by Laura Hunter
Brother Moon, waiting behind Spencer’s Mountain, snaps at her. “Stop that. It’s time for me to be cooling the day.”
“But look,” Sister Sun argues. “The child found the serpent.” Sister Sun shoots out another flash. The stench of sulfur fills the darkest dark of the outer universe.
“Stop it, you little spit fire,” Brother Moon says. “Or I. . . . I’ll eclipse you.”
“I’m supposed to take care of her,” Sister Sun says.
“Quiet, both of you,” says Great Spirit. “Some things are beyond your understanding. Leave them be.”
The serpent sensed Lily’s presence. It lifted his head from his coil and looked at her through the haze surrounding its stump. Beneath its narrow neck, a thin, white scar marked where it had perhaps outwitted some hunter or wild boar. Lily surmised it must be a wise creature to have survived for so many years.
With her on the ground, it was too high to strike her. Had she been standing, and standing close, with the height of the stump, the length of its body, and the power of its coil, it could hit her hard and high, a blow that she could not survive.
“Great Spirit,” Sister Sun whispers. She pulls back from the earth and trembles.
“Wait,” replies Great Spirit. “Stay in your own place.”
“But…”
“Wait, I say,” says Great Spirit. “Some things lie within the realm of random.”
Lily pulled herself off the ground and wiped her face. She ran back down the path. Rather than have the rattlesnake think her rude, she called back, “I have to go. It’s hot.” As if a serpent needed a weather gauge.
The next day, Lily brought a hoe to clear a wider path past the stump, a berth that allowed her to travel to Kee’s yet skirt the den. The serpent sensed her approach. Its reptile eyes, mere slits, opened once to tell Lily it knew she was there. It slept as she worked, its head resting on top of its coil. Each strike of the hoe unsettled the mist surrounding the stump, but the serpent never flinched.
There was something unnatural about him. Lily craved to reach out and touch. The triangular head had no pointed edges to suggest the intensity of its venom. A strange warmth enveloped her when the rattlesnake looked at her, as if someone had taken a blanket fresh from before the fire and draped it over her. Such a sense of luxury comforted her. She clinched her fist to keep her hand steady.
That day, at the end of the path, Lily told Kee about the snake. Lily reasoned that a person as old as Kee Granny would be wise enough that Lily could trust her. “You must tell me when to stroke rattler and when to leave him be.”
“You saw Uktena.” Kee’s eyes grew dark. “He’s magic, so you must not touch him. Not all can see him. You are an honored one, for he respects you and will not strike.” Kee Granny grasped Lily by her shoulders. “Did he speak?”
Kee Granny’s intense stare startled Lily. “No,” she said and tried to pull back.
“Good.”
Lily had not thought about animals coming to life in the human sense and talking. “I will name him Rattler.”
She left Rattler in his den. Rattler allowed Lily her footpath.
Chapter 23
Lily wore red tennis shoes laced above her ankles. Her favorite green shorts with straps crisscrossed over her back to keep them from sliding off skinny shoulders. Beneath the straps, she wore a sleeveless, collared blouse Anna had sewn from an accumulation of cotton flour sacks patterned with small red flowers.
It was a May morning. Each spring day as early mist rose on Turtleback Mountain, Lily would place a hemp rope around the neck of each goat. She would lead the two up the mountain to a high, flat meadow where they grazed throughout the day.
At some point, the three crossed into Kentucky. They climbed higher. Lily tugged at Bad Billy’s rope as she leaned forward to maintain her stability. Bad Billy, a big-horned goat, stout and lop-eared, lagged behind, stopping along the way to nibble green shoots and newly leafed greenbrier. In the distance, Lily recognized Kentucky’s Pine Mountain by its peak, a dark green cone. Beneath its crest, layers of clouds filled spaces among ridges, much like flat, white seas interspersed with islands of green. A cloud colored in pinks and blues and a hint of green floated across the sky. “I see mist rising from that valley. You think the earth is losing its spirit, Bad Billy?” she asked. “Kee Granny would say so.” The buck ignored her. She realized how far afield she had come when she recognized Kentucky. She turned back and walked down the Virginia side of Turtleback. Fir and pine, so green they were black, provided a barrier separating her from what lay west.
