by Jan Watson
She turned on her side. “This feels so good,” she said as Old Tom curled up in the crook of her knees. It was her last conscious thought before she fell into a dreamless slumber, welcome as sunshine in February—God’s restorative gift to His children.
It was very late when Copper woke. Way past midnight. Her mouth felt as dry as a moth’s wing. Reluctantly she pried herself from the bed. Tom meowed his protest but didn’t stir. She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and tied the sash.
Hezzy’s snores sounded like a rusty saw crossed with a donkey. Scree-haw . . . scree-haw, she heard. My word, if that doesn’t wake Remy from her lost state, nothing will.
There was water in the bucket, but it was stale. She craved water from the well. Barefoot, she made her way to the well house and let down the rope. The wooden bucket fell with a rewarding splash. Hand over hand, she hauled it up. Copper groped in the dark until she found the dipper gourd hanging from a nail just inside the well-house door. She drank greedily. Cold water dripped from her chin and splashed the front of her robe.
Back in the house she checked on her patient. Remy’s breaths were deep and regular, and her skin was cool to the touch. Though there wasn’t much response to stimulation, Copper was pleased. If she had wakened once, surely she would again. She resisted the urge to check Remy’s wound. Hezzy had said to leave it be until morning.
Hezzy slept in the chair, her head thrown back, her feet propped on the bed. She should switch places with Hezzy, take the second watch. Copper swayed on her feet. She could barely keep her eyes open. Darcy’s bed beckoned. The bolster pillow called. Feeling selfish, she left Hezzy and Remy as they were. After crawling back in bed, she arranged the covers, the pillows, and the cat to her satisfaction.
Sleep didn’t come. Her mind’s switch was set to worry. Mentally she took stock. Hezzy was with Remy. Lilly was with Darcy. Here was Old Tom purring up a storm beside her. She was sure she’d closed the well-house door.
Copper punched the pillow, straightened her gown, moved the cat several inches to the right, and closed her eyes. A sudden breeze stirred the curtains, bringing the smell of rain. She’d have to close the windows. With a heavy sigh she slipped from the bed.
In the sickroom she removed the screen that propped the window up and lowered it. Quietly she tiptoed out. Thankfully she hadn’t wakened Hezzy. The kitchen window was a different story. The aggravating thing was stuck. Thunder rolled, and far off she saw lightning play across the night sky. With the side of her fist, she tapped the framework around the window, then pulled on the sash as it inched its way down. Damp air whooshed through. Her gown billowed out.
From across the yard a flicker of light caught her eye. What was Dimmert doing in the barn this time of night? What was it he had said at the supper table about Mazy? She was off her feed? She’d been so distracted with Lilly’s demands, Remy’s needs, and the leeches that she hadn’t really paid attention. Some farmer she was. Poor Mazy. She hoped it wasn’t the scours again.
She slipped on a dress, then ran across the yard. Just as she neared the barn door, the heavens opened, releasing a driving rain.
“Dimm?” she said, shaking rain from her skirts.
Holding up a lantern, a tall figure unfolded himself from a bench near Mazy’s stall. “It’s me,” John said.
Copper blinked, adjusting her eyes to the dim light. “John? Forevermore, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve been here all night. Dimmert said Mazy was sick. I’ve been doctoring her.”
“Oh no. What’s the matter?”
John hung the lantern on a nail inside the cow’s stall. “From the looks of things, she got in the feed bin and foundered herself.”
“But I always keep the bin closed and latched. I’m very careful about that.” The flush of shame heated her cheeks. She hadn’t even looked in on Mazy since early yesterday morning, leaving the care of her cow to others. Foundered! If Mazy died, she would never forgive herself.
Copper peered around the stall door, afraid of what she’d find. Years ago, when she was just a girl, she’d come upon a foundered cow out in the field. It lay on its back with its legs stuck straight up like fence posts, its belly hugely swollen. Black flies swarmed the dead body like bees at a hive.
Unperturbed, Mazy stood chewing her cud, rolling her big brown eyes at Copper.
Relief flooded through her. She clutched John’s arm. “What did you do?”
