Into The Deep

by Lauralee Bliss

  The elbow of her older brother, Luke, jarred her the next moment, upsetting the spoon. Down the front of her calico ran the watery potato broth, staining her only dress that still looked presentable.

  “Luke! How could you! Look at my dress.”

  “It’s just an old dress.”

  “It was an accident,” Mother added. “He didn’t mean it.”

  That was her life these days, one accident after another. Couldn’t anyone see how miserable this was? How miserable she was?

  Enough was enough. She fled the table, running to her secret place, a rock-laden area by a babbling brook. Many a day she came to sit here and contemplate, to throw her woes into the brook and wish for better times. She picked up a stone and threw it hard into the water. Why, God? she wondered, gazing into the leafy branches of the trees. It was difficult enough that she never had any new clothes to wear like her friend Polly at the neighboring farm. But now she had a stain on the only dress that didn’t have a hole in it, and from awful potato soup at that. How she longed for pretty dresses of silk, a new bonnet, leather shoes without holes. She wanted something better to eat than cold potato soup and dried cornbread for dinner. She wanted a place where she could eat in peace without having to be bumped and kicked by her brothers. Three times a day they crowded around the tiny table for meals. She could imagine a large home with a separate dining room. The long table would keep her seated far away from her brothers. And she would sit there in a gown of lace all by herself and enjoy every morsel of the fine victuals.

  Instead, she was poor, homely, hungry Susanna Barnett in a ratty dress. Susanna threw another stone into the water, watching it disappear. If only her troubles would likewise sink beneath such sweet and refreshing water. If only life could be fair and pleasant instead of harsh and difficult. Day after day, her father tried to make a living from the farm. Day after day, he came home groaning about the rocks, his lazy sons, the mule with a sore in its hoof, and how he wanted to go west with the first wagon trains. “There’s nothing here,” he complained to Mother. “No food. Can’t work the ground. We have no future in Kentucky.”

  Mother refused even to consider leaving. This was her home, she claimed. Grandma lived in Elizabethtown. Grandpappy was buried here. They had their friends and the little church where they went for services every Sunday. And she hated the thought of traveling so far in a wagon with all the dust, the harsh weather, and the strange Indians.

  “But everyone is talking about going out West. The land here is too tired.” Papa sat down hard on the stool. “I’m too tired.”

  They were all weary, so weary they could barely rise to greet the new day. Susanna hoped that one day Mother would wake up and agree to go out West. To her it seemed the answer. She had heard of Oregon Country from neighbors who wanted to follow in the footsteps of a man called Dr. Whitman. He had ventured successfully westward with his wife and now called on others to follow. Once in Oregon Territory, her family could build a large house and raise plenty of food to eat. They would pull out carrots as long as the tines on a pitchfork and potatoes as big as the stones that pitted the Kentucky ground. Game would fill the land in great abundance. A life of paradise in a land of plenty.

  Suddenly she heard a terrible sound and horses in distress. She leaped to her feet and whirled about. To her horror, she saw a wagon turned on its side and what appeared to be someone caught underneath, shouting for help. Immediately, Susanna came to the man’s side. His face was pinched, his voice scratchy. His red hair reflected the rays of sun. He reached out his hand to her. “Help me, please. My leg is trapped. Get help!”

  “I’ll get help, sir,” she said and raced off to the cabin. “Papa, Papa! There’s been an accident. A man is caught under his wagon down the road a piece.”

  Papa and her brothers wasted no time hightailing it to the wagon and the man caught beneath the jockey seat. In no time, they had the wagon erect. Papa stooped to help the man to a sitting position.

  “Oh, my leg,” the man groaned, grabbing hold of it. Slowly, he sat back down.

  “We’ll fetch a doctor,” Papa said. “Luke, saddle Honey and go get Doc Hodgens.”

  “There’s no need. I’m a doctor,” he managed to say.

