One Shenandoah Winter (19 page)

“Connie, you have more friends than anybody I have ever met.” He felt his heart go out to this strong handsome woman in her moment of weakness. “Look, why don't you and I go out for dinner?”

That brought a little choking laugh. “You must be kidding.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You want to take me out? After the way I've treated you?”

He smiled into the receiver. “I'd say we were running pretty tight for first place on that score.”

Connie murmured, “Goodness only knows I could use a night away from everything.”

By the time they had finished making plans, an idea had begun germinating in Nathan's mind. One that took him out of the clinic and started him through town. There were a number of places in Hillsboro which lay somewhere between a too-short drive and an over-long walk. He usually let him- self decide by whether he could tie the task in with others, so that he would stop several places along the way. Today, however, he just felt like walking.

The morning mist had not cleared with the day. Instead, the clouds had thickened until they rested like a dark gray ceiling over the entire valley. Hills rose to either side, locking the town in with brown-green walls. On such a day as this, Nathan could well understand the locals' desire to occasionally escape into the flatlands and the cities.

Season's greetings were called to him from almost every door along Main Street. Nathan did not stop, however. He had learned that the words were not demands, but rather invitations. It was his choice whether or not to respond.

There were signs of Christmas everywhere, from bunting strung along wires crossing Main Street to the plastic candy canes adorning telephone poles. Shop windows were framed in fake frosting, and displays held a seasonal motif. Yet it all lacked the overbearing quality of a big-city Christmas. The frenetic energy, the clamor to buy and do and rush and go, all of it was absent here. Nathan walked under the lowering sky, feeling at ease with himself and the place and the time.

He did not know when the change had started, but the evidence was everywhere. It could not be denied. Somehow Poppa Joe's illness had carried with it a healing of his own relations with the town and the folk.

It left him thinking back on their talk of several mornings ago. Nathan found himself wishing there were some way to unlock his stubborn resolve, release the mystery, and do what he knew the old man had requested. But a lifetime of fighting alone left him pounding a mental fist against a tightly locked door.

His way led him down to where Main Street made its northern connection with the county road. Allen Motors occupied the corner lot, anchoring the town to progress and the road ahead, just as the southern post was held by a company selling farm machinery. Fuller Allen's dealership also had the Esso franchise, and the agricultural place sold Sunoco.

“Well, hey, Doc!” The town's portly mayor stepped from the tiny glassed-in Ford showroom and came beaming over. “Just what I like to see, a customer arriving on foot.”

“I'm not a customer, and I'm on foot because I felt like walking.” But Nathan's tone lacked its former bite, and both men knew it. Nathan accepted the handshake. “How are you, Mayor?”

“Fuller's the name, and I'm fine as I can be in the middle of winter without a sale this week.” But his smile didn't slip.

“This a social call, or am I sick and don't know it yet?”

“You're fine, far as I know. I came to ask about Connie's truck, the Hudson Terraplane.”

The smile finally faded. “Come on around back.”

The three bays were all full. “Selling gas and servicing old cars, this is what we live from,” Fuller said as they entered the garage. “Folks 'round these parts don't buy a new car unless the last one has given up the ghost, rolled over, and begged for a decent burial.”

The mayor directed him over to what was probably intended as a spare-parts bay. “We've been tinkering on it a little now and then, mostly just so I wouldn't have to lie when I tell Connie we're doing all we can.” He stopped in front of the ancient truck. “Earl, come on over here a minute, will you?”

“Sure, boss.” The wrecker driver ambled over, gave Nathan a grease-stained wave. “How-do, Doc.”

“Doc here wants to know about Poppa Joe's truck.”

“Aw, there ain't much wrong with this thing except it's just done got old.” The man was all gangly angles and sharp edges. He leaned one blackened hand on the truck's fender and peered under the hood. “Reckon I'll be able to patch it together one more time.”

“Earl's been servicing this truck for, how long is it now?”