“Come on, Gertie,” Lily said. “I don’t see how Bad Billy can eat them stickers. Seems he would tear his mouth all up. Don’t you think?” Gertie, smaller, a black goat with a wide white strip down each side of her face, dismissed Lily’s question. She passed Lily on the trail and pulled forward. Lily headed the goats past Flatland turnoff and moved back up the incline to the west.
After Kee Granny’s questions about Rattler talking, Lily carried on one-sided conversations with whatever animals she met. “Gertie, see that rhododendron? It’s right pretty, but you better not be eating that. Kee Granny says it’s a bad, bad plant.” Though Gertie, her soot-colored milk goat, was the gentler of the two, Lily favored her hardheaded Bad Billy for his perseverance. But she loved Gertie’s four white legs and hooves. “She fixes sick people, you know.” Gertie yanked against the rope, as if to agree.
“She knows all about the mountain. All the animals. All the plants.” Lily huffed as she talked. “You remember last year when we come up on that lily of the valley and I picked some for Mama? She said she had lily of the valley when she married my daddy, but Kee says they’re poison.” Lily clomped on behind her nanny goat. “Do you think that’s why my daddy was killed? Because they used the wrong flower for getting married?”
Gertie led as faithfully as if she were a boss cow, nodding her head from time to time.
“Mama says the granny knows the Cherokee Great Spirit, and he can talk to her,” she puffed against the incline. “And doctoring, too.” Lily followed Gertie’s white flag tail. “Do you think Great Spirit talks to Kee?”
Gertie shook her heavy head. Her long white-centered ears slapped against her thick skull.
Lily stepped off the path and over a large rock to avoid a fall on slick moss. “I heard her talk to foxglove last summer. She stopped when she saw me, but I heard her.”
Gertie tugged again, this time holding back. She hesitated to edge off the path.
“Someday I’ll know this mountain. Every plant and every animal on it.”
Gertie stepped toward a Virginia creeper for a taste of the glossy leaves. Lily pulled her away.
The climb to the clover meadow took the better part of an hour. When Lily reached the last slope above the meadow, she sat and drank from the Mason jar she had filled before they left Boone Station. Bad Billy, antsy from the delay, yanked at his rope, to get Lily to move on.
Lily doubted his sincerity. No goat as thickheaded as Bad Billy could remember from one day to the next where he had been. Some days, Bad Billy could not remember to get in out of the rain. Lily would have to jerk and push to get him into his shelter under the back of Boone Station. By the time she had herded him in, Lily would be more drenched than Bad Billy.
“Leave me be, you old goat,” Lily said. “What’s your hurry?” She scratched behind his floppy ear and smiled. Bad Billy ignored her. He jerked his rope again. The rough hemp burned Lily’s hand. “Stupid goat,” she muttered. She got up, stepped off the footpath to pee before they started across the final knoll and lowered her shorts.
At the top of the ridge, Lily saw what had summoned Bad Billy. Before them lay Kee Granny’s field of bee clover. The field looked as if a giant hand had taken a paintbrush and coated the meadow floor crimson. Bees hovered above the clover. Their wings created a solemn hum. Hundreds of bees sang their bee song as they gathered pollen for their queen. They mined each clover then settled down to w
orship the nectar. Lily sucked her breath in at the wonder of it all. She patted Bad Billy’s rump. “Bad, maybe you’re not so dumb after all,” she said. She released the ropes and let her goats roam free.
Gertie, ever the impatient one, skittered down the slope and into the meadow. Once she reached the clover blooms, she began to graze. Bees lifted and moved apart to let her feed.
Bad Billy ambled along. He took his own good time now that he was here, as if he had known all along that several acres of banquet awaited him. Near the middle of the clover field, he took a few nibbles. He bent his knees to rest on the ground. As he settled, bees, angered at the interruption of their pollen ceremony, swarmed over the grey-muzzled goat. He shook his head, as if to say, “Leave me alone.” Bees lowered themselves to the blooms and continued their work. A few more nibbles, the sun’s warmth and Bad Billy slept.
Lily knew her goats would not wander into the woods. They would not climb trees to strip bark. They were content feasting on red clover, shaking their heavy heads as if to argue with bees that came near. Lily especially loved this meadow. A small stream her mama called Parsons Branch ran down the southern side. Clear, rushing water provided an ideal place for her to refill her jar and water her goats. She favored this meadow above all others. For after they fed here Bad Billy’s coat was shinier and Gertie’s milk sweeter.
