Sweetwater Run

by Jan Watson

  “That old lady you lived with, were her spells like Mammaw’s?” Darcy asked, scared to hear the answer.

  Remy perched on the edge of her chair. She poured hot tea in her saucer before taking a loud slurp. She seemed to be studying the question. Darcy wondered if she ever talked without mulling her words over first.

  “Not perzactly,” Remy allowed. “Hezzy’d be gathering eggs one minute or sweeping the front porch and the next she’d be flat out on the ground. Usually she’d know beforehand. She’d say, ‘I’m having a sinking spell.’ I learned to fetch the honey pot then.”

  Darcy stirred her tea. She’d yet to take a taste. “I sure wish Miz Copper was home. She’d know what to do.”

  “She’s good at doctoring,” Remy said.

  “Have you heard from her? Seems like they’d be back from visiting her father and stepmother by now.”

  “She got grounded by the doctor up yonder. Says she can’t travel until the young’uns are borned.”

  “Young’uns? She’s having twins?”

  “Yup.”

  “Forevermore. I’ll have to tell the folks at church. I know Miz Copper will want our prayers.” Darcy brought a spoon of tea to her lips, but she couldn’t swallow. Guilt backed up from her heart, nearly strangling her. “Do you reckon I shocked Mammaw so bad she had a stroke?”

  Remy fixed her with a steady look. “Sticks and stones. If words could kill, we’d all be wearing oak-board overcoats.”

  Darcy slapped a hand over her mouth, but she was so tickled she couldn’t help but laugh. Her teacup rattled in the saucer, and the spoon clattered to the floor. “Remy,” she sputtered, “that’s the funniest thing I ever heard.”

  “It’s the truth though, ain’t it?” Remy said before taking another long sup.

  “Remy,” Darcy started, then hesitated. It was hard to spit out words that should have been said many times before. “I thank you for being so kind to me and Mammaw.”

  “I ain’t much use for anything except being good to old folks and animals,” Remy replied with her usual frank stare. “I reckon it’s my talent. The one the Lord gave special to me.”

  Darcy relaxed. It felt right to be chatting with Remy. Maybe she wasn’t so different after all. “Whatever happened to that fox that used to follow you around?”

  “Foxy got old and passed on like everything is prone to do. I figure I’ll see her again when I pass through the pearly gates.”

  “That’s sure a happy thought,” Darcy said and drained her cup. “More tea?”

  “Nope. I’ll just go check on Fairy Mae; then I’m heading home.”

  Darcy tapped her two fingers against her lips. “I was thinking I’d like to measure you for a dress before you go. I’ve got some printed calico you might like.”

  For a moment Remy’s eyes looked wary, like a barn cat’s when offered a treat. “I wouldn’t want nothing fancy,” Remy finally said. “And it would have to hang straight down. I don’t like me no bindings.”

  Darcy smiled. She felt as if Remy had given her a great gift. The gift of trust.

  “I wouldn’t even need a pattern,” Darcy responded, fetching her measuring tape. “How about a pretty bonnet to match?”

  A week to the day later, Darcy stepped outside the cabin into the most melancholy of times. Twilight in lavender hues of loneliness tiptoed down the mountains and crept across the yard. When she was a girl, she and her brothers and sisters would play Mother, may I? or hide-and-seek on summer evenings. She remembered her mother sitting on the porch with her face turned away. Was she missing Darcy’s father when she sat like that, lost in sadness? Did she yearn for him like Darcy now yearned for Henry?

  The gloaming of the day was different for children, she supposed. Dusk was just a signal to squeeze in a little more fun before they had to go indoors and wash their feet before bed. Somewhere from beyond the yard, a mourning dove cooed its plaintive song. Lightning bugs flew low to the ground, flashing their strange cold light, like lanterns signaling a sweetheart.

  Darcy sank down on a bench placed against the wall of the porch, hugging her arms close against the chill night air, glad to have a minute to herself. Mammaw had eaten cinnamon toast and applesauce for supper. Darcy carefully cut the toast in small squares and watched as Mammaw pinched each piece between her fingers and aimed for her mouth. Same with the applesauce spoon—sometimes it landed closer to her ear. It was like watching Dance’s set-along baby, Cleve, eat. Mammaw seemed to enjoy supper, though, banging her spoon against the table with a smile instead of frustration like she sometimes used to do.

  The upshot of Mammaw’s spell last week was that childlike manner. Nothing seemed to bother her except Remy’s leave-taking. Remy came each day now, helping with one thing or another. Darcy enjoyed her company, and she thought Remy stood three inches taller when she wore her new dress and hat to church last Sunday evening. Funny what a pretty frock would do for a gal’s outlook.

  A salty tear ran the length of Darcy’s face and settled in the corner of her mouth. She shook out a fancy handkerchief with crocheted edges and dabbed delicately at her nose. It hurt to think of Sunday—for Henry hadn’t come calling as she had hoped. And yesterday, when she took a package to the post office, the cardboard sign in the office window said, Closed.

  Another tear slipped down her face, and her heart ached just remembering how it felt to stand there on the sidewalk—missing him. How could you love a person as much as she loved Henry and not even know where they were on any given day?

  She still couldn’t believe what she’d done next, sneaking down the alley between Henry’s law office and the barbershop next door. Thankfully, the street was quiet and nobody seemed to take notice. Maybe he was out back saddling his horse or some such manly thing. She was surprised to find the lot behind the office was enclosed by a high wooden fence. The fencerow was neat as a pin. Neither a weed nor an unruly blade of grass could be seen. Beyond the yard she could see a stable painted black.

  Gathering her courage, she had marched right up to the stable and knocked—like she had every right to be there. She pressed her eye to a crack between the double doors and peered into its shadowy depths. “Henry?” Her voice quivered. Her burst of bravado was quickly fading.

  But something stirred beyond the door. Her heartbeat quickened in anticipation. But, no, she realized, it was not Henry, just an old dog unfurling from sleep on a bed of gunnysacks. The dog yawned and stretched before he ambled over and stuck his graying muzzle through the narrow gap in the door. She slid her hand in sideways and scratched the top of his long nose. She didn’t even know Henry had a dog.

  “Barooo!” she heard from behind. A second dog barked and threw itself with mighty thumps against the yard gate. “Barooo!” It sounded like a hound and maybe a mean one. Soon barks and brays from all up and down the street answered the call. Half a dozen or more dogs of various breeds shot through the alleys and headed her way. With a mighty heave, she slid one of the heavy, double-hung doors open just far enough to slip through. She’d take her chances with the old dog.

  Everything inside the barn was as orderly as Henry himself. His tools from saw to claw hammer were tidily arranged in order of size on a shelf. A rake, shovel, and pitchfork hung from nails against the wall. The absence of his horse told her he was gone.

  She stayed in the stable for the longest time, watching dust motes dance in a beam of sunlight. Stayed until the pack of dogs wandered away—stayed even though she wasn’t sure Henry would be glad to have her there. After a while, the old dog went back to sleep and the other one stopped throwing itself against the fence. Darcy crept out then, like a thief in the night, but the only thing stolen was her dignity.

  Now she sat on her own porch in the twilight still unsure of Henry’s intent. Was he finished with her? Why had he said he loved her anyway? And what would a man like Henry, so handsome and so sure, want in a woman like herself?

  Thinking of Henry stayed her restless heart for a little whi
le—until the dove cooed again. There was something so forlorn about the bird’s call, like all the hurt in the world settled right there in that one sound. Darcy’s thoughts turned inward. Would Henry ever come for her again? Would she go with him if he did?

  From the road she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves fast approaching. Could it be Henry? She tossed her apron toward the bench and raced barefoot across the darkening yard. The horse didn’t slow, and the stranger upon its back didn’t even tip his hat when he saw her standing there.

  Disappointed, Darcy turned back. Once safely off the road, she scooped lightning bugs from the air. Though they were captured in her cupped hand, their flashing signals did not cease but sped up as if they sensed their time to find true love was threatened. Taking pity, Darcy uncurled her fist and watched as the tiny beetles climbed to the ends of her fingers before launching heavenward.

  Darcy smiled for the first time that evening. Life for the fireflies was fleeting, lasting only a season—and love was hard to find. She would take her chance with Henry. The light of love was worth it.

