The Hollows--A Novel

by Jess Montgomery

  Olive’s eyes are wide, her mouth agape. “This—this woman—you said she was elderly?”

  Hildy nods.

  “What did she look like? What was she wearing?”

  The odd question spurs images of Thea Kincaide to rush back—first the slender, frail body on the mortuary table. Then the face she’d pieced back together in a sketch. Then the childhood memory of Thea alive and whole, in her elegant blue dress and proper hat—the one time, Hildy thinks, she’d ever seen Thea alive.

  But Olive means when she was found. “She was elderly. In her seventies. Soft gray-white hair, a plain blue nightgown, no shoes save rags, rose nail varnish—” Hildy stops. Why would Olive want to know any of this? “Olive, are you—”

  The schoolhouse door opens, and in strides Tom, and Hildy is no longer concerned about Olive, who quickly moves out the door, muttering something about taking all the time they need, to lock up after themselves.

  Hildy stands stock-still, breathless, quivering, staring at him as he strides toward her. As if she had not seen him just two days ago. As if it has been years.

  Tom stops out of reach of her and she steps forward, but he holds up his hands, signaling she should stop.

  Hildy’s heart cracks. Tom is not going to embrace her, and it takes all her will to keep her feet planted on the slanted wood floor, to keep from rushing toward him.

  Tom’s face droops with sorrow, his hands trembling as he scrunches his hat together, but his voice is pickaxe hard and certain. “This ain’t no good, sugar. Told you, you’ve got to choose. It’d be better for you if it was Merle.”

  “Easier, you mean.”

  “In the long run, yeah.”

  Hildy takes in Tom’s long, lank figure, his thinning hair, the fine wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Weariness accumulated over years has worn its way into every bit of his overworked, thin lines. But there is an intelligence, good humor, and a love for life in his bright blue eyes, a kindness to his gap-toothed smile.

  “What if I don’t want easy?”

  Tom shakes his head. “I can’t do this no more, and you can’t come running over here making a fool of yourself.”

  Hildy stiffens at his cruel words. “I’m not making a fool of myself. I’m here to tutor—”

  “This ain’t a tutoring night, and I’m going to stop coming for tutoring anyhow—”

  “What? No, no, you’re doing so well!”

  Hildy lunges forward, grabs his arms, pulls herself to his chest, holding on tightly, even as his arms refuse to embrace her. She doesn’t care that she is humiliating herself. She starts sobbing. “I’ll break it off with him, Tom; I will!”

  Tom then finally touches her, but only to gently push her away from him. His eyes harden. “No, you won’t. You’d hafta be crazy to do that. What can I offer you but a life of hard work and scarcity?”

  “Love,” she sobs.

  “Love?” Tom gives the word a harsh twist, as if it is some rank, foul thing he must stomp out. “That ain’t gonna put food in your belly, nor a fine, fancy hat on your head.”

  He lets go of her, lifts his hand as if to wipe away her tears, but then drops it to his side.

  “Don’t cry, Hildy.” His voice hitches on her name. “Like I said th’other night—you’d be crazy to throw over a man like Merle for me, for the life I could give you. I know that. You do, too. Sooner or later, you’ll get your right mind back and settle down to be Merle’s wife.”

  Tom walks back out the schoolhouse door.

  The door shuts behind him.

  For a long moment, Hildy cannot breathe or move.

  Then a shadowy form—the elegant lady she’d imagined seeing in the street the night before—flickers in the corner of her eye. Go.

  Hildy runs out the door, lets it bang behind her, calls Tom’s name. He ignores her, keeps walking, but she races after him, and is almost to him, when they both hear, from somewhere in the woods, Olive’s wailing cry. “No! Clarence—you can’t!”

  * * *

  A few moments later, Hildy and Tom have followed Olive’s voice down a slanted path into the woods. They stop at the scene that awaits them.

  There, standing under the rising moon in a small man-made clearing, stands Clarence Broward. He is well dressed, though his gray-and-tan houndstooth checked cap is askew. Clarence and Olive hold each other.

  “What the—” Tom starts.

  Clarence jumps back from Olive, but she won’t let go.

