Chapter Twelve

posted by Cynthea McCoy -

I took a break from the garden, the greenhouses, and the fields of honeydew and corn and took Faith up on her offer to ride over to Baker City with me. We headed out on a hot day near the end of July. Heat on the desert doesn’t suffocate you like it does other places. It pulls the breath out of you by drying you up. It lays itself down on your head, melts the tar in the asphalt road and sends waves rising up to create miniature mirages in the dips of the road far off in the distance. Faith says it does that by bending sunlight like through a prism, it changes the way things look. I think there is some heat in my brain bending my mind, changing the way I see things.
 
     We didn’t drive out there blind. Before I set up the trip with Faith, I called directory services and got a number for the doctor. It turns out that the doctor has been dead for ten years, but his widow didn’t change the listing. She said she didn’t know if she could be of any help, but she had all the doctor’s old records and we could come if we wanted.
 
     We packed a cooler with food and juice, took our cameras, and Faith took a notebook. She wrote in the notebook every now and then as I drove, noting the presence of eagles, chickenhawks, a coyote slipping off into the sagebrush. Part way there we saw a scrub pine with pairs of shoes dangling from the branches. Hundreds of pairs. We stopped and took pictures. The sign at the bottom of the tree declared it to be a Pair Tree. We agreed that it was the best pair tree we’d ever seen. Faith said she was glad she’d lived long enough to see that. We were on Highway 26 planning to make a kind of circle and come back by way of Highway 20. Faith didn’t seem to be in any hurry to pass by the place where Rochelle died. It would have been fine with me to go both directions on 26, even if it meant a longer trip, yet Faith insisted we return by 20.
 
 
     The hospital where I was born is an apartment building now. The widow of Dr. James Wills lives on the first floor in the front. She owns the building and rents out the apartments. Mrs James Wills, I didn’t dare ask her first name, it was pretty clear from the way she introduced herself as “Dr Wills widow, Mrs. James Wills, that she had no intention of going all modern on us.
 
     Having Faith with me was an excellent move. I am convinced that Mrs Dr James Wills, was so friendly because this fine, respectable woman was at my side. ”I’m Faith Applegate,“ She said, extending her hand to the tiny, bent widow woman.
 
     The woman took Faith’s hand in her gnarled one and looked over at me. ”You must be the child who called me.“

 
     ”I’m,“ I started to say thirty-four, but thought better of it and said. ”Yes, I am.“ Rockie nodded her approval and patted me on the back.
 
     ”Well come on in then. I’ll show you where Doctor kept his records. I helped him with that, so I know where everything is. I don’t know that you will find what you are looking for.“ She led us through her living room and down a hall past her open bedroom door. A hooked rug on the floor, a homemade quilt on the bed. Everything faded and covered with a light veneer of dust. Desert homes always have dust, it can’t be helped. It seeps in through cracks so small you can’t imagine. Fine, powdery alkaline dust. Rockie lay on the old quilt and waved me on with that drifty smile she always gave me when she was being mysterious.