The Angel Whispered Danger (17 page)

“You first!” I said, laughing, although I wished he’d shut up about the subject.

“Got a derby winner for sure!” he bellowed, eyeing his friend. “If they’ll just forget that crazy rule they have about having to have a jockey.”

“We’ll just see who laughs last,” my uncle said. “I’m not in the old folks’ home yet.”

“Huh! Be lucky if you live that long!” Goat told him.

Frogs cleared their throats in the woods behind us and I inhaled the watermelon smell of freshly cut grass—and something else. Strawberries. The scent was sweet but light, laced with the faint aroma of vanilla, and I knew Augusta was near. Naturally, I thought, she wouldn’t want to miss a ball game. After all, hadn’t she been taught by the great Connie Mack himself?

I smiled, knowing she was there, and watched Jon step up to bat and hit the ball into the outfield on the first pitch. Josie would be next.

Uncle Lum snapped pictures and team supporters cheered as Jon skidded safely into second, then Josie, flushed and determined-looking, tapped her bat on home base and waited for the pitch. She took a strike. And then another. I bit my lip, knowing how much it meant for her to succeed. But on the third pitch, she smacked the ball with a loud crack, sending it straight down the field past Cynthia, who was playing second base.

“Way to go, Josie!” I yelled, jumping to my feet as my daughter took off for first and Jon for third. By then Cynthia had retrieved the ball, and I drew in my breath as she pitched it wildly to the left, hitting Josie in the shoulder when she was about three feet from reaching first.

Doubling over, Josie grabbed her shoulder and I could see she was trying not to cry. It was all I could do to keep from running on the field and folding her in my arms, but I knew it might embarrass her, so I joined the others gathering around her and tried not to make a scene.

“Darby, you and Jon run to the house for ice!” Burdette shouted, leading Josie to the side of the field. “Now, let’s take a look at that shoulder.”

Josie’s face was red and her hair stuck to her forehead in wet ringlets. Somebody put a cup of ice water in my hand and I took it to her while Marge retrieved the Atlanta Braves baseball cap Josie’s dad had given her.

“You did that on purpose!” Josie yelled, glaring at Cynthia, who lingered in the background.

“I did not! I was trying to pitch to first.” Cynthia stepped closer.

“Then you need to learn how to pitch! Your aim was a mile off base,” Josie said, allowing me to sponge her face with a wet paper napkin.

“I’m sure Cynthia didn’t hit you intentionally,” I whispered. “Come on, let’s go to the house where it’s cooler.”

“Cynthia, tell Josie you’re sorry right now.” Parker Driscoll spoke sternly to his daughter.

“I will not.” Cynthia pulled away from Deedee, who had a hand on her shoulder. “And I know how to play softball as well as she does!”

“If you did, you would’ve thrown the ball to third so Jon wouldn’t make a run,” Josie told her.

“Here now, it’s over and done with and nobody meant any harm,” Burdette, the peacemaker, said calmly. “Now, let’s get some ice on that shoulder.”

Josie turned away from Cynthia and let Burdette administer the ice pack while she sipped her water.

“At least I don’t act like a tomboy like you—and I don’t care if I hit you or not!” Cynthia spouted, walking away.

“Cynthia!” Parker stood frozen, looking like he wished the earth would open up and swallow him.

“Oh, now, I’m sure she didn’t mean that,” Deedee said, starting after her daughter.

But Josie got there first. “Then I don’t care if I hit you!” she said, and slapped her cousin smack in the face.

“Josie McBride, you come right back here and apologize!” I shouted as Josie stalked away. Cynthia screamed and ran sobbing to her mother.

“I’m really sorry, Cynthia,” I said, and I picked up the ice pack and hurried after Josie, wishing awful things on my husband for not being there.

Marge caught up with me. “Kate, wait up a minute! Don’t be too hard on her.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I’m angrier about what happened to Josie than what she did to that crybaby Cynthia, but she still needs to apologize, and I want to get this ice on her shoulder.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to make a bruise.” Marge frowned and looked around. “Now, where in the world did she go?”

