by Jan Watson
Cara thumbed the pages. Her fingers felt thick as corncobs. Her family had never read the Bible much when she was growing up. Though she knew Ace didn’t judge her, she felt ignorant as she let the books of the Old Testament slip through her fingers like falling leaves: Genesis, Exodus, Esther, Psalms, Amos, Micah, Malachi, and many others, but no Romans.
“Look in the New Testament,” Ace said kindly. “You’ll find Romans between Acts and Corinthians. It’s one of Paul’s epistles.”
Cara wasn’t about to tell him she didn’t know what an epistle was, but she found Romans just where Ace said. She scanned the first chapter and lit on verse 7. “‘Beloved of God,’” she read, “‘called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.’”
Ace hung his carefully folded coat over the buggy seat. “Go to chapter 14, verse 13.”
Cara took a breath and squinted at the small type. It was not to be taken lightly, she knew, speaking the words of the Lord. She wasn’t sure if she was worthy, but she’d read it for Ace, who was laudable in her eyes. “‘Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.’ So you’re saying your whiskey still was Lump’s stumbling block?”
“Well,” Ace replied, “it led him to the path of his destruction.”
“You’re awful hard on yourself.”
“Preachers are held to a higher standard than other folks,” he said, reining the horse in.
“But you weren’t a preacher then,” Cara responded. “Don’t ye reckon God means for you to forgive yourself the same as you’d forgive someone else?”
The buggy rolled off the road and stopped under a canopy of beech and hickory nut trees. It was deep in green shadow and so quiet Cara could hear her own heart beating.
“Thank ye for that, Cara. I ain’t been at peace with myself since Lump’s funeral.”
“What happened to Lump?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. Probably beaten to death or starved at that prison. She couldn’t help but picture the same for Dimmert.
“Caught the grippe the first year he was sent up, God rest his soul. I always figured it to be a blessing.” Ace jumped down from the buggy seat and reached for her. “Are you up for a walk? I want to show you the spring where the sweetwater runs.”
“I’d surely like to see that.” She bent over to unbutton her high-tops. “Just let me slip off my good shoes first.”
Ace walked ahead, stopping now and then to hold back a briar for her safe passage or to snap a low-hanging twig that threatened to poke him in the eye. The farther they went, the lighter her heart became. They walked for fifteen minutes in harmony, the only sound their own footfalls upon the forest floor.
Cara stopped when she spied a stand of white dogwood on a ridge high above. Hands on hips she took in their beauty. She might climb up there on the way back and get a spray to take home. And she wouldn’t mind having a small limb if she could find one already on the ground. Cara liked to whittle, and the hard wood from a dogwood tree made sturdy round-headed clothespins and handy sharp skewers. She’d add it to her store of carving supplies.
Where had Ace got to? This particular area was not familiar to her. And what with hungry bears not long out of hibernation and rattlesnakes hiding under flat rocks just waiting for a tasty ankle to pass by, she didn’t fancy getting lost. What would happen to a body if she got snakebit while all alone with no one to suck the poison out? She reckoned the venom would race straightaway to her heart and stop its beat sure as an unwound clock lost its tick. She listened until she heard Ace’s heavy tread, then hurried to catch up.
His white shirt shone in the forest’s gloom like a candle flame on a dark night. Cara liked how Ace dressed up whenever he preached or went to town on business. It gave him some authority. One evening while visiting with Dance, she’d watched him press his black suit. She could still hear the hiss and pop of the heavy sadiron as he heated it on the cookstove and sense the heavy smell of wet wool as the suit coat steamed under a pressing cloth. Dance had sat at the kitchen table looking at him wearily. Cara had never seen a man with a sadiron in his hand.
“There you are,” Ace said when she caught up. “The spring is right around the bend.”
She could hear the burble of water as Ace directed her path. The spring issued forth from a rocky ledge and formed a long, narrow run through the grassy meadow like a small creek. “Where does it end?” she asked.
