[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek

by Jan Watson

  Until that moment she’d thought she might be able to live without him. “I’m glad. I’m so very glad you’re here.”

  “Are you?” he asked. “I was afraid your feelings toward me had changed. It seemed I’d only imagined our time together.”

  The light was failing in the barn. It would soon be dark, but she felt a radiance from within that was surely as bright as a cloudless June day. She pressed her cheek, warm from Molly’s heat, against Simon’s cold stubbly face.

  His hand rasped across his jaw. “I need a shave,” he apologized, “but I rode straight through. I took loan of a horse from the livery and traded him out halfway here. I was too anxious to stay overnight at a wayside inn.”

  She put her hands on either side of his face. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  “Believe it,” he replied. “I’m here and I want this—” He kissed her, a kiss so filled with longing that she had to hold to his arms to keep from swooning. “And I want an answer to my question.”

  “Ask,” she said, her mind finally sure of her answer.

  “Boy howdy!” Willy called from the barn door. “We saw a strange horse. That be yours, Doc?”

  They took no more notice of Willy’s voice than they did of the waning light or the dirty barn floor as Simon sank to one knee. He took Copper’s hand in his own, kissed her palm, and asked with great sincerity, “Laura Grace Brown, will you marry me and love me and live with me for the rest of your life?”

  “Do you want me to put your horse up, Doc?” Willy persisted, unnoticed still.

  Copper looked down. She could barely see the man who sought her pledge. The only light around them was what spilled in from outside where Willy stood in the open door.

  “Hey!” Willy barged along. “Can you stay for supper, Doc? Mam’s made squirrel and gravy.”

  After a silent prayer for guidance, she gave him the answer he’d traveled miles and miles to receive. “Yes, Dr. Corbett, I’ll marry you and love you and live with you for the rest of our lives together.”

  “Whoopee!” Willy danced a jig. “Sissy’s getting married!” His voice faded as he ran toward the house. “Daddy! Get the fire-crackers. Sissy’s getting married.”

  Simon stood and swept her off her feet. He twirled her around and around, then set her down and threw back his head and laughed a great joyous laugh. “Thank You, Lord!” he praised. “I’m the happiest man alive.”

  The whole family awaited Copper and Simon on the porch. A pool of warm yellow lamplight lay on the plank floor just outside the kitchen window, and the fireplace glinted a welcome through the open door.

  “Come on up here, boy.” Daddy pumped Simon’s hand. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

  “Watch out!” Willy lobbed fireworks high overhead.

  Bang! Bang! Bangbangbangbang! came the retort.

  “I like ’em tied together. Don’t you, Daniel?”

  Mam embraced Copper, and she could feel tears upon her mother’s face. “Mam, don’t cry.”

  “Tears of joy, Daughter, just tears of joy.”

  After supper, they lingered at the table and talked of the future. Simon wanted to marry at once. He wanted to take Copper back to Lexington with him.

  “She’ll not marry at sixteen, Dr. Corbett,” Mam replied.

  “Then March,” he acquiesced. “We’ll marry on her birth date, or I’m afraid we’ll have to elope.”

  “Antelope?” Willy interrupted. “We don’t have no antelopes in these parts. Do we, Daddy? Just a bunch of buffalos way over yonder near where we go sledding.”

  “June,” Mam settled the matter, “and not one day sooner.”

  Simon decided to stay over for a few days. He bunked with Daniel. Daddy slept with Willy in Copper’s bed, and Copper slept with Mam. What little she slept. Simon was only a room away, just across the front room. The bedroom doors they kept closed all day were open for the night to let in some heat from the banked fireplace, and she fancied she could tell his snores from her father’s.

  She desperately wanted to get out of bed and see if there was enough hot water left in the kettle for a cup of tea, but she didn’t want to disturb anyone. And what if Simon got up? He couldn’t see her in her nightdress, even if he was a doctor.

