Marrying Stone (19 page)

Granny puffed her pipe and shook her head. "Well, that's 'cause you're a furriner like him. Ye ain't real kin, you're an in-law. You play the fiddle, he plays that contraption."

"Lord Almighty, Granny," Onery complained. "I've lived on this mountain for twenty-five years. When do I get to be part of the family?"

"When you learn to respect yer elders," the old woman answered smartly.

Fearing an unpleasant dispute, Roe interrupted the two. "Mrs. Piggott," he pleaded, "this is my work and I truly need help with it."

"Just call me Granny," the old woman answered, smiling at him with a friendliness that was in direct conflict with her stubborn refusal to help him. "If I ain't your grandma, then I probably should have been. I'm sorry that this is your line of work, son. But it ain't no way to make yourself a living no how. If you cain't stand trapping or trading, you'd best get to farming."

A murmur of agreement went through the crowd. Roe felt Onery clap him on the back.

"Sorry, Roe," he said quietly, "ain't no help for it. Once Granny's spoke on a thing, that about settles it for most folks around here."

Roe shook his head in surprised disbelief. "They won't help me?"

Onery shrugged. "They don't know ye. Get out there among 'em and make yourself some more friends. You cain't win over the whole world, but they's always some that can be enticed to change their minds."

Roe acknowledged the older man's words. Bravely, he nodded at Granny, politely acknowledging her judgment. He stepped down from the schoolhouse porch and made his way through the crowd greeting and visiting. His heart was heavy, but he kept smiling. He didn't mention his work or the Ediphone again, he merely talked to the people.

Still, he hadn't completely given up. He listened to the people he met, their histories and their knowledge. Mentally he took note of who might be a big help and who could probably offer very little.

Onery was right, he assured himself. People do change their minds and Roe was determined to find a way to change their minds about him. He was going to do this study and suddenly he wanted, more than was understandable, to do it here in Marrying Stone.

A few moments later a cry for music went up. Jesse stirred out a tune on the fiddle. The crowd clapped and stomped appreciatively. Roe watched his friend move through the quick, short, snappy bow movements that increased the tempo of the tune.

"For a boy that ain't right in the head," Orv Winsloe commented, "he can sure jig that fiddle."

Roe agreed.

Jesse played several tunes for the crowd, including a couple that Roe had never heard. He was tempted to stoke up the Ediphone to do some recording, but decided to leave well enough alone for the moment. He began to regret his good sense when Jesse began to play a jumpy little tune that Roe had never heard. Obligingly, Onery danced the jig and sang the tune as Jesse fiddled.

"I stopped at the tavern to stay all night, I called for my lodgin', I thought that was right;

The table was drawed an' the tablecloth spread, There was hoe-cake, an' hominy an' a possum head."

Roe laughed along with the rest of the crowd and made a mental note to ask Onery to repeat the lyrics for him when he had paper to write them down.

After the fiddling, the young people got up to do a play-party. The series of songs and movements was like an intricate dance, but no music was played.

Eda Piggott grabbed his hand and tried to get him to partner her. After a few foolish moments in the square where he proved, without doubt, that he knew nothing of the songs or movements, Eda let him go.

Thinking retreat to be a good idea for the time being, Roe made his way from the crowd.

On the rise toward the church was a rather large, bright outcropping of rock. He moved closer. In the bright moonlight Roe could see that the rock was a huge chunk of brilliant white quartz, nearly four feet square. It jutted out from the ground at a sharp angle. It was unusual and somewhat startling to observe as it seemed to catch the rays of moonlight and reflect them back to earth. Fascinated, Roe climbed onto the rock and seated himself at the top of it. The whole sky and mountains seemed laid out before him like a platter of visual sweetmeats.

With a strange sigh of unexpected contentment, Roe smiled. Although the rock was not at the peak of the mountain and although the darkness of evening made it impossible to actually see anything but the faint darkness of the horizon and the glittering of stars, Roe felt he could see the whole universe from his bright quartz perch.

"This is the Marrying Stone."

Roe heard the voice beside him and was momentarily startled that he'd heard no one approach. Smiling, he turned to find Meggie Best coming up beside the huge rock.

Without really thinking about it, he reached out and took her hand to help her up and she seated herself beside him.

There was a sad look in her eyes and he knew that she was about to apologize for the community's unwillingness to help him. He hoped to keep the conversation away from the unpleasantness.

"The Marrying Stone?" he asked.

Meggie nodded. Her features seemed especially pretty in the moonlight and her voice was slightly hushed as if she were conveying private secrets.

'That's how the mountain got its name," she said. She leaned back slightly and raised her chin as if trying to absorb the beauty of the warm evening.

Roe gazed at her long graceful neck, the neat curves of her sturdy young body, and the long bare feet that set so prettily upon the slick, almost polished-looking surface of the rock.

"I always thought the view from up here was the prettiest thing I ever saw."

"Beautiful," Roe agreed, but he was no longer looking at the view.

Something in his voice must have given him away, as Meggie turned quickly to give him a curious look. Roe immediately focused on the distant horizon.

"Why do they call it the Marrying Stone?" he asked.

"Because it's where folks get married," she answered.

He turned to smile at her. He was curious about the quaint custom that would have couples taking their wedding vows on an outcropping of rock.

"But what does a chunk of stone have to do with marriage?"

Meggie's eyes were upon him. He couldn't see the warm blue-gray of their depths, but his memory knew the color well.

