The Princess Club / Family Secrets / Mountain Madness

by Catherine Marshall

  “I’ve been givin’ it some time. And I’ve come to figger out that Hannah’s purty nice. Today she told me she’s been lookin’ for Scalawag for you every single day since he run off.”

  Creed gave that some thought. “Every day?”

  “Every day. And I believe her, ’cause she likes animals same as you and me. Has a mouse in her pocket, name of Violet.”

  “Sounds to me like you already done your share o’ talkin’.”

  “Some, maybe.”

  “Sounds to me like you already done made up your mind, Della May Allen.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Then you don’t need me a-tellin’ you what to do, do you?”

  “No. I s’pose not.”

  Creed closed his eyes again. Della May got up to leave. She’d only gone a few steps when she heard Creed call, “Della May?”

  “Yep?”

  “If’n you do decide to do more talkin’, tell her thank you kindly about Scalawag.”

  Twelve

  After school that afternoon, Christy hurriedly graded some papers and cleaned the chalkboard. When she was done, she headed straight to Miss Alice’s cabin for the weekly Bible study.

  Christy had always loved these meetings. Miss Alice would read in her soothing voice while the other women sewed or simply listened. It was a beautiful cabin inside, full of warmth and color. Polished brass candlesticks shone on the mantel. Cherry and pine furniture gleamed in the sunshine. Whenever Christy was there, she felt transported back to her old life in Asheville. It was a place of beauty, of sophistication, a place where the world was full of promise, not despair.

  A world, she realized, like the one Doctor MacNeill seemed to be longing for.

  Today, however, when Christy entered Miss Alice’s cabin, the scene was not at all what she expected. In one corner sat some of the women who came regularly to the meetings. Granny O’Teale and her daughter-in-law, Swannie, were there. Aunt Polly Teague—at ninety-two, the oldest woman in the Cove—was in her favorite rocker. Fairlight Spencer, Christy’s close friend, had come, and so had Lety Coburn. Christy was surprised and relieved to see that Mary Allen had come, too.

  Still, many faces were missing. One look at the other corner, where Margaret and Louise Washington sat alone, explained why.

  How did the word get out so quickly? Christy wondered. But of course she knew the answer. By now she understood that news had a way of traveling fast in Cutter gap—like “greased lightning,” as her students liked to say.

  “Christy!” Miss Alice exclaimed. “Come, sit down. We were just getting started. You see we have some new faces.”

  “Margaret, Louise.” Christy sat down beside them. “I’m so glad you could come. You, too, Mary.”

  Mary gave a terse nod, but said nothing.

  Christy gazed around her. Most of the women sat on one side. Christy and the Washingtons sat on the other. Miss Alice in the middle, trying to make peace. They were divided into warring camps, separated by hate and misunderstanding. Just like her classroom.

  Miss Alice seemed to be reading Christy’s mind. “I’ll strain my voice, having to read to the east and west side of the cabin. Suppose we all try to move our chairs a little closer?”

  No one moved. Margaret studied her Bible. Louise looked as if she were about to cry.

  Fairlight cleared her throat. She picked up her chair and moved it next to Louise. “There,” Miss Alice said. “That’s much better.”

  Christy looked at her gratefully. Fairlight was a good woman, as warm and gentle as her radiant smile. She would be one ally, at least.

  “How was school today, Christy?” Miss Alice asked, clearly hoping to break the icy silence.

  Before Christy could answer, Lety Coburn spoke up. “Any more stealin’?” she asked, shooting a look at Margaret. “I hear tell things are disappearin’ from that school right and left.”

  “I don’t think it’s anything serious, Lety,” Christy assured her. “A doll, a hat, some odds and ends. I suspect the children just misplaced them.”

  “You suspect what you suspect,” Lety said, “but I have my own ideas.”

  Christy sighed. “Is there some reason we can’t at least try to get along? On my way here, I passed one of my students playing with Margaret’s daughter, Hannah. They were laughing and giggling and having a wonderful time. I think we could all take a lesson from—”

  “Whose child was it?” Swannie O’Teale demanded.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Christy said, suddenly realizing she was just making things worse. The last thing she wanted was to get Della May in trouble for having shown some kindness to Hannah. “The point is—”

  “Weren’t my Mountie or Mary, were it?” Swannie pressed. “I done told those girls to keep their distance.”

