In a Dark Season Read online

  “Guilty as charged!” Elizabeth felt a flush rising on her face but hastened to explain herself. “I love some of the great phrases I hear from my neighbors. So, yes, you’ll hear me saying things like ‘everwhat’ instead of ‘whatever,’ or ‘They’re givin’ rain this evenin’ ’ for the weather forecast, or ‘Back of this’ meaning ‘before’…. And I guess I’ve probably picked up a bit of a twang…”

  “Yes, you have indeed.” It was not, Elizabeth noted, said disapprovingly; just a statement of fact.

  “But you came to see my quilts.” Nola Barrett rose, moved to a tall wooden cupboard, and opened it, revealing three deep shelves on which folded quilts and coverlets lay. A scent of cedar, mixed with some herbal aroma, wafted out into the warm room. A bottom shelf was packed with bright toys, picture books, and a tall red, yellow, and green plush rooster, all evidently brand-new.

  Odd. I wonder who those are for? Elizabeth was opening her mouth to ask, when Nola Barrett reached for a bundle wrapped in what looked like an old sheet.

  “This is the oldest of the quilts—dated 1860.” She brought it out and gently pulled back the swaddling fabric. “I’ll spread it out on the love seat so you can look at it.”

  Elizabeth stood and watched as the small, somber quilt was unfolded. Usually quilts inspired good feelings in her—awe at their beauty, amused affection at their naivete—but this—this quilt made her uneasy. She frowned at it. The solemn purples and blacks had been carefully cut and meticulously pieced into an intricate pattern of linking circles. A wide black border with a quilted motif that resembled a twisted rope surrounded the whole.

  “Do you recognize the pattern?” One bony finger traced the circumference of the central circle.

  “I’m not sure…something to do with a wheel, I think. I know I’ve seen pictures but—”

  “It’s a Wheel of Mystery.” Nola Barrett beamed with quiet satisfaction. “I showed it to a quilt expert at the Folk Art Center in Asheville. They were quite taken with it—begged me to consider donating it to their collection.”

  Elizabeth was bending over the quilt, minutely examining the tiny stitches of the decorative quilting, the variety of purple fabrics that had been used, the excellent condition of the entire piece—but for a stain on one corner of the quilt, it was really almost perfect—no fading, no deterioration.

  “You said it was dated…?”

  “There’s some writing on the back; there on the corner where the stain is. Go on; it’s all right to handle it.”

  Elizabeth gingerly turned back the stained corner to reveal a purple square of cloth affixed to the loosely woven backing. There was writing in a spidery hand, the black ink sharp against the pale violet. L. G. ~ 1860 ~ A Life for a Life, followed by more initials—B. C.

  “A life for a life?” Elizabeth pulled her reading glasses from her shirt pocket and leaned closer. “Is that what it says?”

  She studied the quilt, wondering at its odd dimensions—long and narrow. “Was it made for a baby…maybe one whose mother died in childbirth? That might be the meaning…”

  Miss Nola Barrett’s eyes had narrowed. “Now that’s a possibility I hadn’t considered. I’ve always assumed it was a coffin cover.”

  The Drovers’ Road I

  Lydy Goforth ~ 1860

  When first I seen Belle Caulwell she was standin in the midst of a great drive of hogs, her dark green skirts not swayed a lick as the flood of swine, all a-slaver at the smell of the corn wagons, parted and passed by to either side of her, like as a rushin creek will divide at a tall rock. She stood there not payin the brutes no mind a-tall and just a-starin at me, them dark eyes of hern like fire-coals burnin their way right into my breast.

  The lanky youth fell silent. He laid one bony hand over his heart and stared up at the tiny patch of sky just visible through the high barred window, his gaze fixed as if he could see the burning eyes watching him still.

  The Professor shifted on the planks of his bunk, picked a bug from the ragged gray blanket that was the whole of his bedding, and cracked it against the wall where a scattering of red dots told the tally of his kills.

  Circe, he pronounced, shaking his head. Circe and John Keats’s merciless dame, the two subsumed into one. He scratched at an odiferous armpit. Boy, I begin to see why it is you find yourself in such a dire predicament. But, like the blind singer Homer, you have initiated your narrative in media res. Perhaps you would indulge my curiosity and begin at the beginning. I take it that these mountains are your native heath?

  The young man frowned and shook his head as if reluctantly returning from a happier world to the chill reality of the Marshall County jail. He shot a suspicious glance at his cell mate.

  The Professor brushed at the sleeve of his black frock coat in a vain attempt to remove the dirt ground into it during the unfortunate events surrounding his arrest. His once-white shirt was adorned by the tattered remnants of a dark blue cravat—the garments of a man with some pretensions to gentility. With a soft exhalation, he settled himself more comfortably on the narrow bunk, his head cocked expectantly, awaiting an answer to his question.

  The young man, whose blue-checked shirt and rough jeans trousers, though far from clean, looked to be new, lowered himself to the uneven bricks of the floor. He cast a last, longing glance at the little window before replying.

  Well, I see why it is they call you the Professor—all them fine words just a-spewin out yore mouth. Now I don’t know nare singer called Homer, nor do I understand the half of yore fancy talk. But I reckon you kin tell me first who it is you are and how come you to be here afore I unburden myself to you. Hit’ll do to while away the time till that ole jury kin come to an agreement. And my name hain’t Boy, hit’s Lydy Goforth.

  The Professor rose and made a little bow in the direction of his companion. My most humble apologies, Mr. Goforth. Allow me to introduce myself—Thomas Walter Blake, the second of that name, native of Charleston, South Carolina, late of Harvard University, and completely at your service. In view of our enforced intimacy, may I suggest that we dispense with formalities hereafter? If it meets with your approval, I shall call you Lydy and I beg that you will make use of my own praenomen, my familiar appellation, my given name…in short, please call me Tom.

  Lydy’s eyes narrowed. Reckon I’ll stick with Professor, iffen you don’t keer. Hit don’t seem fitten fer a body with so many big words in his craw to be called by a name any common he-cat might carry.

  The Professor shrugged and sank back to his bunk. As you will, my young friend, as you will. He leaned back and, crossing one black-trousered leg over the other, assumed the air of a gentleman at his club, about to embark on a leisurely narrative.

  You may ask how it is that I, scion of a distinguished Charlestonian family and graduate of Harvard University, how it is that I find myself in this verminous cell, in this backwater of civilization—

  Shitfire, Professor! Lydy broke into the current of words. Be damned iffen I know what it is you’re talking about. What I asked is how come you to be in jail?

  Aah. You prefer a concise account. Very well. It appears that I am being held for carnal knowledge of a minor. The Professor straightened his cravat. