[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek

by Jan Watson

  It reminded her of her early days on Troublesome Creek. . . .

  Upon returning home after they married in Lexington, Will had left her in the gloomy cabin to freshen up from their arduous journey while he went to fetch the baby from Emilee Pelfrey. As soon as he’d left her alone she knew she couldn’t stay. She’d nearly screamed in despair when she realized what a monumental mistake she had made.

  The entire cabin was one room. Just one room, and it was so dark and depressing she immediately went in search of a window that would open. She had to have air. Stepping out onto the rough, split-log porch, she took a deep breath, but she found no solace, for the very air was like the hulking mountains that surrounded her—damp, heavy, tasting of rock and clay. She’d never be able to take a full breath again.

  Sinking to the floor, she’d covered her face with her hands. “What have I done?” she cried. “Oh, what have I done?”

  “Grace?” She heard Will’s voice, felt his hand upon her shoulder. “Look’ee here.” He knelt before her and placed the baby in her arms.

  She stiffened with the burden of the little body. “I can’t,” she remembered saying. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  He stood and turned from her when she tried to thrust the baby back to him. “Well, you’re here and you’re her mother now, and I reckon you don’t have much choice.” Then he walked toward the barn and left her alone, alone with her dead sister’s baby.

  Grace wasn’t a natural at child care and felt awkward around Laura Grace, as if the baby knew she played a charade. Laura Grace was a good, easily satisfied child as long as it was Will who satisfied her. She rejected Grace at every turn. Grace had the devil’s own time trying to get her to nurse from the bottle. Usually she just gave up and trekked her across the creek to Emilee Pelfrey’s or waited for Will to come in from the fields.

  Until one night way after midnight while Will slept up in the loft and Grace lay awake in her bed. Every time she drifted off, Laura Grace woke her with her crying. Tossing and turning, she prayed for rest, and then the baby woke again and began to fret. Wearily, she scooped blankets and all from the cradle and carried the baby to the rocking chair. She dragged it under a small square window, where a light so brilliant it looked like mercury spilled in and splashed across the floor.

  Grace rocked and patted and soothed and even offered another feeding, but Laura Grace would have none of it. She wasn’t crying really, just fussing and nuzzling the front of Grace’s cotton nightdress.

  She thinks I’m her mother, Grace thought, surprised. The baby squirmed in her arms. “What is it, baby? Whatever do you want?”

  Laura Grace answered by throwing back her little red-haired head and opening her mouth in a full-blown fit of temper.

  I’m going to have to give her something besides plain milk if she’s ever going to eat for me, Grace surmised. She bundled the baby into the seat of the rocking chair and left her there while she went to the stove and stirred a tiny bit of thick molasses into a cup of warmed milk. Some she poured into the baby’s bottle, and some she left in the cup. The baby cried on as loud as thunder to Grace’s ears. How could Will sleep through it?

  Grace’s heart turned over when she picked the baby up. The little thing was in such distress. Sitting, she cuddled the baby against her chest. Holding the cup between her knees, she dipped one finger into the sweetened milk, then stuck it into the baby’s mouth. Laura Grace stopped mid-scream and sucked greedily. After several finger-feeds, Grace substituted the bottle nipple. Wonder of wonders, Laura Grace nursed without one whimper.

  Satisfied at last, the baby grinned so broadly that Grace could see the nub of a tiny new tooth in her lower gum. Laura Grace sighed a long baby sigh and reached up and patted her aunt’s face with one tiny, dimpled hand. Grace leaned over and kissed her fat cheeks. Laura Grace laughed from deep in her belly.

  “I’m here,” Grace said. “You don’t have to worry anymore, sweet baby. I loved your mama and I love you. I’ll always be your mother.”

  Grace fell in love that night, utterly and completely in love with Laura Grace. And she vowed there in the silver light of the moon that she would give her sister’s daughter everything she had and all the strength she’d need to get the baby and herself away from that dreadful place, that despised Troublesome Creek.

  Now Grace came back to herself as if waking from a dream and found her face wet with the tears of self-recrimination and sorrow. Things had not turned out as she had hoped. The place she herself hated, these mind-numbing mountains, delighted Laura Grace.

