Beyond These Hills (12 page)

“Your pa is a fine man, Laurel. I knowed he was gonna be when he was a little boy and tryin' so hard to be the man of his family after his pa died. This argument with the government's been hard on him, maybe more so than anybody else in the Cove. Because deep down he knows we won't win.” She paused and stared back at her mountains. “So we keep tryin' to hang on to what's ours, but we don't take it out on people like Andrew. Just try and remember Andrew didn't make this here problem anymore than we did. We just happen to have dif'rent notions about the outcome. But no matter what happens when this thing is settled, I want folks to say we acted like Christ in ev'rything we did.”

Laurel scooted out of her chair and eased onto the floor at Granny's feet. She leaned forward and laid her head in Granny's lap like she'd done so often when she was a little girl. The soft stroke of Granny's fingers on her hair filled her with a longing for childhood days when she thought her family could make everything in her world right.

No matter how much she wished, though, she wasn't a child anymore. She was a woman with three strong women in her life. Maybe someday she would be like her grandmother, mother, and Granny. She hoped so.

“Thank you, Granny. You've given me a lot to think about.”

Maybe it was possible for her and Andrew to be friends. There was something about the young man from Virginia that fascinated her. At least she'd thought so before she knew who he really was. Now she knew why he had come to the Cove and her emotions were tangled in a heated battle. Her head told her to keep her distance from the young man whose brooding eyes made her pulse race, but her heart still whispered that her first impression had been right.

Chapter 6

O
n Monday morning Andrew whistled a familiar tune as he drove toward the farm he'd chosen for his first visit. A map of Cades Cove with the locations of the farms still to be purchased lay in his briefcase. He'd studied it so much he knew exactly where every holdout lived. This morning's visit would be to the Ezra Nash farm. The Nash family had farmed their land for generations and Ezra had been outspoken with other agents who'd tried to talk with him. Andrew hoped today would be different.

He pulled into the yard of the neat cabin and looked around. It sat at the end of a road off the main loop. The view of the mountains from the yard was one of the most magnificent he'd seen since arriving in the Cove. He stepped out of the car and took note of the outbuildings. A barn and what he supposed to be a henhouse and a smokehouse sat to the rear of the cabin. A long open-sided shed in the field next to the house looked like it contained beehives. He'd heard that some of the best honey in the mountains came from Cades Cove, and he made a note to get some before he went back home.

Andrew climbed the steps to the front porch and peered through the screen door. The front door stood open with a cast iron doorstop pressing it against the inside wall. Andrew knocked and called out. “Hello, anybody home?”

Footsteps sounded from the back of the cabin and a woman appeared behind the screen. She wiped her hands on her apron and stared at him. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Nash?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Andrew Brady with the Park Service. I need to talk to your husband. Is he home?”

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced over her shoulder. “Ezra, somebody from the Park Service here to see you.”

A tall man wearing overalls appeared next to her. “I'm Ezra Nash. You wantin' to see me?”

Andrew smiled. “Yes sir. I'm Andrew Brady, and…”

“You that feller wanting to git my land?”

Andrew cleared his throat. “Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way. I'm here to talk to you about selling.”

Ezra's face hardened into angry lines. “My land ain't for sale. Not today. Not any time in the future. Now get off my porch 'fore I throw you off.”

Perspiration popped out on Andrew's forehead. “There's no need for threats, Mr. Nash. If you'll just listen to what I have to say…”

The man's hand pushed on the screen. “Ain't no threat. It's a promise. Now git off my porch.”

Andrew backed toward the steps. “All right, if that's the way you want it. But I'll be back.”

“Don't bother coming back. I ain't changin' my mind.”

Andrew retreated down the steps and to his car. As he drove out of the yard, he glanced back. Ezra Nash, his body rigid and his hands clenched into fists, stood on the porch glaring at him.

A shaky breath trickled out of Andrew's body. They'd told him the people who hadn't sold their land would be difficult to deal with, but he'd been sure he could handle them. Now he wasn't so sure. Over the next few days he had visits planned to Thomas Bennett's and Joseph Prince's farms. He hoped they'd be different. For now he
thought he'd better head back to the CCC camp and reevaluate his approach to the good folks of Cades Cove.

By Wednesday, Andrew was ready to throw up his hands in surrender and slink into Washington like a defeated general returning from war. What was he thinking when he took this job?

From five hundred miles away in the nation's capital this job appeared to be just a matter of tying up a few loose ends. For a smart college boy who'd been one of the best at getting his point across on the school debate team these mountain folks would be easy pickings. He had figured it might take him a month—six weeks at the most—to get the signatures of the twenty-four remaining families on the bills of sale.

Now he was here, and it was nothing like what he'd thought. His visits on Tuesday with Thomas Bennett and Joseph Prince had ended as badly as had the one at the Nash farm on Monday.

Now it was a new day, and he was on his way to Nate Hopkins's farm. He knew the elderly man was a widower with no family left. He had to realize that selling his land and settling somewhere else where he could be close to neighbors would be the best thing for him.

Andrew pulled to a stop at the small cabin where Nate lived and looked around. The front porch sagged, and the roof looked like it needed repairing. The fields surrounding the cabin hadn't been planted this year. All appearances pointed to the fact that Nate could no longer keep up with the work required to run this farm.

