Page 8 of The Formation of Us
Duke rolled up his shirtsleeves, then showed Adam how to hook the gas pipe to the old boiler. The boy seemed interested in learning, but there wasn’t room for him to help connect the gas line to the burner beneath the metal tub. Colburn had tried using natural gas eight years earlier, but the supply from his gas well on Mill Street was insufficient to power the grist mill. So, like other business owners, he’d diverted a feeder stream from the creek and used water and steam for power.
Colburn must have needed the water reservoir for his grist mill, but Duke couldn’t understand why Faith would want to heat this enormous bin of water. The deep, rectangular vessel had to be nearly eight feet long and four feet wide, and the copper had aged to an ugly greenish black.
Puzzled, Duke squeezed his aching shoulders between the cold stone wall and the tub. By the time he finished the back- wrenching work, his shoulder throbbed so painfully he wanted to knock back a quart of whiskey and sleep until the damn thing healed.
After Adam fetched a cake of soap, Duke rubbed water on it, then applied a soapy lather to the gas pipe connections to see if any bubbles developed.
“How often should I check for leaks?” the boy asked, like a man, even as he shoved his mop of hair out of his eyes like a schoolkid.
“A couple times a day for the next day or two. If you can’t see any bubbles in the soap, you can assume the connections are secure.” Adam nodded, and Duke struggled to his feet, realizing the boy was missing school. “Why aren’t you in school today?”
“There’s only two weeks left of the year, sir.”
“Well, if you were in school, Adam, you wouldn’t have been in Mrs. Brown’s store, and you wouldn’t have gotten yourself in trouble.”
“I was running an errand for Faith. She needed some cheesecloth.”
“I want you to go to school next week.”
Adam lowered his chin. “Yes, sir.”
Iris strode into the stone room and flirtatiously brushed dust off Duke’s shirtsleeve. “Finished already?” she asked.
Her boldness surprised him as much as her appearance had, and it seemed to fluster Faith who had followed her into the room. “I just need to light the burner and I’ll be done here.” He’d traveled some during his years as sheriff, but had never seen anyone like Iris, or any woman as beautiful as Faith.
Iris clasped her hands in front of her. “Let us repay you by sending a few herbs home to your mother. Or perhaps you’d rather choose a few for yourself? We grow special herbs for men,” she said with a saucy wink. “Ginseng and passionflower—”
“Basil!” Faith blurted, crowding Iris away from him. “We grow basil and valerian and aconite.” Pink stained her cheeks, but she didn’t spare Iris a glance. “We grow healing herbs like comfrey, chamomile, feverfew; that sort of thing. But your mother would probably prefer cooking herbs like chives, basil, or bay leaf.”
“I wouldn’t know one from the other,” Duke said, looking through the doorway at the rows of flats covering the greenhouse, “but I’d like to look around.” And he would enjoy the pretty widow’s fetching blushes while he found out a little more about her unusual business.
“Clean your hands and wait out front, Adam,” Faith said. “We’ll be out in a moment.”
After Duke lit the burners for the tub and boiler, he stepped into the greenhouse with Faith.
“This is comfrey,” she said, lifting a large, hairy leaf on a plant about three feet tall. She stroked her fingertip over a purple bell-shaped flower adorning the plant, and it sent a ripple of warmth down Duke’s spine. He hadn’t felt the stroke of a woman’s fingers across his flesh in a very long time. His choice. He had friends who would welcome an intimate visit from him; but after years of watching his brothers flirt and joke with their wives, he just couldn’t stomach the hollow feeling that followed him home after a late-night visit to one of his lady friends.
“We use the root in tea to help reduce inflammation and to heal broken bones,” Faith said. She moved to a neighboring plant about a foot tall with strap-like leaves that she didn’t touch. “This is autumn crocus. The seeds are used to treat gout and rheumatism, but all parts of the plant are poisonous.”
Alarm bells went off in his head. “Then why would you give it to a person? Aren’t you afraid of accidentally killing somebody?”
She faced him squarely. “I know my herbs, Sheriff Grayson. I have over one hundred varieties in my greenhouse, thirty of which are highly toxic but of immense value. I know how to use them for safe and effective treatments of minor ailments, but I don’t pretend to be a doctor.”
He watched Cora dump a bucket of soil into a mound on the greenhouse floor, and his gut tightened with worry. “Aren’t you afraid to have these poisonous plants around your daughter?”
Instead of answering, she lifted her slender fingers and beckoned Cora. The child leapt to her feet and ran to her side.
“Sheriff Grayson wants to see our dangerous plants, Cora. Will you show him which herbs are poisonous?”
“That’s aloe,” the child said, pointing to a green plant with long, tapering stems that reached up from the soil like grasping fingers.
Duke reached out to touch the fleshy stems, but Cora pushed his hand away.
“Don’t ever touch them!” she said dramatically. “You could get poison on your fingers and rub it in your eyes and go blind. Or you could get it in your mouth and die.”
“I didn’t realize aloe was poisonous.”
“It’s good for healing burns and minor wounds,” Faith said, “but it’s a violent purge if you ingest it. To Cora, anything that could hurt her is off limits. That means no touching.”
