[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek

by Jan Watson

  Their baby boy was stillborn on a warm spring morning. Two daughters followed during the next few years—one born too early and one who died in her father’s arms after a time of struggle. Her little heart was too weak to give her color. Three small graves, all in a row, rested at the foot of Will’s parents’ plot in the Brown family section of the cemetery.

  Despite their tragedies, Will and Julie’s passion never wavered. Julie obviously loved her new home and the mountain people. And though usually wary of strangers and obsessively clannish, the folks on Troublesome Creek loved her right back.

  Sunday morning became their favorite time. Will and Julie would get up early and carry mugs of strong black coffee outside, regardless of the weather. Will added a fine tin roof to cover the porch, and they would sit in matching rockers with their coffee to watch the sun come up or the rain come down. Some mornings Julie was already out there when he rose, as if she couldn’t get enough of their mountain paradise.

  When Will had finished his first cup, he’d refill hers and then bring out the Bible that had belonged to his father and read to her. Julie told him she’d gone to church every Sunday, but the Scripture never came to life for her until she heard it from his rich baritone.

  “Will,” she’d said one morning after he read, “you make me feel as if I can just wrap God’s Word around me and wear it like a suit of clothes.”

  One Sunday morning it was pouring. The rain ran off the corners of the roof in little rivers and splashed like a waterfall down the stone steps that led to the yard. A cool wind blew the damp their way, so he covered them with the quilt from their bed and read to her from their cozy tent.

  The sweet smell of her breath mixed with the heady aroma of coffee that day as he read from Isaiah. “‘Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.’”

  Nearly every Sunday she requested that Scripture again. She said it was her favorite.

  Over the years Julie received many packages from Grace. Will would carry them in from the post office and watch Julie open lavender-scented toilet water, luxurious silk hair ribbons, expensive fabrics, and fashionable dress patterns. Julie never sewed dresses from those patterns though. Instead, Emilee helped her make the easy-fitting print shirtwaists and skirts favored by the women who lived on Troublesome Creek. As far as Will knew, every gift Grace had sent was tucked away in a trunk under their bed.

  Will carried their letters back and forth for years—Julie’s to the post office and Grace’s back to Julie. He never asked her what was in those letters, but he often wondered if Grace was softening toward him. When their father finally died after a long, lingering illness, Julie was pregnant again so Will could not take her to the funeral or to visit her sister. Julie cried herself to sleep many nights. He knew her tears were filled with longing to see her sister. He swallowed his pride and wrote to Grace himself, begging her to come to Troublesome Creek to stay for a while with Julie. He waited and waited for her reply.

  One day, toward the end of Julie’s fourth confinement, a fine, four-wheeled, leather-topped surrey was delivered to their door. Julie was delighted. She told Will it had been her father’s Sunday carriage. Inside, fastened to the horsehair seat, was Grace’s latest missive: “Come home, both of you. Come home and bring the baby.”

  That, of course, was impossible, for the mountains were in Will’s blood. He could not have lived any other place, and Julie could not live without her Will.

  The baby had been easily born considering Julie’s small stature. Will had paced the yard with his best friend, Daniel, until he’d nearly worn it down to bedrock, he was so anxious. Daniel’s wife, Emilee, and Granny Pelfrey attended Julie.

  When the cabin door opened, Will turned, hoping for good news.

  Emilee handed her own squalling six-month-old son to his father. “Take him, Daniel. He cain’t be hungry. He nursed just an hour ago. I swan, he’s going to be as big an eater as his pa.” With her hand on the door latch, she flashed a reassuring smile. “Don’t look so worried, Will. It’s near over.”

  A scream rent the air, and she rushed back inside.

  Will hastened to follow but was restrained by Daniel. “My friend, birthing is women’s work. Best leave them alone with it. You know Granny will take good care of Julie.”