Andrew made it about halfway to the front porch before the door opened and a wiry little man with stooped shoulders stepped outside. A few strands of white hair framed his bald head and his mouth was barely visible behind his bushy white beard. Andrew's eyes widened, not at the man's appearance but at what he held.

Nate's finger curled around the trigger of a shotgun that he had pointed straight at Andrew's head. “Get off my land, government man!” he shouted.

Andrew took a step back. “Please put the gun down, Mr. Hopkins. I just want to talk with you.”

“I don't have time to talk to nobody a-wantin' to steal my land. Now git!”

Andrew held out a hand and shook his head. “Now, Mr. Hopkins, I know you're not the kind of person who would murder a man in cold blood. Please put the gun down and let me talk to you.”

The man's forehead wrinkled, and he nodded. “You're right. I'm not gonna kill you. Couldn't live with myself if I took a man's life.” His eyes shifted to Andrew's car, and he aimed the gun at the front tires. “But I shore don't mind killin' your car. I reckon this old gun could do a lot of damage to a good-lookin' car like that.”

“Please, Mr. Hopkins, don't do that.”

He raised the gun and took aim. “I reckon you got 'bout thirty seconds to git in that there contraption and hightail it outta here. And I'm a-countin'. One, two, three…”

Andrew ran to the car, cranked the engine, and roared out of the yard. As he pulled onto the road, he heard Nate Hopkins's voice once more. “And don't come back.”

Seething at how he'd let the elderly Mr. Hopkins make him run like a frightened rabbit, he sped along the Cove road on his way back to the CCC camp. He needed to talk to somebody about how to approach these stubborn people. But who? Most of the men were out on work crews, and the ones left behind had jobs to complete at the camp. Even Lieutenant Gray was away from his office today.

At that moment a familiar cabin came into sight, and the answer popped into his head. Simon Martin was the man to give him advice. He knew everybody in the Cove better than anyone else did. Granted, he didn't want to see Andrew successful in making his friends sell
their land, but at least he could explain what it took to get them to have a conversation with him.

He slowed the car and turned into the yard of Simon and Anna's cabin. A voice from the front porch greeted him as he climbed out of the vehicle. “Well, if it ain't our visitor from Washington. Good to see you, Andrew. Come up on the porch and keep an old lady comp'ny.”

He laughed, climbed the steps, and sat down in the rocker next to Granny. “Thanks, Granny. You're the first Cove resident I've seen today that's had a kind word for me.” He leaned over the arm of the chair and frowned. “You don't have a shotgun hidden anywhere, do you?”

Granny threw back her head and laughed. “Land's sakes, no, boy. But in my day I could shoot as straight as any man in the Cove.”

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I don't doubt that for a minute.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door to the cabin. “I stopped by to see Simon. Is he here?”

“No. On Wednesday he and Anna visit folks. 'Course now they don't have as many visits to make. When Anna was deliverin' babies, they had somewhere to go all the time. Now all the young women are gone from the Cove and there ain't no babies bein' born here anymore.” Granny's shoulders drooped, and she wiped at her eyes. “It shore ain't like it used to be around here.”

Andrew wanted to say something to break the veil of sadness that had descended over Granny, but his mind was a blank. He suddenly remembered how careful all the family had been on Sunday as they helped Granny move about the cabin. Yet today with Simon and Anna gone she sat on the front porch alone.

“Granny, how did you get out here on the porch?”

“Simon and Anna helped me out here before they left.”

He stiffened in surprise. “How would you get up from the chair if you needed to go inside?”

Her lips curled up in a playful grin. “I guess I would ask Laurel to help me since she's staying with me this afternoon.”

His eyebrows arched, and he grabbed the arms of the rocker. “Laurel's here?” He jerked his head around and stared at the cabin door. “Where is she?”

“She's in the kitchen. Her mama sent over two quarts of the grape juice she made last year. Laurel's inside gettin' me a glass of it. Why don't you go tell her you're here? I bet you're mighty thirsty after driving over our dusty roads and could use a cool drink yourself.”

Andrew pushed to his feet and glanced at the door and back at Granny. “I-I don't know, Granny. Maybe I'd better leave. Laurel made it clear on Sunday that she doesn't want to have anything to do with me.”

Granny rocked back and forth a few times as she stared at Andrew. “I see. And how do you feel about that?”

His eyes grew large, and he swallowed. “I told her I'd like for us to be friends, but I don't think I want to hear her tell me again she's not interested in that.”

Granny nodded. “I kin understand why that might put you off a bit. That girl can be mighty fierce in what she says sometimes. Takes after her mama in that way. But you ain't afeared of a little girl like her, are you? I 'spect you can stand your own ground right good.”

He started to tell Granny he thought it better to leave things the way they were, but his tongue refused to cooperate. As he stared at Granny, he remembered how his knees had grown weak when he saw Laurel in Gatlinburg. Then how he'd enjoyed sitting next to her in church. He liked her, and she'd led him to believe she liked him too…until she'd found out about his job.

Well, he wasn't about to let her have the last word on this issue. For the last two days he'd had doors slammed in his face, had curses hurled at him, and had faced a shotgun-wielding mountain man. Surely he could dredge up enough courage to have a conversation with Laurel.