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The Healer of Harrow Point

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

I remember there was a fine blue sky and a light brisk breeze on that first, beautiful late fall day when I met Emma. I was lying belly down in a nest of leaves in a little dry creek ditch, maybe twenty feet away from an almond-eyed, dusty-brown buck. His antlers were short but legal, meaning they were long enough, that the buck was old enough to be legally hunted once deer season began. He was safe now, I thought. Safe for a few more weeks. He was nosing about in a scraggly berry bush, tearing off small bits, munching the berries; little pieces fell to the earth around him as he chewed rapidly, his head bobbing from side to side. Then he nosed in and tore off another bit of the bush.

For a moment I felt supremely, wonderfully alive. I loved the cool crisp air and the dank smell of earth and leaves; and I loved the buck, rather like a collector would love a rare, long-sought-for piece for his collection. I had found him and he was mine. But a question, one that had been growing in me for months, picked at me, pulling back from the joy of that moment. If I had a gun, could I shoot him? Could I possibly squeeze a trigger and bring him down? It scarcely seemed possible.

When I reached the age of twelve, in six long weeks, my father was to give me my first shotgun and take me hunting for the first time. My birthday and the first day of hunting season would coincide, so we would make an outing of it, my father and I and a couple of his friends. There were times, when I was with my father or with my friends at school, that I was certain I wanted to go hunting when my birthday came. There were other times, chiefly when I was alone in the woods, that I was just as certain that I could never want to hunt.

I loved tramping through the woods. In long, rambling walks through the ancient forest land that surrounded my home town, my father taught me the rules of hunting, the ins and outs of tracking deer, the habits of wildlife. My father used these walks to scout the best places to hunt. He told me, clearly and unequivocally, that I was not to walk in the woods alone during hunting season. There was too much danger of being shot accidentally by a hunter. It was one of his few hard and fast rules. All the rest of the year I was free to wander as I pleased. So, there were many, many days when I would head off into the woods after school, to walk the places that I knew, to explore.

On Saturdays, my mother would often pack me a couple of sandwiches, and I would spend the whole day in the woods, the great source and playground of my imagination. Sometimes I was an Indian, moving quietly through the woods tracking a panther that was threatening my tribe; and sometimes I was Daniel Boone, pioneer woodsman and Indian fighter. But as I got a little older, it seemed that I imagined less and watched and listened more. The woods were more wonderful in themselves than anything I could imagine about them. It is difficult to explain, but I felt somehow that if I was quiet enough in my heart and in my head then I could become in some sense transparent, invisible even. I could slip through the trees like a spirit, watching and listening to all the wonders going on around me. There was a quiet there that went beyond the hushed and intricate sounds of the forest, a quiet that went deeper and deeper until it disappeared past hearing, past everything.

I had been so still watching that buck, my breath, my heart working on in perfect silence, and then I thought about shooting him, about whether I could possibly want to shoot him, and the silence was gone.

The buck looked up just as I did. On the ridge far above us a man in a red plaid shirt snapped a twig underfoot in the moment he leveled his rifle on target. He was a poacher, hunting out of season. I screamed as the sharp pop of the rifle cut through the air. The deer lurched back toward me, staggered once trying to keep its slim legs beneath it, and fell to the earth, not four feet from where I lay, dazzled by fear. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His side was torn and bloody. His chest heaved twice with two great rasping snorts, a rippling shudder cascaded along his side, and then he was absolutely still.

I saw the man begin the difficult descent down the ridge. I wanted to get up and run away, and I wanted, I don't know ... I wanted to scream at the man, to bash him with something, a tree branch, anything. More than all of that, more than all the world, I wanted the buck to rise and run off, unharmed, alive. I would follow him and find him and he would be mine again.

In the moment of that supreme wish I heard a crashing noise behind me, the sound of someone running, someone heavy, coming toward me. In a blur a figure rushed past me. It was a woman, heavy but not fat, older than my mother, I sensed, but not much older, in old, dirty pants and a weathered, heavy flannel shirt. She knelt by the deer, seeming almost to fold her large bulk around the fallen animal. She held its head up in her left hand, and stroked its coat with her right. Her eyes closed. She placed her head softly against the side of the deer. I dared not move. With a start the woman's eyes opened. She turned and looked directly into my eyes. Her eyes were a piercing blue. She seemed intensely alive to me—I don't know how else to describe her—in that instant when our eyes met. Then she closed her eyes and again inclined her head closer to the deer.

"Come now' she said quietly. "Come on. Up with you."

I didn't know what to do. I thought at first she was talking to me, but I was too afraid to move. I just watched as she roughly stroked and rubbed the buck's coarse fur. Her fingers went over the bloody wound in the deer's neck and she winced with pain.

"All right," she said, her voice quiet, tight. "All right."

In an instant something happened. The woman blew out a sharp breath and pushed herself from the deer, rocking back on her heels. The small buck twitched, rolled back and forward once, struggled to his feet, and then bolted off through the underbrush, leaping now to the left, now to the right with astonishing speed, far down the ravine, and was gone from sight. Struck dumb with wonder, I looked back toward the woman and saw behind her the hunter approaching, fifty yards away or so.

"Hey!" the hunter called. "That's my deer. You leave that alone!"

A dark frown passed quickly across the woman's face. She turned and looked at me.

"Run," she said. "Now."

"Are, are ... are you," I couldn't quite get a question together in my mind, but I did manage to get to my feet. I took a step toward home and looked back at the woman. I was held in place by what had just happened.

"It's not safe here," she said quickly, a firm tone in her voice. "Run!"

But I just stood there, and the hunter was getting nearer.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she said, slowly and loudly. She stepped over toward me, pulled me out from behind the bit of brush where I had been hiding, and then scooped me up under one arm. She hefted me once for balance, and crashed off into the woods carrying me like an oversized football.

It is kind of comical to think of now, but then I was terrified, whizzing through the brush headfirst, my legs dangling behind. I could hear the great panting and grunting of the woman as she carried me. I was too big for her to carry me very far, and soon we were running side by side, crashing through the brambles and brush, her hand firmly grasping my arm.

Finally, the woman slowed to a trot, then a lurching, uneven walk, and finally pulled up at the base of a low hill covered with thick, sharp brambles. Her chest was heaving. She rubbed her left forearm across her face, wiping away the sweat. Then, looking as if she were surprised to find me there, tight in her grasp, she gently pushed me away from her.

"Oh pheewuu, oh my," she said, grinning, leaning down with her hands on her knees. "Oh, I'm getting—" she hiccupped "—old."

She shook her head, sat down with a crash, and, with some difficulty, propped herself against a small outcropping of rock, where she sat to recover her breath. As her breathing gradually eased, she began to eye me with apparent curiosity. I stared at her, too scared to talk or walk or do anything. A few more moments passed. It was odd, how quiet everything had suddenly become. I had no idea how far we had run; it seemed to be miles, but of course it couldn't have been. She was still looking at me. It made me feel strangely shy. I walked a very few steps away from her and then spun drunkenly on my feet. I stood still, and squinted at her.

"Well?" she asked, her breathing almost returned to normal.

I said nothing.

"Hmmph." She seemed utterly dissatisfied with me. My face was cut and scratched in a dozen different places after our run through the woods. I'm sure I was filthy from lying on the soft, moist earth. I imagine I was crying. The woman's look might have softened, although still she was eyeing me critically.

"Here," she said, "give me a hand."

Somehow I could follow a direct instruction. I took her large knobby hands in mine and tried to help her to get up from where she sat. She nearly pulled me over on top of her, but, in stages, I helped her up to her feet.

"Stand still," she said, and drew me a bit closer to her, taking my face in her hands. "Think of, oh, I don't know ... strawberries."

"Strawberries?" I thought. Then I had the oddest feeling of my skin retracting, tightening, tingling. I knew that all my cuts were gone. She seemed to smooth them away like someone brushing wrinkles from a crisp, clean sheet.

"What is your name, young man?"

I was touching my face, bewildered that the scratches were gone.

"Thomas, ma'am," I said automatically, "Thomas Singer."

"Don't ma'am me. My name is Emma."

"Yes'm—Emma."

"Well?" she asked.

I looked all about, a little frantic. I didn't know what she wanted from me.

"Out with it," she snapped. She was quite brusque. I felt afraid of her.

"That deer," I said, finally. "That deer was dead."

"Surely not," she said. "You saw it run off."

"No," I said. "No, you did something."

"You think so?" she asked. "I don't see how."

"You did," I said, frowning.

So we stood there, at this first impasse, staring at each other; and I found in that moment that I was no longer afraid.

"I'm not sure what to do with you," Emma said, just barely out loud.

I felt a surge of confidence. I don't know why.

"I want to know what you did to that deer," I said emphatically.

She smiled. She might almost have laughed. "I'm sure you do, young man," she said, with a certain sharpness in her voice.

She started walking away from the base of the low, bramble-covered hill where we had been talking. I followed after her. I fixed my eyes on her boots, large, heavy hiking boots encrusted with red mud, and kept pace as best I could. I was tired and confused, but I was determined to stay with her. We walked quite a while, heading back toward where the deer had been shot.

"Do you walk out here often?" Emma asked me, in more of a conversational tone of voice.

"Yes ma'am ... yes Emma," I said, correcting myself.

"So you know how to get home from here?" she asked.

"Oh, sure," I said, nodding.

"Then go," she said flatly. She was walking straight ahead, not looking at me.

I stopped in my tracks. That was not what I had expected her to say, not what I wanted her to say. She kept on walking. She was heading north; I would need to veer back the way we had come.

"Do you think he's still there?" I hollered after her.

She stopped, some thirty feet ahead of me now, and called back over her shoulder. "Who?"

"That poacher."

She turned and looked at me. It was a ploy on my part. She knew it, I'm sure. The woods were very quiet. The sun was starting to go down, low against the trees, and the air seemed to chill second by second.

She walked back toward me, slowly, heavily, her footfalls loud in the quiet air.