  True, Will’s wife could not have been in better hands. Granny Pelfrey was Daniel’s grandmother, and she lived with Daniel and his family. Stooped from the thinning of her bones, hands gnarled from rheumatism, her eyesight fading, she was still the best baby catcher on Troublesome Creek. Truth be told, she was the best for a hundred miles in any direction. The first thought that crossed the mind of a newly carrying woman was, I’ve got to talk to Granny. Chances were better than good that Granny’s hands had also guided that woman into the world.

  Years of midwifery had honed her skill, but she was a natural healer with a sixth sense when it came to the unborn. She could cast one look at a pregnant belly and discern the sex of the baby. She would watch the woman’s waddling, splay-legged walk and predict whether the delivery would be difficult or easy.

  Granny was a little woman, not even five feet tall and eighty-seven pounds, but powerfully strong for her eighty years. Her black shoe-button eyes looked out kindly from a round face, spiderwebbed with wrinkles. She liked a good laugh, and she was most proud that she still had her teeth. A long puckered scar trailed down the right side of her face from her eyebrow to the corner of her mouth. When she was still, which was rare, you could catch her tracing that scar, rubbing it like a talisman, over and over. She kept her sparse gray hair in a long braid that she twisted and fastened to the back of her head with anything handy—a blue jay’s wing feather, a broken comb, the branch from a rambling rose stripped of thorns. In daylight she kept her head covered with an old silk bonnet, but at night she took her hair down so it fanned across her pillow.

  She’d been born again as a girl and baptized when the creek was so cold her daddy had to skim the ice before she waded in. She didn’t believe God was just for Sundays. She saw evidence of His power and presence everywhere she cast her gaze, even in the unpredictable waters of Troublesome Creek. But most of all there was a quiet knowing deep in her heart that kept her centered in her faith.

  Granny had learned the power of herbs from her mother, who had learned from her mother. Every passable morning she’d take up her walking stick and strike out up the mountain. She liked the early morning best when the first and weakest rays from the sun cut through the dense gray fog. Even the infirmity of age did nothing to dilute the pleasure she got from those treasure hunts. With her stick she’d poke among the weeds and brush looking for the familiar sprigs of comfrey, boneset, calendula, and other potent medicinal plants. She was particularly pleased if she found the greenish cluster of flowers that signaled the aromatic forked root of the ginseng plant. Ginseng fetched a pretty price at the market.

  Some herbs she cultivated tenderly in her garden, much the same as she cared for the newly born. She delighted in the lavender, meadowsweet, and velvet dock that thrived with each dipper of water from her granite bucket and each gentle scratching from her child-size hoe. Her special delight was the yellow-flowered sassafras tree her husband had planted just inside the garden gate when they were first married. Most mornings the thought of a cup of tea made from its shaved root was what brought Granny back from her wandering.

  Will praised the Lord for Granny Pelfrey that momentous spring evening when she laid his daughter in his arms. When the baby clutched his finger, his heart swelled to bursting. No one could have prepared him for the rush of emotion this tiny creature brought forth.

  Though Emilee fussed at him to keep the baby warm, he laid her on the bed and loosened the swaddling cloths and the belly-band. He smiled to see
the little legs, fat as baking hens; the surprisingly long, narrow feet; his mother’s full mouth and button nose; Julie’s long, fair lashes framing almond-shaped eyes; and, a source of particular pride, his own fingers in diminutive, capped with nails like the tiniest of pink shells. As he stroked her plump cheek, she turned to root at his hand.

  “Give her to me, love,” Julie said. “I think our daughter is ready for her first meal.”

  It nearly stopped his heart to see his beautiful wife holding their baby close, and he felt filled to the brim with praise to the Lord for the healthy infant they’d finally been given.

  “Yes, Will,” Emilee replied, “Granny and I have lots to do for Julie and your young’un. You all go on over to our place for the night, for we don’t need no men in the way. You can come back in the morning.”

  Reluctantly, Will agreed. He knew that Granny always spent the night with her new mothers. Emilee and her babe would stay as well. Granny might need her help.