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “John Croghan. I–I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I own the big cave. Mammoth Cave.” He then began taking off his shirt and ripping it into strips. “Fetch me some tree limbs, boy,” he ordered Luke. “Good stout ones. Not too big but not too small. I don’t think my injury is serious. Likely just a sprain, but sometimes you can’t tell.”

  “Don’t know if I’ve heard of that cave,” Papa said. “Of course I know there are plenty of caves around.”

  “I know where one is!” Luke added as he handed the doctor the tree branches and watched him bind the wood to his limb with the strips of cloth. “Do you really own your own cave?”

  “Yes, young man, I do. I own the biggest cave in this region—” He finished tying off the makeshift splint with a grunt. He sat back with a sigh. “Largest cave in the world, as a matter of fact.”

  The questions from Henry and Luke came all at once, like a fleet of arrows loosed upon a target. “Where is it? What does it look like? Where do the passages go? What is there to see?”

  “That’s enough,” Papa said. “Right now we need to get the good doctor somewhere safe. I hope my humble home will do for now.”

  “Thank you, I’m sure.”

  Together the brothers and Papa assisted the man to the wagon and guided the horses back to the farm. Susanna followed behind, looking at the man laid out in the back of the wagon with his leg bound by limbs and cloth. Her heart thumped within her. This was no ordinary man who had stumbled upon their farm but someone rich and famous who owned a magnificent cave. It seemed too good to be true. Perhaps even an answer to prayer.

  When they had settled the doctor in Luke’s bed, the boys immediately crowded around, asking him all about the cave he owned. Susanna brought the doctor a tin cup of warm milk as he described a wonder of wonders beneath the surface, a place where nothing ever decayed, a place that God Himself etched out of solid rock with His finger. The boys’ eyes grew large. They stood fixed in place, never moving an inch, absorbing every word the man said like dry ground beneath a cloudburst.

  “I want to go there,” Henry declared.

  “I’d like to live in a place like that,” Luke added.

  Dr. Croghan chuckled, sipping on the milk. “If you’re going to live there, you’ll still have to grow your food in the outside world. You could build yourselves small cottages inside the cave, I suppose. It’s certainly big enough. I once even considered putting a library inside the cave myself. How great it would be to study in such magnificence.” He grew quiet then. “But it’s very dark in the cave. Black as night. Damp. You can hear the water trickling. But it stays a constant temperature.”

  “I’d grow my corn outside and bring it in,” Luke decided. “And use plenty of lanterns.”

  “Can’t grow crops nowhere around here,” Papa said thoughtfully. “In fact, one can hardly grow a kernel of corn in this ground. The ground grows rocks instead. And then the ground looks like it’s sinking away in these parts. Kentucky is only for the starving.”

  “We aren’t starving,” Mother said, her hands flying to her hips. “And don’t you go using it as an excuse to leave either, Hiram. That’s all anyone around these parts talks about. Leaving and going elsewhere. Like there isn’t anything here worth living for.”

  “There is, I must say,” said the good doctor. “If you could see the cave you would think differently about Kentucky. I remember when Archie first showed it to me. I was amazed. It’s a place of refuge. Maybe even a place of healing. I’ve been studying the possibility. There are caves in Europe where doctors allow invalids to live in them, and they’ve had excellent results.”

  “But a cave won’t get us the food we need,” Papa added glumly.

  Susanna l
ooked at the wooden plank flooring of the cabin beneath the shabby shoes she wore. Could there really be something like a cave existing under their house? It seemed so strange to her, like a story she might have heard told by an old farmer smoking his corncob pipe and telling tall tales to his cronies. A huge cave, big enough to live in. An underground castle with rocky engravings like paintings on the walls. This couldn’t be a mere story told by the doctor for their amusement. It must be real.

  Several days passed before the doctor proclaimed himself much improved and healthy enough to travel back to his cave where he could finish recuperating. In the meantime, the boys had all but exhausted the man who told them tales of adventures conducted by his servant, Stephen Bishop, the one who mapped out the cave. When Papa came forward to present the doctor with some crutches he had made, a smile spread across Dr. Croghan’s face.

