Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  “What about your father?”

  “He died in a mining accident when I was three.”

  “And the house where the library is? Was that your parents’ house? It’s so much nicer than the other houses in Acorn.”

  “My great-grandfather Larkin built it. His son, my maternal grandfather, was still alive when I was orphaned so he let Lillie and me move in with him. Before that, we lived in the cabin where I’m staying now.”

  I could tell that this conversation was making Mack uncomfortable. He stood and grabbed a fork from the stone table and used it to poke one of the potatoes. “They’re done. You sure you don’t want to stay and have some stew?”

  “Yes, I’m quite sure. I need to get back to town. Maggie Coots said it wasn’t safe to roam around up here after dark because of the wildcat.” I looked around for something to stand on that would make me tall enough to reach the stirrup. The stone table looked as though it would work. I grabbed Belle’s bridle and led her over to it so I could climb into the saddle without Mack’s help. He walked with us as far as the creek.

  “See you in a few days?” he asked. Loneliness seemed to drape over him as we prepared to leave, just as it had blanketed June Ann and Maggie.

  “Yes, I’ll be back. Do you want me to bring you any books to read?”

  “No . . . Give Lillie my love.”

  I didn’t have to ride my route the next day so I told Lillie I would work on her book. “Not today, honey,” she said from her bed. “I ain’t feeling strong enough.”

  Her bouts of weakness worried me. She seemed to be growing frailer each day. I knew she couldn’t live forever, but I didn’t want her to pass away yet. Her crusty personality was growing on me, and I was determined to finish typing her book of folk remedies. I knew how much it meant to her, and I found I wanted to be part of saving something so important.

  “You can stay in bed and I’ll set up Mack’s typewriter in my room. Once I get used to your handwriting, I can type on my own unless I need you to decipher a word.”

  The work was harder than I’d thought it would be. It turned out that Lillie had several notebooks, not just one, with crumbling ivory pages that were decades old. I had to be extremely careful or the paper would break off and turn to powder like dry leaves. She had written the recipes and instructions in pencil, and many of the words were smudged and faded and blurred. I found the place where Mack had stopped typing and was dismayed to see that he had gotten only as far as the first notebook.

  I typed for a few hours, using the same format that Mack had used. Halfway through the morning, I encountered a word that I just couldn’t figure. I tiptoed into Lillie’s room, not wanting to disturb her, but she opened her eyes and asked, “What is it, honey?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t figure out this word. What does this say?”

  She squinted at the page for a moment. “That says, ‘Sam’s liniment.’ This here was his recipe. He was a carriage driver on his massa’s plantation and he knew all about horses. He used to cook up a batch of this liniment whenever a horse was feeling lame. They get the rheumatism, too, you know. Just like people do.”

  “Was this your Sam? The man you loved?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  I sat down on the chair beside her bed, not wanting to miss this opportunity to hear more of her story. “Please tell me about him—and about Charley and Buster. My shoulders are stiff from typing, and I could use a break.”

  “Where did I leave off?”

  “You told me that your former mistress gave you the addresses of where Charley and Buster had been sold.”

  “That’s right. She sure did. So Sam and me saved our money, and when school got out for the summer, we went looking for them.”

  “How did you travel?”

  “We walked most of the way, because a lot of the train tracks was still tore up from the war. I think we might a took a ferry down one of the rivers—I can’t remember. But I know we walked a long way. And then we walked some more. We found the plantation where Charley’d been sold, but we knew better than to go there. Them white massas don’t like to see colored folk walking up to their doorstep, especially Negroes they don’t know. So Sam and me went to the colored town nearby. Well, I don’t suppose you could call it a town. Just a bunch of shacks. Them was hard, hard times after the war. Everybody was so poor—whites and coloreds alike. At least the white folks had land so they could grow things. We didn’t have nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

  Lillie paused to sit up and take a sip of water from her glass on the nightstand. The sun had finally climbed over the top of the mountain to the east—a process that took most of the morning—and it was chasing the cold shadows out of the room. Dust motes floated in a sunbeam before settling on Lillie’s dresser. I waited, hoping she would continue her story.

  “We found Charley without too much trouble. He was sharecropping on his massa’s old plantation. By now so much time had passed since we’d seen each other that he’d gone ahead and married someone else, and his new wife looked like she was fixing to claw my eyes out any minute. Charley says we was already divorced so I should go ahead and marry Sam, because he was happy with his new wife. Even had a couple of kids by her. So that was that.”

  Lillie looked over at me and nodded, as if she had told me everything I needed to know. “Wait. What about Buster?”

  “I told Charley I was looking for Buster and asked if he wanted to help. He says no, he’s got four new children now. Says he has to work hard to keep food on his table and can’t be running off like that. So Sam and me left and went off to find Buster.”

  The front door squeaked open downstairs, and I heard Mamaw call, “Anybody here?”

  I sighed in frustration. “I’ll be right down,” I called back. I wanted to hear more of Lillie’s story, but the boys wanted to hear their story, too. We had only two chapters left in Treasure Island. “I’ll be back in an hour or so with your lunch,” I told Lillie.

