Sharyn McCrumb - Lovely In Her Bones

“No,” stammered Comfrey. “She’s just an old lady now, and I didn’t want to worry her-”

“I think she already knows,” said Milo grimly. “Let’s go!”

As they hurried out of the church, Dummyweed pulled at Comfrey’s sleeve. “Mr. Stecoah, since you guys aren’t Indians anyway, do you think I could join the tribe?” He thought it would be very good for the tourist trade.

MILO HAD RUN a hundred yards up the path before he realized that he was staking all his troops on one hunch. Suppose that Elizabeth had not gone to Amelanchier’s cabin? He could not afford to be wrong. He also realized that sending four men to confront a woman in her eighties was an embarrassing form of overkill. He motioned for the others to stop.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Jake, over the sound of Dummyweed’s gasping.

“I think we should split up, in case she went somewhere else. Why don’t you and Coltsfoot check the site?”

“Why should she go there?”

“I don’t know. To look for more evidence around the graves, maybe. Anyway, we ought to check it out.”

“What about you?” asked Jake, cutting his eyes toward Comfrey.

“I’ll risk it,” said Milo, catching his meaning. “If you don’t find her, come up to the cabin.”

As they drew nearer to the mountain clearing, Comfrey caught up with Milo and signaled for him to walk quietly. They went the next hundred yards in silence, easing from one point of cover to the next. Milo noticed that Comfrey had not brought his rifle.

“Why are we hiding?” he whispered. “Do you think she’d shoot us?”

Comfrey shrugged. “She’s an old woman. If she’s protecting our people, ain’t none of us safe up here.”

Milo was shocked. “But you’re her son!” he protested.“Couldn’t you pretend you’re up here on a friendly visit?”

“I don’t know how well she sees at this distance these days, and I ain’t about to bet my life that she’d recognize me. Especially if she’s already het up over something. I’ll do this my way, if it’s all the same to you.”

When they reached the sourwood tree at the edge of the clearing, Comfrey stopped, studying the cabin. “You wait here and watch me. If I get to the porch okay, I’ll give you a signal and you get up there as quick as you can.”

Milo tried again. “She’s a little old lady,” he said, feeling foolish. “Aren’t we overdoing this?”

Comfrey looked at him with a troubled expression that means that a mountain person is about to say straight out something difficult for him to express. He decided against it, though, grinned and answered: “Boy, you remind me of the fellow who mistook a coral snake for a scarlet king and died a wiser man. Now stay here and keep your head down!”

As he watched Comfrey creep through the fescue grass, Milo tried to view the whole thing as a scene from a war movie. He knew that if he let his mind dwell on Elizabeth, or on the possibility that they were too late, his reactions would be thrown off, which might undo any chance they had to save her. As if in slow motion, Comfrey passed the woodpile and the dogwood tree, until at last he reached the porch, mounting it not by the front steps, but by a practiced roll around one of the support posts. Milo, who expected to see him ease toward the window, was surprised to see him crawl toward the wooden door instead.

This guy really is a pro, he thought, when he realized how much safer it was to listen than to look. A moment later Comfrey gave him an okay sign of circled thumb and forefinger, motioning him forward.

“She’s alive,” thought Milo, darting from cover.

His next conscious moment was hitting the porch at a running jump while Comfrey kicked open the door to the cabin.

Milo saw the cramped room, its hand-hewn furniture wedged between cardboard boxes of letters from tourists and piles of packaged herbs. At a plank table in the middle of it all sat Elizabeth, sipping tea from an earthenware mug. When she saw Milo panting in the doorway, she raised her eyebrows, inquiring sweetly: “Return of the ogre?”

“Are you all right?” Milo blurted out before he realized that she obviously was.

“Certainly,” Elizabeth informed him. “Amelanchier and I were just talking about… herbs.”

Milo looked at the old woman, whose initial look of surprise had subsided into wariness. “How do, Comfrey,” she said crisply.

“We got to talk, Mom,” he muttered.

“I reckon you should have thought of that some time back,” his mother remarked. “Bit late in the day for it now.”

Elizabeth set down her mug, sloshing a bit of tea on the table. “By the way, Milo, you were right about the measurements. I did them wrong.”

Milo glanced uneasily at Amelanchier. He didn’t see a weapon, but anything could be concealed in the clutter of the room. “We’ll talk about that later. You have to leave now.”

“What’s your hurry?” asked Amelanchier genially. “Stay to tea?”

“What?” asked Elizabeth. She kept shaking her head as if she were drowsy. “Why do I have to leave now, Bill?”

Comfrey glanced at her, then back at his mother. “I believe I’ll have a sip of that tea,” he remarked.

“I’ll fix you a cup, son.”

Comfrey picked up Elizabeth’s mug. “This’ll do me,” he said, sipping it.

Milo stiffened. “Is it poison?”

“The question is, with what?” grunted Comfrey. “I’d say foxglove, offhand.”

Elizabeth laughed, a faraway sound which seemed to echo back through her ears. “Don’t be silly! Wise Woman’s my friend… why poison me?”

If there was a reply to this question, Elizabeth did not hear it. She had slumped unconscious to the floor.

Comfrey Stecoah faced his mother with weary resignation. “Mo- ther ! ”

The succeeding hours were much easier on Elizabeth, who slept through them all, than on Milo, who did not. They had wasted precious time explaining the political nuances of the situation to Amelanchier’s satisfaction, so that she would tell them which poison had been placed in Elizabeth’s drink. That being accomplished, she had thrown in at no extra charge her opinion that they had about half an hour to get Elizabeth to a hospital if they reckoned to save her. It had taken thirty-eight minutes to get her there, even with Comfrey taking the winding roads at speeds Milo seldom tried on straightaways. After the breakneck speed of the first thirty-eight minutes, time slowed down for Milo into a malicious compensation of relative motion, in which seconds could be whiled away like afternoons, and minutes were enough time to read innumerable back issues of National Geographic. He waited; filled out forms for the gorgon at the front desk; called Bill; waited; drank seven cups of coffee; waited; talked to Pilot Barnes; waited. At last, someone wearing hospital greens and an expression of authority appeared in the waiting room and said that Elizabeth was sleeping, that her vital signs were stable, that she had come through the treatment as one would expect someone her age to. Milo waited for him to say flatly that she was going to live, but that, it seemed, was not done. “We’ll be able to tell for sure tomorrow,” was the best answer he could get. Milo wouldn’t leave. Jake appeared with a couple of hamburgers, which Milo may or may not have eaten. He didn’t know. He was glad to be able to sit there all night, awake, as if by doing so he was earning her recovery. And, if the worst should happen and she did not recover, at least he would be spared the guilt he had felt over Alex, the feeling of not having tried to make him live. Of course, he knew how silly he would feel about all of it later.