Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

The hair on the back of Anna’s neck rose. Niver get a-twixt Jolene and somethin’ she wants, Anna heard, ringing in her memory.

  “Still! The hours are passing, and you have much to teach him, and it is clear that your mind would not be on what I was going to teach you today.” Jolene made little fluttering motions with her fingers. “Run on, Anna May! But watch what is around you.”

  She laughed and took a few steps backward, allowing the vegetation to somehow absorb her. And in a moment, she was gone.

  Anna ran.

  Josh worked away at his statue with single-minded intensity; he acknowledged her presence with an absent-minded peck on the cheek, but turned back to his statue immediately. It was clear that she had arrived at a critical time in its creation, so she took her usual seat on a stool and tried to calm her nerves, which had been badly rattled by the encounter with Jolene.

  “Y’all know Jolene?” she asked, when at last he paused to study what he had done.

  He snorted. “Ain’t a man in th’ Ducktown Basin thet don’t. She could hev ary a man she wanted. Not—” he added hastily, “—thet I’m a-sayin’ she’s loose, ’cause she ain’t. Hasn’t nobody, nowhere, iver said he got more’n a ‘howdy’ from her. But y’all’d hev t’be blind not t’ see her what with thet fire-hair and her purdy green dresses, an’ she seems ter make a point o’ knowin’ ev’body’s names at least.”

  Well, she was at a loss of how to ask what she wanted to know next. Like how well did he know her, and did she ever come to the farm? And if so, why? She already knew that Josh was a stone carver—was that what interested her?

  Niver get a-twixt Jolene an’ what she wants.

  “She comes by here irregular, t’see what I’m a-workin’ on,” Josh replied to her unspoken questions. “Been doin’ it since I started. Reckon she saw somethin’ I carved fer sale in th’ mercantile a while back an’ arst who done it. She do know her stone!” His voice took on a brightness that made Anna’s heart twist a little with jealousy. “She knew right well how I could git a better finish on granite an’ marble, an’ she’s th’ one what tol’ me where t’ git the par-ti-cu-lar sorta sand I use t’polish with now.”

  Is that something she knows because it’s an Earth-Magic thing? Anna wondered. But why wouldn’t Aunt Jinny know that sort of stuff?

  The answer was obvious in the next moment. Because Jinny don’t care ’bout it. She cares about plants an’ growing an’ healing.

  But Josh had fallen silent again, in a way that suggested he wasn’t all that interested in talking about Jolene. Not in the “I’m avoiding the subject” way, but in the “I’d rather concentrate on what I’m doing” way. Anna took the hint and fell silent.

  Aunt Jinny had suggested—in that way that made it an order rather than a suggestion—that if she was going to be spending her afternoons down in Josh’s workshop, she really ought to be doing more than just watching Josh work, gazing on him like a devoted hound. So she picked up straw and the narrow plait she had begun a few days ago, with an eye to sewing the straw into another sun hat. She wanted a hat with a broader brim than the hat she’d arrived with. That hat was scarcely more than a narrow-brimmed bonnet. And after all the money Aunt Jinny had spent on her, she felt that the only way she was going to get one was to make it.

  Besides—men and women both used the same kind of wide-brimmed straw hats. If this one turned out, she could make another, and it would be lovely to have something useful to give to Josh.

  She hoped that keeping her fingers busy would get her mind off Jolene’s sudden interest in Josh. It didn’t work. All she could think about was that time in Ducktown, when she’d seen for herself how the fellers all lit up when they saw Jolene.

  . . . and when I lost sight of her in Ducktown, Jolene was a-headin’ around thet corner Billie McDaran come from!

  Billie McDaran . . .

  Now Billie McDaran was no spirit, that much she was certain of. Where Jolene seemed utterly indifferent to, or was at least amused by, the evidence that she was very attractive to every man that saw her—well, Billie had been the opposite. When women peeped at him out of the corner of their eyes, or gave little flirtatious glances, or even stared at him openly, he had preened under their gazes. And when a few of them had looked at him in alarm or apprehension, well, he seemed to like that just as much. And though he had pulsed with a twisted form of the Glory, he had not had the overwhelming power that Jolene did.