“Back to the house probably.” I walked faster.

But Darby raced to meet us before we got to the house. “Josie ran into the woods!” he called out to us. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. I’m afraid she’s run away!”

I broke into a run. “Hurry and get your dad . . . bring everybody you can find!” I called to Darby over my shoulder.

“And tell them to bring flashlights!” Marge yelled after him. I heard her close behind me as I raced around the house, past the rose garden, the scuppernong arbor, finally skirting the old apple orchard where hard, green fruit clung to the trees. And there we came to a stop.

“Which way do you think she went?” Marge asked, trying to see into the dense thicket ahead of us.

“I don’t know, but surely she wouldn’t go far! Josie’s afraid of these woods. She’s probably hiding behind a tree somewhere.”

“Josie!” I cupped my hands and called to her. “Honey, it’s okay! We’ll work this out. Come on back, now!”

Wading a little farther into the trees, Marge did the same.

It seemed a year went by while we stood in silence waiting for an answer. None came.

“Josie, this has gone far enough. You’re frightening me. Come out
right now
!” I didn’t even try to disguise the fear in my voice.

“Why don’t you go to the left and I’ll take the other way,” I suggested to Marge. “We can cover more ground like that, but watch your step. It’s tricky down there.”

“Just don’t wander too far. We won’t be able to see without lights for long,” she said, and I soon heard her scrambling through the underbrush not too far from where Ella had taken her plunge.

I looked at the sky. Although twilight had settled upon us, it was still light enough to see in the open, but it was already dark in the tangle of underbrush and trees that seemed to have swallowed up my little girl.

I knew there used to be a path around here somewhere, but the entrance must have grown over. I tore aside a honeysuckle vine and stumbled over uneven ground shouting Josie’s name. Briars snagged my shirt as I pushed past a straggling stand of cedars and through a forest of rhododendron to find what appeared to be a narrow path on the other side. The trail twisted around a tumble of moss-covered boulders, then hummocks, slick with pine needles, as it wound its way to the river below. Hikers and trespassers looking for a shortcut came this way now and then, although Uncle Ernest discouraged it, and in years past I had explored this same path with cousins and friends. If Josie had run blindly into the woods, she might eventually come upon it—or I hoped she would.

“Josie!” I stopped to call again. “It’s getting dark. If you’re here, answer me!”

Not too far away I could hear Marge doing the same. Close by, startled birds flew up from a rotting tree trunk and a chipmunk darted under a root, but Josie didn’t answer.

This was my fault. Josie was old enough to realize her father and I were having serious problems, and instead of trying to explain the situation so that she might understand, I had avoided dealing with it—and with her. And now look what had happened! My child was not only angry and confused, but wandering lost in a wilderness that stretched on for miles.

“Oh, Josie, please, please,
please
! Where are you?” Sobbing, I tripped over a root and went sprawling. A stick jabbed into the palm of my hand, bringing blood. Good! I deserved to hurt.

“Kate! Here, wait for me!” Grady’s voice and crashing footsteps brought me to my feet, but I couldn’t stop crying.

My cousin put an arm around me, urging me back the way I had come. “We’re going to find her, Kate, but it isn’t going to help Josie if you fall apart now. We’re getting together a search party, but we have to get organized before we go wandering off helter-skelter.” He gave me a gentle shove from behind. “Come on, now. Burdette and Parker are working out some kind of plan, and the sooner we get started, the better.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, but, Grady, I’m just so scared!” I accepted his offer of a tissue and blew my nose.

“Hey, you’re entitled. But put the tears on hold, okay? Makes it hard to see where you’re going.”

I struggled to keep from crying all over again when my grandmother, waiting at the top of the hill, wrapped me in her arms and smoothed my hair as she had when I was little. She smelled like mustardy potato salad and I guessed she had been in the kitchen putting away leftovers. “She can’t have gone very far,” she told me. “The police are on their way, but I expect we’ll have her out of there before they even get here.”

