by Jan Watson
“We’ll have a Warm Morning stove for heat and a fireplace for enjoying,” John continued, painting another sort of picture.
Copper couldn’t resist. With a twist of her wrist, she turned an imaginary knob and stepped across a marked threshold. “What might this room be?”
John was not easily discomfited, but his face reddened. He cleared his throat. “I thought this could be our room. There will be windows here, but I reckon you’ll want curtains.”
Lilly ended her mother’s teasing. “Where Lilly sleeping?” she asked. “Where Darcy?”
John swung Lilly up in the air. She shrieked with laughter. “Miss Lilly can sleep anywhere she wants. You can have your own room.”
“No. Lilly sleeps with Mama.”
Copper hid a smile behind her gloved hand. There could be trouble brewing. “Why didn’t you show me this place before?”
“I was saving it for Christmas,” he said.
“Well, it’s the best gift ever.” Copper cocked her head. “Listen. You can still hear the creek. We’re going to be very happy here.”
Remy watched from the ridge high above Copper and John and looked on with satisfaction. She’d prowled all over this area once she saw John hauling sleds full of rock this way. She knew where the spring was and could see in her mind’s eye Copper coming there to a springhouse with a bucket of milk. Using a divining rod, she’d found the best spot for a well and paced the number of steps it took to get to the front porch. It’d be easy enough for Copper to keep a water bucket filled.
Beside her a red fox sat quietly, its white-tipped tail tucked neatly around its body, keeping Remy company. It was the best sort of companion, she figured. It didn’t ask anything from her but spent its time hunting for each day’s measure. Like Remy, the fox took only what it needed to keep a body going, never laying up stores for the morrow. Remy had known this fox’s ma.
Rarely did Remy let her mind wander, for a wandering mind was not alert to danger, but now she thought back to the time when she was a girl of twelve, back to the time when she had come upon the body of a trapped fox. Poor thing had dragged the heavy steel trap halfway up a hill before it came to the end of its tether; then it gnawed its foot to the bone in a desperate bid to escape. Remy understood hunters; she was one herself. But the cruelty of traps was beyond her ken. Squatting, she’d sprung the trap and lifted the still-warm body to her chest. She’d find a loamy area and give the animal a decent burial—seemed the least she could do.
It was obvious the fox had given birth recently. Something must have happened to her mate. Usually the vixen stayed with her little ones while her partner scouted for food. It saddened Remy to think the babies waited to be fed. Maybe she could find them. It was worth a try. Before she buried the fox, she freed the bushy tail and fastened it to the back of her skirt. By scent and look, she’d fool the kits.
With a hunter’s patience she waited. It was a fine spring evening, not yet dark, and the forest was alive with the thrumming sound of insects ushering the rise of the moon. Bloodthirsty mosquitoes buzzed in her ears and bumped her nose until she hunkered down with her face in her lap.
Finally she heard the high-pitched yelps of hungry pups. It was easy to follow the cries to a cliff overhanging the creek. A den was dug in the bank, and she knew she’d find the babies there. She crawled under the cliff and into the hollowed dirt cave. The four round-bellied kits tumbled over each other to get to her. When she held out her hands, fragrant with the smell of their mother, they suckled her fingers.
Remy laughed, a slow, thick trickle of sound, and nuzzled a kit against her cheek. “Getting used to me already, ain’t ye?” The little foxes put her in mind of her brothers and sisters, everybody grabbing at the stewpot at the same time, one shoving another away in order to get more for hisself. She wondered if they missed her.
“I’ll go back,” she told the kits, “as soon as Pap forgets what he’s hepped up over.” The kit lapped at her face. “I ain’t standing still for no man to slap me around. I can take care of my own self.”
Remy needed to move the babies for their safety, but they had to be fed first. She’d scouted the farms up and down this valley when first she’d come down the mountain. There were chicken coops and smokehouses galore.
Two places were easy pickings for a hunter such as Remy in those days. Number one was the Browns’ springhouse—it always had so much milk and cheese that nobody’d miss what little she took. Second was Hezzy Krill’s chicken coop. Remy didn’t know what Hezzy fed those hens, but they laid the biggest brown eggs she’d ever found. At first when she visited, Remy had to be extra careful, for both cabins had dogs. But the Browns’ old hound was so friendly he greeted Remy, and Hezzy’s dog was so lazy he wouldn’t rouse himself to bark.
