The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  “Wanna place bets on which one of you will get the other up to Jacob’s Mountain?”

  “Rachel, I have no intentions of taking John or anyone else up there. Really! The man lied to me!”

  Rachel ignored her remark. “That poor man,” she said, shaking her head. “John doesn’t have any idea of what he’s up against. I’d bet on you any day, and I bet you will do it in a way that no one can imagine. Probably make John think he’s luring you up there and he’ll feel guilty about it for years. And you’ll help him perpetrate the myth!”

  They both laughed. Geneva knew her sister might be right about that, for she had already begun toying with such an idea herself. Not seriously, of course, just as sort of an academic exercise.

  Suddenly Rachel squealed, “Oh, Geneva! Look! Look!”

  “Where?” Geneva craned her neck around.

  “Pull over! Quick! Oh, go back, there was a pull-out back there. Oh, Geneva! I’ve never seen anything like it! Hurry!”

  Geneva nearly tore the transmission out getting her car into reverse while it was still moving. Rachel had already jumped out, leaving the door open, and continued to scream loud shrieks of joy. Geneva jumped out of the car, looking back across the pass they had just crossed. Ahead of them the sun was shining; behind them the clouds had rolled darkly across the pass. But above them, glimmering in the afternoon light and vivid beyond imagination, was a double rainbow, with both arcs complete, straddling the sky from mountaintop to mountaintop. Geneva’s soul soared up to those rainbows, which seemed to be made of grace—a gift straight from the hand of God. She wanted to climb on top of her car, to run back and clamber up the taller mountain, anything to reach that wondrous picture they saw there in the roiling, magnificent sky. Rachel was still screaming and laughing, pointing as if crowds of people were asking what she found so interesting, and Geneva couldn’t stop shouting, “Oh, look! Look!” and clapping her hands. And then they both stood rapt and silent, alone in the chilly air, grateful for their own eyes, yet wishing they could share it with everyone whose lives touched their own. Rachel walked over to her sister and put her arms around her waist, and together they watched until the clouds rolled over and around the vision and left them alone. They stood silently for a while longer, filled with gratitude that some moments in life could be so sweet.

  It was much later before they could bring themselves to leave the spot, hoping for a reoccurrence. They got the blankets out and lay on the hood of the car, always keeping their eyes upward, scanning for the treasure that only shortly before had been laid before them. But at last it began to rain, so they took cover in the car and made their way slowly up the mountain. It rained torrents, fountains, so hard that a few times Geneva was forced to pull over to wait for it to slack off before she could continue. With the rain came angry lightning, slashing all around them, more like mythical bolts from Zeus than merely earthly lightning bolts. The thunder was so loud and the flashes so close and bright that the women began to feel under siege, as if perhaps they had seen the rainbows illegally and had displeased their owner. Rachel shivered and commented nervously,

  “Gee, I’m glad we aren’t afraid of thunderstorms!” They laughed, and then crested the ridge. As suddenly as the rain had started, the sky turned blue again. The road there was dry, and the wind no stronger than the breath of one of Evangeline’s kittens. Geneva and Rachel felt more thankful than they cared to let on.

  They arrived at Mrs. Wheater’s rickety old house much later than they had expected to. The place looked the same as Geneva had remembered it. Built of unpainted clapboard, it was perched upon a slope so steep that the front porch was built high on stilts. The whole rickety structure looked as if it would tumble down in the next strong wind. Back off to the left of the house gushed an exuberant spring, which emptied into a deep pool ringed by beech trees, then tumbled on down the mountain in a breathless, foamy rush. There were no signs of electricity or telephones; indeed, there were ample indications of no indoor plumbing. An outhouse sat off to the right; in the front yard a big cook-pot hung above a fire between forked sticks. Mrs. Wheater, bathed in a golden afternoon sunray, stood boiling clothes in the pot, adding handfuls of homemade lye soap shavings. Clothes hung about on clotheslines supported by leaning beech poles while Mrs. Wheater jabbed at the frothing pot with a paddle and smiled at her approaching company. The sisters felt as they always did here—that they could have been stepping back two hundred years in time.

