He ducked his head again, fingering the patch, and I watched the late sun run across the curve of his cheek, thinking what an odd conversation this was.
“Francher,’” I said, leaning forward impulsively, “do you ever wonder how come you can do the things you do?”
His eyes were quick on my face. “Do you ever wonder why you can’t do what you can’t do?”
I flushed and shifted my crutches. “I know why.”
“No, you don’t. You only know when your ‘can’t’ began. You don’t know the real why. Even your doctors don’t know all of it. Well, I don’t know the why of my ‘cans.’ I don’t even know the beginning of them, only that sometimes I feel a wave of something inside me that hollers to get out of all the ‘can’ts’ that are around me like you-can’t-do-this, you-can’t-do-that, and then I remember that I can.”
He flicked his fingers and my crutches stirred. They lifted and thudded softly down the steps and then up again to lean back in their accustomed place.
“Crutches can’t walk,” the Francher kid said. “But you-something besides your body musta got smashed in that wreck.”
“Everything got smashed,” I said bitterly, the cold horror of that night and all that followed choking my chest. “Everything ended-everything.”
“There aren’t any endings,” the Francher kid said. “Only new beginnings. When you going to get started?” Then he slouched away, his hands in his pockets, his head bent as he kicked a rock along the path. Bleakly I watched him go, trying to keep alive my flame of anger at him.
Well, the Lelands’ wall had to be rebuilt and it was the Francher kid who got the job. He toiled mightily, lifting the heavy stones and cracking his hands with the dehydrating effect of the mortar he used. Maybe the fence wasn’t as straight as it had been but it was repaired, and perhaps, I hoped, a stone had been set strongly somewhere in the Francher kid by this act of atonement. That he received pay for it didn’t detract too much from the act itself, especially considering the amount of pay and the fact that it all went in on the other reparation.
The appearance of two strange pigs in the Scudders’ east field created quite a stir, but the wonder of it was dulled by all the odd events preceding it. Mr. Scudder made inquiries but nothing ever came of them so he kept the pigs, and I made no inquiries but relaxed for a while about the Francher kid.
It was along about this time that a Dr. Curtis came to town briefly. Well, “came to town” is a euphemism. His car broke down on his way up into the hills, and he had to accept our hospitality until Bill Thurman could get around to finding a necessary part. He stayed at Somansons’ in a room opposite mine after Mrs. Somanson had frantically cleared it out, mostly by the simple expedient of shoving all the boxes and crates and odds and ends to the end of the hall and draping a tarp over them. Then she splashed water across the barely settled dust and mopped out the resultant mud, put a brick under one corner of the bed, made it up with two army-surplus mattresses, one sheet edged with crocheted lace and one of heavy unbleached muslin. She unearthed a pillow that fluffed beautifully but sighed itself to a wafer-thin odor of damp feathers at a touch, and topped the splendid whole with two hand-pieced hand-quilted quilts and a chenille spread with a Technicolor peacock flamboyantly dominating it.
“There,” she sighed, using her apron to dust the edge of the dresser where it showed along the edge of the dresser scarf, “I guess that’ll hold him.”
“I should hope so,” I smiled. “It’s probably the quickest room he’s ever had.”
“He’s lucky to have this at such short notice,” she said, turning the ragrug over so the burned place wouldn’t show.
“If it wasn’t that I had my eye on that new winter coat-“
Dr. Curtis was a very relaxing comfortable sort of fellow, and it seemed so good to have someone to talk to who cared to use words of more than two syllables. It wasn’t that the people in Willow Creek were ignorant, they just didn’t usually care to discuss three-syllable matters. I guess, besides the conversation, I was drawn to Dr. Curtis because he neither looked at my crutches nor not looked at them. It was pleasant except for the twinge of here’s-someone-who. has-never-known-me-without-them.
After supper that night we all sat around the massive oil burner in the front room and talked against the monotone background of the radio turned low. Of course the late shake-making events in the area were brought up. Dr. Curtis was most interested, especially in the rails that curled up into rosettes. Because he was a doctor and a stranger the group expected an explanation of these goings-on from him, or at least an educated guess.
“What do I think?” He leaned forward in the old rocker and rested his arms on his knees. “I think a lot of things happen that can’t be explained by our usual thought patterns, and once we get accustomed to certain patterns we find it very uncomfortable to break over into others. So maybe it’s just as well not to want an explanation.”
“Hmmm.” Ol’ Hank knocked the ashes out of his pipe into his hand and looked around for the wastebasket. “Neat way of saying you don’t know either. Think I’ll remember that. It might come in handy sometime. Well, g’night all.”
He glanced around hastily, dumped the ashes in the geranium pot and left, sucking on his empty pipe.
His departure was a signal for the others to drift off to bed at the wise hour of ten, but I was in no mood for wisdom, not of the early-to-bed type anyway.
“Then there is room in this life for inexplicables.” I pleated my skirt between my fingers and straightened it out again.
“It would be a poor lackluster sort of world if there weren’t,” the doctor said. “I used to rule out anything that I couldn’t explain but I got cured of that good one time.” He smiled reminiscently. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t. As I said, it can be mighty uncomfortable.”
“Yes,” I said impulsively. “Like hearing impossible music and sliding down moonbeams-” I felt my heart sink at the sudden blankness of his face. Oh, gee! Goofed again. He could talk glibly of inexplicables but he didn’t really believe in them. “And crutches that walk by themselves,” I rushed on rashly, “and autumn leaves that dance in the windless clearing-” I grasped my crutches and started blindly for the door. “And maybe someday if I’m a good girl and disbelieve enough I’ll walk again-“
” ‘And disbelieve enough’?” His words followed me. “Don’t you mean ‘believe enough’?”
“Don’t strain your pattern,” I called back. “It’s ‘disbelieve.’”
Of course I felt silly the next morning at the breakfast table, but Dr. Curtis didn’t refer to the conversation so I didn’t either. He was discussing renting a jeep for his hunting trip and leaving his car to be fixed.