She stood in front of me, looming over me.

"You'll be fine," she said quietly. She reached out and touched my face again, lightly. Just as she pulled her hand away I felt a kind of shock, like she had shuffled across a rug and touched me. She was looking at me so intently, so gravely, as if inspecting me for construction flaws.

"If you walk out here some afternoon, we might see each other," she said simply.

I nodded.

"Now go home, Thomas Singer."

There was an emphasis in her voice that would brook no dispute. I nodded again and turned to go. I walked a while, up around the long, low base of the hill, pulling myself along. I looked back and she was still there, watching me, seventy yards away now, perhaps farther. I waved to her, sort of a broad, cheery wave. I felt odd. I didn't want to go home yet. I felt warm, deeply, uncomfortably warm on such a cool late afternoon. My hands especially felt warm. I kicked at the ground with the toe of my shoe. At that moment nothing felt quite right.

She was standing very still, watching me. I turned and took another few steps toward home and then gave her one last look back over my shoulder. She had her right hand raised, somewhere between a wave and a benediction. I waved again, quickly, briefly, and began the long walk home more in earnest, feeling slightly, slightly better, but still altogether too warm.

I walked along slowly through the deepening twilight. Can one feel deeply perplexed and happy at the same time? I was trying to remember everything that had happened, and was trying, without the least success, to make sense of what I remembered. Emma had entered my life with such force; it didn't seem possible to me that so much had happened in the space of only a few minutes. I felt like I needed more time, that everything should have taken more time. I was sure I had a hundred questions to ask Emma, though perhaps, at that moment, I couldn't have formulated even one. I wanted to be with Emma. I didn't want to go home.

I gave a wide berth to the base of the ridge where the deer had been shot, where I last saw the poacher. I don't suppose I really thought he would still be around. There was a cloudiness in my mind, a mist that I thought Emma might be able to clear away; but I didn't want to go back to where that afternoon's events had begun. Still, I didn't want to go home either. It was starting to get dark, and very cold, but I continued to feel oddly warm. I walked slowly, looking around, listening. I didn't know what I was looking or listening for. Finally, I started to feel the cold, feel it sharply, and my pace quickened.

Thinking of home troubled me. My father always asked me about my day. I would be late for supper, I thought, and I was sure he would ask me about that. I didn't know what I would say.

I crested the hill that led to the open field at the edge of the little string of houses where we lived. We lived out in the country, but there were a few other houses around us. I could see the lights on in the MacCauleys' kitchen. No one was home at the Watsons' next door. Mr. and Mrs. Watson both worked at the grocery store in town, and I knew that they wouldn't be home for an hour or two yet. Seeing the MacCauleys' house lit up, and the Watsons' dark, was somehow a comfort to me; it was normal.

I was cutting across the wide field that climbed up to the back of our house. The lights were on inside. Mom was home. Just as I stepped over the narrow ditch that marked the back of our yard, I saw Dad's patrol car pull into our drive. I wasn't as late as I thought. I started climbing the slight incline, past my mother's garden, as my father got out of his car. I saw him wave to me. He was standing at the bottom of the drive, a good ways above me still. It was dark, but even so I could see the easy way he was standing, and it made me feel good, made me feel safe. How, in the dark, without him calling to me, could I tell that he was glad to see me, that I wasn't late, that everything was fine?

My father was an immensely practical man. He could fix cars, make end tables, cook breakfast. I suppose, really, when I was eleven it hadn't yet occurred to me that there might be things he didn't know, or things he couldn't do. He was strong and practical and friendly. It seemed that he could talk anybody into a peaceful, quiet mood, no matter how angry the person might have been to start with. He was a policeman, a sheriff's deputy in a large rural county. He was Deputy Singer, and I was Deputy Singer's son. Everyone, so far as I knew, liked him and respected him. I certainly did.

To me, it seemed that the things my father did were magic. How could he possibly know what was wrong with someone's car? I would stand beside my father, peering in at a dark, sooty, gray and black jumble of metal and tubing, mute with wonder. "Hmm," he would say. "What do you think, buddy?"

I never had a clue. I felt at once ashamed of my inability to grasp so many things about the world, and proud and somewhat in awe of my father's complete knowledge. He was patient in teaching me, about car engines, about all sorts of things; and I was determined to learn.

Among other things, my father was a hunter, a responsible and careful hunter. Of all forms of carelessness, he was least tolerant toward careless hunters: hunters who fired their guns without being absolutely sure of their targets, hunters who did not know at all times where their hunting partners were. With my twelfth birthday approaching, we had been talking a lot about hunting and safety in the woods.

So, I was eleven going on twelve, and tried to be careful in all things. My father allowed me to roam the woods outside of hunting season, but still I knew he would be concerned to hear about the poacher. I didn't think I could tell him how near I was when the deer was shot. In a strange way, I felt as if I was implicated in the poacher's wrongdoing. And then, how could I possibly tell him about Emma?

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Excerpted from The Healer of Harrow Point by Peter Walpole. Copyright © 2000 Peter Walpole. Excerpted by permission of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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