by Jan Watson
Lastly, to signal the end of the parade, a sturdy pony pulled a cage on wheels past the crowd. Inside lay the king of the beasts. His magnificent head rested on huge crossed paws.
Copper turned her face away; the lion’s golden eyes made her sad somehow. She fancied he mourned for his freedom as she often grieved the loss of her own.
Following the parade, Copper, Simon, and Hester joined the rest of the revelers at the park, where picnic tables groaned under baskets of food and bright quilts beckoned under every shade tree. Simon was commandeered for a round of lawn tennis, so Copper and Hester settled themselves in wooden folding chairs to watch.
“I hope this doesn’t take long,” Hester fussed. “I can’t wait to get to that fried chicken. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not really,” Copper replied, sipping on the lemon ice Simon had bought her. “I ate so much at the parade, I might never eat again.”
“Perish the thought!” Hester said as she shifted her weight, the chair beneath her popping and squeaking in protest. “Life wouldn’t be worth much without breakfast, dinner, and supper. I’ll be right back, Copper. I’m just going to get a nibble of my mother’s deviled eggs before they’re gone. Can I bring you anything? A tablespoonful of air perhaps?”
“I’ll save your seat,” Copper said. “Oh, look! Simon made a great serve.”
Hester soon returned with a napkin full of goodies. “What’s going on over there?” She indicated a commotion on the other side of the tennis game. “Mrs. Johnson seems to have lost something.”
Indeed, Mrs. Johnson did seem distressed as she shook out the linens from the basket where her baby, Matilda, had been sleeping. Copper could hear her calling as she searched frantically.
“I’m going to see what has happened,” Copper said. “Stay here and enjoy your eggs. I’ll be right back.”
“What’s wrong, Mrs. Johnson?” Copper asked as she reached the distraught mother.
“Oh, Mrs. Corbett, I seem to have misplaced Matilda.” Mrs. Johnson shook her head in disbelief. “She was sleeping right here in her basket while I helped my youngest son to the outhouse. I took him myself because his brothers were rolling hoops with some other boys, and my husband’s gone to fetch our picnic basket.”
“Are you sure you didn’t hand her off to one of the other ladies?” Copper asked as other women started to join them. “She didn’t just disappear.”
“No. I left her right here! Right here sleeping in her basket!” Mrs. Johnson’s voice rose in panic. “She must have crawled out of the basket and come looking for me.”
Copper took the frightened mother’s hands in her own. “I’m going to get Dr. Corbett and your husband. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”
Soon everyone had gathered around the Johnson family. Their oldest boy was sent to find a police officer, which caused Mrs. Johnson to cry out and collapse to the ground. Several women waved at her with pasteboard fans, and one mopped her face with a rag dipped in ice water.
While waiting for the police to arrive, Simon instructed the men to fan out, each covering a portion of the park that stretched for many tree-covered acres and was bisected by Town Branch, a swiftly flowing creek whose waters could be treacherous.
The search continued, but evening came much too quickly, bringing darkening skies and the threat of a summer thunderstorm. Mothers collected baskets, quilts, and children, holding their own close to their sides. Fathers placed intact families in buggies and wagons to be carried home to their safe houses. Fireworks were disassembled and packed carefully in wooden packing crates to be used at another time.
Mrs. Johnson wailed piteously, her cries a stark reminder to everyone of how quickly disaster could strike, how quickly joy could turn to grief. Her husband walked her to their carriage, he on one side, Copper on the other, both murmuring words of encouragement that fell on deaf ears. Matilda’s brothers tagged behind, perplexed as to what had happened, the oldest carrying the basket that had been the baby’s bed.
Copper overheard the police captain mention dragging the creek in the morning as soon as it was light. The men, Simon included, assembled before him, nodding in agreement. The creek seemed the likely place to find baby Matilda.
Copper listened but doubted. It seemed someone would have noticed. What were they thinking? That someone had drowned Matilda? Who would do such a thing?
Simon had opened his office to get some calming powders for Mrs. Johnson. Mr. Johnson said they would go to the home of her sister for the night. The police captain assured the baby’s parents that they would continue their search despite the lightning that danced across the sky.
