Watcher in the Piney Woods

by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

  Cassie was standing with her shoulders squared, her chest heaving up and down. Philip, finished with his milking, rose and set the full pail to the side where June couldn’t knock it over. He started untying June from the milking ring.

  “I ain’t going to talk to you no more,” Cassie said.

  “Suit yourself,” said Philip. He hooked his fingers around June’s halter and pulled her toward the barn door, nearly running Cassie over.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she said.

  Philip didn’t turn around. “You best head on up to the house. You got Mama worried sick.”

  “I had a good reason why I was gone all night.” This Cassie said to Philip’s back and the backside of the cow.

  “You always do.” Philip walked on, leading June out to pasture.

  At that moment, Cassie hated Philip. If big-britches Philip knew what Cassie had been through …

  “Cassie!” It was Emma, up the hill in the door of the chicken house with a basket over her arm. Fetching the eggs, Cassie thought. Emma, her mouth hanging open, was staring at Cassie. “Mama, it’s Cassie!” Emma yelled. “Cassie’s home!”

  The shutters on the kitchen window flew open. Mama’s red hands appeared, then her face, beaming. “Don’t you move, child!” Mama hollered.

  The door slammed, and Mama came running toward Cassie—Mama and Emma both. Cassie ran toward them. She fell into Mama’s arms.

  “My baby, my baby,” Mama kept saying. She was kissing Cassie’s head, and her sweet, rough hands were against Cassie’s cheeks. It was the old Mama again, the before-the-war Mama.

  Cassie wrapped her arms around Mama’s neck and pressed her face to the warmth of Mama’s skin. She felt tears welling up inside her and spilling over, and she didn’t try to stop them. This was the closest thing to happiness Cassie had felt in a long time.

  Then Cassie happened to lift her head and look back toward the barn. There was Philip, standing under the overhang of the barn’s roof, watching them. His shoulders were thrown back, and his mouth was a tight line.

  His eyes met Cassie’s. He stared hard at her. But he didn’t move toward her. And he wasn’t going to, Cassie knew.

  The first thing Mama did was whisk Cassie into the kitchen to sit in front of the fire. Next she sent Emma to the house to fetch her rose-and-vine-pattern quilt. “It’s the warmest thing we got,” Mama said as she set to work fixing Cassie a cup of hot catnip tea. Myron and Ben were at the table, finishing up bowls of grits.

  When Emma came back with the quilt, Mama wrapped Cassie in it, stripped off Cassie’s wet clothes down to her chemise, and rubbed Cassie’s hair dry with the big linen towel Mama saved for company. Last, Mama stuck Cassie’s feet in a pan of hot water.

  All this time, Mama wouldn’t let Cassie speak a word. Every time Cassie opened her mouth to try to talk, Mama clucked and said, “Not a word, child, till that tea is gone. I won’t have you coming down with croup or pneumonia or some such thing. Influenza’s going around, ain’t it, Mr. Myron?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Myron said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “My Mary”—that was his wife—“been all over the county nursing folks what’s down with it.”

  Cassie tried to bolt down her tea, but it scalded her throat. The best she could do was take hurried sips and listen to Myron. He was telling her how he and Philip had been out half the night hunting for her.

  Myron glanced at Philip, who had just come in and was pouring himself a cup of coffee—not real coffee, but the kind everyone made with roasted okra seeds since the war had begun. Philip met Myron’s eye briefly, then looked down into his cup.

  Myron cleared his throat and went on. “We give up around midnight when the rain got so heavy we couldn’t see two feet in front of our faces. I was going to try to scare up a search party this morning, and Philip was going to get some chores done till I come back. But your ma wanted both of us fed and full of hot coffee first. It’s a good thing, too, since it don’t appear we’re going to be needing no search party.” Myron smiled in Cassie’s direction.

  “But, Mr. Sweeney,” Cassie said, gulping down her last mouthful of tea, “you do need a search party. Only not for me—for the deserter hiding out in the huckleberry swamp.” Then Cassie told her family all about the deserter—how he had threatened her and tried to force her to lead him back to the farm, how Hector had saved her and paid for it with his life, how she had hidden all night in the Quaker cave and nearly drowned trying to cross the flooded creek.