  There was a serenity about the ancient face as the old woman shaded her eyes and greeted them.

  “Howdy.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Wheater. Do you remember us? Geneva and Rachel Lenoir,” said Rachel.

  “From the looks of ye, ye ain’t no Lenoir now,” said Mrs. Wheater soberly. “I surely hope ye got a husband, child.”

  Rachel laughed. “Yes, indeed, ma’am. And my condition is what brings us here. Do you still tat?”

  “Yes, child, I do, though not as much as I useter. I turned ninety-four last month, and I don’t see so well now.”

  Geneva looked at her eyes, which were as blue and clear as those of Rachel’s small daughters. “Well, ma’am. I want to ask you if you would tat two christening caps for my sister’s twins who will be born next month sometime. They will be my gift to them.”

  A smile beamed from the old face. “I will. Proudly. Twins is a blessing. I had two sets myself, and never were babies sweeter. They’ll be girl twins, I reckon.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Rachel. “Boys are about as rare as bluebirds in January on both sides of our family. But what makes you think so?”

  “Yer carryin’ them right wide, like they’s alayin’ side by side. Ifn you kin tell yer expectin’ from behind, they’s girls. But ye shouldn’t be up here this close to time. They’s a full moon tonight, and they’s asittin’ real low. Likely they’ll come soon. Mebe tonight.”

  The sisters smiled at Mrs. Wheater’s lore. “All right,” said Rachel. “If we can get a drink from your spring, we’ll be off home right away. When do you think you can have the caps ready?”

  “Ye come back one month from now. I awready got me some fine pieces goin’, and I’ll work ever chancet I git. But don’t run off yit. I got some raspberry leaf tea for ye to take with ye. Ease your time.” She moved slowly into the house and returned with the tea tied up in a cloth. Then she took a dipper, and walking around the house to the shimmering, clear pool, she dipped out a drink for each of them, and then another and another. They drank thirstily, knowing the water came from the very heart of the earth, cleaner and sweeter than water they could drink from anywhere else.

  “Thank you,” they said solemnly, feeling strangely reverent around the frail, bent woman, whom they knew to be stronger than either of them. She had raised a dozen children of her own and several others as well, and she embraced her rough life with a joy that neither Rachel nor Geneva could begin to fathom.

  “Just a minute,” said Rachel, moving toward the car. She returned carrying a loosely woven shawl in a soft red and handed it to Mrs. Wheater. “Here, I wove this from the wool of my sheep. I’d like for you to have it.”

  Mrs. Wheater stroked it, possessing it with her ancient, spotted hands, the fingers bent and carbuncled. But her touch was like a living thing, sparked with something like the desire of youth. “Did ye dye it with sassafras bark?”

  “No,” replied Rachel a little regretfully. “Just regular dye. Does sassafras come out this color?”

  “Yes, indeed, and sourwood and sweetgum are red, too. Horsechestnut and hickory are yeller. Shingleoak comes out right purple.”

  “I’ll remember that and try them next time around,” said Rachel, looking at her intently, as if she wanted to memorize the lines crowning the woman’s face, as well as her lore.

  “Thank yew, girls, fer comin’ ter see me. And thank yew for the perty shawl. It’ll be a comfort, come cold weather. Now git on back down this mountain. I expect it’ll be dark afore yew make it
past Horse Creek. I got my warshin’ to finish here afore I lose the sun.” She shaded her eyes against the falling sun. “Looks like it’s mebe too late, though. We had us a good rain early on this evenin’.”

  They turned to leave, but as they reached the car, Rachel called out, “Mrs. Wheater?”

  “Yes, girl?”

  “Does a double rainbow mean anything special?”

  “Yew seen a double rainbow and you expectin’ twins?”

  She scratched the back of her neck with a long, slow stroke.

  “Was they whole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was one of ‘em brighter the othern?”

  “A little.”

  Mrs. Wheater stood still for a moment, squinting down the long tunnel of her memory. Finally she spoke slowly, “I ain’t fer certain it’s true, but I’ve heered tell it means one will be a beauty, and real feisty. The othern will be sweet and easy. And one will be right handed, the other left.”

