Silk and Stone (6 page)

“It’s lonely. William’s relatives are gentrified hicks. They look down on anyone who can’t trace the family tree to some grubby mountaineer settler.” She paused. “Or to some shabby Indian.”

Ginger looked intrigued. “How funny. Are there many Indians around here?”

“A lot. But most are so shy and backward, they keep to themselves. There’s a nothing little community across the mountains called Cawatie Township. About five miles from here. William dragged me over there once to some sort of cermonial dance. Indians stomping and chanting. Half of them either can’t or won’t speak English. William thinks they’re wonderful. His sister even married one.”

“My God, you’re kidding.”

Alexandra smiled wearily. “Of course,
my
sister ran off in the middle of the night with an army sergeant.”

“Where’s Frannie now?”

“On an army base in Germany, with her dearly beloved. My parents won’t even write to her. I sent her some money and told her to get a divorce and come home. I’m sure she married the man just to spite us all. It won’t last. I told her she could live with William and me. I even had William write to her—invite her to come here.”

“What did she say?”

“She sent the money back and told me she was happy.”

“Maybe she is.”

“My sister,” Alexandra said grimly, “thinks I’m the unhappy one.”

Ginger laughed. “You’ve got everything a girl could want. Including a baby on the way.”

Alexandra was silent. William was thrilled with her pregnancy; he doted on the idea of having a child. That was the main reason she wanted to give him one. Extra insurance. “I’m so bored I could scream,” she said suddenly. “I wish I had a job. I wish I could do something,
anything
to put this godforsaken place on the map.”

Ginger sat forward eagerly. “
Alex
. Help me find a piece of property to buy. Something irresistible. John would love it up here. We have a summer cottage in Maine, but it’s so far away. We should build one here. I
know
he’d go crazy for the place.”

Alexandra pushed herself upright. A thready coil of excitement erased her lethargy. “Really? And you’d bring friends to visit?”

“Dozens of them. Think about it—a whole crew of people with money to burn, drooling over the fresh air and the mountains, buying land, building homes, tennis courts—God, a country club even. A golf course. Something private, of course. But everything would hinge on finding the perfect setting.”

“I’ve already got it. William owns a thousand acres of the most gorgeous property you’ve ever seen. Only a few miles from here.”

Ginger yelped with glee. “Empty land? What does he do with it?”

Alexandra waved a hand in disgust. “It’s as good as empty. He rents it to a handful of tenant farmers.”

“Would he tell them to move?”

“Not even if his life depended on it. They can barely scratch together rent payments, and half the time they show up on our doorstep with truckloads of vegetables instead of money. But he lets them get away with it because they treat him like some kind of adored land
baron. I’ve pointed out that they’re cheating him blind, but he just mutters about traditions and loyalty, as if they’re his personal responsibility.”

“Well, then, why do you think he’d change his mind?”

Alexandra lay back happily. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something.”

Not much work was getting done around the Cove these days because Sarah and Rachel couldn’t keep from playing with the babies. At four months, the two put on an endless show of smiles and gurgles and wide-eyed charisma. Every wave of a tiny arm, every kick of a fat leg, was cause for admiration. And Hugh wasn’t much better, rushing home in the evenings to spend every spare moment with them in his arms.

Deep in the narrow secluded valley below Pandora, with the Saukee River whispering just out of sight beyond a grove of poplars and the steep granite face of Razorback Bald rising in the background like a protective wall, Sarah was never lonely. She had the big two-story log house to manage, chickens to feed, a cow to milk, a garden and fruit orchard to tend. She had three frisky mutt dogs and five fat cats to keep out of trouble. She had her paintings—bright, gentle watercolors of landscapes and flowers, with an occasional portrait of any willing souls who would sit long enough to be copied. She had her children, Rachel’s friendship, and Hugh’s love.

Most days, it was almost enough to keep her from brooding about her ruby and her brother, and his wife.

She and Rachel were picking tomatoes in the garden beyond the log barn, with little Jake and Eleanore asleep on a blanket in the shade of a yarrow hedge, when Rachel raised her head toward the road. “Somebody’s coming,” she said, and frowned.

Rachel’s hearing was an extraordinary thing, like her talent for finding gemstones. The dirt road that ran through the Cove intersected a turn in the Saukee so far in the distance that the drive to the house took a full five
minutes. To get into the valley a person had to drive through the river at a shallow ford, then traverse the road down the mountainside in steep and winding curves. Hugh’s father had built a wooden bridge off a narrow side road to cross the river when the water ran high, but even when visitors rumbled across the bridge, their approach couldn’t be heard at the house.

Even the dogs hadn’t barked yet. But Rachel was rarely mistaken about these things. “A big truck,” she added, pushing herself up from the herb bed and brushing dirt off her faded work skirt. Her long braid of brindled hair swung along her back as she nodded to Sarah. “You’ll see.”

Sarah got up, tucking thick garden gloves into a back pocket of her overalls, then trying in vain to puff up her damp helmet of teased hair. Mountain hospitality called for the lady of the house to be presentable—and in warm weather armed with iced tea. She thought quickly. She had a fresh gallon in the refrigerator.

