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‘Not too hard,’ he yelled, ‘but maybe you’d do better to let me take the picture for you. Tie the little camera on to this string.’

She reached up for the wavering end of the twine he was lowering. It would have to be the Minolta, of course, with the telescopic lens. She fastened the camera securely in its case, and tied and twine carefully around the carrying handle. ‘Don’t let it bounce against the side,’ she yelled up at him.

He waved in acknowledgement, leaning out from the top so the line would fall straight and unencumbered. Katie, standing directly under him, could see it all happen, but was unable to do anything about it. One of the loose rocks under his foot slipped. He backed off from it to regain his balance, but the stone, some ten pounds of igneous rock, broke loose, bounced once or twice on its way down, struck hard at the base of the pillar, and bumped over the edge of the cliff and out of sight.

It all happened so quickly that Katie did not notice, until seconds later, that the rock had struck off her left foot. And then the pain came. Sharp, insistent, piercing. She screamed once, and then darkness closed in.

When she drifted back to consciousness she was in the back seat of the Jeep, with her leg propped up on a folded blanket. Harry had just collapsed on to the front seat when some small noise she made alerted him.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Yes,’ she muttered between clenched lips. ‘Give me a few minutes. It’ll all go away, I’m sure.’

‘Like hell it will,’ he returned. ‘As soon as I can catch my breath—I think I almost broke my back carrying you down here—we’re headed for the hospital. You’ll have to hang on. It’s all the way over to Erwin.’

‘I can make it,’ she assured him, wondering if it were true. He drove like a madman, down the mountain, through Ernestville, slowing only when he crossed the corporate boundary of Erwin. Even there he was somewhat over the speed limit as he wheeled down Sinasta Drive, behind the Unicoi County Memorial Hospital, and squealed to a stop at the emergency entrance. He left her in the car while he dashed inside, but moments later was back with help, and a rolling stretcher.

‘I’m not hurt that much,’ she told them feebly. She really believed it. They didn’t. Tender hands moved her on to the stretcher. All she saw of the hospital interior was a series of high green-painted ceilings. Several unseen hands touched her swollen foot. She heard a murmur of consultation, and then they wheeled her away from the bright lights of the emergency room into the relative darkness of the X-ray section. Much to her surprise Harry stayed by her side all the way, holding her hand. No one in authority made any objection.

An hour later the doctor was back at her side, a satisfied smile on his face. He gestured, and a nurse appeared on her other side with a hypodermic needle. Thoroughly cowed by officialdom, Katie presented her arm on command.

‘A small problem,’ the doctor told her. The smile he wore looked artificial, as if he were tired from a long list of other ‘simple’ problems. ‘You have a cleft in your left metatarsal,’ he beamed at her, ‘and a considerable oedema.’ She was already feeling the effects of the injection, and felt as if she were floating about two inches above the rubber mattress. Obviously he was congratulating her for some outstanding accomplishment.

‘That’s nice,’ she muttered sleepily. ‘Is it catching?’

‘What he means is that you’ve got a broken foot,’ Harry interpreted. ‘Come on, Henry, put it into English.’

‘Ah, yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘When are you going to come help with that problem I told you about with the CAT scanner?’

‘Right after I get my girl back,’ Harry snorted.

‘Oh!
Your
girl. I didn’t understand. Okay, here’s what we have to do. The foot has to go into a cast, but before we can do that, we have to get the oedema down. The swelling,’ he added hastily. ‘So we have to admit her, and put her in ice-packs and things like that. Say a day, two days. Then we have to plaster the foot up. Takes about, oh, two, three weeks before she can walk—with a walking cast, that is. And maybe, oh, altogether, six weeks until everything is back to normal.’

‘But I can’t do that,’ Katie wailed. ‘I have to go to a wedding. Marion would kill me if I missed. I know she would. I have to go—’ But her words were getting softer and softer, and eventually they faded away, as she did, into sleep. The two men standing over her beamed at each other.

‘Nice-looking girl,’ the doctor said. ‘Nice.’

‘Yeah, nice,’ Harry returned softly, with a proud hit in his voice.

It was four days later before he was allowed to come and take her away. Her foot was weighed down with a tight plaster cast that covered all except her bare toes, and went up her leg to just below the knee.

