Walnut Bottom Farm, Books 1 & 2

by Virginia Rue

  “Don’t blame yourself, Bruce. It was my idea and my own doing. I take responsibility for it.”

  “You will, count on it. I am angrier that you hid this for so long than for going up there. You are going to wish you came to me right away.”

  “I already do.”

  “We’ll have to take care of that business later. Right now I have to get Bud and go investigate the caves.”

  “May I please go along?”

  “You may as well.”

  Chapter 4

  Cold Realization

  The drive up the snow-covered dirt road wasn’t nearly as exciting wedged between her stiff shouldered husband and the sheriff. Bud wasn’t upset with her, just glad to have a lead. The embarrassment of telling him how she knew he should check the caves was still fresh in Calla’s mind. Bruce, on the other hand, was cold and stern. He had nothing to say to her beside one word commands and one word replies, and only when absolutely necessary to speak. Calla hated it so badly when he was angry. The last time they rode this road together his arm was around her and she was doing her best to tantalize his inner thigh. They ended up parking like a pair of teenagers. Today the only anticipation was dread. She dreaded what they might find and dreaded worse that they would find nothing, because either way she had a dreadful experience in the proverbial woodshed to look forward to. As they pulled into the trailhead Calla put her own dread out of her mind and thought of the face in the falls. ‘What on earth would lead to such a life of lurking, drugs, and hiding in caves?’ she wondered.

  The forest was as quiet as death as they padded through the snow. No birds could be seen or heard. There were no tracks, animal or human. A little more snow had fallen, covering her and Lexi’s tracks. More precipitation was expected that night. The cold bit at Calla’s nose and wind blew through her oversized parka. She felt colder than she had standing on that rock in her negligée. Without a word she pointed to the spot in the falls where the face was seen.

  “There is another entrance to that cave. Dad and I hunted this area every fall and he showed me once.” Bruce took a turn off the trail and began trekking over a steep ridge. Calla and Bud struggled to keep up in the snow. Bud gave up keeping pace with the younger man and put his efforts into helping Calla along. She had already tripped twice over downed branches hidden by layers of leaf and snow. Her jeans and mittens were wet and he bet her feet were sodden as well. By the time they caught up to Bruce at the hidden entrance, both were out of breath.

  “No one could hike this with a serious injury, Bruce,” Bud heaved out.

  “Oh?” Bruce said pointing to what amounted to a deer trail emerging from behind a giant hemlock nearby. “That little trail should go straight down the valley into the road near Clayton’s property. It would be about four miles of gradual descent. It looks well traveled too. Those footprints look smallish. They look like a moccasin made them, not a proper boot, but definitely a person.”

  Pulling out a flashlight and throwing his pack back on, “Shall we?”

  As soon as they entered the tiny opening the pungent smell of creosote made it obvious that someone had made fires in the cave. Calla felt swallowed up by the earth in the narrow darkness. She held on to the back of Bruce’s belt as she followed behind him. Behind her, Bud’s flashlight shone on the cave floor under her feet. They descended slowly, single file through the stone passage, finally coming into a spacious cavern. It was about fifty feet wide and was high. Calla forgot her fear and released her death grip on the belt when she saw the ancient drawings around her. Grabbing Bud’s hand and guiding the beam of his flashlight over the graceful lines of deer, a bear, a great blue heron, a sun setting over a mountain…

  “OH MY! Why didn’t you show me this place before?”

  Calla’s exclamation was followed by sudden scuffling sound behind them. Flashlights swung around like light sabers, catching a flutter of white fabric. Bud lunged. After a scuffle, he came up with a dingy woolen cloak, and no sign of its occupant.

  “Which way did she go?” Bud asked.

  “She must have gone out to the falls! She didn’t come past me,” Bruce replied.

