Beloved Healer

By Catherine Kaufman

Its 1907 when a fire in the holler takes Kenny Jo Linder back in memory to a fire that took home and family from her and her little sister.

Ma Hardy, a great aunt who Kenny Jo and her sister have come to the mountains to live with, decides its high time to usher her niece out of the pit of grief and guilt. When the annual mission to Willow Forks becomes far more precarious than even Ma expects, Kenny Jo must spend a night at the mysterious old Docs cabin.

Meantime Doctor Ned Dirkmeyer is riding a westbound railway coach through the mountains when an aging trestle collapses beneath the weight of the train near Willow Forks, resulting in fatalities and life-threatening injuries.

As they struggle to resolve a call-of-the-mountain catch 22, what kind of personal account will each one give? As Ma Hardy commences her annual visits, will Doc Ned accept the invitation to accompany this old-time indigenous healer while devising a plan to investigate the disappearance of Doc Ryan? How does Kenny Jo deal with her own injury and the situation between herself and a little orphaned girl? Must she bury the love she feels for Doc Ned when he leaves to commence his westward journey?

The path of honorable endeavor will inevitably present obstacles to try ones faith and patience. To those who lack vision, obstructions become thresholds to frustration and despair. To the wise, obstructions are only minor detainments on the way to rewarding endowments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490846378

Catherine Kaufman

The author and her husband reside in Illinois and are loving and doting grandparents, enjoying life and God’s immeasurable blessings.

Book preview

Chapter 1

An early morning fire in Sweet Gum Holler had sent the men of Webster’s Mill Settlement out to battle flames to save Daryl Tubman’s property. Looking across twelve acres from a tawdry window in Ma Hardy’s cabin, I could see that the race to keep fire from devouring drying fodder was more than a few desperate men could handle. After a long three-hour commotion billowing flames were now licking up the south side of Tubman’s barn and water from Badger Creek was lugged in vain by exhausted bucket-runners.

A fire anywhere in Sweet Gum Holler created great fear. If Webster’s Mill ever caught, the explosion could annihilate the whole settlement. Especially was it dangerous in fall, which was usually a dry season. Lately the skies had been threatening rain, which Ma had said was unusual, though not at all strange.

Ma Hardy had told me to stay put, so still in my scuffs, I rotated to kick at her rocking chair, sending it into gyrations and torture to my toes. The pain, however, hardly competed with my inner frustrations. A fire of this magnitude anywhere around Webster’s Mill Settlement was no accident. And the ones usually responsible for such brutal tricks were Ukiah Biggs and his son, Heath Gunner.

If you dare to put your conniving self anywhere near again, I imagined saying to Heath Gunner, I’ll give you more ear-pounding than Ma’s hellfire preaching could reward you in twenty years!

It’s commonly known that Ma Hardy, by whom my Great Aunt Marina May Ardsley is known in this region of the Appalachians, prepares every autumn for a hard days trek to Willow Forks. With exasperation in me rising I recalled when Ma’s preparations had started and the delays that kept popping up. Six weeks ago Mercy, Ma’s cow, delivered twin calves, which was a blessing. Then someone sneaked in one night and poisoned Mercy, which infected the young heifers. Winston Cashew, the local animal doctor, managed to save Mercy and one of her calves. Ma gave the surviving calf to the Webster family and we kept milking Mercy to keep her from drying up.

Then a sudden measles outbreak spread throughout the holler and for three weeks Ma was called upon to tend the sick cabins. Since I’d survived that bug several years ago, Ma took me with her. In the midst of this outbreak were other maladies, and then came the birthing of twins, one born breach. While watching Ma I took notes on preparations and directions for succoring the sick.

Like the poisoned cow, this fire was a devious intention and the stench of smoke was knotting my insides like twisted hemp. I went back to the scrap paper I’d found to scribble on, jerked hold of a chair and thumped myself up to the old plank table. Gripping the stump of a pencil, a mix of guilt, grief and anger poured out. It’s so unfair! Why God! Why…? Reckon I’m no better than the Biggs, I said in angst with myself. "How disrespectful I’d been."

With every stroke of the pencil bleak questions remained, despite Ma Hardy’s reassurances, and even Lora Kay affirming that Mama herself had banked the hearth that night. The sparse odors of smoke carried me back to the haunting recollection of a year ago when I’d neglected to do as I’d been told. I’d tried to push regrets from my mind only to suffer the reverse. It was now mid-October, 1907, one year since the agonizing guilt became an accepted penance and the memory remained indelibly clear…

Our farm-home in southern Illinois was nestled in a vale east of the expansive Shawnee Forests. In the midst of autumn, the gold and red-orange foliage would glow around and above distant staggering cliffs.