Ace pointed. “This part goes underground right over there in that stand of sycamores. But it also feeds the creek that runs by your place. I came upon the spring because I knew if I saw sycamores there’d be water. I was hunting for a good place to set up a still.”
Cara looked around. “You must have hid it good. I can’t see a thing.”
“I burned it to the ground when I got saved,” he said, “and buried the ashes.”
Cara nodded. She wondered if Ace had shared his sorrow with Dance and then figured he had not. Dance had burdens enough. While she watched, Ace tinkered with the plumbing he’d set up to carry some of the springwater down the mountain to his place. “That’s amazing,” she said. “How did you know to do that?”
“I like to fiddle with things. That’s all.” He indicated a fallen log. “Sit here and I’ll fetch you a drink. I keep a tin cup around here somewhere.”
Soon they were seated side by side sharing a cup of pure mountain water so cold it made her teeth ache. “Thank ye, Ace, for bringing me here. It took my mind off things for a little while.”
“Time will pass. Dimm will be home before you know it.”
She passed the tin cup to Ace. “You were going to tell me what it’s like inside the prison. Tell me true.”
“It’s big,” Ace said, “sits on several acres near the Kentucky River. It’s built of limestone and has these funny turrets on the front—looks kind of like a castle. Armed guards are stationed along the walls in watch boxes to keep the prisoners from escaping. Inside, the walls are brick except for the cell house, which is the same limestone as the wall.”
Cara shuddered. The prison sounded cold and desolate. She couldn’t picture her husband there.
“Don’t fret. It ain’t so bad. Dimm will do fine if he stays out of trouble.”
“What will he do all day?” She imagined Dimm shut up with nothing to occupy him. “Dimm ain’t one to sit around.”
“Oh, the prisoners work. They make chairs and cabinets, wagon beds and even shoes. Now that would be good, wouldn’t it?” Ace polished the toe of one shoe on the back of his pant leg and held it out for Cara to see. “Dimm could make new shoes for us.”
Cara tucked her bare feet under her skirt. “Dimm might like making wagons. Maybe he’ll make one and roll on out of there.”
“That wouldn’t be such a good idea. They’ll double his time if he tries to escape.”
“I was just joshing. Dimm knows better.”
“The good thing is he’ll be busy and the time will go quicker that way.” Ace reached up and broke a small limb, then hung the tin cup on the stub. “Even the women have jobs in prison.”
“Women! I can’t imagine why they’d pen a woman up like that.”
“Most anything a man is capable of doing, a woman is also. Plus, seems to me women get taken advantage of more than men.”
Cara followed Ace back the way they had come, being careful to keep up in the fading daylight. “What kind of work do the women do?” she wondered aloud.
“They mostly run the looms weaving hemp into bagging and rope. We’ll pray Dimm isn’t sent there. The dust coming off that hemp will choke your breath.” Ace held a long, weaving branch of blackberry briar so Cara could pass by. “I always thought that’s what happened to Lump. They told him to grow a mustache to filter the dust, but it didn’t help any. I reckon his lungs filled up with that nasty stuff.”
“Poor Lump.” Cara touched Ace’s
arm and he turned to her. “I’m so sorry about your friend, Ace.”
Though he was right before her, Ace seemed far away, as if his eyes saw distant worlds. “God works in mysterious ways to teach us life lessons. I wouldn’t be a preacher today if Lump hadn’t died.”
Goose bumps covered Cara’s arms, and a chill went up her spine. Somewhere a goose had walked over her grave. Following where Ace led, careful to mind her step, she pondered what had just been said. Was there something she needed to learn from losing Dimmert? She couldn’t imagine any good coming from a thing so painful. God was up there somewhere, but she didn’t reckon He had time to reach down with His powerful finger and stir things up on earth, like she’d stir her coffee when she couldn’t find a spoon.
Nope, hard times were just hard times, something to be survived. Ace’s sureness bothered her a little, though, and made her feel as if she was missing something important.
