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Authors: Jennifer Erin Valent

Tags: #FICTION / Christian / Historical

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BOOK: Cottonwood Whispers
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“You know,” Momma continued, “there’s somethin’ goin’ on over at the Colbys’ jammin’ up the road.”

“What?”

“Don’t know, and it was too crowded for me to stop and find out. But the sheriff was there.”

“Maybe I’ll run down and find out.”

“Yes, you do that, Jessilyn,” she said. “I’d like to find out if Mae’s all right. You know, she’s awful far along.”

Mae and Nate Colby lived right past Miss Cleta, and I sometimes watched their little girl, Callie, while they stepped out for an evening walk or trip into town. Mae was as pregnant as could be with their second child, one that Miss Cleta insisted was a boy because of how low the baby was set in Mae’s belly. In fact, the last time I had seen her, I stopped to help her dig up a few weeds since she could barely bend enough to grasp them.

There was no mistaking the trouble that surrounded that house today. Once I rounded the corner, I saw vehicles for the sheriff and two of his deputies. I marveled at how drastically things had changed since I’d left Miss Cleta’s only a short time earlier. I spotted Miss Cleta on her porch, twisting a handkerchief in her hands, straining to see the Colby house.

“What’s goin’ on, Miss Cleta?” I called. “Mae all right?”

“Heavens, child, it’s a sorry thing,” she cried tearfully. “A sorry thing!”

Her voice and expression frightened the life out of me, and I ran as fast as I could up to the porch, taking the steps in one leap.

“What’s happened?” I asked breathlessly. “Is somebody hurt?”

“It’s the little one,” she said in a voice that was shaken.

“The baby?”

“No, honey. It’s Callie.”

“Callie? What’s happened to Callie, Miss Cleta?”

“She’s gone missin’,” she said with a sob. “She’s up and gone missin’ and they don’t know where she’s at.”

My heart froze, and I stumbled down the porch steps, determined to find out more.

“There’s a lot of commotion over there, Jessilyn,” Miss Cleta called after me. “You be careful, and come on by to give me news when you find out.”

“Yes’m,” I hollered back. “I will.” As I ran across the dried grass, I lost my footing here and there, fear making my legs go numb. I had spent enough time with the little girl in her three years on this earth to make me as fond of her as of a baby sister. I couldn’t bear to think of her lost or stolen.

On my way inside the Colby house, I ran into Sheriff Clancy.

“Whoa there, Jessilyn,” he said calmly. “Where you gettin’ yourself to?”

“What’s happened to Callie, Sheriff?” I pleaded. “Miss Cleta says she’s gone missin’.”

“Now why don’t you just calm down. You look like a wild rabbit.”

“But if she’s gone missin’, I want to help. Maybe I can find her. I know where she likes to play.”

He took me by the shoulders and made to steer me down the porch steps. I didn’t like Sheriff Clancy so much, and I certainly didn’t like being manhandled by him. I crouched down to get out from under his grasp and turned to face him.

“Miss Jessilyn, it’s bein’ took care of,” he said. “I done got four of my men out roundin’ up a search party, and Callie’s daddy is already out with some of the men in his family lookin’ round. We ain’t got need of your help just now.”

“How long’s she been missin’?”

“Can’t quite figure on it. Seems maybe she gone off durin’ the night. For all we know, she’s just up and fallen asleep somewhere where we ain’t seen her. Could be all this worryin’ is for nothin’.”

I heard his words, but they didn’t make me feel much better. “I got to do somethin’. Can’t I at least go look?”

He moved his chaw around in his cheek a bit and turned aside to spit. “I reckon you can go on and look anywheres you think a good idea, if that’s what you want. There ain’t no rules about it.”

Through the screen door I saw Mae Colby sitting on the sofa, her face in her hands, shaking with sobs. Her momma was on the sofa beside her, trying to comfort her.

“Jessilyn Lassiter,” Mae’s momma called out. “That you?”

“Yes’m.”

“You come on in here if you please.”

I was as uncomfortable as could be when I entered that house, but the minute Mae saw me walk up in front of her,
she took my hands in hers and said one thing. “Help me find my baby, Jessie.”

The way she looked at me gave me chills. I was utterly compelled to help her, and the conviction in her eyes filled me with determination.

