Wildwood Creek

by Wingate, Lisa

  Escaping Wildwood unnoticed wasn’t all that that hard, really: head down the path to the spring behind the schoolhouse with a water bucket in hand; ditch the bucket near said springhouse, where I could pick it up again later; follow the spring down to Wildwood Creek. Follow Wildwood Creek down to the lakeshore . . . because, what do small bodies of water do eventually? Flow into larger bodies of water.

  I was impressed with my own rugged pioneer ingenuity. For a girl who’d recently gotten herself trapped in a window, I was doing exceptionally well. I even had the forethought to pull the back of my skirt up between my legs and tuck it in at the waist, creating mid-century genie pants. It made the hiking a little easier, though I decided that it would’ve been smarter to bring my T-shirt and capris along and leave the costume over a tree branch someplace.

  Where it flowed downward toward Moses Lake, the waters of Wildwood Creek ran deep and wide through a limestone gorge roughly fifteen feet below. That part of the walk took a while, but it was worth it for the view alone. Along the lakeshore, a shady hidden spot beside a cedar tree provided the perfect frontier phone booth. With email in the palm of my hand and a jet drawing a slowly spreading trail across the sky, the modern world seemed just one comforting step away. A boat motored by on the lake, and I thought about Burt and Nester at the Waterbird store. Were they among the curiosity seekers security had booted out in recent days?

  The cell phone found a signal and connected in less than a minute. Magic. Unfortunately, there was nothing significant from Stewart, just a note saying that the materials he was waiting for hadn’t come in today. He was sure they’d show up in another day or two. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have more for you. I think I’ve found the missing link to Bonnie Rose. He made it sound like we were spies, working together on some clandestine mission. I’m on the case.

  Temptation nibbled, inconveniently compelling. It wasn’t all that difficult to sneak off to the lake. I could probably manage it again after go-live started. Just . . . just one more time. I think I’ve found the missing link to Bonnie Rose. Had he? The possibility was too much to resist. All I had to do was keep the phone a couple more days. Just until I could see what Stewart came up with . . .

  Maybe while I was here, I’d send off a quick email to Mom and Lloyd, let them know that my summer plans had morphed into something completely unexpected.

  A little fantasy spun in my head—one in which they were excited by the news, impressed that I was trying to do this thing. For a minute or two, the altered reality felt good. Then I scanned through my in-box and realized there wasn’t a thing from home—just as there hadn’t been since I’d made my decision about working here. Same silent treatment. Same message. Play by the family rules or you’re not part of the family.

  It hurt to think about it, so I just turned off the phone and sat by the lake until I knew I’d probably been away far longer than I should’ve. I still had a long hike back, and I wanted to follow the little trail that ran alongside Wildwood Creek in the canyon, which would take longer. Tonight there would be a big celebratory hog roast in the village. I couldn’t be late for that.

  With the afternoon beginning to dim, it was time to abandon the real world and head back. Tomorrow, the Bonnie Rose life would hit me full-force. Suddenly, even as worried as I’d been about whether I could hack it, a part of me was relieved. The real world came with issues I couldn’t just fix. No doubt Bonnie Rose’s world did too, only hers were matters of survival, of life and death. Had Stewart really found the keys to her secrets? Would I ever know why she chose to come here and why she disappeared along with the others who’d lived in this place?

  Beside me as I moved along, Wildwood Creek seemed to be keeping its secrets as well, its surface more of a long, narrow pool than a stream with intentions of going anywhere. Lines of debris along the rock walls testified to the fact that at some time this had been a waterway to be reckoned with, but right now the drought had choked the life out of it. If things got any drier, the little stream that had given our town its name wouldn’t be flowing at all.

  The soles of my sneakers crunched dully on the caliche ground as I walked, and in the water fish surfaced, their scales catching the last beams of soft sunlight. A tiny fawn lay hidden in a nest of grass and mustang grapevine. The two of us startled each other. I could’ve picked the baby up and carried it home, but thanks to Grandma Rita, I knew better. Never touch a wild creature that looks healthy enough. Her voice was in my ear now, her Texas drawl seeming right at home in these woods. There’s a mama nearby somewhere, and she’ll come back for it, hon.

