Small Town Girl

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “What did you tell him?” Kate held her breath as she listened for the answer.

  “What do you think?” Kate’s mother said. “I said Jay stopped by the house most every day except on Sunday. He looked some bothered by that, but the truth is what it is. I love Mike. He’s one of mine now. And he’s our preacher and a good one, but he can’t order the lives of his church people any more than my father could years ago. That was something Father could never accept. He was ever sure he knew the righteous way, the only way, and he expected people to do what he said. Especially me.”

  “But you didn’t always.” Kate kept her fingers moving across the counter, tracing out an invisible pattern.

  “No, I didn’t. Some decisions can’t be made for others. Even by a preacher. Or a father.” Mama put her hand over Kate’s on the counter. “Heaven only knows, we all have to make our own mistakes and seek our own forgiveness.”

  “Evie would tell me that I’m making a mistake.” Kate looked up at her mother.

  “It doesn’t matter what Evangeline thinks.” Her mother’s eyes were sharp on her. “What matters is what you think.”

  Kate’s cheeks flushed. “What if you don’t know what you think?”

  Mama’s lips turned up in a small smile as she squeezed Kate’s hand. “Then you wait on the Lord to help you figure things out.”

  Kate stared down at the floorboards worn white by hundreds of Rosey Corner feet. She pushed out the question that was swelling inside her. “How do you know when you’re in love?”

  With gentle fingers, her mother pushed a lock of Kate’s hair away from her face. “A hundred ways. When your heart does a dance when you see him. When you don’t think you’ll be able to keep breathing if he goes away. When you’ll do anything to be with him even if that means leaving everything you’ve known and loved.”

  “That’s what you did for Daddy, wasn’t it?” Kate raised her head to meet her mother’s eyes.

  “It was. Neither of our fathers approved our match, but in spite of them, we grabbed the time we had before he had to go to the war. I’ve never regretted that. Not once.”

  “Even when—” Kate started.

  Her mother cut her off. “Even when your father was struggling with the drink. You know how hard that was for me, but I never regretted loving your father. That’s the way love is, my Kate. When you truly fall in love, nobody will have to tell you. You’ll know.” She reached over and touched Kate’s blouse over her heart. “You’ll know here.”

  “What if it is Jay?” Kate asked softly.

  “Do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then it might be, and then again, it might not be. Because you will know. Love doesn’t always come barreling down on you like a train engine. Sometimes it sneaks up on you like spring overtaking winter. The chill winds begin to warm and suddenly the trees have leaves and the flowers are blooming. You will know.”

  Kate looked down at the floor again. But what if love wasn’t as easy for her as it had been for Evie and her mother?

  Mama put her fingers under Kate’s chin and raised her head up to search her eyes for a long moment. “Have you kissed him?”

  Another blush warmed Kate’s cheeks as she shook her head a little.

  “Then maybe you should.”

  Kate was glad when Lorena came rushing into the store to say Trouble had pulled loose from her to chase after a rabbit. Tears were streaming down Lorena’s cheeks as she wailed, “He’s gone.”

  Graham followed her in. “Now don’t you worry, little Lorenie. I’ll get Poe to hunt him up for you.”

  When they filed back outside, Poe kept his head firmly on his paws as he gave Graham the eye. It was plain he had no plans to do any dog hunting. Especially for some pup that was always tugging on his ears. Lost forever would suit Poe.

  Kate took one look at the old dog and hurried back into the store to slice off a hunk of bologna. “I don’t think we can count on Poe, but this should do the trick.” She held up the bologna.

  She ran with Lorena back to where she’d lost Trouble. By then the rabbit had made it to a safe hiding place and Trouble was digging in Mrs. Alcorn’s flower bed. Kate held out the meat, and ten seconds later, Lorena had hold of the rope still around his neck.

  “You’re the swellest,” Lorena said.

