[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek (18 page)

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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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The next day Copper stood, her back to the open cellar door, and admired her handiwork. She’d spent the morning organizing the summer’s canning, making sure what remained of last year’s foodstuff was placed in front so as to be used first. Really, there wasn’t much left—just a few cans of parsnips, no one’s favorite. Mam would use them in vegetable soup, though, so nothing would be wasted.
It was a balmy, Indian-summer day, and sunshine spilled through the open door, bringing warmth to the chilly cellar. She felt a little stir of pride as she looked around. Forty quarts of apple butter lined a freshly whitewashed shelf. Jars of whole blackberries, blackberry jelly, blackberry jam, pear butter, pear preserves, and jewel-colored rhubarb crowded quarts of green beans, canned whole tomatoes and tomato juice, carrots, beets, corn, and kale. Under the shelves sat crocks of sauerkraut, pickled pigs’ feet, and a whole hog’s head cleaned and packed in salt.
A large brown crock sat covered by a wooden disk weighted down with a rock. Copper’s mouth watered with desire. She could feel the crunch of Mam’s bread-and-butter pickles against her teeth, taste the sweet-sour flavor on her tongue, the vision so real she wiped nonexistent juice from her chin.
Why not take a pickle? She was so mad she took the crumpled boarding-school brochure from her apron pocket and shoved it behind the crock of sauerkraut. Anger at Mam turned to self-pity as Copper stood in the cellar remembering the day before. “They’re going to send me away without even asking what I want,” she told a small gray mouse who scurried in through the open door, hoping to make a tidy home in the onion bin.
She cornered him behind a stack of pumpkins and held him up by his long, hairless tail. “Well,” she continued as the mouse swung before her eyes, “I won’t let that happen. I’m going back to the cave, John or no John. And as for you, you’d be smart to find a home in the barn before Daddy sets his traps.”
CHAPTER 10
 
The mouth of the cave was harder to locate than Copper imagined, set back in the mountain as it was. Paw-paw actually found it, his excellent nose tracking the way. The cave seemed damper and darker than when John was with her. She removed her skirt and petticoats, folded them neatly, and laid them on a rock shelf. She’d swiped Daddy’s old overalls this morning; when she put them on the legs spread like puddles around her feet.
“I should have cut these off,” she told Paw-paw as she rolled the hem several times. “There now, that’s better. Paw-paw, we’re on our way. If this cave turns out the way I expect, you and I will live up here for a while until Mam drops her plans for boarding school.” She patted his head and scratched him behind the ears. “Now, where did John leave that torch?”
After finding the tightly bound bundle of reeds, she nearly set herself afire when she stuck a match to it. The bundle caught in a bright
whoosh
, then subsided to the steady flame of a dozen candles.
A flutter of wings above her head made her skin crawl, and she looked up to see a soft furred fruit bat hanging upside down on the low ceiling. Slowly, he unfurled his leathery wings. She fancied she could hear the clicking of his sharp teeth as he suddenly swooped toward the light she held. Covering her head with one arm, she struggled to hold the torch steady as she cowered from the bat’s attack. Just as he was about to fly straight into the flame, she watched him pull back, surprised by the heat, and fall like a small gray stone to the floor.
Boy, she wished she’d waited for John or remembered to bring the slingshot. Her knees felt weak as she searched about for the bat, afraid he might make his way up her pant leg. At least he wasn’t in her hair. Folks said bats would land right on your head and make a nest so tight you’d never get them out. Bats in the belfry for sure. But never fear—there was Paw-paw, growling a warning of alarm and nosing the bat around the floor.
Trusting her dog to keep the bat busy, Copper dropped to her knees and, with the help of the torch, searched for the entrance to the tunnel. There it was, a dark passage just big enough to admit her. She stuck the torch in a crevice. Did she really want to go in? What if a hundred bats nested on the other side? What was worse, bats or boarding school? She slithered on her belly into the narrow tunnel that should lead her to a hidden room.
Paw-paw whined and barked behind her as she twisted and turned along the tunnel. He would have to wait for her on the other side, for she was sure his crippled leg would prohibit his entrance. She crawled about ten feet before she came to the end and pulled herself into the cave John had described to her. Her eyes popped wide with wonder as she broke through.
Why, it’s beautiful!
Sunlight streamed through an opening in the ceiling and lit a waterfall that burbled out of the wall about twelve feet above. It fell with a splash into a small basin of stone.
It must be very deep,
she reckoned as she cupped her hands and drank the icy water. Strange lacy ferns, a sort she had never seen before, grew along the basin’s edge and trembled from the water’s spatter. The cavern was maybe triple the size of their cabin’s front room, and the ceiling soared. Copper stood, head thrown back, but she could not guess the ceiling’s height. Something about the absolute hush of the place, broken only by the music of the falling water and the golden light pouring in from its great pinnacle, seemed holy to her. She felt she had entered a sacred place. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the centuries-old scent of rock and water and earth, God’s building blocks.
She knelt beside the basin for several minutes, absorbing the beauty of the place, before she began to explore. Keeping the waterfall in sight, she backed into the center of the room, then flung out her arms and twirled around, drunk with pleasure.
Suddenly she saw something her eyes would not believe. She stopped and stared, blinked several times, then reached out to touch Mam’s tortoiseshell comb stuck like the stem of a flower in their sugar bowl, which balanced precariously on the mouth of Daddy’s Mason jar, which held the missing biscuit cutter. The items were placed ceremoniously on her blue bandanna spread neatly on a table-shaped rock. She stooped to look closer at the kerchief. A bright feather was tied to each edge—one jay, one bluebird, one cardinal, one wild canary. A silver tablespoon they hadn’t even missed held traces from the blackberry-jam jar Mam couldn’t find.
Swift as a flash flood, a fearful presence filled the cave.
Copper’s heart knocked against her ribs in a jerky dance of dread. Her head swam and she felt sick. The dense, moist air of the cave turned as thick as clay as she bent at the waist and forced several ragged breaths into her lungs. Scared as she was, she took no notice that Paw-paw had indeed followed her into the cavern and was busy licking a fresh wound on his old, stiff leg.
The rough walls of the tunnel scraped her arms as she scrambled out of the cavern. Copper flew from the mouth of the cave and collapsed on the grass, wheezing and coughing.
Calm down,
she commanded herself.
Calm down!
Soon her heartbeat slowed as curiosity overtook fear. She stretched out in the warm sunlight, leaning back on her elbows, and pondered what she had seen.
John has to have done it for a joke,
she thought,
but that doesn’t make sense
.
Then again, how else could our things have gotten into that cave? Willy? Daniel?
Copper frowned.
No, they’d never keep still about something like this cave. . . .
The sun thawed her fear. She’d lost a comb or two in the tunnel, and her hair, glinting copper and gold, tumbled into her eyes. She shook it out and let it fall loose across her shoulders. It would be good to rest a moment longer, until her knees stopped shaking and Paw-paw showed up.
A crow called out a raucous song, and a fat bumblebee buzzed a stalk of goldenrod near her arm. Copper was lulled by the familiar sounds. She dozed a minute, tired from her morning’s work in the cellar at home and her sudden fright in the cave. A fleeting breeze riffled the branches in a grove of ash trees and showered her in red and gold. She felt a leaf catch in her hair and reached back lazily to remove it.
A tingle shot up her spine as a chilling whisper filled her ear, “Purty . . . purty.”
Her fingers met with those of another, tangled in her hair. The cold squeeze of her heart gripped her again, and she gasped and flung herself away from whatever was behind her.
“Paw-paw!” she screamed as she bolted up and raced down the mountain. She took a chance and glanced over her shoulder to see a curious creature crouched on the hillside, lacking in color save for a single splash of red. Then Copper ran pell-mell, as if chased by the devil himself, until the old cemetery was in sight. Its familiarity was a comfort, and she felt a little safer until, without warning, the ground gave way beneath her pounding feet and swallowed her whole, leaving only the trace of her scream, as temporary as a whisper of smoke.
 