  “Emilee, you come get me if you need me,” he said. Then with a last kiss for Julie and a look of longing at his daughter, he went out into the night.

  As soon as Will was out of the way, Granny and Emilee set about the evening’s tasks. Emilee put the soiled bed linen to soak in a washtub full of cold water while Granny massaged Julie’s belly. She noted the firmness of the womb and the amount and color of her flow. She assisted Julie with the baby’s feeding, though the baby didn’t need much guidance—she was a hearty eater.

  “Nursing will cause your womb to shrink and cut your bleeding. I’ve heard of city women near flooding to death for lack of feeding their own young. I’ve heard they suckle with glass bottles. Law, the Lord’s way is best, I reckon.”

  When the infant had her fill, Emilee bathed Julie, then took down her braids and dressed her hair. “I swan, Julie, if you don’t have the purtiest hair in the county,” came the familiar refrain as Emilee carefully pulled a comb through the long blonde tresses, hair soft as a little girl’s but thick as a horse’s mane.

  CHAPTER 3

  Granny watched as Julie nursed and cuddled her new baby that night.

  “Granny, does she look all right? Her feet are purple.”

  “Julie, this ’un’s not a blue baby like yore last ’un. She’s full of vim and vigor—just note how hard she sucks.”

  “Oh, Granny, I’m so afraid. I think God is punishing me for what Will and I did before we married. That’s why He took my babies back.” Julie began to sob. She clutched her little daughter to her chest as tears streamed down her face.

  Granny sat down on the bed. Her old, thin bones barely made a dent on the corn-shuck mattress. She took Julie’s hand. “Have ye asked Him to forgive ye, Julie?”

  “I have, Granny, but I don’t think He heard me.”

  “‘Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear,’” Granny quoted from Scripture. “God forgives ye, honey. He surely does.”

  “How can He forgive my selfishness when I can’t forgive myself?” She turned her face away. “I hurt my family,” she continued, her voice a strangled cry around a clot of tears. “I left my sister to care for my father on his deathbed with never a thought for anyone but myself.”

  Granny put her arms around the distraught young mother. “How much do ye love this wee one, Julie?”

  “Oh, you know how much. With all my heart. I’d die for her.”

  “What if she grows up to disappoint ye? What if she ever needs your forgiveness?”

  Julie sat up straight. She gazed at the infant and stroked her rounded cheek. “She could never do anything to lessen my love for her.”

  “Nor can ye lessen God’s love, Julie. It says in Jeremiah: ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’ If there ain’t no forgiveness in yore heart for yoreself, how could ye forgive anyone else?”

  Julie squeezed the old woman’s hand. Her voice came out as a strangled plea. “Pray for me, Granny.”

  Granny eased up off the bed and placed her hand on Julie’s bowed head. “Lord, we come to Ye today to ask for the light of Yore mercy to shine upon Yore servant Julie. Fill her heart with the spirit of forgiveness and Yore never-ending eternal love. For this we petition Thee in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  Julie wiped her tears with the palm of one hand. She gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Thank you, Granny. I feel at peace. I think I can rest now, finally.”

  The baby sucked one finger.

  “Look here,” Granny said. “This little rascal wants to eat all the time, even in her sleep. I believe this ’un’s going to be a match for Emilee’s son.”

  Julie twirled a strand of the baby’s hair around her finger. “She has the same color of hair as my sister, the color of a sunset, and it curls just the same. I’m going to name her for my sister: Laura Grace. Isn’t that pretty?”

  Granny took the baby from Julie’s arms. “Ye done yore sister proud, I reckon. Sleep now. I’ll watch out for yore wee one.”

  Granny commenced to rocking the baby. Emilee was already asleep, curled around baby John on a pallet at Julie’s side. A log in the fireplace burned through and sent a shower of sparks up the chimney as it fell against the grate. Granny snuggled the infant under her chin, so close she could feel her milky-sweet breath against her neck. She shifted in the chair. A sense of foreboding settled in the old woman’s bones. The air around her stirred as the wings of dark angels brushed past her—Lucifer and his host, forever nibbling at the edges of her faith.

