Tennessee Waltz

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "You know you're taking a chance, Sarah," Kyle told her after she'd explained her plans to him. "But I think you're right to at least give these people the opportunity to do these things, and I'll be glad to oversee the plans. It would be better if you stayed around yourself, though."

  "I can't, Kyle. And I disagree that it would be better for me to be here. In fact, if there was any other way, I wouldn't even let the people know these were my ideas. I'd much rather they think they came though you, since you have your own contacts back in New York."

  "Well, we've got a few days before you leave to work out the details," Kyle mused. "I'd planned on staying around this area for a while to visit some of my parishioners. I'll use Dan's room, since I don't want to intrude on the honeymoon at the boardinghouse."

  "Then we can talk in the evenings."

  "We'll do that."

  Tater's fiddle spoke again, and Sarah glanced up. As at the wake, the dancing followed the meal. She saw Dan wheeling his chair with one arm and dragging Mandy out into the center of a cleared space in the yard. He stood once again and managed several slow, halting dance steps with Mandy, then collapsed laughing into his chair and held onto her hands. They stared into each other's eyes as the space around them filled with other dancing couples.

  A mountain man headed for Sarah, and the first thing she looked at was his feet. Indeed, he wore heavy, hobnailed boots. She quickly tried to call up her previous experience and remember how she had learned to adroitly avoid those boots. Luckily, Kyle dragged her past the man for the first dance, so she had a little time to brush off that memory before she had to start the quick stepping for that day.

  Nonetheless, she managed to laugh and enjoy herself for the rest of the day — on the surface anyway. Since Wyn didn't ask her to dance, at least he didn't ask any other women, either, except for Mandy.

  Chapter 22

  It just didn't make sense to her. Mairi turned over for the umpteenth time and scootched her cheek into her pillow another way. Instead of those neat feathers of sleep she always welcomed forming on the edge of her mind, she was as wide awake as when she had gone to bed.

  When she flopped over onto her back for the gazillionth time, Pris, who shared the bed with her, grumbled, "Darn it, Mairi. Go to sleep. We've got school tomorrow."

  "I can't sleep," she whispered back. "I'm gonna go talk to Miss Sarah, in case anyone wakes up and sees me gone."

  "Go," Pris said grouchily. "Then maybe I can get to sleep. And don't wake me up when you come back to bed, all right?"

  "I'll try not to."

  Slipping out of bed, Mairi grabbed the soft housecoat Miss Sarah had bought her in that wondrous New York City store from the foot of the bed and put it on. She cautiously opened the bedroom door, but she'd heard everyone else go to bed a long time ago. 'Course Uncle Dan was staying over at Miss Mandy's tonight — and would be from now on, from what she gathered. Carrie said they were "honeymooning," but Carrie only snickered and got a sorta snotty look when Mairi and Pris asked her to explain that.

  Well, Mandy had already allowed her and Pris to choose their own rooms over at the huge house, so they wouldn't have to put up with Carrie making them feel dumb much longer. Once school was out, they'd all move over there, leaving the space in the store for Sissy's family and Wyn.

  And that's what bothered her, she admitted as she made her way down the stairwell and through the store without even once stubbing her toe in the dark. Out on the front porch, she paused as Gray Boy meowed and ran to her. The kitten had recently decided he enjoyed prowling around at night, although Uncle Dan said he always left the back door ajar for Gray Boy. Come to think of it, though, with Uncle Dan over at Mandy's, no one had thought to crack open the back door.

  She picked Gray Boy up, realizing calling him a kitten wasn't going to work much longer. He was almost as big as the other barn cats and filled her arms. But he still understood everything she said to him.

  "Cousin Wyn's gonna be staying over here when the rest of us move to Mandy's," she told the cat. "I asked him, and he said he'd move into Uncle Dan's room. But then he said 'just for a while,' and wouldn't answer me when I asked him what that meant. I was hopin' it meant maybe him and Miss Sarah would be the next two a'gettin' married, but I don't think so. Cousin Wyn didn't even dance with Miss Sarah today, did you notice?"

