Cupid’s Confederates

Chapter 7

Bett viewed the tiny hole in the truck’s radiator with a scowl. Radiator holes were high on the list of last-things-she-needed on that particular afternoon. How had the branch managed to poke all the way up there, anyway?”

“Brittany, what on earth are you doing?”

“Just take it easy, Mom.” Bett swung back into the driver’s seat and leaned over to open the glove compartment. “I promised you we’d have sweet corn for dinner, and we will.” Sorting through a mélange of screwdrivers and maps, she finally found an unopened package of gum. Popping three sticks in her mouth, she started chewing vigorously. The gum, naturally, was stale.

Elizabeth regarded the wad in her daughter’s cheek with a scandalized expression, and then sighed. An “I have come to the end of my rope and I guess you have, too” sort of sigh. Elizabeth stared out the window, dressed for the corn-picking outing in purple slacks, a ruffled pink blouse and the ubiquitous pink tennis shoes.

After their earlier excursion into town, Bett had changed into a disreputable pair of jeans with a hole in the thigh, old sneaks and a red crinkly cotton blouse that was disgracefully faded, and one of her favorites.

She continued to chew.

This morning, her mother, trying to help, had gotten rid of the patch of weeds growing at the corner of the house. Bett’s prize herbs, those weeds. Later in the morning, Elizabeth had announced her intention of going into town to buy a carpet for the green room. A white carpet was what she had in mind. White carpeting and Bett’s housekeeping formed a combination that was never going to work, nor did Bett want her mother buying anything like that for her. Moreover, a white carpet and children didn’t seem to be a good blend-not the way Bett had in mind to raise children.

The two women had come home from shopping four hours later. Elizabeth was frazzled and visibly upset with her daughter; Bett was keeping a very, very tight rein on her patience.

Finally, the sugar was all out of the gum. Bett popped the wad on her finger, leaped down from the truck again and leaned over the radiator. The thing was cool, or cool enough. They were within a quarter of a mile of the house. She removed the rag that had temporarily slowed the leak and jammed the gum in its place. The leak stopped. Elizabeth was peering at her from the open window.

“I don’t believe you just did that.”

“Zach’ll do the permanent fix when we get home, but this will get us there,” Bett promised.

“I never heard of such a thing!”

“Zach will be mad as a hornet,” Bett said glumly.

“He should be. Women in my day and age wouldn’t have anything to do with that sort of mechanics.”

Bett sighed, wiping her hand on the rag as she returned to the truck. “Zach will be mad because I found the only straggly branch in the entire orchard to run over and get stuck in there.”

Elizabeth looked startled. “He shouldn’t be mad about that. It was an accident.”

“But this pickup is accident-prone. I think it’s losing its will to live,” Bett said dryly. “Nasty thing. It knows we need it to last one more year before we can replace it.”

“There’d hardly be a worry about replacing it if Zach were working in a law office right now-and you could be at home, not working at all. Having children. I keep waiting for both of you to regain your senses.”

She just wasn’t going to let up, Bett thought wearily. Her mother, to be honest, rarely got into such a relentless mood. Bett knew well that Elizabeth would be perfectly happy right now if a roll of white carpet were sitting up in the spare bedroom, ready to be laid down. It wasn’t just her reaction to Bett trying to put her foot down tactfully but firmly. It was coming home from shopping empty-handed. To Elizabeth there was no greater sacrilege.

Bett turned down the dirt road that separated the pond from the garden, absently noting young Billy Oaks’s bike shoved up against a tree. There was no sign of the boy, but she knew the pond was his favorite haunt in the summertime and after school. It made her a little nervous. Billy could swim well and had his parents’ permission to come here, but she still felt uneasy at the thought of the child alone near the pond.

“I will never understand why you put the garden so far from the house,” Elizabeth said as she got out of the truck and straightened the ruffles on her blouse.

“Irrigation, Mom. It was closer to water here. We could just pipe it in from the pond.”

“I suppose so.” Both of them reached into the back for the bushel baskets Bett had brought, and suddenly, for the first time all day, they were smiling at each other. “There is nothing better,” Elizabeth admitted, “than the thought of fresh sweet corn dripping with butter.”

“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… Helplessly, she blinked back tears. Zach, being Zach, picked up on her feelings before she had to say a word. “Leave it, babe,” he whispered roughly. “Think of the ones with life.”

She took a breath, and pulled her arm free from the hollow. A moment later, she had shimmied back down to the truck bed, cradling the sack of squirming bodies to her breast. Zach jumped down from the back of the pickup, and then reached back to help her.

