The Reluctant Midwife (18 page)

I've been going to White Rock Camp five weeks now and have found the job pleasant and mostly routine, nothing rough or threatening, as people in Liberty had implied. My cases, for the most part, are scrapes and bruises, headaches and sprains, a bad burn from the kitchen and frequent cases of bronchitis.

At noon today a sharp-looking fellow of about thirty-five walked into the clinic, leaned on the doorframe, and took in the infirmary. It's funny to say “sharp-looking” when all the men wear the same khaki uniform, but it's
the way
he wears it, his shirt tucked in and his pants low on his slim hips, his army hat cocked to one side.

Boodean clicks his heels, salutes, and backs up against the wall to give the older man space.

“I'm sorry,” I announce. “We're just breaking for dinner. Can you come back at one thirty?” The man has the large soulful eyes and wide grin of Fred Astaire, and I half expect him to do a slow slide across the wooden floor with his hands out and then twirl at the end, but he takes a seat in Boodean's chair and stretches out his long legs.

“Afraid I can't wait, miss. I'm an L-E-M.” He spells it out, as
if it's a word he doesn't want to say in front of Boodean. “I'm in charge of the workhorses and this afternoon I have to teach the boys how to pull the fallen timber out of the ravine. It's a real fire hazard and we're just getting started.”

“Lem? That's your first name?”

“No, Miss Myers. This is Sergeant Cross. He's an L . . . E . . . M like you, locally employed man,” Boodean explains. “Lou is a foreman.” He salutes a second time.

I take a long breath, inhaling the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies across the compound. “Well, I guess I can see you now, but we really need to hurry. I don't want to miss our meal.”

“Thank you kindly, Miss Becky. Been hearing nice things about you from the boys.” He looks me up and down.

“Sit down, Mr. Cross. Or should I say Sergeant Cross?”

“You can call me Lou.”

“Please sit down, Sergeant Cross.” (There's no way I'm going to call this fellow “Lou.” He acts like he owns the place.) “So, what can
we
do for you today?” I say it like that, making it clear that the medic and I are a team and this is not a social call. Boodean pulls another chair in from the waiting room. “What's the problem?”

“Can I talk to you alone?”

“No, I'm sorry you can't. Private Boodean is my assistant. He records all my clinical notes and he understands that anything he hears here is strictly confidential.” The medic immediately starts scribbling something on his clipboard.

“Well, I'm worried about a wart. It sounds silly and, Boodean, if you say anything to the fellows, I'll beat you bloody, but it's a big wart and it's causing me pain.”

Right here I get nervous, hoping it's not another penile problem, some kind of venereal disease, but the sergeant goes on.

“I make a point not to limp, but sometimes at the end of the day, I can't help it. . . . I even tried stealing an onion from the cook and
rubbing it on the thing and then throwing it over my shoulder, but it's been two weeks and nothing's happened. I'd like you to give me some medicine. I don't care how bad it tastes.”

“Where is the wart, Mr. Cross?”

“On my damn foot! Pardon my strong language, Miss Becky. But it hurts so bad I can hardly walk. I'm not usually a bellyacher.”

“Did you try going out in the garden at night, picking a bean leaf and rubbing it on the wart?” Boodean chimes in. “Then dig a hole with a silver spoon and bury it under a rock? My granny says that works every time.” I look at my watch. The dinner bell rang half an hour ago and I'm afraid I'll miss my midday meal. In the mountains these old wives' tales are as common as dandelions.

“Well, let's have a look. Can you lie on the bed and take off your shoe and sock?” The man is wearing high regulation army work boots and it takes him a minute to untie his laces.

He lays his left foot up on the cot and I see what he's talking about, a black, crusty lesion the size of a half dollar on the ball of his left foot. It's a wart, I can tell, by the bumpy surface, and it looks like he's been picking at it, because there's blood on his sock.

“I see what you mean.” The truth is, I'm shocked, and I immediately start wondering how to treat the eruption. Debridement comes to mind, but it will be painful; still, it's somewhere to start.

“Boodean, you go across the compound and have your dinner. You can get some for me, just whatever the cook will give you. Have you eaten, Sergeant?”

“Yes, miss. I ate before I came.” He eyes me warily as I get out a scalpel, iodine, gauze, and a small basin. I pour a little water in the bowl and have the man soak his foot.

“Just rest your foot, sir. I want to soften the wart before I operate.”

“Operate! Don't leave me, Boodean!” But the medic is already out the door.