  Gray Boy meowed in response, satisfying Mairi the cat was paying attention. Mairi walked on out to the edge of the porch and peered toward Sarah's cabin.

  "Look. There's a light on, so she can't sleep, neither. And when I snuck out of my bedroom, I saw a light under Cousin Wyn's bedroom door. Let's go talk to Miss Sarah."

  She scurried down the steps and ran toward the cabin — not that she was afraid of the dark here in the mountains. In New York, she'd never gone out after dark until she ran away from that home after her parents died. Here the night sounds were friends. She was only anxious to talk to Miss Sarah.

  After tapping softly on the door, just in case Miss Sarah had gone to sleep with the lantern burning, she clutched Gray Boy tight and waited. Almost as though Miss Sarah had been standing directly on the other side of the door, expecting someone, it opened immediately. Miss Sarah was still dressed, too, instead of ready for bed.

  "Oh," she said. "Mairi."

  Mairi cocked her head. "Was you expecting someone else, Miss Sarah?"

  "No. No, of course not," Miss Sarah assured her. "But what on earth are you doing out of bed so late? Come on in."

  Mairi carried Gray Boy inside and sat on one edge of the little settee. She waited until Sarah sat beside her, then looked up at her, wondering how to say what she was thinking without hurting Miss Sarah's feelings. She loved this woman almost as much as her mother.

  "I . . ." Mairi said the same instant Sarah spoke the same word. Sarah laughed softly and pointed to Mairi to speak first.

  "Well, I'm not exactly sure . . . did you ever have a feeling things weren't right, but you just weren't sure what wasn't right 'bout them, Miss Sarah?"

  While Sarah seemed to be pondering what she'd said, Mairi screwed up her forehead more, hoping maybe that would help her think and say what she was feeling so Miss Sarah could understand her.

  "I mean . . . well, I mean what I said's not really what I mean. I think I know what's not right, but it's what I think. That might not be what you think's not right, Miss Sarah. Is it?"

  For a few silent seconds, Sarah looked completely puzzled by Mairi's words, and the little girl searched her thoughts for another way to get her worries across to Sarah. But then she looked away, and Mairi saw Miss Sarah's hands clenched awfully tightly in her lap.

  "Things can't always be right, Mairi," she whispered. "Sometimes people have to live with their mistakes, as well as live with the reality that some problems are insurmountable."

  Mairi kicked her legs back and forth. Gray Boy meowed loudly, and Sarah looked at the cat with a smile.

  "I'm glad Gray Boy didn't give up finding someone to help me, even though that appeared to be one of those in . . . insurmountable problems for a while," Mairi mused. "I could hear mostly what was goin' on that night you found me, but I was too tired to move. I sorta knew I needed to try to find someone to help me, but I guess Gray Boy knew it too. He meowed at lots of people, but they wouldn't pay him no attention. One man even kicked him. I guess that's why he stayed out of sight beneath the bush from then on. But he kept meowing, till you found me."

  Sarah reached for her and pulled her into her arms. The cat gave a muffled meow of indignation and leaped to the floor, where he sat washing a front paw with his tongue and looking at them as though they needed a good talking to. Mairi giggled, then ignored Gray Boy and flung her arms around Sarah's neck.

  "I'm very, very glad Gray Boy didn't quit trying to get someone to help you too, Mairi," Sarah said, giving her a tight squeeze. "I love you an awful lot."

  "And I love you, too, Miss Sarah. Mama told me once love keeps a'growin'. That the more you give awa
y, the more comes back to you."

  "That's true, darling. Your mother was very smart."

  Letting go of Sarah's neck, Mairi sat back and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and the tip poked out her lips, but that didn't help her think much, either. She didn't want to hurt Miss Sarah, but they still hadn't talked about what had kept Mairi awake tonight.

  "Cousin Wyn's not sleeping neither," she ventured.

  Miss Sarah's pretty eyes clouded, and she dropped her head to look at her hands, which were twisting again in her lap.

