Jolene Page 6

  “Yes’m,” said Hal, looking a little rebellious and a lot excited. His siblings just looked raw with envy. Anna wondered why, if they had decided—obviously not today—that he was old enough to join his father at work, he hadn’t been along on her trip. And then she remembered that interchange between Hal and his father about how she was to sleep in the barn, and it came clear. Jeb had been taking no chances on Hal’s good behavior, alone with a strange girl and plenty of chances to take her off to the side to try for some kissing. There had certainly been some moments over the supper table and out berrying when he’d attempted to make cow-eyes at her, too, so that had very probably been a wise decision on their part. Hal clearly considered himself quite the ladies’ man.

  “Wait here, Anna,” ordered Missus Sawyer, and shooed her offspring inside. She came back out with Anna’s little bundle, some folded fabric of some kind, and something small held in her hand. “Foller me,” the woman ordered, as the sun sank below the horizon and the sky turned red. Anna obeyed, following her into the barn itself. Missus Sawyer motioned to her to go up a ladder, and followed; Anna found herself in a hayloft about half filled with hay.

  The big window that allowed you to bring hay in from wagons outside was wide open, allowing the sunset light to stream in. Missus Sawyer shook out one of the pieces of fabric she had carried up, and laid it down over the hay. “Thet there canvas’ll keep y’all from getting hay in y’all’s dress,” she said, and shook out the second piece of fabric. “An’ this’s an old shawl I ain’t used fer years. It’ll serve fer a cover.” Then she handed Anna what was in her hand—a biscuit wrapped in a bit of brown paper. “An’ this’s iffen y’all gits hungry, but mind t’ et it, or the mice’ll get it.” She smiled at Anna, again with that uncomfortable tinge of pity. “Sleep tight, missy. I’ll come git y’all in the mornin’—or if y’all wake up afore us, jest come wait in the kitchen.”

  Then she climbed down the ladder, leaving Anna alone in the hayloft. Anna took her bundle, got out her comb, sat down on the canvas, which was old, soft, and pliable, and unbraided her hair to comb it out. She found an embarrassing number of tiny bits of blackberry bush in it. Probably too small to notice, or at least she hoped so—but maybe that was why Missus Sawyer had looked at her with pity, thinking her some slovenly sort who didn’t know any better.

  By the time she was finished rebraiding her hair, the sunset had become twilight, and she decided she probably did have room for that biscuit after all. She unwrapped it carefully, bit into it, and discovered it had been halved and filled with strawberry preserves.

  She ate every crumb and licked her fingers absolutely clean, then wrapped herself in the borrowed shawl and lay down, watching the hay-window. The hay was surprisingly soft to lie in, yielding and firm at the same time. And it smelled really good. She felt all of herself relaxing into the embrace of the hay, warm without being too warm. It was good to lie down after such a long day. She remembered just in time to say her prayers, adding Missus Sawyer to the list, but couldn’t manage to get to her knees to do so when she was so comfortable. More than in her bed at home, with the hard straw mattress.

  And once again, things took a turn for the odd.

  Something climbed in through the window. It was about the size of a raccoon—but it wasn’t a coon. It looked like a human being—only not a baby, but a miniature man, lean, muscular. She froze and held her breath, but all he did was perch on the ledge and look out over the yard. It was hard to tell in the light, but she thought that instead of a cloth shirt and trousers, he was wearing a leather shirt and leggings. His hair was definitely in two braids, like hers. Slowly it began to dawn on her. This was a miniature Indian!

  At that point, she became convinced that she had somehow fallen asleep without realizing it. There was no reason why there should be an Indian lounging about in the window of the Sawyers’ hayloft—much less one the size of a doll. So she was surely dreaming. She tried opening her eyes, but they seemed to be open already, which could happen in dreams. So she tried closing them. That worked. At least she wasn’t seeing the tiny Indian anymore.

  Given the blood-curdling tales Missus Sawyer had been reading, she was actually relieved that all she was dreaming about was a tiny Indian.

  And the next thing she knew, the Sawyers’ rooster was crowing, practically in her ear, and she woke up with a start. The rooster, naughty thing, stood in the window where she’d seen the tiny Indian, looked her brazenly in the eye, and crowed at her again before flapping down into the yard to join his hens.