“Can't you use some salve or something, Nurse? You're scaring me now.”

“No, these warts are very stubborn, and onions, green beans, and salve are not going to do it. Here, take two Bayer while we wait. I want you to soak for ten minutes.” I nod toward the cuckoo clock. So far, it seems to run on time, but I've never seen the cuckoo pop out.

I turn my back, step into the closet, and tear open one of the books I brought from Dr. Blum's box,
Diagnosis and Treatment of Skin Diseases
. Plantar warts. Plantar warts . . . I really don't have time for this. . . .

Twenty minutes later, Sergeant Cross's foot has been scraped and is covered with gauze and Betadine.

“Tomorrow soak your foot again for ten minutes. Boodean can give you some Epson salts to take back to your cabin or you can come here. Do you have a cabin or do you bunk with the enlisted men?”

“We LEMs have our own quarters. I share a place with the head carpenter, the first log cabin up the creek. Come over anytime, or maybe you could do my treatments there? You know, make a house call?” He says this last part with a wink and a leer that curls up one side of his handsome face. I'm shocked by the proposal and truly can't tell if he's flirting or serious. Knowing his type, I decide he probably treats all women this way, but this is the kind of thing people in town warned me about.

“That would hardly be appropriate, Mr. Cross.”

“Sergeant . . .” he says again, tying his boots.

Just then someone bangs on the infirmary door. “Can I come in?” It's the medic.

“Yes, of course. We're finished.” Boodean enters with a basket of food from the cook, followed by Captain Wolfe.

“Hello,” Wolfe says, removing his hat. “I hate to interrupt, but I need to know if Sergeant Cross is free to work. The men are waiting at the stables, the horses all rigged and ready.” He consults his wristwatch, which I note is a gold Elgin, just like my father's.

“Keep your shirt on, Wolfe. I'll be right there. They can't start without me,” my patient growls. “It's too dangerous. I told you before, I'll get there when I damn well can. . . . Pardon my language, ma'am.”

“I'm not inviting you, Sergeant, I'm ordering you.” It's obvious there's tension between the two. Sergeant Cross lurches up, steps into his boot, almost kicking the washbowl over, limps across the room, and slams out the door without another word.

“Sorry, Nurse,” Captain Wolfe says, looking directly at me with his green eyes.

The rest of the afternoon is slow and I have a chance to read about plantar warts. The illustrations are appalling, but none so bad as the wart I just saw. Debridement is the treatment of choice, but toward the end, salicylic acid is cited as an experimental cure.

“Salicylic acid,” I say out loud to the four walls. Boodean has gone out to the waiting room to beg Mrs. Ross for two cups of coffee.
Salicylic acid
. Maybe Stenger could make me some in a Vaseline base at the pharmacy.

As I leave, the sun is just setting and the camp is now full of overgrown boys, playing basketball, throwing horseshoes, smoking cigarettes, and shooting the bull. Even though there's a chill in the air and they have to wear jackets, when the work is over, the fun begins.

“Miss Myers?” Captain Wolfe approaches from the side as I'm putting my nurse's bag in the backseat, and he salutes me as if I'm
in the service. “I want to apologize about the conflict in the infirmary earlier. It shouldn't have happened. Cross is a good worker, but a bit of a hothead.”

“I figured that out,” I say pleasantly, eager to get back to the farm to make sure Patience is okay.

“I have a favor to ask. I know I just met you, but I've been ordered to represent the White Rock Camp at a fundraiser for Eleanor Roosevelt's community experiment, Arthurdale. It won't happen for a few months and it's at the Hotel Torrington, but I'm supposed to bring a wife or lady friend, and I don't have one. Mrs. Roosevelt will actually be there. I wonder if you'd be my guest.” He flushes in embarrassment.

“Arthurdale is the rural village that Mrs. Roosevelt is building in Preston County for the unemployed miners from Scotts Run, isn't it? I worked at Scotts Run as a public health nurse when I first came to West Virginia. What's the date again?” I ask this as if my social calendar is so full, I might be overbooked.

“New Year's Eve. It's a banquet and a dance. All the other CCC senior officers, Dr. Crane from Laurel Camp, and Major Milliken have wives.”

I don't know what I'm doing. I have no dancing clothes, haven't danced since I was at Walter Reed and one of the doctors took me out. It's probably Wolfe's shyness that makes me say yes . . . that and the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady and tireless social reformer, might be there.