“Shoot, must be going on sixteen, seventeen years. Since my first winter on the job.” He gave the doc a gap-toothed grin. “Know this truck better'n I know my littlest one.”

“Earl's problem these days is parts.”

“Got me a feller down Roanoke way,” Earl agreed. “He's started making me parts by hand I can't find nowhere else. But he's getting on, and I don't know anywhere else to go.”

Fuller gave his jowls a somber shake. “Hate to be around whenever Connie hears Earl can't keep that truck on the road.”

Double page spread of
Truck in garage

Double page spread of
Truck in garage

“Lady's sure attached to this old heap,” Earl agreed. “Hate to tell you, but the end won't be long in coming.”

Nathan moved over to one side and inspected the vehicle. He found himself recalling earlier days, poring over truck books and magazines. His childhood hobby had later become his one escape from the world of medicine. “But is the chassis still sound?”

“Shoot. This here Hudson was made from the finest steel going. Solid as a rock.” Earl laid a possessive hand on the fender. “Connie's problem is money. She wants me to repair what's got it off the road, nothing more. I keep telling her she needs to take care of all the little things now.”

“Before it's too late,” Nathan agreed. Despite the double burdens of time and hard use, the old vehicle still held a gallant air. The Terraplane Pickup Express had been known from the beginning for its striking good looks. Both front and rear fenders were swept into long streamlined affairs. The front grill rose in what had once been known as a sunburst design, looking like something more at home on a racing sedan than a pickup. The front bumper was strongly veed, the doors were handcrafted steel and opened front-to-back.

Fuller moved up alongside him. “Sure is one impressive vehicle.”

“One of the finest ever made,” Nathan agreed. “An amazing design for its time, particularly since they launched it at the height of the Depression.”

The mechanic joined the mayor in staring at him. “You know something about trucks, Doc?”

“A little.” He pointed at the front assembly. “This was one of the first passenger vehicles ever to offer independent front suspension at no extra cost. Back then they called it Axle-Flex, and it made for a real improvement in the quality of ride. Individual seats with padded springs, another plus. Hudson also brought the instrument cluster in front of the driver. Most cars and virtually every other truck at that time had them over in the middle—easier to fit, but a lot harder for the driver to read.”

The mayor and the mechanic exchanged glances. Fuller said quietly, “Is that a fact?”

But Nathan did not take notice. “The engine displaced two hundred and twelve cubic inches in an L-shaped six-cylinder configuration. They doubled the size of the oil pump and pinned the piston rings. The only other car to use such a concept then was Rolls Royce. That design, plus roller cam tappets and a new crankshaft with eight integrally-cast counterweights, allowed them to up the compression ratio to six to one. That baby could generate eighty-five horsepower. Quite a lot for its day.”

Earl offered, “If this don't beat all, I don't know what does.”

Fuller shook his head. “You're one for the surprises, Doc.”

“I'll say.” Earl stared at him with something akin to awe. “Surely do wish I knew what you'd just said.”

Nathan focused on the two men. “Okay, this is what I want you to do. Start on a complete overhaul. Head to toe.”

The two men gaped at him. Fuller said, “Come again?”

“I want you to take it apart right down to the frame, replace everything that's the least bit worn, even the bolts.” Nathan felt as if he were organizing a surgical team. “I have some addresses of antique truck specialists. Call them, they'll find you what you need. But for starters, I want you to put in a completely rebuilt motor. Then do the shocks, electrical system, brakes, seat covers, the works.”

Fuller's gaze swiveled from the truck to the doctor and back again. “Do you have any idea how much that's gonna cost?”

Nathan could not help grinning. “No, but I'm sure you'll tell me.”

“Doc,” the mechanic shook his head. “I gotta tell you, it'd be a darn sight cheaper just to buy a new truck for the gal.”

“But it wouldn't be
this
truck. It wouldn't be Poppa Joe's.” He stared at the battered rusty heap. “Any idea what color it was?”

