Coldwater Revival: A Novel (7 page)

Eleven

“Careful with that lamp, Emma Grace! It was your grandmother’s.”

I nodded my head and turned my back on Mama, wishing she’d go find something to bake in the kitchen. As I polished Mama’s fragile keepsake and installed the glass chimney in its four-pronged base, I heard the creek calling to me. I knew I’d best answer the summons, before I backed out altogether. But calling even louder were Mama’s speculating eyes. They’d been pondering me since breakfast, fastening a glare on my person she’d not yet chosen to unhook. What better way to shift her gaze elsewhere than to complete my chores and make tracks for the creek? Before she cornered me with kindly concern and yanked the truth right out of my heart.

Breezes lifted dust from our gravel drive, winnowing it through a sieve of window screens. From there it floated on silent wings, shrouding our living room with powdery dirt. Each morning my oilcloth and broom stripped it away, but by evenfall I could write my name in its reappearance. Though I could tidy the house with my eyes closed, today I bumbled about the room like a disjointed beetle, displacing heirlooms, rattling lamps, tripping over rocker legs. No wonder Mama’s gaze followed me like a pickpocket tracking a plump wallet.

Screeching brakes snagged my attention as Molly’s Packard—an extravagance in these days of Depression—halted on the front drive. I flitted from window to window like a honeybee, releasing tethered sashes from wooden frames, trying to outpace the mounting swarm of dust headed our way.

Holly and Molly debarked from the auto with three toddlers and a babe in tow. I thought it peculiar, this weekday visit; Monday being woman’s busiest workday. Then I recalled the conversation at our dinner table the day before, and knew I should have anticipated their coming. Fortunate I was that Polly lived in Arkansas. Otherwise, female philosophizing might suck all the oxygen from the air, and I would suffocate like a landlocked gill-breather. I’d grown up under The Ollys’ tutelage and understood them well. They were here for the scuttlebutt. They’d not depart until their ears were packed with every titillating bit of palaver they could unearth. That alone would have driven me to the creek, but for the children.

While the women drank coffee and devoured Mama’s banana fritters, I gathered Kade, Karen, and Josey to the porch, having already collected Baby Abigail from Molly’s arms. We headed out to visit the newest litter of barn kittens. I determined to lose myself in the children until their mothers had feasted sufficiently on the morsels of my present-day predicament. Unwilling to reveal the promises Gavin maneuvered into my heart the night before, I stomped my way out to the barn. Three little stomperettes followed close behind. Some things between a man and a woman were too private to share.

My sisters seemed sluggish on departure that afternoon, the grapevine of gossip having weighed them down, I supposed. Who knew? Perhaps Mama and the girls had straightened out my life appropriately, and the lonely trip to the creek was unnecessary, after all. Had I a more agreeable spirit, I would soak up every dollop of counsel my family had to offer. But I was too stubborn by far. When their advice came—as it surely would—I knew I would wave it a hasty good-bye as it sailed over my head. Papa claimed my head was harder than teakwood. But my heart wasn’t. For that reason, I planned to revisit my childhood this very afternoon. I needed sweet release from the past. And … I needed direction.

A stiff breeze hustled me down the path to the creek. I had scratched Mama a note, explaining my need to be alone and think things through. I might have told her face-to-face before she lay down to rest, but for the coward’s trait marking my existence of late. Treetops circled in the wind, a sure indication that a thunderstorm was brewing. Even so, I knew the time had come to follow my childhood to its conclusion.

I scurried to find shelter as autumn chill filtered into my bones and the wind kicked me in the backside, spiking my skin with the scent of rain. I followed the stream to an outcropping of rock that slanted over the water, forming a protective shelf. Sculpted beneath the shelf was a small dwelling with craggy ceiling and sandy floor. Elo and I had tromped this cave in our rough and tumble days, when downpours caught us unaware, and winter days beckoned us to explore its chiseled cavity. During rare hiatuses from picking cotton, my family had used the cave as a bathhouse; men changing into swimsuits on one side of a strung quilt; ladies on the other.

I flung myself into the cave just as a downpour of fat raindrops riddled the creek like Tommy-gun bullets. I yanked the privacy quilt from the wire, spread it on the sand, and sat down Indian-style. Though the quilt smelled of mildew and timeworn stitches, I wrapped it around my shoulders, for the wind had shifted its chill in my direction. I would wait out the storm in this dry, safe grotto. The storm in my heart was another matter entirely.

I untied my shoelaces, running appreciative fingers over platform shoes designed by Nathan’s ingeniousness and manifested by the cobbler’s prowess. Nathan had presented me my first pair of platform shoes on my sixteenth birthday. In a moment’s time, my feet experienced the unbridled flight of fairy wings. For the first time since birth, my untrammeled steps lifted me over field and meadow, as unencumbered as the wind. I danced on our porch like a maiden possessed. Raced along paths I’d merely hobbled over before. My treasured gift, the first of many shoes to come, had rubbed my feet raw, but I disallowed whelks and blisters to slow their unfettered stampede. Bulky and unladylike, some called them. But I recognized my shoes as an answer to my prayers of a decade, or more. Without hesitation, I banished my crutch to a berth beneath the bed, rousing it only in emergencies. Silly or not, I now raised the shoe, whose heightened heel and sole evened out my legs, and caressed it like a newborn babe. Then I placed both shoes on the quilt’s edge and turned my gaze on the weather.