  CHAPTER 20

  CARA’S GARDEN WAS BURSTING with life. She had been neglectful of it, busy helping Dance and also visiting with Fairy Mae since her health took a setback last week. Cara scooted a basket along the ground with her foot, dropping fistfuls of green beans into it as she went. Soon she’d have enough beans to can a dozen quarts. And there would be more tomorrow.

  When she was a schoolgirl, Cara had learned about a beautiful garden, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Her teacher, Miss Chandler, had each student in her fourth-grade class write a paper on a different wonder. Cara’s piece was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

  Cara could recall nearly every word she’d written: “There was a king in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who married a mountain princess. The king had a brick terrace built four hundred feet square and seventy-five feet above the ground. He filled the garden with flowers and all manner of fruit trees. The beautiful Hanging Gardens of Babylon were watered from the Euphrates River. King Nebuchadnezzar built this wonder because he wanted his mountain princess to feel at home.”

  What a romantic story. She remembered her little girl self puzzling over the name Nebuchadnezzar, practicing the spelling of it over and over with chalk on slate before daring to set it down. Miss Chandler had doled out one sheet of lined paper for each student, and Cara was determined not to mess hers up.

  Cara had loved her teacher. Miss Chandler was from someplace up north as foreign to Cara as Babylon. She always wore a snow-white blouse with a navy blue skirt, and her laced-up shoes never lacked for polish. She was by far Cara’s favorite, though she taught only one year in the one-room schoolhouse on Troublesome Creek. Teachers didn’t last long there.

  Cara stopped among the pole beans. Gazing out over her little patch of ground, she wondered how things would have turned out if she had stayed in school. Miss Chandler taught so much more than reading and writing and arithmetic, simple things, really, about manners and hygiene and how to present oneself. She could still hear her teacher’s voice: “Ain’t fell in a bucket of paint,” she would say whenever one of her students used that word, and, “Monkeys’ words and monkeys’ faces always appear in public places,” when she caught one of the boys carving his initials on his desk.

  Cara bent to pick up a couple of beans that had missed the basket. Fourth grade was her last year of formal schooling, but Miss Chandler’s lessons stayed forever with Cara.

  On her last day as their teacher, Miss Chandler had called Cara aside. “Stay in school. When you graduate, write to me. I will help you get into teacher’s training.”

  All of Miss Chandler’s words were pearls. But Mama needed Cara at home. There were babies to help raise and times were hard. Daddy saw that each of his children made it through fourth grade, though. It was a gift he gave.

  “I wonder,” Cara quizzed the june bug that buzzed around her ears, “would Miss Chandler be proud of me? Or would she be disappointed in how I’ve turned out? Just one more woman with a hoe in a garden patch. Just one more woman up a holler trying to keep her feet steady on the ground where she was planted.” The bug lit on a dark green tomato leaf, the perfect camouflage. “Good choice,” Cara said, deciding to let him be. “Land on the ground and the chickens will have you for dinner.”

  Now Cara took in her surroundings. Though it was midmorning, a cool curtain of fog still outlined the banks of Sweetwater Creek. In random places sunbeams penetrated the heavy mist, casting golden beams on a radiant cucumber blossom here, a tiny cushaw baby there.

  High overhead, a mockingbird trilled a festive song, flitting from one melody to another quick as a honeybee on clover. Creek water burbled over moss-covered rock, its tune sweetly underlying the mockingbird’s call. Just as sweetly, the sharp scent of wild honeysuckle tickled her nose, and she sneezed lightly into the handkerchief she kept tucked up the cuff of her sleeve.

  Surely there wasn’t a prettier place on God’s green earth than her garden on this day. It was as if she had her own piece of Babylon right here—for a garden was a garden. And Cara’s was beautiful and full of grace.

  When Cara was finished with her chores, she walked the familiar path to the Sheltons’. Dance was chopping cabbage at a makeshift table under the shade of a maple tree. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the crook of her arm. Pauline napped on a pallet under the table, and beside her Cleve gnawed on the core from a cabbage. Merky sat on one end of the table with a pan of soapy water, playing at washing canning-jar lids.

  “It all came on at once,” Dance said, indicating a bushel basket of cabbage heads.

  “Worms got most of mine. But my beans need putting up.” Cara looked around the yard. “Where’re the boys?”