On that chilly October night my sisters and I were snuggled beneath layers of eiderdown quilts in our attic chamber. In a fanciful state of mind my eyes played up and down a bright harvest moonbeam creeping across the single window.

So simple, yet lustrous, I remember whispering to the soft beam. Ironically I’d wondered if that enchanting element might be used in the breaking of a story.

We’d celebrated Lora Kay’s tenth birthday less than a week after Daddy had bargained with a western-bound pioneer for a pony. For my seventeenth birthday, two days later, I was given writing supplies: a quill and ink, pencils and paper tablets, commodities not easy to come by in that time and location.

Mama always managed to save for such occasions, selling fresh eggs and milk to townspeople or pioneers enroute to St Louis. It was then 1906 and many were still striking out for the west as eastern cities swelled with the influx of immigrants. Unnecessary burdens were readily exchanged for fresh provisions.

It was the day after my birthday that the cherished gifts I’d been given were perused for a journal of sorts. Even as I helped Mama prepare breakfast that morning the newly acquired utensils were an increasing distraction.

Daddy worked the fields with our nearest neighbor, Mr. Strum. And with Mrs. Strum’s teaching directives and Mama’s strict adherences, I proudly finished my basic education with an honorable diploma. This was my license to teach a one-room country school, if I so desired.

This achievement and the birthday gifts had buoyed my self confidence probably a little too much, as I recalled Mama’s words. I expect your abilities will prove practical someday, Kendra Jo.

I felt closer to discovering what I was put on this earth to do; perhaps teach, although this and many other ideas were merely vague anticipations.

After helping with morning chores, I’d perched atop the corral fence with my fourteen-year-old twin sisters, Lily June and Mattie Rose, and began journaling the day’s events. Even though the twins had been deaf since the day they were born, they clapped and raised their fists to cheer our little sister. We watched as Lora Kay trotted around the hold on her new pony while Daddy took a moment from cutting hay to give her a riding lesson.

As the scribing dominated my thoughts, I never could’ve imagined how that day would end.

That evening after the Strums had gone home, Daddy returned from the fields exhausted and ill. I’d scarcely heard him caution me to bank the hearth before turning in.

Beneath the warmth and security of Mama’s handmade eiderdown quilts I’d slipped into a dream of forbearing possibilities only to waken a moment later. Lora Kay began a nagging cough that rapidly progressed. I reached over our shared bed to inspect her forehead. She felt cool enough, so I buried my head under the quilts and tried to ignore the spasms.

Minutes ticked by as her coughs kept shaking the bed. In frustration I threw back the warm covers and reached to close the open space in the window. Instead of detecting the subtle scent of cherry embers from the hearth below, a cinereous veil stung my eyes and nose.

Sudden panic nearly paralyzed me when I recalled Daddy’s instructions to bank the fireplace. I’d forgotten in my preoccupation with writing supplies.

The ray of moonlight which had been so lovely just minutes ago was veiled in a haze. I waved my arms against the vapors and threw the window wide open. On a clear moonlit night I could’ve seen my fourteen-year-old twin sisters across the room sleeping in the bed they shared. Now it was a mere wraithlike outline.

I sprinted to open the door to the stairwell, which produced a cloud of smoke, and quickly closed it. Again and again I hollered out for Mama and Daddy as vapors continued to seep in around the door.

Lora Kay stood behind me crying and wheezing. I ushered her to the open window. Climb out Lora Kay, and get a foothold on that lattice!

I’d made sure of my youngest sister’s escape when faint crackling from the stairwell bolstered my resolve. I made a dash for the twins when a buckled floorboard tripped me up and I sprawled face down. I yanked my bed cap down to shield my face and struggled to crawl in my nightgown to the twins’ bed. With burning, tearing eyes I groped until I found a leg at the foot of the bed. With all my strength at shaking the solid old iron bedstead wouldn’t budge.

Flattening myself against the floor, I reached for the bedding, hoping one good tug on the quilt and tick-covered mattress would wake the twins.