  Earlier as they prepared for bed Mam had said she needed to have a little talk with Copper. She spoke of what marriage meant, all the changes that would occur, and how Copper couldn’t be selfish because she would now be responsible for the happiness of someone else. Simon would always come first, she’d said, and Copper must always obey him. She talked about modesty and reverence and something from the Bible called “cleaving.” And at the end, after she’d turned down the wick on the coal-oil lamp and the flame had sputtered and gone out, she patted Copper’s hand and said, “He will want to sleep with you, Daughter. It won’t be so bad. You must do your Christian duty.”

  Copper mulled that over as she lay in bed. Why was Mam so mysterious and so serious? Why was sharing a bed a duty? After all, she hadn’t slept a night alone since the boys were born. Would a grown man take up much more space than two wiggling brothers? As long as Simon didn’t hog the covers, she didn’t think she’d mind sleeping with him.

  Copper tiptoed to the window and drew back the curtain. The moon was high and full—just one wispy cloud scuttled across its surface. The round-faced man in the moon looked down on her, and she imagined she saw a wink.

  She bowed her head and wished she could ask her heavenly Father all the questions that churned in her mind: What is it like in the city? What will become of Molly and Paw-paw? Will my family be all right without me? What does cleave mean? Mam made it sound a little sinister . . . cleave.

  Instead, she prayed for what she knew she would receive: the grace to endure whatever lay before her.

  The day before Simon was to leave, he and Copper walked along Troublesome Creek. It was frozen over, a dusting of grainy snow swirling on its glassy surface. Huge pines and cedars sighed their lonesome songs as the wind swept through their thick branches.

  She asked him some of her questions, all except the sleeping and the cleaving—she couldn’t quite get that out—and he did his best to reassure her. He described the home they would be sharing, and Copper liked the sound of the big porch out front and the gardens and stable out back, with a stall for Molly if she wanted to take her. Of course she did! Simon said he would send someone for the animal, but she wouldn’t need to milk the cow herself—he had a man for that. Copper didn’t argue, but she knew in her heart that no one would be milking her cow but her.

  It was good to hear of her future home and know that Simon would do everything in his power to make her comfortable there, but one thing still burdened her heart. Gathering up all her courage, unsure that she wanted to hear what he would say, she told Simon about her daddy and the terrible red rag.

  “I know,” he said. “Your father told me.”

  She turned to him, her cheeks numb from the chill. “What does it mean, Simon? I’m so afraid for him.”

  Simon took her in his arms. “I’m so sorry, Laura Grace, but the cough, the blood, the shortness of breath . . . his weight loss. It’s consumption, you know.”

  She felt herself go very still. The air in her lungs was replaced by his heavy grievous words, and she would have fallen to the cold, cold ground were it not for his support. “Why?”

  “I don’t have that answer, Laura Grace. Only God knows. But that mine he works . . . it’s so damp all the time . . . coal dust settles in the lungs. And the tobacco he uses adds terrible insult.”

  She put her hands to her face and leaned her head against his chest. “Isn’t there some treatment . . . some medicine?”

  “Will and I talked at length when I was here last summer—”

  “He told you then?”

  “He’s known for a while, sweetheart. I recommended a sanitarium in a different climate with dry air and no wet winters. I’ve seen good results with some of the patients
I’ve sent there.”

  “That wouldn’t be Philadelphia, would it?” she said, her voice shaking with anger.

  “No. But, Laura Grace, your mother doesn’t know, and he made me pledge not to tell her. You mustn’t be angry with her.”

  “Is my father dying?”

  Their wandering walk had led them back to the barn, and they stepped inside its warmth before he replied. “Oh no, sweetheart, not for a long while. But you do need to understand this won’t just go away. He does need treatment.”

  “Where is this sanitarium?”

  “It’s in Texas—Sabinal Canyon. The infirmary is in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The canyon has stretches of prairie and timber, knots of oak and pecan trees, and gushing mountain streams with bright, clear running waters that the locals say never run dry. The air is as pure as when God first made it. I don’t think there is a better place for consumptives.”

  Copper walked to the little window. She could see nothing that was not barren—the lifeless trees, the heavy gray sky threatening snow and more snow, a curve of the frozen creek. “We have to talk to him, convince him to go there. I don’t care what Mam wants.”

