The Girl Called Ella Dessa: Will she ever be cherished for the inner beauty beneath her scars?

by Karen Campbell Prough

  The baby.

  He was alone inside. She brushed hair out of her face, stood, and faced the open door. I’ll have to be his mama. Her thoughts became more rational. She accepted the responsibility and feared punishment. I’ll love him and protect him like Mama did me. I can do it. I’ll bear the strap for him.

  Trepidation filled her heart and soul as she slipped into the sparsely furnished room.

  Chapter 2

  The stillness told her.

  His raspy breaths had ceased. Ella trembled.

  She knew there was no one to step in and assist her. She dried her tears on the backs of her hands and took on the heartrending task an older woman should’ve performed.

  She had observed mountain women countless times in her short life. No one need remind her life was hard in the backwoods. She knew it dealt out raw deals and equal blows to young and old. She had seen life’s handiwork and witnessed agonizing sorrow.

  She knelt before the smoky fireplace and stacked kindling and firewood inside the box.

  After lugging more water into the cabin, she held back her own gnawing emotions and did her best washing her mama’s battered body.

  She slipped a tattered, faded brown gown on the baby. It buttoned down the back with pea-sized, needle-drilled wooden buttons and swallowed his tiny form. Ella had worn it, and her mama had saved it for the next child to wear.

  Her mama once told her of other premature infants through the years—miniature samples of life—but they all appeared insignificant in Pa’s eyes. Each time one was lost, he wrapped it in a piece of discarded cloth before placing it in the cold earth under the pines.

  “I never saw them,” she whispered to the quiet room. She didn’t know how many died. It seemed like there were four—four nameless babies. After each loss, Pa’s temper grew more rabid. She learned to dread how the shaking of his right arm heralded his fits of fury.

  Or did his temper make his arm quiver?

  Of course, there were whispered stories when the valley women gathered to quilt each month. Glances toward her mama, sad ones of fleeting pity, said more than words. Then there were the multi-colored wild flowers, which her mama picked in secret and scattered in woodsy shadows. They marked the infants’ insignificant burial holes.

  Ella left her mama’s corpse undressed because she couldn’t lift her. She did the second best and tucked a clean—but ragged—blanket over the lifeless form. Bile rose from the pit of her empty stomach. She talked to the silence pervading the cabin.

  “Mama, he ain’t ever hurtin’ you no more. I hate him. Don’t tell me I can’t hate him, ‘cause I do. There’s no feeling in him. God couldn’t even like him.” Her fingers stroked a length of her mother’s blond hair. “Oh, Mama. Now I … I ain’t got nobody. He’s gonna come back. His arm will start jiggling, and it’ll just be me here. He’ll center his eye on me. You know he’ll blame me. Why’d he say he should’ve let the mountain lion kill me? Why does he hate me?”

  Pa’s mean words made her heart fill with glass-like shards. His extreme dislike caused her chest to hurt. But then, she realized he even hated God. His loud curses said as much. With inner resolve, she walked to the hooks on the wall and lifted down one of her mama’s dresses.

  *******

  The sun stood straight up and provided an illusion of warmth to the middle of the day. Ella sat on the flat stone sill in the cabin’s doorway. She focused her eyes on the steep trail and waited. The beating of her heart seemed almost an audible sound, which flooded her ears and pounded.

  She didn’t cry. He might come back. She licked her dry lips and stared down the trail.

  Gone were her bloodied clothes. She had donned her mama’s next-to-best dress and pinned up her unwashed hair. A narrow, gathered strip of white material edged the cuffs and offset the faded-brown tint of the dress. It produced the essence of a true ruffle.

  Unshakeable weariness enveloped her. She felt as if she had aged—so she deserved the right to wear the adult dress. So what if it was too long? Mama won’t care … not no more. She told me I’d soon wear longer skirts. Ella’s mother had mentioned cutting apart one of her own three skirts to make her a new dress.

  With slow movements, her shaky fingertips explored the top edge of the high neckline. It hides my ugly neck so people ain’t going to see the claw marks. Pa won’t be reminded he saved nothin’ but a girl-child.

  She scarcely noticed the cold breeze and the hungry gnawing of her empty belly.