Nothing happened. The bedcovers were tucked somehow under the weight of the girls. Desperately I tried calling out, though I knew they couldn’t hear me. There’d been times when I’d wanted to cry for my twin sisters who would never hear the early morning crow of Mama’s prized Rhode Island Red, or her call to breakfast, or Daddy’s whistling when he came in from evening chores.

The thickening smoke was making my voice rasp. I had to get to the window, catch some fresh air and try again.

As I slid around on my stomach to locate the window, every move became slow motion.

Lora Kay had climbed the trellis again, coughing and screaming, Kenny Jo! Where are you?

Somehow I regained my wits and pleaded with God to help me. My insides felt hot and I began to retch. That’s when it occurred to me that there might be no survivors if I didn’t see to mine and Lora Kay’s escape. In despair I cried out and slinked across the open floor.

As far as I could tell, my fourteen-year-old twin sisters never stirred. They just slept on.

When something soft brushed against my hand, instinctively I grabbed it and for an instant I thought of my precious writing supplies. But life-sustaining oxygen was claiming preeminence over all of that now. With the bed cap over my face I finished my tedious slink to the window and reached for the sill. I pulled myself up, still gripping the thing in my hand.

Though my voice was no more than a mere squeak I rebuked my little sister. Back down Lora Kay! Go back!

Come out Kenny Jo! Please! she begged, nearly ripping the sleeve from my nightgown.

By now I knew flames were spreading fast through the old log and frame farmhouse. Daddy had once half-joked in his careful attention to the hearth, This old house is ripe timbers for fire. Can’t give chance to spit or spark.

In recent months Daddy and Mama had discussed plans for building a house made of Kentucky red brick as soon as the mortgage on the farm was paid off. I dared to dream of Mama having a stately red-brick home with a white-pillared veranda.

With my eyes tearing and lungs in rapacious want of oxygen, I gulped the fresh night air while feeling my way down the trellis that threatened to release its grip on the old cabin timbers.

When my feet found the cold ground, Lora Kay wrapped her arms around me, sobbing and coughing. Together we staggered away from our burning house. I realized the soft thing I shoved into her clutches was a rag dog Lily June had made for Lora Kay’s tenth birthday, five days past.

Straining against the rasp in my voice, I tried calling out again, Mama! Daddy! Can you hear? Are you in there Mama? Daddy! Gripping the reality that our family—our whole life—was being consumed by fire and smoke was impossible.

I pulled Lora Kay farther away from the front stoop, the only thing that remained untouched by the unfathomable sight. As the flames and crackling intensified, Lora Kay buried her sobs against me, increasing my overwhelming guilt and grief for failing to tend a minor chore.

Beside the two of us and a nervous whinny from one of the horses in the barn there were no other signs of life.

Lora Kay and I had been spared—and scarcely so. If it hadn’t been for her coughing, we would’ve perished too.

The last thing I recall about that night was hearing Chet and Nettie Strum’s farm wagon rattling up the moonlit lane with their horses galloping toward our farmstead.

For me that night would be remembered forever with unspeakable regret.

Chapter 2

It was the following November, about six weeks after the fire, that Lora Kay and I came to live with Ma Hardy in the mountains. She’d received my letter and sent Mr. and Mrs. Webster to fetch us.

Within a year my sister and I had acquainted ourselves with other youth around Webster’s Mill Settlement. I came to know Heath Gunner Biggs by his ghoulish tales and impish schemes for frightening superstitious hill folk. This locked interest with the youth of the settlement and his amusing penchants temporarily relieved my own grief.

The other youth didn’t seem to resent Heath Gunner like they did his daddy, Ukiah. And now upon reflection I considered that Heath Gunner mightn’t have had anything to do with Tubman’s fire. His penchants never alluded to anything so violent. His conduct wasn’t unseemly, until an intoxicated Ukiah would stagger into the group. Only then did Heath spew curses and run like Granite Mountain was about to drop on his head.

I laid aside the pencil that I’d been trying to write with. Would there ever be answers to why? or what if…? My head fell into my arms and I felt positive relief that Lora Kay had gone to stay at the Webster’s the day before. The Webster’s would keep her from the sights and sounds of another atrocious fire.

Ma Hardy had been firm about not taking Lora Kay to Willow Forks, even though my sister had begged to go. And by the grimness that deepened the creases in her weathered face I gathered this journey was going to be too far and too treacherous for a child. I was dubious about going with Ma myself and in truth I didn’t like the thought of leaving Lora Kay behind. This annual mountain journey was in the name of charity, so I thought it might distance me from the guilt that haunted my every intention.