  Hildy puts her hand on Tom’s arm. “Please—”

  Tom shakes her hand off. “Don’t go lecturing me about love. If they find love with one another, it’s none of my damned business. It’s other folks I’m worried about—”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell him—” Olive says.

  Clarence gently pulls away from her. He walks over to Tom and Hildy and looks at Hildy imploringly. His jaw flexes nervously, pulsing the long, thin scar across his left cheek. “You work for the sheriff, right?”

  Hildy nods.

  “Olive and I—we saw the old woman night before last. Wandering, confused, lost. Nearly got hit by the train, but I pulled her back. We wanted to get help, but she was determined to go a path that made sense to her. Now Olive tells me she’s dead. We have to talk to the sheriff—”

  Olive rushes over, throws her arms around Clarence’s waist, but looks at Hildy and Tom. Her eyes are desperate, pleading. “Please. Tell him he can’t tell Lily that we saw the old woman. Please. Word will get out and if they know we … we’ve been … that we’re—they’ll lynch him.”

  CHAPTER 19

  LILY

  Thursday, September 23—9:00 p.m.

  “‘The golden-rod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in…’” Micah falters, trying to remember the rest of the rhyme. He stares up at his mama, eyes widening. His lips quiver, and he pulls his cheery red-and-blue quilt up to his nose.

  Lily is bone weary as the mantel clock downstairs chimes nine in the evening. She blinks her bleary, gritty eyes. Rubbing them will show her son she’s tired, and she wants him to feel how much she cherishes him. She dismisses the temptation to finish the old-timey rhyme for him, forces an encouraging smile, and says, “Hmmm. Something about applesauce?”

  Micah pulls the quilt down, sputters excitedly, “And … ‘trees in apple orchards; With fruit are bending down’!”

  Lily laughs. “That’s right! You’ve got it!” She scoops her son into a big hug, her heart softening at his little head cradling against her chest. She closes her eyes. She could fall asleep like this, right here. But more tasks await—chores, mainly, to make the next day easier. She hopes she’ll get that search warrant for the Hollows Asylum tomorrow, which will mean needing her mother’s help again. And poor Mama was so worn out from a day with all the children, Lily had sent her and Caleb Jr. home right after dinner.

  Micah wiggles loose, but not fully free of Lily’s embrace. He stares up at her. Those big brown eyes, like Daniel’s. The tiny freckled nose, like hers. “Mamaw taught me that, on our walk to Mrs. Gottschalk’s.” Micah, who has lost his first baby tooth, lisps from the gap, especially over the difficult name.

  Lily lifts her eyebrows. “Really. You all walked all the way out there?”

  Micah nods. “Mamaw said we should see the area where she grew up. Across the road from where Daddy grew up.” A shadow crosses his little face. “Someone else lives there now.”

  A lump rises in Lily’s throat. She nods.

  “I think Mamaw wanted to visit her friend. She said someone said Mrs. Gottschalk’s house was for sale.”

  Lily does a double take. “Was it?”

  Micah shrugs. “I dunno. I just know Mrs. Gottschalk is grumpier than Mamaw and her sugar cookies aren’t as good, but I liked her goats and running around outside.”

  “You know we have to move from here in a few months, right, sweetie? Maybe where we live next will be a place we can have animals outside.”

  They have to move wh
ether she wins or loses the election. Such a big choice looming.

  Micah’s face lights up again. “We could get Mrs. Gottschalk’s place! Couldn’t we?”

  Moving to the farm on the hairpin curve of Kinship Road? The farm where grows the Kinship Tree, right by the river? The farm so close to the spots where she’d first met Daniel and fell in love with him …

  Truth be told, Lily had neglected checking in on Widow Gottschalk, too, though Daniel would have been disappointed, as if such neglect could ease her heart. Oh, Lily, she recollects him saying a few years back, when she chastised him for working too much, this job requires hardness—but that ain’t the same as hard-heartedness.

  “Mama?” Micah says the word like a soft chirp.

  Lily clears her throat. “I’m fine, baby boy. Now, prayers.”

