Tennessee Waltz

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  Wyn adjusted the afghan his mother had made before her death as he went on, "I know how much you like looking at the mountains, and it's rare that we have a spell as warm as this in February. So you enjoy the chance to get outside, Pa, but be sensible about it, all right?"

  "I suppose I'm of an age where I have to be sensible," Dan muttered in a resentful rather than sensible voice. "Look, you leave the rest of that bookwork alone today, so I'll have somethin' to do tomorrow. That accident didn't hurt my brain none — just my legs."

  Nodding agreeably, Wyn gazed out over the panorama before him for a moment, wishing he could sit down for a while and enjoy the view he loved every bit as much as his pa. His mother, dead now for over two years, had taught all her children to appreciate her beloved mountains. She always moved any chores she could do out there to the front porch, in order to savor the vista around their store. They had spent many evenings with her on the front porch, helping her shell peas or husk corn for supper.

  The MacIntyre General Store sat in a high mountain cove a ways up the side of Sawback Mountain. Wyn's great-grandfather had named the settlement for the mountain when he built the store, assuming a town would grow up around him.

  Instead, when the railroad had finally reached into the mountains it missed Sawback Mountain by ten miles. Razor Gully got the railroad and the resulting growth, since it lay on the path where it would cost the least money to build the line and still reap adequate profits in return for the investment.

  Wyn admitted Razor Gully had some pretty scenery, but it couldn't compare to Sawback Mountain. As far as he could see, mountain peaks stretched into the distance, covered by a smoky blue tinge that gave the Great Smoky Mountains their name. This time of year snow covered the mountain sides, deeper on the high peaks. Most of it this far down on the mountain had melted to slush in the unusual warmth of the past couple days, although the ground remained frozen beneath it.

  Across the dirt road and down a ways, Widow Tuttle's boardinghouse still survived as part of the settlement of Sawback Mountain, although it had needed a coat of paint for years. Somehow they'd also managed to keep the schoolhouse opposite the boardinghouse operating and hold church in the same building whenever Reverend Jackson managed to get to them on a Sunday. However, he had a sneaking suspicion that Prudence Elliot, the current schoolteacher, wouldn't agree to return next year, even though the men had built her a small cabin of her own so she wouldn't have to board with the various families scattered here and yon throughout the beautiful mountains. With no children of her own, Widow Tuttle saw no need to offer free board to a schoolteacher. They could have squeezed her into their living quarters over the store, but Wyn doubted very much this certain teacher would accept that.

  Wyn had to concede that the MacIntyre children were part of Miss Elliot's discontent. Not his other two sisters, of course. The holy terror twins, six-year-old Luke and Jute, were a large part of the reason the teacher probably wouldn't return. He sighed in annoyance at the thought of having to undertake the job of once more assisting his pa in trying to entice a capable teacher to Sawback Mountain.

  "Son," he heard his pa say. "Someone's coming up the trail. It ain't mail day, neither, and we ain't due no supplies this week."

  Not that he didn't believe his father, but Wyn had to resist rubbing his eyes when he saw the wagon himself. It sure enough was Jeeter's wagon, pulled by the wizened freighter from Razor Gully's mules. Jeeter only had two hitched up rather than the usual team of six it took to carry a wagon load of supplies up the mountain side to the MacIntyre General Store. The simple reason was that the mules only had the wagon to pull with the small load of the two passengers sitting beside Jeeter.

  Wrapped in a light gray cape and wearing a stylish bonnet completely covering her hair, the woman on one side of the seat sat tall and straight. Between her and Jeeter sat a small child. As the wagon drew closer, he saw the child had a remarkable resemblance to his youngest sister, Pris.

  "Mairi," Dan said in a tortured voice. "Wyn, something's happened to my brother Cal and your Aunt Selene. That's your cousin on the wagon — their daughter, Mairi."

  A dim roaring filled Wyn's ears and his chest froze, making it impossible to draw a breath. Uncle Cal and Aunt Selene. The seer and healer, Leery, had been right when she visited the store last summer. He'd urged Leery to keep her dire prediction of the death angel visiting the MacIntyre family again from the rest of the family, but he had believed Leery. He'd never known her to be wrong.