A year had passed since Ma Hardy generously opened her heart and little mountain cabin to my sister and me. A very long year it had seemed, in which I’d felt sheepishly unworthy of Ma’s patience and generosity. My emotional preoccupation with grief and regret at times interfered with my ability to use time more profitably. And I was aware of Ma Hardy’s surreptitious glances, though she never intervened with my mental ponderings. Often she would ask Lora Kay or me to read aloud a passage of scripture while she busied her hands with knitting or procuring an antidote.

Frequently she’d request that something be repeated. Backtrack Kenny Jo, she’d say, read that line again. Somethin in them words worth studying on.

The passage in Psalms 89:14 had caused me to consider how God judges when we make mistakes… "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face." I thought of others in the Bible who’d committed outstanding sins or made grievous mistakes:

Jacob’s sons who sold their younger brother into slavery; David and Bathsheba; King Hezekiah…. The amazing mercy and grace of God were eminent in each case.

That the judge of all the earth would grant me any such consideration was yet beyond my grasp. Only He can know my heart and understand my sufferings. This Psalm alone was a balm between self-pity and self-loathing. I could see a flicker of truth in simply seeking forgiveness and being led by Divine Will. But doubts and questions persisted.

Finally in desperation I began to look for some kind of constructive course. That’s when I decided to follow Ma Hardy and dared to hope that from the throne of grace I’d find a purpose for my life.

Ma Hardy was stricken in years and muttered that she’d lived well beyond her allotted time. In fact no one knew exactly how old she was or how many years the old-time healer had been traversing these mountains with their gaps and ridges. Not even Ma Hardy herself dared to gander at the question of age. She’d simply respond with downplayed humor, Quit the lookin glass a good while ago when ol’ Moytoy himself stared back.

Ma Hardy was certainly an accurate moniker. The morning after the fire that destroyed Tubman’s barn and hayfield, she was waking me before dawn. "Up Kenny Jo! Gotta get a move-on! Done milked Mercy myself, and she’s a’mawin. Mastitis I reckon. Had to throw the milk out. Reckon Win will be around directly ’n see to it.

Got the gruel a’boilin. That’ll keep us up for a good stretch. Soon as you’re dressed ye can slice the headcheese and butter the bread. Jerky’s wrapped up; dried fruit, hard cheese ’n biscuits, ready to carry along.

After breakfast and both of us cumbered with supplies, we’d no sooner crossed the narrow road that fronts Ma’s cabin when distant thunder rumbled from the south, our intended direction. Ma agreed that I should go back for the big black umbrella.

I found it resting in a crock with a rag tied round to keep it closed. With a brief survey of the cabin I noted the hearth that’d just been doused and swept, the Franklin double-burner that shared it’s flew with the chimney, and homespun curtains pulled together over three small windows to seclude everything inside. Ma’s rocker rested near the table next to a large basket of unfinished knitting projects.

Stacks of handmade quilts, shawls, caps and mittens identified Ma’s cabin as a station of charity for itinerant preachers that passed by. I breathed in the pungent odors of medicinal spices that at first had seemed noxious to Lora Kay and me. Gradually Ma’s strange little cabin had become familiar and even a source of interest as the origins of her earthy and antidote mixtures became known. Her customary applications could procure comfort and relief, if not healings, for many things. And her selective words could alter a twisted mind or calm a shattered heart, though as yet, my own heart was numb to any counsel.

Thunder rumbled again from southern hills as I pulled the door closed and secured the latch. Mercy, Ma’s cow, and old Maggie, her black Labrador dog, safely waited in the barn for Uncle Win’s faithful attention.

In early gossamer-like mists Ma Hardy’s tall bonneted and slightly stooped form waited at the side of the rutted road. Over her heavy cloak her torso bulked with a bedroll strapped to her back. She grasped a hickory staff and clutched a bulging medicinal valise and a light satchel. With a water canteen and knife sheathed to leather straps that crisscrossed her front, I knew this was going to be a herculean journey, nothing like the ambles Lora Kay and I had taken through the woods and holler.

In my casual return, trying to find a way to carry the awkward umbrella, Ma whipped her hickory toward Crombie’s Meadow, obviously not humored with my dawdling. Shaking the top of her staff at the sky, she trudged forward and said,

Got to get across this here medder and take the first incline afore the rain arrives. Mossy deadwood can get slicker’n peach seeds.