  Obediently, he bows his head and prays as she’d taught him—her own variation of a traditional prayer. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep, and when I with the sun arise, I pray to know thy love so wise.” A few minutes later, satisfied both children are settled, Lily treads carefully down the stairs, intending to finally make the damned pie for entering in the county fair contest. As Mama keeps reminding her, she might be running for sheriff in her own right, but townsfolk will want to know that she hasn’t wandered too far astray from feminine interests. Especially those unsure about whether to vote for her.

  So as Lily crosses the parlor, she considers the important question of the moment: Does she have enough lard in the icebox for the crust?

  She stops mid-way, her gaze caught by new mail on her desk.

  Oh God. The reply she’d written to Benjamin Russo the night before—when she’d been tired and weary. She rushes to the desk, thinking she should toss it in the fireplace, on the remaining embers from the fire earlier tonight.

  Her envelope is right beside the new mail. Had Mama seen it? Face burning, Lily picks up the letter, turns toward the fireplace—then jumps at a knock at the front door. Quickly, she stuffs the letter into the rolltop, shoves it closed, and hurries to the door.

  Seth Goodwin, the reporter from the Kinship Daily Courier, steps in without being asked, rushing into the parlor. Even in the dim parlor light, she sees he shakes so hard that the old sheaf of newspapers he holds jitters loudly.

  “Oh God, Lily. This isn’t the sort of town history they taught us in school. I found the old articles. About Hildy’s grandfather and great-uncle. That is, about Thea Kincaide’s father. And uncle.”

  Seth holds the rattling stack out to her.

  Kinship Weekly Courier

  LOCAL QUAKER MAN DISCOVERED DEAD, BY HIS OWN DAUGHTER—QUESTIONS ABOUND

  September 28, 1857

  By: Edwin Clarke

  A week has passed since Thea Kincaide’s horrific discovery of her father, Rupert Edward Kincaide, hanging from a noose affixed to a tree atop the Moonvale Hollow Tunnel, built three years ago by the B&R Railroad upon land owned in Moonvale Hollow Village by Adam Dyer.

  It is unknown why Thea, seven years old, was out on her own at 10:00 p.m., the time that Mr. Dyer and his wife, Joyce, reported to Bronwyn County Sheriff Thomas Langmore that Thea arrived at the Dyer farm atop a hill near the rather peculiar and certainly remote village.

  The couple averred that the child either was unable or refused to speak, but they followed the distraught lass down the hill from their home on a shortcut to the tunnel, and quickly understood her being struck mute, as Thea pointed to a figure hanging from the tree. Several men from the village retrieved the body of Mr. Kincaide, known in the area for his outspoken views on abolition. He was a faithful member of the Stanehart Hollow Friends Assembly, in the tiny farming settlement of Stanehart Hollow, north of the Kinship River and of Athens.

  Sheriff Langmore and a posse of his deputies found an escaped slave, who would only say his name was John, hiding in the woods near the Stanehart Hollow Friends Meeting House. Members of the Friends Assembly have refuted any familiarity with John or with Mr. Rupert Kincaide’s alleged activities in defying the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which criminalizes assisting runaway slaves rather than returning them to their owners.

  However, Mr. Rupert Kincaide’s brother, Claude Kincaide, who many know as the proprietor of the Kinship blacksmith shop, was beside himself with anguish upon learning of his brother’s death, in spite of their disagreements over Rupert’s alleged activities.

  “I always knew that Rupert would get hisself hurt or killed by one of them,” Claude declared when this reporter called upon him. “Let this be a warning to anyone who is as foolish and naive as he was.”

  Shortly following Thea Kincaide’s reportage of her father’s death, slave bounty hunters discovered the escaped slave in the hills near Moonvale Hollow Village hiding under a makeshift shelter of tree limbs in a creek bed that runs alongside the B&R Railroad line.

  Sheriff Langmore has avowed that from wounds, including injuries to the head as if from rocks or another heavy object, he can assuredly infer that Mr. Rupert Kincaide had been beaten before his hanging. Though John vehemently denies any role in Mr. Kincaide’s death, he refuses further testimony as to events that led to his hiding in the creek bed. Furthermore, on the escaped slave’s person has been found a compass, bearing the initials R.E.K., which Mr. Kincaide’s widow and daughter affirm belonged to the deceased. The sheriff is thus currently holding the escaped slave John in the Bronwyn County jail in Kinship, but has hired able-bodied guards on duty around the clock, as many men of the region have called for the immediate death of John.

