Zach turned to Williams, and saw something he had not expected in his older brother’s eyes.
Fear.
Without a word between them, Zach hoisted himself up, pushed out of the cave’s hole.
After one more backward glance, Williams jumped up, too, expecting a skeletal hand to grab his ankle at the last minute, pull him back.
Instead, he squished through the opening and crawled across the ground to the tree, where Zach and Drew were struggling into their clothes.
Grabbing at his own coat, he staggered up the hill in the direction they had come. “Hurry!” he said again, and it was all the encouragement either of the younger boys needed. Clutching the clothes they hadn’t put back on, they stumbled after him.
The sun had already begun to drop when they made it to the final hill before the land stretched out to their family farm. Wet, cold, exhausted and terror-stricken, they ran the last few hundred yards a little faster. And all burst into tears at the sight of their mother, standing backlit in the doorway calling them home for supper.
* * *
“Are they asleep?” Jack asked Lucy as she drew the door to the boys’ bedroom shut.
“Yes, poor dears.”
“Poor dears? When they get feeling better, I’m going to tan ‘em. We’ve told them time and again to stay out of that cave.”
“I’m just as mad as you are, but how can you get mad when you see how frightened and sick they were? Lord, they were so wet. It’ll be a wonder if they don’t come down with something. I’m going to send for Doc Hopson tomorrow, I suppose,” she said, walking down the hallway toward Betsy’s room.
“Why don’t we just fix him a bed here so he can be close by?”
Lucy stopped, reconsidered and resumed walking.
“I suppose you’re going to spend another night in Betsy’s room?”
“I intend to spend every night in her room until she gets well. And maybe then some.”
“Luce, I miss you.”
“I suppose you can comfort yourself in any number of ways,” she said, ducking into the doorway.
TEN
Naddy nearly ran Lucy down as she struggled through the boys’ bedroom door with a laden tray. “Excuse me, Ma’am,” she said.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Lucy took some of the crockery and dishes from the tray to lighten it. “Doesn’t look like they’re eating.”
“No, Ma’am. They’s awful sick. Baby Drew’s burning up with fever, and Master Zach’s complainin’ of an achin’ throat.”
“What about Williams?” Lucy asked, motioning Naddy to follow her down the back stairway into the dining room.
“He’s real quiet, not a peep. But, he’s cold n’clammy, too. Lord help ‘em, these boys be powerful sick,” she said, clumping down the steps behind Lucy. “What were they doin’ in that old cave, anyways?”
“Doc Hopson should be here soon. Before he gets here, why don’t you take each of them up a cup of hot tea with honey? And make them drink it, especially Drew. He’ll fight you.”
“Lord, I knows that, Mrs. Bell. We starting our own hospital here,” Naddy laughed.
Lucy rounded the corner into the dining room and saw Jack seated at the table with John, in a mumbled discussion. She crossed the room without a word to either and followed Saloma, who was also carrying dishes, out of the back door and across the whistle walk to the kitchen.
Naddy, catching sight of Mr. Bell, lost her smile and doubled her pace, stayed as close to Lucy’s back as she could without tripping over her.
* * *
“I’m going out now,” said Jack, draining his coffee and pushing back from the table. “I’ll be out at the Batts place settling up her account. Should be back after lunch, but don’t hold things up waiting for me.”
“Yes, Pa,” answered John with a frown, watching his father depart.
Settling up their account, huh? Does he think we’re all fools? And the unspoken answer came to him, simply: Yes.
John had known about his father’s affair for three years now. Kate Batts was an attractive, vivacious woman, well known in the area. She was married to Frederick Batts, an eccentric invalid with a lot of money and a huge farm. Jack drew a small fee from her each month for helping manage the place.
John had seen his father and the Batts woman together once in a small clearing near the banks of the Red River. He’d been searching for a couple of lost cows and had drifted down to the river for a drink. Hearing something nearby, he’d moved quietly through the river mud along the bank, hoping to surprise the cows.
John had stood there open-mouthed and in full view of both, if either had chosen that moment to look. They hadn’t, and John crept back to the farmhouse ashen and ashamed at what he’d seen. He’d spent every day since wondering how long it had been going on, whether he should say something, how his father could be so brazen. In the end, he didn’t do anything. Instead, he bottled it inside, tried to contain his anger whenever he knew where his father was going, what he was doing.
Disgusted, he slammed the cup onto the table, sloshing tepid coffee onto his hand and shirtsleeve.
There was a knock at the door just then, and he turned this way and that looking for something to dry his hands. Finding nothing, he hurried to the door and turned the handle.
“John, good morning,” said Hank, obviously surprised but holding his hand out.
John extended his own with the thinnest veneer of a smile, shook Hank’s.
“What brings you here? Looking for an honest day’s work?” he asked, blocking the doorway and not inviting him in. Hank’s implied intimacy at coming to the back door rankled him.
“I’m here to see Betsy. I’m here to make sure she’s ready for the dance this evening.” As he said this, Hank looked around John to see if there was anyone else in the room behind him.
