Free One Shenandoah Winter by Davis Bunn Page A

colored so much of his life these past two years rose like a beast in the car there between them. And he responded with the only weapon he had left. His anger.
    He groused, “The state’s Department of Health does a lousy job of seeing to your needs. Either that or you people haven’t taken the time to apply correctly for a replacement doctor.”
    Connie’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “I’ve spent months pleading with every official I could get to hold still. County and state both.”
    He didn’t like the acid tone he had brought out, but he didn’t know what to do about it. And his own anger was still there, fighting back the whispering ghostly tendrils. “Maybe you didn’t do it right.”
    A flush rose from the collar of her blouse. “It’s my business to handle outside officialdom. I did everything right.”
    â€œI can well imagine,” he muttered. “Considering how you handled yourself at the clinic yesterday, you probably raised the hackles of everybody involved. Now the town’s had to pay.”
    â€œThat’s just not true,” she cried angrily. “The simple fact is, there aren’t enough doctors willing to go out and serve in small isolated postings like our town.” She shot a bitter glance his way. “Doctors these days are a lot more interested in making big bucks than serving needy people.”
    â€œSo you say,” he grumbled. But he knew there was truth in her words. Every medical journal was filled with ads pleading for doctors to serve in backwater towns and regions.
    â€œYou just hang on,” Connie snapped back, then gunned the motor and spun the wheel. The big car roared in response, as though it had been waiting for this all along.
    Nathan flinched. He could not help it. A branch leaped out and slapped the windshield right in front of his face. There was a groaning creak as a tree brushed down Connie’s side of the car. The automobile bucked like a horse as it passed over a rain-washed gully. And the track grew continually steeper.
    The path was two rocky furrows, and still it rose higher. The angle increased until Nathan was pressed back hard into his seat, and he seemed pointed straight toward the sky.
    Connie kept the accelerator down hard and handled the wheel with steady ease. The trees continued to slap and scratch at the car. The tires slipped and grabbed and bucked and bounced. They rose ever higher.
    Suddenly they popped up above the first line of trees, and he risked a glance behind him. The world was stretched out in all its glory, the valley lost beneath a soft afternoon haze.
    In a flash his anger was gone. Which was very strange, because rarely did it ever release him so easily. Nathan had come to expect that once he found the day’s rage, it remained a part of him until nightfall. Yet here he was, racing up a steep hill, his anger spent. He felt so free he had to speak, to share the unexpected freedom. He turned back in time to meet the next rise, and said, “I’d hate to think what this is like in snow.”
    â€œDon’t try it without four-wheel drive.” Her clipped tone still carried the ire he had ignited. “Come to think of it, don’t try it alone at all for a while.”
    â€œWhere are we headed?”
    â€œI told you yesterday. Poppa Joe’s. Almost there.”
    They crested a second ledge with a bouncing roar that popped the front tires into the air. Then they were down and racing through a broad meadow, one turned golden by the light and the season.
    Nathan found himself caught by a desire to laugh out loud. He could not explain why. There was absolutely no reason for the sensation. Yet there he was, watching the high grass blur to either side, seeing a bevy of doves take flight in startled fear at their passage, feeling as though he had left the earth and all his cares behind, and for one brief instant was again a person who could