  “Rule of law shall prevail,” avers Sheriff Langmore, “and we are still in the business of interrogating possible witnesses as to events leading up to Mr. Kincaide’s death. Our prisoner will either be returned to his owner, or face swift justice here, depending on what we find.”

  At this time, services for Rupert Kincaide will be held at the Stanehart Hollow Friends Meeting House in a private funeral and burial. Thea Kincaide is now reunited with her mother, Mrs. Cleo Kincaide, on their farm near Stanehart Hollow.

  Kinship Weekly Courier

  COURTROOM PACKED FOR DRAMATIC TESTIMONY IN BRUTAL MURDER

  October 8, 1857

  By: Edwin Clarke

  The Bronwyn County Courthouse was suffocatingly packed with those wishing to bear grim witness to the proceedings of October 6, forcing Judge Winchester to repeatedly thunder his gavel upon his bench to bring the disorderly crowd to order in the trial of an escaped slave accused of murdering outspoken abolitionist Rupert Edward Kincaide, who was allegedly easing him north via the so-called Underground Railroad.

  Many were outraged that the slave escaped to Ohio from South Carolina should be given a trial at all, what’s more one equal to that of a Caucasian man; however, Judge Winchester issued a stern reminder of Ohio’s Personal Liberty Laws, designed to protect slaves escaped from states south of the Ohio River, and to in some cases counteract the Fugitive Slave Laws set forth by the federal government, providing Afro-Americans some of the same protections under the Constitution, including the right to a fair trial.

  Also packing the courtroom were many members of the Stanehart Hollow Friends Assembly, of which Rupert Kincaide was an active member until his death by hanging from the Moonvale Hollow Tunnel, on the B&R Railroad line, just outside of Moonvale Hollow Village.

  Nevertheless, silence fell like a shroud over the room as Thea Kincaide, age 7, gave her testimony, her voice a quivering chirp, yet heard clearly throughout the room.

  “Pa and me were taking hams and Mama’s canned green beans to a family in need,” the child stated. “Then we were beset by him.”

  Though quivering, Thea pointed distinctly at John. The courtroom erupted—as did John, who cried out his innocence, wailing, “No, no, no!” After John was taken away, Thea sobbed out the rest of her testimony, that she ran for help up Stanehart Hollow Road, and then became disoriented, wandering the region for hours, before finally finding her way to Moonvale Ho
llow Village, and the horrific sight of her father’s corpse hanging from the tunnel.

  The child was returned to the bosom of her mother, who then passed her to the care of one of the women from the Friends Assembly.

  Upon taking the stand, Mrs. Rupert (Cleo) Kincaide affirmed that the child knew the way to Moonvale Hollow Village, for she had taken the child with her on regular visits to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Adam Dyer in order to do light housework, laundry, and mending for the family, as well as other villagers, for extra money, since her husband had fallen upon hard times on his own farm, distracted, she said, “by his well-meaning but ill-conceived beliefs as an abolitionist.” Upon making this statement, she too fell into a fit of sobs, but recovered sufficiently to testify that she had been bedridden on the evening of her husband’s murder, due to women’s troubles, and did not know that the child Thea had hidden away on her father’s wagon.

  After this emotional afternoon of testimony, Judge Winchester adjourned for the day. It is not known if the jury will hear additional testimony.

  Kinship Weekly Courier

  MURDERER HANGED TO DEATH IN KINSHIP TOWN SQUARE

  October 20, 1857

  By: Edwin Clarke

  Though a chill wind swept through Kinship on the afternoon of October the 19th, stripping the trees along Main Street and on sleepy side streets alike of their golden autumnal splendor, the sky was a bright sapphire blue, reflecting none of the mostly somber—though in a few pockets celebratory—crowd that jam-packed the town square.

  The makeshift gallows, constructed over the past three days, was situated in front of the Kinship Inn. Armed guards, in the county sheriff’s employ, kept the crowd a distance of several yards from the gallows platform.