[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek (40 page)

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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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Sitting up straight, she rested her arms on her bent knees. What was she to do? How could she choose between the love of a man and the love of a place? After all, she’d known Troublesome Creek much longer than she’d known Dr. Simon Corbett.
A commotion on the far bank, up the creek a ways, caught her eye. A creature of some sort was sliding through the underbrush, probably coming down for a drink. Last night at supper Daddy had warned her about a wild boar that had ruined a patch of corn. Reaching beside her, she grabbed the hoe. Why hadn’t she thought to bring a gun or the slingshot? Holding her weapon at the ready, she craned her neck and waited for the thing to show itself.
Finally little hands parted bushes on the far bank, and Copper dropped her hoe in delight. “Remy!” she cried as she splashed across the creek, nearly falling into the water in her haste. “Oh, Remy!”
Remy’s eyes warned her not to get too close, so Copper hugged herself in joy to keep from grabbing her little friend. “I’m so glad to see you. What are you doing here? Where have you been?”
“Ye need too many answers at once, Purty.” Remy ducked her head and took a step backward.
“I’m sorry, Remy, but it makes my heart so glad to see you!”
“I seen yore buddy over to Torrent Falls,” Remy said as if that answered Copper’s questions. “The one that brung my ma them vittles.”
“John,” Copper said. “That’s John Pelfrey. I wondered where he’d gone off to. But it’s a long way to Torrent Falls. How did you get there?”
“My mammaw’s got a mule.”
“Your mammaw? Are you living with her then?”
“Ye shore are nosy, Purty.”
“Sorry,” Copper said again. “You look real pretty, Remy.” And she did. Her white hair was plaited in intricate braids, and her face was full. Copper could tell she’d been eating regularly, and her dress was clean and actually fit. She didn’t have on shoes, but then neither did Copper.
“‘Purty is as purty does,’ Mammaw always says.”
Copper held out her hand. “Please come sit with me a spell.”
Remy didn’t take her hand, but she followed Copper back across the creek and sat on her heels as Copper plopped down on the bank. “Air ye spoke for now, Purty?” Remy asked in the low gravelly voice that had become so familiar.
“I swan, Remy. How do you know so much?”
“I gets around. Air ye? Air ye spoke for?”
Copper wrapped her arms around her knees. “Seems like it. I guess I am.”
“Ye ain’t happy ’bout it; I can tell.” Remy shifted her weight and stared at Copper with her pale blue eyes.
“I’m so confused.” Copper shook her head. “He wants to take me away to live in a city, and I don’t want to leave Troublesome Creek. This is my home. I’m happy here.”
“Onliest thing that matters is folks, Purty. Yore home ye can tote with you.”
“How, Remy? Tell me how.”
Remy tapped Copper’s chest with her closed fist directly over her heart. Copper didn’t dare breathe, afraid her friend would dart off as quick as a hummingbird if she moved. It was so rare to feel Remy’s touch. “Ye carry it here, Purty. It’ll be safe here.”
“Hmm, I’ll think on that. But what of you? You must tell me a little about yourself. And of your family . . . I’m so sorry about baby Angel.”
“It’s all right, I reckon.” Remy began flinging little stones into the creek. “Ma cried fer the longest time.”
A silence enveloped them. It seemed Remy had run out of words.
“So you’re living with your grandmother?” Copper asked.
“It’s real tight there . . . doors and window lights all closed up.” Remy’s eyes drifted as if she’d already taken her leave. “I’d druther be buried without an oak-board coffin as to live indoors.” She stood and started back across the creek. “Makes me feel all stove up.”
“Don’t go,” Copper begged. “Stay awhile.”
“I got places to be. Ye can come along.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Remy’s feet barely rippled the water as she went. When she reached the far bank, she paused to wave good-bye and raised her hand as if in blessing. “Yore place is here, Sister. Where things stay still.” A bright, new, red foxtail bobbed at the seat of her dress as she disappeared once again.
Copper stood and strolled back to the garden, lost in thought. She raised her hoe and struck out at the weeds that threatened to take over the potatoes. Sister? Had Remy called her sister? A Scripture came to mind:
“There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
I could use a friend like that. I surely could.
 
