by Pam Webber
“Maybe.”
Win studied the wall again. “Nibi knew we’d see this.”
“What do we do now that we have?”
“We’ll have to figure that out later. Right now, we have a job to do.”
The far end of the cave narrowed to a tunnel with long, sparkling purple stripes. The veins of amethyst closest to the cave had been chipped smooth from the floor to well above their heads. Grabbing more torches, Nettie and Win made their way deeper into the tunnel in search of a vein with the desired color and enough roughness to anchor a chisel.
“I can’t see the cave anymore or where the tunnel ends.”
“Just remember the direction we came from,” Win said.
Nettie broke off a piece of charred pine and drew an arrow on the wall, pointing to the cave.
Win sank to her knees. “I think this is a good vein.”
The inch-wide stripe of black-purple anchored lines of fading violet.
“It’s the right color. Go for it.”
Win placed the chisel against one of the dark ridges and tapped gently with the hammer. Nothing happened. She tapped harder. The chisel still didn’t mark the stone. She hit it again, harder. Still nothing. Sighing, she sat back on her heels. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“We’re going to need more torches.”
“I know. The smoke’s not clearing out of the tunnel as well as it did in the cave. It’s burning my eyes.”
“We don’t have a choice. We have to see what we’re doing.”
Cloudy moonlight cast eerie shadows across the face of the mountain as Nettie inched back toward the tree line.
Win steadied herself on the craggy rocks. “I’ll catch the branches or you, whichever comes down the hill first.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is. But be careful anyway.”
Reaching the top, Nettie scrambled to her feet. Searching for downed branches, she spotted something deeper in the woods.
“Win, what was the name of that plant that glows in the dark? The green one Nibi showed us growing on the Gospel Tree?” Her words flowed down the mountain in waves.
“Fairy fire,” Win yelled.
“There’s some up here. Maybe we can use it to light the tunnel.” Nettie made her way through the woods toward the green glow. Breaking through the thick brush, she entered a village of trees and stumps covered with the effervescent moss. Magic.
“Sorry, fairies.” She filled her sack with the glowing clumps, then pulled off her T-shirt, tied the bottom, and gathered more. Making her way back to the tree line, she carefully inched down to the ledge. Win’s moonlit silhouette had one foot on the ledge and one on the craggy rocks, ready to give her a hand up.
“You’re glowing.”
“Let’s hope this stuff works.”
Inside the cave, Win got the canteen and dug more berries out of her bag while Nettie broke up one of the torches to keep the embers going. Once they’d eaten, they carried the sacks of fairy fire into the tunnel. Placing the glowing clumps in a semicircle around them provided enough light to see, but the low angle of the vein made chiseling difficult.
Struggling to get comfortable, Win stood and rubbed her knees. “This gritty floor is killing my knees and butt.”
Nettie gathered their sacks, folded them in half, and handed them to Win. “Maybe these will help.”
Taking turns, they chiseled into the night, stopping just long enough to change positions, stretch, or get a drink of water. To stay awake, they talked, covering everything and everyone they could think of. Then they sang. Song after song echoed through the tunnel in soft waves, accompanied by arrhythmic clicks. When they ran out of songs, Win hummed and chanted.
As the hours ticked by, Nettie lost count of the number of times they numbly switched places. When she slipped out of the cave for fresh air, the beauty of the full, creamy moon hovering over the sharp tips of the evergreens below took her breath away. The moon’s face seemed close enough to touch.
In the wee hours of the morning, Win sprinkled the crushed sage on the low-burning fire; then Nettie slipped two dime-size chunks of amethyst into the pouch and tied it to her belt. Exhausted, they carved their names into the wall, along with the word “thanks,” then lay on their sacks and slept.
At sunrise, seeing no sign of the momma bear and her cub at the creek, Nettie and Win took their jeans off and shook them. The somewhat-controlled slide from the cave had filled their pockets and fabric with dirt, gravel, and rips.
Stuffing her jeans and socks into her bag, Nettie groaned as she knelt along the creek to fill her canteen. She’d gotten stronger over the summer, but her muscles still complained about the long night’s work, the hardness of the cave floor, and the lack of sleep. “I’m starving. We need to find something to eat before we start back.”
Win scanned nearby trees and bushes. “There’s some hazelnuts and wild asparagus across the creek.”
Shaking her head in amazement at Win’s knowledge of plants, Nettie fingered a nearby bush. “This smells like almonds. Can we eat it?”
“Only if you want to die. That’s arsenic.”
“Good to know.” Nettie quickly rinsed her hands and sat on a downed tree to tie her shoes.
Finding the staves they’d used for balance during the first crossing, they waded into the creek.
Nettie shook all over. “If I wasn’t awake before, I am now.”
Climbing the bank, she and Win dressed, then gathered pea-size hazelnuts and stalks of wild asparagus for breakfast.
Nettie couldn’t help but make a face at the bitterness of the green stalks. “This stuff’s worse than broccoli. I’d rather have Momma’s French toast and coffee with sweet cream.”
“Me too. But, this will get us back to Nibi’s with energy to spare. She’ll be waiting for us with something good to eat.”
