Sweetwater Run

by Jan Watson

  Cara rubbed the back of her hand across her lips, missing him. It was getting dark out. She hadn’t even got out her whittling gear though she needed to finish a cherrywood handle for one of Darcy’s fans.

  Darcy. Cara was afraid she was in for a world of hurt. For one thing, Henry Thomas seemed much older than Darcy. If she had to venture a guess, she’d say ten years. Maybe more. And he was a man of the world—polished, you could say. What was it he saw in Darcy Mae? Cara stopped the rocker and carried it into the house. Not that Darcy wasn’t fetching—she was—and smart in her own way. But Cara would bet a pretty penny he’d kissed many lips before.

  Cara felt her cheeks get hot. My gracious, what a thing to think about. She’d let her mind go idle. She opened the window by her bed. “Pancake,” she called into the night. “Bread?”

  Pancake stuck his long head over the windowsill and nibbled delicately from her hand.

  Cara laughed and scrubbed the sweet spot between his eyes. Drawing his lead through the window, she looped it over the bedpost before she blew out the coal-oil lamp. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  Cara slept hard that night, rousing only once to pull a quilt up against the chill night air. She didn’t wake fully until the rooster crowed.

  Now she knew the answer to her sleeping woes: a rooster for an alarm clock and a mule’s head stuck in her window.

  CHAPTER 14

  DARCY HAD NEARLY FINISHED eight of the sixteen buttonholes down the front of the Eaton Basque she was sewing for Mrs. Charlotte Inglebrook. “Wouldn’t it make you tired, Mammaw, to pack a name like that around?”

  “What name’s that, sugar?” Mammaw asked.

  Darcy snipped a thread and tied a new knot. “Mrs. Charlotte Inglebrook—you know, the lady I’m making this jacket for, the one who’s a friend of Mrs. Upchurch. We were just talking about it.”

  “I was thinking of making a stack cake,” Mammaw said. “Jean Foster’s coming to call tomorrow, you recollect. We’ve got some of them dried apples left, don’t we?”

  Darcy’s stomach sank. She’d pushed any thought of company to the far reaches of her mind. Truthfully her hope was that Mammaw would be napping when Miz Foster called. If Dylan had spoken to her instead of her grandmother, Darcy would have told them not to come. But no, Dylan had to come round the other day while Remy was over. Now the posy of apple blossoms he’d left dropped brown petals on the kitchen table. She should pitch it.

  “I was thinking of making a stack cake,” Mammaw repeated.

  Darcy bit her tongue. Mammaw had one good arm. She was thinking of Darcy baking a stack cake. “Mammaw, I really need to finish these buttonholes. I was meaning to get the braid trim on and do the buttons before dark.”

  There, the eighth buttonhole was perfect. Mrs. Inglebrook was even more particular than Mrs. Upchurch, if that was possible. Darcy thought she would be pleased. Bending over the sturdy shirting, she started number nine. Her needle punched through from back to front. “Ouch!” A fine spray of blood stained the fabric. “Those brats!”

  Mammaw looked up from her Bible and raised one eyebrow.

  “I still haven’t found my thimble after Dance let her children scatter my things.”

  “I’ll thank ye to remember them brats are your nieces and nephews,” Mammaw said.

  “Does that mean Dance doesn’t have to bother herself to make them mind?”

  “Darcy Mae Whitt, what’s got into you? You’re as sour as curdled milk these days.” Mammaw slipped off her reading spectacles and set them on the side table. “Well, lookee here. Your thimble is lying on this table, hidden in plain sight.”

  Darcy sponged blood from the jacket with a clean white rag and cold water. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about the kids. You know I love them.”

  “Poor Dance,” Mammaw said. “She struggles so to raise them young’uns right.”

  Darcy couldn’t see whatever it was that made Mammaw favor Dance over all the other grandkids. As she blotted the wet spot with dry toweling, she wondered aloud, “Why did Dance leave Mommy and Daddy and come to live with you when she was little?”

  Mammaw pulled at her shawl, straightening out a wrinkle. “You was just a set-along baby when she came here. Dance was the oldest before Ezra, then Dimmert, then you. Dory was the least one, barely out of the oven and your ma was with child again.” Her head moved slightly, more tremor than shake. “The Whitt men was always good at making babies.” Mammaw fell into silence. Her softly wrinkled face took on a pensive look.

  Darcy put her sewing aside and went to sit at her grandmother’s feet. “Go on, Mammaw.”

  “Your daddy came to fetch me all the way over to Virginia. I stayed right at three months that time, and I couldn’t help but notice there was something fey about your sister. She was nearly eight years old, but she’d rather sit in a corner chewing the end of her pigtail or flapping her hands in front of the face than wag the baby around. I never knowed a girl who didn’t like to get her hands on a new baby, kind of turn it into her own. Like you was with Dean and Dilly, remember?”

  Darcy leaned her head against Mammaw’s knees. “Indeed I do. I bathed them and mashed up their meat and taters, changed their diapers . . . I reckon I was more mommy than my ma.”

  “She was so wore out, your mommy. You older kids was such a blessing.”

  “Tell the part about Dance.”

  “Well, like I said, she was an oddling, nearly drove your mommy to distraction. She didn’t have the time to keep up with Dance and everybody else at the same time, even with my help. That summer she was carrying Dawn. Then one night Dance just disappears. We put all the young’uns to sleep in the loft that evening, but the next morning Dance was nowhere to be found. Gone out into the night and left the door ajar for anything to walk right in.”

  Darcy pulled off Mammaw’s felt slippers and began to massage her feet, being careful not to touch the tender bunions.

  Mammaw sighed and leaned her head against the pillowed headrest of her chair. “That feels good, child.” Her knobby hand stroked Darcy’s head. “It was a sight that morning, your ma wringing her hands, baby crying, Dimmert and Ezra running in and out asking where to look next. We never even got the biscuits baked that morning. Then around about noon, here Dance comes walking over the ridge behind the house, hair full of cockleburs and sticker weeds.”

  Mammaw wiggled her toes as Darcy kneaded the balls of her feet. “Get some of that good-smelling salve from the bedside table.”

  Darcy returned with two colorful tins. “Do you want this Malvina cream, ‘The one reliable beautifier,’ or the Seven Sutherland Sisters’ petroleum rub, ‘Guaranteed to make your skin smooth as a baby’s bottom’?”

  “I reckon it’s too late to beautify my tired dogs. Let me smell that Seven Sisters.” Mammaw took a sniff after Darcy unscrewed the top. “Who was it sent this stuff?”

  Darcy wondered what was happening to Mammaw’s memory. It was wearing her patience thin, telling her grandmother everything over and over again. “Miz Upchurch sent you the petroleum rub, and Miz Copper brought the Malvina last time she visited. Wasn’t that thoughtful?” She propped Mammaw’s feet on a stool and untwisted the top from the Seven Sutherland Sisters. This would be good for her dry hands as well as Mammaw’s feet. Henry was sure to notice, Darcy dreamed.

  “. . . never did figure out where she’d been.” Mammaw had continued the story without her.

  “Was she hurt?”

  “Not so’s we could tell. Then one night she did it again. Only this time Dimmert followed. He was just six years old, but he was already old beyond his years. They was always close, Dimmert and Dance. He let her have her fill of walking, and that is all she did: walk with her arms stuck out straight in front. Dimmert said she was in a trance.”

  When one foot was happy. Mammaw rested it and stuck the other one out. “Well, that liked to have pushed your ma to the end of her rope. Soon as your pa came home from his circuit—did you ev
er hear him preach? He’s a fine hand at preaching, your pa is.”

  “I only heard him once. He took us older kids to a revival he was doing. He had people confessing and speaking in tongues, handling snakes . . . everything. Me and Dimmert, Ezra and Dory was all baptized there where he was preaching.”

  “They’s no telling how many souls your pa has saved. Makes a tired old mommy right proud.”

  Darcy took a file to Mammaw’s toenails. “Finish about Dance. What happened when daddy got home?”

  “We had a powwow. Me and your papaw and your ma and pa. Herbert had come to carry me back home, said he was tired of beans. We knew we had to do something before Dance walked off a cliff or got eaten by a panther. So then it was decided Dance would come to live with your papaw and me. We would have liked to bring Dimmert also, but your ma needed him.”

  What about me? Darcy couldn’t help but think. Why was it always Dance? Why was Darcy treated like the redheaded stepsister?

