Carry the World

by Susan Fanetti

  The little box that had held the slim gold band that was her wedding ring was open and resting atop one of her brassieres.

  Though there was space in the velvet for two rings, only hers had rested inside the box. She’d buried George with his ring on his finger. She’d taken her ring off on the first anniversary of his death, put it back in its special box, and tucked it at the very back of this drawer, for safekeeping.

  That box was empty. Her wristwatch and the little gilt compact were missing as well. All her treasured gifts from George.

  Had this been a robbery? Had one of the wandering men her parents so often welcomed into their home turned on them?

  But they had nearly nothing of value to anyone but themselves. Wedding rings. A radio. Nothing else. Nothing worth a life. Her father would have given up any meager possession to keep his family safe.

  Anything of his own. But would he have fought to his death for her wedding ring? Her father, who’d held her close so many nights as she’d grieved? Had he done that?

  Ada’s stomach howled at the thought. She bent over and vomited on her bedroom rug.

  When she was empty, she reeled to her bed and sat down. She couldn’t tarry; her mother was terrified. Ada had to make things right.

  How could she? Her father was dead. Daddy was dead.

  Another wave of nausea crashed over her, but she forced it away. No. She had to think.

  She needed help. She needed the sheriff. She needed somebody to find the man who’d done this and make him pay.

  Finding she couldn’t yet let go of the knife, Ada pushed it through her belt and went back to her mother.

  She was curled in the corner, just as Ada had left her. She gasped and flinched as the door opened.

  “It’s me, Momma. It’s safe. Whoever it was is gone.”

  “Dick.”

  Ada helped her mother to her feet. “Who?”

  “He said his name was Dick. He come to the house this mornin’, lookin’ for some work and a meal. He worked out in the field with your daddy, and they came in ‘round lunchtime. Weren’t long after, they was yellin’ and smashin’, and I hear your daddy moanin’. Then he jus’ stop. Ever’thing went quiet. I don’t what happened, but he said his name was Dick.”

  Ada cupped her mother’s face in her hands. “Momma, listen. We need help, and we can’t wait for a neighbor to come along. We have to go get help. We need the law, and I don’t know ... help. We just need help. You have to come with me. We’re going to go out to the barn, and I’m going to hitch Henrietta up to the cart, and we’re going for help. Understand?”

  “We can’t leave your daddy!”

  “Momma! Daddy doesn’t need us anymore.” Ada clenched her face to fight a new wash of tears. Her mother’s understanding finally came fully together, and she burst out in keening wails of grief.

  Ada picked up her mother’s hand, set it at the crook of her own elbow, and led her from the bedroom.

  When they went through the hall, and Ada helped her around her father’s body, her mother stopped and went to her knees. Still sobbing, she felt around until she found her husband’s head, and she bent and kissed his bloody face.

  “Find our boys, Zeke,” she whispered as tears coursed down her creased face. “Find our boys and wait for me.”

  When she stood again, her face was covered in her husband’s blood. Her tears collected blood as they ran down her cheeks and dripped red stains onto her housedress.

  The sight was so horrible, somehow worse than her father’s broken head, that it stopped all of Ada’s volcanic emotions cold. Suddenly, she was made of stone, as dead inside as a statue. She had nothing in her mind or heart except her list of things she needed to do.

  She led her mother out of the house, set her on a haybale, and went to call Henrietta back to the barn.

  “Here. Drink this.” Doc Dollens pushed a mug across the table at her.

  Ada peered into the amber brew. “What is it?”

  He sat in the chair across from her. “Just tea. Chamomile and honey.”

  She put the cup to her mouth and took a sip. The warm liquid slid down her throat but didn’t warm her dead insides.

  After another sip, she set the mug on Doc Dollens’ kitchen table and looked across the table at him.

  “How’s Momma?”

  “She’s not hurt, Ada. I gave her something to settle her nerves, and she’s restin’ in the back room, but it don’t look like he touched her at all.”