Simon and Copper walked home hand in hand, sharing thoughts, each wondering where baby Matilda was. Simon had delivered the little girl after an uneventful pregnancy and an easy labor. He was attached to her, as a doctor is to every child he brings into the world. Copper had seen Matilda only twice in the office, but that was enough to forge a bond, and she grieved for the chubby baby and for her mother. She worried that the baby was alone and frightened of the coming storm.
“Do you think Matilda is in the creek, Simon?” she asked.
“We looked everywhere, behind every tree, beneath every bush. It’s the only place we haven’t searched. It doesn’t make sense, but where else could she be?”
“Simon, someone had to take her. A little baby doesn’t just fall in the creek by herself.”
“Who would take her? We were picnicking there, close to the banks of the water. Perhaps she just toddled in.”
“Oh, that can’t be. Besides, she wasn’t walking yet. She’d barely learned to crawl.” Copper stopped under a gaslight, shaking her head. “A baby can’t be here one moment and gone the next. This makes me too sad. Isn’t there something else we can do?”
“We must pray, Copper. Pray that the police find the baby before it is too late.”
Copper and Simon were surprised to find Andy Tolliver waiting at their house with Simon’s medical bag in hand and Pard saddled up.
“Hey, Doc,” Andy said. “I figured you’d be home shortly. Doc Thornsberry sent me to fetch you. Thought I might as well get things ready while I waited.”
“What has happened?”
“Doc T. said there’s a big bust-up this side of Paris. Said a train overturned and scattered bodies all along the track. Said they needed every doctor they could get.” Andy stroked Pard’s long nose and looked at Simon hopefully. “Can I go with you?”
“Sorry, Andy, but I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. You’d better stay here.” Simon reached out and patted the boy’s shoulder. “You did a good job, son. I’m proud of you.”
“You should change your clothes, Simon,” Copper said. “While you do that, I’ll fix a poke of food and some coffee for you to take along.”
Copper hurried to the kitchen, Andy right on her heels. She measured the coffee, glad she had ground the beans that morning, and added cold water to the coffeepot. While it perked, she made thick ham sandwiches, and she twisted boiled eggs sprinkled with salt into waxed paper to put in Pard’s saddlebag. Simon would need a repast considering he had not eaten at the picnic supper. Everyone had been too busy searching for the baby to eat.
A gulp of coffee, a quick kiss, and an admonishment to stay in out of the weather, and Simon was gone. Off to another crisis, leaving Copper to fret to Andy about how he could keep up the pace, how he could handle so much misery all the time.
“Well, Miz Corbett,” Andy explained in all seriousness, as if Copper expected him to come up with an answer to her hypothetical question, “Doc can handle it because he’s got something to do about it. It’s us that has to wait that has the hardest time. Yup, waiting’s the hardest part, I expect.”
Copper shivered and hugged herself, though the air was close and warm. Heat lightning shimmered across the sky as she and Andy sat in the porch swing and watched.
He fiddled in his overalls pocket and came up with the egg she’d given him when she made Sim
on’s. Untwisting the waxed paper, he gobbled up the egg.
Copper marveled at how much Andy could eat. It seemed he was always half-starved. Did his mother ever feed him? She was glad he was here. Very glad for his companionship this unsettling night.
Carefully, he straightened out the little piece of waxed paper, folded it, and stuck it back in his pocket. “Say, Miz Corbett, how ’bout that baby that got lost? Did anybody find it?” He pushed his foot against the porch floor and set the swing moving. “I had to watch my sisters all day, and I took them home when the baby went missing.”
“Why, Andy, I wish you had introduced your little sisters to me.”
“Marydell and Dodie was pulling me ever’ which way. I was too busy for introductions.” Dragging his foot, he stopped the swing before turning to face her. “Did they? Did they find the baby?”
Copper shook her head. “Everyone looked and looked until finally the police chief asked us to go home. I can’t imagine what happened to her. The police questioned everybody to see if anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary or a stranger lurking about.”