  She shivered as a horse whinnied. Pa rode up, turned sideways on the animal’s back, and offered his hand to the short midwife riding behind him.

  “I don’t need yer help, Jacob. Ye don’t do it out of kindness.” Spry for her age, Granny Hanks slid off the horse with her satchel in hand. “If’n the wagon had been hitched, I wouldn’t have rode double with ya.” Contempt laced her croaky voice.

  With hunched shoulders, Ella leaned sideways in the doorway and felt the midwife shove past her. She caught a whiff of crushed herbs, leeks, and grasses scenting the folds of the woman’s gray skirt. The tips of Granny’s scrawny fingers caressed her bowed head.

  That slight touch of unspoken compassion broke her tight reserve—much like a log dam bursting before a flash flood. With sobs skinning her insides apart, she fell forward, crouched on her hands and knees, and wailed out her grief to the forest-covered mountainside.

  “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

  “Stop it. Shet up.” Pa’s boot came close to her head. “What’re ya doin’ with yer mama’s brown dress on? Who do ya think ya are? You git in there with that stinkin’ granny woman.”

  His calloused hands jerked her away from her blinding anguish, grabbed her at the elbows, and snatched her to her bare feet. She lifted the hem of the long dress and staggered into the cabin—in time to see shock register on Granny’s face and transfixed eyes.

  The old woman took one sweeping look of the tidy bed and its pale occupants.

  Ella realized the midwife hadn’t expected to view two corpses laid out in final repose.

  “Ach, no!” The woman whirled on Jacob. She lifted a crooked finger to his bearded face, stood as tall as her five-foot stance would allow, and declared, “She’s gone. Ye came fer me too late.” Her nut-brown eyes grew black as nugget coal. “Too late. I think ye knew it. You’re a wretched man!”

  Granny’s face and bushy white eyebrows could almost make a person believe in witches. Her right eye set lower in her face than the left, her top lip had no curve to it, and her nose twisted to the right—broken by the fall off a frisky mule. Wrinkles cut deep into her tanned, leathery skin and scrunched up her narrow face.

  Ella felt awed Granny Hanks dared to lash out at her pa, and she hiccupped with the effort to stop crying.

  “You knew the truth in this.” The woman, with her coiled white knob of hair shaking on top of her head, railed on at him for not fetching her before the birth. “An’ this child shouldn’t of had to do the prep’rations alone! Why didn’t ye come fer me?”

  With growing dread, Ella expected her pa to lose his temper. Would he harm the old woman?

  Pa’s bad eye squinted. He hooked his big thumbs through his leather belt, and shrugged, even though fear flickered beneath his dark gaze. He drew his bone-thin shoulders up to his neck, amid the midwife’s ranting, but he avoided a glance at the lumpy bed. He kept his attention on the open door. His right hand convulsed in an uncontrollable twitch, and the movement extended to involve his lower arm. His thumbs gripped his belt, but that didn’t stop the violent spasm.

  “Answer me, Jacob Huskey!” Granny stepped closer.

  The jerking hand freed itself and bumped against his thigh like a dying chicken.

  Silence reigned for a minute. Ella moaned and cowered. Ohh, be quiet, Granny. He’s goin’ to hit you. She slid into a gloomy corner of the room, wishing she could crawl beneath the hard-packed floor.

  Pa’s bloodshot eyes twitched, but he defended himself and his actions by muttering, “Mear
a birthed Ella by herself with no help by a midwife. She ain’t asked fer ya. She had Ella. Meara knew about birthin’. Don’t blame me.”

  “Well, Meara didn’t know ‘nough.” Granny Hanks snorted the words with outward disgust at him. “I see you’ll stand by yer rigid, unrelentin’ attitude of denial. Ella Dessa, come here, child.”

  “Uh-huh.” She didn’t want to.

  Her pa’s entire right arm shook with tremors. She wanted to scream a warning. Granny, he’ll see his arm, and it’ll make him mad-dog crazy.

  “Come here.” The old midwife motioned.

  “Granny, he’ll bash you with it,” she said, but her whispered words went unheard. She positioned her back tight to the log wall.

