Jolene

by Mercedes Lackey

  Well, it was pretty obvious that Maddie had told Sue she was supposed to be there as a chaperone, even if Sue wouldn’t own up to the fact. So all Anna could overtly do was admire Josh’s work and heap praise on his carving, and all he could do was be modest about it while asking her about herself. He treated each bit of information he coaxed out of her—and it wasn’t much, seeing as her life hadn’t consisted of anything but Bible-reading, chores, and the annual Methodist Christmas party and Fourth of July picnic—as if it was of the same exotic interest to him as her Great-Granpappy’s journal was to her. It was disconcerting and flattering and exciting, all at once, to be the center of such interest.

  And he hinted, more than once, that if he didn’t get another such commission soon, he was going to see about more visits—either her coming down to the farm, or him coming up to the cabin. The look he gave Sue when he said that made it very clear he’d be happy to be free of his sister’s interference. The look she gave him back challenged, Y’all jest try an’ git shut of me, Joshua Holcroft.

  So by the time the day came—with Aunt Jinny laying on another layer of Glory on the shield over the cabin and garden to ensure the safety of the chickens and pigs in their absence, and asking the Domovoy to protect them while she and Anna were gone—she was nearly beside herself with excitement. She had all her “best” things on, from the skin out, and a nice new straw hat she had braided and pieced together herself, with “ribbons” made of the carefully joined scraps from her new underthings. With a lot of scrubbing and a long bleaching in the sun, the skirt and apron she had arrived in were in what she would have considered a fit state to go to church in, and the best of the salvaged shirts had been made a little prettier with a couple rows of pintucks down the front, and a faded pink ribbon tied into a bow under the collar. She’d taken a bath the night before and washed and dried her hair, and as usual she had put it up carefully with Jolene’s hairpins. And while she was out this morning feeding the hens, she’d snitched a bit of lavender, and rubbed it into her wrists and behind her ears.

  Her aunt either didn’t notice these preparations, or had decided to act as if she hadn’t. And as for Aunt Jinny—well, she’d taken a bath as well, and put on a clean shirt and set of overalls, but she had scraped her hair up to the top of her head so tightly that Anna’s eyes watered in sympathy, bound it into a hard knot, and jammed her straw hat down over the top of it. Anna had thought that she would at least make the concession to other people’s ideas of what was proper by putting on a skirt—but no.

  Wall, she’s been here a long time. Mebbe them folks in Ducktown’re useter her ways by now.

  She somehow managed to keep herself from running down the lane to the Holcrofts’, but it was with a supreme effort, and her heart actually felt as if it stopped for a moment when she saw Josh standing in the bed of his father’s wagon, doing something back there, while his father checked the harness on their mule.

  When they got to the wagon, she saw what it was he was doing. They’d put straw in the wagonbed, and a hessian sack over the straw, and the angel-baby was cradled in both. Josh was just making sure there was no way the statue could move around back there. He glanced up—when the mule reacted to their presence by looking at them and snorting loudly—smiled, and waved.

  “Pa says y’all should ride up front with him, Miz Jinny,” he said, when they were within conversational distance. “Anna an’ me’ll ride in back and keep this here statchoo steady.”

  “Better yore behinders than mine,” Jinny replied, with a glance at Anna that said, as clearly as speaking, Y’all ain’t foolin’ me one bit, chile. Anna flushed, but was more than happy to have Josh lift her up into the wagonbed and show her where to sit, while Matt Holcroft came around and took his spot on the driver’s side of the bench, and Aunt Jinny hoisted herself up beside him.

  Matt clucked to the mule and slapped her back gently with the reins, and off she went, at a sedate pace.

  “Rosie don’t much like a-goin’ inter Ducktown,” Josh said, as if to excuse the mule’s reluctance to move any faster. “Don’t rightly blame her. Ev’ time I go down there, m’nose an’ eyes start a-burnin’, an’ m’throat gits raw. Reckon they’s plenty wrong with the place, like yore aunt says. Think I tol’ y’all it ain’t no use makin’ stuff in marble cause it don’t last down there?”

  Anna looked over the statue that lay between them. “Aunt Jinny says thet too. Not ’bout the marble, but she says the pizen goes up from the smelters, inter th’air, then down as rain.”