“Hmm.” Andy turned thoughtful. He propped his elbow on his knee and said, “Only thing I saw that was maybe a little strange was that old, skinny woman. You know, the one that hangs around wanting tonic all the time. A couple of days ago she came to Doc’s for a refill. She acts half-crazy.”
“I’ll have to agree with your assessment of Mrs. Archesson, Andy. But what did she do that seemed different to you?”
“Well, for one, she had that big old bag of hers slung over her arm. She was sort of wearing it across her chest instead of dragging it like she usually does. It was plumb full of something when she walked past the girls and me. And she was talking to it. That’s strange even for her, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. She was talking to herself the day I had a run-in with her in Dr. Corbett’s office. She’s an odd duck.”
The sky had turned an ominous green-black before full night descended. Thunder rolled, and the air was charged with energy.
Copper stood. “You’d better stay here until the weather clears up some. I should have sent you home earlier. Your mother will be worried.”
“Nah,” Andy answered, holding the screen door open for her. “She likes me gone at nights when her friend comes over. Hey, Miz Corbett, you got any more of them oatmeal cookies?”
Copper readied herself for bed and braided her hair. She would have left it down if Simon had been home because her hair was his delight.
Just that morning, as he had every Saturday morning since their interlude in the creek, he had washed her hair with Cashmere Bouquet soap as she bent over the claw-foot bathtub. He refused to let her use diluted vinegar for a rinse, for he didn’t like the smell, but insisted on a little fresh lemon juice mixed in warm water. She loved the attention, but her hair was hard to manage nowadays. Seemed no matter what she did her curls refused to be tamed.
Plumping up the pillows at her back, she took her Bible from the bedside table, searching for a word of comfort. She’d prayed and prayed for the baby, but the threatening weather outside her bedroom window offered no surcease from her worry. A hard spatter of wind-driven rain tapped out a question against the windowpane: Where is Matilda?
Copper wished she could fly on the wings of a turtledove back to Troublesome Creek and on up the highest mountain to where her friend Remy lived. Remy was as canny as a fox; she’d know just where to look for the baby. Settling back against the bolster and smiling in spite of her worry, Copper remembered her friend and how once Remy had also been lost to her.
It had been an out-of-sorts time in Copper’s life when she’d first met Remy Riddle. Trying to find a place to run away to, a place to get away from her stepmother’s threats to send her to boarding school, Copper had discovered the fey girl living in a cave by herself.
They had become fast friends, and Copper sorrowed when she had to leave Remy behind. That was almost as hard as leaving her home, the place as dear as life to her. With one finger Copper tapped her chest directly over her heart—Remy’s reminder that people always came before place . . . even her beloved mountains.
Try as she might to sleep, a nagging disquiet kept her awake. Finally she gave up and made her way downstairs. What was it Andy had said about Mrs. Archesson and her carpetbag before he bedded down in the foyer? He’d made a pallet with blankets and pillows right in front of the door after refusing to either go home or sleep comfortably in the spare bedroom.
“What if Doc comes home and finds me sleeping instead of keeping watch?” he’d asked. “Be just like that story he told me of Jesus in the garden and His buddies sawing logs while He was doing all the praying. Nope, I’ll just stay right here where Doc can find me if he comes home and needs me.”
Poor little lad, Copper thought as she leaned down and brushed his unruly hair from his eyes. Why is no one looking out for Andy? Someday I’m going to have a visit with his mother.
“Andy? Andy, wake up.” Sorry to have to wake him, she shook him gently. “I need to talk to you.”
He sat up abruptly, rubbing his eyes with balled fists. “Has Doc come back? Do I need to give Pard a rubdown?”
Copper gathered her robe around her and took a seat on the bottom step. Lamplight spilled down in a yellow puddle around them. “It’s something you said earlier about Mrs. Archesson. I can’t get it off my mind.”
“Huh? What’d I say?”
“Something about her talking to her bag. It’s nagging at my mind.”
“Ah, she’s nuts, Miz Corbett.”