The night Remy found the kits she made herself at home in both places. She carried a Mason jar full of blue-John from the springhouse. She’d pondered on whether to snatch full milk instead, but she figured the thin watery milk leftover from the cream separator might set better on the babies’ stomachs.
At Hezzy’s she took a minute just inside the chicken coop to let her eyes adjust to the dark, thankful for the moonlight that spilled in through the open door. The hens were so used to her they slept on. She’d pocketed half a dozen brown shells when the hens spooked and set up a squawking ruckus. Suddenly the air was alive with flapping wings.
Remy inhaled dust and pin feathers. Her sneeze was so hard, so unexpected that she bit her tongue and tasted blood. But that was not the worst of it. The lantern light she could see through the henhouse window bobbed across Hezzy’s yard. The only door and the window led that way. The fat was in the fire.
Remy scrambled under the wide wooden shelf that held the chickens’ nest boxes. Something else had beat her there, however. A fat possum grinned at her, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight.
That’s why the chickens got all feisty! Well, I ain’t afraid of no possum. No, siree. I might be scared of that shotgun Hezzy’s surely packing, but I ain’t feared of no possum.
Before Remy could make her move, Mr. Possum rolled over, dead as a doorknob.
“Surely ye don’t think I’m falling for that old trick,” Remy whispered. Grabbing the possum’s long, hairless tail, she jerked him up and flung him out the open door.
A gun exploded into the night. Ears ringing, the smell of gunpowder tickling her nose, Remy clambered back under the shelf, playing possum herself.
Hezzy hop-stepped into the little house. Her stiff leg impeded her progress, but she was taking her time. “Thieving varmints,” Remy heard her say. The lantern swung in front of Remy’s eyes, and Hezzy swept the barrel of the shotgun under the nests. “Are you girls all right?” she asked the chickens that scratched around her feet. “I shouldn’t have left the eggs go all day, but my leg was aching something fierce.”
Stupid birds, Remy thought. They’ve forgot all about the possum. They’re looking for corn.
Hezzy complied and broadcast kernels. Some bounced off the dirt floor and pinged Remy’s way. One hen pecked corn from Remy’s lap, then stretched and pecked her nose. Fair enough, Remy reckoned, holding her breath.
Seemingly satisfied, Hezzy went back outside. Remy could hear the click of the latch sliding into place. “Must be sprung, else it wouldn’t have popped open,” Hezzy said. “I’ll send for that Pelfrey boy. He’ll mend it for me.” She kept talking as she walked off, her words fading away.
Must be hard getting old, Remy thought, legs rusting and all. Maybe she should leave Hezzy’s chickens alone. But it was obvious she had plenty—enough to let them go ungathered—easy pickings for Remy and the possums.
Remy found a small stick and slid it between the door and the frame. After popping the latch, she eased her way out, half a dozen brown shells nestled in her pocket. Her found babies would eat well tonight.
The kits had flourished under Remy’s care that time five years ago, lapping up the blue-John mixed with egg yolks. She�
��d moved them to her temporary home, a clean, dry cave, and stayed with them all summer. It was that fall when she’d first met Purty. Her one true friend.
Now Remy sat with the fox and watched her friend’s dreams coming true. Purty would soon have her very own place on Troublesome Creek, just like she’d always wanted. And it was meant to be that she would marry John. He was a good feller. Remy could trust her friend to him. A little fissure of guilt cracked the merest corner of Remy’s heart as she looked at John Pelfrey far below. She couldn’t remember ever apologizing to a single soul for nary a thing she’d ever done—not thieving, not twisting the truth, not nothing. But if she wasn’t playing dead as a puff adder, she might just say a few I’m sorrys to John.
“I should go across the mountains and never come back,” she said to the fox. “It wouldn’t do for me to get caught. It would be the ruination of Purty’s plans.”
She watched as Purty mounted the horse and then saw John swing Purty’s little girl up to her. Lucky she’d come across Lilly that day in the creek.