  “Then why are you here?” Margaret spoke up for the first time. “You must have heard we were coming to the Bible study. Everyone seems to know everything in this place.”

  “I’m here ’cause it’s rightfully my place to be here,” Swannie jutted her chin. “unlike some.”

  “If we ain’t wanted here,” Louise said, leaping from her chair, “then I think we should go, Ma!”

  “Louise, please stay,” Miss Alice said in a calm, reassuring voice. “Everyone is welcome here in this cabin. This is a place for fellowship and love.” She gave Swannie a stern look. “Not intolerance. Christy’s right. Let’s think about how we can get along. In God’s eyes, we are all family, all worthy of His love. I think the key to understanding is to look beyond the surface and see what we all have in common. Before I start today’s reading, why don’t you tell us a little more about your family, Margaret? Once we get to know one another better, we’ll have a better chance at getting along.”

  Margaret shifted uncomfortably. She clutched her worn Bible to her chest. Christy sent her an encouraging smile.

  “Well,” Margaret said in a soft voice, “my husband, Curtis and I, we been married all o’ sixteen years. Got ourselves four children. Louise here, she’s the oldest. She’s fifteen. She loves to read, and she’s mighty good with the others.”

  “That’s always nice,” Fairlight said helpfully. “I don’t know what I’d do without Clara and Zady to help out with my young’uns.”

  Margaret managed a brief smile. “I got two other girls—Hannah, she’s eight, and Etta, she’s just the baby. Teethin’ somethin’ fierce, she is.”

  “Letting her chew on a nice cold rag will help with that,” Miss Alice offered.

  There was a long pause. Christy thought back to the many other Bible studies she’d been to. They’d been full of lively give-and- take—shared gossip and recipes and tears and laughter. Today, she could almost see the tension in the room.

  “And then,” Margaret added, eyes trained on the women on the other side of the room, “there’s my son, John. He’s a good boy—just ten. Somebody shot him the other day. For no reason, ’ceptin’ they didn’t like the color of his skin.”

  Her words hung in the air. Louise wiped away a tear.

  “He’s a fine boy, I’m tellin’ you. All my family is,” Margaret continued. She opened her Bible and held it up for all to see.

  “This here’s our family tree. All the names and baptisms wrote down proper-like. These was good people. ’Course, we can’t rightly know ’em all—some of our folks were sold off as slaves, never heard of again.” Tenderly, she passed the Bible to Christy. “Looky here, Miz Christy. These was good people, all of ’em.”

  Christy traced her finger over the names on the yellowed page. “I’m sure they were, Margaret.”

  “See there? William? That be Louise’s great-grandpa.” Margaret pointed a trembling finger at the name. “He run away from a plantation in Alabama, years before Abraham Lincoln done freed the slaves. Runnin’ in leg irons, bleedin’ and hungry. He got hisself to Tennessee, to the mountains. Found a little hidden-away mite of a place. ‘No bigger’n a tick’s toe,’ he used to say. Name o’ Cutter Gap. He
was fevered and near to dyin’.”

  Margaret took a deep breath. She looked at Swannie and Mary and the rest of the women. “A good woman from these parts saved Grandpa William. She hid him in a cave, brought him food, and tended to his wounds. She got herself a saw and took them leg irons off her own self. Without her, Grandpa William would have died. And that good woman she also gave him that there Bible and sent him off to freedom, she did.”

  “Who was this woman, Margaret?” Miss Alice asked.

  “She never did give her name. Lots of folks back then used nicknames to protect themselves. Helpin’ slaves was a crime. It was right dangerous. And it was mighty brave.”

  Christy studied the top of the page. There was a simple inscription:

  Godspeed, William.

  Birdy

  “That’s why we come here to Cutter Gap,” Margaret said, her voice choked. “We knew the stories Grandpa William used to tell. We knew this had to be a place full o’ good people. But we was wrong.”