  A wishing-ache pierced me without warning. If only it could’ve been Grandma Rita stepping into one of those dowager lives in the Delevan house this summer. She’d fit right in there on the hill with Genie and Netta, taking her place among the grandmoms of Wildwood. We could be pioneers together, just like my ancestors on the Kirkland side. Who could say? Perhaps some of them had walked these very hills along with Bonnie Rose.

  For a moment I slipped fully into the illusion of it, felt myself sinking into the past, into Bonnie’s life. It happened at the strangest times now—when I was bent over a cooking fire, focused on corn pone cakes slowly frying in a pan, or learning to store milk and eggs in the springhouse along the bluff, or balanced on a stool trying my luck at milking a cow, or helping the school kids chase chickens into a coop. There were those odd moments when I felt as if Bonnie Rose may have been exactly in that same place, working at the same task, long ago. As if I she and I were in some way, one and the same.

  When I finally climbed the narrow trail out of the creek bed, I almost expected to find 1861 waiting for me. There was nothing to say that it wasn’t.

  Overhead the jet trails were gone. Nothing but rustling leaves and sky. No power lines, no engine noises, no swoosh of passing cars, no faint hum of fluorescent streetlights. Not one sound made by machines. Just the deepening blue-gray of evening and a single first star insisting its way into the void, giving a warning that I’d dallied long enough.

  Darkness would descend again, and another night in Chinquapin Peaks would take hold. The riot of coyote voices would start in the hills, echoing here and there, their raucous songs seeming to come from all directions. I’d gotten more accustomed to them in the past three weeks—all of us had—but when they ran through the woods near the town site, stirring up the dogs and causing the horses to pace their corrals, something primal still ruffled my skin. Hearing their calls now made me want to hurry home.

  I quickly surveyed the hills to get my bearings so that I could cut cross-country toward the village. It’d be faster that way. There was an old logging trail the production crew used for transporting men and equipment without making tracks through the set. If I could find it, I could . . .

  Something stopped me short. I blinked, squinted, looked again. There were people among the trees, just visible against the shadowy branches. An old man and a little dark-haired girl. Her filmy white dress fell loosely from her shoulders and the hem danced around her calves, seeming to find a life of its own.

  They stood on the hillside next to the logging road, looking downward into the village. For an instant, they seemed unreal . . . part of my 1861 fantasy. Ghosts of Wildwood.

  A shiver of gooseflesh ran over my skin as I moved closer.

  A mule brayed somewhere in the woods, and the man turned to look, and I knew I hadn’t conjured him from my imagination. The stranger snatched off his ball cap and held it in his hands apologetically.

  He closed the gap between us, the little girl trotting after.

  “We w-w-wasn’t b-botherin’ unn-nothin’,” he stuttered, struggling with each word. “Birdie j-just uww-wanted to see the t-town. She c-caught ’er some fire-fireflies f-f-for Nick.”

  The little girl held up a jar, her blue eyes rising with it. “Grampa and me got ’em for Nick,” she repeated in a whisper.

  Nick, the little blond-haired son of Mallory Everson, the Frontier Woman blogger.
Nick was the youngest of the students in our Wildwood school, only five years old, but pretending to be six and a first grader, in terms of village life.

  Birdie pressed the jar toward me, and I took it. “I can give it to his mom for him,” I offered. The jar certainly looked old enough to be part of Civil War–era life, though it probably wasn’t. “Everyone’s coming down for dinner in the village tonight. Nick probably won’t be able to have this in Wildwood, but he can take it home with him.” Little Nick was one of the few cast members allowed to come and go from the closed set. The ranch where he lived was providing some livestock for the production, so his parents were in and out anyway. Despite Tova’s “pretty face” theory, that was the reason Mallory had been allowed to begin compiling blogs about the production, which wouldn’t actually be published until after shooting ended in September. She was hoping to do a magazine series or a book as well.

  “’Kay.” Smiling, Birdie reached across the space between us to touch my dress. “You’re a princess lady.”

