In a Dark Season (17 page)

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miz Goodweather. James Suttles. No, ma’am, you’re not trespassing. You and your man are just where you ought to be.”

His smile was as warming as the sun and he looked at her, she thought, as if he knew the answer to some question she hadn’t yet learned to ask.

“Is that your place down there?” As she looked past him, she could make out more shapes beyond the trees: a barn with a white mule standing in the open doorway, the log house and several outbuildings, rows and rows of small trees and shrubs, and a kitchen garden with covered beds. “You must be quite a gardener, to have things growing at this time of year.”

“Anytime’s good for growing, if you give your heart to it.” He smiled that secret smile again and bent to retrieve her hiking staff. For a moment he held it in both hands, then offered it to her. She took the staff and almost dropped it again. The familiar touch of dry, long-dead wood was gone: the stick in her hand was as cool and moist to the touch as a fresh-cut sapling.

What is this? Am I dreaming? Phillip’s the one who’s asleep.

“Who
are
you?” she demanded.

“I told you, Miz Goodweather, I’m James Suttles. I’ve lived here for quite some time—time out of mind, as folks say.”

He looked up at the sun, now past its zenith and sliding westwards. “You know, to the old people, this was one of those special days.
Solstice,
they called it. In the Latin, that means ‘sun stands still.’ And when the sun stands still, well, you might say that time stops…”

Is this man crazy? Or am I? Am I on the other side of the mirror?

“…and when time stops, past, present, and future are all the same. It doesn’t matter which side of the mirror you’re on.” His smile was gone now and his stern eyes were boring into her. “You need to stop worrying about the past and the future, Miz Goodweather. Don’t you see they’re all the same?”

Elizabeth stared, speechless.

James Suttles raised his hand and pointed behind her. “Your man’s waking. You’d best go to him now.”

She turned her head and looked back up the slope to see Phillip rousing and rubbing his eyes. “Go on now,” the gentle voice urged.

Without looking back, she obeyed.

The Drovers’ Road VI

Driving Red Will’s Hitch

Luellen took on right much at my leavin but Ol’ Luce told her that she could spend the time I was gone readyin her clothes and bedding, for when we was wed.

Lydy studied the grimy cuff of his homespun shirt and ran his hand over the knee of his jeans pants. Luellen made these here clothes for me—they was to be for our marryin. A look of regret passed over his face. Then he shook his head and continued his story.

The Professor, who had been diligently plying a wood sliver in an attempt to clean his fingernails, ceased his exertions. It must have been difficult to tear yourself from the bosom of your intended and take to the road. I can only speculate—

Tell the truth, Professor, I was plumb tickled to be goin. Bein at the stand day atter day and watchin the stagecoaches and wagons comin from places I had only begun to hear of and on their way to places I hadn’t never been—well, hit had put a longin in my heart to see some of the world afore I settled down at Gudger’s Stand.

Luellen’s eyes was red with cryin when she waved good-bye the next mornin. I set up high on that wagon seat with the reins in one hand and a whip in the other and couldn’t do more than nod her way. It was a four-mule hitch they had give me to drive, and corn and the night’s rest had made them rank. The near leader, a big sorrel horse-mule they called Pete, had danced around like a unbroke colt when I come to put the gears on him, and they was all of them right mettlesome. There weren’t no time for sweetheart good-byes.

And when the lead team turned their noses to the road and all the wagons swung in behind, I felt my spirit lift again just like when I run off from my uncle’s place, though it remained my firm purpose to marry Luellen in December. I had no doubt that her daddy would keep his word and I figgered that someday hit might be me with the keys to the storeroom and a chest full of gold, like everyone said Ol’ Luce had. But Luellen’s way of hangin on me all the time had come to seem kindly tedious. And she was bad to take chances, slippin out at all hours to where I slept—ever since that first time, I had gone in fear of what Ol’ Luce might do, was he to find us layin together afore we was wed.

We set off downriver, following in the ruts of all the wagons and stagecoaches that went back and forth between South Carolina and Tennessee. The road bein dry, hit made for easy travelin. And by the time the sun was shinin full on us, the mules had settled down and I could lean back and take it all in. The clompin of the hooves, the jingle and creak of the harness, and the steady sound of the river filled my ears. Up the mountain to the right I could hear the hammerin of one of them big peckerwoods and then that crazy laughin sound they make when they take wing.

I tell you what’s the truth, hit were a fine day to be alive. I dug a journey cake out of the poke Luellen had give me and gnawed on it as we went along.