  Swell. Practical. Problem solver. Unless it was the problem of Jay Tanner. Why did she always think he might be a problem? Why couldn’t she simply let the smiles break loose and enjoy the moment? Let him kiss her. He wanted to. She wanted him to. Maybe that was the problem. She wanted him to, but she didn’t know how to let him know that.

  18

  Jay couldn’t remember ever being so happy. At least not for such a long stretch of days. He’d had happy moments. Times when he’d hit the winning home run in a ball game back in high school or the day he got his car and took it out on the road. He’d rolled all the windows down and let the air rush past him. It was like nothing could ever stop him again or steal that feeling of freedom.

  But he’d never gotten out of bed morning after morning ready to start whistling even when he was facing a day of picking corn or sawing wood. The work for Mr. Franklin was hard, but the old farmer was an easy boss. He didn’t say much, but what he did say mattered. He was a bear of a man who never got in a hurry but kept plodding along until the job got done.

  His little wife was his opposite in every way. Short, full of chatter, and never still when they went in for the noonday meal. She popped up and down out of her chair to get first this and then that. She didn’t cook fancy, but she did cook plenty. Their daughter had married and moved off to Indiana. A son had gone west, met a girl in Texas, and had only been back to Kentucky to visit a couple of times since.

  Every day Mrs. Franklin would be out of the house before the mailman’s car was out of sight, hurrying down the long lane to see what he’d left. The cornfield ran alongside the lane, and Mr. Franklin would pause in his work long enough to watch her check the mailbox. The first few days he simply frowned and went back to picking corn, but then one day the little woman looked toward him and waved an envelope in the air.

  A smile creased Mr. Franklin’s face as he threw up his hand at his wife. “Good. A letter today.” He bent back to his task, muttering, “Them kids could see their mother when she gets a letter, they’d write twice as much.”

  Jay pulled another ear of corn free from the shuck and pitched it in the wagon. He could probably count on one hand the times he’d gotten a letter. Lately, no letters could catch up with him the way he moved around. It had been a simple wonder that Mike had tracked him down in Tennessee back before the wedding. Something his friend seemed to be regretting now.

  That was the only shadow on Jay’s happiness. Mike. He hadn’t seen Mike since the day he’d preached at him in the churchyard. He didn’t want to see Mike. Not if he was going to tell him how he should go away. So he stayed away from Rosey Corner and the Merritts’ house whenever Mike and his bride were there.

  Nobody seemed to question him disappearing to Edgeville on the weekends. He found plenty of places there to while away a little time. Roadhouses kept their lights bright far into the night, where the music was loud, the dancing lively, and the drinks flowing to help the people forget war talk and draft notices. That was one letter Jay wasn’t looking forward to getting, but he had registered his address with the post office. They could find him if his number came up.

  But anytime he was away from Rosey Corner, he wished every minute that he was back there. Talking to Kate. Seeing both Kate and Birdie. It didn’t matter that Kate still shoved the kid between them whenever they were together. Nothing seemed to matter much except finding ways to get that smile to sneak out on Kate’s face and make her eyes sparkle. The pup had been a great idea. Even before that, Birdie was in his corner. She’d liked him from day one, but now that he’d brought her the dog, she thought he was grander than grand.

  He liked the
kid, and not just because of Kate. When Birdie heard him pulling into their yard, she always came running out of the house and was beside his car before the engine made its last heave and shuddered to a stop. She had pulled him into the circle of the Merritt family until he felt like he belonged at their supper table or in their living room listening to Mr. Merritt read aloud.

  Jay’s mother had read to him. He had almost forgotten that, but Kate’s father’s voice bringing a story to life made his own mother’s voice echo in his memory. She’d read from a book with a worn blue cover that must have held a hundred stories. The thick weight of it had mashed down on his legs as he leafed through the pages to find the best stories. She’d been sickly even then, but she liked for him to sit by her in the bed. She pointed out words to him and explained their magic for telling stories so that he was reading even before he started school.

  It had been years since more than a fleeting thought of his mother had lingered long in his thoughts, but somehow she seemed to hover around him whenever he was in the Merritts’ sitting room. It was good remembering her love.