‘Now don’t forget,’ the doctor commanded, ‘lots of rest. Make no attempts to walk. Keep the foot elevated as much as possible. Don’t get the cast wet. Take two of these pills at bedtime, and whenever you feel pain during the day. No more than six a day. Got it?’

‘She’s got it,’ Harry assured him. ‘She’ll do just as she’s told, believe me.’

‘I will not,’ Katie mumbled under her breath.

‘What?’ Harry bent over and stared at her. The gleam was back in his eyes again.

‘I said yes,’ she stated clearly. And then, under her breath again, ‘Arrogant man!’ But he was too busy with last-minute papers and instructions. Or at least he seemed to be.

A hospital attendant pushed her to the door in a wheelchair. The Mercedes was standing outside, in a no-parking zone. A friendly policeman was leaning on the hood. He straightened and waved a casual greeting to Harry before walking away. She could not hold back the little dig. ‘You have a lot of friends in this town?’

‘Not really,’ he laughed. ‘It’s the name. The King family is well known in these parts. I never tell anybody that I don’t come from the famous branch. Nobody seems to care, and I enjoy it. Any other witticisms you want to get off?’

Her eyes were big as she shook her head, and a tear moistened the corner of one eye. ‘Oh come on,’ he laughed, as he picked her up and transferred her to the back seat of the car. He sat her down sideways, her foot resting on the seat, then propped her up with a couple of foam-rubber cushions. ‘Okay now?’ She nodded her thanks and surreptitiously wiped her eye.

‘Oh. One more thing,’ he said. He squeezed into the back seat with her, smoothed back the hair from her forehead, and gently kissed her. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for the longest time,’ he laughed. ‘Your knees didn’t buckle this time?’

‘No,’ she said gravely, ‘I think I’ve been inoculated against kissing.’

‘Well, we’ll have to see about that when you get better,’ he replied.

They started for home. Strange to think of the mountain house that way, her mind told her. Home? The day was exceptionally bright. Two crows swooped down, doing acrobatics over the car, as they left town. ‘That’s my welcome committee,’ Katie said gleefully.

‘Of course,’ he replied, and sounded as if he meant it. She tried to carry on the conversation in the same vein, enquiring after Jon, Aunt Grace, and—heaven forgive me, she thought—Eloise. But when they pulled up at a traffic light on the outskirts of Erwin he turned and looked at her. ‘You know, I hate gabby women,’ he said.

‘O-oh!’ Her voice started off normally, but rose to an injured squeak. They made the rest of the trip in silence. An infuriating man, she thought, concentrating on the scenery. An abominable man! And if I just had my car—and if I just had my car it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference, because I wouldn’t be able to drive it if I wanted to. And that’s the end of that excuse. There’s nothing left to keep me here, the argument with herself continued. And I want to go, don’t I? And there it surfaced. No longer hiding in her subconscious, what she really wanted to do faced her. ‘Of course you don’t want to go, you little fool,’ she muttered under her breath, ‘even if he is the most despicable man on earth!’ Aunt Grace met them at the front gate, a troubled expression on her face. ‘They had three different kinds of wheelchairs,’ she offered apologetically. ‘I didn’t know which one to choose, so I had them send all three. Is that all right, Harry?’

‘Of course it is,’ he told her. He opened the car door, meaning to pick Katie up, but she waved him away. She shifted herself along the seat until both feet were out of the door. But the minute she started to elevate herself he put an end to it by swinging her up in his arms and depositing her in the blue and silver wheelchair. ‘I could have hobbled that far,’ she protested.

‘No, you couldn’t,’ he assured her. ‘Henry said no walking at all. That means not even an attempt. For three weeks. Now look here. This chair is battery- operated. And the control is right here.’

Her sense of rebellion faded as Aunt Grace came over to kiss her, fussing around her as if she were the reigning queen. ‘We missed you,’ the older woman told her. ‘Jon took it all very badly, and the rest of us agreed with him. ’

‘Where is Jon?’ she asked.

‘Napping. We’ve had to re-arrange the house, you know. Well, of course you don’t know. You’ll see.’ She leaned over the chair again, her mouth close to Katie’s ear. ‘Make him show you his arms,’ she whispered. ‘A perfect cure!’

‘Come on,’ Harry called, ‘let’s get this show on the road, girl. Show us how well you can operate that thing.’