It was nigh midday when we come to a stand. Not near to the size of Gudger’s, hit had a few lots for stock, a long low log house, and, set back behind a big garden, a little stone house. They was a stagecoach stopped out front and a boy was unhitching the horses. Passengers was climbin out of the inside and down from the top and they was headin for the porch of the log house, where a dark-complected feller waited to bid them welcome. I seen a tall woman, almost as dark as him, coming through the garden with a big basket of greens on her arm. There was flowers in the black hair that fell loose down her back, most to her knees.

The feller drivin the wagon in front of me threw up his hand and hallooed but we kept on goin as Baylis was naming to make it to Warm Springs by nightfall. We was haulin dry goods from the mills of South Carolina as well as a world of stores for some big fancy place there at the springs.

It’s called a ho-tel, one of the fellers told me when we stopped that night at the inn just across the river from Warm Springs. The Patton Hotel. Used to be an inn there, just a regular stagecoach stop like this. But then word got round about the warm springs and how the waters could cure all kindly of ills, so rich and sickly folks begun to travel from the lowlands just to waller in the water that comes flowin out of the ground already hot. Then the Patton family bought the place and built this great fine building, three stories high and beds for near three hundred people. Why, says he, they even got a room just fer dancin, and hit so big the whole of Gudger’s stand house could fit inside.

Now I found such a tale hard to credit and started to speak, not wantin to be taken for a fool. But another feller who was there at the table—a little feller, travelin alone and headed for South Carolina—he leans over and says real low, What kin you boys tell me of Gudger’s Stand? I heared things…and he cast his eyes about the room real skeered like.

What manner of things? says ol Baylis, starin at the traveler like a bull about to charge.

Well, there’s some who say folks has stopped there for the night and never been seen again. The little feller drew back from Baylis’s gaze. Understand,
I
don’t say it’s so. Just what I heared.

Baylis flung his big head back and let out a great laugh. Only thing you need fear at Gudger’s Stand is gittin tangled up with Gudger’s wife. He don’t take kindly to that. But I don’t believe—and Baylis looked the little feller up and down like he would the runt of a litter and hit hardly worth drownin—I don’t
beleeeeve,
he said, drawin the word out long and grinnin fit to bust, that she’d take to you nohow. She likes em big and young.

Ever one there nodded and one said, Now that’s the truth, and somebody asked me what had happened to that Ramsey boy used to work there. He went off, I said, and I seen one of them fellers nudge the one next him.

That’s enough idle talk, boys. Baylis stood up and yawned. We got to get these goods unloaded first thing in the morning and be on our way to Greenville.

But before we hit our bedrolls, Baylis come over to me. Lydy, says he, they’s a feller here has driven for me back of this and he wants me to take him on. I appreciate you drivin Red Will’s hitch today but now’s your chancet. I’ll pay you fer your time and you can walk on back to Gudger’s Stand and be with your sweetheart by tomorrow evening…or, if you druther, I can put in a word for you with the folks at the hotel—bein as Ol’ Luce ain’t lookin to see you till December. Come fall, you could go with a drive and see a little of the world.

He looked at me real close and said a quare thing. Might be good for your health, boy, was you to stay here in Warm Springs.

Chapter 19

Aunt Omie Remembers

Thursday, December 21

W
here were you?” Phillip yawned and looked at his watch. “I feel like I slept for hours, but it was ten minutes, on the nose.”

“I went down there a ways.” Elizabeth motioned to the slope behind her. “To get a close look at those trees. And then there was—”

He craned his neck. “That’s a pretty spot, the way it’s sort of set off from everything. Look how the light hits on the ice and makes it look gold instead of white. Of course, with the sun on it that way, there won’t be any ice at all in another half an hour.”

A strange look crossed her face and she turned slowly. She stood there, her back to him, scanning the wood below as if looking for something. He watched as she shook her head slightly, then raised her hiking staff to examine it minutely, running her fingers along its length. At last she turned and came to sit beside him.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” He peered into her face, puzzled.

“I’m fine—maybe a little…I guess ‘mazed’ would be the word. Drunk on the day and the scenery.”

She grinned and, to his relief, it was the familiar Elizabeth again. Reaching for the knapsack, she said, “I think I need some more coffee before we start back.”

He was behind her as they started up the trail to the summit. She strode along with a spring in her step. All traces of the odd mood that had possessed her were gone.

A spectacular place,
he thought, gazing at the blue mountains folding away on every side.
I can see what she meant about wanting to sing.
He cleared his throat in an exploratory way, then began, quietly at first but rapidly gaining confidence and volume.

“We hike along the woodland trails,

And if the way is long,

We drink some booze…”

She had stopped and spun around at the first notes and was regarding him with an incredulous expression.

“…we take a snooze;

And lift our voice in song.”