“Well, I guess I could. I don't usually go out with colleagues.” (I don't usually go out at all.) “But under the circumstances, I could make an exception.”

“Thank you so much, Nurse Myers! I haven't asked a woman out since my wife died four years ago.” He straightens and salutes as I get in the Pontiac. When I look back he is grinning from ear to ear.

Though I'm not really good at it, or particularly enjoy it like some women do, since we've moved to the Hesters', I've put on an apron and become the chief cook. Patience gives me instructions and sometimes writes down recipes, which I keep on stiff cards in a little green box.

In the morning after the men water the stock and milk the cows, the Hesters eat upstairs in their bedroom and Blum and I in the kitchen. I am amazed at the progress the doc's made since we moved here. Except for his silence, he could be Daniel's hired hand.

All day, Daniel and Isaac are silently digging up the carrots and beets and storing them in the root cellar out back, or getting in hay, or insulating the barn for winter. Most of the time, they take Danny with them and let him play in the dirt, but sometimes he stays with Patience and plays on her bed. I know she feels isolated, so I try to visit often and bring her little jobs to do, like slicing apples or peeling potatoes.

In the evening, around eight, we gather in the Hesters' bedroom to eat popcorn made in a wire basket on the wood cookstove and listen to Patience read to us from her big book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.

The family sprawls on the bed, Danny between his father and mother. I sit on the hard-backed chair and Blum stands next to the closet. When Danny begins to fade, Hester carries him to his room and I lead Dr. Blum to bed.

“Fly's in the buttermilk. Shoo, fly, shoo. Fly's in the buttermilk. Shoo, fly, shoo,”
Daniel sings to Danny as if it's a lullaby.
“Fly's in the buttermilk. Shoo, fly, shoo . . .”

Afterward, I retire downstairs to my room to read a novel or sometimes the verses of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

As I turn off the light and snuggle under the quilts, I can hear Daniel and Patience in their room above me talking softly, sometimes laughing. And then silence.

Skip to my Lou, my darlin'
.

“Goddam!” The vet slams the telephone receiver down in its holder and Blum and I look up from the kitchen table where we've been finishing our coffee. (The doctor is able to eat on his own now, though sometimes I have to wipe his chin.)

“It's the Bishop brothers. They have a herd of cattle that needs to be tuberculin tested and want me out there this week.”

“Who're the Bishop brothers?” I ask.

“You remember them. They're part of that crowd that jumped Blum and me at the Fourth of July picnic. A hard bunch, stingy with their animals, sour and unfriendly. They used to be in the moonshine business, until the G-men from D.C. shut them down. Five years ago or so, I had a run-in with them when their stallion, Devil, died.” He pulls out a wooden chair and sits back down with us.

“The Bishops waited too long to call about a case of severe colic, and when the beautiful black Arabian died, they blamed his death on me and things got ugly. The three brothers were half drunk and it ended in a knock-down fistfight. I barely got out of there alive. They also dressed up like Klansmen and gave Patience and Bitsy a scare. A rotten crew if there ever was one.”

“Can't you say no?”

“Nah, I'm the only vet around, and everyone is required by the state of West Virginia to get their herd tested. It's important. Fifteen years ago, one in twenty cattle had bovine tuberculosis. It was a big economic loss to the farmers, not to mention a threat to human health.”

He reaches for his cup of coffee. “I was wondering when the Bishops would get around to calling me. Dreaded it! On the other hand, they don't really have a choice and neither do I. I took on the state contract. It's good cash money.”

“Hey, Isaac, want to come with me?” he says, grinning. “Be my backup in case things get ugly?”

“I could come, too.”

“You?”

“I mean, if a woman was there, they wouldn't get rough, would they?”

“Probably not. They aren't
that
crude. One of them, the oldest, Aran, has a common-law wife. The one I hate is Beef, a violent bastard. . . . I suppose you could help by writing down the test numbers in my ledger. If a cow tests positive, it's the end of it. It has to be killed right away and then the carcass burned.”

I look at Dr. Blum sitting there in the wooden kitchen chair, staring into space, and imagine he and Daniel getting into another fistfight. “I'd better come.”

Two days later, just as the sun is peeking over the mountains, Daniel, Blum, and I leave Patience with her breakfast on a tray and a pile of toys on her bed for Danny and head in the Model T toward Burnt Town. Hester explains that the little village was built along Crockers Creek a century ago and was completely destroyed by a forest fire, thus the name, Burnt Town.

