Deep in the Valley (4 page)

“Burt, don’t you think there’s something wrong with living in a place where people know what you’re eating for dinner?”

Burt grinned and popped four dinner rolls into a white bag. “Naw, honey, I don’t worry about that. I take comfort in it.” He handed her the bag and she reluctantly smiled, but she did not go for her purse. Damned if she’d take his bull and pay him for it, too. “What I think is worrisome is running around naked in front of strangers,” he stated. Then he laughed so hard a little tear gathered at the corner of his right eye.

June snatched the bag out his hand. She gave him a warning glare as she left, but she could hear his laughter long after the bakery door closed behind her. She got into her Jeep. “Serve him right if he popped a vessel,” she said to herself, and headed for the gas station.

The garage door was down and the shade on the window at half-mast. June pumped the gas herself, and while her tank filled, she thought about the situation.
This
was going to change. People were moving to the valley and they didn’t understand these old ways. The station was Sam Cussler’s and he worked when it suited him and fished when he wanted to. He might have locked the station, but then again, it might be open. Since people were driving more foreign cars, Sam was doing less mechanical work. The pumps were left running, and if you needed gas, you pumped it yourself, then scribbled the amount you took on a slip of paper and stuffed it in a box with a slot that hung on the post by the pump. Once in a while, probably when he needed bait, Sam would go around and collect.

“Hey, young woman,” he called, coming out the side door with a tackle box and fishing pole. “You caught me. I was just slipping away.”

“I didn’t see your truck,” June said.

“I gave it to George’s boy to run some errands.”

“You want a lift to the river?” she asked.

“Naw. I’m gonna worry Windle Stream, right back of Fuller’s Café. I don’t know if I’ll catch anything, but I’ll avoid work, which is my main occupation. Heard you got yourself caught naked by some family from back in Shell Mountain. Some people George sent out to your place.”

Sam Cussler was a good-natured man, with a deep tan, pink cheeks and twinkling eyes, a full head of lush white hair and a thick white beard. If he were round, he’d resemble Santa, but though he was probably seventy, he had the physique of a much younger man—tall frame, muscled arms, flat stomach. All those years of hefting auto parts and casting fishing line, no doubt. He was vigorous and healthy and his blue eyes shamed Paul Newman.

“That’s pretty much the story,” June said.

“What would we do without old George?” Sam asked.

“We almost had a chance to find out. I gave serious thought to killing him.” She reached into the truck and got out her purse while Sam stopped the pump for her. She pulled out a twenty and handed it to him. The price on the pump was 16.78. He removed a wad the size of a large orange from his pocket and peeled off four ones. She saw him pass by twenties, fifties, tens, fives.

“It’s your lucky day…I’m running a special,” he said, giving her more change than she had coming. He obviously didn’t want to count out silver.

“Sam, you shouldn’t carry around all that money,” she said. “At least, don’t pull it out and count it off for customers. What if someone robs you?”

“I don’t worry about that much,” he said.

“You should,” she said, getting into her Jeep. “This town is growing. And changing.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, June. In fact, I’ll think about that while I’m fishing. I was just looking for a subject to think about today.”

Myrna lived in what Grace Valley residents considered the Hudson family home. Grandpa Hudson had made his money in mining and banking, married a young woman late in life and migrated up to Grace Valley when his baby daughter, Myrna Mae, was born. Twelve years later Elmer came along, and by then Grandpa Hudson was well into his sixties. Yet it was his young wife who died, at only thirty-four. That left Myrna, aged fourteen, and Elmer, aged two, and their daddy, facing his seventieth birthday. But he didn’t quite make it.

As things often went back then, Myrna raised her brother in the house that was their parents’, even though she was a mere girl herself. She was completely devoted to Elmer, saw to his education, judiciously guarded the money that was left to them, invested with caution, kept the house clean and in good repair, and never gave a thought to herself or her own needs until Elmer was a certified doctor and married to June’s mother—all of which came when Elmer was in his thirties and Myrna in her forties.

Remarkably, Myrna let go of Elmer with grace and
pride. It wasn’t until then that she married Morton Claypool, a traveling salesman, with whom she had seventeen good years before she “misplaced” him. Her word. The whole story of that was yet to be revealed, but town gossip ranged from him having another family somewhere, to whom he returned, to him lying stiff and cold under Hudson House. Myrna, June believed, relished the mysteriousness this part of her life presented to the town. And in her own way, she encouraged the rumors.

All those years—from the time she was a teenager, and like a single mother, through her marriage to a traveling salesman—Myrna was sustained by books. Then sometime in her early fifties, she began writing fiction—gothics, mysteries, romances, sagas. She wrote while Morton traveled, and she sold her work almost immediately. When Morton didn’t return after one of his many trips, Myrna barely seemed to notice. In fact, the stories were getting racier, and definitely more grisly. In one, a wife traveled to a small, distant town to hunt for her missing husband, who was buried in another woman’s backyard. In another, when a woman’s cheating husband came home, she killed him and sealed him behind a closet wall. These were not uncommon themes. People whispered, but they loved her.