It was a decent baritone, he decided, and it rolled out impressively across the open meadow. As he caught up to Elizabeth, he saw that her lips were moving, but he couldn’t tell if she was singing very softly or just mouthing the words.

“Happy me! HAPPY WE!” He boomed out the syllables and was pleased to hear her low, slightly off-key, accompaniment.

“Happy
ME!”

She fell in with him and they strode toward the summit, matching step for step as they swung along in time to the song.

“Happy we-hee-hee-hee-hee
-hee!”
They shouted the line together, and both were instantly seized by laughter—gut-wrenching, deep-welling belly laughs. Elizabeth’s long legs folded under her and she sank to the ground, chortling, her eyes streaming. A second later, he joined her. They laughed till the sound of their mirth echoed back from the valleys below, like the calls of a band of lunatic yodelers.

At last, weakly wiping a sleeve across her still-wet eyes, Elizabeth leaned against him. “I can’t remember when I last laughed like that…it’s been a very, very long time. I had no idea—you obviously have depths of which I was not previously aware.
Where
did that silly song come from? I recognized the tune—that fal-de-ree song about hikers—but somehow I don’t remember the words being quite so…so…”

“Juvenile?” Phillip’s expression was innocent. “I cannot tell a lie, ma’am;
I
wrote those words. When I was twelve. Eagle Scout Hawkins of Troop Four. When we weren’t annoying old ladies by helping them to the other side of streets they didn’t want to cross, we were hiking and singing. Want to hear a verse of ‘The Caissons Go Rolling Along’? Or how about ‘Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends’?”

“If I laugh anymore, I won’t be able to walk back to the car. Let me catch my breath.”

They sat quietly, his arm draped around her. After a moment or two, she turned to him, lips parted as if about to speak.

I could happily drown in those eyes.
The thought came out of nowhere and caught him by surprise.
Damn! That doesn’t sound like me. This place is getting to me too.

Her eyes were still on him, somehow expectant.
I wonder…this was the day we were going to talk about where I would live when I take the job with Mac…and if we’d get married. But everything’s good right now—why bring up something we might not agree about? And what does it matter, really? If she doesn’t want to be married, then—

“Phillip?”

“Yes, my love?” He
was
drowning, sinking willingly into the deep blue pool of her gaze. “What is it?”

“Will you marry me?”

The rime ice had all melted away by the time they walked, hands linked, back to the car. The return drive was through woods of lavender shadows and indigo trunks, rather than the crystalline wonders of the morning. He drove slowly, afraid to risk any disturbance of this newfound perfect harmony. But one thing had to be said.

“Lizabeth?”

“Phillip?” She looked like a child in the midst of a happy dream as she turned to him.

“Lizabeth, I want you to be sure. About getting married, I mean. Today was so…I don’t know how to describe it. But if you wake up tomorrow and decide that you were high on mountain air and you’ve made a mistake—I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

Before she could reply, he overrode her. “How about we keep this quiet for now; give you time to make sure? If on New Year’s Day you still feel the same, then we’ll tell everyone.”

“If that’s what you want…” She tilted her head at him. “But I won’t change my mind.”

“So you young uns has been up to Max Patch. I’ll just bet hit was a sight on earth! I ain’t been up there in the longest time. Phillip Lee, you kin put them packages over yon where a body won’t trip over them. Ay law, Lizbeth, look at the color in your cheeks; today you’re as purty as a bloomin’ rose.”

They had taken a detour on the way home in order to deliver Christmas gifts to Phillip’s aunt Omie, a tiny, fierce-eyed widow who lived in the little community called Shut In. Somewhere up in her eighties (Phillip didn’t know and wouldn’t ask her exact age), Naomie Caldwell was the older sister of Phillip’s late mother. Phillip had spent many summers with his aunt when he was a child, and now that he was back in the mountains, he had tried to assume some filial responsibility for her.

“She’s got no other close kin around here,” he had complained to Elizabeth, “and I’ve told her over and over to call if she needs help of any kind. I had an afternoon free and I thought I’d ride out and check on her—maybe bust some stove wood since she won’t use that kerosene heater I put in. So I get there and, not only does she have enough wood to do her for two or three years, but she’s at the top of a ladder way up high nailing down a piece of tin that had blown loose on her roof.

“‘Aunt Omie!’ I holler, ‘I
told
you to call if you needed me!’ And that little bent-over woman peers down at me from the top of that ladder and waves this big framing hammer. ‘Well, Phillip Lee,’ she says, ‘reckon as how I didn’t need you.’”