  The sound of rushing water grew louder as they made their way through another corridor. Rounding a bend, they saw blinding light silhouetting a tiny slip of a woman standing at the edge in front of an icy curtain. She frantically glanced back and forth between her pursuers and the frigid alternative. The party began approaching slowly and pleading gently with the panicked woman. Getting a little closer Bruce thought he recognized the face.

  “Lillian… Lillian Drake?”

  At that, she sprang through the falls with Bruce following after. As they disappeared into the white rush of water and ice, Calla let out a shrill scream and nearly followed suit. Bud caught her wrist and began pulling her back through the cave, nearly bouncing her off the walls while they ran.

  The frantic pair nearly got stuck trying to get out of the cave at the same time. Busting out into the snow, they broke into a full-blown gallop through the woods, stumbling and tumbling down the slope, Bud, breathlessly trying to radio for an ambulance.

  The trip back down to the bottom of the falls was much quicker than the trip up. Standing at the edge of the water, franticly searching and screaming his name, Calla couldn’t hear Bruce yelling nearby. Bud took her arm and spun her around and pointed at the spot she and Lexi had used for a changing room on their photo shoot. Letting out a ragged sigh, Calla saw Bruce, huddled over the balled up body of the little thief. Both were stripped of their wet clothes to the undergarments.

  Calla took off her parka and Bud helped to put it on the woman and then gave Bruce his own coat. They helped the pair into their wet shoes. Bud then started yelling at them like a drill sergeant.

  “Get up! Get up! NOW! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!” Prodding and shoving at them, even kicking at Bruce.

  “Bud!” Calla yelled.

  “Help me Lexi! We have to get them moving and out to the road before they die of hypothermia!”

  Calla was instantly yelling and kicking and pulling herself. “You get him, I got her!”

  Each threw a shuddering wet arm over their own shoulder and began heaving and hollering down the trail. They fell and rose and fell and rose. By the time they got to the truck, no one wasn’t bruised and bloodied. Calla had scratches across her face and bruised and scraped palms and knees from the trip down the side of the mountain. Bud was limping under Bruce’s weight and bore his own battle wounds from the tangles of wild rose vines. Bruce and the strange woman had cuts from the ice and beaten faces and bodies from scrambling through the icy rocks to escape the water. Bud stuffed them all on top of one another, somehow, in the cab of the truck, barely able to get himself in and shut the door. In an even more terrifying drive down the icy luge-like dirt road, Bud cursed his truck heater for not warming up fast enough. As they slid out into the main road they nearly hit the ambulance head on.

  * * *

  By the next morning, Bruce was discharged from the hospital. He looked as if he had fought a bear, but would make a full recovery. Lillian Drake was conscious, but weak. She was hooked up to IV fluids and medications to manage dehydration and withdrawal symptoms. Syringes, vials of narcotics and pill bottles were found around her pile of blankets in the cave. She needed oxygen and constant monitoring. A nurse stood guard in her room when she was left alone, but she wasn’t alone often. Grace Cowen sat by her bed. The young woman’s mother had delivered Grace’s own children and was a well-loved friend. The following day Lillian was finally speaking to her.

  Grace questioned her with tenderness, “What happened to you, dear? How did you go from growing up here, a beloved daughter of Walnut Bottom, to being a successful doctor, to drug addiction and living in a cave?”

  After a reflective silence Lillian began her story.

  “When I was a young, Mom took me along to help with home deliveries. I thought I might want to be a midwife too. But the suffering! I saw those women writhe
in pain and moan and scream and cry. They just suffered so, suffered so badly, for what? It was supposed to be a happy time. They waited in joy through long pregnancies, morning sickness, back pain, swollen feet, and then in agony brought their babies into the world. I didn’t think life should be so painful, so I became an anesthesiologist. Practicing at Sacramento General Hospital, I was able to help women have babies without all the pain and suffering. I was happy doing this for some time. But I wasn’t prepared for it when I lost a mother giving birth. It was a routine delivery. She had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia and she died. Of course, the hospital and I were sued for malpractice. My insurance settled it. Everyone said it wasn’t my fault, it happens on rare occasions.