Taking turns at the lead, Nettie and Win reached the top of Devil’s Peak before noon. They stopped to rest and finish the last of the forest food in the shade of a large maple tree.
Nettie studied the mountainside as the maple dropped whirly-birds all around them. “It’s too quiet. No birds. No chipmunks. No squirrels. Where is everything?”
“That’s a good question, especially since we haven’t seen the first eagle or owl all summer. Not even their nests. We need feathers, and soon.”
Nibi refilled Win’s bowl with venison stew and reached for Nettie’s. “More?”
“Yes, ma’am. Please.”
“Diverting the bear with your food was a smart thing to do.”
Nettie cocked her head at Win. They’d decided there was nothing to be gained by telling Nibi or anyone else about the close encounter with the bears. They should have known she’d know.
“If I’d been really smart, I would have thrown half the food at them, instead of all of it. We had to eat nuts and berries for thirty hours,” Nettie said.
“Don’t forget the asparagus.” Win made a face.
“I’m still trying to get the bitter taste out of my mouth.”
Nibi put the Dutch oven back on the woodstove and stirred the remaining stew. “You got away. And, they didn’t follow you, did they? There was danger, and your instincts kept you safe. Don’t second-guess them now.”
“We saw your name and Dell’s in the cave,” Win said.
Nibi eased into her chair. Picking up one of the amethysts, she fingered the chiseled edges. “He was with me when I mined the spider mother for my web. We hadn’t been married very long.” Her face relaxed, as if flowing into a happy memory. “I loved him then as I do now.”
Nettie couldn’t help but be amazed. How’d she do it—hold on to that kind of love for a lifetime?
Nibi’s deep wrinkles returned as she laid the stone on the table and rose to get more corn bread. “You two have done well.”
After they’d eaten, Nibi handed Win and Nettie thin pieces of hard-drawn copper wire. She showed them how to spin-drill a small hole thro
ugh the middle of their amethyst. “This will take time and patience. When the holes are all the way through, come back and we’ll thread them into your webs.”
Win nodded at Nettie’s silent question. “Nibi, we also saw Pic’s name in the cave.”
“As I knew you would.”
“Tell us about it?”
“Soon. You two should get going, or you’ll miss the train home. I’m sure your parents will be glad to see you.”
Nettie hid her disappointment. Whether she liked it or not, Nibi had the right to tell the story when and how she wanted.
Chapter 9
“Faith? Blind? Not hardly.”
Mr. Danes leaned back, propped his loafers on the desk, and took a sip from his Dixie cup. Despite his cold, sparse office, Nettie had come to enjoy their Wednesday-night meetings. He had a commonsense way of explaining things.
“We get up every morning having faith in something: that the sun will rise and we’ll be here to see it. That spring will come and those who love us will always love us.”
“That makes sense.”
“Just as faithful are our doubts, those moments when we question whether the sun really will come up. Will we be here to see it? Will winter ever end? Will those who love us always love us? Christians are no different. Even the most faithful have doubts.”
“You?”
“All the time.”
“About what?”
“Myself, mostly. Am I serving as I should? Am I doing all I can to avoid temptation?”
“Do you ever doubt God?”
“No, but I doubt my ability to understand him.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think human beings are capable of understanding the divine. Just as a child can’t understand the mind of Einstein, we cannot understand the mind of God. That doesn’t mean we can’t know his love at some basic level. Even children know when they’re loved and when they’re not.”
“If he loves us, then why does he let bad things to happen to good people?”
“You could just as easily ask why he lets good things happen to bad people or why he lets good and bad things happen at all. We ask those types of questions when we try to hold God accountable for our definition of what is good and bad and right and wrong. It’s like me questioning Einstein’s intelligence because I can’t understand his theories about how the universe works. Look at the story of Job. His life was filled with love and joy; then fate delivered blow after blow: loss, sickness, pain, ridicule. Job didn’t understand why. In his mind, he’d been forsaken. It took a while, but he came to realize that his physical and mental well-being during his time on Earth were not the same as his spiritual well-being for eternity. We can’t force all that is God into our small fishbowl of understanding.”
“Why couldn’t Pastor Williams have explained it that way? He acted as if he didn’t hear the question.”
“Maybe he heard more than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a difference between doubts that motivate us to search for deepening belief and doubts that obstruct belief. Maybe Pastor Williams heard more emphasis on the wrong kind of doubt.”
“I think he was just being stubborn.”
Mr. Danes laughed. “Well, that’s always a possibility.”
“Some of the GAs lied about believing, but he baptized them anyway.”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“What? Why?”
“If they lied, the issue is between them, Pastor Williams, and God. You don’t have a say in it.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“It’s not an issue of fairness. And there are no buts about it.”
Nettie leaned back, exhaling like a pricked balloon.
“Don’t misunderstand me. If those girls lied, I don’t like it. But God loves them just as much as he loves you and me. Hopefully, at some point they will acknowledge what they did, and Pastor Williams can help them mend relationships, both spiritual and human. Until then, your job is simple: forgive it, forget it, and move on. Not only for their sake, but for yours.”
