Bridge to Cutter Gap / Silent Superstitions / The Angry Intruder (15 page)

Even though Wilmer barely knew who Mary was, she loved him just like she loved all her brothers. She even loved Smith, although he had a bit of a mean streak running through him. But Mary saved most of her love for Mountie, because her sister seemed to need it more than any of the others. Their mama and papa were too busy to pay much attention to the silent little girl, and Mary had always been the one to watch out for her. Granny loved Mountie as much as Mary did, but she had a hard time showing it.

Mary rubbed the bruise on her arm. Already it was the color of a ripe blueberry. Granny said it was Teacher's fault, but Mary didn't see how that could be. Lundy Taylor was always causing trouble. You couldn't expect Teacher to fix the whole world on her first week, now, could you?

But she hadn't said that to Granny. She loved her great-grandmother, but she was afraid of her, too. Granny had a hot temper, and a way of looking at the world that other folks didn't have. Some even said she had second sight and could see clear into the future. And it was true enough that Granny could see signs and portents where no one else could.

The wind let loose a powerful shriek. In the corner near the fire, Granny snored away. Mary thought again of the strange raven who had flown to Teacher's desk that afternoon. Remembering the bird's evil black eyes, Mary shuddered.

She nudged Mountie, who rolled over and smiled. “Mountie,” Mary whispered, “do ya s'pose that raven comin' to Teacher's desk meant anything bad? Bad, the way Granny says, I mean?”

Mountie gazed at Mary thoughtfully. She hardly ever spoke. Once or twice Mary had heard her say a clear word, but mostly Mountie just communicated in grunts and nods. Still, Mary knew her sister understood everything. She could see it in Mountie's eyes.

“Some folks say ravens near a house is a bad omen,” Mary continued. “So what do you s'pose a raven comin' right into school like that could mean? What if Granny's right, and it's a powerful bad sign?”

A head dropped down from the ceiling. It was Smith. “Can't you quit your jabberin'?” he demanded loudly. “Good thing cat's got Mountie's tongue for good, or I'd have to listen to two gal- folk carryin' on like a couple of crows. You ask me, that Teacher's trouble, and Granny's right about her.”

“You just don't like her 'cause she makes you and Lundy Taylor mind,” Mary said.

“You think that raven was some kind of accident?” Smith said.

“Could be.”

“Naw. It was a sign for sure.”

“Smith?” Mary whispered. “S'pose I wore Granny's herbs and kept a-goin' to school? You think Granny'd let me?”

“Ask her, why don't you?” Smith wadded up a piece of straw and tossed it at Granny's bed. The old woman stirred slightly, grunting. “Granny!” Smith said in a loud whisper.

“No, Smith!” Mary hissed. “Don't go wakin' her. You know how ornery she gets.”

Granny's eyes fluttered open. “What in tarnation is your trouble, boy? Can't you see I'm a-tryin' to sleep? Not that it's easy, mind you, with that storm wallopin' the walls.”

“Go ahead,” Smith urged Mary. “Ask Granny.”

Orter Ball and George stuck down their heads. “
CAW! CAW! CAW!
” they cried in unison.

“Next bird I hear, I'm a-shootin' for,” warned Mr. O'Teale.

Granny yawned. “Ask me what, child?”

“S'posin' I wore your herb recipe and kept on a-goin' to school?” Mary asked softly. “Me and Mountie, we could sit way in the back, where nothin' bad could get to us—”

“A curse like that don't care what row you're a-sittin' in, girl,” Granny said.

Mary gazed at her great-grandmother. Her eyes blazed with life. It was almost as if she were enjoying what was happening to Teacher, the way some people like to watch a storm unwind.

“Night, Granny,” Mary said. With a sigh, she leaned back. “I guess that's all the book learnin' for you and me for a while, Mountie,” she whispered.

Mountie didn't react. But much later, when everyone else was asleep, Mary wasn't surprised when, over the moaning of the endless wind, she heard her sister softly crying.

Four

I
just don't understand it,” Christy said at dinner Saturday night.

“Give them time, Christy,” Miss Alice advised as she reached for a biscuit. “Rule number one here in the Cove—everything takes time.”