  When she had combed and braided her hair again, and folded up the canvas and the shawl to carry with her down the ladder, she took a look herself out of the window to see if there were any signs of life at the house. Missus Sawyer, scattering grain for the hens in the thin morning light, must have caught movement in the window out of the corner of her eye, because she looked up and waved.

  Anna waved back.

  “Toss me them things so’s y’all don’t hev t’ carry ’em down,” Missus Sawyer said, in tones that suggested this was probably a good idea. Anna tossed down the folded canvas, then the shawl, then her own bundle, and went back down the ladder.

  “Go wash up at th’ pump,” Missus Sawyer told her when she emerged from the barn. Since this was not framed as a suggestion, Anna obeyed her. Jeb’s wife seemed to set a high store by cleanliness, and Anna was not about to disobey her.

  The table was already set, and almost as soon as she had finished washing up, Jeb came in, followed by Hal, followed by the two younger children. They all took their turns at the pump, while Anna took the seat she had been given last night and waited for Missus Sawyer to come in from her chores. The kitchen was already full of wonderful scents.

  Missus Sawyer had not been exaggerating when she had said that breakfast was one of the two big meals of the day. There were biscuits again, and tomato gravy to dip them in. Everyone got an egg from the batch Missus Sawyer had brought in from the henhouse. There was fried bread and jelly, and pickled okra, and if you wanted it, the leftovers of last night’s soup. And cornmeal mush and blackberries to stir into it.

  And somehow, even after all of the food she had eaten yesterday, she was starving, as if her body was trying to make up for all the years of cabbage soup and plain grits.

  Just as she finished helping to clear the dishes, there was a jingle of harness, the sound of many hooves, and the rolling of wheels out at the front of the house. She and Jeb and his wife went to the front to see what the noise was. There, atop a very tall wagon pulled by six mules, was someone she was certain was Caleb Strong, the man who was to take her to Aunt Jinny.

  “Hello th’ house!” the man called out, then spotted them coming around the side. “Hope I ain’t afore time.”

  “Jest in time, Caleb,” Jeb said heartily, and reached up to shake Caleb’s hand. Anna, meanwhile, could only gape at his rig-out.

  It was a truly enormous wagon, with a deep, deep bed, tall wheels, and six mules to pull it! What must he be hauling to need that many mules?

  Caleb himself was slightly older than Jeb, with a smooth-shaven, open face, much tanned by sun and wind, and weather-bleached yellow hair. He was wearing something very similar to Jeb: flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and denim overalls, with stout boots. He peered down at Anna from the vast height of the box and smiled. “This’d be Miz Jinny’s gal?” He handed Jeb down a woven willow basket without waiting for an answer. “This’d be her pay for bringin’ her t’Cleveland, then.”

  “Obliged,” Jeb said, taking it, as Missus Sawyer took Anna’s elbow.

  “Let’s go git y’all’s things,” the older woman said, and Anna followed her back to the kitchen.

  “Here’s your bundle,” Missus Sawyer said, and put her old folded shawl on top of it. “An’ take thet shawl. I ain’t usin’ it, an’ y’all will want it if th’ weather turns.” She picked up an
identical basket to the one that Jeb had taken from Caleb from under the sink, without waiting for Anna to stammer her thanks. “Time’s a-wastin’!” she said cheerfully. “Le’s go!”

  They returned to find Jeb and Caleb still chatting amicably, coming up alongside the wagon as Jeb was saying, “ . . . thenkee kindly fer that, Caleb.”

  “T’weren’t nothing.” The man grinned. “But y’all owe me a drink next time.”

  “Here’s the gal,” Missus Sawyer said, “an’ here’s her bundle, an’ here’s dinner fer th’ two of y’all,” she added, handing up the basket.

  “Dinner? Reckon Jeb don’t owe me no drink arter all,” Caleb replied, smiling broadly as he hefted the basket. “All right there, missy. One foot there, that’s right. Reach up y’all’s hand—and up y’all come!” He took her by the hand and hauled her up as if she weighed nothing at all.

  Once on the high wagon seat beside him, she looked down at Jeb and his wife. “I cain’t thenkee enough,” she began awkwardly. “Y’all be so good t’me—”

  Jeb waved her words aside. “Jest doin’ as the Good Lord says,” he replied modestly.