Like Ma I carried a bedroll on my back, a satchel and the coal oil lantern in my hands. Ma’s encased carbine was flung over my shoulder. In haste I tucked the umbrella under the lantern and followed her into Crombie’s meadow. With a glance down at the green woolen cloak Ma had made by hand for my eighteenth birthday, I wondered what would wear out first on this mountainous journey.

Chapter 3

I’d hoped and prayed that this mission would provide my great niece with a purpose for living and the meaning of perseverance. Thunder spoke from our intended direction as we neared the base of Winther Mountain and I knew this trek was certain to be a contest if the skies delivered.

While feigning searches at the sky, I glanced at Kenny Jo. If the frown she wore meant that she was about to give up, for certain she would forego the journey when we hit the high trails. So far she came on with the lantern clanking against that umber-peller without a complaint.

Morning moisture here in the mountains refreshes and energizes, so I breathed deep while estimating the incline we were about to take. Kenny Jo squinted as she duplicated my visual searching. I’d secreted such observations at this gal while praying for the Lord’s guiding hand and that she might grasp a call to carry on after I take leave of this world.

A line between the lower deciduous vegetation and the conifers that point skyward on the upgrade was easy to sight from Crombie’s Meadow. I inhaled a second and third time as we drew up to the mountain’s base, taking in pine and earthy aromas mixing with ripe persimmons. Had to check my amusement at Kenny Jo as she mimicked every little thing I did.

Reckon I feel that ‘draw of the mountains’ I’ve heard talk of, she piped. Pulls on you, don’t it Ma?

My initial response was a grunt. Didn’t want to rain on Kenny Jo’s hopes, but whether she decided to go the whole way or turn back, I saw no reason to soft-pedal the truth. Fizzy notions, gal. Ye’ll find out soon enough what that draw’s gonna require.

Daddy used to tell some hair-raising stories about these mountains. And Heath—that is, some of the young folk around the holler sure can add to ’em.

She’d blurted Heath’s name, raising my suspicions. Most folk in Sweet Gum Holler would spit their scorn at a mention of the Biggs, especially Ukiah. There was a lot Kenny Jo still didn’t know about hollers and hill folk, including things about the Biggs. I’d known Heath’s quiet and reticent mother better than most, I reckon. And I knew Heath still missed his mama, though it’d been fourteen years since her passing.

Might be some truth to what ye heard, Kenny Jo, I said. But if’n it weren’t more than bragging, it might be hard to tell whar truth left off and imagination begun.

I marched on hearing a heavy sigh, probably at another of my practical angles, though I smiled to myself knowing that draw of the mountains was woven into every bone and fiber of my being.

For weeks I’d questioned whether to take Kenny Jo or leave her with Lora Kay. I finally decided that leaving her behind would forego a providential opportunity at getting her out of that grievous guilt-borne wallowing. Poor child was in need of purpose and direction, even if it took push, pull, and persist to mobilize her.

I’d attempted to whet her appetite for adventure with as much enthusiasm as I could muster… This here journey’ll learn ye to mind the gaps and ridges, and get that rushy-feel at mountain kens, laurel slicks ’n waterfalls.

I chuckled as curiosity, clear as crystal, bit the heads off her dreaded demons. For certain this journey would provide grand views and the chance for Kenny Jo to study medicinal practices more common in unprogressive regions.

In redirecting my great niece toward a constructive aim, I didn’t neglect to pray for wisdom. My subconscious wasn’t as nimble toward teaching as it once had been.

For a year she’d been observing my frequent gleanings of herbs and barks, mushrooms and the like, and my preparations to this here journey. Her attention to the mixing and steeping of potions and salves seemed to gather interest. She began asking questions and ciphering on any scrap of cloth or paper that availed itself.

While Lora Kay took book-learning at Webster’s and plied the banks of Badger Creek with Aaron and Prudy, I attempted to make nature’s antidotes as interesting to Kenny Jo as I could.

We were tramping through the last stretch of Crombie’s Meadow when she tuned me in to one of those yarns that often circulates among the young’uns of the holler.

I can’t fathom that folks would roll dunged outhouses down a mountainside and swath a galley of cats in ‘white lightening’ just to keep other folks from trespassing.

Where’d ye hear that? I asked, though it was an easy guess whose idea it’d be to cause hair-raising cat squalls.