“You seen our Callie, Jessilyn?” Mae’s momma asked through tears. “You seen her at all?”

I shook my head slowly, hating the words I had to say, knowing that they’d steal away some hope. “No, ma’am. I ain’t seen her in three days.”

Mae’s momma put a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob and gripped her daughter more tightly.

“What happened, Mae?” I asked quietly, my voice shaking. “When did you find her missin’?”

“I didn’t find her in her bed this mornin’,” she said in what was more of a moan than anything, her words coming out in hiccups. “I thought she’d gone into the fields with Nate like she does sometimes. We didn’t know till he came back an hour ago without her that she was . . .”

“She’s gone wanderin’ before, Mae.” I peered out the window like I’d see Callie coming up the walk. “Maybe she went to the berry patch like last time.”

“We already looked there,” Mae’s momma said, her voice catching. “We looked near about everywhere. Ain’t nobody seen her since she went to bed last night.”

Mae looked at her momma with desperation in her eyes. “I should’ve checked in on her last night,” she wailed. “What kind of momma don’t check on her baby girl?”

Her momma wrapped her up and rocked her like a child. I looked away, unable to bear the sight of them. “She’s got to be somewhere,” I said to myself. “I’ll go look some of the places we like to play.”

Mae pulled away from her momma’s grasp, gasping for breath. “You do that, Jessilyn Lassiter,” she said determinedly, her fists grinding into the sofa on either side of her. “You go find my baby girl and bring her back to me.”

I stepped back awkwardly as she began to sob again. The sadness of that room was making my feet itch, and I knew I had to do something . . . anything. I turned and ran out past the sheriff, leaping off the porch without using the steps.

I stopped by Miss Cleta’s and told her what I knew, then left quickly to set out on my quest to find Callie. Just after I left Miss Cleta’s, I saw Luke running down the road. He slowed down and stared at the melee in front of the Colbys’ house.

“Jessie!” he called. “A deputy came by the factory gatherin’ some men to look for the Colby girl. They find her yet?”

“Ain’t found a thing. I’m goin’ to help find her.”

He slapped his hat back onto his head. “Well, let’s get!”

We stopped by my house first so I could fill Momma in, and we left her praying at the kitchen table with a half-peeled potato in her hand. When Momma felt prayer was needed, she stopped and did it, no matter where she was or what she was doing.

The first place we looked was Squalers Pond because I often took Callie there to let her toss stones in. It wasn’t
a big pond by any means. It was more like a big puddle, really, and not very deep. Luke and I rolled up our pants and walked through it, petrified the whole time that we might come upon a little one facedown in the murky water.

But we left that pond without seeing a sign of her and headed off to Clem Barrett’s field, where he had a tree fort he let kids play in. There was still no sign of Callie, and as Luke and I wandered the county looking for her, my heart became more and more heavy.

We’d been searching for hours when Luke suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the road. “We need to go down Duncan Pass,” he told me with certainty.

“But that takes us out of our way.”

“I know. But we got to go down there anyhow.”

“Why would Callie wander down there? There ain’t nothin’ there for her to do.”

“That ain’t no reason not to check. The girl’s only three. Could be she got herself lost.” He took his hat off and ran his fingers through his blond hair. “All’s I know is we got to go check. I can feel it in my gut.”

That was enough for me. I headed in the direction of Duncan Pass, struggling to keep up with Luke as we made our way down the road. He didn’t slow his stride for me on this day. He just kept his head on a swivel, searching the sides of the roads for Callie, and walked with efficient speed.

Duncan Pass was well-known as a bit of a hazard. The road there curved sharply around a corner, leaving drivers to blindly wonder what they might meet around the bend. A
sign at the side of the road warned people to go slowly, and though most regular residents wisely slowed down in those parts, some people just didn’t heed the warning.

There was an eerie heaviness in the air as we rounded that vicious corner. I cast a nervous glance at the warning sign. I didn’t need Luke’s special instincts to feel that something was wrong. The late afternoon sun cast odd shadows across the roadway. No breeze stirred the trees; no squirrels skittered through the brush. There wasn’t even a single bird singing a tune. It was as still and quiet as a graveyard, and as Luke slowed his pace to take a good look around, I instinctively reached out to grasp his hand.

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes solemn and worried, but even though his face frightened me, the firm grasp of his hand calmed my spirit a bit.