Remy fingered the tiny walnut basket that hung around her neck on a leather thong. Once before when they were girls, Remy had borrowed this selfsame trinket from Copper’s bedside table. That time she’d gifted the necklace back to Copper. Now she’d found it again plus a fine gold ring in the blanket chest that set under an open window in Purty’s house. All she’d had to do was reach in and help herself. She’d threaded the ring and the one John Pelfrey had given her on the leather thong with the little basket. (She’d watched John and the preacher bury his ring at Torrent Falls, still knotted on the lace of her old boot.)
Since then she wore both of them all the time. Just a touch of her fingers on the necklace or the rings comforted her. John Pelfrey had given her the one ring, and as far as the other ring and the necklace, Copper would want her to have them. She used to leave things for Remy to find all the time. Just like the fine blue mantle with the little stars knit into its border. She’d found it with her boot and ring, but it was ruined, so she’d buried it again and shed a few tears in the process.
It wasn’t bad being dead, especially since it got her pap off her trail and released John from his promise. She’d never meant to harm herself in the first place, but John took her ramblings to heart and offered an answer to her dilemma. Looked like things had worked out all right in the long run though. John and Purty were happy, and she owed nobody nothing. She was a free woman.
Remy scanned the valley below. She liked John’s plan for the house. It would be as purty as Purty herself. She rested her head on her knees and looked sideways at the fox. It was preening, wiping its whiskers with its paw, enjoying the visit. “I’ll stay just a little longer. I’d like to see Purty wed before I go.” The fox turned its catlike amber eyes her way. She knew it understood.
After all, if everyone thought Remy Riddle was dead, it wouldn’t hurt to linger as long as she was careful. To Remy these mountains were like that place Purty told her about. That place called heaven, where the lion would lie down with the calf. Thinking about heaven put her in mind of milk and honey, and she wondered if Purty had any of the long sweetening left in their cellar.
January passed slowly, each day as dull as dishwater. Just-laundered clothes froze on the line as soon as Copper hung them there, and every Monday evening she hauled shirts and overalls, skirts and shirtwaists, linens and long drawers into the house and stacked them like kindling beside the cookstove to thaw.
Darcy fetched jar after jar of green beans, corn, and tomatoes from the cellar. She kept blackberry jam or apple butter on the table at all times. One morning she brought up pear butter, and Copper recounted the day she’d found the ripe pears and how John had saved her from the feral hog. Darcy never tired of the story. Sitting at the kitchen table, spreading pear butter on her biscuit, Copper ate that summer day and licked her lips.
When they tired of cured pork, Dimmert and John went hunting. Fried squirrel in gravy and crispy brown rabbit tasted extra good on cold days. On special occasions, Copper made chicken and dumplings; it was Lilly’s favorite. Copper’s also, but she daren’t take many hens for the stewpot. Eggs were too valuable. And then there was Mazy’s creamy milk to round out their menu.
One memorable morning, Darcy brought in a whole hog’s head and some sausage that Dimmert had traded a basket of potatoes for. It was late for killing hogs, but the neighbor who traded for the potatoes didn’t have a choice. The hog had managed to strangle itself trying to reach an ear of corn dropped outside its pen. Copper doubted he’d get the hams and shoulders to cure, but Darcy was pleased to get the head. She was determined to pickle the ears and turn the rest into mincemeat. Copper was not fond of either, but if Darcy hankered for pickled pig’s ears and mincemeat pie, she was game.
Lilly Gray stood on a chair at the kitchen table watching as Darcy lifted the lid from a large blue-speckled pan. The hog grinned hazily from under a length of cheesecloth. Lilly stared, then screamed. Copper barely caught the chair as it fell backward. Lilly screamed again, jumped to the floor, and ran from the room, shutting the bedroom door behind her.
Looking stunned, Darcy covered up the lolling head. With a flick of her wrist, Copper indicated for Darcy to remove it. Following Lilly, she knelt on the floor and peered under the bed. She was under there along with her dolly. “Lilly, come on out.”
“No! Piggy eat Dolly!”
“Piggy’s gone, baby. He can’t hurt you.” Copper stretched out to grab Lilly’s arm.
Lilly was faster and scooted to the far corner. Her little chin trembled as she clutched her doll tight. “Bad, bad piggy.”