  How would his father bear it? Cal had been Dan's favorite brother — and his last living one.

  "Go help Jeeter set 'em down," Dan ordered, and Wyn shook himself back to reality.

  After a quick glance at his pa's white, strained face, Wyn descended the porch steps as the wagon pulled to a stop. He'd help Jeeter set 'em down — climb out of the wagon — because there was no avoiding the coming pain. It would have to be borne, and no one could blame the plain woman on the wagon seat, who obviously brought the message. He read her concern for the devastating news she carried in her deep, brown eyes.

  "Cousin Wyn!" Mairi scrambled across Jeeter's legs and flung herself at Wyn. He caught her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and buried her face on his shoulder. "Cousin Wyn," she said around a sob. "Ma and Papa . . .! Miss Sarah says they's in Heaven. But I miss 'em so much!"

  Blinking back his own tears, Wyn laid his cheek against Mairi's soft, blond curls. "It's all right, sweetheart," he murmured. "We'll take care of you now. You'll have a home with us, just like you were your Uncle Dan's own little girl."

  Glancing up, he met the compassionate eyes of the woman. Mairi had called her Sarah. He'd already noticed her plainness, except for her unusual eyes, and it was apparent from her smooth, well-cared-for skin and expensive garments that she came from a monied background. His primary thought right then, however, was to thank her for caring for Mairi and bringing the child home.

  "Would you like to get down, ma'am?" he asked. "We can offer you some hot tea or coffee."

  When she smiled, it made a person forget all about her plainness. The smile came from her entire face — the velvet brown eyes to her firm but rather large lips.

  "I would thoroughly enjoy some tea." She waited for Jeeter to scramble down, then placed her hand in his when he offered to assist her. Gathering her skirts, she stepped from the wagon with a grace born of quality. Wyn had never once seen one of his three sisters manage to dismount a wagon without either a wobble or a flash of ankle. The woman called Sarah did it as though it were nothing unusual — which it apparently wasn't for her, although probably her descents were usually from a fancy carriage.

  Shifting Mairi so he could reach out his hand, he said, "I'm Wyn MacIntyre, Mairi's cousin."

  "Sarah Channing," she replied, grasping his hand lightly, then smoothly disengaging the grip. "I found Mairi in New York City. She was very ill, but she's regained her health now — at least, her physical health."

  Wyn nodded, immediately understanding Sarah's inference that Mairi was still coping with the pain of her parents' deaths. Mairi had been an only child, though his Aunt Selene, like plenty of other mountain women, had lost several unborn babies at various stages. His Uncle Cal had taken Selene and Mairi to New York City a year and a half ago, giving up his poor farm on the mountain side in disgust. His uncle had had such high hopes.

  "What happened to my aunt and uncle?" Wyn asked in a low voice, trying to get an advance emotional handle on things in order to help his pa better bear his grief.

  "I believe it was typhoid . . ." Sarah began, but Dan called from the porch.

  "Bring 'em up here, son. Holdin' off ain't gonna make whatever it is I have to hear any easier."

  Wyn noticed Sarah straighten her shoulders and realized his pa's words had made the woman gird herself even more. Compassion for her stabbed him, as well as admiration for her bravery. He instinctively reached out and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, but
she hastily stumbled back from his touch, not meeting his eyes or even acknowledging her reaction. Recalling the way she had dropped his hand as soon as polite when he welcomed her, he decided she was a person unused to physical contact with other human beings.

  Too bad, because there were times when another pair of arms made the burden of some of life's unforeseen adversities somewhat easier to bear. Mairi hadn't loosened her hold on him for even a second.

  Restraining his urge to courteously take her arm, Wyn nodded at the porch and said, "My pa. His brother was Mairi's pa." He moved back a step, and she lifted her skirts, walking up the steps to meet Dan. Carrying Mairi, he followed.

  Dan held out a hand. "Dan MacIntyre. I heard you introduce yourself to my son, Miss Channing." Wyn noticed that Miss Channing allowed his pa only the same brief handhold of greeting. "Excuse me for not risin'," Dan continued. "As you can see, I'm confined. Please have a seat yourself, unless you'd rather step inside."