  By the time she finished her story, Cassie was almost in tears. Mama sat down on the deacon’s bench beside her and clasped Cassie’s hand. “Mercy, child, what you been through,” she said. “But it’s over now. You’re home safe.”

  Cassie couldn’t help voicing the anxious feelings that were consuming her. “What if it ain’t over, Mama? What if the deserter comes here?”

  Cassie saw the worried glance Mama shot Myron, even though she quickly covered it with a smile. “That ain’t likely,” said Mama. “How would he find us? And what do we have that he would want?”

  “Food,” said Cassie. “All our food. And June. Maybe even Birdie.” Birdie was their mule.

  Then Ben, who had been gulping down his third bowl of grits, suddenly piped up. “Betcha it was him done stole your ash cake, Mama. I told you it wasn’t me. Betcha it was him.”

  Ben’s statement hit Cassie like a blow. Could it have been the deserter who stole the ash cake? Cassie remembered Ben’s tearful protests of his innocence. They had all just assumed he was guilty; his fondness for ash cakes was no secret, and there was no one else to blame. A shiver tingled down Cassie’s spine. But now there was …

  A tense silence filled the room. Finally Emma broke it. She had a horrified look on her face. “Mama, you don’t think it was Cassie’s deserter who took the ash cake, do you?”

  To Cassie’s relief, Mama didn’t hesitate a minute. “No, I don’t. Why would a scalawag like that stop at taking one ash cake off a windowsill?” She paused and patted Cassie’s hand. “We ain’t going to fret ourselves to death over him coming here. It’s a good piece to the huckleberry swamp through thick piney woods. He ain’t likely to find his way to our farm without being led. Still, just knowing his likes is hanging around makes me nervous. ’Specially with Hector gone. I don’t want nobody in this family traipsing off alone till that man’s caught. For no reason. You hear me?”

  Cassie and the rest agreed.

  Then Mama hugged Cassie. “We come too close to losing something mighty dear to us last night. And we been—I been, anyway—dwelling too much on what’s been lost. I’m thanking the good Lord now for preserving to us what he has.”

  Myron drank the last of his coffee and stood up. “Tell you one thing,” he said. “It’s plain this deserter feller meant Cassie a lot more harm than he had a chance to do. And I ain’t sure we seen the last of him. I’ll see what I can do today about getting up a search party to catch the rascal.”

  Then Myron’s voice took on a tone that made Cassie feel cold all over. “Till then, you young’uns stay clear of them piney woods, hear?”

  CHAPTER 5

  SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS

  As it was, the next day no one in the family had much time for “traipsing off.” With April nearly half gone, Mama said, they’d best make haste on getting the garden started. Philip was powerful vexed, too, about not having gotten his corn crop in, so he plowed and planted out in the cornfield from dawn until dusk. Mama didn’t like the idea, she said, of him being out there alone, and even though Philip put up a fuss, she made him take the musket and promise to keep it nearby.

  Mama wouldn’t let Ben out of eyesight, either, while they planted the garden. She put him to work helping Cassie plant onion slips and scallions, which made the whole job take twice as long. The weather had turned even hotter, and the sun pummeled them without mercy. Cassie bent and stooped and hoed until her shoulders felt like fire and every muscle in her body ached.

 
In truth, though, Cassie was glad to be so busy. It kept her mind off things that were painful and unpleasant—like Jacob being dead and gone, and the chance that the deserter would somehow find their farm. Despite being worn out that night, Cassie didn’t sleep well. She woke at every little noise in the loft—the mattress shucks rustling as Emma turned in the bed, and Ben snoring in the bed he shared with Philip on the other side of the curtain. She had nightmares, too, and in the morning she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all.

  The next evening they finished the garden, and Myron showed up unexpectedly for supper. He brought news, he said—some good, and some that could be either good or bad, depending on how you looked at it. The good news was that his search party had not turned up a single sign of the deserter, though they had combed the swamp and the piney woods for miles around. “Appears the feller got scared when he met up with Cassie, and hightailed it out of the county,” Myron said.