  He was almost certainly an extremely powerful magician—and certainly as human as she was.

  And surely Jolene knows McDaran.

  Ducktown wasn’t that big. There couldn’t have been much in town once you got off Main Street. Had she been going to meet McDaran? And if so, why?

  She’s purdy innerested in everybody what’s got magic around her . . .

  She waited for Josh to pause again in his work. “What’d y’all know ’bout Billie McDaran?” she asked him.

  “Thet he’s a no-good snake, an’ y’all better stay fur away from him!” Josh replied, sounding surprised and anxious all at the same time.

  “Wall, Aunt Jinny says th’ same, but what d’y’all know ’bout him?” she persisted.

  Josh put down both his hammer and his chisel, which demonstrated just how seriously he was taking this conversation, and turned toward her, giving her his full attention. “He come t’ these here parts ’bout six, eight years ago. I dunno where from. I’m thankin’ thet the mine owners brung him here, but I dunno fer sure. I was purt little then, an’ there weren’t much room fer anythin’ in my fool haid but fishin’ an’ tryin’ t’ git outta chores an’ school lessons.”

  “Y’all went t’ school?” she said, surprised, thinking about how far from Ducktown the farm was.

  But he shook his head. “Ma larned us. She’d larn us till it were purdy plain we weren’t gonna larn nothin’ else, an’ she’d let us quit. Me an’ Sue an’ Gertie, thet is. She’s still larnin’ Seth, Becky, an’ Ned. Sue an’ Gertie an’ me don’t need no more o’ thet stuff. We got readin’, writin’, an ’rithmatic, an’ thet’s all we need.”

  He looked as if he was more than happy to go off on that tangent, so Anna hauled him back. “Billie McDaran,” she reminded him.

  He made a face. “All I know fer sure is he’s a scandal. He’s got two wimmin as he says does housework an’ cookin’ fer him what lives in his house, an’ Pa said to Ma when he thunk I wasn’t listenin’ thet he reckons McDaran’s a-livin’ in sin with the both of ’em. I ain’t never seed ’em, but they’s supposed t’be real purdy, iffen you don’t mind a woman lookin’ like a whupped dog. Cooper at the Company store cain’t hardly stand him, but he’s gotter be nice on account’a McDaran’s the mine foreman. Cooper’s the one tol’ me them wimmin look like they’s askeert alla time. He says they don’t hardly never come outa thet house ’less McDaran sends ’em t’the store on a errand. The mine owners gotta know ’bout them wimmin, but they don’t say or do nothin’.” Josh scratched his head in perplexity. “Mebbe they don’t do nothin’ on account’a Cooper says they’s quadroons, an’ some folks reckon . . . wall, thet they don’t count. Not like a white woman, anyways.”

  That was a lot to digest. “So does ev’body in Ducktown gotter act nice to him?” she asked.

  “Purdy much, on account’a ev’body either works in the mine, or needs miners’ money. Like the mercantile. An’ even iffen they don’t gotter, it don’t pay t’git acrost him, ’cause he’ll lay a man out with one punch, an’ swear t’other feller started it. Thet’s partly how he keeps th’ miners workin’. I knowed fer a fact thet he’s laid more’n a few out, an’ some was seein’ stars fer a week arter.” Josh shook his head. “He’s mean, he’s bad, an’ he’s a bully.”

  “An’ he’s a magician,” Anna told him. “On’y his magic’s all twisted up wrong, somehow. I seed it ’round him when we was in Ducktown an’ he was a-plaguing yor
e Pa.”

  “He is?” Josh scratched his head again. “Miz Jinny knows?”

  “She knows. She says he c’n use thet magic t’git inside yore haid an’ make y’all do what he wants and thank it’s reasonable on top o’ thet.” What would Jolene want with a man like that? Did he “amuse” her too?

  “Wall, thet ’splains a lot. Sure-e-ly ’splains why the mine owners ain’t fired him, an’ mebbe ’splains why they hired him in the fust place.”

