Still House Pond (28 page)

“You fainted,” the doctor said. “The sheriff carried you here. I'd say not enough food and too little rest.”

Copper struggled to stand. The room spun and the floor tilted. She backed up into the chair. The air was dense with a wet, oppressive heat. She felt like she was smothering.

“Do something,” Alice demanded, right in the doctor's face.

“She'll be fine,” he said. “She just needs a little rest and some food in her stomach.”

“I'll sit here a minute,” Copper said. “I got too hot. That's all. I feel better already.”

“No more work for you today,” the doctor said.

Alice crooked her finger. Amy hurried over. “Have Joseph bring the carriage around.”

The girl started off with the suitcase and hatbox in hand.

“Put those silly things down,” Alice barked.

Poor Amy,
Copper thought, resting her head against the tips of her fingers.

Soon Alice's butler pulled the carriage up to the back door of the depot. Despite her protests, Alice got her into the carriage.

“Drive out into the country,” Alice said. “Stop at the first nicely shaded spot you find.”

* * *

Joseph stopped beside a creek and spread a blanket under a copse of hickory trees. Copper lay supine on the tartan throw. Overhead, leaves danced to the tune of a pleasant breeze. The sweet smell of honeysuckle cleansed the overwhelming odor of death that had permeated each breath she'd taken since she'd come to the scene. Water rushed swiftly by in the nearby creek, calling her to step in.

“Let's go wading,” she said.

Alice sat ramrod straight on another blanket, an exact replica of Copper's. “Close your eyes, Laura Grace. Rest.”

“An hour, no more,” Copper said. “Promise?”

“I'll wake you in one hour. Now hush.”

Alice woke Copper to tea and coddled eggs. The eggs were finely dusted with paprika. There were stone-milled crackers spread with strawberry jam to go along. The homely scent of sassafras wafted her way from a campfire built on the bank of the creek. Upstream, Joseph filled canteens with fresh water. It was an idyllic picture reminding her of better times.

Alice folded her blanket and began reassembling the picnic supplies. “Put out the fire, Amy.”

Copper finished every bite and even had a second cup of tea. “Let's pray before we go back.”

Alice bent her head.

“Joseph, Amy, come pray with us.”

Alice raised one eyelid in question as the servants joined them and Copper had all join hands. Copper prayed fervently, asking for God's protection and His mercy. She thanked Him for Alice and Joseph and Amy and for their ministry to her.

Joseph surprised her with a prayer of his own. “Father God, we bow lowly as the worms we are before You.” His rich voice was like a serenade. “We have a mighty need, Lord, and we ask You to answer by finding Lilly.”

Alice joined in. “Lord, You know our needs. We don't need to beg, but there will be an extra offering in the collection plate if You will give Lilly back to us unharmed. Amen.”

Copper knew she should be appalled by Alice's tactless entreaty, but she couldn't be. She'd put out a fleece of her own, promising to give up everything but her other children if Lilly was just restored to her. She was weak, not strong like Abraham, and she prayed God wouldn't test her faith that way. While lying awake last night, she'd determined that the greatest sacrifice she could offer, outside her children, was her practice. Maybe this was all to show her that she was spending too much time tending to other people's needs and not enough on her family. She was ready to lay it all at the Savior's feet.

* * *

They'd no sooner stepped out of the carriage than the sheriff approached. “There's a man looking for you,” he told Copper. “He says he's got to talk to you right now.”

John,
Copper thought.
He's probably worried sick. I should have found him before I set off with Alice. But, no, the sheriff had met John the night before, so he would know if it was him.
“Didn't he tell you his name?”

“Tell you the truth, I didn't ask. I figured if he was looking for you, then he was an all right fellow. I brought him here but you were gone. Doc said you'd be back shortly. If it helps, he said he was a preacher, and he was toting a big black Bible. Hey, there he is—yonder with your husband.”

It was Brother Jasper hurrying her way with John. Seeing her minister gave Copper no comfort. She took a step backward, bumping into Alice. “I don't understand. This can't be good.”