  Simon came up behind her and circled her with his arms. He leaned his chin into the curve of her neck. “It’s his life, Laura Grace. You mustn’t interfere. Your father is a very proud man, and he wants to take his family to a place of safety, a place where Grace will be happy without him, if need be.”

  “You can see, can’t you, Simon? I can’t leave him.”

  His heavy sigh warmed her cheek. “I will do whatever you want. Nothing matters to me, save your happiness.”

  “I love you, Simon Corbett.” She turned toward his kiss.

  “And I love you, my heart,” he answered, his mouth against hers.

  CHAPTER 30

  After Simon left, the snow that had threatened for days fell softly, swirling like feathers from a goose-down pillow around Copper’s face and leaving a fresh taste on her tongue when she paused to catch a flake. She climbed steadily up the mountain behind her house to the old cemetery. The gate creaked on rusty hinges when she shoved it open.

  Funny that she’d ended up here. Giving no thought to her destination, she barely paused long enough to grab her coat and a scarf for her head before she had rushed from the house. She’d never meant to upset Mam when she found her at the stove stirring potato soup in her methodical way—clockwise, always clockwise. She thought her mam would be glad when she told her she was going to Philadelphia with them . . . to help them get settled. She and Simon would wait to marry. Why, he might even decide to bring his practice to the mountains. Then she’d have everything she wanted—him and Troublesome Creek.

  Mam had whirled around, slinging bits of soup from her wooden spoon all over the kitchen. Her eyes flashed like struck flint when she said, “Young lady, I’ll have no more of your dillydallying. Your father and I can manage perfectly well without your help. Decide for yourself, but if you don’t love Dr. Corbett enough to move to Lexington for him and be a helpmeet to him, then you don’t love him enough to marry him!”

  That’s when Copper had fled, the smell of scorched potatoes following her like a pall. She paused now, just inside the gate, to study the resting place dug for the old skeleton she’d found when she’d fallen into the hole. The grave was already sinking, pulling away from its edges as if its tenant were restless. Perhaps, she fancied, the skeleton is yearning to join its fellows in the valley of dry bones, where it could be made flesh. She stretched out her arm and quoted from Ezekiel: “‘O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’”

  They’d never figured out who the skeleton belonged to. Daddy had carried it home, and folks came to offer their opinion. Brother Isaac said from the heft of the leg bones it had to be a man. John Pelfrey had reckoned the skull was too large to have contained the brain of a woman. She’d socked him on the arm when he said that, and he’d chased her around the barn. . . .

  John . . . just the thought of him still caused such pain. He’d been her buddy, her best friend. She missed him so much. She’d received a penny post from San Francisco with a picture of the ocean and palm trees on the front. “Pest,” he’d written, “this ain’t nothing like Troublesome Creek, but I sure liked the train ride. If it don’t work out being a sailor, I think I’ll ride the rails. That’s what they call it. Riding the rails. Your friend, John Pelfrey.”

  Some things hurt so much it was better not to think on them. Copper walked on. A broken tree branch lay across the narrow grave she sought. She dragged it off and removed a handful of last summer’s daisies, now brown and lifeless, from the coffee-tin vase she’d put on her mother’s grave. She wiped snow from the gravestone, then knelt to trace the inscription carved into the granite face:

  Julia Taylor Brown: Beloved Wife and Mother 1843-1866 A rose plucked too soon

  “Mama,” she entreated, “what must I do?”

  Silence greeted her inquiry. She glanced at the tiny depressions that marked the ground at the foot of her grandparents’ graves, all that was left of her sisters and her brother, dead these many years, sinking with time back to the earth that bore the weight of them so gently.

  She was so glad Daddy had brought her here back in the autumn. They’d walked the path to the creek where her mother had been taken by the flood, and on to the holler up Troublesome where Daniel Pelfrey had found the body, and then here, the cemetery where the woman who gave her life rested. Daddy had held her while she sobbed, and he told her how she’d surely saved his sanity then, how she’d been his reason for going on. He’d said she was his gift from God. She sighed to remember how his story salved her conscience. She hadn’t caused her mother’s death after all.

