“How were you fellas going to care for Docey? Did you have a plan? She can’t travel like this, and it’s too cold for the baby to live in a tent.” A chill wind has come up and ripples the river.
“We didn’t know she was this close to term,” Will explains. “We just figured we’d lay up here for a few days, let Girlie rest, and then get on to Torrington to a church or someplace, find someone who would take care of her. Then this morning she started paining.”
I run over the options. They could stay here and try to keep warm. I could take the mother and babe up to our house . . . or . . .
Here Becky sticks her head out the flap and surprises me. “She can come home with me. I’ll take care of her until she gets on her feet.” She hands the lard and the unused rags out to the fathers. I know they aren’t really the fathers, but the beams on their mugs make me think of them that way.
Will stubs out his hand-rolled fag, saves the butt in a tobacco tin, and ties his knapsack closed.
“I’m going with her,” he tells me. “The other fellows will stay with our stuff. We don’t have much, but if we get robbed, we’ll be as miserable as sin.”
I look over at Becky. “No, you won’t,” she counters. “There’s only room for Docey and the baby.” The men are clearly disappointed. They hang their heads as if being told that their favorite grandmother has passed.
Becky shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says. “Really I am, but there’s just nowhere for you to stay. You can visit every day.” At that the men cheer up, and within an hour we have Docey and Hope up the hill and situated in the Ford. Becky gives the fellows her address and directions, and by late afternoon I’m on my bike crossing the bridge for home.
Will and the others stand and salute as I pedal past. These are good working fellows, I reflect, unemployed, down on their luck, not vagrants or bums, as some people call them. In my mind, Docey is Mary and they are the three Wise Men.
June 20, 1930. Moon obscured by the clouds.
Birth of baby Hope down by the riverside. The mother is Docey of Beckley, West Virginia. (Didn’t get the last name.)
I was called to a tent set up under the bridge by Becky Myers, the home health nurse. The patient had been crowning for hours, and the tissue around the vagina was swollen, thick, and red. With warm-water compresses and lard I was able to ease the baby out without a tear. Mother and infant were taken to Becky’s house. Present were myself, three traveling men that were camping with the girl, and Mrs. Myers. They told me that Docey, the mother, was escaping from an abusive husband and they had taken her under their wing. I fear she will have a hard go of it.
Hester
On my way home, bicycling down Salt Lick, I decide at the last minute to go by the vet’s. He gets around. Maybe he’ll know of some work. Except for the birth of the baby, and my few supplies, the coins I received at the courthouse, the day didn’t net much reward. While I’m at his house, I can also get a cold drink of water.
Noting his black Model T parked in the drive, I walk my bike across the wooden bridge. Under me, the north branch of Salt Lick gurgles over slate as smooth as a sidewalk. For a minute I think of removing my shoes and wading in the clear water. Skimmers float in the slow places. A minnow flashes, then disappears, but I remember I’m on a mission.
There’s no sign of the vet in the yard or the barn, so I approach the front door of his stone farmhouse. “Anyone home?” I knock at the back door, expecting it to swing open. No answer. I know he must be here, because his Ford’s in the drive . . . With my hand over my eyes, I scan the surrounding fenced meadows and then knock again, harder.
“Yeah?” comes a muffled voice from upstairs. Stepping off the back porch, I look up at an open window. “Mr. Hester?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Patience Murphy.”
“What do you want?” So curt. What’s up? The voice softens. “You having trouble with Star or Moonlight?”
“No. They’re okay. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why don’t you come down?” A silence follows, filled with ringing cicadas.
“I’ve been injured.”
“Can I come up?” More silence, as if he’s trying to decide how much of his private life he wants to reveal. We aren’t actually friends, though we’ve shared a few moments.
“Okay . . . the door’s unlocked.”
As I enter the kitchen, I note a sink full of dishes. There’s an unwashed milk bucket on the counter, and past the wall telephone I locate steep wooden stairs that lead to the second level. Just outside the room that I surmise must be his bedroom, I find a white porcelain potty with the lid off, full to the brim with dark yellow liquid. The smell is not good.
Without thinking I reach down, replace the lid, then tap twice and push the door open. Daniel Hester lies in a rumpled four-poster double bed, a three-day beard covering his bruised face. His left arm is in a sling, and one very purple bare leg and foot is supported on a feather pillow.
“Wow! You look like you got in a fight with a bull and the bull won!” I make a joke of it, but in truth I’m shocked.
Hester waves at a nearby chair and indicates that I should sit down. “I was in a fight, and you’re right, I did lose, but not with a bull.” He notices me staring at an unlabeled bottle of clear booze . . . gin, or maybe vodka . . .
“Pain medicine,” he excuses himself.
“What can I do?” I’d like to change his bedding, clean him up. Attend to his wounds. I was looking for a nursing job, but this isn’t for pay. He just looks so pitiful.
“Nothing. I’m okay.”
“Sure! You can’t even empty your own pee pot. What are you doing about milking?”
“Not much. I’ve milked once a day, and it took me an hour to get to the barn and back.” He coughs and holds his ribs on the side of his injured arm.
I shake my head. “What happened? You were kidding about the fight, right?”
Hester shakes his head no. “It was three fellows over near Burnt Town. You probably don’t know them, the Bishop brothers.”
I reach over to straighten Hester’s pillows, wrinkling my nose. He smells like sweat and something else, manure . . .
“So how did you get in this state? It must have been quite a battle.”
“I went over to attend their sick horse, and when I got there the three of them were two sheets to the wind. There are four brothers, really, all small farmers and moonshiners, but the one I usually deal with, the oldest, Aran”—he nods toward the bottle—“wasn’t there.