  The other news was about the war. It was over—or nearly over—due to what had happened April ninth, day before yesterday. General Lee had surrendered to the Yankee general Grant in a little town down east that Cassie had never heard of—a place called Appomattox. Which meant the South had pretty much lost the war. Lee’s men, including Pa, would be released on parole to come home.

  Myron didn’t hold out much hope that General Johnston down in North Carolina could carry on alone for long. Mama and Myron looked serious and talked about the hard times that were likely ahead for the South.

  Cassie, though, didn’t think times could be much harder than they already were, and at least Pa would be coming home.

  Then Myron said he had one more piece of news, special news just for Cassie. He went outside to his wagon, and when he came back in, Cassie’s heart leaped. He was carrying Hector—all bandaged up and skinny as a beanpole, but alive! One of the men in the search party had found Hector lying under hydrangea shrubs in the swamp. Cassie ran to Hector and stroked his head while Myron laid him gently on the rug by the hearth. Hector thumped his tail weakly.

  Emma was gushing about the war being over and the blockade being lifted. “There’ll be real white sugar again—won’t there, Mama?—maybe even cloth for new clothes.”

  “Don’t mean there’ll be money to pay for ’em,” Mama said.

  But Emma didn’t seem to hear. “The boys’ll be coming home,” she was saying. Emma had fretted forever that there would be no men left for her to marry by the time the war was over.

  Myron held up his hand. “Hold on, girl. It’ll take a while for Lee’s men to get their parole papers. And won’t be no soldiers in this vicinity going home anyhow. General Johnston’s got to battle it out with Sherman yet.” Both Johnston’s Confederate troops and Sherman’s Federals were camped a few miles south of Danville, across the Virginia-North Carolina line.

  “So,” Mama said in her sternest voice, “there’ll still be soldiers, Yankee and Confederate, camped all around here. Tempers going to be flaring ’cause of the surrender. And we still got the prisoner-of-war camp right up the road in Danville. There could be more deserters like the one Cassie met up with once the word gets out about Lee’s surrender.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Myron. “Johnston’s men’ll be dropping their guns in droves and hightailing it home, unofficial-like. Be a heap o’ no-gooders looking for trouble.”

  Myron made them all promise to let him know if they saw any strangers in the woods or suspicious characters about. “Especially soldiers,” he said. “Solitary soldiers. Such as them is usually up to mischief.”

  Cassie shuddered. She knew all too well how right Myron was.

  First thing the next morning, Mama set Cassie and Emma to spring-cleaning. Mama wanted everything spotless, she said, to welcome Pa home. All the furniture and mattresses had to be carried out to the yard to air, the shucks in the mattresses fluffed up, the rugs beat out. All the bedding had to be washed, along with every stitch of clothing in the house. There was endless toting and heating up of water, washing and scouring, hanging up of linens and clothes on the line, taking them down and ironing them. At the end of the day, Cassie was bleary-eyed and exhausted.

  It was after dark when Mama sent Cassie out to the yard with her big willow basket to gather up the last load of clothes. It was a dark night; a spray of clouds covered the moon and stars. Cassie moved along the garden fence, collecting the britches and dresses and drawers from the line and from the bushes where she had put them when she ran out of room on the line. Her brain was numb with weariness.

  Suddenly she stopped, struck by the distinct impression she was being watched. She could almost feel the weight of eyes upon her.

  Cassie went rigid. Was there someone hiding behind the currant hedge back of the garden? Or maybe in the toolshed? She stood as still as death, listening. All she heard was a stir of leaves as a breeze rippled through the bushes at the garden’s edge.

  That’s what it was, she decided. Just the wind, and nerves worn to a frazzle by exhaustion.

  Cassie realized her arms were aching from holding the heavy basket of clothes. She set the basket down and shook out her arms, still watching the hedge, the quiet, dark hedge. “There’s nothing there,” she whispered, but her stomach still felt fluttery. Then a whippoorwill called out from the old quince tree beside the well.

  “Just a whippoorwill,” Cassie said aloud. She picked up the basket and started for the house.

  She tried to ignore the feeling of two eyes boring into her back.