Uncle Ernest, looking as if he had aged ten years, held out a long-sleeved shirt. “Here, slip into this, Kate, my girl. You’ll need something over those arms.” The shirt was of faded blue cotton, thin from many washings, and the cuffs hung inches below my wrists. “What’s this you’ve done to your hand?” he said, shining a light on my palm.

“Nothing. Scratched it, is all.” I tried to pull away, but my uncle was surprisingly strong for his age.

“Nonsense. Goat, do you still have that first aid kit in your car? We’ll need peroxide and a bandage. Can’t have that getting infected.”

Judge Kidd, silent for once, nodded grimly and sent Jon on the run for the kit. And so, while others were dividing into teams to look for my daughter, I stood pawing the ground while Uncle Ernest bandaged my wound.

Deedee, Belinda and Aunt Leona had rounded up every flashlight in the place, as well as bottled water for all the searchers, while Uncle Lum dispensed a variety of hats and bandannas.

“I don’t need a hat,” I said, waving him away. “All I want to do is find Josie.”

Ignoring me, he tugged a bucket-shaped piece of canvas over my ears. “You’ll be glad of this when you wade into that blasted thicket. Now, get over there and let Violet scoot you with insect repellent. It won’t keep them off entirely, but it might help some.”

And Josie was somewhere in that dark, threatening place with no water, no light and nothing to protect her from the mosquitoes. Earlier that day I had hastily anointed my daughter with the lotion repellent I carried in my purse, but that had certainly worn off by now, and I felt sick when I remembered she wore only shorts and a T-shirt.

I hurried to where Burdette and Parker were dividing searchers into teams. Marge was to go with her husband and a couple of our South Carolina kin, while Parker, Deedee and Uncle Lum made up another team. Darby cried to be included until his dad convinced him we needed him there to blow a whistle from time to time in case any of us got lost. And since Uncle Ernest knew the area better than any of us, we reminded him, he should be the one to wait behind for the police. That left Grady, Aunt Leona and me to make up the last group.

I had my doubts about taking my aunt along. Although Aunt Leona seemed agile enough, she wasn’t the outdoorsy type, and I was afraid she would slow us down.

I was right. We hadn’t gone very far when we encountered the first obstacle.

“Mom, you’ll have to sit and slide down this bank on your fanny,” Grady told her, shining the beam of our one flashlight on the sloping ground.

“Well, all right, if you say so,” she answered, and did. But then we had to haul her up the opposite side.

Aunt Leona dusted off her pants and adjusted her pert, visored cap. “My goodness, it’s dark as pitch out here! I can’t see a foot in front of me.”

I was just about to volunteer to go it alone when Grady gently turned his mother around. “Mom, I know you want to help, but I think you can do that better by giving Ma Maggie and Violet a hand with the kids. They’ll all need baths and something to sleep in, and I’m sure they’d be glad of the extra help.”

Below us a flashlight wavered and Uncle Lum called out Josie’s name.

“Dad!” Grady waved his light and hollered. “Could you help Mom back to the house? We don’t have but one light between us, and Kate and I want to cover as much ground as possible before it gets any darker.”

“Be right there!” his dad answered, although he didn’t sound too pleased about it. “I told you this would be too rough,” he muttered under his breath as he helped Aunt Leona up the other side of the bank. “You would have to come, though, wouldn’t you?

“You two go on, I’ll catch up!” he yelled to Deedee and Parker, who had hesitated briefly before moving on.

I wondered if he would be able to find them again, but just then that wasn’t my problem. Grady and I had been assigned an area to the right of the trail and I didn’t want to waste any more time getting to it.

“I didn’t see Casey back there,” I said as we stumbled about, casting our light under bushes, behind rocks, any place where a child might be resting, sleeping, or—God forbid—lying hurt.

“Burdette said he went on ahead.” Grady reached back to give me a hand over a particularly rough patch of ground. “Said he’d make better time and cover more ground alone.”