“With Reams and his wife there, she’ll be safe while we’re gone.”
Grace nodded. “Yes, thank God for Reams and Chloe.”
Every bone in Grace’s body ached by the time they reached Jasper, but she would have bitten her tongue off before she complained. They stopped to ask directions to Mrs. Copeland’s house once they reached the outskirts of Jasper. As it turned out, they were only a short distance from their destination, and it was a relief to Grace to turn Molly up the circular drive to the brick house.
Grace studied the house, sitting at the top of the hill, recalling the fun she and Freddy had enjoyed when her parents had visited the Copelands. For a moment, her throat felt tight when she recalled those days, but she forced her mind to the task at hand: reminding Mrs. Copeland who she was so they could stay overnight.
Darkness was settling over the front porch as she wearily climbed the steps and knocked on the front door. She could hear footsteps moving quickly, approaching the entrance. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Copeland stood before her, looking as though she knew Grace but couldn’t quite place her.
In the two years since Grace had seen the woman, Mrs. Copeland’s hair had turned gray. Also, she was much thinner, which was not a surprise to Grace. Almost every woman she saw was thin because of the hardships they had faced during the war.
“Mrs. Copeland, I’m Grace Cunningham. My family lives on the farm adjoining the Douglases in Pickens County. Do you remember me?”
“Of course I do!” Mrs. Copeland responded. “Land’s sake, what a beauty you’ve become. Do come in,” she called, looking over Grace’s head to Jonathan.
“Mrs. Copeland, this is Jonathan Parker,” Grace made the introduction as he removed his hat and bowed. “Before he opens his mouth, I must tell you that he’s from Kentucky, but he befriended my father during the war. And now he’s doing a great favor for my mother and me, seeing me back to Sand Mountain.”
“Hello, Mr. Parker. Come inside, both of you.”
After a day spent looking at rough terrain for miles on end, Grace welcomed the feel of the cozy little house, where crocheted doilies, comfortable sofas, and chairs gave a sense of home.
Just then another woman came to the doorway of the kitchen, surveying them curiously.
“This is my older sister, Edith,” Mrs. Copeland said. “Edith, come say hello to Grace Cunningham and her friend, Jonathan Parker.”
“Cunningham?” Edith repeated, staring at first Grace, then Jonathan.
“Yes, you remember Elizabeth and Fred Cunningham. How are they, Grace?” Mrs. Copeland asked, smiling.
Grace took a deep breath. “Father died last month in Chattanooga,” she replied. “And Freddy was killed in battle in ′62.”
Mrs. Copeland shook her head sadly. “I am so sorry, my dear. My Robert died before the war. And you know we never had any children, so I don’t know the agony of losing a son in the war. Your poor mother.” She sighed and began to lead them into the kitchen. “Come in.”
“Now which Cunningham is this, Ethel?” Edith inquired, looking blank.
Grace glanced at her and decided the woman was well into her sixties and obviously a bit forgetful.
Ethel went into more detail about how she and her husband had been neighbors. Meanwhile Grace looked around the kitchen. A teapot and cups sat on a small table covered with a white cloth.
“We don’t want to impose,” Jonathan spoke up, when at last he had an opportunity.
“Not at all. We have plenty of room here, with only Edith and me to rattle around in this big house.”
They laughed together, then sat down at the table for a meal of meatloaf and potatoes. Grace tried not to eat too much food, but she gave up when Mrs. Copeland brought out an apple pie. After stuffing themselves and chatting for another hour, Jonathan stood.
“If you ladies will excuse me, I’ll say goodnight.”
“Your room is at the far end of the hall upstairs. Last door on the left.”
Jonathan thanked her again and left the women alone to talk about happy times during the summers they had visited. Within the hour, Grace began to nod. Mrs. Copeland showed her to her room, and Grace only had time to admire it briefly before collapsing into bed and sleeping like a baby.
They saddled up and rode out of Jasper early the next morning after saying good-bye to Ethel and Edith. Both knew it would be a long, hard day, so they decided not to waste time and energy with conversation. They rode hard, stopping only for a quick lunch by a stream where they could water their horses and rest the animals for an hour. Then they were on the road again.
By midafternoon, Grace was wondering how much longer she could stay in the saddle. She was not accustomed to such long rides, but she didn’t remind Jonathan of that. If he were willing to go to the time and trouble to take her to Sand Mountain, the least she could do was be a good sport and not complain. She had known the trip would be difficult before she’d left home, and she had been determined to go. Yet a deep ache was settling into her bones when she spotted a small community at the next bend in the road.
“Let’s stop here and check supplies,” Jonathan suggested. “I’ll ask someone about the road ahead. I thought we’d camp tonight, if you feel you’re up to it.”
“Sure.” Grace forced a smile, but all she could think about was how comfortable Mrs. Copeland’s bed had felt the previous night and that she was already twice as tired as she had been then.
The community turned out to hold no more than basic shops, but they picked up some dried apples, and Jonathan spoke with the man at the livery about the road north where they were traveling.