John grabbed her shoulders. “Listen. Lilly is not here. She was never on the train in the first place.”

Copper couldn't get her mind around what he was saying. It was as if John were speaking in tongues. She looked to Brother Jasper for an interpretation.

“Do you need to sit down?” the preacher asked.

She swayed on her feet. John circled her shoulders with his strong arm, steadying her. “No . . . I'm all right, but what do you mean Lilly's not here?”

“Remember I said I was going to send a message over the wire to my wife's sister's house to let her know about the train wreck? Well, I did, and then I waited and waited until I got the reply. She said Lilly didn't meet the coach to go to the station with her and Kate.”

Copper felt a lightening of spirit. “This is wonderful! That means Lilly is all right.”

She watched Brother Jasper's face for the news she needed to hear, but all she saw was consternation. “What?”

“I went by the house on my way here to see Lilly for myself. I hate like fire to tell you this, but she's not there either.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don't know. I spoke to Miss Remy, and she said they hadn't seen Lilly since day before yesterday.”

“But Lilly was going on the coach. Mrs. Jasper was going to look out for her.”

“I know,” Brother Jasper said. “I don't know what to tell you about that except Kate's jaw was swollen up big as a muskmelon that morning. She'd spent the night crying in pain, and her mother was desperate to get her to Cincinnati.”

“Is Kate all right?” Copper asked.

“The telegraph didn't say. I'm going there after I leave here, but I had to see you and John first.”

“We appreciate it,” John said. “We could have been here for days yet.”

“What did the note say, John?”

“What note?”

“The one Manda left on the table. What was in the note?”

John scratched the top of his head. “Let me think. It was something like Mr. Morton came to the house for you, Copper—then something about Manda going to her sister's—”

Copper shook his arm, interrupting. “Lilly. What did the note say about Lilly?”

“I don't know the exact words, but I know the note led me to believe Lilly was on that coach.”

A great emptiness swept through Copper's very being. She thought that finding Lilly's broken body in the mass of twisted steel would be the worst thing she could ever face, but she'd been wrong. Having no body to find was worse. Losing a child to death would break your heart, but losing a child entirely would steal your soul.

Alice cornered the sheriff, taking over. “You'll need to commandeer one of the relief trains. We need to get to Jackson as soon as possible.”

Copper looked at John. He read her eyes.

Tenderly he took Alice's arm. “I'm sorry, but you can't come with us. It would be best if you go home to wait. You'll be more comfortable there, and I promise I'll send word as soon as we know anything.”

Alice seemed to crumple at his touch. “Either way?”

“Either way,” he said.

Copper and Alice embraced for an awkward moment, but there were no words of sympathy. Copper knew the blaming went two ways. It was a time for forgiveness, but she couldn't muster up the energy. It seemed Alice felt the same.

When Alice turned away, so did she. Alice could wait—for now Copper needed to focus on the long way home and what she might find on Troublesome Creek.

28

Lilly roosted like a homing pigeon atop the restacked boxes under the narrow window. Curiosity had overcome her fear now that the man was gone. She hadn't dared to go to the open door yet, but she would. What she saw outside the high-up window was a complete surprise. There was a house with a big flat rock for a stoop and a weedy packed-dirt yard. The door to the house stood open, and there was no screen to keep out flies or mosquitoes. The house looked deserted, but there were a dozen or so rags pinned to a sagging wire clothesline, and a few chickens scratched about in the dirt.

A barefoot boy came out of the door swinging a bucket.

She couldn't believe her eyes. “Tern!” she yelled before she thought. “Tern Still!”

She nearly fell off the stack of boxes when Tern whirled around to the sound of her voice. He held one finger to his lips and shook his head.

She ducked down. Everything started making sense. The reason she knew the beagle was because the dog belonged to Tern, who was the son of the man who stole her, who was the husband of Adie, who was the woman who died in the little house.