  “Thanks, Ma’am.”

  “Good-bye. Don’t fergit ta drank yer tea.”

  Five

  Mrs. Wheater had been right. It was already twilight by the time Geneva and Rachel crossed the creek that bounded Hickory Holler on the west, and the moon sat low in the east, full and round, bigger and more silvery than Geneva had seen it since childhood. Rachel leaned out of the window, looking at the moon behind them as they drove over the rickety bridge.

  Watching swirling waters lapping at the high creek bank, she commented, “I guess this is Horse Creek. Golly, the water is up since we came in here. I’m glad we were able to get out before—Oh!” The exclamation broke Rachel’s sentence off sharply. Geneva pulled her own eyes from the rabid creek to glance at her.

  “What is it, honey?”

  “I just felt a contraction. A hard one,” replied Rachel, sounding surprised.

  “Rachel, don’t you dare tell me you’re going into labor,” warned Geneva.

  “It’s probably nothing. I’ve been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for a few days now. That just may have been a strong one. It surprised me, that’s all.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Rachel drew in her breath sharply and put her hand low on her belly. Geneva pulled over to the shoulder of the road and stopped the car.

  “I think we’d better not take the scenic route back. Surely there’s another, quicker way off this mountain. Hand me the map in the glove compartment.”

  Rachel searched through the compartment, producing a ragged map that came apart in her hands as she opened it.

  “How old is this map, Geneva? Is this the only one you have? It covers Virginia, too. Don’t you have one that covers just West Virginia?”

  “This will do,” said Geneva, wishing she had one of Howard’s slick, detailed road atlases that mapped out every byroad and trail. “Oh, here we are. This road we’re on is somewhere up above highway one forty. When we hit it we can go back the way we came, but see, if we head east on one forty instead of west that will take us up the mountain instead of down for a way, but here we can cut over on this little road—is that one sixty-eight? One eighty-eight? Oh, well, we can find it, and that will take us over here to twelve-twenty, and straight into Tucker, sort of. We can find our way once we get off the mountain. This will put us out above Cleland anyway, doesn’t it? And if you’re in real bad shape, we can stop at the hospital there. It’s a whole lot closer than Tucker.”

  “I don’t know, Geneva. This one sixty-eight or whatever it is looks pretty iffy to me. See, it looks like it doesn’t connect all the way over to twelve-twenty.”

  “That’s just because the map’s torn. Surely the road goes somewhere, and it travels straight toward twelve-twenty. And look, Rachel, it really is shorter, even with all the curves. I bet once we get to twelve-twenty, it’ll be straight downhill.”

  “Okay,” sighed Rachel, “but it’s your neck if we get lost. What am I saying? I’m the one with my neck in the noose. Let’s get out of here. I feel another contraction coming on.”

  Geneva turned uphill into the bright, lazy moon resting on the top of the mountain above them. Half an hour later, she pulled the car over and picked up the map beside her. She switched on the light, intently examining the faded streaks of colors and lines inked into the ragged paper.

  “What are you after?” asked Rachel, her voice tight and worried.

  “I’m not sure. It seems like we should have reached the turnoff by now, but it’s so dark, I can’t see anything.” This was a lie, for the moon still shone huge and bright in the cloudless sky. “Did you catch the number of that road back there?”

  “Geneva, are you lost?” demanded Rachel, then she added, “Oh, no here comes another one. It’s been only fifteen minutes. Geneva, I really am in labor now.”

  Geneva felt the panic sear through her, but she forced herself to breathe slowly and sound calm. It wouldn’t do to let Rachel go into hysterics now.

  “No, I’m not lost. I just think I missed a turn. I’m going to turn around and look at that road we just passed.” She turned the car around and roared back down the mountain to the intersection. A rutted road lay off to their right. There was no roadsign.

  “That’s not anything,” said Geneva, still fighting to sound calm. “We’ll just keep going in the direction we were. We’ll have to find the turnoff pretty soon. It shows it right here on the map.”

  After another half hour, Geneva knew she was lost, but she kept silent, hoping to hide that fact for a while longer from Rachel, who was obviously seriously in labor.

