One Shenandoah Winter Read Free Page B

hurriedly, “The doctor whose place you’re taking should have retired years ago. He got to the stage where he wouldn’t let anyone touch a thing. After he died, we found records marked active for people who had died twenty years ago.”
    â€œBut why—”
    â€œBecause there wasn’t anybody else.” It was Brian who spoke up. “We’re desperate, Doctor Reynolds. I don’t know how else to describe our situation. We’re a proud people, and it costs us to have to admit it. But if we don’t get a doctor in here soon, well, I just don’t know what we’ll do.”
    Nathan Reynolds eased back another notch. “And you are?”
    â€œBrian Blackstone. I’m pastor of the local church.”
    â€œAll right.” The doctor had the ability to dominate a room by doing nothing more than crossing his arms. “I’m listening.”
    Brian took a breath. “The nearest hospital is sixty-four miles away, much of it over winding mountain roads. Our closest doctor is in Jonestown, that’s thirty-eight miles. We’re in the heart of the Appalachians here, and both towns are nightmare drives when the weather is bad. A lot of these local people simply won’t make the journey. They don’t trust doctors they don’t know, and they have an inbred terror of hospitals. So they just lie in their beds and suffer. And then they die.”
    Connie found herself swallowing on sudden grief. The pain of Brian’s role as pastor was there for all to see. She found herself adding, “Brian knows the road to Jonestown all too well. His baby’s in a bad way.”
    A change came over the doctor. One so sudden it caught them all off guard. The arms uncrossed, the tone switched from rage to intense concern. “What’s the problem?”
    Brian glanced at Connie, uncertain what to say. “She’s suffering in her stomach. She eats but can’t keep anything down. And she seems to be in terrible pain.”
    Connie felt the same anxiety she always did when thinking of Brian and Sadie. She could not look at Brian or his wife, or watch him preach, or hear his name spoken, without thinking of the little child. The baby vomited convulsively and screamed constantly. She looked so weak and helpless and tired and pained that Connie could not stand to be near her, for fear of staring young death in the face.
    The doctor gave a fraction of a nod. “Her age?”
    â€œF-four months.”
    â€œYou’re sure it’s not just an allergy?”
    â€œShe’s allergic to her mother’s milk, yes, but—”
    â€œDoes she spasm when she vomits?”
    â€œLike her whole little body is twisting with pain,” the pastor confirmed, aching with the words. “She can’t keep anything down.”
    â€œYou’ve tried different diets?”
    â€œWe went through a hard time finding a formula she could hold in even for a few minutes. The Jonestown doctor says she’s allergic to almost everything.”
    Another sharp nod, like the firing pin coming down on an armed gun. “That happens with some infants. They probably put her on paregoric.”
    â€œWhy, yes.” Brian glanced Connie’s way. “But it took the Jonestown doctor almost a month to come up with that one.”
    â€œAnd I suppose she went through a stable phase, except she was sleeping too much.”
    â€œWe had to shake her hard just to keep her awake to eat.”
    â€œThen started regurgitating again?”
    â€œExactly.” Brian swiped at his face. “She’s gotten back to how she was before, and it’s driving my wife crazy. We haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in six weeks. The baby just cries and—”
    â€œAny secondary infections?”
    â€œI don’t . . . She keeps rubbing at her ears.”
    â€œThat’s normal.” The words were cut and set with the precision of a machine