosy
.

He didn’t let her down. He was strong. One at a time he had locked horns with her other suitors and easily racked them up. In the end he stood triumphant, magnificently statuesque, chest heaving and nasal alars flaring. The muscles in his torso stood out behind his dark brown and white chest fur. The fifteen points of his antlers towered over his defeated challengers
.

She moved toward him, her four hooves carefully navigating the frozen ground. Her ears bent backward. Her erect, white-furred tail semaphored her intent
.

Slowly they walked together into the dark, ice-dappled woods
.

Winter melted into spring and summer. As the heat intensified, she felt the rising pressure in her belly, the protuberance growing larger and larger as the warm winds rustled the field grass into edible dryness
.

She had to find her special place—and soon. Her time was drawing near. She left her herd of sisters and, by some mysterious tracking sense, found the field of high grass surrounded by Ionian pillars of forest trees. There it was: the shallow cast in the ground, the familiar birthing site of prior years
.

Carefully she moved soft leaves, twigs and grasses to cover the natal bed. As she finished, she felt the sudden contraction. Her entire body tightened as the fawn, head and forelegs first, made its way down the birth canal. It fell 2 feet to the padded depression below
.

The sudden impact tore the umbilical cord, the newborn’s full breathing mechanism was triggered, and the female fawn let out a barely audible gasping bawl
.

Mother moved quickly to daughter and began to vigorously lick the newborn’s face, instinctively clearing nose and muzzle of birth debris. She listened as the fawn’s fitful breaths cleared its lungs of amniotic fluid
.

The lingual stimulation soon brought the young one to her feet. Seconds later its muzzle found the maternal teat. High-octane colostrum flowed down its throat for the first time and the fawn felt energy course through its new body
.

Mother guided daughter to a spot about 30 yards away. The fawn flattened itself, splaying its four feet outward, its head lying directly against the grass-cushioned ground, and its brown and white, speckled fur blending into the background
.

The new mother hurried back to her nesting site. Once more the telltale contractions moved through her as she tried to push more leaves into place. This time a male fell to earth, a cloud-drenched space alien landing on the soft bed of forest castoffs
.

The roe deer carefully prepped her second new baby, filling its ravenous mouth with milk and moving it to the forest safe house
.

Once again she felt the contractions and a second male fawn entered the world, braying faintly on impact
.

She moved as before to lick the third one’s face but it didn’t respond. She licked more vigorously and finally a thick mucus plug dislodged from the unmoving fawn’s mouth and nose
.

The roe’s head nudged her baby. Still no response. She began licking its entire body until she felt it move. She nudged it once more and slowly the young one stood and began to suckle
.

It took longer but finally she moved the second male to a hiding place. Exhausted, she returned to her bed and lay still. It was now her turn to recuperate. The care and protection of three fawns was a daunting challenge
.

Two of the three women lying prone and side by side in the tall grass were taking a break from their men. They all were peering furtively through binoculars at the spectacle of birth. Wistful smiles crossed their faces—though for different reasons.

“Did you see that? I thought she was going to lose that last one,” Nancy said.

“Nature isn’t nice, Carmelita. It plays no favorites. That doe could just as easily have hemorrhaged to death or lost all three fawns in some birthing accident.”

“It’s all genetics,” Sandy added. “The stronger the alpha male, the better the chances his progeny will survive and thrive.”

She had seen the cycle many times in Africa.

Remembering her own lost child, Nancy looked at the young woman lying next to her, the one who had become surrogate to her maternal need. She still marveled at the vagaries of life, how fate could cruelly or gently influence a person’s destiny.

What would have become of Carmelita and her brothers if she and Edison and Galen hadn’t been visiting Bald Head Island some two decades ago? It’s doubtful she would have chosen that spot for a vacation if she had been raising a child. And what if the three of them had evacuated with the others when the hurricane warning sounded? Would someone else have rescued the orphans?

Carmelita was thoroughly enjoying the visit with Tia Nancy and her newfound friend. She had been so pleasantly surprised to meet Sandy at Safehaven when she arrived for summer vacation. She had laughed approvingly when Tia Nancy described the petite doctor as Galen’s classmate and “ladyfriend.”

By now the three had developed an easy and comfortable manner with one another. But the brief respite from her graduate studies was all-too-quickly coming to an end.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’m going to meet Mike in Los Angeles.”

“Mike—oh, is he your boyfriend?”

Carmelita was about to point out that she had been talking about him incessantly for weeks. Then she realized she was being set up.

“Oh, I’m sorry Tia Sandy. I was sure I had mentioned him before.”

“Perhaps you did, dear.”

They exchanged grins. Sandy took a more straightforward tone.

“Have you made your decision?”

“I think so. Mike wants me to move out there. He says I can continue my schooling at UCLA, maybe even do a double doctoral degree in linguistics and semiotics. There aren’t too many people going into the field right now and he says I’d be in on the ground floor of opportunity if I did.”

“Is that what you want, Carm?” Nancy asked. “What about Yale? I thought you wanted to stay and do your doctoral there.”

She saw the young woman’s expression change instantly to one of distress.

“No, Tia,” Carmelita said, her voice almost a whisper.