In the distance beneath a broad dogwood, Lily saw what she thought was a Cherokee Little Person sent to make her happy. She looked again and realized it was Kee Granny, her long pink skirt plastered against her legs by the breeze, her arms lifted, reaching up to touch Great Spirit’s fingers. Lily heard a faint incantation she recognized as a prayer asking Great Spirit to tell the bees to make honey one more time. Kee’s crooning, carried to Lily by a soft wind, soothed Lily, and she slowed her pace.
Lily stepped into clover so thick and tall it covered her ankles. She, like Bad Billy, slumped down in clover deep enough for a mattress. Lily watched cloud after cloud pass overhead. With a coolness brought by clouds casting shadows over her body, she often sat up to watch a cloud stripe the meadow with its dark shaft. If she watched closely, she could determine the time of day.
When trees on the meadow’s edge cast no shadow, she ate her dinner of biscuit and cold sweet potato. She took note of where Bad Billy and Gertie grazed nearby. Again, she lay in the clover. The bees’ buzzes lulled her to sleep.
Wetness on her face startled Lily awake. She opened her eyes, thinking Bad Billy was slobbering on her. It was late afternoon, the sun low in the west. A dark shadow blocked her vision. She popped up and hit her head. Hard. Pain shot through her skull, a pain so intense Lily thought she might have bumped into a stone wall. She reached to rub her forehead and hit Bad Billy’s rubbery nose.
“You stupid old goat,” she snapped. “You butted my head.”
Bad Billy shook his head as if to say, “I’m not stupid. You forget. I brought you here.”
Lily rolled from under Bad Billy and crawled through bee-less clover. Droplets landed on her back. Another. Then another. It was rain. Cold rain left over from winter. Intense rain. Falling fast. Big heavy plops on her back. Bad Billy had come to wake her, to warn her of another cloud, dense on the ridge moving their way. Gertie sauntered toward the two. Lily grabbed her water jar and ran for Gertie’s rope. “Come on,” she insisted. “We got to get off this flat.”
Cold rain in warm weather meant thunder. Thunder meant lightning. Lily turned round and round. Kee Granny was nowhere to be seen. They needed shelter. Nothing tall. They needed a roof. A snap of lightning exploded at the far end of the meadow.
Bad Billy ran toward a cut in the trees. He headed for Parsons Branch. Lily did not want to go near water with lightning behind them. She chased him, towing Gertie behind as they ran. “Stop!” she yelled. But Bad Billy ran on. Lily rounded a rhododendron bush twice her height, so solid with honeysuckle vine she could not see through the leaves. “Bad Billy,” she called. He was nowhere in sight. She stopped to catch her breath and listen.
Below, rocks tumbled down a slope. It had to be Bad Billy. She dragged Gertie toward the sound. As the incline lessened, she could see the faded orange and dingy white of Bad Billy’s coat as he leapt among rocks, ledge to ledge. Agile as a goat herself, Lily followed. She abandoned Gertie’s rope, knowing she would clamor down at her own pace. Trying to keep Bad Billy in sight and maintain her balance, Lily lost the grip on her jar. It hit a rock and shattered. She swept her thick wet bangs back from her face and brushed rain from her eyes. Lightning announced another roll of thunder. Before her, Bad Billy took to the sky. He leapt from what looked like a cliff and disappeared. Lily raced to the edge and stopped where Bad Billy had jumped.
Beneath her was a structure more shed than cabin, crooked and old, but it had a roof. She could manage the drop-off. So could Gertie. Back near the meadow, lightning popped an upper tree. Its trunk split like a rifle shot, resounding throughout the cove. The stench of boiled pinesap sickened Lily. She ran back for Gertie’s rope and guided her to the rock edge. “Come on. We got to get out of this storm.” Gertie refused to jump. Lily got behind Gertie’s haunches and pushed. Nothing. She pushed again. Gertie had been around Bad Billy too long. She would not move.
The rain slackened. Lily readied to push again when a clap of thunder clattered over their heads and shook the treetops. Bad Billy ambled toward the crib. Gertie dove over the ledge and landed upright next to a log, its green moss deep and soft as a cushion.