  Rachel sensed her desperation. “I don’t know if you know this, little sister, but I happen to have quick labors. I hope you are prepared to deal with another double rainbow tonight.” She began gasping.

  Suddenly Geneva caught sight of something wonderful. A ramshackle settlement appeared dimly ahead of them. It was completely dark, but at least she thought she might find somebody who could tell them where they were. But just as she began to let the tension ebb from her shoulder, the Mazda’s engine backfired twice, then clanged, sputtered, and died. Geneva pulled over to the shoulder.

  “Oh, God, please help,” moaned Rachel.

  “Look,” pointed Geneva. “There’s something that might be a filling station ahead. We’re headed sort of downhill, so I bet I can coast into it.” She put the car in neutral, then opened her door and stepped into the road, pushing the Mazda back onto the pavement, where it began to roll briskly. In a moment they had pulled into a closed service station. Two men stood darkly beside a pickup truck, holding flashlights and peering into the depths of its engine. They did not hear the Mazda’s silent approach.

  “Oh, great,” wailed Geneva. “Looks like two professional rednecks here to come to our rescue.”

  “Geneva, this is not the time to be a snob.” Rachel paused, breathing carefully for a long contraction. “You’d better get out there and get those guys to help, and I mean it!”

  Geneva jumped out of the car and moved toward the men, who by this time had looked up and were studying her intently. One was tall, slim, and dark, with acute good looks marred by an obviously hard life. He could not have been thirty, but he looked gaunt and worn, although he stood straight as a post in his faded shirt and greasy jeans. He did not move when he caught sight of her, but stood quietly, his hands hanging loosely at his thighs. There was something menacing about him, thought Geneva.

  The other man looked a little younger. He was blonde and thin, typical of the Anglo-Saxon folk who peopled these hills, with a long, narrow nose and slender face. He had turned more slowly with an awkward, forward head slouch, hands seeking his hipbones. As Geneva approached, he removed the cigarette that dangled between his lips, dropping it to the ground and stepping on it casually. She was not exactly afraid of them, as she would have been afraid of similar looking characters on a dark night in DC, but something about the situation and the fact that she had just spent the last two years in a violent city made her wary.

  Geneva mentally s
hook herself. There were merely the harmless, common hillbillies who lived here, daily eking out a living from the rocky slopes. If they weren’t drunk, they probably were safe enough. She knew their kind well enough to know that there was still a fairly rigid code of honor among them: they would not hurt women in need of help. But it would not be a pleasant night with them, she thought. From the looks of them, they probably had a few old refrigerators and rusty cars resting in their front yards, and there would be absolutely nothing to talk about all the way to town if they drove them to Tucker. It was difficult to take Rachel’s advice and not appear snobbish.

  “Hello,” she began politely.

  The dark one gazed at her soberly, but when she stepped into the light, a sudden grin split his hard, dark face. “Hi, Red,” he said.

  “Look out,” guffawed the other one. “He likes redheads. Hell, he’s been marrit to two of ‘em.”

  Geneva was a little taken aback. She had not expected anything but humble politeness from them, and she did not like the intensity of the dark one’s countenance. She continued, “My car’s broken, and I need to get my sister down off the mountain…” She trailed off, looking hopelessly away from the stare of the dark man who glanced briefly at her car, then returned his slow, steady gaze to her.

  “I kin fix yer car fer ye, if ye gimmie a date,” said the pale man. He was looking at her with obvious appreciation, his narrow shoulders hunched forward, a grin which sat somewhere between a leer and a mark of idiocy alighting his face.

  Geneva swallowed hard. “I really don’t think—”

  Rachel’s voice interrupted her. “For heaven’s sakes, I know you. Your daddy sold us the farm up on Raven Creek. I went to school with you. I’m Rachel, Rachel Lenoir. My husband is Wayne Hillard.”

  Geneva forgot to wince at Rachel’s mispronunciation of the family name. She was too busy trying to decide if she could trust these rubes to take them to the hospital. Maybe it would be better to find a phone.

  “Is there a phone around here?” she asked, but no one heard her. The dark man was walking swiftly toward her, his face intent.