“It’s not that easy. What they did, what they continue to do, is wrong. They go around pretending to be something they’re not.”
Fire flickered in Mr. Danes’s eyes; his tone hardened. “We’re all tempted to be something we’re not. We all lie. We all sin. And, more times than not, we choose to hide when accountability for those sins rolls around. It’s what humans do. We’re flawed. We make bad decisions when we let our lesser selves take the lead. Afterward, when the guilt hits, we try to hide from it and we can’t. Good or bad, with choices come consequences.” He drained his cup.
“Then how do we avoid being tempted in the first place?”
“You can’t avoid it. Evil doesn’t ask, it tells. And it remembers what works. The only thing you can do is hope you’re strong enough to resist. And when you’re not, don’t run and hide. Evil seldom survives the light of day.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Not many people do.” Mr. Danes put his feet on the floor. “The thing is, even when you try to hide, someone’s always watching.” He propped his elbows on the desk and looked at Nettie as if he knew a secret. “Question is, what are you hiding?”
“Me?”
“I didn’t stutter.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“Sure you are.”
Nettie searched her memory but came up empty. “No, sir. I don’t think so.”
Mr. Danes moved to sit on the corner of his desk. Nettie slid back in her chair to keep their legs from touching.
“Think about it this week and see what you come up with. We’re all tempted. We all succumb. And we all try to hide from it. But we can’t. There are eyes everywhere, human and divine, watching.”
Leaving the discomfort of Mr. Danes’s office, Nettie ran into Pic as he shuffled from the dining room, his lone hand holding his bulging bindle tightly. Even when it wasn’t stuffed with church supper leftovers, Pic never let that sack out of his sight. “It’s the only pocket I have that doesn’t have holes,” he’d once explained.
“Hey, Pic.”
“Hey, Nettie girl.”
“What are you doing here so late?”
“Kitchen faucet’s leaking again. I had to wait till the ladies finished cleaning up before I could get in there to fix it.”
“That thing leaks a lot.”
“It’s just old, like me. A new washer, a little tightening here and there, and she works just fine, at least for a little while. What are you doing here so late?”
“Meeting with Mr. Danes.”
“You’ve been doing that for a while now.”
“Weeks.”
“The baptism thing?”
Nettie nodded. “One of these days, I’ll measure up.”
Pic opened the door for Nettie, then locked it behind them.
“Mr. Danes is still in there.”
“He has a key. Plus, he always goes out the back. Where’s Win? Don’t you two usually walk home together?”
“My meetings with Mr. Danes started running too long. It wasn’t fair to ask her to wait.”
“You shouldn’t be walking by yourself this time of night.”
“Streetlights are on. Besides, I’ve run up and down these sidewalks all my life. They’re safe.”
“It’s not the sidewalks I worry about. It’s the strangers who walk them. Mind if I mosey with you?”
“I’d like that, but I don’t want to make you late getting home.”
“No worries. It’s a nice night, my feet work good, and I don’t have a family or television to hurry home to.”
The town was silent as they crossed the intersection under the blinking red light.
“Pic, how long have you and Nibi been friends?”
“A long time. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Uh-uh. You saw my name in the amethyst cave, didn’t you?
”
“How’d you know?”
“Nibi told me she’d sent you and Win up there.”
“So, you were in the cave?”
“I take it Nibi didn’t tell you about it?”
“She said she would soon.”
“Then it needs to be her soon, not mine.”
“C’mon, Pic.”
“Nibi knows what she’s doing. Far be it from me to second-guess her.”
Turning onto the Upper Road, they passed Allen’s Hill, the mansion dark and quiet, as usual.
“Pic, have you ever met the lady who lives up there? I mean, before she disappeared into that house?”
Clouds moved across the moon, deepening the shadows surrounding the mansion.
“A dark beauty, that one. She was out of my league.” Piccolo kept walking.
A Cracker Jack box with skinny arms and legs danced across the drive-in movie screen as Ethan guided the Chrysler down the crunchy gravel of the terraced slopes and into an open parking spot.
Nettie rolled down the passenger window to turn on the speaker. “It’s crowded tonight.”
Win leaned over the seat. “What do you expect? It’s John Wayne and Glen Campbell.”
“Don’t forget Kim Darby,” Cal added.
Glen Campbell’s winsome voice floated into the car as a ring of stars framed the blue mountaintop on the screen.
“I love this song,” Nettie said, singing along.
“I know. You’ve played the record a hundred times,” Win lamented.
“I don’t think I have it.”
“What? The record?”
“No. Grit.”
Win laughed. “I don’t know about that. You’re pretty fearless, except when it comes to snakes.”
“Very funny.”
Ethan interrupted. “You realize the song is about finding a man with grit, not having it, right?”
“Can you find it if you don’t have it?” Nettie asked.
“Quiet, you all. I want to hear what they’re saying.” Win settled in the middle of the backseat, close to Cal. Nettie and Ethan stayed on their respective sides.
An hour into the movie, Nettie caught movement in the backseat. Win and Cal were enjoying a leisurely kiss.