The Hudson family home wasn’t really a mansion, but it had that Victorian, gabled look about it. And it had been built in the early part of the century. Elmer had never been interested in living there once he had a wife and medical practice, and then a child. It was natural for him to move into the simple but homey
doctor’s house. June, however, had loved to visit Myrna when she was little. The nooks, crannies, closets, pantries, cellar and attic of her house were priceless. Myrna had never discarded a thing; every room was a treasure, an adventure.

When June pulled up to the house, she saw from the car parked out front that one of the Barstow sisters was there. Some years back, when Myrna began to lose some of her physical stamina, she’d hired the Barstow twins, Amelia and Endeara, as maids and cooks. One at a time they came, almost every day. June wasn’t sure Myrna needed them so much as looked after them. The Barstows, cranky, bitter old women, had no source of income and couldn’t get along with anyone besides Myrna—including each other.

Not surprisingly, it was Myrna who answered the door. “Thank goodness you have your clothes on,” she said.

“I’m going to kill my father.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, he’s finally got a story. He hasn’t had a good one in weeks.”

“It’s not so much fun when the joke’s on you.”

“Didn’t
you
tell anyone?”

“No,” June lied. It was as safe a lie as she could ever tell because Tom Toopeek would have his tongue cut out before he’d pass along gossip. “I wouldn’t have told Elmer, but in the shock of the moment I was caught off guard. The old blabbermouth.”

“It must have been quite a sight.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“Well, don’t fret on it, dear. Come in. Amelia has made potato soup and I want to try a new book idea out on you.”

Aha, June thought. That explained these frequent calls lately. Myrna had been building up to a new book.

“In this one,” she said, “I think I’ll focus mainly on dismemberment.”

D
r. John Stone was almost painfully handsome. He was six feet tall, had a thick crop of Robert Redford blond hair, clear blue eyes, a solid physique and a kick-ass smile. In addition to that, his attire of thin wool pants, Armani shirt, Versace tie and Italian loafers was worth more than June’s May wardrobe. A smile came to her lips as she wondered how he would be regarded if he had to make a run out to a logging site.

They sat in her clinic office. She, behind the desk. The Boss.

“Why Grace Valley?” she asked.

“Peace and quiet for my family. Safety, wholesomeness, beauty. Just the air up here is going to make a difference. My six-year-old daughter—she’s a little wheezy. Might be pre-asthmatic.”

“Well, it’s peaceful and quiet for some of the community, but it can get a little hectic for the doctor. Why, just this morning—” June stopped herself suddenly. If she was going to get miffed at Elmer for spreading tales, she’d have to keep her own mouth shut.

“I heard you were surprised by a family from back in the mountains. They let themselves into your house? At the crack of dawn? And you were in your…what was it? Your underwear or something?”

Her mouth hung open in wonder.

“I had lunch at the café before coming over.” He shrugged. “I hope I didn’t offend….”

She shook it off. “It was a towel, actually.”

“Oh brother,” he said, self-consciously trying to cover his twitching mouth with a hand. “I mean…”

“That’s a good place to start this discussion. Country doctoring is crazy sometimes. Rough and inconvenient and unpredictable. If they don’t come to your house and catch you getting out of the shower, they’ll flag you down at a crossroads and ask you to look at a swollen ankle, or catch you in the bakery and ask if their rash looks like it’s getting better. That doesn’t even touch the accidents—falls, fishhooks, large animal mishaps, car wrecks and shootings.”

“Shootings?”

“Not what you’re used to, I’m sure. Ninety-five percent of the residents here have guns. Plural. They hunt, seasonal or not, shoot trespassers, euthanize animals and have accidents. It can make an ER residency in Oakland look tame.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “What do you do when you’re overwhelmed? It’s just you, isn’t it?”

“Most of the time. My dad is a physician. He practiced out of the house I grew up in. He’s been retired about two years now, but he’s still in here every week. Sometimes he’s invited, sometimes he just shows up and sometimes I have to call begging. And there are
other doctors around. Northern California is peppered with hundreds of little towns, and we have to help each other when there’s need.