  “Ain’t no doubt,” he agreed. “It’s pizened from one end’ve the Ducktown Basin t’ t’other. I dunno how anybody c’n stand t’live thar. I cain’t get outa thar fast enough when I gotta go.” He sighed. “Makes me wisht there was a faster way there an’ back. I mean, there is, iffen I had a hoss, but I cain’t carry stone an’ finished pieces on a hoss, so hevin’ a hoss wouldn’t do much good.” He scratched his unruly hair and grinned sheepishly at her. “Reckon I made a muddle of ’splainin’ thet.”

  “I unnerstood it jest fine,” she assured him, acutely aware that her heart was beating just a little faster, and she was feeling just a trifle breathless around him. But not the kind of “breathless” she’d been when she’d been so sick. No, this was a distinctly pleasant sensation. “Whatcher do when y’all ain’t carvin’ headstones?”

  “Pa don’t arst me t’do nothin’ thet’ll harm my hands,” he said, as the wagon rolled through a crick bed, and they braced themselves against the sides. “So it’s whatever chores what don’t come with th’ chance of choppin’ ’em off, or sechlike. So, no choppin’ firewood. No usin’ a scythe or a sickle. Thet leaves plenty, though. I c’n still hoe an’ chop weeds with th’ hoe in th’ garden. I c’n drive Rosie on th’ cultivator, or th’ plow, or th’ harvester or the mower.” He laughed. “Pa finds me plenty t’do.”

  “Devil finds work fer idle hands,” his father said over his shoulder.

  “Plus, like I tol’ y’all when we fust met, I do other carvin’ when I got th’ material. I’m plumb outa pearl shell though, so I cain’t do knife handles, nor gun grips right now.”

  “Wonder iffen they’s anybody ’round Ducktown that’d pay fer a fancy cane?” she wondered aloud, having vague recollection of seeing a cane with a dog head at a Christmas party one year—had the mine owner been the proud possessor of the thing?—and being fascinated by it. It had been so realistic that child-her had wanted to pet it. “Y’all could do thet in wood.”

  “Say!” he exclaimed. “Reckon yer right! I’ll arst—no, I gotter better ideer. I’ll go ahead an’ make one, an’ put it with Mistuh Clay what runs th’ gen’ral store. I put stuff with ’im all th’ time, an’ we see iffen anybody’ll pay. Yer a smart gel, Anna May Jones!”

  She blushed with pleasure, and his grin broadened to see it.

  “Reckon a dog head’d be nice,” she offered shyly. “Or mebbe a eagle.”

  “Wood carves easy,” he pointed out. “Quicker’n stone. Reckon I might as well do both.”

  “But what if this baby’s Ma wants y’all t’make another statchoo fer her parlor?” she continued.

  “Iffen it’s a-goin inter th’ parlor, I c’n make it smaller, an’ make it outa marble,” he said. “They’s plenty marble ’round here, jest lyin’ about. I c’n hack th’ rotten bits off a bigger piece an’ hev ’nough good marble t’make a liddle life-sized statchoo ’bout yay so big.” He measured out a length of about a foot with his hands apart. “Thet won’t take near as long as th’ headstone did, an’ marble’s softer an’ easier t’carve an’ polish. An’ it’ll be good money!”

  “An’ it’ll fit inna parlor better’n this,” she pointed out.

  “Donchew count yore chickens afore they’s hatched, Josh,” his father said, looking over his shoulder.

  “Ain’t a-countin’ chickens, Pa,” Josh replied, as his father turned his attention back to
the road. “Jest speculatin’ on how to do her, if she’s wanted.” He laughed. “Now, speculatin’ on how ter spend the money, that’d be countin’ chickens.”

  The straw hat nodded. “Point made,” Matt Holcroft replied easily.

  Anna marveled at how Matt Holcroft spoke to his son as if he was a man grown, and nearly Matt’s equal. Certainly her Ma and Pa had never spoken to or of her, as if she was grown, nor had Aunt Jinny. But then, Josh was bringing good cash money into the household on a very regular basis, so probably his father figured he’d earned the right to be treated as grown. She tried not to think too hard about the fact that she was doing the opposite, pulling money out of Jinny’s household rather than bringing it in.