  Including feeding and clothing the poor, she thought but didn’t say aloud. Because they had done that, and even though charity galled, that wasn’t their fault.

  “I’ll make sure t’ let Aunt Jinny know how good y’all been,” she replied after a bit of awkward silence.

  “Best be on our way,” Caleb interjected, diplomatically. “I’ll be a-seein’ y’all in a couple days, let y’all know this liddle gal’s got t’ Miz Jinny safe. Hup!” That last was to the mules, as he slapped the long reins on their six backs, and the mules stepped out. The wagon lurched forward, then began rolling smoothly, and soon the Sawyers’ house was out of sight.

  Caleb’s mules were either of a brisker disposition than Jeb’s Daisy, or they found the unladen wagon no more burden than a feather, or both. Or perhaps they knew they were going home, which put a spring in their step.

  Or maybe it was just the overnight rest, because surely Caleb had not driven all night long to get to Cleveland.

  As these thoughts went through her mind, Caleb broke—well, it wasn’t silence, since it was full of the jingle of harness and the sound of twenty-four clopping hooves—

  “Y’all know Miz Jinny good?” he asked, conversationally.

  She shook her head. “Ain’t never seed her,” she confessed.

  “Hrm.” Caleb considered this. “Wall—she takes some gettin’ used ter. Don’ let what she looks like put y’all off her. Ain’t a smarter, better Root Woman in—wall, betwixt here an’ Memphis, an’ tha’s a fact! If she minds t’teach y’all, y’all ain’t niver gonna lack for work.”

  Aunt Jinny—teach me? The thought had never occurred to her, and it startled her. She’d thought—well, she’d thought that her aunt was going to try to cure her up, that was for sure. And she’d thought maybe Jinny was on the lookout for a kind of servant she wouldn’t have to pay.

  But—teach her?

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The idea both excited her—because Caleb was right, Jinny’s potions were highly sought after, and she’d always have the means to make ready money—and nauseated her, because of what else Caleb had said. She takes some gettin’ used ter. And don’t be put off by what she looks like.

  Just what kind of a woman was her aunt, anyway?

  Images out of those stories Missus Sawyer had read to them last night rose unbidden into her mind. A twisted crone, nose so long it touched her chin, clad in tattered black robes and spiderwebs. With black cats and toads at her feet, and a cackling laugh. Gray hair like dead straw sticking out from under a pointed black hat. A house made of gingerbread was absurd—but a little stone hovel, barely big enough for a fireplace and a bed, certainly was not. And where would she sleep? In a shed? In a haystack?

  All manner of strange possibilities ran through her mind, and none of them made her feel in the least little bit hopeful.

  4

  JEB’S Daisy had ambled. Caleb’s team was not minded to amble. They moved about as fast as a strong boy could run, full-out, which did not make for a comfortable ride until they got well clear of Cleveland and onto a road that was not so rutted. The discomfort of being atop the swaying wagon overcame the weakness she’d been feeling since yesterday noon, and it wasn’t until things smoothed out a bit that she noticed that weakness was gone.

  By that time she and Caleb were chattering away like old friends. Or rather, he was making slow, steady conversation, and she was listening. She learned that he and his son had a cartage business hauling copper ingots from the Burra Burra mine to Cleveland and the railhead, although he could haul ore from the mines or timber from the river to the smelters as well, which was why his wagon was so deep. That right at this very moment his son would be setting out from Ducktown with a heavy load of metal.

  That he had six children, and they did not live in Ducktown, or even the Ducktown Basin. “I wouldn’ let my wust enemy raise a fambly there,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “Why?” she asked, because it was an obvious question.

  He scratched his head. “They melt th’ ore inside them smelters, and they feed them smelters with timber, ’cause there ain’t no railhead t’bring in coal. They done cut down ever’ tree in th’ Basin, an’ there’s somethin’ ’bout the smoke that pizens th’ air, so the rain’s—bad. I cain’t ’splain it no better. But ain’t nothin’ grows in Ducktown an’ around it. Ain’t nothing but bare ground. Now, Lonesome Holler, where Miz Jinny lives, is fur ’nuff away, with ’nuff mountain ’tween her an’ Ducktown that they ain’t a-comin fer her trees when they kin cut ’em north and float ’em downriver easy. But you wouldn’ b’lieve what Ducktown looks like. It ain’t natural. And I ain’t a-goin’ t’let my fambly live thar. We live ’bout a mile from Lonesome Holler, an’ thet’s all the closer I aim’s t’get.”