“Epsom salts,” he said. “She’ll need one more dose.”
Watching where she stepped, Copper went to Mazy and scrubbed the spot between the cow’s eyes with her knuckles. Mazy swung her big, square head in delight. “You aggravating thing,” Copper said.
As naturally as if they were still children, Copper threw her arms around John’s neck and hugged him close. “Thank you. You’re the best friend a body could have.”
He moaned. His arms tightened, claiming her before she remembered he was a married man.
What had she done? “John! Turn me loose!”
He buried his hands in her hair and tilted her chin. His mouth was so close. She was sorely tempted. “John . . . don’t.”
His arms dropped and his shoulders slumped as if he’d had the air knocked out of him. “I’m sorry.” He turned away, then reached for his hat on the bench, slapped it on his head, and started for the door. “Mazy will need another dose about six. It’s already mixed.”
Copper followed him to the barn door. Rain drummed on the roof. Thunder shook the ground, and lightning bolted down with a tremendous flash. She saw it strike a towering tulip poplar, lighting the yard like the brightest sun. Dark clouds funneled high in the heavens. “Don’t go out in this,” she pleaded.
“Sweet girl,” he said, “I can’t stay here.”
As she watched him walk away, her tears matched the torrent of rain falling from sodden skies, her heart split clean as the tulip poplar. She couldn’t bear this. She simply couldn’t. Seeking comfort, she went back to the stall, laid her head on Mazy’s broad back, and sobbed. “Help me. What am I going to do?”
As if she endured such actions every day, Mazy stood stoically, swishing her tail and mooing softly, giving what comfort she could.
Copper was glad to see the sun rise. Benny made the wake-up call from the hayloft as usual. Up to her ankles in muck, Copper swung the pitchfork with practiced aim. Behind her, Mazy bawled for food. Copper leaned on her pitchfork and wiped her brow with her forearm. Manure-soaked straw sucked at her boots, nearly tipping her over. “You’re not getting a bite before evening,” she said, exasperated, “unless you want some more Epsom salts. Truthfully, I could do without the results.”
Trucking the heavy wheelbarrow behind the stable, she dumped it on the growing pile. After it aged, it would make fine fertilizer for the garden and the fields. Her back hurt and her eyes smarted from lack of sleep—or more likely the crying she’d done through the long night, her anguish harmonizing with the howling wind and the crashing thunder. Broken tree limbs and shredded leaves littered the ground, bearing witness to the storm’s fury. Her heart bore witness of another kind.
Benny threw back his head and crowed again. Copper watched him in the open window and smiled. Sad as she was, she still appreciated his comical mimic. Funny though, it seemed she hadn’t heard the big red barn rooster. Wonder where he’d got to.
Back in the barn, she wiped the pitchfork against the ground and hung it on the wall. She fetched a pail of water from the water trough in the barnyard and washed Mazy as best she could, paying careful attention to her hindquarters. Satisfied, she got fresh water, soft soap, and a clean rag and wiped down Mazy’s udder and her teats. After scrubbing her hands and arms, she was ready for the good part of her morning.
Hungry, Mazy pulled hard against the rope fastened to her bell collar and attached to the scaffold girt above the feed box. She backed halfway across the stall before Copper jerked the rope more tightly. Pulling the little T-shaped stool up close to Mazy�
�s flank, Copper began to milk. Stubborn as a mule, Mazy refused to let down. From the corner of her eye, Copper saw the flash of a cloven hoof. She tumbled backward off the stool. Sprawled in the clean bedding, she lay flat on her back. The barn cat took advantage, settling with a buzzing purr on her chest. “I’ll bring you some milk from the springhouse.” Copper scratched the cat behind its ears. “Mazy’s too dry from being sick all night to make any.”
Dust motes danced in sunbeams. The straw smelled like summer. The purr of the cat was solace to her ears. A tiny sharp eye peered down on her from a knothole in the hayloft floor. She closed her eyes. “I’ll rest just a minute,” she told the happy cat on her chest, the hungry cow at the empty manger, and the ever watchful Benny in the hayloft above. “Just for a minute. . . .”