  She pulled the sheets and quilts from the floor where she’d tossed them. Underneath the pile lay the clothes she’d stripped from Laura Grace the morning Will carried her in. She’d barely noticed the raggedy overalls then, but now she turned them right-side out, puzzling at her daughter’s strange attire.

  She gasped when she stuck her hand in a pocket and pulled the spectral fingers out. “Will, come in here!”

  Will frowned as he turned the bones over and over in his hands. “It’s from a dead body.”

  “Well, I know that!” she cried. “But where did Laura Grace get it?”

  Copper rested that day, and by the next morning she felt restored, except when she thought of the cave . . . the foxlike creature . . . the dark prison of the sinkhole. Then her heart sank, and she felt half drowned. She hoped it was a nightmare, that she’d dreamed it all when she fell asleep outside the cave.

  She was rinsing dishes when Daniel opened the screen door. He held the dog’s dish, a battered tin pie pan. “Where has Paw-paw got to?” Daniel asked. “Ever’ morning and ever’ night I put out scraps for him, and nothing eats them but the chickens.”

  “Oh no.” Copper dropped a cup into the water. “Paw-paw!”

  She was sick at heart as she went to find Daddy. How could she have left Paw-paw? He must have followed her into the cave and gotten stuck or hurt or—She couldn’t let her thoughts wander further down that path. Oh, what had happened to her Paw-paw?

  She told her father nearly everything as they made their way up the mountain on horseback—how she’d read Mam’s mail and discovered the brochure for the boarding school, her plans to run away, how she’d dressed in his overalls and explored the cave, her night in the sinkhole. But for some reason, she kept to herself what she’d found inside the cave and the strange being that scared her silly.

  Daddy reined the horse in and swung Copper down when they reached the graveyard. “Copper, you’ve filled your head with foolishness. We wouldn’t send you off to school unless you agreed, but I’m beginning to see the wisdom of your mam’s desire. You’ve learned a valuable lesson, I hope.”

  Copper hung her head. “What if Paw-paw’s dead, Daddy? I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “He’s a tough old hound.” Will glanced down the mountain before chuckling to himself. “I figure he’s been off courtin’.”

  They searched the tall grasses and weeds for the sinkhole. “Careful!” Will grabbed her hand as a small stone she’d kicked dropped away before their eyes.

  “This gives me the willies,” Copper said with a shiver.

  Daddy knelt by the hole. “It’s sure well hidden.” He peered in. “I’ll need to mark this or fill it lest someone else falls in.” He leaned over as far as he could without falling in himself and let out a long, low whistle. “Well, that answers that.”

  “What?” Copper said, shrinking back a little, afraid of what he’d seen.

  “There’s half a coffin sticking out of the wall, and it looks like a heap of bones on a ledge at the bottom. That’s where the bones Mam found in your pocket came from.”

  She shuddered. “I remember now. I grabbed the skeleton when the casket broke, and the hand stayed with me.” She pulled at his shoulder. “Let’s go, Daddy.”

  “Just let me—” He wrenched out of Copper’s grasp and rolled a large rock to the edge of the hole. “The skeleton will have to be buried proper.” Slapping his hat agai
nst his leg, he turned back to Copper. “Here.” Making a step of his hands, he hefted her up onto the horse’s back. “I’ll tend to this later.”

  They found the tunnel easily once they were inside the cave. Daddy tried every which way to shove his wide shoulders through the tunnel entrance. Finally he gave up and shook his head. “I can’t let you go in there alone, Copper. No telling what’s on the other side.”

  At that very moment they heard a joyous bark, music to Copper’s ears.

  “He’s trapped in there, Daddy,” she cried. “I’m going in to get him.”

  Copper quickly snaked her way through the narrow tunnel once again, her heart fluttering like a bird in cupped hands. When her head finally poked out the other side, a slurping wet tongue kissed her cheeks. “Paw-paw!” she blurted out in relief. “You old, sweet thing. You’re alive!”

  Paw-paw danced lopsidedly around Copper, his stiff leg bound with strips of the skirt she’d discarded days before.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, kneeling to examine the neatly dressed leg. “Who could have done this?”