  She leapt from her chair, pulling the Bible out of Christy’s hands.

  “Margaret,” Christy pleaded, “please stay—”

  “No, Miz Christy. Louise and me, we know we ain’t wanted here. We’ll read our Bible at home. I figure the Lord’ll hear us just as clear from there.”

  Thirteen

  I’m sorry the Bible study went so badly,” Doctor MacNeill said.

  The doctor had stopped by just after the Bible study at Miss Alice’s had ended. He was on his way home from delivering a baby.

  “It was awful,” Christy said as she pulled weeds out of the vegetable garden by the mission house. “Poor Margaret and Louise. The other women were so cold—except for Fairlight, of course.”

  “Did Mary Allen show up?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think she said three words the whole time.” Christy yanked out a weed, grimacing. “Sometimes I just get so discouraged about this place.”

  “Sometimes I do, too.” The doctor gave a sad smile. “Which is why, I suppose, I’m thinking about asking James for a position.”

  “Position?” Christy echoed softly.

  “Working in his practice in Knoxville. It’d take some time to get my skills up to speed, but I’m sure he’d take me on.”

  Christy stared at him, dumbfounded. “You mean . . . leave Cutter Gap for good?”

  The doctor knelt down. He pulled a weed out of a row of carrots. “I’m not doing much good here, Christy. I have to realize that. I’m fighting a war I can never win.”

  “How can you say that?” Christy cried. “You just brought a beautiful baby into the world!”

  “Babies will keep being born, whether I’m here or not. Miss Alice is more than competent to do what mending or stitching has to be done.”

  “But—”

  The doctor put his finger to Christy’s lips. “I know all the arguments. Please. Just let it go, Christy.” He stood. “Well, I should get going. I just wanted to remind you that we haven’t yet finished a single one of our dance practices. Perhaps later this week—”

  “You just expect me to let you off the hook?” Christy demanded. “You tell me you may leave for good, and I’m just supposed to accept it?”

  The doctor gave a resigned shrug. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll go to Knoxville and get a taste of James’s life, and this will look better. I doubt it, but it could happen.”

  Christy stared at him in shock. He couldn’t leave Cutter Gap! The people here needed him.

  She needed him.

  Just then, two bluejays fluttered into the vegetable patch, ignoring the scarecrow Miss Ida had constructed out of a broom. One nipped at the other, which led to a dreadful screaming match.

  “See?” the doctor said. “Even the birds can’t seem to get along here.”

  Suddenly, Christy remembered the signature she’d seen in the Washingtons’ Bible. Birdy.

  Why did that name mean something?

  The doctor started for his horse. “Wait,” Christy said. “Don’t go.”

  “You can try to talk me out of this later,” Doctor MacNeill said wearily. “I was up all night, and I’m too tired to argue with you.” He chuckled. “As it is, you usually win.”

  “No.” Christy leapt to her feet, brushing off her dress. “I . . . I just thought of something. Remember that framed needlepoint that Bob broke? The one Granny Allen said she’d made?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, there was a bird on the bottom of it. And today, in the Washingtons’ Bible . . .”

  Yes. That was the connection. That had to be it, Christy thought.

  Doctor MacNeill frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

  “That’s all right. You will. How tired are you, anyway?”

  “Exhausted.”

  “Then I’ll take the reins. Come on.”

  The doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “And where are we going, exactly?”

  “To the Allens’. To do a little detective work.”

  Hannah and Della May skirted the edge of Blackberry Creek. They’d been together all afternoon, ever since school had let out.

  For the most part, Della May had been careful to stick to the woods. She liked Hannah just fine, but there was no point in letting Lundy or anybody else see them playing together. That would just make for a heap of trouble. She had a feeling Miz Christy had caught sight of them this afternoon, but that was different. Miz Christy she could trust.

  Della May sat on the bank. It was mighty peaceful. You could almost pretend that she and Hannah were just two friends, nothing special. Of course, that wasn’t how it really was at all.

