Carry the World

by Susan Fanetti

  He couldn’t leave his children. So he’d take them with him, at least as far as Red Fern Holler. Maybe he could ask the Cummings to watch over them.

  And what about the homestead? The animals? If anything happened to their meager livestock, his whole little family would die before the winter froze hard.

  Maybe he could ask for help for them, too.

  Jonah didn’t like to ask for something unless he had something to offer in return. But this was Ada. He needed to know she wasn’t hurt again. He couldn’t wait for a sign that the most reasonable, most likely, most benign answer was true. He had to know she was alright.

  The people of Red Fern Holler loved her, too. While she was healing, she’d told him her momma’s people were from there. To help her, they’d help him. Even if he had nothing to offer.

  They needed to get moving before the night creatures, like panthers, stirred.

  His children looked up at him with eyes full of worry. Bluebird had tears on her cheeks.

  “Alright, children. We’re goin’. Elijah, get that pair of boots you growed out of last, see if they fit your sister. I need you both to keep quiet and close to me, and boy, I want you to carry the .22.”

  When they made it to Red Fern Holler, the moon was risen, and the sun had set well behind the mountain, but there was just barely enough of the last gleam of daylight in the sky to feed Jonah’s eyes. They hadn’t met any kind of trouble on the walk.

  As they’d approached signs of other people, Bluebird’s worry for Ada had, in the way of young children, been dampened by her excitement. He hadn’t brought the children down for more than a year. Esther Cummings treated them like special guests when they came, and Bluebird remembered her sweets and her hugs.

  The holler was quiet and mostly dark. The store had closed up, and people were in their homes for the night. Looking up through the center of the holler, Jonah could see the faint glint of candlelight and lamplight in a few windows. All he cared about was the Cummings, and there was a glow in the store windows as well.

  Taking the .22 from Elijah so the boy didn’t make a mistake and drop the barrel down while Jonah was asking for help, he led his children onto the porch.

  The door opened before he could knock, and Hez Cummings stood there, a rifle in his hand as well.

  With a quick sweep of his eyes, he nodded. “Jonah. Here ‘bout Mizz Ada, I reckon.”

  If Hez knew that, Ada hadn’t made it to Red Fern, either. Jonah didn’t know whether to consider that good news or bad. “Yeah. She weren’t here neither?”

  “No. We was jus’ talkin’ ‘bout it. C’mon in.” As he stepped back and cleared the door, he grinned down at Elijah and Bluebird. “How do, children. You growed a heap since you was here last.”

  Elijah stepped over the threshold and held out his hand. “How do, Mr. Cummings.”

  Hez laughed and shook his hand. “You’re a good boy, Mr. Walker.” He crouched to Bluebird. “And lookit how pretty you is, Miss Bluebird!”

  Bluebird blushed and twirled her hair.

  Jonah took a breath. His children would be well cared for here.

  Back at the kitchen, Esther was coming around their table, headed for the front of the store. Their two sons, Eddie and Bert, both nearly grown, stood beside chairs at that table and watched.

  Hez leaned his gun on the wall beside the door. “Set your gear here.”

  Jonah did as he was bid.

  Esther corralled his children into a hug together and looked up at him. “Come sit. We was talkin’ ‘bout whether to worry.”

  “I’m worried. I’m goin’ to find her.”

  Shifting her glance to her husband, Esther stood, then turned her gaze back on Jonah. “I knowed there’d be somethin’ between you.”

  Jonah didn’t answer, because he was too stunned to make words. The notion of people thinking about him when he wasn’t around defied comprehension.

  Everyone stood in a silent, awkward circle for a moment, as if nothing more could happen until he spoke.

  “I need help.”

  Hez nodded. Esther stepped to Jonah and set her hand on his arm. “We’ll keep the children with us. They’ll be safe.” She turned and smiled at Elijah and Bluebird. “How’s that sound? You can help us in the store tomorrow. We went strawberry pickin’ yes’day, and I’m making strawberry tarts in the mornin’!”

  “Pa!” Elijah turned stricken eyes to Jonah. “I wanna go with you!”