Boy, she was in big trouble. Mr. Still was mad at her family. He probably believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Ping! Ping!
She heard what sounded like pebbles hitting the tin siding. She peered out the window again.

There stood Tern trying to look like a man. “You ought not be hollering out that window.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do?”

“My pa's the toughest man there is. That gives me rights.”

Lilly snorted. “Are you going to get me out of here or not?”

Tern jerked like he'd been hit with a rock, then put his finger to his lips again. He ran back to the stoop, where he'd left the bucket, snatched it up, and ambled around the side of the house.

Lilly soon saw why. A buckboard drew up in the yard. Mr. Still helped a woman who was holding a baby down off the seat. Several boys climbed out of the bed and raced each other to the house. “Last one in's a rotten egg,” one yelled.

The old lady looked the same as she did when Lilly saw her the day they brought the coffin to the little house. Same stiff, black bonnet hiding her face, same black dress so old it looked rusty, same stooped, shuffling walk. Lilly's eyes widened; she was coming her way. The shuffling continued until the lady reached the clothesline. With one hand she held the baby, and with the other she unpinned a square whitish rag. Mr. Still reached for the baby. The lady slapped his hand away.

“Ma,” he said, “I don't know why you're so het up.”

“You don't know?” the grandma said, whipping at him with the rag. “You don't know much, Isa Still. You're just like your no-account daddy.”

“Don't I take care of you the best I can considering the circumstances?”

“The circumstance is all I'm considering. Here's the circumstance spelled out for ye. You stole a neighbor's gal. She's up there in that old building where your daddy kept his moonshine makings. The circumstance is that rotten shack could give way at any time—it ain't fitting for occupation. That gal could be kilt, and then your circumstance would be setting in the county hoosegow.”

Lilly watched her pull the rags off the line. She was a little old thing, but she stood taller with every word. And with every other word, Mr. Still appeared to shrink. His neck retreated like a turtle's until his hat seemed to be sitting on his shoulders.

“So what's that do for my circumstance?” the lady said. “Why don't you tell me that? Who you reckon's gonna take care of all these young'uns whilst you're toasting your toes on the county dole?”

Lilly jabbed the air with her fist each time the grandma made a point. “Take that,” she whispered. “Take that.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't think—”

“Of course you didn't. Don't I always say, ‘Talk it over with your ma before you do something stupid'? Don't I always say that?”

“Yes. But there she was fishing my dogs out of the pond. There wasn't time to ask you. Besides, weren't nobody home but me and Tern. You was gone to your sister's.”

Mrs. Still's exasperated sigh sailed all the way up the tin siding and rushed through the narrow window. “It ain't like I don't know where I've been, boy.” She started hanging the rags again, like she forgot she'd just taken them down, punctuating each sentence with a thrust of a clothespin onto the rusty wire. “Here's a nugget for ye. If you can't talk it over, then just don't do it!”

Lilly could see her cheeks turn red under the brim of the black bonnet. Without unpinning it, she tugged a rag back off the line. The clothespin shot straight up. Mr. Still ducked.

“I'm sorry. But you know how I've been stewing since Adie died. I finally just biled over.” Mr. Still's voice dropped, and Lilly strained to hear. “Weren't none of any of them Pelfreys' business.”

“I know and I agree. But none of that was done in spite. Don't you see that? Right or wrong, Miz Pelfrey was trying to help.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I believe this move of yourn is even more foolish than that skunk farm you had and probably harder to deal with.”

“But you liked that pretty cloak I made for you, right?”

“Isa, Isa. When am I ever going to have a need for a big-city costume?”

Mr. Still's mouth spread in a big smile. “I'll line your coffin with it.”

The grandma laid the baby on his back in a patch of grass. Expertly, she removed one diaper and applied another. Shaking her head, she smiled up at her son. “You know, that would be nice. Probably ain't nobody hereabouts had nothing so fancy lining their oak-board overcoats. Sometimes you remind me why I fell so hard for your good-for-nothing pa.”