“Sometimes centuries,” joked David Grantland.

All the workers at the mission gathered in the main house for dinner each evening. Although Christy had only been there a few days, she was already beginning to feel at home. Miss Alice, of course, made that easy, and so did David, who had only been there a short time himself. David's sister, Ida, was more difficult—a crotchety, no-nonsense sort. And then there was Ruby Mae Morrison, who was staying at the mission temporarily because she was not getting along with her family. Ruby Mae seemed to have appointed herself as Christy's official shadow. She followed Christy everywhere.

“But why would Granny O'Teale react that way to me?” Christy asked for what seemed like the millionth time. “I understand that she was upset about her great-granddaughter. And maybe she was right. I do need to find a better way to keep an eye on the children at all times.”

“Sixty-seven children, Christy,” David said. “Nobody can keep track of all of them every minute. Trust me, I know.” David helped out with Bible and arithmetic classes in the afternoon.

“I wouldn't worry too much about Granny, Christy. Her reaction isn't unusual,” Miss Alice said. “These mountain people are proud of their heritage, and stubborn, too. It's going to take them a while, maybe even a long while, to accept you. It's taken me years to be accepted.”

“But she sounded so . . . so angry,” Christy said. “As if she blamed me for Bob Allen's accident. She said she saw signs that I was cursed.”

Ruby Mae dropped her fork. “Granny knows all about signs and such,” she said nervously.

“Come on, Ruby Mae,” David scoffed.

“No, I swear, it's true,” Ruby Mae cried, pushing her long red hair out of her eyes.

“Give me one example,” David challenged.

“How about the time Granny O'Teale was charming a wart off her finger, when along comes Mr. McHone. He laughs at her, and Granny warns him, says, ‘you'll be sorry for laughin'.' And sure enough, the next day, Mr. McHone's got a hundred warts growing on his finger in the exact same spot!” Ruby Mae shook her head. “She's powerful, Granny is. And smart, to boot.”

“Powerful silly, is more like it,” David said. “I—”

He was interrupted by a loud knock at the front door. Miss Ida went to answer it.

“Doctor MacNeill,” she said, “come on in out of that cold. Would you like a bite to eat?”

The doctor, a big, handsome man with unkempt red hair and deep lines around his eyes, came inside. “Thanks, Miss Ida,” he said, “but I've eaten already. I'm on my way home and just thought I'd do myself a favor and thaw out a bit, if you don't mind.” He took off his gloves. “Strangest weather I've seen in a long while. Snow yesterday, hail today—” His eyes fell on Christy. “Well, if it isn't Florence Nightingale,” he said, breaking into a broad grin. “Did Miss Huddleston tell you how she helped with Bob Allen's surgery?” he asked the rest of the group. “She turned the nicest shade of green you've ever seen.” He winked at Christy.

She felt a blush rise in her cheeks. The doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. “Actually, she was a godsend,” he said. “Don't know what I would have done without her.”

“Granny O'Teale seems to think I'm the cause of Bob's accident,” Christy said.

The doctor laughed as he pulled up a chair near Christy. “Don't take it to heart.”

“That's what everyone keeps telling me,” Christy muttered.

“So how goes the first official week as teacher?” the doctor asked.

Christy shrugged. “It's hard for me to say. There are so many children, and we need so many supplies. . . . I guess I'll find a way to handle it all.”

“She's doing great,” David said. “We're very proud of her.”

Miss Ida cleared her throat loudly. “Well, I think I'll be getting these dirty dishes to the kitchen.”

“Let me help, Miss Ida,” Christy said, pushing back her chair.

“Oh, no, that's not necessary,” Miss Ida said. She cast a glance from the doctor to her brother. “You've obviously got your hands full. Ruby Mae can help.”

Ruby Mae grabbed a dish and followed Miss Ida. “Do you think Miz Christy's got two suitors already?” she asked loudly.

Christy covered her eyes. She needed to have a talk with Ruby Mae about learning to whisper. “Ruby Mae's very, uh . . . imaginative,” she said.

“Quite a talker, that one,” Miss Alice agreed, smiling at Christy's discomfort.

