The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  Rachel pulled her child closer to her. The three women fell silent for a while. Then the old woman sighed and said, “Whatcher gonna name ‘em, honey?”

  “I had some names picked out,” said Rachel, “But somehow they don’t seem right now. What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Lenora’s the name my mama give me. I go by Sissy.”

  “Lenora, that’s a pretty name. A lot like our family name, Lenoir,” smiled Rachel. She looked down at the small face so close to her own. “I think I’d like to name this one after you, Lenora.”

  “They, howdy!” crowed Lenora. I ain’t never had no child named after me, as many as I’ve brung into the world. I thank ye, honey.”

  Rachel looked up at Geneva, who was smiling at her new niece. “And I think that one should be named for you, Geneva. We can call her Genny so we won’t get you mixed up. What do you think?”

  “I think you do me too great an honor, big sister,” said Geneva, feeling the tears well up. “Especially considering that because of me you had these babies practically on top of a mountain in the middle of the night with no doctor.”

  “I’m glad they were born here,” smiled Rachel, looking around. “This is where they belong, here in this wild, beautiful place. From the beginning, everything about their lives will be special.” She leaned her head back against the quilt and snuggled down, sighing deeply, then she opened her eyes and brightened.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “A little after midnight, maybe one o’clock.” replied Lenora. “I cain’t see the stars through the trees, but I reckon we got a few hours afore the sun comes up.”

  Rachel grinned. “These babies’ birthday is July seventh. What about that! Seven, seven, seventy-seven! Is that a sign of good luck, or what? After that double rainbow, on this mountain.”

  “Boy howdy! They’ll sure have a tale to tell!” agreed Lenora.

  Rachel sighed again and settled back down into the quilts. Presently, it grew silent except for the soft breathing of the horses and the creaking of the wagon.

  “Twins is special,” mused Lenora after a lull. “I was a twin, and I know that twins is closer than anybody, sometimes even closer than mamas and their younguns.” She grew quiet, looking up at the canopy of leaves and sighed a long, shaky breath before her gaze dropped and she peered into the darkness before her. “These two shared the afterbirth. They’ll be as alike a two sips of water,” she said at last.

  “You were a twin?’ asked Geneva.

  “Law, yes.” She looked a Geneva suddenly. “You say your name is Lenoir?”

  Geneva nodded, silently accepting the old woman’s pronunciation.

  Yer granddaddy Clayton?”

  “Why, yes. My dad is Ray.”

  Lenora nodded. I knowed your granddaddy. Good man, but he was the cause of my sister adyin’.”

  “What?”

  “Yessir. I had me a twin sister ‘til I was fifteen year old. Purty little thing, but didn’t have no more sense than a fuzzy little chick—looked about like one, too. Light hair, all curly on end, stood out from her head like a halo

  “But what happened to her?”

  “She loved yer granddaddy, that’s what happened to her.” Lenora looked at Geneva and dropped an ancient, spotted hand on Rachel’s head, bright in the shafts of starlight filtering through the trees.

  “You don’t know me, child, but oncet our families was close, like neighbors, almost like kin. Yer granddaddy and my daddy and brothers use to hunt together. He’d thunder up this mountain on his big, fine bay horse, jist alaughin’, and he’d bring me and Laurel things, ye know, like a handful of huckleberries or a jar of sourwood honey. He’d come on up to the house and rear up his horse and make it thrash its front feet like he was gonna tear right on up the front steps and through the house, and he’d holler, ‘Laurel! Sissy! Come out here and see what I brung ye!’ And law, we’d drop whatever we wuz adoin’ and come arunnin’.

  “One time he had us a bear cub. Its mother had been shot through the lung and had run off and died, and its brother had died a starvation. He found this little baby bear acryin’ and whimperin’ by its dead mother and brother, and he jist caught it up and brung it on up the mountain. And when he come up th’ mountain that mornin’, it wuz spring, and everthang was all green and wet. The sky wuz jist a blue as a robin’s egg, and the sun wuz astreamin’ down like it wuz rainin’ silver. He wuz singin’ a song about acomin’ to meet his love in this big, happy voice he had, and Laurel come out of the thicket and stopped dead in her tracks. From that day on, she loved him.