  “Jacob!” Granny shook her finger and continued her tirade. “Yer wife lost wee ones many times, an’ she birthed Ella Dessa twelve years past. She were too tired to do this one more time. You men don’t know how to control thyself. Can’t figger how’s the Good Lord made ye like he did, but then I don’t question The Maker. Girl! Fetch me the baby.”

  Ella heard the involuntary intake of breath from her pa.

  “What?” He half turned toward the bed and snatched the filthy hat off his head. He hadn’t known about the infant. “Why you—” His face flushed crimson, and his flat lips twisted with fury as he gnashed his teeth at Ella Dessa.

  She realized he wouldn’t strike her with the midwife as a witness. His breath became a snake-like hiss. She edged past him and gathered the small bundle. With a wrinkled cloth covering its miniature remains, it could’ve been no more than a loaf of sweet bread she held, a loaf—wrapped to retain dissipating warmth.

  “Didn’t live but a short time.” Straight-armed, she offered him to Granny.

  The aged woman turned back the cloth, lifted the rumpled skirt of the lengthy gown, and checked the gender of the baby. Her seamed face softened. Its worn contours seemed to grow more youthful.

  “A son,” the midwife whispered.

  Pa flinched at the knowledge of the baby’s sex. His unreadable eyes rapidly blinked as he stared at the infant. He didn’t try to get any closer.

  “Ach, such a waste.” Granny’s large-knuckled fingers moved with reverence, touched the delicate curved ears, and smoothed the downy patch of light hair on top of the perfect, rounded head. The baby was elfin, and she cupped his whole head in the palm of her creased hand. Using the back of her other hand, she wiped at her eyes.

  “This baby were too small to live.” She placed the baby on the split-pine table and motioned Ella to cover him. Without gazing at Jacob, she spoke. “It be a boy, ye know, but he’s gone.”

  He glared at the midwife as he held his convulsive arm with his left hand, but he didn’t react in response to the woman’s bitterness nor show the slightest distraught emotion. The knuckles of his left hand turned white with an attempt to hold his spasmodic right arm.

  “Yer son, Jacob Huskey. Now, go fetch a death’s coolin’ board from the storekeeper. Brings it here—right smart. It’s nigh on noon. Walter Beckler has one. We need it fer the wake. I’m supposin’ ye never made a board in case of a burial. Let people know along the way.”

  Ella watched Pa use his left hand to shove his salt-marked hat tighter on his head. He ducked through the low doorway, caught the horse’s rope bridle, and rode away. Astonished he chose to obey the midwife; she stepped to the open door and watched his weary horse once more disappear down the leaf-strewn path.

  She wished more than anything it could be Pa placed on a cooling board instead of Mama.

  Chapter 3

  Word of Meara’s death spread over the tree-shrouded mountain, through the short cove, and along ridged slopes. People left their chores undone. They came by foot, wagon, mule, and horse, winding upward on the trail. Men brought along numerous types of saws, hammers, and various lengths of boards to fashion a simple coffin.

  The late afternoon sun skimmed the tops of trees, lit the sharp ridges, and shone over the rock-dotted field close to the cabin. It caused the autumn foliage to reflect a promise of flaming colors, which would appear after a heavy frost.

  The wake wouldn’t be elaborate, but it would illustrate everyone’s respect for the dead woman. The human contact layered a fleeting comfort on Ella’s broken heart. Women set out food they brought with them, or they prepared uncomplicated meals over the fireplace. Men started an outside fire. The open ends of wagons became extra makeshift tables for food preparation.

  Voices remained subdued as adults conversed with each other or murmured their condolences to Jacob. Children ran off to play among trees and rocky outcroppings, their lives and emotions not impacted by Ella’s sorrow and loss.

  The air turned sharper. People donned coats and shawls. The sound of saws and hammers heralded the building of the pine coffin. The muted thud and chink of shovel and pick informed her of the rocky ground’s disturbance—its violation—to form a grave. It needed to be ready for the spark of dawn when the burial would commence. It would take place extremely early so families could return to unattended homesteads and animals. The thump, thump of digging jarred through Ella’s head until she wanted to cover her ears.