  She rested her back against the stone marker, feeling useless, like the second woman in a too-small kitchen. She thought of Simon—his strength, his kindness, the feel of his arms around her. She couldn’t bear to think of her life without him.

  A song came to her and she sang a line, “‘Savior, like a shepherd lead us . . . ,’” then hummed a line. The melody led to a prayer. “Savior, like a shepherd lead me. Forgive my selfishness and show me the path You would have me take.”

  Copper sat perfectly still, her head bowed on her knees. Snow piled up around her shoes, and a sudden arctic gust plucked the scarf off her head and settled it around her shoulders. She stood, pulling a strand of hair from her mouth and wiping her nose against her mitten. The wind had turned bitter, and the snow stung her cheeks like nettles, like Mam’s arrow-tipped volley of words had done. The sky had turned a dark pewter gray. Time to get home. Looked like a blizzard brewing.

  The gravestones blurred, but she could make out her grandmother’s: Mary Lee Brown. And there lay John’s great-granny, just fifteen as the story went, when she married Ben Pelfrey. She patted her mother’s stone.

  The answer lies in history. All these women buried here left some place dear to them. My great-grandmother faced the fear of Indian attacks to settle in these mountains. Her mother sailed the vast ocean, leaving all that was familiar—even her own language—behind. My own mother and then Mam left dear comforts to come as strangers to these hills. How can I do less for the man I love?

  “All right then, Dr. Simon Corbett,” she vowed, as if he could hear her. “‘Whither thou goest, I will go. . . . Thy people shall be my people.’ Hopefully your sister, Alice, will take to me like Naomi took to Ruth.” She dusted her snow-covered skirts and started off down the hill. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

  CHAPTER 31

  June 1, 1883

  A day of warm sunshine and soft summer breezes filtered through pine needles and mountain laurel blossoms. Copper had been up since dawn, when Cock-a-Doodle preached his morning sermon. She felt the strength of Simon’s presence so acutely it made her shiver. He was staying just a mountain away at his mother’s cousin’s cabin—the poor old soul had passed after a sudden decline. Mam let Simon visit, but he couldn’t stay
over. People might talk, now that they were officially sweethearts.

  Copper didn’t know what to do with herself, so she sat on the porch in a silk wrapper from her trousseau and rocked. Her cow was already gone, taken away by a man Simon had sent to fetch her. Molly bawled and bawled when he led her to the waiting wagon, twisting her heavy square head around to look at Copper, her big brown eyes rolling in fear. Copper had tried to reassure her with handfuls of sweet grain, but Molly wouldn’t touch it. “I’ll see you soon, pet,” she’d called as the wagon left the barnyard, her voice thick with unshed tears.

  It will be good to see Molly again, she thought. Her corset pinched if she slumped the slightest bit so she sat up straight, sticking her feet out to admire her silk opera pumps. They were the color of just-shucked oyster shells, and her hose matched exactly. Her freshly pressed dress hung on the chiffonier door. The leaves on the apple tree rustled when a warm zephyr blew across the yard—she should have covered her hair. Mam had dressed it in ornate ropes of copper, and she wore a narrow crown of cream-colored beaded ribbon and tiny pink rosebuds from the bush in the side yard.

  Mam was in the kitchen, cautioning the boys, who wore new suits. Daddy had one too. Nobody in the family looked like themselves, but Mam said they all needed to get used to wearing nice things.

  Butterflies fluttered in her belly again. She couldn’t wait to see Simon.

  Grace studied her daughter through the door. The rusted screen blurred her vision, or was it the prism of her tears that made Laura Grace seem just a shadow . . . as if she were already gone? Grace dug her nails into the palms of her hands. She would not cry. She would not.

  Memories tiptoed to the front of her mind and played themselves out against her shimmering eyelids. Laura Grace, a baby in her lap, playing with her pearls . . . her first steps, wobbling across the floor until she fell hard against the hearth and reached up with a little teardrop and a crooked smile for Grace to make it better . . . her delight in storms. “Again!” she’d cry when the thunder boomed and the lightning cracked, her arms around Grace’s legs, her head thrown back. Just a baby, really, but not afraid. “Again!”