  “Of course we couldn’t break up the family any worse than we were already doing. I wouldn’t’ve minded to have the whole passel of you young’uns. But you know, your mommy loved you in her way, and you all was good at looking out for each other.”

  “So then Dance always lived with you and Papaw Herbert until she married Ace.”

  “I tell you what. She was good company when your papaw died. I don’t think I could have stood it without Dance.”

  Darcy smeared a little cream on her own elbows. “Do your feet feel better, Mammaw?”

  “I was thinking of making a stack cake,” Mammaw said. “Do we have any dried apples left?”

  Darcy might as well give in. Mammaw would worry it into the ground until she saw a dried-apple stack cake dripping frosting. “How many layers do you want?”

  “Six or eight will do. Time was I built the tallest stack cake of any woman hereabouts. Do we have any apples, Darcy?”

  Darcy straightened the pillow on the back of Mammaw’s invalid chair. She’d just as well put her sewing away. By the time she reconstituted the apples, baked the layers, and boiled the icing, it would be noon tomorrow. “I’ll go check the pantry. What else do I need?”

  Mammaw turned the pages in her Bible until she found a thin piece of folded paper. “You must always remember where this is. Your papaw’s mother wrote this down from her mother’s recipe.” She unfolded the paper. “Look what a fine hand she had. Her name was Mary Golden.” Once her spectacles were back in place, Mammaw commenced to read. “‘Soak apples in cider with sugar and spice.’ Then for your stacks you need flour, sugar, baking powder—not soda, Darcy Mae—then some ginger and some cinnamon, salt, lard, eggs, vanilla, and sorghum.”

  “What about the icing?”

  “It’s mostly just sugar, butter, and a little sweet milk, and oh, some of that vanilla. Ye just kindly pour it over the stacks like a glaze.”

  “Do you want to take a rest while I heat up the oven? I’ll wake you when I get ready to bake the layers. We can let the apples sit overnight and build the cake in the morning.”

  “I am tired. Will you get the measurement right without me?”

  “Sure, you taught me about teaspoons and tablespoons. Remember I used to do all of Miz Copper’s cooking and baking.” Darcy pushed the chair to the bedroom and helped her grandmother transfer to her bed.

  “Herbert likes a piece of stack cake in the evenings with his coffee,” Mammaw said. “It’s about time for him to come in from the fields. I’ll just close my eyes for a minute.”

  Darcy bussed her Mammaw’s cheek. “I’ll be sure to save him a piece.”

  A tap at the door brought Darcy out of the pantry, a bag of dried apples in one hand and a pail of lard in the other. Nudging the partially closed kitchen door open with her elbow, she saw Dylan standing there.

  “Do you need some milk, Darcy Mae?” He lifted the lidded bucket to chest level. “It’s all strained and everything.”

  “Thanks, Dylan.” She turned to set the cake makings on the table, then went back into the pantry for a gallon jug. Stepping outside, she shut the door. “Mammaw’s asleep.” She set the jar on the wash bench.

  Dylan upended the bucket and poured milk streaked with ribbons of rich yellow cream into the mouth of the jar. “Do you need this right off or do you want me to put it down the well?”

  Darcy dipped water from the rain barrel into the dirty bucket. “Put it down the well whilst I scrub this bucket.”

  He secured a zinc lid onto the jar, then walked down the stepping stones. She stood in the deep shadow of the porch and watched as he turned the corner. My, it was a beautiful morning. The sun said ten o’clock as it cast a welcoming warmth over the yard. Leaving the bucket to soak, she followed Dylan to the well. Bright green blades of grass tickled the soles of her bare feet, and the air around her was soft as an oft-washed quilt and smelled of pear trees in bloom.

  Dylan had propped open the door to the well house, and she stood just outside as he attached the jar ring to a rope on a pulley. The mechanism hung far enough over the lip of the well to lower the milk without getting in the way of the water bucket, keeping it fresh and cool until it was needed.

  “Your ma is coming by tomorrow,” Darcy said.

  Dylan startled. The rope jerked in his hands, and the top of the jar bobbed into view. “Whew. You caught me off guard. I almost smacked the jug against the rocks.”

  “Sorry.”

  Dylan looked over his shoulder at her. “Ma won’t say anything to upset Fairy Mae, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Who said I was worried? Who says I have anything to worry about?”

  “It was all the talk on Sunday,” Dylan replied. “You going off with that Thomas fellow.”