“Doctor MacNeill, I was wondering about something—some
one
, actually,” Christy said, anxious to change the subject. “Is there anything that can be done for Mountie O'Teale? She barely speaks, and when she does, it's so garbled she sounds like a frightened animal. It breaks my heart.”

The doctor shook his head. “Swannie tells me she's been like that for years.”

“Swannie?”

“Mountie's mother,” Doctor MacNeill explained. “My guess is it's more emotional than physical, but I can't even be sure of that. As far as I know, Mountie won't communicate with anyone.”

“She's been that way as long as I've been at the mission,” Miss Alice said.

Ruby Mae returned for more dishes. “Maybe she's got a spell on her,” she suggested.

“Ruby Mae!” Christy exclaimed.

“It happens!” Ruby Mae insisted. “I heard tell of a boy over in Cataleechie. He had a spell on him so's all he could do was mew like a kitten. Lasted two whole months. Even when that spell was took off him, he never did drink milk normal after that. Always had to lap it out of a bowl.”

Christy smiled sadly. “I almost wish that there was such a thing as spells and that that was the cause of Mountie's problem, Ruby Mae,” she said. “Then we could just look for a way to break the spell.”

When the doctor, David, and Miss Alice had left for the evening, Christy went up to her room. Miss Alice had her own cabin, and David lived in a nearby bunkhouse. That left Christy, Miss Ida, and Ruby Mae in the main house, a white three-story frame building with a screened porch on each side. Compared to Christy's home back in Asheville, North Carolina, it was very plain. It had no telephone, no electricity, and only the barest of furnishings. She often missed the polished mahogany dining room table back home, the thick Oriental rugs, the lace curtains—not to mention the indoor plumbing.

Still, Christy was growing accustomed to her simple room at the mission. It was a stark contrast to the frills and pastels of her old bedroom— just a washstand with a white china pitcher and bowl, an old bed and a dresser with a cracked mirror, a couple of straight chairs, and two cotton rag rugs on the cold bare floor.

But this room offered something her old room could not—a view so breathtaking that each time she looked out her window at the haze-covered peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains, she felt a little closer to God. Mountain ranges folded one into the other, touching the clouds, a sight so peaceful and calming that already Christy had begun to think of it as
her
view, a source of hope and strength. Even to- night, with the wind whipping fiercely and the moon and stars hidden, she could see those peaks in her imagination with perfect clarity.

Christy reached into the top drawer of her dresser. Underneath a neatly folded, white blouse was her black leather-covered diary. She had brought it with her from Asheville, promising herself she would write down everything that happened to her at the mission—the good and the bad. This was, after all, the greatest adventure of her life, and she wanted to record every moment of it.

She'd had to argue long and hard to convince her parents that a nineteen-year-old girl should venture off to a remote mountain cove to teach. Christy had first heard about the mission and its desperate need for teachers at a church retreat last summer. Somehow, she had known in her heart that she was supposed to go teach in this mountain mission school. There was so much less here materially, but in many ways life in Cutter Gap was much richer than her old life in North Carolina, filled with tea parties and dress fittings and picnics.

Christy climbed onto her bed. Propping the diary on her knees, she uncapped her pen, tapping it thoughtfully against her chin. Where to begin? It had been two days since she'd written.

Saturday, January 20, 1912
My first week of school completed! Hooray!

I have put up with freezing temperatures, vicious bullies, and raccoons in desks, and still I've survived to tell the tale. Perhaps I will make a good teacher yet.

David and Miss Alice are encouraging but realistic. “You cannot change the world overnight,” Miss Alice keeps saying.

I can't admit this yet, not to them, not to anyone. . . . It's even hard for me to write this down in my own private diary. But the truth is, I feel like such an outsider here. David seems to feel like an outsider, too. Even Miss Alice says it took her years to be accepted by the mountain people. But the littlest things make me feel I'll never really belong here.

I came to school my first day in my fancy leather shoes, only to see practically all the children barefoot in the January snow. When I talk, they still giggle and whisper. (David says this is because my “city accent” is as strange to their ears as their way of talking is to me.) And when someone like Ruby Mae Morrison (my very own personal shadow, it seems!) talks constantly about the strangest things, I sometimes wonder if we aren't from different worlds.