  Suddenly, quick as a sneeze, a strange colorless creature darted into her vision. “I done it, Purty,” the apparition spoke, its voice low and thick. “I done took keer of your dog here.”

  “Who? . . . What?” Copper gasped.

  “Don’t be feered, Purty,” the being whispered, face close to Copper’s, its lashless eyes a watery skim-milk blue.

  “Copper!” Daddy called through the tunnel. “Are you okay in there? Can you get Paw-paw out?”

  “I’m all right,” she yelled, never taking her eyes from the creature crouching before her, “but I’ll need the rope.”

  “I’ll go fetch it,” Daddy answered, his voice fading into the distance even as he spoke. “Be right back.”

  “Okay!” she hollered, then reached out and grasped a small brown-stained hand that jerked away and hid itself behind its owner’s back.

  “That be from walnut hulls,” the slow voice announced.

  “Why, you’re just a girl,” Copper mused. “What are you doing here all alone?”

  “I’m waiting ’til my ma sends for me,” the girl said, as if she talked to Copper every day, as if it was not unusual for her to be living in a cave alone. “I cain’t go home yet.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here. It’s going to be cold soon,” Copper said, taking charge.

  “Copper?” Daddy yelled down the tunnel. “Here’s the rope. You’ll have to come get it.”

  Copper turned toward the sound. “Daddy, there’s—”

  “Don’t tell, Purty!” the girl beseeched, eyes wide, her skinny body trembling. “My pap mustn’t know where I am. Promise?”

  “Okay, okay . . . it will be all right,” Copper soothed. Reaching out to stroke the girl’s thin shoulder, she felt the jutting bones, but the girl quickly ducked and turned away. A bushy, bright red foxtail fixed to the back of her dress swept the ground when she moved. Copper knew she couldn’t keep this girl a secret. She’d have to tell Daddy.

  “Don’t never come back here,” the girl growled suddenly, startling Copper with her venom.

  “Copper?” Daddy called again, his voice taking on a questioning edge.

  Copper glanced at the tunnel and looked back at the girl. She chewed her bottom lip in frustration. “I’m coming, Daddy!” She retrieved the rope and tied it around the dog’s neck, then shimmied back through the tunnel with the free end. Handing the rope to her father, she explained her plan. “When I get ready, Daddy, you pull—but not too hard. It’s tied around Paw-paw’s neck.” She clambered back into the tunnel, wondering if somehow the girl had disappeared. Maybe she had just imagined her. “I’ll go back and push.”

  She went back for Paw-paw and was startled to find the girl’s face staring at her at the end of the tunnel, watching for her return.

  “There, there, Purty,” the girl said as Copper tumbled out. “Can I trust ye not to get in my business?”

  Copper shook her head, perplexed. What a strange situation. But something about the girl gave her pause. Obviously she needed a friend, and Copper sensed if she betrayed her in the slightest, the girl would steal away as quickly as she’d come.

  Paw-paw whined, and his tail thumped against Copper’s leg. He was ready to leave. Copper heaved him into the tunnel, then paused and studied the girl. “I’ll find a way to help you.”

  The girl squinted. “Keep to your own self,” she hissed. “Ain’t nobody said I needed minding.” Her crestfallen look belied the malice of her words.

  Copper ignored the thinly veiled threat. She couldn’t abandon the girl—somehow she’d have to earn her trust. “Come to me if you ever need help.” Her eyes took in the table that held her family’s missing things. “Obviously you know where I live.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Copper turned onto her belly, following Paw-paw into the darkness of the tunnel. She prodded his rear end and kept him squirming along the passage until he was finally free.

  “Hey, old man.” Daddy patted Paw-paw’s head. “Let’s get you home.”

  John had come calling while they were off searching for Paw-paw. Copper knew something was amiss when she saw him standing by the screen door with his shirttail tucked in and his hair slicked back. He had his hands behind his back, and when she stepped up on the porch he brought out a little bunch of wildflowers.

  “These here are for you, Pest,” he said, thrusting them in her face.

  “But I’m not sick anymore.”