  “She wuz twelve year old, and yer granddaddy wuz twenty, and thought of her as jist a little bit of a thing, but she loved him like a growed woman would love a man. He reached over and give us that little bear cub and said, ‘Ladies, here’s one hungry little baby. Yew feed it some fresh sweet milk and let it foller ye around, and when I come back, I bet I see it athinkin’ yew two is its mother.’ And then he galloped on up the mountain into that silver light, alookin’ for my brothers, and Laurel jist stood there, lookin’ after him, holdin’ that bear cub, and she said, ‘Sissy, that there’s the man I’m agonna marry.’”

  “Did my grandfather know she loved him?”

  “I reckon he had to of. Ever time he come up the mountain after that, she wuz amoonin’ over him. She raised that bear til it was old enough to take off on its own, and ever time Clay come by, she’d try to put it in his arms and say, ‘Clay, this here’s mine and your baby. I’m agonna take care of this baby fer ye, and someday, I’m agonna take care of the real babies we have together.’ And she kept badgerin’ him about a perty little farm she wanted him to buy her down by Raven Creek. She’d seen it once and had plumb decided that wuz where she and Clay would live together.

  “Well, I kin tell yew, she jist about plagued Clay to death, agoin’ on like that, ‘til finely he quit comin’ up. He’d jist meet my brothers in the woods to go hunt. But Laurel didn’t quit for a minit. She got to where she’d hide in the woods and look fer him when she knew they wuz huntin’, and one time she follered ‘em and near got shot fer them thinkin’ she wuz a deer.”

  “What happened then?” Geneva felt a tearing in her heart, knowing the yearning the child must have felt.

  “Well, Daddy nearly whipped her over that, but Daddy never whipped none of us. Never. He jist threatened to, then he cried and tole her he’d die if innything happened to his baby girls, and she swore she’d quit follerin’ Clay around when he was huntin’, but then she took to goin’ over the mountain to his house. It wuz a six mile walk, but she’d run over there ever chance she got, and she’d hide out, awaitin’ for a glimpse of ‘im. I don’t think he ever saw her then, but I knew when she’d go. She’d come back with a funny smile all over her, and she’d jist shake, not like she wuz skeert, more like she was so fulla life she couldn’t hold it all in her, she was so little bitty. It seemed like the light wuz jist astreamin’ out of her, and she’d come skippin’ through the trees like a little fairy or somethin’.”

  Rachel was quiet. Geneva thought she might be asleep, and she felt privileged to hear such a story in the still, starry night. She looked greedily at Lenora, waiting for her to continue.

  “Yer granddaddy wuz a handsome feller, and he wuz real happy-like, and he had a gentle way with girls, so hits no wonder he had his pick. Afore long, he took to courtin’ Neecy McFarlan—that ‘ud be yer granny—and when she found out that they wuz agittin’ married, Laurel like to have died. She didn’t eat for nuthin’ the whole month afore the wedding, and then, afterwards, she took it in her head that she wuz agonna have a baby by Clay even if she couldn’t have him.

  “She made up this big plan. Neecy went back to her mama’s house about once ever two or three months fer a week at a time, and so Laurel decided she’d go to Clay and bed with him the minit Neecy got out of the house. She tole me what she was aplannin’, and I pitched a fit. Most of the time I did everthing she tole me to, but this tim
e I told her she was plumb crazy. To tell ye the truth, I wuz a little skeert of her—or not skeert—I jist looked up to her. She had a way of makin’ me think I wuzn’t a smart as she wuz, and she wuz so perty and so fulla this light all the time, ashakin’ and apourin’ out light. It wuz like she wuz more than a ordinary person.”

  “But this time, I knowed what she wanted wuz plain wrong, and I told her so. And she backed right down and said awright, she wouldn’t do it, but the very next week, when Neecy went home to her mama, Laurel lit off down that mountain, hell bent on beddin’ with Clay.”

  “Poor child,” murmured Geneva, stroking Genny’s tiny head.

  “Well, when she got to Clay’s house, he wuz gone, so she got right in the bed and waited fer him. He got home late at night and when he found Laurel in the bed, he jist turned and walked right outta the house. Far as I know he didn’t say a word to her. Jist walked out like he never saw her.”