  “Now I would like to do something for you all,” he announced, sizing up each of them.

  “There is no need,” Mother said. “We are only doing the Christian thing by helping a neighbor in need.”

  “But I want to. How would you like to work for me?”

  One by one their eyes grew large in astonishment. “Work for you?” Papa repeated. “But we know nothing about caves.”

  “I could use some help. I own a hotel, you see, near the entrance to the cave. I would like to run tours. And I’d like to have you come live at the hotel and help the visitors who come to the hotel for tours of the cave. Archie does most of the managing of the place, but he could use the help. And we expect quite a few visitors to come with the fine summer weather soon upon us.”

  Papa looked at Mother. The boys immediately latched onto them, tugging, pleading with them to say yes. Susanna could only stand there dumbfounded.

  “We don’t know anything about caves. . . ,” Papa said once more.

  “There isn’t much to know, really. You don’t need to lead a tour or anything. I have guides who do that. I just need a nice family with smiles on their faces, who would greet the visitors and make them feel at ease. You all seem perfect for such work.”

  Papa exchanged glances with Mother. “I don’t know. Me and the missus will have to talk it over.”

  “Of course. When you come to a decision you can send word to me by way of the general store in Brownsville. But I do hope you will consider it. There’s such great enthusiasm here. I believe it’s the very thing I need to make my cave a success.”

  Watching the man slowly mount the wagon seat and wave good-bye, Papa stood next to Mother. “What do you think, Matilda?”

  “I don’t think we should abandon the beautiful land and farm the good Lord gave to us,” she retorted. “And that’s that.”

  ❧

  1843—Present Day

  Susanna glanced about the new land God had seen fit to give them as temporary keepers. There were rolling hills with the beginnings of spring wildflowers abloom, trees, the long muddy road that brought in the carriages, and the wooden buildings strung together that comprised the hotel and residences for the visitors. And, of course, the strange aura emanating from that famous hole of Dr. Croghan’s known as Mammoth Cave. Two years had passed since the day of the wagon accident when Dr. Croghan injured himself. Now, Susanna never felt more content. All her dreams had come true when they accepted the work here and took charge of the tours that left the hotel several times a day to see the famous cave. Mother had said all along that God was looking out for them, and now Susanna believed it with all her heart. Standing in the large bedroom she had all to herself and looking at her rich silk gown, her feet clad in new shoes, she knew God had been good to her family. He had seen their poverty and had brought the wealthy Dr. Croghan to their doorstep in their time of need. Not that she would have wished him or anyone injured for her family’s well being. But God had providentially used the man to set their feet on a path of prosperity—and when they might have starved if they had remained on the farm. All things had surely worked together for good for them that love the Lord, just as Mother had often read from the big black Bible.

  Susanna gazed about her room. How she loved this hotel. The fine furniture. Good solid wood floors. A ballroom. A library filled with books. The wonderful food served three times a day that included many kinds of vegetables, real sourdough bread, chicken and pork, cookies and teacakes. And a huge table at which to dine, where her brothers sat on the opposite end, well away from her. Mammoth Hotel had been a glimpse of heaven—until she met Jared Edwards.

  For two years, she had been shielded from life, it seemed. The hardship, the pain, even death. Then death suddenly came calling one dreadful day—and in Dr. Croghan’s famous cave, of all places. Now, death overshadowed everything.

  Susanna learned of Jared’s name from the papers Dr. Croghan had in his possession concerning the treatment of Jared’s aunt, Mattie Edwards. The woman’s death had opened Susanna’s eyes. No one was supposed to die here. This was a miracle cave, after all. A cave God had made, as the good doctor had said. A cave that could heal as well as stir up excitement far and wide. But something had gone terribly wrong.

  Susanna was one of the first to learn something was amiss when one of the doctor’s assistants came running to the hotel, claiming an invalid had died in the cave that morning. Susanna could hardly believe it. She, like everyone else, thought the cave to be the perfect place for the sick to recover. It was an area wrought out of stone and filled with moisture-laden air, a place vastly different from anything that existed in the outside world. Upon hearing about it, people flocked to the cave in the hopes of finding a cure for their loved ones sickened by the consumption. Now, most tragically, someone had died. And to her dismay, it was the relative of the young man who had pulled up in the wagon with the woman’s husband beside him, asking to see the doctor. The young man named Jared Edwards.