  But as much as he liked Birdie, as much as he enjoyed the rest of the family, it was Kate who was putting the smile on his face when he got up in the morning and keeping it simmering below the surface all through the day. If he could have somehow blocked the war news out of Rosey Corner and gotten Mike to understand that he had turned a corner away from his wild days, things would have been near to perfect. He would walk through fire before he would do anything that might hurt Kate or any of her family.

  He thought about hunting up Mike to tell him that, but Mike wouldn’t believe him. Not unless he made some kind of big confession in front of God and man. He’d expect Jay to start occupying a church pew every time the church bell tolled. Jay had done that with his aunt and uncle. A big pretense of piety that had meant nothing. Once they left the church and went back home, things were the same. Nobody loved anybody, and when they went back the next Sunday, the pews were never any softer and neither were their hearts.

  Then again, a church pew might not be too uncomfortably hard sitting next to Kate. Even with Birdie between them. But he kept thinking about Mike preaching straight at him. Mike expecting some spiritual proof to balloon up inside him, and if nothing like that happened, Mike thinking he should be gone. He couldn’t handle that. He’d just have to find another place to sit beside Kate.

  But he hadn’t considered the middle of Lindell Woods. Graham had been after him to go raccoon hunting ever since Mike’s wedding. Jay kept putting him off.

  “I hear you don’t even hunt. Not really,” Jay said when he started in on him the middle of November. The day had been nice, warm for the time of year, and Graham said it might be their last chance to go hunting until spring.

  “Whoever told you that about Poe and me not hunting just don’t know.” Graham picked up his walking stick. Poe had his head up watching him with more energy than the old dog had shown since Jay had been there. “It’s according to what you’re hunting.”

  “I thought that was raccoons,” Jay said.

  “And sure, we like saying hello to the coons that pass along our way, and now and again Poe gets up enough energy to give them a little chase for old time’s sake. He used to give these youngsters’ grandpappies a run for their money.”

  “But you didn’t kill them then either.” Jay smiled at the man.

  “Never did care much for killing things. Poe neither.” Graham touched the old dog’s head. “There’s all kinds of ways to hunt and all kinds of things to be hunting. Sometimes we’re simply out there hunting a little peace and quiet and maybe some memories. You come on with us tonight and you’ll feel the deep of the night.”

  “The moon’s practically full.” Jay looked out the window where the moon was rising up above the eastern horizon. It looked twice as big as normal and had an orange glow.

  “Just because there’s light don’t keep it from being deep in the night.” Graham pulled on a jacket and stuck a candy bar and a sausage wrapped in newspaper down in his pocket. He turned to look full at Jay with his grin that meant he was about to say something out of the way. “The girls is going with us. I told them they’d have to leave their Trouble home, but that I might bring my trouble along.”

  “So I’m trouble now.” Jay laughed. “Your trouble?”

  “If I hadn’t offered you a business partnership, you’d be off in Chicago now, so guess I gotta take blame for keeping you around. ’Course it could be you’re troubling somebody else now.” Graham gave Jay a knowing look. “Or maybe they’re troubling you.”

  “Could be,” Jay admitted as he pulled the laces of his shoes tight and tied them. He stood up to follow Graham out the door to see what he could hunt.

  “Best grab your jacket. You might need to share it with somebody before the night’s over.”

  Kate and Birdie were waiting for them at the edge of the yard. The pup, barking for all he was worth, was shut up in the pen Jay had built for him. With a growl rumbling in his throat, Poe looked toward the pup’s pen and flapped his ears back and forth.

  Kate laughed and rubbed the dog’s head. “It’s okay, Poe. He can’t get to your ears. I promise.”

  As they headed across the field toward the trees, the pup’s barks grew more frantic. Birdie looked back toward the yard. “Do you think Trouble will be all right? Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  “The woods is waiting for us.” Graham put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You can’t let Trouble rule your life, girl.”