As they rode out of town, Jonathan promised only another hour of riding before they would stop. This time Grace agreed. “I’ll be ready; I don’t think I can go much farther.”
When Jonathan led the way off the road and through a grassy meadow toward a small stream, Grace heaved a deep sigh of relief and began to feel better. She was pleased to see that Jonathan knew what he was doing when it came to finding a good camping spot for the night. He had chosen a level spot near the small creek. They were about three hundred yards upstream from where the wagon road crossed the creek.
“We’ll be safer if we don’t camp too near the road,” he explained to her as they picketed their horses. “Do you mind dipping a can of water from the stream over there?” he added as he gathered up leaves and pine straw.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at the pine straw.
“This will keep the ground from being too hard beneath your quilt,” he answered and kept working.
She smiled to herself. He was such a considerate man. The longer she was with him and the better she got to know him, the more she liked Jonathan Parker.
Later, settled down before the fire, they sipped their coffee and enjoyed the feeling of a full stomach for the first time all day. After a meal of dried apples, beans, and salt pork, Grace began to relax. Just sitting beside Jonathan and staring at the low campfire was comforting to her. She was no longer nervous around him or even shy. She felt like she had known him all of her life. It was strange for her to think about him that way, when they had come from such different parts of the country and had been on opposite sides of the war. But none of that really mattered to her now. Jonathan Parker was the kind of man she had always dreamed of meeting, but she had begun to believe that she never would. She stared at the flickering flames of the campfire, still amazed by all that had happened.
“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked.
“Fine.” She looked at him, admiring the way the firelight danced over his handsome face and lit his deep blue eyes. “I’m sorry I was so rude to you when you came to our house,” she said, suddenly thinking about the first time she ever saw him.
“I didn’t expect you to greet me with open arms, certainly not when you heard me speak and realized I was a Yankee.”
She reached over to touch his hand. “You are such a kind and tolerant person. You are slow to
anger, slow to take offense, and always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I really admire you for that, Jonathan.”
“And you are quite a woman,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You have a beauty that shines from your heart, and I admire you very much. I think you’re probably the most courageous woman I’ve ever met.”
She laughed. “Courageous? You mean the way I struck out on this crazy mission to the north of Alabama?”
“Let’s hope it isn’t crazy. Yes, I admire you for that, but I also respect the way you’ve taken charge of your situation at home, trying to make the most of a terrible ordeal. And I admire the way you have taken care of yourself and your mother.”
“Thank you. Oh Jonathan,” she said, staring into the fire, “I hope Father has something important waiting for us. If so, maybe there’s hope of saving the farm and starting over again.”
She leaned back and hugged her knees. Her riding habit was wrinkled and soiled at the knee, but she didn’t care. She felt so happy sitting beside Jonathan, daring to hope and dream once again. Tilting her head back, she looked up at the stars. It was a black velvet night with a thousand tiny lights twinkling across the heavens.
Jonathan reached over to press a kiss to her cheek. She leaned closer, but he pulled back from her, chuckling softly. She turned and looked at him. “And just why are you laughing, Mr. Parker?”
“I was just reminding myself of my promise to your mother to behave like a gentleman. And that means its time to pitch my bedroll on the opposite side of the campfire.”
“Don’t get too far from me,” she said, glancing at the spot where he had laid his bedroll. She would feel safe with him there.
He stood up, still holding her hand. “Sweet dreams, Grace. I hope they’re of me.”
She smiled up at him.
Later, as she snuggled down into her quilts and drifted off to sleep, she thought how good it felt to sleep out under the stars. As she listened to Jonathan’s steady breathing from the opposite side of the campfire, she hugged her pillow and slept even better than the night before.
The next morning, they left at daybreak with a fierce determination to make it as far as they could. At noon, with the sun high in the sky, they stopped beside a stream to water and graze their horses and to rest and snack on a light lunch.
“You’ve been a good companion on this trip,” Jonathan said, as they dropped down on a grassy spot under the wide branches of a leafy oak. “You haven’t complained about sleeping on the hard ground or riding for miles on end without stopping. I feel certain if I were with my sisters, I would have heard a lot of complaints long before now. But then, neither of my sisters would have the backbone to make this kind of trip. On second thought, Katherine might do it, now that she’s older.”
He took a bite of biscuit and smiled at her. “And nobody can make biscuits like this. Not even my mother.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve been told that anytime a man tells you that you can do something almost as good as his mother, it’s a genuine compliment. But you’ve taken that compliment even further. I promise never to tell your mother though.”
They looked at each other, and she shook her head. “What am I saying? Unfortunately, I’ll never get to meet your mother.”
His eyes ran over her features, and he winked at her. “Don’t be too sure about that. You never know what the future will bring.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t think the future will bring me to Louisville.”
“But you can’t be sure,” he said, grinning. Then he got up to check on the horses. As her eyes followed him, Grace wondered why he had said that to her. How she longed to know what he really thought of her. How tempted she was to simply ask him.