  “You should have seen the woman’s husband and parents when we told them. In all my days of watching Mom’s backwoods midwifery I had never seen so much pain or heard such wails of grief, not even when there was a stillborn. Mom never lost a mother, came close a few times, but never lost one. And this woman did not die of pain and suffering. She died from my practice of preventing it; from medicine she didn’t even need to bring her baby into the world.

  “I was so crushed and ashamed. I started drinking a lot. Then one night I fell down the steps of my condo, drunk. Got taken to the ER where I work, drunk, leg broken. I lost my position. I was stuck at home, no more friends, couldn’t bear to tell my family. I got hooked on my pain meds and things escalated from there. Ended up losing my condo. Lost my car, everything. I came back to the only other place I knew. The old hills brought me comfort, at first.

  “I could not help but know where to find the drugs. Mom doctored animals as much as people and I knew every farm. I started there, and breaking in to the vet’s office was easy too. I told myself I wouldn’t go near the pharmacy. I knew it would be harder, but I ran out of places and people were starting to get wise. Grace, I’m so sorry your son almost died saving me. When he recognized me I just wanted to die. It was more shame than I could handle.”

  “I’m not sorry for it, dear. He’s fine and you are worth it. You two were childhood friends. He didn’t think twice about it. I always thought he would marry you. Don’t tell Calla. Honey, you have a long hard road ahead of you, but you are going to be fine. A lot of people love you and I called your mom. Your parents have been worried about you. They haven’t heard from you in over a year and were relieved you turned up, no matter the circumstance. They’re on a plane now.”

  Lillian’s contorted face streamed with tears. Grace crawled into the hospital bed and held her as she cried, letting out years worth of tears.

  Chapter 5

  Homemade Christmas

  When the news reached Lexi and Clayton at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania, Alexis was mortified. She was glad everyone was okay, and embarrassed that everyone probably knew that she and Calla took pictures of each other in their skivvies at the caves.

  “I wish I never had that stupid idea,” Lexi said, rubbing her still sore backside without even realizing.

  “Well, if you two had not gone up there and discovered that face in your picture, they might have never found her,” Clayton pointed out.

  “I didn’t think of that. So, in essence, we’re heroes. I did look kind of like Wonder Woman out there. Similar outfit, anyway,” Alexis joked. “So the moral of the story is, good can come of bad behavior.”

  “Do you really want to put that to the test, Wonder Woman?”

  “Naw, Super Man can be such a stick in the mud.”

  “Don’t forget it.” Clayton planted what would have been a light swat on her rump and she jumped nearly a foot in the air, letting out a little yelp.

  Clayton’s family wasn’t as odd and backwards as she’d imagined they would be. His mom and grandmother looked like they walked off a Lancaster County postcard, with their long gingham dresses and aprons and little mesh head coverings. Even so, they were welcoming and kind and easy to make conversation with. His sisters dressed no differently than Lexi herself, and fairly smothered her with sisterly acceptance. With Clayton being the only brother and the youngest in a brood of girls, Lexi was expecting to be scrutinized and picked apart for daring to want to marry him. Instead, they were relieved he was finally settling down and getting married. Tales of what a wild and spoiled boy Clayton had been, entertained and shocked her. One sister said she was sure he was destined to be a carnie or join the circus. Another said he was so bad to babysit as a kid that she made up a story to scare him. She had Clayton believing that a gypsy woman named Madame Rebecca collected bad little boys for slaves and made them sleep under her wagon.

  “I find that odd, as much as he seems to value discipline and responsibility now,” Lexi said, giving him a look that said more to him than the others knew.

  “I’m certainly glad you found such a lovely lady,” Clayton’s mother said. “I can’t wait to see your Green Acres and see you wed. Thank you for coming to meet us before the wedding, Alexis. I know it must have been a pain to make time for this trip when you will see us in Walnut Bottom in a few days, but it means a lot to me.”