“Mama, Mama?” Her baby’s words drew her out of a foggy sleep. She looked up to see Darcy with Lilly astride her hip and a rooster under her arm. “We bringed Rusty home,” Lilly said.
Copper blinked and opened her eyes wide before blinking again. Something was off-kilter. Why was she lying in hay with a cat on her chest? Why was Darcy clutching a bedraggled red rooster? She must be dreaming still.
“You look a sight, Miz Copper,” Darcy said.
“It was a long night,” Copper said.
“So I gather.” Darcy set Lilly down.
“Me help you up, Mama.” Lilly nudged the cat. It yawned and delicately shook each foot, casting off sleep, before it walked away. “Upsy daisy.”
Copper struggled to her feet. “Darcy, why do you have that rooster under your arm?”
“Dimmert found him in a tree outside Mr. John’s house this morning. No doubt the storm blowed him clear across the creek.”
“Are you sure he’s our rooster?”
“Even with half his feathers gone, Lilly recognized him,” Darcy said. “Ain’t it cute she named him Rusty?”
Copper kneaded the kink in her lower back. “Well, are you going to hold him all day?”
Darcy leaned close and whispered, “I think he’s hurt bad. I didn’t want Lilly to see.”
Copper took the dazed-looking bird from Darcy. “Lilly Gray, will you do Mama a favor?”
“Yup.”
“Go up to the house and help Darcy carry in the washtub.”
“Me go swimmin’?”
“Absolutely. You can go swimming before Mama takes a bath.”
As soon as Darcy led Lilly out of the barn, Copper started for the henhouse. “How did you get out, anyway?” she asked before she saw the door standing open, its latch broken, too puny to withstand the storm’s onslaught.
Thankfully, the hens were all accounted for. They pecked the floor and strolled around the coop, ignoring the open door. Copper gently set the rooster in their midst. He stood dazed for a minute, then lifted one clawed foot—testing. He listed to one side, but he was upright. The chickens stood back, paying homage to their king.
Copper took some oats from a bag in the corner and scattered them at his yellow clawed feet. He tried to peck, but the motion sent him tumbling. “Oh, dear. Poor Rusty, what’s the problem?”
Copper returned to the barn for a hammer, nails, shears, and a pasteboard box. Back at the coop, she picked Rusty up. The feathers on one wing were badly twisted. The rooster didn’t put up much of a fuss as she trimmed the twisted feathers on one wing and shaped the other wing to match. She set him in the box along with an upside-down Mason jar fitted with a glass ring for water and a scattering of oats. Expertly she folded the box flaps, imprisoning the hapless bird. She poked holes in various places in the pasteboard so he could get some air.
“There now. You’ll be safe while you get your sea legs back.”
The hens gathered near while she fixed the door.
“Go on out.” Copper liked for them to range on pretty days. One fat hen teetered on the doorsill, undecided. Chickens were timid creatures, Copper knew, and her little world looked decidedly different this morning. “Good grief. It’s just tree limbs. It’s not going to eat you.”
Obeying, the hen plopped down from the sill. The others followed.
“Off with you. Go find your breakfast.” Her stomach rumbled. She needed a little something herself, but first she’d have a bath.
Bless Darcy’s heart. The tub was already filled. Lilly Gray splashed water like a puppy in a puddle. Copper stuck her head in the sickroom. Hezzy was spooning tiny bites of thin gruel into Remy’s mouth. “How are things this morning?” Copper asked.
“We’re holding our own, I reckon,” Hezzy replied.
“I’ll be in to help you directly,” Copper said, pulling bits of hay from her hair.
“No hurry. We ain’t going nowhere fast.”
After Lilly was bundled into a towel, Copper poured a kettle of boiling water into the tub. Behind the bath screen, she let her dirty clothing fall to the floor. Ah, luxury. She lathered a bar of Larkin’s Old English Castile Soap, her favorite. Alice had brought a dozen bars. Sighing with pleasure, she scooted down as far as she could. Did anything in the world feel better to aching muscles than a hot bath? She might just sit here all day. Sick cows, squirmy leeches, and drunken roosters could wait for a while.