  “Well, that’s good, but I brung you flowers anyway. Would you like to sit a spell?” He motioned toward two rockers placed close together.

  “Uh, John, this is my house. I don’t have to be invited to sit on my own porch,” she replied, confused.

  “R-reckon not,” he stammered, looking at his feet, color creeping up his neck. “Do you want to go to my porch?”

  Daddy brushed past them and went inside the house. Copper was sure she could hear him guffawing as he edged the door closed.

  “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you acting so silly?”

  “Um, well, I . . . it’s like this, Pest . . .” He stood on one foot and polished his shoe on the back of his pant leg.

  Paw-paw crammed himself between them, and every time he wagged his tail it thumped against the back of her knees, nearly buckling them. Men and dogs—she’d just about had enough. Putting her hands on her hips she leaned toward John, tapping one foot. “Forevermore, John, chew it slow and spit it out.”

  “We’re courtin’,” he replied. “You and me—your daddy said we could.”

  “I should think I would be the one to decide!” She turned her back and poured a little water from the bucket into an old fruit jar before arranging the wilted posies in it. They were right pretty. “What if I don’t want to be courted?”

  “I reckon I didn’t think on that, Pest. Do you?”

  “What, John?” she teased, turning back to him, her nose pressed deep in the flowers. “Do I what?”

  He blushed again, red as a rooster’s comb. “You’re plaguing me now.”

  Taking pity, she sat demurely in one rocker and batted her eyelashes as she asked, “Would you like to sit a spell?”

  “Don’t mind if I do, Pest,” he answered, sitting beside her and rocking up a storm. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Grace watched from the screen door as the children played. The evening was cool. Soon they’d have to leave the door closed all the time. She hated winter. It gave no peace. Sometimes in the summer she could steal a whole afternoon with her books . . . transported to another place by the poems of Dickinson, Shelley, Browning, and Keats. Will would be gone working; the children would be out chasing this thing or that. She never had to worry about the boys—their sister would watch over them.

  A pressure behind her eyes caused her head to thrum a familiar steady beat. She dipped a drink of water from the bucket
on the washstand and caught an unwanted glimpse of her face, pulled in a frown, into the wavy mirror. She tried a smile. It looked false, her teeth too full for her mouth. When had she forgotten how to smile? She took out her combs and shook her hair loose. Gray-streaked red curls tumbled to her shoulders. A faded imitation of her youthful self stared back at her, unforgiving.

  No wonder Will was always gone. It had gotten worse since Laura Grace’s accident. He blamed her, she knew . . . blamed her that Laura Grace had tried to run away. Now he made the trek up the mountain to the cemetery to Julie’s grave nearly every evening.

  Footsteps pounded across the porch. Jerking away from the mirror, she twisted up her hair. She and Will had to talk, come to some resolution. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Move, Paw-paw!” She shoved against the old dog’s rump with the door. He rarely left the porch since his escapade in the cave and now spent all his nights indoors, much to Grace’s dismay.

  “Daniel, take three baby steps,” she heard Laura Grace say as she stepped out onto the porch.

  “Mother, may I?” Daniel asked, nearly standing on his sister’s toes.

  “No fair!” Willy cried from his stance near the porch. “He always wins.”

  Grace didn’t correct his unwarranted judgment of his brother, just tightened her shawl against the coolness of the evening. There wouldn’t be many more days of outside play. “Laura Grace, get the boys ready for bed, please,” she said, her voice a sigh of resignation. Even her books couldn’t take her away from this suffocating place for long. She always had to come back. “Be sure they wash their feet.” She started down the walkway, then paused. “You may read two chapters from your book about pirates tonight.”

  “Oh, boy,” Daniel replied. “I love pirates. Don’t you, Willy?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to be a pirate when I grow up an’ have a parrot an’ lots of gold dub . . . dub . . . what are them things called, Sissy? Oh yeah, double loons. But no wooden leg.”

  His voice faded away as Grace entered the barn. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, but she could find no sign of Will. She went to the little window beside the rickety ladder that led to the hayloft and saw him then, faintly, the white of his shirt visible as he crossed the meadow.