“But how can I make you understand, Dr. Stone, that much of what I do for this town, much of what I consider my obligation, isn’t solely medical. I have a pantry full of food staples and a closet full of clean clothes. I keep an impressive supply of pharmaceuticals on hand, and a lot of that I pay for myself when I can’t get some church or charity group to help out. I keep blood in the refrigerator, infant formula in the broom closet. I use the sheriff’s office to help with pickup and delivery, patient transport and emergency assistance. I have a key to the café in case I need a large supply of ice when they’re closed. And sometimes it’s really hard to draw an income. I mean, the state and county will help with indigent patients, but in order to process that, you need the patient to fill out forms.” She shrugged. “Fortunately I have a good working relationship with the local agencies. But more often, I just get paid in eggs.” She smiled. “They’re the best eggs in the west, of course.”

He listened so raptly it was easy to surmise his captivation. Or perhaps it was the look of a doctor having second thoughts….

“You’ve had a very impressive education, and come from a big-city practice,” she continued. “You might think you want to be a country doctor, but your reality might be skewed by Andy of Mayberry reruns. It’s a lovely life here, but not always a simple one. At least not for the doctor.

“For me it’s different. I grew up in the town doctor’s
house. I was coloring on the floor in the corner of his examining room while he was setting a tibia. I saw my first home birth when I was seven. And though my mother tried to intercede, I rode along on more emergencies than she thought was prudent. But I was raised by this town. When your dad is the town doctor, you see every citizen in your home at one time or another. And you end up visiting every one of them in theirs.”

She stopped for a moment, trying to judge the rather awed expression on his face.

“It isn’t my intention to scare you away. I just want to be sure you make an informed decision. I think you might be right for us, and there’s no question we need your skills here. But are we right for you?”

“You haven’t scared me,” he said, relaxing into a smile. “I know a little bit about small town medicine. I paid off some of med school by working on a reservation in Arizona. Federal grant.”

“Oh,” she said weakly. “Now I’m a little embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. I purposely didn’t put it on my résumé.”

“Because…?”

He shrugged. “It really wasn’t what it might appear….”

“I…I don’t think I understand.”

“I’m not so noble. I needed money. It was a contract I made with the government. Med school for rural medicine. I borrowed money to pay off the grant so I could leave the reservation early and get into private practice.”

“I see. So you don’t much like—”

“The desert.”

“Is that
all
that drove you out of the program?”

“I was twenty-eight and more interested in a new car than serving mankind. Or in my case, womankind. I understand there will be poor areas here.”

“Profoundly poor, Dr. Stone. Mostly in the outer, more rural and mountainous areas, although we have some people of very humble means right here in town. There are families who rely on me who can barely feed themselves…and we can have some very rough, lean winters for people who build and log and farm. So…what makes you think you could survive this?”

“Two things. I’m ready for a different kind of medicine now. And…I don’t need the money anymore.”

“I see.” She thought a minute. Regardless of his qualifications, which were stellar, it was imperative that she be convinced he knew what he was getting himself into—and that it appealed to him. This practice wouldn’t buy him any more Armani suits. “Tell me something, Dr. Stone. Why did you look so shocked when I described my work in this town?”

“It wasn’t shock, it was fascination. Respect. I’ve never heard a doctor—anyone, for that matter—describe their work or their people or their life with such affection and pride. It was there even when you were talking about the most unappealing aspects of your role. You don’t just do your work, you live your work. You
are
your work.” He shook his head as he considered this. “I might as well have been listening to you sing.”

“Why…thank you. That’s quite a compliment.” He’s trying to get hired, she thought.

“You make even the inconvenience sound romantic.”

“It can be a pretty strenuous routine for someone who ‘doesn’t need the money.’”

“You think I can’t pull my weight?” he asked. “Just give me a go. I’m not over the hill yet.”

He hasn’t even
seen
the hill, she thought. How would the simpler people of Grace Valley view the pleats in his pants and the tassels on his shoes? He might be too much for them. “Maybe we should have a trial run?” she suggested. “A three-month contract?”

“How about six? I grow on people.”

“Well…I’d like to—”

“This is your clinic. I’m not going to hang around if you don’t want me, but I’m no one-night stand. I’d like to start off by feeling—”

He was cut off as the door flew open and Charlotte filled the frame. “Julianna Dickson just called and said she’s feeling strange.”

June popped to her feet. “Damn!” She tugged off her white coat.

“I told her to stand on her head, pant through the mouth like a puppy and keep her legs closed,” the nurse continued.

“Good. Get me a couple bags of O-neg!”

“Jessie’s settin’ you up.”

“Come on, Dr. Stone,” June said. “This should be right up your alley. Julianna is on baby number five, and between my dad and me, we’ve never witnessed a birth.” She grabbed her bag and headed for the back door. She glanced at his fancy, shiny shoes as she kicked off her clogs and stepped into her boots. “I don’t suppose you have any old shoes in your car?”

“No, why?”

“It’s been a very wet spring. Some of the driveways around here don’t qualify as driveways anymore.” Jessica ran down the clinic hall with a small cooler containing two bags of blood. June grabbed the handle and bolted for her Jeep. To her surprise and approval, Dr. Stone kept up with her and jumped into the passenger seat. June peeled out.