  I realized I still had the skirt tucked into my waistband. Some princess. “We start filming tomorrow. This is my costume.” I turned to her grandfather. “No one’s supposed to be around the area without a Razor Point ID, though. How did you get here?” There wasn’t much chance they could’ve missed the plethora of Private Property and No Trespassing, Violators Will Be Prosecuted signs tacked to trees in all directions. Their presence here seemed innocent enough, though. I didn’t want to see them get in trouble.

  “We urr-rode the umm-mule.” The old man paused, pointing across Wildwood Creek and upward, to where the hills of Chinquapin Peaks grew even steeper. From what I’d seen of this remote territory, life here wasn’t very different from that on our reenactment set. The narrow gravel roads wound through a patchwork of lopsided cabins shored up with tar paper and ancient trailer houses with roofing held down by cement blocks or old tires. Here and there, derelict vehicles appeared to be serving as housing as well. Hungry-looking animals foraged in grass-bare yards and dogs on chains threatened passing cars. Chinquapin Peaks had the feel of a place that didn’t welcome change . . . or strangers.

  I wondered how this old-timer felt about our presence here, though he seemed friendly enough. “Over y-yonder we come. Birdie uww-wanted to s-see. My granny u-u-used to t-tell the t-tale about Wildwood t-t-town. Sing to us kids, ‘B-be good, be good. Don’ w-wander the forest udd-deep. Bonnie Rose g-grab you up, and them she g-get she keep. Take you d-down, in the river d-drowned, leave your m-mama to w-weep.’”

  A wild rush of righteous indignation swept through me, hot and furious and unexpected. “Your grandmother sang you songs about the schoolteacher kidnapping little kids and drowning them in the river? That’s terrible!” I was offended for Bonnie Rose’s sake. The young girl in that grainy photo of the Wildwood school, the girl who looked so much like me . . . what could she possibly have done to deserve to be immortalized in such a way? How could people say things like that about her? She wasn’t much more than a child herself.

  What had happened here in Wildwood? Was that rhyme, apparently handed down through generations, merely the hill folks’ way of explaining the mysterious end of the village? Or was it proof of something awful—the dark, sinister reality that Rav Singh had alluded to as he coaxed me into Bonnie’s life? Was this the Ballad of Wildwood?

  “My umm-mama s-sung it,” the man stammered, seeming embarrassed by my outburst.

  “Grandpa Len don’t sing it,” Birdie assured me. “I ain’t scared a’ Bonnie Rose. I got Jesus watchin’ over me.” Slipping a hand into the neck of her dress, she pulled out a crudely painted wooden cross, the sort of thing we might’ve made in Vacation Bible School when I was in Texas for the summers. “We got Jesus, right, Grandpa Len?”

  “Yes’m, th-that’s urr-right. And udd-don’t be f-forgetten it.” Grandpa Len scratched his scraggly beard, giving the woods a concerned glance. “W-we ubb-best be ugg-getting back to the m-mule.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed his arm impulsively. “What’s the rest of the song? What does it say?”

  His leathery features scrunched around his nose, conveying frustration. Finally, he pounded his head with the heel of one hand hard enough that it hurt just to watch. “Udd-don’t know. My umm-mind ain’t so ugg-good n-no more. Granny u-u-sed to s-sing it ubb-boiling them hen eggs, and let ’em g-go that ull-long.”

  Eggs . . . How long does it take to boil eggs? I’d just learned that during my frontier training. Five minutes, maybe? There was much more to the song than what I’d just heard.

  The old man pounded his temple and alternately shook his head, trying to dredge up the rest. His little granddaughter grabbed his elbow to stop him. “It’s okay, Grandpa Len. It don’ matter. We can sing another song. Mrs. Zimmer taught us one in summer school th’other day.”

  Her grandfather gave an adoring smile, his face relaxing. “All urr-right. You c-can teach umm-me.”

  Birdie’s eyes twinkled. “Okay. And tomorrow, can we go see the caves down by the lake too?”

  “If the w-water’s down f-fer enough, we w-will. Them c-caves ubb-been c-covered lotsa y-years. Umm-might b-be a big ol’ c-catfish in t-there g-get us ull-like this.” Jutting out a hand, he nipped the little girl’s waist before she could twist away, giggling.