  Instead, she sprinted barefooted to the moss-covered springhouse, concealed within the irregular tree line, above the field. She opened the tiny door, ducked inside, and swung it shut behind her. She pulled the hem of her mama’s dress between her legs, from back to front, and tucked it under the cloth belt tied around her waist. She meant to keep the skirt off the damp ground inside the log building, which straddled a clear flow of icy water.

  With a ragged gasp, she crouched in the protective shelter, breathed the familiar scent of soggy earth, and let the repetitious trickling water wipe out the echo of the metal pick and shovel. A nippy breeze sighed through the gaps in the log walls and shadows grew deeper. She wrapped her arms over her knees and realized she forgot a shawl. Her bare feet grew chilled from contact with the moist soil and decaying plant matter.

  Dead leaves blew against the outside of the log wall. They rustled and fluttered as if forcing their way through the gaps between logs in the unchinked barrier. Water sprang through a cluster of boulders, right at the point where the backside of the springhouse came against it. The stream ran across the face of rocks and a stone slab Pa had positioned to construct a diminutive waterfall. With his bare hands and a pick, he had removed surface rocks and hollowed out a deeper pool.

  Set in the swirling, clear water, about eight inches down, were stone jars. Their protected necks protruded above the stream. Ella knew one held milk from Mama’s cow.

  While a jab of regret pierced through her heart, she stared at the stoneware. Water gurgled past them, and a gold leaf bounced along the top of the water. Was it only yesterday morning she saw her mama trudge to the springhouse with a bucket of milk?

  Mama had stopped and massaged her lower back. The labor had begun. Mama put off telling Pa because it was too early for the baby. Ella sniffled and wiped at her runny nose with the back of her hand.

  I should’ve toted the milk here.

  Although shade collected where she huddled, she could peer through spaces in the log walls. To her right, the sun sat on the adjacent mountaintop. The thin shimmers of golden light reached beyond the irregular parcel of land, cleared of trees and small boulders. The coming sunset would crowd out the green of the pines, darken them, and add a blaze of light to higher trees blanketing the mountains.

  The view wrenched her breath away. Her mama would miss autumn’s beauty and the fellowship of the women. She could see the broadening gloom envelop the men carrying the finished coffin toward the weather-beaten cabin.

  It wasn’t a fancy box. It wasn’t six-sided. She watched them set the box of death near the door. Smoke from the chimney and the outside fire swirled and united above the men’s heads and danced with the undecided wind.

  “Oh, Mama, you’d love this gathering,” she whispered. “Laura Stuart done brought a sweet potato pie. Mrs. C
landers is simmerin’ one of her beloved chickens. I don’t know all the folks who’ve come, but it’s so special. You’d be proud to be called their friend. If only you were here.”

  She shivered and dried her tears. Her consideration turned to the unnamed infant reposing in her mama’s arm. A woman she didn’t know had suggested she sit and hold the dead baby.

  “Mama, she said it’d teach me about life, but Rebecca Foster disagreed, and made her stop insistin’. I hope it don’t grieve you none, Mama,” she continued, “but he didn’t feel the same—the same as ‘fore he died. He felt cold, like I feel right now.”

  A subtle noise caught her attention.

  A rock rolled and bounced down the slope, rustling the dried leaves.

  She peeked through weathered cracks on the opposite side of the squatty springhouse. Someone giggled in anticipation or reserved nervousness. Two people walked the high ground behind the spring. They came down the hill and headed alongside the building, concealed from the cabin.

  Only a gray skirt showed. It swept the matted leaves lying on the ground. Then the black material of a pair of pants joined it. The low sides and extended overhang of the springhouse roof didn’t allow her to see faces. She clamped her hands over her mouth and breathed through her nose.

  “We need to go back. My father will look for me. It’ll soon be dark.” The girl’s voice became low and teasing. “Want me to get in trouble ‘cause of you?”

  “Don’t worry. You saw how busy he was—talking to the men. I’ve missed you.”

  “I missed you.”

  Two hands dropped into view. A young man’s left hand, with fine reddish hair sprinkling the top, gripped the more slender feminine hand. His fingers moved to encircle the wrist.

  “You’re too pretty to worry.”

  “Father doesn’t like you.” Her right hand twisted to break free. Another faint giggle accompanied the struggling fingers. “He says you act too bold, and I’m too young to think of boys.”