Together, we paced the road for the next ten minutes. I scanned the ground around us while Luke, with his heightened vantage point, scanned the surrounding brush. Even as I searched, there was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to close my eyes for fear of what I might see. But I could not look away, for Callie’s sake.

We had just reached the old wooden bridge across Duncan Creek when I stopped dead in my tracks, pulling Luke to a halt along with me.

“What is it, Jessie?” he whispered.

I didn’t say anything. My mouth was like cotton. Instead, I lifted one shaking hand and pointed toward the side of the bridge along the creek bank.

Luke dropped my hand and took off like a shot, leaving me frozen in place, my legs too weak to run. I ambled over with an awkward gait, my stomach swirling. I didn’t want to see death, especially not untimely death, and yet I knew Luke needed someone by his side. I forced myself toward the bridge and found him kneeling on the ground, his breath coming in gasps.

“Luke,” I whispered in a voice hoarse with fear. “Luke, is she dead?”

He lifted his bowed head and gave me a nervous look. “No, she ain’t dead. But she’s near enough. We need to get her help right now.”

Knowing Callie wasn’t dead gave me the courage to look at her, but my heart sank into my stomach when I saw her broken body lying there, blood tinting her clothes and hair. I stumbled backward a bit and then bent over to put my head between my legs.

Luke stood and rubbed my back with one hand, steadying me with his other. “Jessilyn, I know you’re all tore up inside, but we need to get her help, and I’m afraid to move her without the doctor tellin’ me I can. She’s awful broke up. You need to stay here with her while I go get help.”

“No! Let
me
go,” I said desperately. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to stay there with darkness and death so nearby. “I can get help and you can stay with her.”

“Jessie, you can barely stand. Anyways, I can go faster no matter how you’re feelin’. You got to let me go. The Colbys’
is just a short ways down the road, and I’ll get somebody to call for help. Then I’ll head right back to you, okay?”

I wanted like anything to be strong for him, but my hands shook like leaves and my heart beat so hard I could hear it in my ears. Even though I wasn’t able to calm my nerves, I nodded in agreement. I knew I had no choice but to stay behind with Callie.

Luke leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You’ll be fine, Jessie girl,” he whispered. “I have all kinds of faith in you.”

Then he ran off faster than I’d ever seen him go, leaving me alone in the stillness. There was a slight early summer nip in the air as evening began to fall, and I noticed it for the first time, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist. But it was no use trying to warm myself. My blood was chilled inside me.

I knew I needed to go to Callie. My steps were agonizingly slow as I forced myself to her unmoving body, but at length I reached her side and dropped to my knees. Against my will, I was driven to measure her up, every last bruise and scrape. One of her legs was twisted to the side, making her foot point in the wrong direction. A bone on her right arm poked through her skin. And along her forehead was a patch of scrapes that I knew well as thorn marks, telling me she had passed through the nearby thorny brush. But I had no idea how she had gotten this way. For all I knew, some evil person had harmed her on purpose and left her here to die. And for all I knew, that same person could have come back to make sure the job was done.

I peered around the woods, but they were still eerily silent. At that moment, I would have given anything to hear just one bird singing or see one chipmunk dashing across the pass. The only movement I saw was that of a buzzard circling high above us, his hungry eyes watching and waiting for death to claim its prey. I said a quick prayer like I would have heard my momma pray, even though I wasn’t very good at it.

As I bent my head again to look at Callie’s swollen, unrecognizable face, my fear became overwhelmed by compassion. With renewed boldness, I reached out to lightly grasp her tiny, bloodied fingers.

And then I waited.

It seemed ages before Luke returned, but it really wasn’t long at all. I can’t imagine how fast he must have run. Fortunately, Dr. Mabley had been at Mae’s side, so Luke was able to get him to come quickly. The sheriff drove Luke while the doctor drove his truck, and they sped up in a flurry of dirt and debris no more than fifteen feet away from where I crouched with Callie.

The doctor’s face was painted with shock when he saw the girl, but he spoke gently to me as he tried to pry my fingers away from hers. “It’s all right, Jessilyn. I’ll take good care of her now. You go on over with Luke.”

Although it had taken me a good bit of time to even look at Callie, I was now feeling compelled to stay by her side.

BOOK: Cottonwood Whispers
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