  I went downstairs to the non-fiction section to read, and soon I was as caught up in the end of the tale as the children were. They laughed and tussled with each other after I read, “The end.”

  “That was real good,” Bobby said.

  “Can you read us another pirate story?” Clyde asked.

  “I’ll see what I can find. I enjoyed the book, too.”

  “There’s buried treasure around here, you know,” Lloyd said. “If we could find the treasure map, we’d be rich.”

  “What would you do with the money?” I asked.

  They started a shouting match, telling me all the things they’d buy: a shiny new truck for their pa; a radio so Mamaw could listen to music; Clyde wanted a new horse for his ma so she could ride her route faster and get home quicker. I thought of the list I had recited to Ike with a wringer washing machine and a refrigerator and indoor plumbing. I felt very spoiled and selfish.

  “They say them Larkins found the treasure and stole it already,” Mamaw said.

  “I’d like to hear more about this buried treasure,” I said. “Will you tell me the story?”

  Mamaw leaned close and the boys grew quiet, listening as intently as they had to Treasure Island, even though I was sure they had heard it before. “There was once two friends named Isaac Larkin and Wilbur Arnett,” Mamaw began. “They came upon a great treasure when they was out hunting one day, and they buried it in the ground for safekeeping. Then they made a map of where it was buried so their families would know where to dig it up.”

  “Why didn’t they just divide up the treasure and spend it themselves?” I asked.

  “No one knows. And nobody remembers where the treasure came from, either.”

  “I’ll bet it came from pirates!” Lloyd said.

  Bobby elbowed him. “Shh!”

  “Isaac and Wilbur both died,” Mamaw continued, “without telling anybody where the map or the treasure was. The Arnetts—that’s my clan—always figured the Larkins found the map and dug the money up
and didn’t share it with us. We all wondered about Mack, having money for college and all these books. He was a Larkin, you know. But Miss Lillie said his college was free and that he worked for a newspaper up north for a while and made enough money to buy all the books. And some of them are Lillie’s books, I guess.”

  “I’m surprised that Faye and the others made friends with Mack,” I said, “even though he was a Larkin.”

  “Well, his mama was a Larkin, and she died the day Mack was born. He wasn’t raised by Larkins. And Mack himself was more like a flatlander than one of us because he never worked in the mines. You see?”

  No. I didn’t see. I would never understand the intricacies of this feud.

  I went upstairs to check on Lillie after Mamaw and the boys left, but she was sound asleep again. I came back downstairs and had just sat down behind the library desk to catch up on my work when Ike bounded through the front door.

  “Hey, Alice. Don’t you look pretty today.”

  “Thank you.” He reminded me so much of an overgrown boy that I had to resist the urge to invite him to come and listen to me read stories with Faye’s boys. “Are you here to check out another book?” I asked.

  “Nope.” His neatly combed hair flopped into his eyes as he shook his head. “I came to take you on a lunchtime picnic. What do you say?”

  “Right now? I’m supposed to be working in the library. It’s supposed to be open.”

  “Oh, yeah? How many customers are you expecting besides me and them boys?” He smiled, obviously aware that we had no other “customers.” When I didn’t reply he added, “Does somebody have overdue books they’re bringing back this afternoon?”

  “No, I’m not expecting any patrons.” I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Well, I know a real good picnic spot that I’m dying to show to you.” He could see that my resolve was weakening. He reached for my hand, pulling me out of my chair and away from my desk. I couldn’t believe I was agreeing. Back home I never would have shirked my library duties for something as frivolous as a picnic. My devotion used to annoy Gordon, who would sometimes beg me to leave early if the library was deserted. I had always refused.

  “We won’t be gone all day,” Ike assured me. “Just for lunch. You got something we can make sandwiches out of?”

  “Sandwiches? I’m sorry but I don’t have any bread.” He gave me a puzzled look, as if he’d never heard of running out of bread before. I felt embarrassed. “We haven’t had any real bread since Mack’s funeral, just corn bread or biscuits.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I don’t know how to bake it. Back home we buy our bread at the store.”

  “Oh. I guess we can make do with corn bread, then.” We went out to the kitchen and put together a quick lunch. I brought a tray upstairs to Lillie and told her where I was going while Ike wrapped our lunch in a dish towel and packed it in Lillie’s picking basket.

  We left through the back door, carrying a blanket to sit on, and followed a path I had never taken before, downstream from the library instead of upstream. We crossed the creek by leaping from stone to stone, then followed a narrow dirt road until we came to an orchard. The fruit trees were all in bloom, flowering in delicate shades of white and pastel pink. I could hear bees buzzing, drawn by the sweet-smelling blossoms.

  “Oh, Ike, this is a beautiful place!”

  “You like it?”

  “I love it!” I whirled in a circle like a character in a movie. I would have danced if there had been music. We spread the blanket on the ground and sat down to eat. Pastel petals showered down on us like confetti every time a breeze blew. I couldn’t imagine a more romantic setting.

  “I’m glad you decided to stay in Acorn,” Ike said as we ate. “And not just for my sake, either. Mack worked real hard setting up that library and there wasn’t anybody but you who could’ve run it for him.”