  "This is fine," Sarah said. She sat in a cane-back rocker next to Dan, clasping her hands firmly in her lap, spine rigid. The chair didn't even dare to rock, Wyn observed.

  "I'm very sorry to have to bring you this news, Mr. MacIntyre," she said to Dan. "Mairi's mother and father are indeed . . . gone. From what I understand, they caught typhoid in the last epidemic in the part of the city where the immigrants are crowded together. I checked the records at the orphanage Mairi came from. I also took her to their graves before we left, and ordered a monument put up."

  Tears streamed down Dan's face, but he managed to say, "That's right nice of you, Miss Channing. You just let me know how much that there marker was, and we'll pay you for it."

  Sarah waved a negligent hand. "That's absolutely not necessary, Mr. MacIntyre."

  Dan stiffened, but Sarah appeared not to notice that she had smacked Dan's pride down. She seemed extremely ill at ease with the emotionalism of this situation, but Wyn sensed she would carry through with it. Otherwise she could have easily delivered Mairi to someone in Razor Gully and returned to her safe haven in New York.

  Dan wasn't about to allow his pride to stay trampled. "You don't seem to understand, Miss Channing. It is necessary. I will pay for the markers on my brother and sister-in-law's graves."

  Sarah studied him for a moment, then nodded. Just then Jeeter called from beside the wagon, "Miz Channer there said she was a wantin' to stay for a day 'er so, Dan, so's we brought her bag with us. An' we got that there cat in its cage. You want I should set 'em down too?"

  "He has mistaken my name ever since I hired him yesterday," Sarah said with a tolerant smile. "And I very much would like to put off having to say good-bye to Mairi just yet. Jeeter said there was a boardinghouse here."

  "Widow Tuttle's," Wyn explained, pointing to the house she had passed on her way to the store. "You'll have no problem getting a room with her this time of year." Raising his voice, he told Jeeter to take the bags over to Widow Tuttle's before he set 'em down, and to inform Widow Tuttle that Miss Channing would be along shortly.

  "I'm a gonna head on back soon's I do that," Jeeter called in return. "It's warm as a baby's bottom right now, but I feels a storm a comin'. We's a gonna have snow up to the porch rails by mornin'."

  The freighter climbed back on the wagon, but Sarah leaped to her feet before he drove off.

  "Oh! Leave Gray Boy!" she cried to Jeeter. "Mairi will want him near."

  Before Wyn could ask her who Gray Boy was, Sarah hurried down the steps. He started to ask Mairi, then realized she was asleep on his shoulder, her soft breath feathering against his neck. Murmuring to his pa that he would be right back, he carried Mairi into the store and deposited her on the bed in Dan's room off the back of the storeroom.

  He left the door on the room open, since Mairi wouldn't know at first where she was when she woke. They'd built the bedroom for Dan almost two years ago, when it became apparent he would never walk again. Dan had insisted he didn't want Wyn struggling up and down the steps to their living quarters over the store with him in the wheelchair. Mairi had been in New York City by then.

  He met Sarah just outside the bedroom door. "Your father told me where you'd probably taken Mairi," Sarah said in her cultured voice. "I brought Gray Boy to her. The kitten and she are inseparable, and Gray Boy will be the first thing she looks for when she wakes. He stayed with her through her entire recovery, and in fact, the kitten led me to Mairi."

  Wyn took the basket from her and returned to the room. When he set the basket beside Mairi and unlatched it, a beautiful, half-grown gray and white kitten scampered out. It blinked at him and meowed once before it strolled over and curled up on the pillow beside Mairi's head. He turned back to Sarah, halting when he saw the look on her face.

  She stared at Mairi with so much love Wyn could feel it crowding the room. His defenses came up immediately. If this woman thought she could offer a home to Mairi because his aunt and uncle had died, she'd soon find out different. Mountain people cared for their own. All the money she could offer them would never buy Mairi.

  Sarah started, glancing at Wyn, her expression changing in a heartbeat when she saw his face. He tried to smooth the glower he knew was there away, but he could see the fright in her eyes.