CHAPTER 6
THE REST OF THE RIDE HOME was quiet except for the sudden swarm of yellow-eyed, black-feathered grackles swooping en masse to light in the treetops lining the road. Cara covered her ears against their high-pitched rising screech. The birds sounded like hundreds of rusty hinges. Ace didn’t take notice; he seemed lost in thought. Cara let him be. She had enough words in her head to last awhile.
Her house looked lonesome from the road, the windows like haunted eyes, the door a dark reproach. When Ace stopped the buggy, she couldn’t seem to get out. Her legs were heavy as lead and her arms lay useless in her lap. Tears slipped from her eyes and tracked down her cheeks.
“Why don’t you go with me to pick up Dance and the young’uns?” Ace asked. “You could visit with Fairy Mae and Darcy—even spend the night if you want. They’d be glad to have you.”
“All right,” she said before she had time to think differently. “If you don’t care to take me.”
Fairy Mae Whitt’s sturdy little cabin was awash in light. Cara’s belly grumbled at the smell of fried chicken.
“Come on in here,” she heard Mammaw call out. “Come let me hug your neck.”
Mammaw, withered with age and crippled with rheumatism, sat propped up with pillows in an invalid’s chair. The big round wheels and the wide seat seemed to swallow her, but her eyes twinkled with merriment. She still had use of one arm, and Cara melted in the warmth of its embrace.
“Oh, Mammaw,” she said, “I don’t hardly think I can stand this.”
“I know, honey.” Mammaw gave an extra squeeze. “My heart’s a-breaking too.”
A little hand tugged at Cara’s skirt. “Merky,” she said, “my baby girl. Who’s been playing with your hair?”
Merky popped one finger out of her mouth and pointed at Darcy before Cara swung her high in the air.
Soon Wilton demanded his share of attention and even little Cleve held up his arms for a swing.
Jay sidled over to his great-grandmother’s chair. “Do ye have a riddle for me, Aunt Cara?”
Dance jiggled little Cleve on her hip and reproached the boy. “We don’t have time for playing.”
“It won’t get no darker in the time it takes for him to answer one riddle,” Ace said from the doorway.
Cara met Ace’s eyes. He shrugged. “Listen, Jay,” she said. “Here’s your clue: A house that carries its master. A house with eyes and mouth. A house that travels. Now you unravel.”
“That’s too easy,” Jay said. “It has to be a terrapin.”
Cara ruffled his dark hair. “You’re right as rain. I’ll have to think harder next time.”
“Do I still get my penny?”
“Me too,” Wilton demanded. “Where’s mine penny?”
“No penny for you, boy.” Dance said. “You’d eat it or stick it up your nose.”
Cara fished in her pocket for Jay’s penny and handed Wilton the bright blue jay feather she had forgotten was there. “This is for you, Willy-boy.”
Wilton took the feather and tasted the quill end.
“What do you say?” Ace asked.
“Thank you, Aunt Cara,” Jay said.
“Fanks,” Wilton echoed.
“Do we have to go home now?” Jay said. “I was just starting to have fun.”
“You could let the big kids spend the night,” Darcy said. “I could bring them home in the morning.”
“I reckon not,” Ace replied, retrieving the sleeping Pauline from a laundry basket and shooing his brood toward the door. “The house ain’t right without everybody there. Thank ye anyway.”
Soon the Shelton family was gone and Darcy had helped her mammaw to bed. Cara busied herself straightening the front room. It was strange to be in someone else’s house after dark.
“Let’s pop some corn,” Darcy said when she came back. “Then we can have a hen fest—just us girls.”
The corn popped when Darcy held the long-handled wire basket over the fire in the fireplace. The young women settled together on the hearth, a blue earthenware bowl between them.
“Wish we had some fudge,” Darcy said. “I like sweet and salty together.”
“This is enough for me,” Cara responded. “I don’t know when I ever ate popcorn last.”
“Was today real hard for you—seeing Dimm carted off that way?” Darcy asked.
“That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t stand to go into our house tonight, but I reckon I’ll do better tomorrow. It’s not like I haven’t been living there alone for a while. I just hoped . . .”
