Will O Wisp (15 page)

“
Well, you're welcome to
find the Indians in my timber on one condition. If you get a
straight answer from that Indian, you stop back by and let me know
if it's something the farmers around here should know about,”
Junior said.

“
I'll do that, but what I
want to know only pertains to my farm,” Gracie said.

“
Mind telling me what's
going on?” Junior asked.

“
I don't mind. Someone dug
in my family cemetery recently. It looks to be a grave small enough
to be a baby. You haven't heard of a baby or small child dying in
this area have you?” Gracie asked.

Junior rubbed his chin, thinking. “No,
I haven't, but you might stop by the house and ask Sara. She hears
more of that kind of talk from the women at church. If a woman had
such bad luck that we weren't close to, Sara might not think to
tell me.”

“
Well, we better let you
get back to work,” Millard said with a grin. “If we keep you too
long, you just might be putting a pitch fork in our
hands.”

Junior cackled. Then he had a sudden
thought. “Miss Gracie, you don't think that grave is an Indian baby
do you?”

“
No, I don't. Black Eagle's
people would take one of their own back to the settlement Indian
burial grounds. This baby would be white if that's even what is in
the spot. I want to find out who would do such a thing without
asking

me first. That's a personal cemetery.
Thanks for your time, Junior.” Gracie said.

When they were close to the house,
Gracie said, “You stay with the buggy, Millard. Most women don't
want to talk about such things as miscarriages or expecting women
with men around.”

Gracie knocked on the house door. Sara
answered, and Gracie talked to her a minute. Her face held a blank
look when she climbed in the buggy.

“
Well?” Millard
asked.

“
Sara wasn't any help
atall. She didn't know of any woman in the area that was
expecting.”

Millard drove the buggy in to the
pasture that bordered the timber. “This is where I saw some Indians
last week myself. They're living near the Iowa River that runs on
the back side of the timber. You up for a walk? Or you want me to
find Black Eagle, and bring him here to talk to you?”

“
I'll go along with you. I
know Black Eagle will come out of hiding to talk to me. I'm not so
sure he trusts you enough to talk to you,” Gracie said
bluntly.

Millard and Gracie tromped through the
timber, watching for movement among the trees. Suddenly, a tall
Indian stepped out in front of them. “You lost, Gracie?”

“
Not yet, Black Eagle. I've
been looking for you,” Gracie replied.

“
Why?”

“
Mr. Sokal said he saw you
and members of the tribe living in this timber. Thad Sawyer said
you were on my farm earlier. I hadn't seen you. I thought it was
strange you left. It seemed sudden like. I just wondered
why?”

“
We was in your timber, but
we left after spirits came,” Black Eagle said.

“
What did the spirits look
like?” Millard asked.

“
The color of snow. This
many of them.” He held up two fingers. “The tall squaw we saw from
a distance. Her back always turned to us. Small one we saw other
times. The others said they wouldn't live near there until the
spirits left for the happy hunting grounds.”

“
I see. Just so you know,
we will see what we can do to drive the spirits out of my timber so
you can come and go when you want,” Gracie told Black
Eagle.

“
Humm, that be good,” he
said.

“
How's your wife,
Rainwater, and the little one, Eagle Claw?” Gracie
asked.

“
They good. Little one will
have a brother or sister by next winter,” Black Eagle said
proudly.

“
Great news.
G
ood luck to you,” Gracie said. “We found
what we came to find out. We'll let you get back to
hunting.”

Back at Three Oaks, Millard stopped by
the house to let Gracie out. May Jean was sitting on the porch with
Shana. Gracie climbed out of the buggy and went to them.

“
May Jean where did you
come from?”

“
She walked out of the
timber and saw me picking berries so she helped me get the bowl
full,” Shana said. “We got the leaves off the berries. Now Aunt
Melinda is working on them and bakin' a cake. We'll have strawberry
short cake for supper.”

Gracie kept her eyes on May Jean.
“Does your mother know you're over here, girl?”

“
I told her that's where I
was going,” the girl said.

“
How long you staying?”
Gracie asked abruptly.

“
A day or two maybe,” May
Jean said.

“
Come on, May Jean. We'll
get the bucket and gather the eggs,” Shana said.

In a few minutes, the girls came
running from the back side the chicken house and bumped into
Millard, getting ready to leave.

“
Whoa, girls. What's the
hurry?”

“
There's a snake stuck in
the chicken coop with the sitting hen. His head is stickin' out a
hole in back, but he can't get out. The rest of him is too fat,”
Shana said.

“
Show me where?” Millard
said.

Gracie and Melinda came out on the
porch when they heard the excited voices. Gracie followed after
them to see what the problem was.

Millard came to meet them. “I wouldn't
be looking for any baby chicks, Gracie. A black snake ate all the
eggs or chicks as they were hatching. He's so full he can't get
back out of the coop through the hole he crawled in.”

The hen was putting up a real cackling
fuss.

“
Open the door and let the
hen out. Maybe we can jerk that snake out by his tail. We can knock
him in the head when he's clear of the coop,” Gracie
said.

Millard said, “Good idea. You let the
hen out while I go get a hoe to hit the snake with.”

The frightened hen cackled
when Gracie opened the door. She had to stand back and let the hen
come out on her own. The hen flew out and landed a few feet away.
She took off running into the flock, stirring up all the chickens,
causing them to squawk loudly.

Gracie leaned down where she could see
in the coop. The snake's back end twitched sideways as he tried to
squeeze out the back of the coop.

Millard came back with the hoe. “You
ready, Gracie?”

“
Yip.” Gracie bent over the
opening, looking in again.

“
You sure you want to do
this. I could pull the snake out, and you hit him,” Millard
offered.