  “No, boy. I’m goin’ now, in the dark. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I can shoot! I can help! Mr. and Mizz Cummings c’n see to Blue! She don’t need me! I can go!”

  He was not leading his nine-year-old son down the mountain at night. “Elijah, no. Enough.”

  In the first fit of temper Jonah had seen in his son since he was just a toddling boy, Elijah stomped his foot and made a sound like a growl. The burst of bad feeling frightened his already anxious sister, and she began to cry.

  In the way women always seemed to know what was needed, Esther immediately gathered Bluebird up in her arms and carried her to the kitchen.

  Jonah went to his son and lifted his chin so the boy couldn’t help but meet his eyes. He didn’t try to avoid it. Instead, he glared up, his blue eyes full of righteous fury.

  “It’s dangerous, boy. You don’t have enough skill in the woods yet. I’ll go faster on my own.”

  “But what if somethin’ hurts you, too?” Elijah’s anger had dissolved and shown the true feeling: fear.

  Jonah crouched down. The boy had grown so that from this position, Jonah had to crane his neck a bit to keep fixed on his eyes. “I promise I’ll be back. I’ll find Mizz Ada and be back. And when we’re home together where we belong, I’ll take you huntin’. Build up your skills.”

  Elijah nodded, somewhat mollified. Jonah stood again and faced Hez.

  “Don’t know how long I’ll be. I got the animals up at the house.”

  “I’ll send my boys up to see to things, till you’re back.”

  In more than seven years, he hadn’t trusted a soul with his home or his family, but now he had no choice. He’d asked for help, and he’d gotten it. He didn’t hesitate to take it. “Thank you, Hez. I don’t know how I’ll settle this up with you, but I’ll do it.”

  “Ain’t no debt here, Jonah. We all want to know she’s alright.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Large spans of this mountain were dense forest from the hills to the peak. Despite the moonlight, the way was deep with dappling shadows. Though he’d reached the Cummings’ place in the last moments of twilight and hadn’t tarried more than half an hour, it took Jonah the whole of the night to make it to the place he thought was Barker’s Creek, nested in the rolling hills that were the roots supporting his own home.

  In those hours of dark, Jonah had heard all manner of creatures roaming with him, and seen a few sets of eyes catching the moon’s glint, but he’d been careful and quiet, and they’d let him be.

  He’d kept the best eye out he could for Ada as well, looking and listening for signs of trouble, but he’d found nothing. No disturbance of the path, no cry for help or whimper of pain nearby. No Henrietta without her rider. No dropped gear. So he kept walking, and his hope grew that it had truly been mere inconvenience that had kept her from her route.

  He cleared the forest in new sunshine, while the air was yet thick with the night’s dew, and approached a small farmhouse. As he scanned the property—the large planted field, the neatly tended yard, the house with its solid porch, a barn with a bright red roof—he heard the slam of a wooden door and squinted in that direction. A man, woman, and boy who looked to be a bit older than Elijah had come out a side door together. They were walking to that big barn.

  A creek burbled on the other side of the path, and Jonah was fairly sure it was Barker’s Creek. But the last time he was here—many years ago, granted—it was still thinning-out woods this close to the creek, with no one living in easy sight of it. From where he
stood, he could see three other homesteads, spread out on the downward slope from where this path became a road.

  Had he taken a wrong way somewhere in the dark? Was this a different creek? Was he lost?

  All he could do was ask.

  Following the split wood fence that framed the homestead from the widening path, he came to a cross-beam gate across a gravel lane about ten or fifteen feet wide. In one direction, it led into the property, between the house and the barn. A red truck was parked near the barn. In the other direction, the lane arced onto the path Jonah was on, and here that path became a road. Where Jonah stood, it was maybe three feet wide and nothing but trodden dirt. But straight ahead, it became a real road, the likes of which didn’t exist in his world. Paved smoothly with gravel and wide enough for two trucks to pass each other by. It was framed on either side by a narrow, deep ditch. The one nearest Jonah was about half full of water.