  ’Cause I am helpin’ with the chores, and I am helpin’ with the potions, she reminded herself. And the more I larn, the more I c’n he’p.

  Maybe one of these days she could actually do something her aunt couldn’t!

  Josh was looking down at his statue, which looked perfect to her, but the discontent on his face suggested he thought he could have done better. “Iffen I gits th’ chance t’do a liddle one in marble, there’s a passel I could do t’make it purdier,” he said, looking up at her. “The wings ain’t quite right. Feathers don’t curve, they’s straight. The mouth ain’t right, neither. Face looks flat.”

  Well, she didn’t see any of that. But maybe that was because he was an artist and she wasn’t?

  She caught a little movement out of the corner of her eye, just as the wagon hit a section of rutted road and Josh reached out reflexively to steady his creation. To her amusement, a couple of the little Elemental critters, a mud-man and a thing made of chestnut leaves, nuts, and twigs, emerged from the straw. Had they been there all along? Or had they somehow just spontaneously generated from the straw? Or had they just appeared “by magic”?

  The mud-man clambered over the straw and her ankle to come stand on the hind end of the statue, looking down at it, as if examining it critically. The other one climbed her skirt to tug at her hand. She opened it obediently, and it climbed into her palm to survey the statue from this loftier perch. She repressed a giggle—held it back because Josh would have no idea what she was laughing at—when she heard a snort from Josh.

  She looked up to see he was staring at her hand, grinning, as if he could see the Elemental too.

  Then he looked up to meet her astonished eyes.

  You seed ’em too? she mouthed at him.

  He nodded.

  What ’bout yore Pa?

  He shook his head, then mouthed back at her, We’ll talk later.

  Well, she durned well hoped they’d talk later! The fact that he could see the Elementals too made her so excited she wanted to bust!

  But the two critters evidently had seen all they cared to. The one in her hand hopped down and buried itself in the straw, followed by the mud-man. And when she cautiously parted the straw where they had vanished, there was nothing there.

  She looked up at Josh again. He shrugged, as if he was quite used to Elementals appearing and vanishing before his eyes.

  “What I’m a-hankerin’ fer, more’n anythin’ else in th’ world,” Josh said aloud, as if picking up a conversation in the middle, “is somethin’ I cain’t git in Ducktown, an’ I ain’t sure where I can git it. I only knows it’ll be purdy dear iffen I c’n find it, so I gotter save fer it.”

  “What’s thet?” she asked, going along with this line of conversation.

  “Carvin’ tools. The kind what real artists use. Every size’a stone chisel there is, an’ I know they’s liddler ones than I got, fer carvin’ agate stones inter cameos. An’ I want wood carvin’ chisels too, on account’a they’s some carvin’ easier done with a chisel than a knife. An’ I want real wood carvin’ knives, not jest a penknife, nor a clasp-knife, nor a pig-sticker.” He sighed. “None’a thet’s at th’ gen’ral store, an’ I don’ reckon they knows how t’git setch stuff. The stone chisels I got now’s on loan from Mistuh Cavenel. I want m’own.”

  Then his eyes got a distant look in them. “I wanter learn how t’cast metal, too. I c’n make stuff in clay, but how d’ye go from a clay statchoo to a bronze one?”

  “I dunno,” she said into the silence, impressed by his ambition, his hunger to learn things. Clearly there were visions of works in his head that he was itching to get out and into material form—but he didn’t have the knowledge or the tools. And that frustrated him.

  Then he shrugged and smiled at her. “Might’s well wish fer the moon, aye?”

  “Wall, Cavenel gots his chisels from somewhere, so he oughter know where t’start lookin’,” she pointed out. “And ain’t they moo-seums jest fer art?” Where had she heard that? She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was her Ma?

  “Aye,” Aunt Jinny said, turning around. “Your Granny set a powerful store by readin’ ’bout th’ doin’s in th’ big cities. She useter git nooze-papers sent to ’er from all over arter th’ War. I allus thunk it was useless hankerin’ arter thin’s she’d niver see, but iffen it kep’ ’er happy, thet kep’ Pa happy, so it weren’t no skin offen my nose. An’ there was plenty in them papers ’bout ar-teests an’ moo-seums, an’ somethin’ called galleries. She useter read thet stuff out loud arter dinner, so I know Maybelle heard ’bout thangs like thet.”