Copper slid under the bed to comfort her. “Honey, don’t you know Mama would never let anything hurt you or Dolly?”
Lilly was not mollified. “Dolly wants Dimm.”
“But he’s working.”
If there had been more room under the bed, Lilly would have let go in a full-blown tantrum. Her face threatened like a quickly brewing summer storm, and she opened her mouth to scream.
Copper covered Lilly’s mouth. “Don’t,” she said.
Then she wished she hadn’t, for instead of screaming, Lilly sobbed, big sobs that turned to hiccups. “Dimm,” she said when she could catch her breath. “Dimm make bad piggy go away.”
“Want me to get him, Miz Copper?” Darcy asked.
Now there were three of them under the bed. Copper would have laughed if she hadn’t been so aggravated and jealous. She wanted to be the one to comfort her daughter. “Please. I think he was clearing brush behind the barn.”
When Darcy left, Copper cuddled Lilly as best she could in the tight space. “Mama’s sorry. I’m so sorry you got scared.”
“Bad piggy,” Lilly said again.
“Yes, he is a very bad piggy for scaring you that way. Want to hear a story?”
“No piggies.”
“Oh, but this is about three good little pigs. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. . . .”
Lilly quieted and curled against her mother. Copper soothed her with the story, and Lilly laughed when Copper huffed and puffed to blow a house down. By the time they could see Dimm’s knees bent on the floor, Lilly was nearly asleep. But she scrambled over Copper and into Dimm’s arms when he said her name.
“Dimm!” she said as if surprised by an unexpected visit. “Wanna story? Once a day free piggies . . .”
Inching out from under the bed, Copper sat cross-legged on the floor beside Dimmert and Darcy as Lilly, snuggled in Dimm’s lap, huffed and puffed and laughed again. Ashamed, Copper prayed for forgiveness for her selfishness. Using her fingers as a comb, she pulled dust balls from Lilly’s hair and thanked the Lord for all the people who loved her daughter.
It was late that night before Darcy brought the covered pan in again. And the banty rooster crowed his salute to the sun before the hog’s head was nothing but jars of pulled meat for mincemeat pie.
Darcy didn’t save the ears. She told Copper she was afraid
of what Lilly would think if she caught her eating them. Besides, she could always sneak off to the cellar and help herself to last fall’s pickled pig’s feet.
It was a great relief the following morning when Copper carried the milk bucket to the barn. She’d rested some during the night with her head on crossed arms at the kitchen table, while waiting for the hog to cook or the jars to boil, and now fresh cold air revived her. It was good to be out of the house. The dried cornstalks that Dimmert had scattered over the muddy barn lot were frozen, and they crunched under her boots. The door was unlatched, so she elbowed it open.
Mazy was not in her stall but stood in the open barn looking miserable.
Dimmert pitched forkfuls of bedding into a wheelbarrow. “Scours,” he said when he saw Copper.
Copper held her nose as the mess of diarrhea-soaked straw piled up. “This is not good.”
“Reckon,” the man of few words replied.
Copper found a burlap bag and used it to wipe Mazy as clean as a cow with the scours could be; at least she was dry. She fetched a couple more bags and covered Mazy’s bony back. Usually skittish and prone to kick, Mazy stood quietly, her big square head hanging to her knees as Copper drew the milk stool up to her side.
While she milked, she sorted through all the remedies she’d ever heard for scours. Daddy always said it was a sign of too little salt in the diet, and she remembered John’s father dosed his cattle with watery wheat paste at the first sign of the runs. What was it Reuben did in Lexington? It was just at the edge of her consciousness. Reuben was the best with any animal. Sometimes she missed him and Searcy so bad it brought tears to her eyes.
Let’s see. Surely I can remember, though it happened only one time. Searcy was cooking up a mess of something for Reuben to use. Potatoes! That’s it. Three pecks of boiled potatoes chased with flaxseed tea divided in doses.
Glad to have a plan, Copper led Mazy to the clean stall Dimmert had prepared for her. Mazy balked at the door; it was not her usual stall. Dimm came up behind her and pushed on her rump as Copper pulled on her lead. “Mazy,” she said, “you’re the most exasperating animal I ever saw!” She stepped out and fastened the door. “Don’t feed her, Dimm. I’m going to cook something special.”