She had always prided herself on being independent, but she could feel that independence slipping. She liked to be with Jonathan so much that even now she felt a bit lonesome when he wandered off with the horses to explore the road ahead. She turned and reached for another biscuit. As she took a bite, she smiled to herself.
Maybe if they found a valuable buried treasure, she could buy her way into his heart and persuade him to stay at Riverwood. If he wanted to raise horses, he could do that very easily at their farm. And she might as well go on and tell him that she couldn’t think of anything in the world she would rather do than work with horses.
She smiled to herself, feeling very good about the idea.
When they were back on the trail again, Grace asked, “How much longer do you think it will take us?”
“The best I can calculate is late afternoon. I found the community of Pine Grove on my map. From the directions your mother gave me, the church should only be a mile or so east of there on the main road.”
She smiled, wondering exactly what awaited them at the church.
They rode along in silence that was broken occasionally when Jonathan talked about his childhood or told funny stories that he had heard over the years. Grace laughed with him. She thought about how compatible they were and said as much to him.
“I know,” he nodded, looking at her. “I’ve thought how nice it would have been if only we had met in another time, another place.”
She looked at the pine thicket across the road. She didn’t want to think about what those words meant because they had a tragic sound to them. It was the kind of thing one would admit before you said good-bye. She blinked and looked back at the road.
Once they found the treasure, everything would change. She would be able to convince him that he belonged with her in Alabama. Yes, once they had money, everything would be all right.
They reached Pine Grove sooner than they had hoped. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon when they turned their horses down the narrow street that led through the small community.
“Do you want to stop here?” he asked.
“No, let’s keep going,” she said, glancing around.
As in all small communities, the few people out on the sidewalks were staring at them as they rode past. It was a relief once they were on the outskirts of Pine Grove headed in the direction of the church.
In less than an hour, they spotted the white clapboard church with its little steeple at the crest of a hill. They glanced at each other and kneed their horses to move faster toward the little building nestled in a grove of pine and oak trees. At the corner of the churchyard, Grace could see an apple tree.
Her heart beat faster as their horses climbed the hill to the church.
“It looks lonely and forlorn, don’t you think?” Grace asked in a hushed voice.
“Yes. But why are you whispering?”
She glanced at him and saw the humor in his face. She laughed. “Well, I was always taught to be respectful around God’s house.”
She gazed up at the little steeple, a beacon to those who needed a place to worship.
“I haven’t been to church in over two years,” Grace said, feeling a bit guilty as they approached the small churchyard. She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to say that, but she did. She only hoped God would believe how truly sorry she was for the mean things she had said about Him.
“Well, let’s start praying that we find what your father intended us to find beneath that tree,” Jonathan said, taking a deep breath.
Glancing at him, she realized that he, too, was nervous. She was so excited that she could hardly stay in the saddle. She wanted to bolt down from the horse and run the rest of the way.
“Mother talked about when they came to dinners on the ground here,” she said, realizing she had to talk to vent her nervousness, or else she would start screaming.
“Dinners on the ground?”
“This was before they had tables in the churchyards. Everyone brought food, and the women spread quilts over the ground like a giant tablecloth for the food.”
“What about ants?”
“They just added flavor.”
They reached the edge of the churchyard, and Jonathan got down from his horse and looked arou
nd. Grace scrambled off Molly before he could help her down. She couldn’t wait another minute to get to that apple tree.
“The last words your father spoke before I left were about the church,” Jonathan said, as he tied General to a low limb while Grace tied Molly.
“Tell me what he said one more time,” Grace instructed, wishing she could have seen her father before he died.
“He said, ‘Go to the church.’” Jonathan reached for Grace’s hand as they began to walk toward the apple tree. “It begins to make sense now.”
“I hope so.” Grace replied, walking stiff-legged toward the tree. She no longer felt the ache of so many hours in the saddle, or the dull headache.
They had reached the apple tree where heavy weeds and thick grass covered the ground. Grace dropped to her knees, crawling around in the grass. Her fingers combed through the thick tufts of grass, searching for an area that might indicate a hiding place. Jonathan dropped down beside her, and together they covered every inch of ground around the apple tree. Neither spoke a word.
Slowly Grace sat back on her heels, looking all around them. Had she been mistaken? Had she just wished so hard for a miracle that she had tried to create one?
She looked across at Jonathan, who heaved a weary sigh and sat down in the grass.
“I–I’m sorry,” she said, trying desperately not to cry. She couldn’t bear the disappointment she felt creeping through her, ready to settle into her heart and send her hopes plummeting once again.
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “So am I.” He looked back at the sturdy little tree. “I checked the area right at the base of the tree. I don’t think its possible that anything has been buried here.”
Grace’s throat ached as fiercely as her head, and she pulled up her knees to rest her head. She couldn’t bear to think of the time they had wasted or the trouble she had caused Jonathan.
“Maybe there’s another apple tree around somewhere.”
Her head shot up, and she winced in pain at the sudden movement. She looked all around the front of the church, but there was no other apple tree.
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