  “Well, be careful.” I held up the jar of fireflies. “I’ll give these to Nick’s mom.” Along with the promise came an idea. Maybe I’d mention the bit from the old ballad to Nick’s mom. Perhaps she could dig up something online. I hadn’t found any mention of it in the Wildwood research I’d done with Stewart, but who could say?

  Birdie and Len turned toward home, fading into the shadows as I hurried back to the village. Fortunately, the press ops and photos were over for the day, and the schoolhouse lay quiet and empty, the heat of the afternoon slowly seeping out through the walls.

  Back in my little room, I tucked the phone into the empty canister with my toothpaste and put it on one of the high shelves where Wren couldn’t reach it. There were plenty of unused spaces among my kitchen goods. Even though I had gone through some of the domestic arts training with the historical experts, I wasn’t expected to be cooking much. As the local teacher, my meals would be provided by various townsfolk as was customary for preachers and teachers in frontier settlements like Wildwood. I was counting on my kindly neighbors, as I hadn’t been very adept at the frontier cooking lessons, and my limited teacher income wouldn’t allow for much buying at the store, where the prices were exorbitant even by mid-century standards.

  By the time I finally finished hiding everything and putting on my Sunday best outfit for the celebration of our last night before go-live, I could already hear music floating in the air above the village street. Someone out there was playing a mean fiddle. The bawdy tune wrestled a little jig from me as I opened the bedroom door with the firefly jar tucked under my arm.

  The handle bumped into something soft, and all of a sudden, there was Wren Godley, looking undeniably guilty. Of what, I wondered?

  “Ouch!” She rubbed her shoulder where the door had collided with it. “You should look before you come out. This is a schoolroom, right? There might be a kid here, remember.” She was her usual charming self. There was a reason why the grips and other cast members, including children, ran the other way when they saw Wren coming.

  “School’s closed,” I reminded Wren. “Why aren’t you out there with the other kids? I thought they were going to have games for you guys tonight.” I tried to shoo her from the doorway, but she wasn’t moving. Instead, she peered curiously into the apartment.

  Her eyes squeezed upward from the bottom, and she crinkled her nose at me. “I don’t like games.” An obnoxious little head bob gave emphasis. “How come you don’t have to be at the stupid hog roast?”

  “I do have to be there. Actually, I’m looking forward to it, and I’m headed that way right now. Excuse me while I shut the door.” I nudged her gently out of the way, and she sidestepp
ed into my exit path.

  “Well, where were you before?” She poked her nose out like a ferret sniffing for morsels. “Because you weren’t in here. I checked in the window, and there wasn’t anybody in here.”

  Now she was a Peeping Tom too? I’d have to be even more careful.

  She noticed the firefly jar clutched under my arm before I could answer. “What are those? Bugs?”

  “Fireflies. They’re for Nick Everson. It’s a long story.”

  “Ewww. What are they for?” Drawing back, she gave the jar a perplexed look, and it occurred to me that Wren Godley didn’t know anything about gathering fireflies into a lantern jar.

  A sudden and surprising tsunami of sympathy hit me, and I held the container out for her to see. “Well, because they’re pretty. You enjoy their twinkling for a while, and then when you’re done, you let them go. It’s like . . . making your own lamp.”

  For just an instant, her face softened as she considered the wonder of fireflies. As quickly as it was there, the vulnerability vaporized, replaced by crossed arms and a sardonic eye roll. “Why don’t you just get a flashlight, stupid?”

  “Never mind.” Since it was either say something inappropriate or move on, I chose to usher her out of my space and up the street toward the gathering of cast and crew. The festivities were already moving into full swing in the street outside Unger Dry Goods Store and Warehouse, the biggest building in town.

  We hadn’t gone far before Wren’s mother apprehended her, and they veered off, the mom struggling to navigate the caliche gravel on five-inch heels while berating Wren for disappearing. There was face time to be had with important people, after all. Like Rav Singh, who had just arrived at the party. I could see him across the way, holding court on the loading dock of the Unger Warehouse. He was telling a story while a group of admirers hung on his every word. Wren’s mother quickly elbowed her way to the front, maneuvering Wren into position.