  “How awful!” Geneva exclaimed. “Why did he do that? She was just a child!”

  “Yes, she wuz a child, but by this time she looked like a growed woman, and she wuz about the pertiest thing yew ever looked at. After she died, I heered Clay atellin’ Daddy that when he saw her, she looked like a angel, sittin’ in that big bed with the white sheets around her spread out like wings, her hair like a crown, or a halo. And all of a sudden, he felt like she wuz stronger than he wuz, like if he come in that room and spoke to her, she’d reach out and she’d have him, and he wuz too skeert to talk. He said all this to Daddy, and they wuz both acryin’, but all of a sudden, Daddy quit cryin’, and said, and I’ll never fergit this, ‘cause when he said it, I knew he wuz aspeakin’ God’s pure truth. He said, ‘Clay, I know what yew mean. Sometimes she skeert me. I know what ye mean. They wuz somethin’ about her that could make a body feel puny as ghost piss, and there ain’t nobody who could stand up to her.’ And then, he got real quiet like, and I could swear I heered him say—at the time, I didn’t believe he could of, because she wuz always his best darlin’, but now, lookin’ back, I think he said, ‘It’s best she’s gone. They wuz jist too much wildness in her.’”

  “But how did she die?” Geneva wondered.

  “When Clay left, she up and took off fer home, and she slipped in the creek and broke her leg real bad. The bone come right out through the skin, and she laid there fer a day or more afore we found her. Doc come up and had to cut off her leg jist below the knee, but blood poisonin’ set in and she died three weeks later.”

  “What a tragic story,” said Geneva, truly appreciating the pathos of it. “I’m sorry it had to end in such an awful way.”

  “That ain’t the end of it,” mused Lenora. Yer granddaddy felt so bad about her alosin’ her leg, he come up and begged Laurel to fergive him. He thought it wuz his fault she’d fell. Hit wuz a Sunday, and nobody knew Laurel had blood poisonin’ and everbody but me had gone to church. They’d left me there to take care of her. I wuz the only one she could tolerate at that time. Right after they left, I noticed these red steaks arunnin’ up her leg, and she started thrashin’ around with fever. Clay come up right then, and he come right into the room where she laid, and he jist set there by her pallet, aweepin’ and apromisin’ her the moon if she’d jist fergive him and take this weight offen him. And then Laurel, she tole me to go pick her some watercress, but I didn’t go. I jist hid out by the house and peeked in the winder so’s I could hear ever word they said.

  “And then Laurel said, she said, ‘I cain’t have no babies cause I’ll be daid this time next month, but afore I die, I’ll have a piece of you, Clayton Lenoir, yes, and I’ll make you grieve for not lovin’ me in time. And then, right there, missy, Laurel opened up the kivers and pulled poor old Clay into the bed with her, and the next thing I knowed they wuz kissin’ each other and weepin’, and they wuz holdin’ each other like they wuz afightin’ off Death hisself. It wuz all I could do ta keep from cryin’ out myself. But I jist stood there and watched them all tangled up together, both of ‘em in fever, both of them awishin’ they had it all to do over agin, but tryin’ to make up for what went wrong.

  “I left then and went for the watercress, and when I got back, Clayton wuz gone. Laurel wuz white and grievin’. She fell off real quick after that. Clay never come back til after she died, but the next week he sent up a deed to the Raven Creek place—he had done bought it and put her name on the deed, like she always wanted. After Laurel died, Daddy tried to git him to take it back, but he said to give it to me.

  “I married Ike the next summer—that was the year nineteen and fifteen. I cain’t believe that was sixty-two years ago, come next month! I wuz sixteen year old, and I remember it like it wuz no time atall. We farmed that place fer awhile, but even though it wuz, I guess, the pertiest piece of land in the county, I never felt right livin’ there, knowin’ it wuz really kind of like Laurel’s grave. Ike got called up in the Great War, and I moved back up here where he had been farmin’ afore, and we just stayed on. I give it to my boy Jesse, Chap’s daddy, when he got married. Chap, that’s what we’ve called Hard ever since the year he wuz borned. Uster call him Little Chap, then jist Chap. He don’t like it much, though, and so goes by Hard whenever he kin,” she smiled, and continued, “ain’t it funny how these things come around though. That wuz the very piece of land that Jesse sold to yer sister and her husband not three year ago.”