Summer passed and ushered a long, wet fall into the mountains. Copper was miserable. At times she wished there’d never been a pie supper, that she’d never allowed that first kiss. But then she’d remember the clean, starched-laundry smell of Simon or the feel of his strong arms around her. She’d trace the outline of her lips with her finger, and a longing so intense she’d have to sit down would overtake her. She wished she’d never met him. She’d been so happy before he came, lost in her childhood.
Mam was no help. She’d just look at Copper with half a smile and give her more sewing to do. They were filling the cedar chest Daddy had made her with all manner of sheets, pillowcases, and towels. Everything had to be marked with the initial
C
so she couldn’t change her mind. It drove Copper mad to have her life predicted in such a way. But then it was a
C
. . . that also stood for Copper.
Finally the weather broke. A glorious Indian summer blessed the mountains with soft sunshine and gentle breezes, and Copper was out the door as soon as she could escape Mam’s chores. She went hunting nearly every morning after she finished milking. Though Willy begged to go along and Daddy would have been glad to keep her company, she went alone. She had to decide if she could actually leave this place . . . this place of her heart.
Every day she came home empty-handed save for a few late mushrooms, and once she stumbled on some ginseng. She’d take aim at a fat, nose-twitching rabbit hiding in a pile of leaves or a tail-shaking squirrel on a black-walnut limb, then not be able to squeeze off a single shot. Her mind played tricks on her, for every animal she saw she imagined a mate and children waiting at home in burrows or dens . . . a family. So she left her gun at home and took Daddy’s walking stick instead.
One day she packed a wedge of corn bread and a raw turnip and settled down for her noon meal halfway up the mountain under a butternut tree. She’d just gotten comfortable, shifting about in a pile of leaves, when John Pelfrey’s hound dog bounded up, demanding a share of bread.
“Hey, Faithful. Where’s your master?” She stood and looked around. There he was, kneeling at the base of a hickory, cracking nuts with a rock, acting like he didn’t see her. “John? Aren’t you speaking?”
“Didn’t know you wanted company.”
“You’re not company. . . . You’re just John.”
He dusted bits of hickory shell from his hands and looked up at her with eyes swimming in tears. “Just John?”
Flustered, she replied, “You know what I mean. You’re my friend.”
“Are you fixing to leave, Pest?”
Unable to bear the anguish in his voice, she didn’t answer but began to gather red and gold and orange leaves. “We missed the prettiest leaves this year. It was too wet.”
His hand rested on her shoulder. “I deserve an answer.”
Suddenly Copper sank to her knees, shaking her head, and started to cry. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
John knelt in front of her and took her hands. “I’d marry you, Pest, and you could stay. You wouldn’t never have to leave.”
She let him hold her and cried upon his shoulder. “Oh, John. I wish it so. I wish it was you I loved.”
“I love you. Ain’t that enough?”
She patted his wet cheek. “No, John. No, it’s not. You think you love me because I’m all you know.”
“Could I kiss you, Pest?”
She closed her eyes and offered her lips, and he brushed her mouth with his own. It was sweet and gentle, just like John himself, but there was no starburst . . . no longing.
“I been wanting to do that for the longest time.”
They sat side by side. She rubbed his knuckles with her thumb and thought her tears would never stop.
He put his arm around her and drew her close. “Don’t be spilling all them tears.”
“I can’t stand to hurt you,” she sobbed, her tears like a river in the crook of his neck. “I wish you didn’t love me like a sweetheart. I wish we’d just stayed friends.”
“It ain’t the loving you that’s hard. It’s you not loving me.” He sighed and ran his hand through his shock of yellow hair. “Don’t be sad for me.” He patted her arm. “I’ll be all right if you’re all right.”
Mopping her face with her dress tail, she leaned against his shoulder. “How do I know what’s the right thing to do?”
“You got to go where your heart leads you.”
She got to her feet and pulled him up. “I never set out for this to happen, but I love him, John.”
“Well,” he said, shrugging. “Well.” He chucked a few hickory nuts at a raucous jay, then reached in his overalls’ pocket and pulled out a piece of smeared newsprint. He handed it to her. “Guess I’ll be leaving too.”
She unfolded the small square of paper and read out loud:
“
‘Corsets made to order. You furnish the measurements and we’ll make the garment. Money-back guarantee. Sophie’s Fine Confinements. ’” She looked up, confused. “You’re going to make corsets?”
Red-faced, he snatched the paper from her and turned it over. “Tuther side, Pest.” They sat back down, and he showed her a story about a sailing ship bound for the Orient. “See, it says they’re taking on hands. Says they give good pay and you can see the world. Wouldn’t that be something—to see the world?” He carefully folded the paper and stuck it back in his pocket.
“I guess we both got big plans.”
“I guess so.” Copper started, then yelped as a hickory nut bounced off her head. She shaded her eyes and looked up to see a gathering of squirrels chattering maniacally and beaming hulls their way. “Ow! Ow!” She and John clasped hands and ran away, doubled over in laughter, children again . . . for a little while.
 
The beautiful Indian summer was gone. Winter was fast closing in. There wouldn’t be many more days of comfortably wandering the woods.
One morning as Copper tied a little poke of bread and meat together, Daddy said, “Add a piece of sausage and biscuit for me, Daughter. I aim to go along.”
She saw the look he exchanged with Mam, and her mouth went dry.
He’s going to tell me about my mother,
she thought, and then wondered if she really wanted to know.
He led her to the creek. It was clear and running swiftly over moss-covered rocks. A sudden cold wind gusted, and she drew her shawl tightly around her arms.
“It all started here,” he said, his voice suddenly gruff. “It was a flash flood that carried your mother away.”
They talked and walked for miles. The sun warmed them as they went, but the wind nipped her nose and the back of her neck with its icy fingers. It was nearly over, she knew—the restless fall. The trees were spent, standing naked and proud, save for the oak that clung relentlessly to its faded beauty, like an old woman with her memories.

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