Uncle Ronald by Brian Doyle

Author:Brian Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV039010
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2004-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

13 Bark of the Pussywillow

SECOND CHANCE LANCE got us home in a hurry after we dropped off Cecelia. He was nervous and wide-eyed, his eyes flashing in the lamps. He seemed to know there was violence around. Violence and pain. There was cruelty in the air. Second Chance Lance knew all about cruelty.

We brought my mother into the house and the O’Malley girls took over.

“Get Willy Willis at once!” they both said. Uncle Ronald touched my arm.

“We’re going to get Willy Willis. You have to come and open the gates. It’ll be faster. The sooner we get him here the better.”

I looked into my mother’s broken face.

She nodded painfully and we left. As I shut the door I watched the O’Malley girls moving around the kitchen, making my mother comfortable. They were grim and serious. Their faces were tight.

Lance pointed his head and after only a few steps he was into a speeding trot that made the spokes of our wheels whirr in the night. At the first gate we slowed to a walk and I jumped off and ran ahead and lifted the latch, opened the gate and hopped back on while the rig was moving.

Same with the second gate.

Not too far past Cecelia Hickey’s (Uncle Ronald only once looked up at her window and not for long) we swung to the right down a road I never noticed before, a narrow twisting lane through a thick stand of white pine, tall and straight and ghostly as we drove. It got darker and darker the deeper we moved until I wondered how Lance even stayed on the road.

“He has more than eyes,” Uncle Ronald said. “He has an extra sense.”

Some of the soft needles of the white pine trees along the road touched my coat as we whooshed by.

Soon, off in the trees there was a light showing and Lance headed in. The light was a lantern flickering in the stomach of a large statue of St. Joseph, his head tilted to one side and his hands out. Behind the statue was a tiny log cabin. It had a door and a small square window on the front and on one side another small square window showing a yellow warm glow.

The door squeaked open before we knocked. A little man with burning eyes and black teeth and a voice like burnt toast spoke to us.

“God bless you, Ronald. Who’s the boy?”

“My sister’s lad.”

“What’s happened? What brings you here?”

“My sister. She’s been beaten.”

“Where is she?”

“Over home.”

“You’ll take me.” The little man turned and went into his cabin, the door closing squeaking shut.

“Who is he?” I whispered to Uncle Ronald.

“Faith healer,” Uncle Ronald said. “And doctor.”

There was a small water pump beside the statue of St. Joseph and hanging on a hook right next to the lantern in the stomach was a small pail. I filled the pail and gave Lance a drink. He thanked me by making a low, friendly sound deep in his throat. The cabin door opened and Willy Willis, faith healer and doctor, stood for a second in the light.

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