  "Can I ask you something, Miss Sarah? You don't have to answer, iffen you don't want to."

  Not looking at her, Miss Sarah nodded that she could go ahead and ask.

  "Well . . ." Mairi took a breath for courage. "Do you really wanna marry that Mister Stephen and live with him for the rest of your life?" She heard Miss Sarah gasp and saw her shoulders stiffen, but she went on, "I guess you might've been all right with doin' that a'fore you met Cousin Wyn. Mama said something once about people not knowing what they was missin', iffen they hadn't never known nothin' else. She was talkin' about how much she and Papa missed the mountains, and how those people in the city probably couldn't even understand what else was out there. It was right before they decided they was gonna come back here. But they got sick and died instead."

  "Oh, Mairi!"

  Sarah reached for her, and this time Mairi scrambled onto her lap, snuggling her head against Miss Sarah's shoulder.

  "Is it that you gots too much money for Cousin Wyn to be happy with you, Miss Sarah?" she asked, then felt Miss Sarah nod against the top of her head.

  "That's part of it," Miss Sarah said.

  "That there don't seem a near bad enough problem for the two of you to live apart and lonesome for each other all your life."

  "I've been thinking the same thing, Mairi. It doesn't seem proper to me, though, to give away the money. There's a lot of good that can be done with it, and I feel I could decide what good to do as well as anyone else."

  "Then that's what you should do, Miss Sarah. And you know what else you should do?"

  "What, darling? Since I don't seem to be very good at making decisions I'm happy with myself, I would truly like to hear what you think."

  "Then tell that there Mister Stephen to go find someone else to marry, who wants to live in that dirty old city with him. That you found you a new home in the mountains that you like better."

  "I do believe you're right about that, Mairi."

  "Good. Then maybe I can tell you, too, what you should do about Cousin Wyn."

  "Do, darling."