It proved to be no trouble at all. A toggle stick which could be swerved in any direction controlled both direction and speed. After a preliminary miscue or two, she started off across the bridge and up to the front door, where she met her first surprise. The four steps up from the ground had been removed and replaced by a cement ramp.

‘I think it’s dry enough,’ Harry said. ‘They didn’t get it finished until midnight last night.’

She guided the chair up the ramp and into the hall. ‘But how do I get upstairs?’ she enquired.

‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘Straight down the hall to the dining room.’

She drove down the hall and turned into the familiar dining room, only to find it not familiar at all! ‘We converted it into a bedroom for you,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind. We had to use the dining room because its next to the kitchen, and there’s a bathroom adjacent to it.’

‘But you shouldn’t have done all this! I—may I speak to you alone, Harry?’ Aunt Grace took the hint and vanished. Katie swung her chair around to face him.

‘All of this,’ she said slowly. ‘The chair, the room, the hospital—it’s all too much to ask. After all, I imposed myself on you by sheer coincidence. I don’t want to put you to such trouble. I think I had better go home.’ She sounded wistful, and could not help it.

He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and brushed the heavy curtain to one side. Without turning round he said, ‘I was afraid you’d feel that way. I found your home telephone number in your bag, and called your mother. We had a long talk—and then she had a longer talk with Aunt Grace, from which I was excluded. The result is, your mother wants you to stay. Your grandmother wants you to stay. Aunt Grace wants you to stay. And I want you to stay. After all, you wouldn’t be in this fix if it hadn’t been for my carelessness. And you can see it will be no trouble for us. I hired young Mary Sutmore from down by Tilson’s Mill way, to come in and do for us all.’ He paused for a moment, still staring out the window. ‘At least think it over for a day or two?’ He turned round to face her. She could see the look of intense concern on his face.

‘You said—you want me to stay?’ He nodded his head. ‘Well, I—I think—all right. At least, I’ll think it over. But I do have to go soon. Marion’s wedding is in—’

‘Three weeks,’ he said solemnly. ‘Not much time, but we’ll make do.’ The phrase rattled around in her tired head. We’ll make do? We’ll make do what? But the trip had been too much for her, and she dared not put the question.

The laughter had come back into his voice. ‘And now we’d better get you out of that chair and into bed. You
need
to have your foot up in the air. ’ Without waiting for
her
to comment he lifted her up and deposited her on the
bed.
‘And now I’ll help you into your nightgown.’

‘The devil you will,’ she said coldly. ‘That’s the quick
est
way I know to convince me I ought to leave for Ohio this minute, even if I have to walk.’

‘Spoilsport,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll call in the Ladies Bri
gade
and they’ll get you into a nightgown. By the way, I
put
the rest of your leaves in the bureau drawer.’

‘My leaves?’

‘Those things you were so keen about picking up on the mountain.’ And with that he disappeared round the half-opened door.

She laughed aloud, the first real mirth she had felt in four days. ‘Now, if I could only cast a spell. What the devil was it that Grandmother used to say? Sorrel soothes, sassafras is for sighs, indigo for injuries— whatever the devil was that recipe for love potion?’

So when Aunt Grace and Mary Sutmore came in to get her undressed and settled, she was giggling away as if hospitals and broken feet were the order of days past. When Mary brought her supper on a large tray, she was accompanied by the master himself, and life seemed almost worth living.

Little Jon came with the dessert. That is to say, they arrived at the same time. The little boy stood beside the bed and stared at her as if she were a stranger. Then, struck by some memory, he struggled up on to the bed, yelled ‘Birdie’ at her, and jumped into her arms. His gurgle was infectious. Kate laughed back at him, tickled his ribs, and told off both set of toes with ‘this little piggy’ before Harry put a stop to it all, and had him carried off for a bath and bed.

‘Well?’ he asked her, when Mary and the baby had gone. ‘Is this all satisfactory?’ Katie looked around the room. She was in a marvellously comfortable double bed, set against the wall where the sideboard had formerly stood. A huge mahogany bureau, which must have broken four strong backs on the way in, took up the other wall. A desk, two deep chairs, a footstool, and
a
small scatter-rug made up the rest of the furnishings.
It
all seemed to huddle in corners of the vast room.
‘I
wanted to keep the floor clear so you could use your chair,’ he added. ‘The bathroom’s through that door. We had to take the door off the bathroom so you could drive your chair through. I had them put a curtain up in its place.’