“I know. I know.” Darcy patted Cara’s knee. “I couldn’t believe what happened.”
“I blame that lawyer, that Henry Thomas. If he’d have done his job, Dimmert would be home tonight. Ace was hopping mad at him.”
Darcy’s face clouded.
She’s as easy to read as the weather in June, Cara thought. Clear as window glass.
“I thought he was a right nice fellow,” Darcy said.
“I could be wrong,” Cara replied. “It’s not like I know anything about the law, but it seems he could have tried harder.”
Darcy slipped off the hearth and knelt before Cara. “Can I tell you something? I’m going to bust if I don’t tell somebody!” Darcy’s round face was as innocent as Merky’s. Her brown hair was dressed for bed and hung in a single pigtail down her back.
A knot formed in Cara’s chest. Darcy was sweet as an all-day sucker and as easily shattered, Cara feared. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Today after I left the jailhouse, I happened to run into Henry—”
“Henry? You’re calling him by his first name?”
Darcy began to bank the fireplace ashes. The night was not so cold that they needed to keep it going. “He asked me to,” she said, sighing like the fire.
Cara carried the rest of the popcorn to the kitchen table and sat it beside the kerosene lamp. Darcy took a chair across from her. “Tell me the rest, Darcy.”
Darcy bounced in her seat; her eyes glowed. “Henry wants to court me! He called me his best girl.”
Cara was caught off guard. She didn’t like what she saw in that lawyer fellow. “What does Dance think about that? Shouldn’t you discuss this with her?”
Darcy shrugged as if her sister was of no consequence to her. “Dance doesn’t listen to anything but what’s inside her own head. Ever since my brothers and sisters left to live with Pa and his new wife, I haven’t really had a sister.”
“You must miss them something awful,” Cara said.
“Missing them is the hardest thing,” Darcy said. “It hurts worse than when my ma died, and I never thought I’d say that.”
“Why didn’t you go with them and your daddy?”
“I couldn’t leave Mammaw. I know you and Dimmert would have taken her in, but she needed me, and she was so good to us kids, giving us a home when we had nowhere else to go.”
The embers in the fireplace dimmed, and the popcorn grew cold. Cara took a shawl from the back of the chair on which she sat, wrapped it around her shoulders, and settled in t
o listen to Darcy’s story.
“I thought all us young’uns would starve to death after Ma took sick,” Darcy said. “Pa was off somewhere. He was a circuit riding preacher, you know. He didn’t even know when Ma died.”
Darcy began to weave the end of her long pigtail through the loom of her fingers. “It wasn’t that us big girls didn’t know how to cook; it was that there was nothing in the house to cook. And then there were the little kids to look out for and no milk for them to drink. Dimmert kept us going with whatever he could kill—squirrels and possums mostly. Possum ain’t bad if you bake it with onions.”
Cara kept quiet. She’d always wondered about Dimmert’s childhood, but when she asked, he dismissed her questions and rarely told her anything. He wasn’t one to dwell on the past. When she’d press, he would always reply, “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
“Anyway, Pa finally came home. Soon as he buried Ma, he packed up all us kids and brought us here to Mammaw Fairy Mae’s.” Darcy chewed a piece of corn and washed it down with tea. “Did Dimmert ever tell you how him and me wound up living with Miz Copper?”
“He’s told me some.”
“Mr. Pelfrey came by Mammaw’s one day—he was always doing this or that for her—and asked if maybe a couple of us bigger kids could go over there and help Miz Copper out. She was all alone with Lilly Gray, trying her best to make a go of that farm. Well, it was decided that Dimmert and I would be the ones. And am I glad. Miz Copper is the best, and the money she paid helped Mammaw take care of the others. And then of course, that’s how Dimmert met you, Cara, because of Miz Copper.”
“And am I glad,” Cara teased, getting up to pour more hot tea. “Yes, Dimmert first came by my house when Miz Copper was taking care of my little brother.”