John stood with hands on hips and surveyed his broken dreams. He figured it to be straight winds rather than a twister that brought the house to the ground. The only thing left standing was the foundation. The Warm Morning stove, still in its shipping box, rested high in the limbs of a massive oak, as if a giant’s hands had placed it so. It would take some doing to get it down.
He worked for a while piling rock from the tumbled fireplace. Keeping his hands busy steadied his mind. Last night had taught him something he’d tried hard to deny. He couldn’t be Copper’s friend and benefactor. It wasn’t enough just breathing the same air she breathed—not enough to look on her from afar.
Rocks shifted, smashing his thumb. He swallowed a curse. He’d never been a cussing man. Lessons learned at his mother’s knee stood the test of time. But didn’t Jesus say that what you think is what you are? Man, he was in a heap of trouble.
With the mule, he hauled a downed tree from the space that was to be the many-windowed parlor. The walls had tipped over but were undamaged. It wouldn’t be that much trouble to put them up again. He probably should have built the house of logs, but he wanted a city house, something better for Copper. He picked up a clod of dirt and let it fly, smashing it against the Warm Morning stove overhead. Truth be told, he wanted to smash everything—take the ax to the boards and the sledgehammer to the rocks.
He squinted against the early morning sun shooting through the tattered leaves of the oak. Like a child turning his anger upon himself, he climbed the tree until he was seated on a sturdy limb just behind the crated stove. He’d gone all the way to Hazard to fetch that stove—a special gift for his bride. Many a time he’d pictured them sitting round its radiant heat on the coldest winter day, snug as bugs, sweet potatoes roasting on the stove’s flat top, cups of strong coffee in their hands, little Lilly Gray playing at their feet.
With a snort of derisive laughter for his foolish dreams, John planted both feet against the crate and pushed. It seesawed on the branch, teetering against its fate, until he shoved it again. With a rewarding thud, it crashed upon the ground; the wooden crate peeled away like matchsticks spilling from a case. But the stove lay intact, unscathed by his imprudent act.
“Lord,” he asked in awe, “are You trying to tell me something?”
Refreshed from her bath, Copper stepped out on the porch with a brush. The day threatened to be hot and humid. A mist shimmered up from the grass like steam. She’d chosen her airiest dress, a pale rose linen shift that fell straight from her shoulders and required no corset. Her spotless green and pink calico apron nipped the shift round her waist. Bending over, she brushed tiny twigs and pieces of hay from her wild mass of hair. Such a mess, she thought. Such a bother. She had a mind to chop it off. But what would her daddy say? She’d received her ni
ckname from him because of her hair, which he said shone like a newly minted penny.
Back in the house she smiled to find both Darcy and Lilly asleep on Darcy’s bed. Too big a night for my girls, she thought. Quietly, she raised the window and slid in the fly screen. She eased the door closed when she left. No harm in a little morning nap.
“Should we apply the leeches again?” she asked in the sickroom.
“I done it already,” Hezzy said, “off and on all night.”
“So? Is it working?”
Hezzy pulled back a thin coverlet, exposing Remy’s leg. “Look see.”
Copper’s hand splayed on her chest. “Well, I never.”
The wound, an angry slash of corrupted flesh just the day before, was dewy pink, the edges knit together as fine as Hezzy’s quilt stitching.
“I’ve heard tell, though I’ve never seed it with my own eyes afore now. Her fever’s gone too,” Hezzy related.
“Hezzy Krill, I could kiss you.”
The old woman cocked her head. “Go ahead.”
Copper planted a noisy buss on Hezzy’s soft cheek spiderwebbed with wrinkles. “God bless you.”
“I reckon He’s already done so,” Hezzy replied. “I ain’t been this needed in a month of Sundays. Makes a body feel right good.”
Copper knelt by Hezzy’s chair. “Will you teach me the old ways?”
“I could set down a history if you’d fetch me a tablet and a pen. I can read and write, you know.”
From the top of the blanket chest, Copper retrieved her traveler’s writing desk, a marvelous contraption with a hinged lid that revealed a tray for paper, envelopes, stamps, pens, nibs, and bottles of colored ink. “You’re a woman of hidden talents,” she said.