Rain splatters dug tiny volcanoes into the sand, like the doodlebug holes I had poked with a stick and chanted over as a child. I shifted to my stomach, tucked my faded skirt around my legs, and watched the storm’s fury. Water cascaded over the limestone ledge and meshed with a tangle of rivulets that emptied into Two-Toe Creek. Beyond the falls, giant cedars twisted and curtsied in the wind like green-haired maidens at a highland fling. I flinched when a bolt of lightning blanched the sky and clapped another round of thunder over my head. The way the storm crawled across the sky like a furry black caterpillar, it looked to be a long time ending. So I rolled to my back and studied the bedrock ceiling. In my stowaway cocoon, there would be no interruptions. No distractions. It seemed a safe place to make peace with the past. Though I dreaded the journey I was about to take, I felt an eagerness to begin the trip. I closed my eyes, blocking damp chill and howling winds from my mind.

While the storm raged outside, I struggled for inward calm.

Remember—you’re not alone.

Images from yesteryear crept into view: images of the tragedy that had knocked me from my moorings on a hot August day in 1928. The memories approached more boldly now, sidling into full view. They drifted across my heart like a vapor in the wind, curling beneath my lids, whisking my breath away.

The day’s chores completed, I followed the twins outdoors. As they scampered off to play, I settled beneath a pecan tree and watched while they tossed sticks for Whisper to fetch. I had lain my book on the ground. Now whiffs of wind flipped the pages about like playful cat paws. I looked down, seeing that my copy of
Gulliver’s Travels
had opened to the enchanting land of Lilliput: my choicest place to visit in the entire book.

Sometime later, I forced my thoughts from Lemuel Gulliver’s travels and swept my gaze over the horizon. I finally spied my rambunctious brothers, loping behind Whisper, crossing unfamiliar fields at too great a distance for me to find comfort. High genuflecting grasses hid all but the boys’ shoulders and heads. I screamed their names, but they didn’t answer. Nor did they seem inclined to obey my rule about staying in my sight. Tossing my book aside, I braced my hand against the tree trunk, grabbed my crutch, and surged after Micah and Caleb. It became increasingly difficult to pinpoint their bobbing heads, their images dwindling in the widening gulf. My high-pitched shrieks went unheeded, but I gained ground when they stopped and bent their heads down. Wheeling on in a frenzy of crutch and leg, I watched in horror as first one head disappeared, then the other. Grievous hands clutched my chest, squeezing breath from my lungs as I raced on, parting grasses like the Red Sea. Stitches seized my side, twisting me into a boomerang while angry words mounted in my heart. As I ran, I tailored scathing lectures in my head. Lectures my brothers would not soon forget. How dared they disregard the rules I’d so carefully seared into their mischievous little heads? Where could they be?
They must’ve found an anthill … or a gopher hole. Please, God, don’t let it be a snake pit.

I reached the spot where I last saw the boys, but no one was there. It was then I heard the whimpers.
Oh, God, let it be the puppy I hear.
Throwing my crutch aside, I fell to the ground, crawling on hands and knees, trembling fingers plowing the tall grass. Surely, the boys were playing a trick—hiding from me as they had earlier in the day. But the whimpers persisted, and I knew instinctively the utterances I heard were of human pain. I followed the sounds, swiping hands across the ground like a scythe.
Please let them be all right, Jesus … please
. Suddenly, my right hand sank into a hole. I placed an ear over the opening, hearing low moans. Shudders racked my body. “Micah … Caleb? Are you all right?” I pleaded for my brothers to answer, my fear so intense I felt I would die from it. The whimpers ceased, plunging my heart into even greater anguish. Shudders racked my body as I knelt over the hole and heaved for air. Dark clouds inhabited my vision. I collapsed and spilled to the ground, for my arms and knees would hold me no longer. While an undertow of fear siphoned hope from my heart, I rolled to my back and stretched my hands toward the hole. I tried to scream my brothers’ names, but found no breath with which to cry. Silent screams pulsated through my head until darkness sloped over my being, covering even the pounding of my heart.

I awoke, hearing the far-off sound of Elo calling my name. As I lay curled on my side, memories returned, slapping me in the face like a blast of furnace fire. How much time had passed since I fainted? Were my brothers alive? Elo’s voice grew more frantic—closer now. My heart swelled with regret; because of my carelessness the earth had swallowed my brothers. I lifted on an elbow, calling Elo’s name, not knowing if I cried it aloud or in the silence of my heart. Feet thundered the ground nearby. I thought I heard Elo call to me. My head spun again—as it did when Papa twirled me in his arms.

“Emma Grace, what’s wrong? Wake up! Tell me what happened!”

The most active part of my body wouldn’t utter a word. I burst into sobs, Elo lifting me from the ground, hugging me, telling me everything was all right. But everything wasn’t all right, and I knew it never would be again. I scrambled from his arms, crawling on hands and knees to the grassy weeds that covered the hideous hole. Though I pointed and sputtered, my words remained trapped within, unable to breach the barricade of terror in my heart.

Elo yanked grass from the mouth of the hole. ’Twas then I saw the abyss into which my brothers had fallen. About the width of my shoulders, the opening was a circle of rocks. A few smaller stones broke loose when Elo shoved his arm inside.

“Looks like an abandoned well. Probably an old water well.” He cupped his mouth and yelled into the darkness. “Caleb, Micah—can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Silence joined space with darkness.

Elo wrenched me from the ground and cradled me to his chest. I pointed to my crutch, but he shook his head. “We’ll leave it here as a marker,” he said, and then rammed it into the ground. He wheeled around, setting his feet to running as though the hounds were after us. I felt secure in his arms. Secure in the thought that he and Papa would deliver my brothers from the monster that had snatched them away.