  But why do y’all work fer ’em, iffen y’all feel thet way? she thought. She didn’t say it, though. That was not the sort of question you asked someone. Ma would’a slapped her face for being pert if she spoke like that in Ma’s hearing.

  And . . . his description seemed entirely unreal. How was it possible for there to be nothing but bare ground where nothing would grow? Here, in the middle of thick forests and green fields? Even back in Soddy, things grew. They didn’t grow real well, ’cause of all the soot, but they grew. Surely he was exaggerating.

  But she didn’t even think of challenging him. He was a man growed, and she was just a girl.

  Caleb waxed eloquent about his family and their—well, it wasn’t a farm, no more than what Jeb Sawyer had was a farm. But it did sound like a little spot of paradise. There was an extensive garden, and they had several pigs, a lot of chickens, and a cow, but it wasn’t a farm they relied on to supply their prosperity. The bulk of the family fortune was tied up in cartage: the two big wagons for hauling copper, ore, or timber and the twelve mules, plus two spares, for pulling them. Caleb knew every one of his mules by sight, personality, and name, and described each of his team and its temperament in great detail, while she listened attentively. It was clear he thought of them as family, too.

  When they stopped for dinner, it was deep within heavily wooded hills, covered with trees right up to the roadway. But they didn’t have the road to themselves, not by any stretch of the imagination. All the way, they’d met with other dray wagons, coming the opposite direction, heading to Cleveland. And when they stopped, it was at an enormous clearing and pond, with three other carts already there, and it was clear this was a usual stop for all the carters. There was not just the clearing itself, there were water-troughs hewn from the trunks of trees for the mules, and buckets to fill those troughs from the nearby pond. Caleb made the point of unhitching his three pairs, taking each pair to the trough and watering them and hitching them back up again, before helping Anna
down off the seat and taking Missus Sawyer’s cheesecloth-covered basket out of the bed.

  The basket was full of sandwiches. Bread and butter and thin-sliced country ham, bread and strawberry jam, bread and butter and sliced cucumbers. Missus Sawyer’s bread was much better than Anna’s Ma’s was. The butter was a positive revelation. The ham was sliced so thin it was practically transparent, but its flavor was powerful enough to make you feel like you’d eaten a thick slice. But after eating one and seeing Caleb wolf down two, while ignoring the cucumber ones, Anna left him the ham out of pure politeness and ate jam and cucumber. She’d never had cucumber sandwiches before; her Ma only made sour pickles with cucumbers.

  He didn’t dally over the food, though, and didn’t join the other muleteers in jawing. She quickly realized he wanted to be back on the road as fast as possible, and practically swallowed her last half-jam-sandwich whole so they could.

  Only when they were on the way again did he look at her sheepishly out of the corner of his eye and say, “I’m plumb sorry I rushed y’all. But I don’ trust them other rascals ’round a young leddy. Not—” he added hastily, “—thet they would’a hurt y’all. But they talk ugly. Things y’all ain’t niver oughter hear.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he didn’t seem to expect a response. She supposed he meant there would be a lot of swearing, and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Pastor had a lot to say about that in his sermons, but that didn’t seem to stop any of the miners from using whatever language they pleased any other day of the week.

  Ever since they’d gotten into the deep woods, she’d been almost-seeing things again, but Caleb Strong did not seem to see a thing, even when he was looking in the same direction she was, so finally she came to the conclusion that she wasn’t seeing things, at all. She was seeing things she didn’t recognize, that was all. She didn’t actually know what a lot of birds and animals other children had told her about looked like, and there were sure to be many more in the woods that they didn’t know. And her mind was seeing bits of things and her imagination did the rest. I can ’magine a lot, she acknowledged, a little ruefully. After all, she could conjure up the entire Court of Solomon when she was minded to! When absolutely nothing came of all these vague glimpses, she started to relax and ignore them. They weren’t hurting her, after all.