  “I know. I’m hoping to teach the packhorse ladies how to do the work so they can take over when I do have to go home.”

  He smiled. “I hope they’re slow learners so it takes a while.”

  “I also want to process the non-fiction books the right way before I go, and set up a card catalogue so it’ll be easier to find a book. Mack seemed to know every book by heart, but no one else does.”

  “Speaking of Mack, you know what never made any sense to me? His hunting accident. I went out hunting with him a couple of times before I learnt he was a Larkin, and he was always real careful around guns. I don’t see how he coulda shot himself.”

  I felt a flush spreading up my cheeks and hoped it wouldn’t give anything away. I was a terrible liar. My father could spot a fib in an instant and would “paddle the devil out of me” for it. That’s exactly what he used to say, after showing me the verse in the Bible that said Satan was “the father of lies.”

  I swallowed the corn bread I was chewing and held up my hands in innocence. “Don’t ask me, Ike. I don’t know anything at all about guns. Or hunting. And I was only in town one day when it happened.”

  “You know what I think? I think somebody shot him.”

  “Who would want to shoot him?” It was the question I had been asking since the day it happened.

  “The people who run the coal mine are at the top of my list.”

  “Why?” I had to step carefully, just as I had when hopping on the stones to cross the creek.

  “They found out that Mack was writing a book, telling how they cheat all us miners. And after Hank Coots died, Mack started snooping around and asking a lot more questions. I never did believe that Hank died in an accident any more than I believe that Mack shot himself.”

  “Why would Mack lie about it? Wouldn’t he want whoever shot Hank to go to jail?”

  “Jail? Ha! The sheriff would never put the mine owners in jail. They’re his friends. I think Mack lied so whoever did it wouldn’t come back and shoot more people for standing up for Hank.”

  “But now there won’t be any justice.”

  “There ain’t no justice around here. It’s every man for himself. Whoever starts snooping around might be next.” His words sent a chill through me. We ate in silence for a long moment, then Ike reached for my hand.

  “You know why I brought you here?”

  “Because it’s so beautiful with the trees in bloom? So sweet-smelling?”

  “That’s part of it,” he said, laughing. “But I also wanted to show you this place because I think this is where the treasure is buried.”

  “Really?” My heart sped up, but whether it was from the idea of finding buried treasure or from the warmth of Ike’s fingers as he caressed my hand, I couldn’t tell. “Have you found the treasure map?”

  “No. But I been doing a lot of thinking. If you draw a straight line between Isaac Larkin’s house and Wilbur Arnett’s house—they’re the two men who buried the treasure—this orchard is smack-dab in the middle.”

  “Really? That’s fascinating. Where are these two houses?”

  “My family and I live in Great-Granddaddy Arnett’s house, up there on the hill. And you’re living in Great-Granddaddy Larkin’s place.”

  “The library?”

  “That’s right. So I paced it all out one day, walking in a straight line from my house to Mack’s, and guess what?”

  “This orchard is halfway between the two?”

  “Right. Now, if only I knew exactly where to dig . . .”

  My excitement grew as I glanced around the orchard. Buried treasure? “Well, if I were going to bury a treasure,” I said, “I would look for a landmark to use as a point of reference. You know, a big rock or a huge tree.”

  “That’s a great idea!” But Ike’s enthusiasm quickly turned to a frown. “Except that they planted this orchard about ten years ago and the treasure’s been buried for more than sixty.”

  “What was on this property sixty years ago?” I asked.

  “Far as I know, it was just woods. I remember when they cleared this land to plant
the trees.”

  “Who owns the orchard? And is he an Arnett or a Larkin?”

  “It belongs to the postmaster. He ain’t related to either side.”

  “But the treasure would rightfully belong to him if it’s on his property.”

  Ike leaned close to me. “We would have to dig it up at night,” he said in a whisper.

  “We?”

  “Don’t you want to help me? It would be an adventure, Alice. And it seems fitting that we’d be the ones to find it since you and I are living in the two great-granddaddies’ houses. We could split it fifty-fifty and leave Acorn for good.”

  I laughed. “As exciting as a treasure hunt sounds, Ike, I don’t think I want to get mixed up in this feud.” Or go to jail for theft and property damage.

  “Well, you think about it some more—and meanwhile, I’ll try to look for a landmark.” He glanced all around as if one might pop up any minute. Then he turned his attention back to me. “You won’t tell anyone what I figured out, will you?”

  “I promise not to say a word. Your secret is safe with me.” I made a gesture of locking my lips shut with a key and throwing it over my shoulder.

  He moved even closer and ran his finger over my lips. “I better make sure that secret is sealed real tight.” Ike took my face in his hands and kissed me beneath the canopy of apple blossoms.

  Leapin’ lizards! as Little Orphan Annie would say. I could forget my own name after a kiss like that, let alone a secret. The kiss lasted longer than our previous one had, but it still ended much too soon.

  “Thanks for the picnic,” I murmured when I could speak. “I’d better get back to the library now.” We walked hand in hand until we had to cross the creek, then parted when the library came in sight.

  “Until next time,” Ike said with a wink. He turned and walked back toward the orchard. I returned to the library, completely incapable of concentrating on anything.