John pulled the door tightly against his body. “Well, unfortunately Betsy is still sick and unable to attend,” he said, smiling and stepping back into the house, preparing to close the door.
“What?” Hank asked, his voice taking on a shrill note. “What do you mean she’s still sick? She was fine when I visited Sunday.”
Hank moved toward the door, tried to push his way in around John. The two young men were only a year apart in age, but John was the bigger man, with muscles honed from work.
John placed his hand squarely on the center of Hank’s chest, stopped him.
“Betsy’s been unconscious since Sunday evening. Yours was the last face she saw before becoming ill. It makes you wonder whether or not there’s a correlation.”
“She really won’t be able to come tonight?”
John, unable to restrain himself further, pushed strongly with the hand he had placed on Hank’s chest.
The other man cartwheeled back, falling to the muddy ground with a wet smack!
“She’s sick, you ass!” he gritted through his teeth. “She’ll be lucky to come out of it alive.”
“I’ll look a fool,” snapped Hank.
“No more than you already are. Now, get before I come out and kick you back to your house.”
John made a small, slightly menacing move toward him.
Hank flinched, shook mud from his clothes, walked back to his horse.
“I hope that’s not what you’re wearing tonight,” laughed John, closing the door before Hank could say anything.
He did hear Hank cursing loudly as his horse tore away down the lane.
ELEVEN
Hopson was coming from the boys’ room with Naddy when Lucy met him. He was handing Naddy several vials of medicine and instructing her in their use. Behind Lucy stood Richard Powell, who had stopped by to pay a visit to the family and to see Lucy.
“How are they?” asked Lucy.
“Well, it’s a wonder that the little fools don’t have pneumonia,” he said. “They’re running high fevers and have, to varying degrees, other symptoms. But they should recover sufficiently to be foolish again anot
her day. I’ve given Naddy some medicines, and she knows what to do… if you’re comfortable with that.”
“Of course, Dr. Hopson, this is me you’re dealing with now, not Jack,” Lucy said.
“Good, then you won’t mind if I do this,” he said, reaching into his bag and extracting a small unguent jar. Undoing the lid, he dug his fingers into the white, pasty substance, held it to Naddy’s face. “Here, this will help,” he said, cupping her chin and tilting her head up toward him. He rubbed the salve into her bruise until it dissolved. “Morning, noon and evening, rub this into your cheek until the discoloration disappears,” he told her, recapping the jar and handing it to her.
“Thank you, Dr. Hopson, sir, I can feel it working directly,” she said, timidly touching the spot he had rubbed.
“Now, let’s see about Betsy.”
* * *
As during the last visit, he pulled the covers off her, worked her limbs back and forth, lifted her lids to peer into her eyes, and felt her forehead. Then, he produced an implement from his bag that caused Powell to move around the bed to watch the doctor using it.
It was a strange mechanism, almost looking like a magical device. It was a hollow metal tube, both ends of which terminated in a cup, much like the mouthpiece of a bugle, only larger.
Placing one end tightly against Betsy’s bare upper chest and the other against his left ear, Hopson listened, moved the cup, listened, moved it again. All the while, he exhibited the tendencies of a small child with a new toy. “Fabulous!” he said, rising. “Wonderful gadget, isn’t it?
He detached it from his ears and held it to Powell.
“What is it?” the schoolmaster asked, turning it over, looking into the ends.
“It’s a stethoscope, a device for listening to heartbeats. I picked it up just two months ago during a visit to Atlanta. It’s quite new, and all the rage of European doctors. Here, listen for yourself.”
Powell’s face squinched as he concentrated, not knowing what to expect. Then, his eyes flew open as he heard the thump-THUMP-thump-THUMP of Betsy’s heart, strong and loud as the ticking of a great mantel clock.
Something substantial changed within Powell as those rhythms pounded through his eardrums. For the rest of his life, he would never forget that sound, the feeling that swept over him as he stood there, his head inclined toward the chest of this young girl listening to her heart.
At that moment, more strongly than any other, Richard Powell knew he was in love.
“Amazing,” he whispered, pulling back in a daze and returning the stethoscope to Hopson, who motioned Lucy over.
“Come, Luce, take this and hear what will keep your daughter alive through this illness and much more, I’m sure, if I’m any doctor at all.”
He bound mother and daughter together with the simple metal tube.
Lucy listened for a moment, silent tears streaming from her eyes.
After a minute or so, Hopson pulled her away tenderly, removed the stethoscope and tucked the covers back around Betsy.
The slow k-thump, k-thump of Betsy’s heart would resound through the ears of both Lucy and Powell for some time afterward.
* * *
By the time John set out for home, the sun had slid behind the hills. The wind was light but insistent, the sky overcast, close. With no light from moon or stars, the countryside was very dark, and John guided his horse as much by memory as by landmarks.
Down the road a mile or so, he turned off onto a less-worn road that twisted through a stand of trees. Behind them, a small house appeared, its yellow light poking between the trunks, smoke rising high above the bare branches.