“I seem to recollect it being blue.” Earl's eyes were gradually igniting from the thought of what lay ahead. “Yeah, that's right. Had some kinda fancy name, but it was a deep sky blue.”

“Match it as best you can, all right? And send the bumpers and grillwork off to be regalvanized.” Nathan noticed the mayor did not share the mechanic's enthusiasm. “Don't worry, Fuller. I'll pay whatever it costs.”

“I'm not worried about that.” Fuller shook his head once more. “You sure got a way of shaming a man.”

“What are you talking about?”

“All this for a woman who's done rained fire and brimstone down on you since you got here.” The mayor was eyeing him curiously. “You sure got a funny way of paying back your enemies.”

“Connie's not an enemy. She's a fine woman.”

“Sure she is. But I never thought I'd hear you saying them words.” Fuller reached over and gripped his arm. “Don't worry about the cost. I think there's gonna be others who'll want to jump on this idea.”

“With both feet,” Earl agreed, reaching for his toolbox. “You wait until word gets 'round about this one.”

“I don't want word to get out,” Nathan protested. “I want Connie to be surprised.”

“Oh, she'll be surprised all right.” Earl's head disappeared under the hood. “Shocked right outta her socks, I warrant.”

“Come on, Doc. Let's leave the man to get started.”

“The name is Nathan.”

The mayor turned him around and guided him back outside. “Got to hand it to you, Nathan. This is gonna set the hens to clucking.” Fuller's smile was broader than ever. “You done good, son. Real good.”

Twenty-Two

T
he restaurant sat at the crest of a rise, so that it overlooked the Hillsboro valley on one side and Jonestown on the other. From their aerie perched high above the nightclad valleys, the towns looked like oddly matched twins. Yet only Jonestown was connected to the outside world by the thin concrete ribbon of a state highway. It was by far the larger of the two, a burgeoning little city with the clean rectangular shapes of new industry.

Connie followed Nathan's gaze through the tall windows that wrapped the entire way around their hilltop haven. “There but for the sake of a highway goes Hillsboro.”

“The town looks, well, successful.”

“It is. We're watching them saunter into a future that ought to be ours.”

“Hillsboro is a nice place, Connie.”

“Maybe so. But nice don't buy much in the way of groceries.” Yet there was a new softness to her gaze, and to her tone. “I can't thank you enough for inviting me up here tonight. I've spent all day thinking about how much I needed to get away.”

“Me too.” He refrained from saying how it had taken him a half-hour to choose a tie. “I can't remember the last time I went out to something that wasn't related to work.”

“Yes, so I've heard.” The gaze deepened, the sorrow was shared. “I want to tell you again just how sorry I am about, well, everything.”

Nathan started to respond with another apology of his own, but this time it was not enough. He sat up nearer the clouds than the towns and their earthly problems. Tonight was a time for opening up, for speaking without barriers. “For a while, the only defense I had against everything inside my head was rage.”

“I understand.”

It almost shocked him into stopping, how much empathy there was in her words and her eyes. But he had started, and now he wanted to finish. “The doctors at the clinic where I was treated after my breakdown, they said it was a natural part of the healing process. They said it would pass with time. I didn't believe them. I couldn't see how I could get out of something that had me so trapped.”

She watched him with eyes that drank in his words. “What trapped you, Nathan?”

“Looking back, I don't know where one started and the other ended. The rage was so much a part of my battle against the enemy. That's what I called it, you know. Cancer. The enemy. I suppose that sounds, well, crazy.”

“I don't think it's crazy at all. And not just because of Poppa Joe.” She took a breath then, and gave him the best smile she could manage. “There, I said his name and didn't burst into tears.”

“Do you want to talk about something else?”

“No. We'd just spend the night thinking about it. No. What I wanted to say was, I can't get over my visit to the hospital where you used to work. When I walked into the children's ward and saw those young kids lying there, I never knew I could hate anything as much as I did what was causing all those families pain.”