  That was something, at least. She hadn’t thought her mother had been hurt, except in her mind and heart, but it was good to know for sure.

  But her father was still lying dead in the hallway.

  “I need to be at the house.” She moved to stand, but the doctor set his hand firmly on hers and held her in place.

  “No. Sheriff Guthrie’s there, and he wants you both away so he can see how things are. I told Chancey to follow after, so he can see, too, and let us know anythin’ Joe keeps to himself.”

  A humorless, numb laugh fell from her lips. Chancey was at the house, looking on her father’s body, in the middle of this most personal business. She couldn’t seem to unwind that boy from her life.

  “You think you can talk to me about what happened? Maybe I can help you put things straight in your head.”

  Ada shook her head. “It happened while I was on the mountain. Momma said a man came to the house looking to work for a meal. He said his name was Dick. She heard a fight, but she didn’t know any more.” She turned and looked out the window at the black night. “He killed my daddy. They needed me, and I was gone, and now Daddy’s dead.”

  The doctor took both her hands and shook them firmly. “That’ll be just about enough talk like that, young lady. If you’d been home, maybe you’d be dead now, too.”

  The sound of an approaching motor claimed their attention before Ada could respond or think how she might.

  “That’ll be Joe, I imagine.”

  “I don’t want him disturbing Momma.”

  Doc Dollens stood. “Then come on. You’ll have to talk for her as much as you can.”

  She would have to take care of her mother. It was just the two of them now, Ada and her elderly, blind mother, and Ada couldn’t leave her on her own.

  Not for anything.

  Or anyone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The crash and grunt stopped Jonah in his tracks.

  He was heading back to the house, a brace of grouse and a surprisingly plump turkey slung over his back. He’d sighted two deer, but they’d been does with fawns at the teat, and he shot only for buck unless he was desperate. He wasn’t desperate. The heavy rains of both spring and summer hadn’t done his patch any favors, but they’d made lush grazing in the woods, and hunting had been very good for months. He foraged for wild-growing greens and fruits, and the patch was yielding enough to keep him and the children fed. He might not have much to trade with to put variety in their winter eating, but they’d keep fed, at least.

  Now, he crouched behind an old fallen tree and set his kills on the ground. That grunt had been a bear.

  Bears weren’t really predators. Come across a panther in these woods, and you had a fight on your hands, or better yet a flight, unless you were a quick, sure shot. Panthers were meat-eaters, and a man was as good eating as anything else with warm blood. They stalked their prey, creeping silently through the woods, and attacked with full force. Fortunately, panthers preferred night hunting. You might come across one in the day, but it didn’t happen often.

  Bears, on the other hand, ate just about anything, from berries to meat to garbage, and only attacked to defend themselves or their space. Primarily day creatures, though they got up to some mischief in the dark, too, they were much more likely to cross a hunter’s path. But if you lay low and let them mosey on about their bear business, more times than not, they didn’t much care about men.

  If you shot at one, however, you’d damn well better strike true. You w
ere unlikely to get a second chance. And a true shot wasn’t so easy; a bear’s fur was so dense it was armor.

  From his blind behind this thick, decaying trunk, Jonah scanned the area, looking and listening for the bear. Another crash and grunt alerted him to the direction, and he narrowed his eyes and studied the sun-dappled rise to his left. The underbrush was moving rapidly. Reaching back, he grabbed his 30.06. He preferred the bow, but this wasn’t hunting. Neither he nor the children liked bear meat, and he had no need of the fur. If he shot this bear, he’d be protecting himself. The rifle was the better choice.

  He braced it on the trunk and sighted in the direction of the noise and the fluttering ferns.

  The bear bumbled into view, about a hundred feet away. Well in range. Placing his finger along the trigger guard, Jonah got ready. He’d let it go unless it made a move right toward him.