  “I didn’t go off with Henry—Mr. Thomas. I wanted him to meet Mammaw. That’s all it was.” A pang of guilt reverberated through Darcy. She tossed her head but found she couldn’t meet his gaze.

  “Did he, then? Meet your grandmother, that is?” Dylan stepped out of the well house to stand with her in the sunlight.

  “No, not really. He was in a hurry. He’s a busy man, being a lawyer and all.”

  “Business? On Sunday?” Dylan had no trouble with his gaze. It didn’t dart here and there as Darcy felt hers doing.

  “Probably something that couldn’t be helped,” she said, staring at the ground.

  “Well, it ain’t any of my concern no ways.” He stooped to grab a small stone and sent it sailing through the air. With a thunk the stone hit the base of the maple tree in the side yard. A blue jay answered with an angry, raucous call. “I just come to bring Miz Fairy Mae some milk. I’ll be back with more in a couple of days.” Head up, he walked away.

  Darcy wondered why she felt such a sense of loss. “Dylan,” she called, “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t stop, didn’t turn his face to her, only acknowledged her regret with a backhanded wave.

  CHAPTER 15

  CARA SMILED to herself. She couldn’t believe how rested she felt after her night with Pancake. But the mule, poor thing, leaned against the porch railing. His snores sounded like an old man’s. “Extra feed for you today,” she said.

  The morning was busy with her work readying the soil for the beans she wanted to plant. Now that the warm weather had settled for good she could get serious about her garden. With her hoe she mounded hills of dirt. Taking the sturdy six-foot poles saved from last year’s crop, she shoved them in each hill at a thirty-five-degree angle pointed toward the north. Set in this way the vines would climb better, bear earlier, and the pods would be straighter and be more easily picked.

  On her knees she planted six beans to a mound. Once they had a good start, she would thin to the four strongest plants and allow those to climb to the top of the pole before she pinched the tops off. Her chickens scattered around her, pecking hapless bugs. Cara sat back on her heels, watching as a buxom hen tugged at one end of a fishing worm. The chicken pulled with all her might. With a final tug the
worm snapped in two, the head end plowing back into the earth, the tail end hanging from her beak, a fancy feast. Cara was ever so glad to have her chickens back. They would keep her garden clean, and she would soon have fresh eggs to eat.

  When the sun was straight up, she walked down to the creek to wash her hands. Once she’d eaten a little noon meal, she’d ride Pancake over to the Sheltons’. Dance might like to have the bean seed she had left over. Cara could stay and help her for a while. Ace had promised her some Crosby’s Egyptian table beet seed; she could plant them tomorrow if she picked them up today. Dimmert always sowed beet seed real thick so they could pull the surplus for a mess of greens, allowing the remainder to grow large bottoms. She could feel beet juice dripping from her chin already. What she didn’t eat this summer, she would pickle in quart jars for the winter.

  Cara said a prayer of thanksgiving over her onion on corn bread sandwich. For the first time in a long time she felt hopeful and grateful. After taking her bonnet from a peg behind the door, she pulled it shut, then went looking for Pancake. He must be in the barn.

  The barn seemed dark and brooding when she approached. She didn’t much like being in here. A barn without a man seemed as lonesome as a kitchen without a woman. The interior was deep in shadow, though some light streamed in through the door and through small windows. Against the far wall, dark brown tails of cured tobacco stuck out around a press, the last hands Dimmert had tied, she figured. He liked a pipe now and then. Walking over, she released the lever to the press and removed the tobacco stick, expertly sliding the hands off onto a stripping table. A pungent yet not unpleasant herbal scent made her sneeze.

  “Pancake,” she yelled and clapped to wake the animal. Funny how he put himself in the stall whenever he wanted. He raised his big head and gave her a goofy smile. “Let’s take a ride.” She held out his lead and he came willingly.

  Where was it Dimm kept the woven rug he threw over Pancake’s back before he rode? She peeked in each empty stall until she came to the one farthest from the barn door. At first she was not afraid by what she found there. Instead, she tried to reason out the folding bed set against the wall with a dark green woolen blanket tossed across the foot. Beside the bed an overturned wooden box served someone as a table. There was a twist of chewing tobacco there and the stub of a candle on a cracked saucer. A half-eaten apple lay browning on its side.