  Geneva sat quietly, grieving over something more than just the child who had loved and conquered her ancestor. She grieved for herself and her soul, which she knew was diluted and tamed, like a candle that has glimpsed an inferno. She wondered if hearing this story would cause her to be changed as much tomorrow, next week, next year, as it made her feel changed now, and then she grieved more because she knew it would not. This night would stand alone as a beacon in a long life of ordinariness. She would never be as intensely involved with living, with the essence of being as she was now. How contemptuously she regarded her heartache over Howard Graves now! The glittering promises he had given her were nothing compared to the naked sorrow, the quintessential love that the child and the man had given to one another in her last few hours.

  She thought about the farm where Rachel and Wayne had conceived these children, in a room very much, perhaps, like the one where Laurel lay and waited to claim Clay for a night. Now, the child Laurel had wanted would never be more than a dream, dead to all but herself and this old woman. She thought about the treachery of love, and the cleansing wind as it coupled with the trees. She wondered why Howard Knight or his brothers or sisters had not become heir to the lovely farm that had come back to her family.

  “Why did he sell the farm, Lenora? Did he need the money? Did he hate to give it up?”

  “No, dearie, he wuz glad to be shed of it. Chap lived there for a while, but he had some hard times there, and we began to feel like it wuz a curse to us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Chap lived there with his first wife til she died. She wuz a fine, big, healthy girl, with a headful of bright red hair. To look at her would scare ye to death. She looked like she could chew ye up and spit ye out without a thought, but she wuz real gentle, and didn’t have no temper atal. I knew fer sure she’d raise a passel of strappin’ younguns. She wuz built jist right fer childbearin’. But she died right after the first one got started. Somethin’ just broke inside and she bled to death afore anybody knew anything wuz wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Geneva. The words felt impotent, silly, in her mouth.

  “I know. Chap took it real bad. Then he up and married a silly little piece of nuthin’ jist a few months later. Didn’t hardly know her, but he said she had to be a good-un because she had red hair, too. Dang fool boy. I could see right off there wuzn’t nuthin’ to her. She took up with one of them longhaired rock and roll boys who thought he’d make it big, and she run off to Nashville with him after she hadn’t been married to Chap no time.”

  The wagon jolted to a stop. Jimmy Lee sat up suddenly, ginge
rly rubbing the back of his head. “What in the hell is agoin’ on here?” he demanded. “How did I git all wet?”

  Six

  The night was waning when Lenora led Geneva and Rachel into the small frame house she and Ike called home. Geneva found the place modest but surprisingly well appointed and tidy, and she and Rachel were especially relieved to find a telephone. When Rachel called home, Wayne insisted on coming immediately, although his wife begged to be allowed to sleep for a few hours first.

  “You can sleep til I get there,” he insisted. “Just put somebody on who can give me directions.” Rachel sighed, surrendering the telephone to Ike. Lenora bustled the women and babies off to the bedroom for their brief rest.

  Rachel dropped off to sleep immediately, but despite exhaustion and a warm bath, Geneva lay tense and excited, the events of the evening churning in her mind. She gazed out into the pulsating night, textured with living sounds and the bright wash of the Milky Way streaming across the vast, black sky. She felt strangely powerful, as if she had just vanquished something formidable, but rather than finding contentment in that, she grew more restless. In addition, the cut on her head she had suffered in the accident hurt just enough to bother her when she tried to close her eyes. Finally, after tossing and turning for nearly an hour, she climbed out of the bed she shared with Rachel and tiptoed past baby Lenora sleeping on a pallet on the floor. The other infant, Geneva knew, was still being rocked by Lenora in the other room.

  She entered the front room to find Lenora humming softly to Genny. The old woman smiled at Geneva. “It ain’t been too long since I last rocked a baby. I got me nine grandchildern, and fourteen great-grandchildern. They’ll be another one soon, I expect. Ever one of ‘em that was borned has lived. That’s more’n I kin say fer the way things wuz back when I wuz ahavin’ ‘em. I had me eight babies, but only six of ‘em made it past they fifth year.”