Nancy and Sandy sensed the nature of the problem, and they patiently prodded Carmelita to reveal what had happened that previous spring...

*   *   *

She was standing in the office of Dr. Winston Zieg, professor of applied linguistics and for the moment her faculty adviser. She had submitted her proposed doctoral dissertation topic to him, on tribal isolation and the effect on monotonal speech patterns, a rarity found among the people of the Amazon Basin.

“Carmelita Hidalgo. Nice name. Is your family from Spain or South America?”

“I was born in Cuba, sir.”

“Oh, right. I’d forgotten.”

Zieg was exercising the routine he reserved for female students with Carmelita’s physical attributes. But because he had exercised it so many times he could also see it wasn’t working.

He sat down behind his cluttered, undusted desk, biting his lower lip. A couple of decades ago he could have charmed the pants off her before she knew they were gone. Now he had degraded into the stereotypical middle-aged male, his body surrendering to gravity, his hair thinning and migrating to less attractive locations. His appearance, a stagnating career and a justifiably suspicious wife had been steadily curtailing his influence over the distaff members of his classes.

Now he relied on the intimidation of his stature. Sometimes he just used brute force.

Carmelita had learned about his background and reputation via the student grapevine. It was why she didn’t want him as her doctoral adviser—and she certainly didn’t want to be in a room alone with him. The problem was no other faculty member had experience in her arcane research area.

Her heightened perception had always served her well in her studies, and here with this guy she could read him like an open book. She knew what was coming.

“Ms. Hidalgo, I’ve read your proposal very carefully. On the surface it’s an intriguing topic, but I find your argument for pursuing it unpersuasive. My position at the moment is to reject it.”

She gritted her teeth. She knew the translation of the words “at the moment.” What Zieg really meant was, “unless I get what I want.”

She stood there as he continued with the routine, but she also felt the stress rising within her, that disembodied feeling the brain transmits, as if to say this isn’t really happening.

“Of course, we could work on the concept to flesh it out more to the department head’s satisfaction.”

The schmuck actually worked “flesh,” “head” and “satisfaction” into the same sentence.

“I ... I appreciate that, sir.”

She was stalling for time.

I need to get out of here
.

“Please excuse me, but I have to get to my next class.”

She turned to walk out of the room, but before she had taken two steps he was upon her, grabbing her around the waist with one hand, cupping her breast with the other, turning her toward him and summarily thrusting his tongue down her throat.

Reflexively Carmelita brought her knee up and caught Zieg squarely between the legs, causing him to stagger backward, momentarily disabled. She headed to the door.

“I’ve got to get to class,” was all she could muster as she hurried outside.

In the hallway simultaneous waves of fear, revulsion, anger and guilt swept over her.

Dear God!

*   *   *

The emotion of reliving that moment, which she had suppressed, now gushed out in a flood of tears.

“Oh Tia, I thought about filing harassment charges, but they’d never stand up in an inquiry. He’s too experienced at this. I’d come off as a female graduate student trying to impugn a tenured faculty member who rejected her work.”

“What other options do you have?” Sandy asked.

Carmelita started to recompose herself.

“I request another adviser, or if I can’t find one at Yale, I transfer to another school. Either way I lose time, but I wouldn’t have to deal with Zieg.”

“Have you told Mike?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to fly to New Haven and ‘punch out the sonofabitch.’ I talked him out of that, but it’s why he wants me to move to California.”

They were standing up now, the older women brushing off their clothes.

“We need to have a family council,” Nancy said. “Can you stay a little while longer? I’m sure your young Greek god will understand. Hell, he might even want to help!”

“Tia, I appreciate that, but this is my problem.”

“No, child, it isn’t. If that beast assaulted you then he’s going to have to tangle with all of us. Sandy, you want in on this?”

“Damned straight, sister. I’ve dealt with my share over the years.”

Dark brown doe eyes followed the trio as they ascended the mountain trail.

They sat at the large oak table after dinner, four old timers and one young woman, still savoring the glazed shrimp and vegetables Nancy had prepared for them.

As Carmelita rose to clear the dishes, Nancy stopped her.

“We’ll get to that later, girl; you need to tell them what you told Sandy and me.”

A reluctant Carmelita repeated the story. Edison and Galen listened, their indignation and anger rising.

Edison wasn’t a profane man. Impatient with fools, yes, but his temperament was more phlegmatic than Galen’s. Maybe it was the experience of being at the bottom of the pecking order as a child. Maybe it was the attention and caring his parents had bestowed on him.

This was different. He felt something snap. Galen was about to speak but Edison preempted him.

“Predatory sonofabitch!” he said, pounding the table.

His tone was explosive. Nancy had never heard him use such words before.

Sandy smacked her fist on the table as well.

“That’s more like it, Bobcat! You’ve found your
cojones
!”

“Uh ... Sandy, we don’t use language like that here,” Galen cautioned.

“Sometimes it’s called for, Bear.”

“Bobcat?” Nancy asked.

“Until now he’s been a pussycat, but someone has threatened one of his cubs.”

“What does that make me?”

“Sister, as President Palin once said, you’re a mama grizzly!”