  "Tell him that you love him and that it's a'gonna be his own darned fault if he lives a lonesome life, when you're waiting with all this love ready to give him. Tell him you're not gonna give up till he stops being dumb and admits he loves you too. And that the two of you oughta get married."

  ~~~~

  Sarah turned her conversation with Mairi over and over in her mind the next few days. She only convened school for half days this last week, both because she needed time to work on her other plans during the day in order to discuss them with Kyle in the evenings, and because Dan had informed her the children were needed at home now. She had come to some decisions, but for now she would keep them to herself.

  Today Jeeter made his mail run and delivered supplies, and he left her several letters. Since the children were already dismissed for the day, she settled at her writing desk to read them. The first couple were from friends, and she set them aside to enjoy later. The one from her attorney was the most important to give her attention to right now. Hopefully, she could later furnish Kyle with the answers to a couple questions he'd asked.

  A moment later, Sarah stared at the letter from her attorney in horror. How could Stephen do something like this? But it sounded exactly like something Stephen would do — worm his way into the good graces of her attorney's clerk and ferret out confidential information. Being dismissed with no reference was far too good for the clerk. She dearly hoped the man was blackballed from ever holding another confidential position for the rest of his life!

  But she had to decide what to do now — who to tell — who she could trust, even though it would probably mean her own banishment from Sawback Mountain. She would probably never see Mairi again, either, but if she didn't stop Robert's arrest, Mairi would never want to contact her anyway in the future. If she had learned one thing during her sojourn in Sawback Mountain, it was family loyalty was treasured far above friendship with an outsider.

  Kyle was gone, in his usual routine of visiting a parishioner during the day and returning in the evening. Wyn. She had to tell Wyn. No matter that it would ruin any chance of even a friendship with the man she loved. She couldn't let one of his family members — and possibly some of his friends — go to prison.

  Hoping desperately there would be no customers at the store, Sarah hurried from her cabin, the letter Jeeter had delivered an hour earlier clutched in her hand. At the entrance to the store, she hesitated, anxiously scanning the interior for customers. Instead, she saw only Dan, stocking a nearby shelf with cans from the box in his lap.

  "You lookin' for Wyn?" Dan asked.

  "Uh . . . how did you know?"

  "You didn't say howdy to me. Looked like you had something or someone else on your mind. Wyn's out in the barn. Alone. All the young'uns are upstairs studying for that competition tomorrow."

  "Thank you."

  Sarah hurried on through the store and out the back way. She rushed into the barn, pausing inside to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light. A horse stuck its head over a nearby stall door, and she recognized the one she'd ridden into the mountains on her trips to visit the families. It nickered in greeting, and she instinctively moved over to pet it.

  It smelled like horse, and she identified other odors as her breathing calmed from her harried rush to the barn. It was cool in here, and the dirt floor gave off a damp odor similar to what she'd smelled in the woods the day she and Jute ran into the skunk. Hay particles floated around in a beam of sunlight, and her nose itched more in response to the sight than actual prickling.

  She didn't hear any sound that could be Wyn working in the barn and wished she'd thought to ask Dan where exactly she would find him. Not having spent much time in a stable, she had no idea where to look. She moved away from the horse, which nickered again in loss, and cautiously walked deeper into the gloom.

  She found him at the back entrance, which opened into a large corral. Shirtless, he was perched on the top gate railing, preparing to jump to the ground inside the barn. Her breath caught and for an instant the only thought in her mind was how much he looked like one of the gods she had read about, perhaps the sun god. He completed his leap, then stepped back to put some space between them, reminding her of the much more than physical distance separating them.

  "What's wrong, Sarah?"

  "I don't know how you knew something was wrong, but it definitely is."

  "I could tell by your face. And it looks serious."

  "It is. I . . ." She held out the letter, then decided it would be faster to tell him the situation than to wait for him to read about it. "I wrote to my attorney a while back, asking him to let me know what it would take to set up a distillery here in the mountains. I thought it would be much better for the men to brew legal whiskey, like is done in Lynchburg, than the moonshine they make now. I'll admit, I was going to finance the operation, but I felt it would be a good investment for me.

  "Normally, my correspondence with my attorney is completely confidential, and he would lose his license to practice law if he broke that confidence — even if I told him of an illegal situation. I believe it's called attorney-client privilege."

  Wyn's face darkened, his eyes searing hers with beginning fury. She had no choice except to continue.

  "Somehow my fiancé, Stephen VanderDyke, got the information out of Mr. Caruthers' clerk
about some of the men here in Sawback Mountain making illegal whiskey. Stephen has been begging me to come back to New York so we can marry, and evidently he thought he could make me return faster if he sent the authorities in here to arrest the whiskey makers. Maybe he thought I wouldn't pursue the distillery idea if the men I needed to work it were in jail. Who knows?

  "Anyway, Mr. Caruthers caught his clerk talking to Stephen outside the office one day and could tell by how furtive the conversation was that the clerk was up to no good. He forced the clerk to tell him what was going on. The revenuers are on their way here now, Wyn. Or they could already be here. Mr. Caruthers got tied up in a personal situation with his daughter, and it was several days before he sent this letter off to me — after he hired a new clerk."

  Wyn grabbed her shoulders and shook her, firmly but not so hard it hurt. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" he snarled. "Making illegal whiskey is a federal offense! If Robert's caught, his children will have children of their own before he ever sees them again! And this will kill Sissy."

  Sarah shoved his arms from her shoulders and glared at him. "Why do you think I'm telling you this? You can yell and scream at me all you want to after we make sure Robert's safe. And Cabbage Carter and whoever else the federal authorities will be after. Damn it, Wyn! I wrote to Mr. Caruthers weeks ago. They could have sent a spy in here and found out where the stills are and who's making the stuff by now. Or they could have even found out down in Razor Gully, I guess, if some of that illegal whiskey goes down there with Jeeter."

  Wyn's guilty look told her she'd hit on a truth, although she had no idea what he could be thinking of. She shook her head.

  "Don't these people know how word spreads?" she asked in frustration. "Gossips are all over, and secrets will get out. They have to expect to get caught sometime or another."