Lily backed up a few feet, ran and sailed over the cliff. Airborne, she imagined herself a bird suspended between the heavens and the earth. She did not want to land. She flapped her arms to stay aloft, but no matter how viciously she flailed, she fell. When she crashed, she landed with a thud on her butt. The hit jolted the knot where she had head-butted Bad Billy, causing her left eye to throb.
Before her sat the little log structure. A slanting shake roof with patches of thick, heavy moss pitched forward, pointing toward where Lily and her goats stood. One of the two posts holding up the roof leaned sideways. Corner foundations hacked from limestone had shifted. Most likely a storage place for hay or shelter, left over from some long ago cattle or mule. Lily peeked inside. What might have once been a door leaned against an inside front wall. Into each end wall, someone had cut a square hole for ventilation. Against the back wall stood an empty hay trough.
The upper meadow stream, filled with fresh rainwater, laughed its way down the cove. It had cut and re-cut its way down the mountainside and ran dangerously close to the little shed. Harsh winds and the earth’s movements had battered the little building so that it sat at a jaunty angle. Lily did not consider that natural elements had played havoc with the structure. She decided instead that the same giant who had painted the clover meadow crimson had, without thinking, leaned against it and tilted it sideways.
Lily scooted inside and pulled her goats onto the packed dirt floor. The floor at least was dry. She removed her clothes and flattened them on the walls, stuffing a sliver of cloth between open logs to hold them in place. Her heavy cinnamon hair would take a while to dry, maybe until tomorrow considering the dampness and fog that followed mountain rainstorms. She unbraided her plait.
In one corner by a dirty rag of a blanket, Bad Billy flipped his tail, smug that he had rescued the trio. He emptied a stomach and chewed his cud with a slow, grinding motion. Gertie bent forward on her knees and lay down next to Lily. Outside, rain attacked the little shed again, this time so heavily Lily could barely hear.
“Is she safe now?” asks Brother Moon.
Sister Sun doesn’t answer. From behind the thundercloud, she fluffs another heavy cloud so thick it looks dirty. It blocks Lily’s presence from Brother Moon.
“Should I report to Great Spirit?” says Brother Moon.
Again, Sister Sun doesn’t reply. She’s elated. Great Spirit has given her the opportunity to mold and stretch her thunderhead for its nighttime attack. She’s so ecstatic she doesn�
�t hear.
Inside the shed on a rafter above Bad Billy sat Owl.
“Hey, Owl,” Lily said as she wrapped the smelly blanket around her body. “Where you been?”
Owl chittered his welcome to Lily. For the past two years, she had watched Owl grow into a spectacular bird. She understood why people not familiar with woodlands believed ghosts attacked in the night. When Owl spread his massive wings, they spanned three feet. His under-feathers glowed white against a midnight sky. His golden eyes, deep in his heart-shaped face, moved so fast his head seemed to swivel. A silent flyer, Owl could be behind a non-woodsman without his knowing. Without warning, Owl could swoop in. Anyone unprepared would sense a presence and turn to see that broad swath of white dip toward him and think he was being attacked by some evil spirit. Then Owl would vanish, his grey back lost in the darkness. Convinced that he had been right, that he had truly encountered a phantom, the visitor would run terrified through the forest. Lily giggled at the thought of her gentle Owl’s power over a grown man.
But Owl was not a ghost. He was, as Kee Granny said, wisdom of the Great Spirit on wings. “It’s on his wings that he carries the souls of the dead when they can’t reach the horned serpent,” Kee Granny said. “Treat him with tenderness.”
Clad only in her damp underpants, Lily rested, using Gertie as her pillow. The goats’ musk mixed with the scent of dry earth comforted Lily in a way she had not expected. Her muscles relaxed, and her anxiety melted into the dirt floor. Across the room, a garter snake uncoiled from a foundation log and stretched his length. Owl and Lily watched. “Look, Gertie,” Lily whispered. “See that pretty yellow ribbon down his side?”
Owl winked his eye, waiting for the snake to edge away from the wall. Before Lily could blink, Owl dropped onto the snake’s back. He lifted himself back to the rafter, quiet as a moonbeam. He lit and plucked flesh from the snake’s back. Owl’s beak broke through muscle and bone while the snake writhed to free himself from a tight talon. Owl took another bite, breaking the snake in two. The tail half of the snake fell to the ground.