“I don’t know. She’s sane enough to get just what she needs.” Copper shrugged her braid back from her shoulder. “I remember something. . . . The day Mr. Clough was hurt she was in the office, and she held little Matilda. She seemed so calm while she cradled the baby, and she told me she lost a child years ago. You don’t suppose . . . ? Andy, I think Mrs. Archesson has Matilda!”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Andy replied. “It makes perfect sense as far as crazy people go.”
Jumping up, Copper knit her brow. “We should find a policeman and have him go search Mrs. Archesson’s house.”
“Why don’t we go ourselves? A policeman would just scare her. They’d have to bust her door down; then she’d hightail it out the back with the stolen goods.”
Copper peered out the foyer window. “How would we ever find her house? It’s pitch-black outside.”
“Oh, I deliver groceries for Mr. Cook. I pert near know where everybody lives.” Andy folded his blanket and shoved his feet into too-small shoes. Someone—his mother?—had cut half the tops off so his toes stuck out like a litter of wiggling puppies. “Most times Mrs. Archesson makes me leave hers out back on the cellar door. She don’t never let me past the kitchen. Her and her aunt—a real old, old lady I ain’t seen for weeks—live there all by their lonesome.” He stuffed his shirt in his trousers and pulled up on his belt. Every bit the man of the house. “Them two never cut the grass or carry off any trash. They’re both tetched, I reckon.”
Copper wasn’t sure. It was one thing to have suspicions, one thing to malign Mrs. Archesson to Andy, but to actually go to her house and accuse her? Best to get the law and do this correctly.
Andy looked at her expectantly. “Let’s do it, Miz Corbett. Let’s go see if that old bat took baby Matilda.”
“I think we’ve disparaged Mrs. Archesson enough without calling her names, but, yes, let’s go see if that old bat took baby Matilda.” She took his bedclothes and started for the stairs. “I’ll just need to get dressed. Why don’t you get a lantern? And grab some matches from the kitchen. I’ll meet you on the front porch in a couple of minutes.”
After pulling on a pair of Simon’s old trousers, a dark sweater, and her work boots, Copper coiled her braid and tucked it beneath her black sunbonnet. There, now she was ready to go hunting for Matilda.
The night had turned wilder still; tree limbs thrashed ab
out, and heat lightning crackled across the sky, leaving the air tainted with the smell of sulfur.
“Feels like whirlwind weather to me,” Andy said while looking critically at her. “I hope we don’t run into nobody. They’d call the law for sure, seeing as how that getup makes you look like a burglar.”
“I can’t go creeping around looking for kidnapped babies in a dress and petticoats. Men’s clothes are so much better for working in.” She reached out for him, whispering, “Hush now, and take my hand. How far is it to Mrs. Archesson’s house?”
“We don’t need to be so quiet yet,” he replied. “Nobody will hear us over this storm. It ain’t too far.”
The small hand that clutched Copper’s was sturdy and strong. She might have been back home walking with Willy. His hand was just like Andy’s, while Daniel’s would feel as soft and fragile as a baby’s. A lump of longing formed in her throat, but Andy dashed it with his chatter.
It seemed strange to be out in the night like this, just she and Andy, passing dark houses full of sleeping people. They’d walked about a mile when Andy started chattering again. “The old ladies live in a big, run-down house that was probably real nice at one time. The oldest one—Aunt Annie, she’s called—has whiskers and a mustache. Ain’t that funny?”
Lightning flashed and revealed a sagging two-story house with closed shutters and a crumbling wraparound porch.
“Here it is,” Andy said, his voice gleeful. “Oh, boy, this is spooky.”
The dwelling had a brooding air as they approached. Andy tightened his grip on Copper’s hand when she tripped on the root of a tree in the overgrown yard and nearly fell to her knees.
“We’d better go round back,” Andy cautioned. “She’ll know for sure if we try to get in the front door. Anyways, it’ll be locked up tight.”
Slowly, hugging the walls, ducking under the windows, they sneaked around to the back.
“Here’s the cellar door,” Andy whispered. “Take this lantern, and let me see if I can get it open.” He grasped the handle of the door and tugged mightily.