  It grunt-roared again and slammed its head into the trunk of tree, almost as if on purpose. Then did it again. As it reeled away, Jonah frowned. That bear was skinny. Far too skinny for August, when it should be well into its efforts to fatten up for a winter’s sleep. Was it sick? He looked up from the rifle and narrowed his eyes, trying to get a clearer understanding of the beast’s strange behavior.

  Reeling like a drunk down the hill, coming closer, it stopped and plopped onto its rear. Both front paws came up and went to its head, in a bearish caricature of a man with a headache. Or not a caricature at all. There was something wrong with the bear’s head.

  It dropped its paws, and Jonah saw the problem. Its head was caved in on one side, so severely that the eye on that side was misshapen. The injury had happened some time ago; any open wound was healed over. But that side of the bear’s fur was filthy and matted.

  There was no further evidence, nothing to say with certainty what had happened to this beast, but Jonah was certain nevertheless. This was the bear that had attacked Ada and Henrietta in the storm. Whether they’d been attacked before the mudslide, or after it, he didn’t know, but at some point, their troubles had included a bear, and he was sure the same one was before him now.

  Henrietta had caved in its head in the fray. He was sure of that, too. That horse was braver than any he’d known before.

  Weeks—months, in fact—had passed since that spring storm. The bear had survived but was badly compromised. It wasn’t able to fend well for itself. Jonah wasn’t sure if he was acting out of mercy or revenge, but he aimed his rifle at the seated, miserable bear and put a bullet through its broken skull.

  It fell over at once. Jonah cocked again and waited, aimed, to see if another shot was necessary. Its bony side heaved once, twice, three times, and then the bear let out a loud, miserable sigh and was still.

  Rifle in hand, he leapt over the trunk and went to the carcass. He stood over it and considered what to do. He’d gone out today intending to hunt fowl, which he had done. If he’d come across a hearty buck, he might have tried for it, but he could carry a field-dressed buck over his shoulders. Even this skinny, damaged bear would be too heavy to carry like that, and he hadn’t brought the litter with him.

  It seemed a crime to leave a kill like this behind, but they weren’t in such straits they needed to eat meat they didn’t like—besides which, this mess of a bear was so skinny its ribs and hipbones showed under its dense coat. That meat would be doubly bad—and possibly suspect as well.

  He considered the coat. It was filthy, but otherwise good, except for around the head. An idea struck him. This was the bear that had almost killed Ada. She was to be with them again in a few days. That was enough time to get it salted and dried and set up for tanning.

  What would she think if he presented her with its skin? Would she understand the gift as he intended it?

  He thought of the gift she’d given him, the sampler that showed him Bluebird’s name for the first time, and that put her name on the wall beside her brother’s, where she belonged. That empty space had been like a hole in his heart, an infected wound, always pulsing its ache, reminding him of what he’d lost, what Bluebird would never know.

  Now that space wasn’t empty any longer. Not on the wall, or in his heart, or in their lives.

  Grace was gone now. He knew she would never be back. But he didn’t feel abandoned—nor did he feel unfaithful. She’d stayed as long as he’d needed her. She’d eased his way into a life without her, and she’d left when she’d known he was healed enough to go forward on his own.

  What he might have with Ada, what he might build with her, he didn’t know. It didn’t seem like it would ever be akin to what he’d had with Grace, if they saw each other only a few hours every two weeks. But it was good, and it would be enough. He felt something like happiness pushing through the black soil in his heart, and that was something he’d never thought he’d feel again. He wanted to protect her and love her and honor her, and that urge fulfilled him.

  Could a bearskin, this particular bearskin, possibly convey all that, the way her delicate stitchwork and its sweet sentiment had told him how she felt?

  Ada was a lady, refined and delicate. But she was also a mountain woman, strong and steadfast.

  He went back to his gear and got out his field kit.

  The next Mizz Ada Day was a bright, clear summer day, so warm and still that even the high perch of Cable’s Holler was a little uncomfortable. The heat didn’t slow the children down at all. They buzzed all day with excited energy, and Elijah wrote down a list of all the things he wanted to make sure got done before Ada got there, and make sure he showed her and told her when she arrived.

