Cupid’s Confederates

“Nothing,” Bett agreed fervently.

“Your father loved sweet com,” Elizabeth said softly.

Bett gave her mother a hug as they walked along the tall rows of cornstalks. “He and Zach could go through a dozen ears at a sitting, couldn’t they?”

“Ruin the entire rest of my dinner, both of them.”

A slight breeze ruffled the tops of the cornstalks. Just the faintest smell of fall wafted through the air. The late afternoon sun spread a golden glow on the land, but it lacked the heavy heat of a summer day. Bett lifted her head once, certain she had heard a strange, discordant sound in the peaceful landscape, but she heard nothing more and returned to the task at hand. Ears of corn plopped one after another into the basket. What they couldn’t eat for dinner she would freeze.

“Brittany-” Her mother emerged from behind the second row. “Do you think we have enough? I-”

“Do you hear something?” Bett raised her head again. The breeze flowing through the orchards could produce strange whispers at times. But they were not near the orchards now, and she still kept hearing the same faint whimpers.

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know.” Bett stepped around the basket and out of the cornfield. She stopped, listening again.

“Brittany, there is absolutely nothing there. I swear, you were always the most fanciful child-”

Bett saw Billy suddenly, about a hundred yards away. Just a flash of orange T-shirt and jeans and his towhead, a glimpse of his wiry, thin body clambering up into a tree. Nothing unusual, yet she found herself taking a first step toward him, and then another.

“Where are you going?” Elizabeth demanded.

“I’ll be right back, Mom.” She took another quick step, then started running. The old apple tree he was climbing had to be a hundred years old and was mostly hollow. Not that Billy wasn’t as surefooted as a cat, but some instinct kept whispering to her that something was wrong. The towhead suddenly turned his head and saw her.

“Mrs. Monroe! Hurry!” The faintest glisten of tears in his eyes caught the sun. The child was so upset he could barely talk. “I saw her in the road, a mother raccoon. She’d been hit. I saw her when I was on my bike, and then when I put the pole in the water, I kept hearing them. Listen!” he said urgently.

She’d already heard, even if she could barely understand his incoherent speech. She was about to assure him calmly that it was simply too late in the year for newborn wild creatures, but there wasn’t much point in that. She could hear the weak mewlings, apparently coming from a high hollow branch. The creatures making those high- pitched whimpers had no interest in nature’s usual rules. They were clearly frantic for a mother who wasn’t coming back. “Honey, get down,” she ordered the boy.

“We have to get them!”

“And of course we will,” she promised, and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly once he was safely on level ground next to her. Helplessly, she stared up at the trunk and branches, aware that the old tree wouldn’t take the weight of a human being. “Billy, Mr. Monroe’s mowing in the orchard just by the house. You think you could take your bike and go flag him down for us?”

“Can’t we just get the babies ourselves?” Billy asked anxiously.

“We’ll try, but I-” She whirled, only to bump into her mother.

“Brittany! Are you completely out of your mind?”

“Mom.” Bett sighed. “Look, I’ll be right back. I’m going to get the truck.” She raced across the field and bolted into the front seat of the pickup, shoved the gear into Reverse, crossed her fingers in prayer for the radiator and slowly backed up to the base of the tree. Then she scrambled out of the cab, vaulted onto the truck bed and stared upward again. She could just reach the limb, but not into it. The whimpers above sounded desperately weak. There was nothing to see. No way to reach them; the tree, only half alive, wasn’t solid enough to climb.

“Thirteen shots. That’s what you get, thirteen shots in the stomach if a wild animal bites you,” Elizabeth warned.

“Now, take it easy, Mom,” she said absently. The tiny mewling cries were tearing at her heart. Grabbing a reasonably sturdy branch, she swung up one leg. The bark crumbled beneath her sneaker and suddenly she was swinging free. Dumb, Bett. She bit her lip, while her tennis shoe sought a foothold.

“You’re going to kill yourself. You’re going to kill yourself. Raccoons are rodents, for heaven’s sake-Zach!”

“I got him, Mrs. Monroe! Listen, I’ll take care of them, you know. My mom won’t mind. If you’ll just get them down, I promise you won’t have to do anything else. I’ll take them home and-”

“Zach, will you talk some sense into her? I swear, I can’t. I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous-”

Zach was over the side of the truck in one swift leap, his hands roughly snatching at Bett’s waist. She let go of the branch, sinking down to the stable truck bed again. Drawing a long, deep breath, she turned to face him, relieved he was there-at least until she saw the cold blue fury in his eyes. “You knew damn well that tree wouldn’t hold you,” he growled.

His tone stung like betrayal, as if he and her mother had formed an alliance against her. Bett went rigid. “Fine,” she said stiffly. “You are absolutely right. So is Mom. You two just go right back home and be sensible and reasonable-”

“Hold it, two bits.” For just an instant, his eyes pinned hers, a sky-blue, hypnotizing hold. Since when do you jump to conclusions where you and I are concerned? “Now, let’s just see,” he said quietly. He reached up, too, but could only get to the tip of the branch, not inside.

“Lift me onto your shoulders, then,” Bett suggested.

Zach shook his head. “Even baby raccoons can bite. And I’d rather put a hand in there myself than let you do it.”

“Don’t be silly, Zach. What’s the difference who gets bit, for heaven’s sake?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Billy chimed in from the ground.

“Except you,” Zach and Bett chorused simultaneously.

“I don’t believe this,” Elizabeth moaned distractedly. “You two cannot possibly be serious.” Her tone was lethal with disapproval. “You will both get down from there this instant and come in to dinner. I’ve never heard of such a thing! There must be thousands of raccoons in this country, all of them filthy rodents.” She turned to Billy. “Young man, you just go on home. Brittany and Zach…”

She sounded as if she were scolding a pair of teenagers. Zach glanced down at her in surprise. “Keep quiet for just a minute, would you, Liz?”

Elizabeth’s jaw dropped.

Zach turned back to Bett and rapidly tugged off his shirt. “You will be careful.” He knotted the shirt ends, making a kind of sling.

She grinned, moved behind him and shimmied up as far as his waist. Zach’s hands reached behind and cupped her buttocks. “Ready?”

“For heaven’s sake,” Elizabeth snapped.

Zach pushed Bett up the rest of the distance to his shoulders. From there she could peer into the hollow limb, and though she could see nothing, there was a sudden silence within. She smiled, humming unconsciously, very low, the same French refrain that won over her bees. The same seductive song that had wooed a fawn into their yard the winter before.

Zach kept a tight grip on her ankles as she leaned forward, her stomach pressing against the back of his head. Slowly, she reached in. Inside the darkened hollow, fur suddenly flew in frantic motion, but she captured a handful of hair and pulled the creature out.

The baby blinked in blind fury at the sun. It was so tiny it fit in the cradle of her palm, all black-rimmed eyes and more tail than body. Clutching it by the nape, Bett wasted only a second to glance at Zach. They exchanged identical smiles before she gently dropped the tiny weak bundle in his makeshift shirt sack.

Another one followed. The third tried to nip her; he got the chorus of the French love song. The fourth…for an instant, Bett paused, suspended, with her arm in the hollow of the tree, unable to move. The fourth baby was very soft, very furry…and totally cold and still.

“Are there any more?” Billy demanded anxiously from below.

She couldn’t seem to answer, any more than she could force her hand away from the tiny creature. So cold…