“I was going to get ahead of her this time,” she told him as they barreled down the road. “Get her in the hospital and induce labor. She’s about three weeks early.”

“Does she usually hemorrhage?”

“She has twice.”

“What about paramedics?”

“That’s the other thing about small towns. We’re very spread out. Plus Grace Valley sits on the juncture of three counties—you’re going to have to get your degree in geography before you go out on house calls. You don’t want to go out to a farm or logging site and waste a lot of time calling the wrong rescue team or police department.”

She drove with one hand and picked up the mike of her radio. “Charlotte, you there?”

“Right here,” it crackled back.

“I want you to stand by for a call for the ambulance. I’m on the beeper, but I saw my dad’s truck at the café if you have anything special.”

“He’s already here. Saw you speed out of town and couldn’t stand to mind his own affairs.”

“You tell him his meat loaf is riding on Julianna’s efficiency.”

June replaced the mike and said to John, “We all have pagers and cell phones, but with the tall trees and mountains, it’s easy to be out of range. The radio is the best emergency tool we have. If you decide to work here, you’ll have to get one.”

“Don’t you have a midwife around here?”

“No, but we could sure use one. We have an unlicensed woman down in Colby. She does a pretty good job and takes care of a lot of women, but I have to work with her on the sly or the state board will get all up in arms. Honestly, they do so little to help us function out here. All we really want is the best medical care available, and if that’s an unlicensed midwife, it’s better than a squat in the fields. But the city docs are regulation crazy.”

He laughed. “Those doggone city docs!” His glassy-eyed look suggested he wondered just who was crazy. And he hung on for dear life while June rounded the curves.

June pulled off the road and headed down what appeared to be an overgrown path, the space between the trees narrow and dark. “There’s a back way into their orchard. I called Mike Dickson two weeks ago and told him he’d better make sure it’s cleared, what with his wife being pregnant.” They bounced over a deep rut and John hit his head on the roof of the Jeep.

“Ouch! And this is cleared?”

“Ah!” she said, breaking through the forest into the orchard, then maneuvering wildly among the trees. “Here we go! The Dicksons are the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Big, happy family, hard-working folks, and their orchard’s been in the money since the first tree
gave fruit, I think. If you ever need anything, for any reason, you can count on Mike and Julianna Dickson.” June came around the back of the house and pulled in front, stopping suddenly behind a tractor. “You understand, you’re on your own.”

Before he could reply, she was gone—out of the Jeep, up the porch steps, kicking off her muddy boots and running into the house at breakneck speed in her stocking feet. John was stranded up to his ankles in mud. Wet spring, she had said.

Mike Dickson’s mother was quietly tending small children in the front room, but June whizzed past without even the formality of a hello. She knew where to find Julianna—in the downstairs bedroom with her young husband at her side.

“Sometimes I feel so left out,” June complained as she snapped on rubber gloves. Julianna’s knees were raised under the bedsheet and Mike sat beside her, holding her hand. Fresh towels had been laid out; Mike had delivered all his own children—though not by plan—and knew what to expect.

“I tried to wait,” Julianna breathlessly replied.

June threw back the sheet and took her place between Julianna’s raised knees. “There’s a doctor with me, Julianna. He’s an OB, so don’t get nervous when you see him. Thinking of coming here to— Oh my! Hello, baby. Please don’t push, darling. Please, please, please.” She ran her gloved fingers around the crowning head. “Let’s see if we can let him come slowly, so I can watch that cord….”

John Stone was suddenly beside her, helping himself to gloves from her bag, snapping them on and looking at
the crowning head with an expression that could only be described as satisfaction. The first thing he said was, “John Stone, how do you do.” The second thing was, “Ah, yes.”

John plucked a clamp out of June’s bag, draped a clean towel over one arm, leaned into the field of birth and said, “Let’s do it!”

Before June could concur, Julianna brought out the baby. First came the head, after which June yelled, “Stop!” When she’d checked the neck for a cord and uttered a quiet, “Okay,” the baby was born in one swoosh. John clamped the cord and held out the towel. June wrapped the baby and turned him over, gently rubbing his back. Cries filled the room at once; no suction was necessary.

“I’ll be a son of a gun!” John said. He made eye contact with Julianna, grinned his biggest grin and said, “You’re almost as good at this as me! Big, fat boy!”

He actually nudged June back a bit so he could have a better look at the birth canal. He massaged Julianna’s lower abdomen. “You’re doing great,” he said. “Excellent. You’re in such fabulous condition. With such a fast birth, you’d expect slack muscle tone, but you’re fit as a boxer.”

“Floor scrubbing,” she said. “My mama said floor scrubbing on your hands and knees brought babies easier.”