  CHAPTER 6

  MISSING

  Where you been, sugar?” Mama said to Cassie as soon as Cassie walked in the kitchen door. “We been waiting supper on you.” Mama set a steaming plate of field peas at Cassie’s place at the table. The rest of the family was already seated.

  Cassie took a deep breath to calm herself. “Sorry, Mama,” she said. “Reckon I’m just moving slow ’cause of tiredness.” Here in the warm, lit kitchen, her fright in the garden seemed foolish. She sat down and gulped a swallow of June’s warm milk from the tin cup in front of her.

  “Cassie,” said Emma, “you didn’t see Maybelle out there in the yard nowhere, did you?” Maybelle was their wayward hen who liked to lay her speckled eggs everywhere but in the chicken house.

  “No,” said Cassie with her mouth full. “She run off again?”

  “Yeah,” said Emma. “She’s been missing since this morning.”

  “I declare, that old biddy has a mind of her own,” Mama said. “She’s bound and determined—ain’t she—to hatch her brood instead of giving us her eggs. If she don’t turn up by morning, Emma, you and Cassie going to have to take the musket and go out in the woods to hunt for her. You know she’s our best layer, and the way things are, we can’t spare no eggs right now.”

  Emma groaned. “Can’t you send Philip with Cassie, Mama? You know I only got two dresses left. If I ruin one out in the woods, I’ll have nothing left to …” She stopped.

  “To cut a figure for the boys coming home from the war,” Cassie finished for her. She was going to say more—tease Emma a little about her vanity—but Philip cut in before she had a chance.

  “Mama, I can’t go,” he said. “I still got one, two days left in getting the corn in the ground.”

  “I know,” Mama said. “Emma can go.” She turned to Emma. “Why can’t you wear that old pair of Jacob’s britches you wore to garden in?”

  Emma’s bottom lip poked out. “Them big, baggy old things again? They got that awful red patch in the seat. I feel like an ugly old hag in ’em.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “You ain’t going to church in ’em, Emma. Only out in the woods to hunt for Maybelle.”

  “Oh, all right,” Emma huffed.

  By morning Maybelle had not returned. Emma complained all through breakfast about having to wear the britches.

  So later, when Emma claimed she couldn’t find the britches, Cassie thought she was fibbing. Cassie went herself and looked through the chest and all the dresser drawer
s for the britches. Then it hit her: the britches had been in the load of clothes they washed yesterday afternoon. Cassie distinctly remembered hanging them out on the line. She was sure because she recalled thinking about how Jacob tore them when he climbed to the topmost branches of a persimmon tree to get Cassie some ripe persimmons. The memory had come to her sharp as hoop cheese at Sloan’s store, and she’d had to sit down and gather herself to keep from crying.

  Cassie told Emma, “I must have missed the britches last night when I was collecting the clothes. I was so wore out, and it was so dark. Likely they’re still out by the garden. I’ll get ’em.” Cassie hurried outside before Emma could question her further. She didn’t want to tell Emma about her scare by the hedge last night.

  The morning air was cool as clabber but soft with the fragrance of lilacs and cape jasmines. The garden was on the south side of the kitchen, behind the smokehouse. Cassie could see as soon as she rounded the smokehouse that the britches were not on the line or on the bushes. She had missed a sock—one of Philip’s—that had fallen off a cape jasmine bush onto the ground. She bent to pick it up and then stood for a moment, puzzling over the britches. How could they have just disappeared? Clothes didn’t get up on their own and walk away.

  Not unless someone walks away with them.

  For an awful moment, Cassie wondered if there really had been someone hiding behind the hedge last night. Her thoughts jumped back to the previous evening. Maybe she had been too eager to dismiss her feeling … because she was too scared to check it out.

  Well, thought Cassie, taking a deep breath, she would just do it now.

  She headed toward the currant hedge, walking along the edge of the garden where the tiny, tender tomato plants sparkled with dew. The freshly turned earth smelled rich and damp. Cassie rounded the hedge slowly, not sure what she would find.

  The ground behind the hedge was littered with fallen leaves and twigs from the woods a few feet beyond. But she saw nothing to suggest that anyone had been there last night. Not a footprint, not a broken twig, nothing.