  “Get away, Old Scratch, you sly devil.” She shooed the air with one bony hand. “There ain’t no gone geese here, less’n it’s me you’re after.” She tightened her hold on the baby. “Ye shore ain’t taking this little soul.”

  Emilee barely had time to make coffee, let alone fry the fatback for breakfast, before Will burst through the door the next morning. “Where’re my girls? Where’re the beautiful blonde Julie and her fetching red-haired daughter?”

  “Law, Will,” Emilee replied, “you’ll wake the dead. Seeing as there’s only one room here, I reckon you can find them without any help.”

  Will grabbed her plump waist and danced her around his kitchen-dining-sitting-sleeping room. He planted a noisy kiss on her dimpled cheek. “Emilee Pelfrey, it’s a good thing you’re married to my closest friend, or I would sure enough have to add you to my harem.”

  “Save your charm for your wife, Will Brown.” A blush covered Emilee’s cheeks, and a grin deepened the just-kissed dimple. “Where is my Daniel this morning? He always wakes hungry as a hibernated bear.”

  “Don’t fret. He just stopped to feed the animals.”

  With all the commotion, both babies began to cry.

  Will scooped his daughter from the cradle. Holding the baby in his arms, he bent his long body to the bed and kissed Julie awake.

  Baby John overcame the newborn’s squalls with hunger-fueled wails of his own. As usual, a few quiet words from Granny brought everything back under control. She sent Will to gather eggs for their breakfast, then tended to her patient’s needs. Everything was going as expected. Julie was recovering nicely.

  After Julie fed the baby again, Emilee would help her out of bed. Granny didn’t believe in lying in bed for weeks after childbirth. Her patients couldn’t afford the luxury of lazing around— most had more than one hungry mouth to feed. Besides, she had observed, new mothers didn’t stay weak for long if they got out of bed as soon as they were steady on their feet.

  She was not surprised to learn that citified women would be puny for weeks after childbirth and couldn’t care for their own households. It made sense, all that pizen blood backing up in there with nowhere to go—no wonder they had so many female complaints. Granny’s mothers were up and seeing to their families merely days after delivery.

  Julie was up in the rocker. The men had eaten breakfast and were having a smoke on the porch. Emilee had finished scrubbing the floor with bleach water and was packing baby John o
n her hip, making ready to leave. Granny was pulverizing egg shells she had burned in the iron skillet to mix with a little sweet milk for Julie.

  “Here, honey, drink this down,” she instructed. “Don’t want ye getting sickly. This is a remedy my mommy taught me. I was weak as a kitten after Daniel’s daddy was borned. ‘This’ll keep yore strength up,’ Mommy said.” Granny lifted a small queer-shaped rock from the counter. “This here’s Mommy’s pestle. It’s the onliest thing I’ve got of hers, save one grease lamp.”

  Julie swallowed the chalky-tasting drink. She caught Granny’s hand and drew it to her cheek. “Thank you for helping me through this. What would I have done without you?”

  “I just do what the good Lord set about for me. He gives us all a talent. Yours is your purty voice; mine is birthing babies.”

  “Wonder what mine is,” Emilee said. “Taking care of Daniel?”

  “I believe yours to be having the babies for me to birth.” Granny tee-heed.

  “How many, Granny?” Julie asked, smiling at her friend. “How many babies will Emilee have?”

  “A tribe, I reckon. A baker’s dozen.”

  “And me? Will I have more healthy babies?”

  “Don’t fret yourself, Julie. Enjoy this’n ’fore you worry about more. Now I have in mind to talk straight to Will before I leave ye.”

  Granny found Will in the side yard, still patting himself on the back, proud as a peacock. “Now, Will,” she started. “I got a right smart to learn ye. I don’t want to leave Julie less’n yore up to it.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” Will huffed.

  “Don’t get all toucheous, Will. Ye need to know things ye never needed to know before. Just listen.”