  “He’ll stop as soon as we’re out of sight,” Kate assured her. “And if he doesn’t, Daddy will take him in the house and let him sleep next to his chair till we get home. He likes Trouble.”

  “Liking trouble can get a feller in hot water,” Graham said.

  “Chasing trouble’s even worse,” Jay put in.

  “Oh, you two.” Kate blew out an exasperated breath. “If you don’t stop it, we’re going to change Trouble’s name.”

  “Trouble by any other name is still trouble.” Graham had a smile in his voice.

  Jay laughed. “What would you call him if you didn’t call him Trouble?”

  “I don’t know. How about Wisdom? Better to be talking about what wisdom does than trouble,” Kate said.

  “Wouldn’t work. You’d have to have another dog for that.” Graham let his eyes slide over to Kate. “Nothing wise about Trouble.”

  “I give up.” Kate threw her hands up in the air, but she was laughing.

  They were all laughing. Behind them Trouble kept barking, but not quite so frantically. They pushed through some scrubby cedars and stepped into a different world where the trees towered above them and shadows drifted beside them like live things.

  Jay eyed them, not sure they weren’t alive. It had been a long time since he’d been in the woods after dark. But if live animals were skulking along in the shadows, they had little to fear from the invaders of their territory. The newly fallen leaves crunched under their every step. They weren’t going to sneak up on anything this night.

  “We love these trees,” Birdie told Jay as she let her hand slide across one of the tree trunks that was so big it would take all of them holding hands to circle it.

  “Old growth trees,” Graham added with a hint of reverence in his voice. “Been here since way before us.” He also laid his hand on the tree like he was greeting an old friend.

  “Made it through the fire,” Kate said.

  “The fire was scary.” Birdie moved over to stand close against Kate. “I thought everything was going to burn up. Us too.”

  “But Fern and Graham got us out of the fire.” Kate put an arm around her.

  “Seems to me I remember Poe being the one to get us out of that mess,” Graham put in. “You can always trust an animal to know the way out. ’Cepting maybe that Trouble. Not sure I’d be chasing after him with any kind of trust just yet.”

  Graham had told Jay the fire story just last week. How
the flames had flashed through the dry cedar woods and very nearly cut off their escape route. He hadn’t mentioned his sister, or much about the dog. Or even told what they were doing in the woods in the middle of a fire. When Jay had asked, Graham said some things had to be learned and not explained.

  “So how come you were in the woods when it was on fire?” Jay asked now. A person learned things by asking.

  “Fern was saving me,” Birdie said.

  “Saving you? From the fire?”

  “No, from the rats.” Birdie’s voice shook a little. “I don’t like rats.”

  Kate pulled Birdie closer to her and looked at Jay over the kid’s head. “It’s a long story.”

  “And one we don’t have time to be telling right now,” Graham said. “We’re hunting, and if we keep jabbering, no respectable coon will come anywhere near us.”

  “Where are we going to wait for them to show up tonight?” Birdie whispered.

  “I thought maybe we’d split up awhile and double our chances. The two of us and Poe will go over yonder a ways to the other side of the trees and Kate can stay here with the greenhorn.”

  “Hey,” Jay protested. “I’ve been in plenty of woods.”

  Graham gave him a look. “Hunting?”

  “Never hunted anything but trouble,” Jay admitted.

  When Birdie giggled, Kate let out an exaggerated sigh. “Trouble is safe at the house. We’re not mentioning him again tonight.”

  Poe gave a funny growly bark as though he were disgusted with all their talk. He raised his nose in the air and then stuck it close to the ground before he ambled off. A few seconds later he was baying, a deep, throaty sound that filled the air.

  “Now that’s hunting.” Graham grabbed Birdie’s hand. “We better chase after him to make sure he don’t get in trouble—oops, sorry, Kate—if he catches up to a coon he don’t recognize. No telling what might happen then.”

  The two of them took off through the trees, Graham in a slow lope and Birdie stirring up the leaves underfoot as she ran alongside him. The dog kept baying.