He led the horse into a small outbuilding near the rear of the property, where he dismounted, removed his bridle and saddle, and made sure the animal had sufficient food and water before leaving.
John Bell’s house, built on ten acres that were part of the Bell plantation, was smaller than his parents’. A generous porch wrapped around three sides, and large windows opened onto it from the front. Light—rich, warm and inviting—spilled from the windows, illuminated the nearby trees with a weak, golden patina.
John paused on the steps leading to the front door, took a deep breath. He and his wife Elizabeth had been married for two years, and the bloom had not yet worn off.
John pulled the front door open quietly; warm, fragrant air came rushing out to greet him, drawing him in. Doffing his coat, gloves and dirty boots, he looked around for Liz.
The sounds of clinking dishes drifted in from the kitchen, so he followed them. In the cramped room he saw Liz carving a roast chicken; her back was to him. Alongside her, Ruth, their slave, filled bowls with boiled potatoes and turnips, stacked a platter with hot rolls.
Ruth saw him, opened her mouth in greeting, but John shushed her with a smile. Creeping up behind Liz, he opened his arms wide, to grab her, kiss her.
“John Bell, if you make me drop this chicken or cut myself, you’ll go to bed without dinner… or dessert,” Liz said without turning. “And you’d best be walking soft because you remembered to take off those filthy boots of yours at the door.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he laughed, spinning her around and planting a kiss on her delighted face.
“Let me go, I’ve got a knife in my hand!” she squealed as he tickled her. “John!”
John let her go, and she smoothed her dress, went back to slicing the chicken on the cutting board. “Now, wash up for dinner.”
But John moved toward Ruth, his eyes twinkling. “Now, it’s your turn, old lady.”
Ruth was an older woman, her hair done up in a tight, glossy bun nearly as large as her head. She was slight and wiry, but moved with the energy of people two and three times her size.
“Don’t you be tickling me, John Bell,” she warned, shaking a dripping spoon at him. “I’ll rap this upside your head.”
“Did you hear her threaten me?” he asked, turning back to his wife.
“You deserve it. Now get!”
* * *
After washing, he sat at the small dining table alone with Liz, their dinner laid out before them. Liz was already heaping food onto his plate, and she handed it to him as he sat.
“How was your day?” she asked, taking food onto her own plate.
“Busy,” he responded, waiting for her to finish. When she had, they said a quick grace, and began eating. For several minutes, there was no talk.
Then, Liz spoke. “Any news of Bets yet?”
“No, sorry to say,” he answered around a mouthful of chicken. “Dr. Hopson visited her this afternoon, but nothing has changed. He looked at the boys, though.”
“How are they?”
“Fever. They’re lucky they didn’t catch their deaths, from the cold or from Pa.”
Liz lowered her dark eyes to her plate, stared at her food. “I saw him go down the road today. Where was he off to?”
“He went to collect the money the Batts owe.”
“He was gone an awful long time,” Liz said, slicing some meat from the chicken leg before her.
“What of it?”
“Nothing. It just seemed a little long to be collecting money. They’re not that far off. And you know how he detests Mr. Batts.”
John set his fork and knife down, used his napkin to wipe the sheen of chicken grease from his lips. The look on his face made Liz think she might have pushed too far.
“I’ve been carrying something around for three years now, and it’s eating away at my guts.”
“Yes?”
Taking a deep breath, he said, “My father is having an affair with Kate Batts.”
“I know. I’ve known for quite some time. I think a lot of people know,” she said.
Dumbfounded, John fell back in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“Well, your father’s over there all the time. Slaves talk, and word gets around fast.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since before we were married. I saw them once, I
’m embarrassed to say, in the corn fields.”
“In the corn fields? Did they see you?”
“Oh, yes. Your father did, anyway. I don’t know about Mrs. Batts. I ran before either could say anything.”
Quietly, John recounted his own story of discovering them together on the banks near the river.
“If we’ve both seen them, think of how many other people have, too,” Liz pointed out. “Do you think your mother knows?”
“God, I hope not,” he sighed, taking up his fork and resuming supper.
“I’m glad you’ve finally said something about it. I would never have said anything first to you.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.”
John reached across the table, gave her hand a squeeze.
“Hank came by this afternoon looking for Betsy.”
“Did you speak with him?”
“In a manner,” he replied, ripping into a roll. “He was upset that she was still sick, as if she were doing it on purpose to embarrass him. What an ass! What Bets sees in him, I’ll never understand.”
“I know what she sees in him.” Liz pushed her plate aside. “He’s just like her father.”
John opened his mouth to dispute the comparison, for he loathed Hank; he was merely disappointed in his father. Once he mulled over the character of both, he reconsidered.
“What’s for dessert?” he changed the subject, rubbing his hands. “I hear it comes highly recommended.”
“Get to bed early, and you’ll find out,” she whispered across the table.
He threw his napkin off, pushed his chair back, and was upstairs before Liz could poke her head into the kitchen to let Ruth know she could clean up.
The Bell Witch Page 5