  Sunk into the ground beside the gate was a sign, but Jonah could make no sense of its words. On the wood post that held the sign up were rough symbols, carved into the wood. He didn’t know what those meant, either.

  He needed to know where Ada was, and all he could do was ask. He hooked his rifle on his back, so he wouldn’t appear ready to use it, and jumped this homestead’s fence.

  The family had gone into the barn. He headed toward it.

  He was still a good twenty feet from the door when the man came through it. He had a shotgun in his hands, double-barreled and aimed at Jonah’s chest. Jonah threw up his hands, as if they might shield him.

  “We don’t want yer kind here. Git yer beggin’ ass off my land ‘fore I blow it off!”

  “I ain’t a beggar. I’m lookin’—”

  The man cocked the shotgun noisily and stalked forward. “You ain’t deaf, so you knows what I said. Git!”

  Jonah back-stepped quickly, keeping his hands up and his eyes on that shotgun. But he couldn’t leave without asking. “Donovan! I’m lookin’ for the Donovan place!”

  “Ain’t no Donovans ‘round here. Git movin’!”

  Donovan was her husband’s name. He didn’t know her family name. Were those the Red Fern people? No—her mother’s family was from up the mountain. He didn’t know her father’s name.

  He was at the gate. “Ada! I’m lookin’ for Ada!”

  That got the man to fire a barrel—not at him, but not far off to his side. “Next one goes in yer face. You lowlife no ‘counts leave that poor woman be! Scum like you done enough already! GIT!”

  Jonah vaulted the gate and ran down the road.

  Now he knew for a certainty that Ada was near. He also knew with the same certainty that she was in trouble, but he didn’t know what, or how he’d find her, if every homesteader behaved like that one had.

  He’d have to keep trying.

  He stopped at every home he came across, though he was much more cautious now, ready for the worst. He started telling them right off that he lived up the mountain, that he wasn’t one of the men they called hobos, that he was worried about his friend.

  It didn’t matter. He faced three more gun barrels, and even those who didn’t threaten violence wanted no part of him. Whether they ran him off with a gun, or just yelled at him, or didn’t answer the door at all, nobody told him where Ada lived.

  Something very bad had happened to her, though. Something down here in her world. As he failed again and again to get anything other than malice and threats from her neighbors, he put the picture together in his own head. A hobo had done something to her. Hobos were wandering men. They didn’t come up on his mountain, and he’d only heard a stray remark about them here and there in Red Fern Holler. All he knew was that they were strange men walking the roads, looking for work, or a place to sleep, or simply a handout. Beggars.

  And they all thought he was one of them. He was a poor man, and he didn’t have much of worth in his life but his life itself and the lives of his children, but never before had he felt of less account than on this day. He looked down at his raggedy overalls and his cracked, curled boots, and he saw what these farmers saw: a hobo. A man with nothing. A man who didn’t belong.

  A man like that had hurt Ada. The notions that thought conjured, the things a man could do to hurt a woman, had Jonah’s belly juices boiling. He’d hoped a mere inconvenience had happened, something she couldn’t avoid and couldn’t get word to him about, but no kind of pain. He’d been wrong.

  But she was alive, at least. The way these people expressed their anger and suspicion toward him, he understood she was alive. Badly hurt, but alive. Not gone from him.

  The people here knew her. They were her neighbors. Eventually, one of these houses would be hers. So he kept trying.

  He came to a part of this village that seemed more familiar to him. The houses had more age and wear on them. The next gate was closed, as most of them were. A big grey rock was sunk into the ground beside the gate, for purposes Jonah couldn’t cipher. It had had symbols marked on it, like he’d seen elsewhere, but these had mostly been rubbed away or marked out, and a large, angry “X” scratched over the smeared patch. Letters were written beneath it as well, in equally angry strokes, but he didn’t know what they meant.

  It gave him pause, all that anger struck on the rock. He considered the little farm on the other side of that gate.

  There was a rusting truck parked next to a weather-beaten grey barn, leaning in a way that Jonah, who knew nothing about trucks, could see it didn’t run. There was a little white house with a tidy grey porch. The roof on the barn looked ready to give up, but the roof on the house looked new, or close to it. A raised round patch of flowers bloomed in the yard. Weeds were starting to clutter up the flowers. The planted patch—an acre or so in size—needed tending as well.