“No one wanted to build there again. Superstitious, I guess. Too many people died. They say in these hollows, when a fire gets started, it roars up the mountains. The narrow valleys work like chimneys, just suck up the flames.”

I look over the fields as we bump along in the Model T. The countryside is white with frost, our first really hard one, and everything
is covered with little ice crystals. In the ditches the goldenrod stalks droop with their white fur, and red maple leaves are rimmed with white. Even the spider webs are covered with miniature beads of ice and shine in the morning light.

Finally, we turn off the main gravel road and bump down a rocky grade, across a branch of Crockers Creek and into a spacious farmyard.

There's a white farmhouse with a long front porch, a neat fenced-in vegetable garden, and something that looks like a chicken coop to the side. From Daniel's description of the Bishop brothers, I'd expected something more roughshod.

A dark-haired woman wearing a flour-sack print dress and a heavy green sweater is carrying a basket of potatoes across the yard. She stops to stare, and three hounds, chained to their dog-houses, bark viciously.

“'Bout time you showed up, you old son of a gun,” a stocky farmer on the porch calls out, then grins, saunters over, and reaches out his hand. “How you doin'? Ain't seen you much lately.” I have a hard time reconciling Hester's story of the knockdown, drag-out physical fight after the Arabian stallion died with this sociable gent.

“Aran,” Daniel responds with reserve. “I brought Nurse Myers to help with the record keeping, and Dr. Blum, you remember him? He can hold the steers while I do the testing. Are your brothers available to round up the cattle?” He scans the yard and I remember that it's the one called Beef he most dislikes.

“Yeah.” Aran Bishop motions to our left where a short, thick man wearing hitched-up trousers and a red plaid flannel shirt moves slowly across the plowed field. A green John Deere sits in the distance. “Here comes Beef now.”

The man called Beef strides up to Daniel and, bold as anything, shakes his hand, acting as if nothing has ever happened between them.

“Doc,” he addresses him in a nasal voice. “Thought you were coming yesterday! Had them cows all penned up and you never showed. Let them loose for the night. They're all up at the back forty now.”

“I told your brother,
today, November 17
. I was clear on that.”

“Well, no matter.” The older brother tries to smooth things out. “You're here now. Let's round them back up and get to work.”

“Who's the skirt?” Beef jerks his head my way.

Daniel tightens his jaw. “Miss Myers. Nurse Becky Myers. She's going to write down the numbers while I do the testing. Dr. Blum can hold the cattles' heads.”

“Yeah, and I get the butt-end where I can get kicked. Sounds fair.”

Isaac steps forward and folds his arms across his chest. I almost laugh, wondering if he makes the tough pose on purpose or if it's just by accident.

Thirty minutes of drinking coffee in silence on the porch with Aran's common-law wife and I spy the men and dogs across the field driving a stream of cattle toward the barn. Dr. Blum is walking along with them, waving his arms back and forth like a windmill.

“Thanks,” I say to my quiet companion. “It was very neighborly of you to keep me company.” She must be in late thirties, a tough-looking lady with a lined face and dishwater hair that she keeps twisting in ropes. She responds with a stiff smile, but still doesn't speak.

It's quite an operation going on down at the barnyard. The men are driving the livestock into a pen. There's shouting and swearing as the big animals occasionally step on someone's foot. Once, a cow forces Daniel up against the fence, almost crushing him, but Aran pulls it away.

“Cocksucker!” says the vet, shocking the pants off me. My
woman companion laughs. The man called Beef herds the cows into a long chute, three at a time, using a whip, and he smiles when the leather hits the animals' backs.

“Must be time for me to get to work.” I set my heavy blue-and-white mug on the porch. “Thanks again. . . . I'm sorry, I didn't get your name.”

“Cora.”

“Thanks again, Cora.”

One by one, Daniel injects each animal with a small amount of purified tuberculin antigen just under the skin. He reads the cow's number from a clip behind its ear and I write it down. In three days we will return. If the animal has TB, a welt will appear where the needle went in, and the cow will have to be slaughtered.

We work together, becoming more efficient as time goes on, and finally the yard clears and the animals run off. The whole thing takes about two hours, and by the time we're done, the men are exhausted so I offer to drive home.

“So we'll see you in three days? What time? We'll try to have the animals rounded up,” Aran offers.

“About nine,” the vet answers.

“Better be here when you say you will,” threatens Beef.

Or what? You'll beat us all up?