“Now, I know you’re not going to take them back to the house,” Elizabeth said frantically.

Zach supervised the loading of one bike, one boy, two women and three raccoons into the truck, but his eyes rested thoughtfully on his mother-in-law.

They didn’t want food, the little raccoons. They were too exhausted and weak from crying for their mother, and the warm, diluted liquid Bett offered them from an eyedropper tasted nothing like their natural mother’s nursing milk.

“So we’ll have to force it,” Zach said patiently. He was on the kitchen floor next to her, both with their backs resting against the kitchen counter. A bowl of warm milk was on the floor between them. The three babies were swaddled in warm towels, so that only those big ringed eyes and tiny mouths peeked out.

Billy had just left, most reluctantly, after a fairly lengthy phone conversation with his mother. Mrs. Oaks had warmly agreed that Billy could raise the raccoons-but only if he promptly came home to dinner, and only when the Monroes had approved their “release.” Zach hadn’t done that instantly, to Billy’s disappointment. Very gently, he’d explained to the boy that he knew Billy would take good care of them, but not to get up his hopes quite yet. The chances of the wild babies surviving the night simply were not high. If they were sure the creatures would live, they would be happy to give them up to Billy’s care. Bett heard Zach’s gentle but firm warning-and knew it was only half for the boy. He was looking at her.

Biting her lip, Bett pried open the first reluctant mouth and forced an eyedropper of milk down its throat. The vise closed again; she had to force it a second time. Suddenly, those big eyes blinked open, unseeing in the way of the very young, and one paw with ridiculously huge claws made its way to the top of the towel.

“One more little bit?” Bett coaxed. She started humming again. The little one took one more eyedropper full, then Bett laid the towel-wrapped bundle on the warmth of her lap and picked up the second raccoon.

“Bett,” Zach said quietly, “don’t count on it too much.”

But she was counting on it. “If we can keep them alive and eating through the night, they’ll be stronger in the morning.”

After that they exchanged warm towels for more warm towels and fed them again. And did all of that again. With the baby that seemed weakest, Bett stripped away its towel and held it close to her body, cradling it to her own warmth.

At midnight, they were still in the kitchen. “You know, your mother,” Zach mentioned absently, “was really furious with you.”

“I know.”

“To begin with, she’s not a farm woman. Those were honest fears of rabies dancing in her head. A lot of that anger was concern for you.”

Bett leaned her head back against the counter. “Zach, I know that.”

“I haven’t seen one tear out of her since she’s been here. She is happier, Bett. It’s all your doing.” Their eyes met. “And she doesn’t understand the simplest thing about you, does she?” he asked quietly. “Your feeling for animals, two bits. How could she not know of your feeling for animals?”

Bett didn’t know what to say. Her hair brushed her cheek as she bent her head, stroking the soft creatures in her arms. “I care a lot about her, you know. All she’s ever wanted is a daughter to share the things that are important to her. And because I have different values, she seems to feel that I’m rejecting hers. So she…tries to push her own on me. I really do understand.” Bett shook her head absently. “That’s just it, you see. I do understand. The failure’s mine that the closeness isn’t there. It always has been.”

Zach’s jaw hardened. He was seeing the faint violet shadows beneath his wife’s eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. Failure? Bett was a failure at nothing, beyond occasionally trying to be too many things to too many people. He hesitated, his instinct to quickly reassure her frustrated by a new awareness that Bett must have harbored those feelings for a long time. Quick words weren’t appropriate. He wanted to think, and Bett was so tired she could barely sit up. “You go up to bed,” he ordered. “I’ll stay up with them. Both of us certainly don’t need to-”

Her eyes kindled and she stared him down. Zach sighed. “I can just see how tomorrow is going to shape up, after feeding these monsters every two hours all night.”

He was going to make a wonderful father, Bett thought lazily. He stood up and added the third raccoon to the bundle cradled to her chest. Ten minutes later, he returned from upstairs with two sleeping bags and their pillows. By then it was time to reheat the milk and wield the eyedroppers again.

An hour later, Bett was snuggled in the sleeping bag, waiting for Zach to finish rinsing the bowl and lie down next to her. “Mom’s going to have a stroke when she comes down in the morning,” she murmured drowsily.

“And that’s the last time you worry about your mother alone,” Zach muttered back.

She didn’t hear him, her hand slowly stroking one soft, furry head. The three babies were snuggled next to her. “They’re going to make it, you know,” she told him.

Zach bent to kiss her once, a kiss for his lady who had certainly lived in the country long enough to understand nature’s way of life and death. And who never would. Those babies didn’t have a chance in hell of survival…but they hadn’t come across his wife before.