  The only signs that anyone had been home in a week or more were the chickens ambling about in their yard.

  No—over there.

  Jonah crossed to the other side of the gate and squinted into a pasture. It seemed empty, but a copse of trees bounded it on the far side, and Jonah thought he saw ...

  A big bay horse, grazing amongst the trees. Too far away to be sure, but he was sure anyway. A mare. Henrietta.

  He’d found her.

  The gate wasn’t locked, so he pulled the hasp and went through.

  In the rush of excitement that he’d found her, and his hurry to get to her, Jonah forgot his caution. He was ten feet from that grey porch when the screen door crashed open and a young man—not much more than a boy, though he had a man’s size—stormed out. He, too, had a rifle, and he didn’t bother to brandish it.

  He shot it, running down the steps right at Jonah.

  White-hot fire tore through Jonah’s middle as the shot found its target. It took him off his feet and sent him flying back. He landed hard on the grass near that round bed of flowers, his own rifle pinned uselessly beneath him, and heard the rifle cock again.

  Elijah. Bluebird. The faces of his children rose into his mind as he understood he would never see them again. At least he hadn’t left them in the cabin alone. At least he’d known enough to leave them with people who’d care for them.

  “CHANCEY, STOP! STOP!”

  Ada’s voice rose up in a shriek, and Jonah tried to sit up. But his belly was on fire.

  “GET AWAY!” she shouted, and his heart broke. She was going to drive him away, too?

  But then she was there, her beautiful face like an angel floating above him, the day’s sun turning her red hair into a blazing halo. He tried to see an injury, but all he saw was that gorgeous hair, and her sweet face, haggard with crying.

  “Ada,” he gasped. “Who hurt you?”

  “Jonah!” She set her hands on the fire in his belly, and he groaned as she pressed down on it.

  “Got shot.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—how did you know?”

  She wasn’t asking how he knew he got shot. His mind was filling with thunder, and the noise made it hard to think, bu
t he knew she was asking how he’d known where she was. “You didn’t come. Had to find you. Who hurt you?”

  Her angelic face turned from him, and she looked at someone or something out of his narrowing range of vision. Her voice sharpened into an angry order. “Help me get him inside, and then go for Doc!”

  The boy-man who’d shot him lurched into his view, and Jonah tried to get ready to fight.

  “It’s alright, Jonah. It’s alright.”

  With Ada at his side, he let the boy-man lift him to his feet and drag him into Ada’s house.

  They helped him through the small house, into a small room, and laid him on a small bed. Jonah’s belly was full of fire, and his head spun.

  “Ada Lee?” a woman called out, her voice wavering with age.

  “It’s alright, Momma! This is a friend.” Ada glared at the boy-man she called Chancey. “Go get Doc Dollens. Now!”

  Chancey left, and Ada sat on the narrow bed at Jonah’s hip and began to unfasten his overalls. Jonah tried to help her, but couldn’t make his hands do what he told them.

  “Ada Lee!” her mother called again. By the sound of it, there were a few walls between her and them. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Momma, I’ll come to you soon’s I can!” Ada’s tone was sharp, and when she sighed, the breath carried a load of weariness.

  It took all his focus and made the fire inside him roar, but Jonah brought his hand up and covered hers with it. “I’m sorry, Ada. I was ... scared for you.”

  She lifted her wonderful pale green eyes, soft and clear as the sweetest cool water, to his. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t get word to you. I didn’t know how to tell you.” Tears filled those eyes and made them blur.

  “Who hurt you?” He raised his hand to touch her face, but saw his fingers covered in blood. He let his arm fall back to the bed.

  She shook her head. “Not me. My daddy. Somebody ...” her voice caught, and her tears fell. “He killed my daddy!”

  Then somebody had hurt her, had taken a loved one from her. Jonah was intimately acquainted with that brutal pain. “Ah, darlin’, I’m—”