"It goes back to the Indians, folks say," she told him. "The Osage were real superstitious Indians, I guess. They thought the rock had spiritual powers to change the world and they would come here to ask for changes." She smiled warmly at him. "I guess us civilized folks are about as superstitious as the Indians," she admitted with a laugh. "Before there were preachers in these mountains, or churches or even laws, this stone was here." She ran her hand almost reverently along the smooth bright surface. "When a couple wanted to wed, they'd simply come up to the mountain and stand on this stone to declare themselves as husband and wife and jump from the stone to the ground. That was considered marriage in the eyes of God."

Roe raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That was all that was required?"

Meggie nodded. 'That's all that marriage is, isn't it? Just making a promise before God."

"I suppose so," he agreed.

"That's all that folks back in those times thought that they needed. The Marrying Stone was so bright and gleamed so in the sunlight, that I suspect the people thought that God couldn't fail to see them."

Roe looked down once more to regard the strange stone that the hill people had entrusted with such power.

"Even after Granny and her man came to live up here and the first church was built on down the mountain, the hill folks just preferred to be married here at the stone," Meggie continued. "So the Piggotts and the McNeeses decided to build the church up here."

"Mohammed goes to the mountain," Roe said quietly, nodding.

She looked over at him curiously. "Who's Mohammed?"

Roe shook his head and smiled at her. "He's not from around here."

Meggie closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the night air. Roe watched her handsome, youthful bosom rise and fall and felt the swift and stinging fire of desire. He turned away from her and forced himself to stare off into the distance. A companionable silence existed between the two for several minutes. It was a wonderful, sweet silence. It was as if they were suddenly in tune with each other and the beauty of the night.

Roe looked down at the bright glint of the moonlight on the quartz Marrying Stone. It was as if the spiritual power of the stone had created an unusual serenity.

Glancing up, he once more observed the natural beauty around him. The night sky glowed with bright stars overhead and the twinkle of lightning bugs closer to earth. High above, the shadow of dark blue clouds skittered across the heavens. In the distance, he could make out the outline of Squaw's Trunk Mountain. And beyond it just the faintest signs of crests and ridges could be seen almost to infinity, as if these mountains went on forever.

From the area near the schoolhouse, the sounds of warm friendly banter among friends and family added to the peacefulness of the place.

A strange thrill of almost longing welled up inside Roe. All his senses were alive and alert now. He could smell the fertile, mossy ground and the faint fragrance of broom grass near bursting to blossom. He could hear the reedy call of tree frogs interspersed with the creaks of lonely crickets and the rasp of cicadas in the cottonwoods.

The smooth strength and solidity of the Marrying Stone beneath his hands gave him a sense of timeless perpetuity. And the warmth of the woman beside him filled him with a sense of peace, a sense of being settled, that he had never experienced in his life. He glanced from the beauty of nature to the beauty of barefooted Meggie Best at his side. There was something right about this place, something befitting. "I think that the folks may be correct," he said.

"About what?"

Roe took one more long, leisurely look at the vista before him.

"I'd swear that God can see most anything that goes on at the top of this mountain."

She turned to smile at him and their gazes locked. Smiles died away as Meggie reached out and touched Roe's arm. Fire sizzled between them. It startled them both. Against all his better judgment, he kissed her. Just a brief touch of his lips upon hers, but it was enough.

Nervously Roe pulled away, clearing his throat. He was stunned by the unwanted feelings that assailed him and uncomfortable now with the nearness of the young woman who only a moment ago felt so right at his side. From the corner of his eye he could see Meggie, her color high in the moonlight, tensely straightening the faded blue homespun material of her dress.

He cautioned himself. It was easy to be lured into the magic of the mountains and the nearness of a pretty woman. But he was only a visitor in these hills. At the end of the summer he'd be returning to the ordered civilization of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was in the Ozarks to collect interesting music of the Celtic heritage, not to play around with the local girls. Meggie Best might be playing around also, but she was playing for keeps.

If Meggie were another girl, a mill girl or one unrelated to his friends and these hills, Roe thought, he might give her a whirl. She was a pretty, earthy sort of creature, so different from the women in his past or the woman that would be his future. And he remembered the hot sweetness of her kiss. But there was no possibility of playing fast and loose with Meggie Best without tying himself up with strings. And strings were not something he was looking for on this sojourn to the Ozarks. He'd be leaving these mountains in the fall and he'd be leaving alone. And it would not behoove him to leave behind a broken heart.

Besides, Meggie was not at all his type. She was a plain mountain girl with a fanciful nature. One minute she was practical and abrupt; the next she was lost in some dream world with romance and princes. The kind of woman he wanted would fit easily into the world of Cambridge salons and academia. Meggie Best would not. Yes, it definitely was right to keep his distance. Tonight, and for the rest of the days and nights that he was in these mountains.

With that thought firmly in mind, Roe deftly rose to his feet. He turned to Meggie, smiling with unconcern that was very much feigned. He was ready to offer some inane comment that would diffuse the unwelcome aura.

Whatever he'd intended to say was lost forever when he was distracted by the sound of an animal moving in the underbrush behind them.

Both turned toward the noise at the same moment, surprised that any woods creature would venture so close to what was obviously a human gathering. Roe's eyes widened in disbelief and Meggie gave a little cry of shock to see the curious little weasellike creature in handsome fur of black and white coming up behind them.

"Skunk!"

Meggie screamed with as much terror as she would have felt for a rabid bobcat or an angry mama bear.

Quickness and strength flooded through Roe's veins like water over a broken levee. He grabbed Meggie's hand and jerked her to her feet.

"Jump!" he ordered.

And they did.

The crowd came hurrying toward them at the sounds of commotion. Then, almost as one, they stopped and stared at the two young people who stood together, hand in hand, after jumping the Marrying Stone.