A few minutes later, the dogs began barking. Sarah walked into the front yard between towering clumps of nandinas and the wide shade of huge oaks, peering through dogwoods that lined the narrow dirt driveway off the road. A lurching, ancient flatbed truck with tall, slatted-wood side panels pulled into the driveway. A half-grown boy drove the old truck, and the cab was crowded with small children, all standing up. She immediately recognized the dozen women who stood in the bed of the truck, clinging to the side panels. Weathered, tough, young, old, two of them black women. She knew their shy faces and simple Sunday-go-to-church dresses as if they were family.

The wives of William’s tenant farmers.

“Well, hello,” she said when the truck came to a stop and the growling engine went silent. “What are y’all doing out and about in the middle of a workday?”

They climbed out silently, their faces grim. She was startled to see evidence of tears. Rachel came up beside her, a baby cuddled in each brown arm, and whispered, “Look at ’em. There’s bad trouble.”

Sarah waited politely. One of the older ones edged forward, her knotty hands wound together in front of her. “We come to you for help, ma’am. You bein’ the judge’s sister. We don’t know what else to do.”

“Help for what, Lucy? What’s wrong?”

“Revenuers. Government men. The law carried our husbands off. Busted up their stills and caught ’em.”

Sarah gaped at them. Making liquor was a revered hobby in the mountains, not a booming industry anymore. Swapped and sold by people who were proud of their homemade brands, it amounted to a local craft, not a crime. Government agents hadn’t seriously hunted for moonshiners since Sarah was a child.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We don’t know exactly. But they’re sayin’ our men’s going to jail for six months.”

“Yes, we
do
know what happened.” A crying young woman, hardly more than Sarah’s age, came forward. “We ain’t never spoke ill of the judge before, ma’am. He’s been so good to us. But now he’s turned on us.”

“No,” Sarah said quickly. “My brother wouldn’t do that. He’d never—”

“It was his wife,” another woman added.

Sarah felt the blood draining out of her face. “What did she do?”

“She come to visit, like she just wanted to be polite. Bringing little gifts—cakes and things. Everybody got together at Lucy’s house to see her. Everybody brought her presents—just like we do when the judge comes to say hello. We give her a basket of liquor, ’cause we always give a basket to the judge. She asked all about it, real sweet, about how it was made, and where the stills is at. We figured—ain’t nothing to worry about, people around here know what’s right, and how to behave.”

Lucy said slowly, “But that was a week ago, and last night the gov’ment men come. Ma’am, we hate to think your sister-in-law put the revenuers on us, but we don’t know what else to say.”

Sarah dimly heard Rachel’s hiss of anger. Shame and
fury strangled her. “Y’all go on back to your homes,” Sarah said evenly. “I’ll take care of this. I promise.”

She left the babies in Rachel’s care and drove to the next town—the county seat—as fast as she could push her old Jeep. She remembered her brother’s court schedule—it was Wednesday afternoon, and everything in the county shut down after twelve on Wednesdays. William would be finishing up paperwork in his office.

Sarah barged into the big, paneled room lined with bookcases. William sat at his desk with his head in his hands. “You
know
,” Sarah said, horrified. “You know Alexandra called the law on your tenants.”

He jerked his head up. His expression was anguished. “I don’t know anything of the kind.”

“Who else would?”

“There’s no reason on God’s green earth for her to do something like that. I asked her. She swore to me it wasn’t her. You forget how it used to be. People make enemies. They get some little feud going and turn each other in out of spite. It could have been anyone in the county.”

“You don’t believe that. I can tell by the look on your face. She hurt those people. What are you going to do about it?”

“Sarah, I love her. I love her, and she’s
not
cruel at heart. She’s got this … this need to be important, and it’s because she’s defensive about her family’s reputation. People still gossip about the way they treated their workers at the mills.” He thumped the desk. “It was thirty years ago, by God.”

“The Dukes haven’t changed that much. Life isn’t that much better for their employees, even now. Besides, Alexandra’s creating her own reputation, and it’s damned bad, and she’s dragging you down with her.”

He slammed his fist on the desk. “She’s my
wife
, and we have a child on the way. My first duty is to stand up for her and that child.”

“What about honor? What about self-respect? And
loyalty to the other people who’ve come to depend on you? All right, putting Alexandra aside, what are you going to do to help your tenants? Those families can’t keep their farms going with the husbands locked up for six months.”

“I’ll take care of them.”

“They’re proud. They want fair treatment, not charity.” She paused, her jaw working. “That’s all I want too. Fair treatment.”

“Sarah, I’d cut off my right arm if it would take away your disappointment.”

“You know what you owe me. It’s not an arm. Don’t you understand? You’re my brother, and I love you. I don’t want to be at odds with you.”

“Then try to forgive and forget. I’m being torn apart here, sister.”

“Judge? Excuse me for interrupting, but it’s an emergency.” His secretary stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. “They called from the hospital. Mrs. Vanderveer has gone into labor.”

William leapt up and grabbed his hat from an ivory peg on the wall. He shook his head at Sarah. “I’ve got to get over there. Trust me, sister. I’ll make things right.” He rushed out past her, running.