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Thunder rolls over the h the dryleaves; then lighting flashes--for real this tiood tie my mind and hike home over the mountain

The vet pauses in his work, and his silhouette steps into the a like honey out of the barn’s double doors "Hello!" he calls out, seeing my shadow advance across the yard "Who’s there?"

Tears are already running down my face, the first tears I’ve shed, now that the ordeal is over I guess it’s over It suddenly occurs to ht in ed for the mother’s and infant’s deaths and lose ?" Hester’s wearing just his trousers and a white undershirt, the kind with no sleeves, and his arht? Is it Star? Is it Bitsy?" Even as the tears fall, this strikes me as typical, that he should ask about the animals first

"A patient died today Kitty Hart," I whisper "It was bad Bad Blood all over, even co out her nose, and then she seized up and died" I know I must sound incoherent He takes me in his arms, and the smell of him almost overwhelms me: earth, pine, vanilla

"Come in Come in" He leads me into the barn and makes me sit on a wooden bench

"Here" From his back pocket he pulls out a silver flask I’, almost choke, and then whipstuff and not nearly as pleasant as a rum toddy or blackberry wine

Hester smiles at my reaction, but the smile drops away Outside, the thunder ru eep back and forth

"Maynard Hart’s place?" he asks "Broken-down farm over by Burnt Town?"

I nod, taking a big breath, trying to get my emotions under control He holds out the flat silver container again This tioes down easier, just burns at the back of my throat

"I’d neverwo fast up Wild Rose Road Bitsy had just left for theover, holding ain and then lighting Wind sla the terrible scene, I cry and cry, as if my tears could float Kitty Hart out of her deathbed, up and away down to the Hope River, where she’d be found alive lying in the dah I’ a little tune under his breath, but I can’t stop blubbering and the sobs get louder, ain It’s a cloudburst of eain not just for Kitty and her baby but for myself and my baby, for Lawrence and Ruben and my mother and Mrs Kelly and all the times I’ve been alone and afraid with no one to help etto quiet the weeping "I went there once to stitch up a led in some barbed wire So you arrived and then?"

I reach for the flask and sobreath "It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen When we pulled into the yard, totrot porch ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ all hysterical I ran into the bedroom, and there was blood all over the floor All over the bed A young lady lay there al with the baby still trapped in the birth canal, a preed sideways" I describe how I got the baby out but it was stillborn and about the continuous bleeding that I couldn’t stop I tell how Mr Hart refused to go to the colored doctor and how the seizures ca to picture the events, takes a swig from the silver flask, then hands it back to et seizures related to milk fever when they lack the ability to quicklytheir own blood levels And there’s a condition in cats and dogs called disseulation that’s related to the depletion of clotting factors Basically they use up all their platelets and protein and start he from everywhereThere’s also ecla to co clinical inforht now I’m overcome, not interested in a possible explanation I put my hand to his mouth to silence hiesture--an agreement, perhaps, that he should shut up The rains have started for real now, first a pitter-patter, then a hiss

"You have blood on your face" He touches my cheek "And your neckhereand your dress" He takes his bandanna, steps over to the door to wet the cloth in the downpour, and wipes my face, then my neck He’s so close I can smell his sweet breath, and I closeflashes, then thunder a few seconds later, so close and so loud that it shakes the barn walls He unbuttons the two top buttons ofso hard that I think if it wasn’t for the sound of the now-continuous claps and booht hear it When we stand, the moonshine has affected me more than I realize, and I almost fall into him

The rain roars on the tin roof now, roars all around us, and we step to the barn door to watch the sheet lightning He holds out his bandanna to wet it again and wipes rimy with blood, then leads me out into the downpour, where we stand with our arainst his wet undershirt, his face looking into the sky, flashing white, then yellow, then white again, ay like dancers in an all-night dance marathon

Hester unbuttons a few more buttons and then washes ers work He kneels in the s, over and over with his soft bandanna, washes ain No one has bathed me since my mother died I have bathed others, patients in labor, newborn babies, old people ere ill, even just today I washed a dead woman, but no one has washed me