  “I’m glad we did,” Lexi graciously replied. “It took off a lot of pressure. I was worried you wouldn’t like me. Plus, I feel like I know Clayton all the better now. He had never even told me he was adopted.”

  Clayton blushed a little, something Lexi had never seen. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret. I just didn’t think of it. I was only four when my parents left me here and remember next to nothing about them. The only thing I’ve got from them is a name.”

  Christmas morning began at the old meetinghouse. Alexis and Clayton joined his parents and grandparents and the family of his oldest sister for worship and fellowship. At first Lexi felt out of place, being one of the few women there in modern clothing with her long hair not put up and contained in a covering. But she was made to feel welcome as she was introduced to every last soul in the congregation. As they sang an old hymn, she was in awe at how angelic the joined voices sounded.

  The sermon was about the three wise men that sought out the baby Jesus, how they traveled far to find Him and the meaning of the gifts they brought. The preacher challenged the congregation to be as the wise men, go the extra mile, be and bring what is needed and seek Him continually. Lexi had never heard such a straightforward sermon or been in such a simple and modest church. What was lacking in elegance was made up in serenity. Clayton explained that on Sundays more than half the day was normally spent at church. After the Christmas Service, everyone quickly headed home to dinner; many either awaiting the arrival of family or traveling a distance themselves to spend Christmas together.

  Between the parents, grandparents, sisters and husbands, and all the children, Lexi had never experienced such a big family Christmas gathering. The kitchen had been pumping out decadent smells since they arrived. With a ham and goose, homemade breads and pies, the very air seemed high in calories. The women worked their magic together happily in the kitchen while older children looked after the younger ones. The men went in and out carrying packages, looking over livestock and farm equipment, talking about each other’s failures and success over the past year and plans for the next season, and occasionally reminded the kids to settle down if their play became too rambunctious.

  Alexis found the children especially dear. All were wearing what she thought must be Sunday clothes. They were clean and tidy. The girls all had neatly combed and braided hair. Even the teenagers were finely dressed with a simple elegance. There were no sequins, sagging pants or short skirts. Seeing such a big family under one roof was a special gift in itself.

  Presents were minimal and thoughtful, and often homemade. There were no seas of wrapping paper and packaging, no noisy clanging toys and drawn out discussions about gift cards, receipts and returns and sales. The holiday decorations reflected the faith of the family. A large, intricately carved nativity sat beneath the Christmas tree. There was such an atmosphere of loving warmth, contentment and joy that, even as a firs
t time visitor, a stranger, Alexis felt at home. She came from a good family, but never would so many come together under one roof at once, and in such peace. For the first time in her life Alexis thought of herself as blessed. She had often realized she was fortunate or lucky, but that day she knew she was blessed. She wanted this, the family, a similar way of life, the simplicity. She wanted it always.

  By early evening all the feasting and cheer were coming to a close. Bundles and babies were all wrapped up. Quietness was settling over the home.

  “What made you leave here, Clay?” she asked as they sat up together in front of the fire.

  “Itchy feet I guess. Maybe it was in my blood. My sister made up that gypsy story because my birth parents were gypsies, kind of. My father traveled with the carnival, and my mother with him. The year I was born they stayed here with the immigrant farm workers and worked as farm hands, so Mom could stay put until I was born. Then when it was time for me to start school they returned and asked the Yoders to keep me. They knew I’d have a better life here and they couldn’t bring themselves to settle down in one place. The Yoders had prayed for a son and got me.”

  “Didn’t they want you to stay and work this farm?”

  “Yeah, but my cousins kind of resented that. They didn’t like the idea that I might end up with the family business and I really wanted to see more of the world than Lancaster, PA. Not to mention, I had to find you.”

  A quiet little cough behind them interrupted their kiss and let them know they were being supervised. “I think it’s bed time,” Mrs. Yoder said, as if to little children.