  "Please," Sarah whispered, amazing him when she continued and he realized she was practically reading his mind. "It's not what you think. I have fallen in love with Mairi, but the sole reason I wish to stay here for a day or so is to have just a little more time with her. I know she belongs with her family. I could have kept her in New York and never even notified you I had her, if I'd wanted to keep her for myself."

  "I suppose," Wyn admitted. "But when we didn't hear from my aunt and uncle, one of us would have eventually gone to see what had happened. And we'd have checked the orphanages for Mairi."

  "She'd run away," Sarah said. "I found her near death. I . . . look, can we go back out on the porch, so I can tell your father the story at the same time? There's no sense having to repeat it."

  Wyn gestured for her to proceed him, following her back through the store, past the shelves of goods and barrels of different items. This time of year the shelves were rather barren, since the winter snows made it impossible at times for Jeeter to deliver their orders. They anticipated that in the fall, stocking up prior to winter. And they already had orders mailed off to restock next month, when they could expect a clear enough trail after spring broke for Jeeter to make it through with a large load.

  A new scent niggled at his nose, and he realized he'd been smelling it ever since she arrived. It intermingled with the smells of pickles and salt pork, leather and dried apples, but he picked it out anyway. He guessed she probably used some lotion to make her skin so soft, and the light, floral scent suited her. Few of the mountain women used a scent, but those who did pretty much stuck with what they made from dried rose petals. This was different — almost like a mixture of various flowers.

  Back on the porch, Sarah walked steadily over to Dan and took her seat in the rocker again. His pa had recovered somewhat, although his cheeks were still wet and his eyes red-rimmed. Wyn supposed his own grief would fill him and overflow soon, but he had to control himself right now. Mairi needed him, as did his pa.

  Sissy would return any minute from cleaning the schoolteacher's house, and in a couple hours, the other children would be out of school. They would all have to be told of the new deaths in the family and Mairi's presence explained. With Sissy's husband, Robert, off looking for a job in the West Virginia mines, Wyn would have to make sure Sissy didn't upset herself and harm her babe.

  For a second, his responsibilities weighed on him, but he knew plenty of mountain men his own age — twenty-two — who had responsibilities just as heavy. He forced his attention to Sarah when she finally spoke.

  "I found Mairi beneath some bushes as I was leaving the opera one night almost two months ago," Sarah said. "The kitten led me to her — or perhaps an angel guided the kitten to me so I'd find her. She was cold, sick
and starving, and I took her home with me. It was two weeks before she was well enough to talk, since we almost lost her a couple of times. At first I'd thought she was only around five or six, because she was so tiny. But when she could talk, she told me that she was eight. After that, she told me all about her family here in Sawback Mountain, but she was very reluctant to tell me about the orphanage. It was only after she began to trust me, and know I wouldn't send her back to that home, that she gave me the rest of the information."

  Sarah shifted in her chair, gripping her hands in her lap once again. "That orphanage will take proper care of the children it houses in the future," she said in a grim voice. "It has new management, and my attorney has orders to keep an eye on it and make regular reports to me."

  For a moment she remained quiet, sadly shaking her head as though in remembrance. Then she took hold of herself. "I verified that Cal and Selene MacIntyre, Mairi's parents, were indeed deceased. I even talked to the doctor who signed the death certificates and learned they'd both been casualties of the typhoid epidemic last fall. The doctor told me where their graves were. I asked Mairi what she wanted to do, and she was adamant about returning here.

  "I'll admit," she said, staring into Dan's face in a straightforward manner, "I offered to let her stay with me, although I did tell her I'd inform you of what had happened. When she objected, I never tried to talk her out of it; I agreed to bring her here. We would have come sooner, but my father died three weeks ago. As soon as I was able, we got packed. We left four days ago."

  Wyn and Dan both murmured condolences to Sarah on her father's loss, which she accepted with a calm look. Then, tears gathering again in his eyes, Wyn walked over to the porch railing and stared across the cove. The mists and clouds on the mountain peaks were already darker, but he'd had no doubt Jeeter's prediction of snow would prove true. He'd never known the freighter to be wrong, and many a time their goods would arrive a few days later than they expected. A snowstorm would intervene, and they knew Jeeter had anticipated it and not gotten caught out on the mountain trail.