  Bluebird wanted to wear all the different ribbons Ada had brought her at once, and she arrayed all the little tokens—the toy bluebird, and the winter hat, and a little plastic flower ring, and a picture book of her very own—on the porch railing.

  Normally they were excited on Mizz Ada Day, but today, their buzz seemed doubly happy. Or maybe Jonah was simply sharing in it for the first time.

  Every other visit for all the months she’d been coming, Jonah had felt some kind of discomfort: a wariness of strangers, or suspicion that she was getting too close, grief for the way Grace disappeared, or jealousy that his children, who did not remember their mother at all, were falling in love with her, or angst over the way his own feelings were changing. Finally, since she’d been hurt and he’d taken care of her, since he’d fallen in love with her as well, these past few visits, he’d felt a deep, pulsing kind of needy regret.

  Then she’d given him that wonderful gift and he’d done something he shouldn’t have done. He’d been so overwhelmed with love and need that he’d kissed her without thinking, without asking, without knowing how she might react.

  She’d wanted more.

  What that meant for them, Jonah couldn’t say. Everything he’d said to her that night on the porch remained true: her world was bigger than his, and she brought good wherever she went. He couldn’t keep her hidden away in the back of his lonely holler.

  But he couldn’t leave it, either. Not simply because it was the only home he’d ever had, but because he couldn’t live down there among all those people, in that place he didn’t know and would never comprehend.

  His world was too small for her, and hers was too big for him.

  So they’d have these little slivers of time. For Jonah, feeling hope and anticipation for a future, even a future mere hours away, for the first time in long years, these little slivers were more than he’d dreamed to have. He could only hope they’d be enough for Ada as well.

  “Hold up, baby girl.” He lifted Bluebird’s floury hands off the ball of dough. They were making a wild blueberry pie for Mizz Ada. “What you doin’?”

  “I wanna roll the dough. I’m big now. I can do it.”

  That had been her refrain all summer long, since she’d outgrown her shoes. She was big now, and could do it. Whatever ‘it’ was. She’d gotten a few hard lessons about what she wasn’t yet big enough to do, but soon enough, she’d be nearly as capable
as her brother.

  “Alright, but let me help.” Jonah pulled her to stand between him and the table. He scattered flour and brought the dough over. “First we gotta flatten it out a little and get it soft enough to work.” He put his hands over his daughter’s and taught her to make pie crust.

  A skill he’d learned when there hadn’t been anyone else to do it.

  The sun was setting, and she hadn’t come.

  This time, Jonah didn’t try to tell the children not to worry. The last time he’d done that, Ada had been lying in freezing water, on her way out of this world. So no, he didn’t try to tell them there was no cause to worry. He was disquieted himself.

  He wasn’t naturally inclined to overreaction, and he understood that Ada was probably safe. Most likely, there had been some kind of inconvenience, and she was merely delayed. She had no quick or easy way to contact him if something had come up in her world that held her back.

  But he remembered every second of that morning, every detail of what he’d seen at the bottom of that mudslide. How badly she’d been hurt. How close she’d come to dying.

  So he hoped with all his heart and soul that she was merely inconvenienced, but he acted as if her life were in danger.

  Dusk was on the holler, and night came fast inside its deep walls. But the moon should be nearly full, and the day had been crystal clear. He could get down to Red Fern Holler at least, and see if anyone had word of her there.

  In the spring, he’d left his children in the house and gone looking for her—but then, Henrietta had come. He’d known something was wrong, and that it had gone wrong close enough to his home for Henrietta, badly hurt, to get to them.

  This time, he didn’t know what, if anything at all, was wrong, or where it had gone wrong. He didn’t know where Ada lived, except that it was in Barker’s Creek, which was far down in the foothills. He might have to go all the way down to the world below. On foot. He didn’t know anything about that world, except that it was dangerous and strange.

  He might be gone for more than a day. He might not make it home.