  She nodded, but she was still trying to think of reasons why Jolene would want anything to do with someone like McDaran. Surely his twisted form of the Glory revolted her the way it revolted Anna . . .

  But she’s more powerful than he is. Mebbe it don’t bother her none.

  This was leaving her head all of muddle, and she was no closer to sussing out Jolene than she had been when she first met the—what was she, anyway?

  Now Anna was back to where she had begun. She was sure Jolene was no human woman, just as Aunt Jinny claimed, but what could she be? And what could Anna do if she decided she was interested in Josh?

  When she reluctantly left Josh, it was with a mind full of doubt and fear and confusion. She trudged up the lane in a kind of fog, so much so that she almost didn’t hear the sound of hoofbeats on the sod behind her until it was too late.

  And in fact, it wasn’t the sound of hoofbeats that alerted her. It was the sudden feeling of wrongness behind her that sent her scurrying into the bushes beneath the trees, throwing up a shield at the same time. Then she waited, crouching there, hidden, until she could see who it was that had given her that gut-twisting feeling.

  As if merely thinking about him had somehow conjured him, to her horror, it was . . .

  Billie McDaran.

  Billie McDaran, riding in the sort of awkward, off-balance way that told her he really didn’t know how to ride, on a poor horse that was literally foaming with fear-sweat and clearly did not want to be carrying him. It was impossible to tell what color the poor beast was, it was so soaked with its own sweat.

  He was paying absolutely no attention to anything on either side of him, and she thanked Baby Jesus that she had put the shield up when she had. He shouldn’t sense another magician here, and hopefully he didn’t even know she was one. But if he had managed to tell there was one here, before she had detected him, it would have been—ahead of him, where he would have expected Aunt Jinny to be, and not down here in the lane. She couldn’t tell exactly where someone was, or (more importantly) how far away they were, and she doubted that he could.

  Why was Billie McDaran riding up this lane? There was only one thing at the end of it, and that was Aunt Jinny’s cabin.

  Well, she surely did not want to encounter him. There was only one thing to do. Take some of the game trails instead of the lane, and come out at the back of the cabin rather than the front. Then what? Wait, I guess. Watch and listen?

  Thanks to all her hunting for plants for Jinny’s potions, she knew the forest on either side of the lane intimately. She couldn’t exactly eel through the underbrush the way the Ravens could, but—

  A hand touched her shoulder from behind, and she nearly shrieked aloud, stuffing her fist into her mouth to muffle it as she whirled, ready to—well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had every intention of defending herself if she had to—

  But it wasn’t an interloper, it was Young Raven, an uncustomary expression of deep concern on his face. “Come with me,” he said quietly. “It is not safe for you at your home for a while.”

  “But how—” she began.

  “Jinny was warned by the Little People, and to be certain they were right, scried the road from Ducktown. She saw the man McDaran on his horse, and knew there was likely only one place he would be coming. She does not want him to see you. She believes it would be very dangerous for you if he did. She sent to me to find you and bring you where you can be safe. Now follow,” he concluded, giving her no chance to ask any more questions.

  Soon they were entirely off the trails she knew, and going deeper and deeper into the Holler. It would not be fair to say that this part of the woods had never had man set foot in it—because obviously the Cherokee did make free of its game trails—but they certainly had left it all fundamentally untouched. If there was any sign that anything other than animals used these thread-like paths through the woods, she certainly couldn’t read it.

  Old trees grew here, trees that never saw an axe, but had been left to die in their own time. Some were big enough that it would take two or even three people to encircle their trunks. And the growth was so dense that she couldn’t see more than ten or twenty feet in any direction. Only where the giants had fallen, or where tiny cricks wound through the vegetation, were there places for younger trees to seek the light, but that did not mean the forest floor was barren. On the contrary, shade-loving bushes as high as her head and ferns as tall as her waist thrust their way to the dim light through a floor so carpeted with damp, dead leaves that their footsteps made scarcely a sound. Streaks of red, orange, yellow, and brown showed where frost had already touched some parts of this forest. It was actually cold under those branches, and all she could smell was the bitter scent of falling leaves.