  “So iffen I got a-hold of one o’ them papers, I could find out about sech places, an’ I could write to ’em, an arst ’em where t’get sech tools!” Josh exclaimed.

  Aunt Jinny shrugged. “Reckon y’all could. Reckon they’s folks in Cleveland what gits them papers sent to ’em regular. Reckon y’all could git someone t’give y’all th’ old ones. Reckon th’ man ter arst’d be Jeb Sawyer in Cleveland, since he does cartin’ work all over Cleveland, an’ I reckon he knows th’ rag-an’-bone man. So there’s yer start.” Anna could tell that her aunt was highly amused by the way Josh was about to bust; that was why she was doling out the information a little at a time. “An’ I reckon I c’n send along a note fer him next time I sends a batch’a potions t’ Anna’s Ma.”

  “Miz Jinny, I swan, I could kiss y’all!” Josh burst out.

  “Here now, ain’t no call fer thet,” she objected mildly. “An’ don’t fergit what y’all said at th’ beginnin’. Them things is gonna be purdy dear. So y’all’ll prolly know where t’ git ’em long afore y’all’s got the money t’ buy ’em.”

  “It’s easier savin’ when I knows what I’m a-savin’ fer,” he pointed out.

  Aunt Jinny just smiled very faintly and went back to her conversation with Josh’s father, which seemed to be about some small trades for butter and cheese.

  They had been traveling for about an hour when the mule suddenly slowed down and began shaking her head. Matt slapped the reins on her back and made encouraging noises and she picked her pace back up to a brisk walk, but clearly was not happy about something up ahead of her.

  “Ducktown Basin’s over thet ridge ahead,” Josh observed. “Mule c’n already smell it, and she don’t like it one bit.”

  Anna had started out the day under her shield, so she wasn’t feeling sick, but she did detect a faint, unpleasant tinge to the air. And that was when she got an idea.

  She put her finger to her lips to warn Josh to be quiet, then gathered the Glory to herself and with a push of her hands, sent it toward the poor mule. Drawing the four signs in the air that Aunt Jinny had taught her for this Work, as her aunt called such things, she set the same sort of shield on the mule as she had on herself.

  But smaller. Focusing on the mule’s head, because she reckoned what bothered the beast the most was the poison in the air. And it wasn’t as if the mule was a fellow Earth Magician who would feel sickened by the poisons around her. She only needed to be shielded from what bothered her in the air.

  As soon as she had completed her self-appointed task, her aunt turned slowly—and far too casually�
�to look at her. But the look she gave Anna was one of approval. Then she turned back to Matt Holcroft, and made some inquiries about his other children. The mule, meanwhile, gave a surprised snort in reaction to sudden liberation from the noxious smell.

  The wagon topped the ridge—and Anna gasped at the devastation spread out in front of her.

  For as far as the eye could see, the landscape consisted of bare red earth that looked as if it had been blasted by the hand of God. Naked mounds of clay, furrowed with erosion fissures, rose between gullies created by rain that had no vegetation to hold it. It was not entirely fair to say that nothing grew in this nightmare landscape—here and there a struggling tree or clump of bushes attempted to survive, and there were a few scattered patches of weeds, but all their leaves were yellow and burnt at the edges, the branches spindly and failing utterly to thrive, and not even insects were trying to make a meal of them.

  In the middle distance was Ducktown, its homes and businesses clustered around the smelter and minehead of the Burra Burra copper mine. The mine and smelter stood on a hill above most of the town. There were a few—a very few—trees there. Many fewer than were inside the Soddy town limits. Ducktown did not have Soddy’s soot and black smoke, but the white smoke that billowed from the smelter’s chimney must be the source of that harsh, sulfurous stink that got through Anna’s shields. For a moment she wondered if her shields weren’t working—but Josh’s tearing eyes told her that those shields were successfully protecting her from the worst of it. And she realized when she saw him go pale—he probably wasn’t as sensitive as she was, because if he’d been strong in the Glory, he’d have been able to shield himself, but nevertheless, he was sensitive enough to be sickened by the poisoned earth around him.

  Although the energies of the earth were distinctly skewed here, she quickly mustered enough to shield Josh as well, and the look of gratitude he gave her as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand made her flush with pleasure.