  “We’re gettin’ on toward my cabin,” she told Hannah. “You’d best be headin’ home. If’n my pa caught sight of us, there’d be trouble for sure and certain.”

  Hannah dipped her toes in the rushing creek. “How come you figure your pa’s so dead set against me and my kin?”

  “Don’t rightly know,” Della May said truthfully. “I s’pose ’cause his pa was, and his pa before him.”

  “Don’t seem fair.”

  “I know. I’m powerful sorry.”

  Hannah pointed downstream. “I still think we oughta check the trees and such around these parts. Scalawag coulda been headin’ for home and got hisself hurt. Messed up with a hound, maybe.”

  “It’s awful nice of you to help me keep lookin’ for him. Creed’s so sad he’s all but given up. Never seen him so down-hearted.”

  “I had a dog once, got stole. Some white folks took him, drowned him in a well. Tied a rock round his neck.” Hannah took a deep breath. “So I know what it’s like, losin’ a pet and all. We’d have better luck if’n we could look for Scalawag at night. Raccoons is night creatures by nature.”

  “We’ll just have to keep hopin’, I guess.”

  “Della May?” Hannah said softly.

  “Yep?”

  Hannah’s eyes were wet with tears. “I . . . I heard Lundy a-sayin’ as how he figured me and John stole Scalawag and skinned him alive. He says we done stole all sorts of things.”

  “Lundy’s a fool. Half the time his head don’t know what his mouth is sayin’.” Della May patted Hannah on the back. “You don’t pay him no never mind. None o’ us believes him much either. Creed and me know what’s what.”

  “Thanks, Della May.”

  “I oughta be thankin’ you, for searchin’ so hard.”

  “Let’s just look another piece,” Hannah said, getting to her feet. “Scalawag could be right around the corner.”

  “Not too close to my kin, though.”

  “I promise.”

  They made their way toward the cabin. It was just visible through the thick stand of trees. Suddenly Hannah jerked to a stop.

  “Is that your gray horse?”

  “That’s Soldier. Pa’s horse.”

  Hannah looked at Della May. Something in her eyes burned like hot coals. “The person who shot John. He was ridin’ a gray horse with spots. I saw it through the trees.�
��

  Della May didn’t know what to say. But she knew she couldn’t lie.

  “I heard my pa and ma whisperin’ about that. I can’t tell you one way or t’other what the truth is.” She hung her head. “But I’d be lyin’ if’n I said I was sure my pa didn’t shoot that gun. If’n he did, I ’spect it was just to stir things up. Not to hurt nobody.”

  “But he did hurt somebody! He hurt John!” Hannah cried.

  She spun on her heel and started to run. After a few feet, she stumbled on a tree root.

  Della May ran to help her, but Hannah pushed her away. “Go away,” she sobbed. “I don’t want—”

  A horrible scream, coming from the direction of the mill, cut her off.

  Della May gulped. “That’s my pa! Somethin’ awful’s happened! I have to go, Hannah. Will you be all right?”

  “Go on. Git.”

  Della May ran as fast her legs would carry her. The screams kept coming, louder, each one more awful than the last.

  She was almost to the mill when she saw Creed. “Pa!” he cried. “He passed out again. His arm’s caught in the wood gears! We tried and tried, me and Festus and ma and Rob, but we can’t budge him. We gotta get help, Della May. He’s bleedin’ bad.”

  “You stay here. I’ll take Soldier and go for Doctor MacNeill.”

  Sobbing as she ran, Della May returned to the front yard. She grabbed Soldier’s mane and hefted herself onto his back. She was a good rider. Still, she knew it could be a long time before she reached the doctor.

  She’d only gone a few feet when she heard a small voice calling from behind. “Della May! Wait up!”

  Della May reined Soldier in. “Hannah?”

  “I heard Creed a-yellin’ about your pa. Give me a lift up.”

  “What?”

  “We’re ridin’ to my cabin. It’s closer.”

  “But . . . even after what you said?”

  “That’s about my pa and yours. This is about you and me. ’Sides, I can’t stand to see my best friend a-sobbin’.”

  Della May shook her head. “You’re plumb amazin’, Hannah Washington.”