  Bright sunlight ahead warned her that they were coming to a clearing, but when they passed through the thick bushes that took them inside it, she found herself blinking in surprise. Before her astonished gaze were eight cabins virtually identical to Aunt Jinny’s place, one much bigger one in the center, and one smaller, off to the side of the others, all surrounded by a ring of productive gardens. And there were people everywhere. She had suspected that there were more Cherokee than just the Ravens and Young Raven’s wife deep in the Holler, perhaps as many as a dozen, but she’d had no idea there was an entire tribe back here.

  “This is not what a traditional village would look like,” Young Raven said, as she stared at more people than she had ever imagined were hiding back here. “A traditional village would have summer and winter houses for each family, and a sweathouse for the sick for each family as well. But there was no point in building summer and winter houses, when the kind of cabin we knew how to build at the time of the Removal was much better in both halves of the year, especially after your great-grandfather showed us how improve our own, and how to build his wonderful stove. The center building is the Council House. The little one is the sweathouse we all share, because thanks to my father, my grandmother, me, and my wife, we are all seldom sick.”

  There were children everywhere, from toddling babies to ten- or eleven-year-olds. Some were doing chores; some were just playing. There didn’t seem to be any men around; the women were dressed in a practical outfit of a kind of long smock with a belt or sash and leggings, often in a mix of leather and colorful calico, and were mostly engaged in all manner of work. Except for the oldest women, who were supervising the children. The boys wore outfits like Young Raven’s, the girls like their mothers, the toddlers wore nothing at all—which, after a moment of shock, seemed eminently practical to Anna. Given how dirty very young children liked to get in play, what could be more sensible than just leaving them in their skin as long as the weather allowed it? After no more than a glance or two at her, the adults went back to their work, which was everything from working in the garden to smoking meat in racks over smoldering fires, to working on hides stretched over curing frames, to what she presumed was grinding corn the hard way—by hand. But the children came pelting over to stare at her as soon as they spotted her.

  Reckon I’m a reg’lar circus, she thought wryly. “O’siyo,” she said, politely, as all those grave little faces looked up at hers.

  “This is Anna,” Young Raven said. “She is hiding from an enemy of hers, and ours. You must all be very careful and stay within the boundary until she leaves. Only then will you know the enemy is gone. We do not want to discover you have been stolen away from us
and sent far away as our brothers and sisters were.”

  All those big, dark eyes grew much bigger when Young Raven said that she was hiding from an enemy, more so when he spoke about Removal, and all the heads nodded instant agreement. But one little girl was less impressed with that than with Anna’s hair.

  “Why is your hair the color of corn?” she asked, staring as if she wanted to touch it.

  “Why is your hair the color of a crow’s wing?” Anna asked back. “Mine is the color of corn for the same reason.” It seemed the most diplomatic way of answering. Despite the seriousness of the moment, Young Raven seemed amused by the exchange, and the little girl’s face puckered with thought for a moment.

  “All right,” she said at last, simply accepting the answer. Young Raven made a slight shooing motion, and the children scattered again, going back to what they had been doing before her entrance interrupted them.

  She looked over at Young Raven, astonished. “How do you keep so many people a secret?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “The Holler is big enough that as long as we do not have more people than this, it can sustain us. Most of us never go past your aunt’s cabin. Those who choose to leave, to look for husbands or wives, for instance, simply never talk about where they are from to anyone but other Cherokee. We are not the only band that is in hiding—and there are Cherokee in the Removed lands who had proper title to their land and farms as the white man deemed legal; they remained when the rest were forced to depart. Not many, but enough that the young men and women can go find mates among them, and bring some of them here, as I did. Hunters and trappers are unlikely to trespass for fear of your aunt. And my father and I keep the village from being discovered with a barrier of power, which makes those who are not permitted here go around us without ever finding us. And the little people help with that.”

  That sounded even more effective than Aunt Jinny’s shield. I need to larn how to do that.

  “Now we will go to my family’s home and see what Billie McDaran wants,” he continued, and strode off into the circle of houses, with her trotting after him to keep up.