  When the assistants brought out the woman’s body, wrapped in a sheet, the older man broke into terrible wails that sent shivers racing through Susanna. She’d never seen or heard anyone so distraught. During the burial the older man fell to his knees, clawing at the dead woman, pleading with her to wake up and come home. And in the background stood Jared with his head hanging low, twisting his hat in his hands, his lips moving in prayer. The sorrow lay thick and heavy around him. It was an awful sight to see. Moved by it all, Susanna did what she could. She gathered what flowers were growing that early in March, some wild trout lilies, and gave the bouquet to him. He took them, his dark eyes meeting hers, his lips forming the silent words of thank you.

  And then, she witnessed the scene that still remained fixed in her mind. Awful accusations spilled forth from the uncle as he blamed Jared for the woman’s death. Then, in a booming voice, the uncle ordered Jared out of his life. She watched with a heavy heart as the young man ran off and never looked back.

  Susanna decided to follow Jared. She wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything would be all right, to show him that someone cared. However, he was too strong and quick, racing through the woods like a fine steed and disappearing over a rise. She slowed to a walk and finally stopped. Her heart beat rapidly, her breath came fast and furious, but her spirit sank. How could this have happened? The cave was supposed to be a place of hope—the same hope that helped her family out of their poverty. Instead, it had become a place of death for Jared and a place that drove him apart from his uncle. His hope had been dashed upon the very rocks meant to heal.

  Slowly she made her way back to the hotel, the cheerfulness that once permeated her life vanquished by what she had witnessed. In front of the hotel, Dr. Croghan was conferring with Papa over what happened. The grim expressions were clearly visible on their faces.

  “I want men to stand guard over the premises,” Croghan told Papa. “I don’t trust that man who lost his wife. He seemed quite distraught.”

  “I’m sure it will pass, Doctor. Life and death are in the hands of the Lord.”

  “Even so, I want the hotel and the cave entrance guarde
d. We are the law in this place, and I will not tolerate lawlessness.” Dr. Croghan shook his head and returned to the cave to see after the surviving invalids.

  Papa sighed, only to straighten when he caught sight of Susanna. “And where did you run off to, daughter?”

  “I was following the young man who lost his aunt in the cave.”

  “Why? There is nothing more we can do.”

  “There must be, Papa. The doctor promised the people who came to his cave that they would get better. And that man was. . .” She dared not say how his grief had moved her in ways she didn’t think possible.

  “The doctor promised nothing of the sort. His prayer was, of course, that the people would get well. Nevertheless, not all have the strength to endure the treatment in the cave. Dr. Croghan made sure the invalids and their families knew this.”

  Her gaze traveled to the place of distress, that dark hole, recalling the cold air rising up from the entrance in the summer. Many times the blast of air beckoned to her on a hot August day to come inside and cool off. She had never yet yielded to the temptation. Papa and her brothers had toured the inside of the cave and marveled over it. She had never seen it, nor was she certain she wanted to now—after what happened.

  “There is nothing we can do,” Papa said again. “We have business to attend. Please make sure the guests are assembled and ready for the next tour.”

  Susanna looked at her father in alarm. “Don’t you think we should cancel the tours for today? Someone just died, Papa. We should be in mourning.”

  A look of irritation filled his rough face. He adjusted the hat he wore. “Dr. Croghan didn’t give us orders to stop the tours. We’re getting paid to organize them. So we will go on as if nothing happened.” He stepped closer. “And you are not to tell anyone about this either. I don’t want the guests fearful. This is our work, daughter. This is how we live. Life goes on. So smile and be cheerful.”

  When he turned and walked away, a great sadness filled her. No one would even pause to mourn the dead. It was only tours and money, work and duty.