Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees

Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees

Janie DeVos

LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

 

 

LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

 

Copyright © 2016 by Janie DeVos

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

 

 

Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

 

First Electronic Edition: August 2016

ISBN: 978-1-6018-3681-6

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-682-3
ISBN-10: 1-60183-682-1

This book is dedicated to two of the strongest women I am privileged to know: Cindy Lindsey, and Gertrude Huskins, whose dignity and amazing grace are constants, even when life strikes its cruelest blows.
May the years ahead be as gentle as Appalachian days in May.

Acknowledgments

The writing of this book would have been impossible had it not been for a large number of exceedingly wise and patient—and I emphasize
patient
—people
.
Many hours were spent with them as they shared stories with me about the realities of growing up in such a beautiful, but often harsh and unforgiving place as the Appalachian Mountains. In order to survive, these wonderful people have always relied on each other, and, in order to write this book, I, too, had to rely on them. In their usual way, they were there for me, and I am forever grateful.

 

First, I'd like to thank Bill Carson, proprietor of The Orchard at Altapass. For hours, we sat on the deck of his country store overlooking his massive apple orchard as he patiently and painstakingly explained what goes into the running of an orchard. Every part of my novel pertaining to anything apple-related is because of the time and interest Mr. Carson took in my project. Many thanks, Bill. I'd write another story about apples just to sit on your deck with you again.

 

Next, I'd like to thank Keith Woody and Ricky Hollifield, members of the world-renowned family of chair makers who run Woody's Chair Shop in Spruce Pine, NC. I'd also like to posthumously thank their mentor, Arval Woody, whose beautiful rockers grace the Smithsonian Institute, as well as the Kennedy Library, in Washington, DC. My novel's characters, Prescott Guinn and Salvatore Lupari, both furniture makers, came to life because of Mr. Woody's and Mr. Hollifield's furniture-making expertise. My deepest gratitude to both of you.

 

I'm also indebted to Mr. Tim Parker, of Parker Forest Products. Without his personal guided tour through his timber mill, I would never have been able to adequately explain my character Rachel's terrible injury suffered at her father's mill, nor describe the day-today business of running one. Thank you, Tim. Letting you test drive my new Jeep was small payment for your tour.

 

Lastly, I'd like to thank Calvin Hall, whose family has graced these mountains for hundreds of years. As we sat on Calvin's front porch, looking off into the distance at the leaning, vine-covered cabin his grandfather built in the 1800s, I learned about the enormous courage and resilience of these amazing people, not to mention their undiluted dedication to their land and their people. Thank you, Calvin, for making me feel like one of your clan.

 

There are many others who contributed to this novel but in the interest of saving space for the actual story itself, I will just add a very broad but heartfelt thank you. You know who you are, as I do, and because of you,
Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees
was born.

 

I
wasn't born with a bad right foot. Instead, I'd been dealt a bad hand when an accident at Papa's timber mill crippled me. The man known as the
off-bearer
was busy stacking boards that had just been cut by the spinning, sharp-toothed saw and didn't see me walk up beside him. With his mind a million miles away, he was simply repeating the tedious pulling-off-and-stacking motion of yet another board when he turned and dropped it on my foot.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The off-bearer, who was a stoic Irishman named Rusty Flaherty, saw me standing there just a fraction of a second after he'd let the board go, and the look of horror on his face was one I would never forget, and which froze me in place. I was lucky, they said, because it had narrowly missed my head. But I wasn't lucky
enough
, for even though Papa immediately threw me in the wagon and hauled me over to Doc Pardie's house, my foot had never healed right.

The doctor wouldn't operate because I was only four and “still had growin' to do, and there ain't any use but to wait 'til she's done a-doin' it,” he'd told my father. I heard Papa tell Mama later that he wouldn't have let Doc do it anyway, since he smelled like he'd “dived into a bottle of one hundred proof. Maybe it'll just straighten out on its own,” he'd said, without too much conviction in his voice. And it had healed, just not straight enough or strong enough, and there'd never been enough money to do anything to correct it.

I walked with a pronounced limp, and the fact that I was short and small-boned only helped to accentuate it. I'd been given the offensive name of Laggin' Leg early on, and each time I was called by it, I wished the darn pine had, indeed, clobbered me in the head. But, as Grandma was quick to remind me when I came home in tears, I must have been saved from certain death for a reason, and “that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger,” she'd point out, while pointing at
me
to emphasize
her
point.

That's all well and good,
I thought,
but I just wish the good Lord had warned me to stand on the other side of Mr. Flaherty, and found someone else to make a point with
.

The first time someone referred to me as Laggin' Leg was when I was six. It was during Sunday school class as I walked back to my seat after reciting the first five verses of John. I'd proudly made it through my recital without omitting one word, and Mrs. Jacobson was in the midst of telling the class that I was “a true disciple of the Lord's,” when nine-year-old Ray Coons deliberately stuck his foot out in front of me. Suddenly, I went from walking proudly with my chin up, to lying on the floor with a split in it. The whole class—all thirteen of them—fell into fits of laughter, while stars danced before my eyes as though they were having a celestial recital on the scuffed pine floor where I lay staring in dazed confusion.

“Ray Coons!” Mrs. Jacobson scolded as she quickly walked over to me. “I saw that!”

“Why, Miz Jacobson, I didn't do nothin',” Ray innocently objected. “She's just a cripple, that's all. She can't walk too good. She's got that laggin' leg o' hers, and she falls all the time, don't ya, girl?” Ray looked at me as though he'd cut my throat if I didn't concede that the fall had been my fault. I didn't—couldn't—say a word, however, as I was too busy trying to refill my lungs with air; the fall had knocked all of it out of me. And the wracking sobs that had followed only made the possibility of my breathing again that much more unlikely.

The episode left me with two things: a scar on my chin from the gash that required four stitches (which Doc Pardie sewed during a rare moment of sobriety), and the cruel new nickname. I hid in the back of the loft in the barn after receiving my stitches until Grandma coaxed me out with the smell of a cheese biscuit. I think she'd given me time to process the event—and to get hungry enough to make cheese biscuits more important. I came down the ladder and turned around, facing her.

Looking at her was like looking at an older version of myself, except for the fact that she had thick, medium-length, coal-black hair, with just a few streaks of gray blended throughout. My hair, however, was long and curly, and the same insignificant color brown as a withered maple leaf, just like my father's. But Grandma and I had the same build, same face, and the same brilliant blue eyes; “Carolina blue,” she always called them. As we stood looking at each other, she pulled pieces of straw from my hair, then rather roughly rubbed away the telltale tracks of some dried up tears. I knew she wasn't mad at me for crying, but was angry with whoever had been the cause of it.

The wind whistled through the gaps in the plank siding on the north side of the barn, creating an eerie tune and causing me to shiver. Our town, Howling Cut, had been named for just that very reason—the eerie, howling sound the wind made when it rushed down the mountains and through one of the logging roads or “cuts” in the forests which surrounded us. And the place was living up to its name at the moment. Grandma handed me the biscuit and pulled the collar of my worn-out brown coat closed, trying in vain to keep the cold out.

“I can't keep life from hurtin' ya, Rachel,” she said. “Alls I can do is learn ya to be tough enough to stand up to it.”

She pulled me close to her and I could smell the smoke from our wood stove when I laid my face against her breast. She sighed after a long moment, held me away from her, and I caught the glint of tears that threatened to spill over from the reddened pockets of her lower lids.

“C'mon. We're gettin' as cold as our supper is.” Turning, she led the way out of the barn.