Over at Grissom’s when we were picking peaches. Heath Gunner had us all laughing—

Kenny Jo… I couldn’t help grinning as I interrupted. Ye’d be a keen one to give no account to the jabber a caterwaulin. One thing ye ought to know bout folks, ’n hit don’t matter if’n they’re from the mountains or backwaters a the bayou, some folks just love getting their skids at throwing off on one they judge as wet behind the ears.

Reckon I’m wet behind the ears alright, she mumbled with a snigger.

Then with a sigh came the confession I’d been waiting for. Though just a fissure, it was a beginning.

Probably the whole reason for the fire that took Mama and Daddy and the twins.

Despite the rain that was about to catch us in the middle of Crombie’s meadow, this matter couldn’t be dodged. I stopped and looked directly at my great niece. Ye need to understand Kenny Jo, hit’s because you and Lora Kay survived the tragedy that your lives hold purpose. Beratin yourself makes no sense, child. And self-inflicting denial finds no useful purpose in this life. Nor does hit prepare ye for the next. Only by acknowledging that you’re human can ye begin to ’preciate God’s abiding grace.

I let the hickory fall to my shoulder and reached to touch her soft young cheek shaded by a straw bonnet. I’d have lifted away the burden she so needlessly carried, if it would’ve been in my power. But the God of heaven sees best. And I knew to leave space for the working of that Higher Hand.

We’d gone a few more paces when Kenny Jo spoke again. Reckon I could find a purpose in all things if I could just see around the pain.

Her words touched a place in my own heart. I understand ye, child. Howsoever ye got to remember ‘…with God all things are possible.’ Providence reveals a purpose for pain when we’re able to receive it. Divine revelation will dawn upon ye at the right time. Until then we just have to believe and trust.

We marched on through the meadow grasses in silence. With a mite for her to chew on I waited until we stepped out of the meadow before giving a warning.

Reckon ye ought to know bout a panther that’s been a’prowlin these hills. Don’t mean to call up a fright, mind ye, but they do come around. Tried to get at Jeb-Ray and his boy, Ollie, just t’other day, trottin home from fishin on their mule. Twas a mercy they were close enough the mule skittered Ollie on home. Jeb-Ray shot at the cat, but missed. Too much up in the trees I reckon.

A roll of thunder came on cue right then, making the earth to shudder.

Kenny Jo warily began searching the higher elevations. We used to find their paw prints around our farm, but Daddy said that a big cat seldom tracks a grown person.

I nodded at her Daddy’s take on that. That big cat would’a had been after the fish more’n Ollie or Jeb-Ray, or even the mule, what could’a done away with the ol’ painter. That’s a fact. They can be downright menacing though, I added, when small critters ere busy runnin up stores for the winter. We’ll need to keep watch over them high ridges where they can easier prey.

When I looked back and saw Kenny Jo lagging behind, I waited for her to lumber through the grass to catch up.

When we reached the first minor elevation, I stopped. We cross bridges when we come to ’em and we’re never without the Good Shepherd to guide our way. That there’s a comforting fact.

We’d come to the base of Winther Mountain and the moment I’d been savoring to share with Kenny Jo. She and Lora Kay hadn’t ventured this far to the south of the holler yet.

For several weeks I’d been suffering with dizzy spells, which I kept to myself, not desiring to lay an unnecessary concern on my great nieces. When one of those spells struck, I steadied myself with the use of the hickory. It passed like before within a minute or so, and I turned to Kenny Jo. With a sly grin, knowing what her reaction would be, I swept my staff around at the view behind us feeling somewhat akin to Moses at the Red Sea.

Chapter 4

Every shrieking whistle and clanging bell from the Tennessee Central westbound reminded me of the last time I’d seen my father, Doctor Ryan Dirkmeyer. It had been the conclusion to one of many impromptu returns, each one producing another son for my mother, Regina Dirkmeyer, to raise single-handedly.

I despised the association of trains with Doc Ryan and his spurious homecomings from western outposts and swore I’d never board a coach heading into the mountains.

Several credentials I carried protectively in my personal valise. Among them was the document I cherished most: a hand-signed recommendation that bore my name, Doctor Arnold Eric Dirkmeyer, MD, to a distinguished Doctor J. S. Remstad of St. Louis. This was the coveted key to my unfolding future. After I’d vigilantly reexamined these credentials four or five times, I finally rolled them together in their protective suede sheath, returned them to the valise and willed myself to