Today, however, she had a task for him. “Iffen you don’t care, you can haul off some trash for me, Phillip Lee. I been going through my plunder and trying to git shed of some of this clutter. Everwhat’ll fit in the back of that jeep, hit’d be a help to me.” Aunt Omie motioned Elizabeth to the sofa. “You set down, Lizbeth, I’ll just show this boy what needs to get gone, then I got something you might like to see. You naming Max Patch put me in mind of my pictures.”

When the two emerged from a back room, Phillip was balancing a stack of cardboard boxes in front of him, his chin clamping down on the topmost one. He winked at Elizabeth and shuffled on to the front door that his aunt was holding open for him.

“Now mind them steps, Phillip Lee,” she called after him. She shut the door firmly, shaking her head as she muttered, “That boy’ll break his neck one of these days if he don’t take care.”

Elizabeth scooted to one end of the sofa, making a space for the white-haired little woman and the worn blue cardboard shoe box she was holding.

“Now let me see; it’s in one of them yaller envelopes if I remember right.” Omie’s knobby-knuckled hands picked through the stack of photo-return envelopes and seized on a tattered example. She held it up and peered at the spidery writing.

“Nineteen and fifty-nine—that was the first year Phillip Lee come to stay with me. I thought you might like to see what he looked like back when he had him a full head of hair.” Omie’s eyes sparkled as she drew out a deckle-edged black-and-white photo and offered it to Elizabeth.

The faded picture showed a sturdy little boy in a plaid shirt and jeans, the hems rolled in a deep cuff. His head was covered with close-cropped dark hair, and he sat, grinning with delight
a familiar grin
on the back of a white mule, harnessed for work. At the mule’s head stood a man in faded work clothes and a dark hat.

“He was a fine-lookin’ young un and that’s the truth.” Omie leaned in closer. “And law, was he proud to be settin’ up there on that big mule!”

“I love this picture.” Elizabeth felt a tug at her heart—a wish that she could somehow have known the little boy in the photo.
The smile’s the same, and the way he holds himself. But would I have recognized this as Phillip if Omie hadn’t told me?

“Is this your husband holding the mule?” Elizabeth turned her attention to the image of the man in the hat. She looked closer and blinked.
It’s the same man! The one I talked to…I
think
I talked to…while Phillip was asleep.

“Law, no. That picture was took one day when me and Waneeta—that was my sister, Phillip Lee’s momma—carried the young un all the way up to Max Patch in that funny little car of Waneeta’s. I was wanting to get me some young apple trees from James Suttles and while we was there he gave Phillip Lee a ride on that ol’ white mule of hisn.”

Okay, so this James Suttles had a son who looks exactly like him. Or a grandson.

“And those self-same apple trees I got that day are bearing yet—they’s a York Imperial and a Grimes Golden and a Junaluska. Law, James was a good hand to graft an apple. That whole family could raise a garden on a rock and have extry to feed the pigs. And they had the best fruit trees you ever saw—apples what ripened earlier and kept longer, peaches that blossomed late so’s not to get hit by a freeze, and the finest cherries you ever tasted.

“Oh, ever one wanted to get their fruit trees from the Suttles. Yeah, boy, they was the finest folks.”

Omie’s eyes were half-shut and a wistful smile crept across her wrinkled face. Then, recollecting herself, she nodded toward the snapshot. “Yes, that’s James all right in that picture. Now his mommy, she was a full-blood Cherokee princess named Rebecca. James was a dark-complected man hisself, but he had the bluest eyes. Him and me was playmates when we was young—we called ourselves cousins.”

Okay, the man I talked to couldn’t be Omie’s age…maybe…

“Did you know my Mamaw was part Cherokee?” Omie twinkled up at Elizabeth. “Reckon that’s her blood makes Phillip Lee’s skin so dark, even in the wintertime. Howsomever, my Mamaw and James Suttles’s mommy was kin some ways and when I was just a little thing, Mamaw would take me with her to go a-visitin’ up there. We’d stay several nights and oh my, me and James would have us a time.”

“Did this James Suttles have a son? I think I’ve seen someone who looks just like this man.” She tapped the pale figure, identical to the man she had spoken with a few hours earlier. “His spitting image, as they say.”
Which derives from spirit and image. Oh, lord, this is too weird.

Omie’s brows contracted as she searched her memory. “Let me think about that, Lizbeth…now, yes, I believe James did have a boy, just the one, far as I kin recollect.”

“Was he named James after his father?”
That could explain it.
But even as the thought formed, Elizabeth knew there would be no explanation.

“No…” Omie shook her head. “I believe they named that boy Larry and last I heared, he had moved off somewheres. I’m ashamed to say it, but I don’t know if James is living or not. Could be he is. Suttleses was always a long-lived family.”