“What in the world?” Will said as he rounded the corner of the barn. There stood Molly, her pitiful bawls loud enough to raise the dead. He didn’t have to wonder why she cried so as he spied her full udder. Will led her into the barn and opened the door to the stall, then poured a measure of feed into her box. She rolled her big brown eyes when he patted her flank. “We’ll get you milked directly,” he said, turning back toward the house.
“Where’s Copper?” Will asked as he entered the kitchen. “Molly’s not been milked.”
“I don’t know,” Grace replied. “I thought she was in the barn. She hasn’t set the table either.”
“This is odd, Grace.” Will took off his old felt hat and ran his fingers through his bushy white hair. “Much as she rambles around, Copper’s never missed a milking. She’d never leave Molly to suffer that way. Boys!” He called Willy and Daniel in from the porch, where they were shucking dried beans. “Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know, Daddy,” Willy answered.
“Daniel?”
“Last time I saw Sissy was after she did the cellar. She was taking a mouse to the barn.”
“A mouse?” Willy groaned. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have made a cage and a little trap in case he got out.”
“Seems like if we built a cage good enough, Willy, he couldn’t get out,” Daniel responded, looking thoughtful.
“Well, that don’t matter, does it, ’cause we don’t have a mouse,” Willy said, exasperated.
“Boys, stop that chatter,” Will interrupted. “This is important. Your sister’s missing, and we’ve got only a couple of hours to find her before dark. Daniel, go look in the cellar and the barn. Willy, you walk around the pasture. Grace, you’ll need to milk Molly. I’m going over to the Pelfreys’ in case she’s visiting Emilee and forgot the time. Ring the dinner bell if Copper comes back before I do.”
CHAPTER 11
 
Copper lay on a ledge of rock, fifteen feet down an old sinkhole. She’d knocked herself silly when she fell and now lay dumb as a fence post while her head whirled and tiny sparks of light shimmered before her eyes.
She came to herself gradually. At first she thought she was still in the cave, for she was in a cold, damp place and a small shaft of light poured down as it had in the cavern. But this was a narrow space, about six feet across, and it didn’t seem to have a floor.
Her nose felt swollen, and she tasted blood when she licked her upper lip. Gingerly, she pulled herself to a sitting position, testing her arms and legs, grateful for no broken bones. Glad for the waning light, Copper peered cautiously over the edge of the rock ledge. Her heart stopped at what she saw . . . water, just a short distance below. It was not clean and pure like the water in the cave but smelled of mold and decay. A small grayish animal, unidentifiable in death, floated on the pool’s greasy surface. She watched in horrid fascination as an odd S-shaped thing glided across the dark water and bumped against the lumpy remains, sending them careening into the wall.
“Snakes!” Her scream bounced off the walls as if she’d shouted down a well. Crablike, she scurried backward on the ledge and hid her face behind her hands. She sobbed, near hysteria, until she was exhausted. Woozy, Copper gathered her hair in her hand, leaned carefully over the side of the rock, and vomited into the rank water below.
“Copper, stop it.” She gave herself a little shake that set her head to pounding. “You’re not even afraid of snakes.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and laughed a shaky little laugh to hear her own chastising voice echoing until it slowly waned. She was left in stillness so profound she could hear the ripples in the water as the snake swam away.

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