“
Nope, this is fine with
me. You probably have better aim than I do. The snake will be
squirming around,” Gracie said.

She reached in the coop, took a good
grip on the slick tail of the bullsnake and jerked. The snake's
head came lose from the back of the coop. The whole body jerked out
of the coop and landed at Millard's feet. He backed up, raised the
hoe and socked the snake's head. That stunned the snake. With a few
more blows, the snake was headless.

Gracie let out a long breath. “I'm
sure glad that's over.”

Millard smiled at her. “We make a
pretty good team, Gracie.”

Gracie studied him a moment. “Yip, if
you're talking about killing snakes. I cain't think of any other
reason we would be compatible.”

After Millard left, Shana and May Jean
gathered the eggs while Gracie walked to the pasture after the
cows. Shana carried the egg bucket into the pantry while Melinda
was busy in the kitchen. She whispered, “I hate to see the mother
hen without babes. Maybe we can hatch her out some more
chicks.”

“
How?” May Jean asked.
“That hen won't go back to the coop now. She's too
scared.”

“
We can hatch them for her.
Take three eggs, and I'll carry three. Come with me,” Shana
said.

They slipped past Melinda and went to
the bedroom. Shana opened the closet door and threw back part of a
stack of quilts. She gently laid her eggs down in the middle of a
quilt. “Now lay yer eggs by mine.” As soon as May Jean had her eggs
in place, Shana covered the eggs with the rest of the quilts. “Now
we wait.”

“
That all you going to do
and wait for them eggs to hatch?” May Jean asked.

“
For certain, wait is all
the hen does. The eggs are in a warm place in the dark just like
under the hen. Is that not so?”

May Jean looked doubtful. “Yes, but
I'm not sure this will work.”

Gracie tried calling the cow so she
wouldn't have to go after her, but Clara turned a deaf ear. On the
way back to the barn, Gracie was busy chewing out the cow when she
should have been watching where she walked. She felt her right foot
sink out from under her. Next thing she knew, she was flat on her
face.

A flash of pain ran up her leg from
her ankle. She rolled over and managed to sit up. She raised her
skirt and looked at her knees. They were raw from loss of skin and
bruised. Her right ankle was a worse problem. It was swollen to
twice its size. Gracie tried to stand and found it was too painful
to put weight on her foot. She sank back down and stared at Clara,
calmly chewing her cud and wondering what the hold up with Gracie
was.

When Shana and May Jean went to the
barn to look for eggs, Shana thought she'd find Gracie milking. It
wasn't right to see an empty barn. “May Jean, Aunt Gracie should be
milking by now. Wonder if she had trouble with the cow? We better
look in the pasture.”

It didn't take long to spot the cow in
the open, looking around. Shana and May Jean ran toward her. When
they got close, they saw Gracie sitting on the ground, holding her
leg and groaning.

“
What happened?” Shana
said, kneeling beside her.

“
My foot got stuck in a fox
hole I didn't see.” Gracie pointed to the caved in dirt beside her.
“I twisted my ankle, and it's swelling up. Now I can't stand on
it.”

“
Oh, no! We got to get you
back to the house so Miss Melinda can help you,” May Jean said.
“How are we going to do it? Miss Gracie is too heavy for us to hold
up.”

“
What if we bring the flat
wooden wheel barrow out here and put Aunt Gracie on that? We might
need Aunt Melinda to help us. Between us all we can give her a ride
back to the house,” Shana said. “Stay right here, Aunt Gracie. We
will be back in a minute.”

As the girls took off running, Gracie
croaked, “Where else do you think I'd go?”

The girls came back with Melinda.
Shana pushed the wheel barrow up beside Gracie. “Now we have to get
Aunt Gracie to sit on the wheelbarrow without putting weight on
that ankle.”

Melinda positioned herself on the back
side the wheelbarrow while the girls lifted Gracie under the arms.
She groaned when the pain worsened. “Now Aunt Melinda, get her
around the waist and guide her down on the wheelbarrow platform,”
Shana ordered.

Once they had Gracie seated, Shana
said, “May Jean, you and Aunt Melinda grab hold of the wheelbarrow
sides while I lift Aunt Gracie's legs and turn her
around.”

Working together, they twisted Gracie
around so her legs were supported by the wheelbarrow
platform.

Shana said, “Now the two of you walk
along beside Aunt Gracie and balance the wheelbarrow while I push.
Try to keep her from tippin' over.”

They took it slow. In a few minutes,
they were to the porch steps. Next was the problem of getting her
up the steps and into the house.

“
Let's sit her on a step
and lift her up one step at a time,” Shana said.

It sounded like a good idea, but
Gracie cried out with the uplift under her arm. She hollered again
when her ankle plopped against the ground on the first step.
Melinda picked up Gracie's right leg and holding the ankle up until
they reached the top step.

“
Now how are we going to
get her in the house, girls?” Melinda asked.

“
Maybe we can put a quilt
down for her to sit on and drag her in,” May Jean said. “We did
that to Papa one time when he passed out on the porch. He was too
heavy to lift.”

“
That work?” Shana
asked.

“
It was enough to get him
on the inside the door. We left him there until he sobered up. I
think that was the next afternoon,” May Jean said, trying to
recall.

“
I ain't laying in front of
the door for you to step over until this ankle gets to feeling
better. I just will not do it,” Gracie said as close to tears as
Melinda and Shana had ever seen her.

The creak of buggy wheels had them
looking down the lane. Melinda cried in glad surprise. “Thank
goodness, it's Millard.”

“
Oh no, just what I need is
him in the way,” Gracie groaned.

“
Hush up, Gracie. He is
just what we need. A strong man to help us get you inside and on
the couch. You need that ankle up on a pillow for the night. That's
the best place for you while you're in for all kinds of hurt,”
Melinda scolded.