  Dance gave a small jerk of her head toward the mountain beyond the well house. “Off with their pa. He’s in a twist because his springwater has dried up. Some critter tore into the plumbing most likely.”

  Cara sliced a head of cabbage neatly in half, then quarters. Dance worked her knife over the pieces until all was slivered, ready for making kraut. Little Cleve banged his piece of cabbage against Cara’s bare ankle. Merky laughed as water splashed the front of her shift.

  Dance shook her finger. “Merky Mae, stop wasting that water.”

  “At least she’s staying cool,” Cara said. “Man, it’s hot today.”

  “It’s summer,” Dance replied. “Supposed to be hot.”

  “Well,” Cara said, “that’s true enough. She popped a piece of cabbage into her mouth, liking the good, solid crunch of it. “Have you heard from Fairy Mae since we all went over Sunday?”

  “We went by last evening. Darcy says she ain’t talking anymore.” Dance’s chopping was even faster. She slid her blade under a mound of cabbage and added it to a nearly full pan.

  Cara sighed. “I’m sorry, Dance.”

  Dance let down her guard. “Mammaw was always good to me. I cain’t hardly stand to see her slipping away.”

  “Me neither. If there is a better person than Fairy Mae Whitt, I’ve never met them.” Cara whacked another globe of cabbage. “Do you reckon Darcy needs me to come help out for a spell? I could stay as long as needed if Ace could watch out for my garden and my chickens.”

  “Darcy’s got that friend of Miz Copper’s staying over right now. Mammaw seems to like her.”

  “Oh, Remy Riddle, sure. She’s a good hand with old folks. She took care of Hezzy Krill, you recollect.” Cara set to washing and rinsing jars before carrying them to the kettle of steaming water set over the fire. “So you think Darcy’s doing okay?”

  Dance shrugged dismissively. “Darcy Whitt will do fine as long as that oily Henry Thomas keeps his distance.”

  “She seems to be taken with him.”

  Dance snorted. “She’s got no business. Man like him has only one thing on his mind.”

  A welcome breeze stirred the leaves over their heads. Cara lifted her skirts above her ankles fo
r a moment. “I expect she’s pretty lonesome sometimes.”

  Dance whacked her knife through a cabbage so hard the blade stuck in the tabletop. “Play with fire, set on the blister,” she said, rocking the blade out.

  Even though the breeze continued, it seemed like the temperature shot up ten degrees there under the sugar maple. Cara could see that Darcy was a sore subject with Dance. “Can I have some lids, Miss Merky?”

  “Here you go,” Merky sang, fishing them one by one from the soapy water. “Here you go again.”

  “Just dump the water off, Cara,” Dance said. “Merky, get down.”

  Chastised, Merky crawled under the table to play with Cleve.

  Cara handed her a piece of cabbage. “You’ll be nice and cool under there, little girl.” She wished she’d thought to bring the doll she’d finished last evening. Finally happy with the head, she’d attached it to the body Darcy had sewed and stuffed with cotton batting, then fitted with the dearest dress and bonnet. This would have been a good time to give the gift to Merky, while the boys were off with Ace. She didn’t want them to feel left out. Perhaps she should whittle a couple of whistles for them and a rattle for Cleve first.

  “Cara!” Dance said. “Why are ye just standing there with your hair on your head and your teeth in your mouth? Them jars are boiling dry.”

  “Oops, sorry. I’ll just slip these lids in.” Cara hurried over to the kettle with the clean lids. She didn’t mind Dance’s sharp words. It was just her way. Also, Cara thought it a good sign that Ace had taken Jay along with him to fix the springwater contraption. Things were looking up for the Shelton household.

  Cara stayed for supper, much of which she cooked. Jay caught a pullet for her and held its feet while she neatly chopped the head off and set it down. The headless hen took off, trailing blood, until it collapsed a few feet away.

  “I don’t hardly like seeing them run that way,” Jay said.

  She studied the boy while she rinsed the hatchet. Her brothers had always laughed when watching a freshly slaughtered chicken’s last movements. And the yellow, clawed feet were toys for them. You could pull on a tendon and make them open and close. Jay was different—compassionate, probably because he’d had so much responsibility at a very young age.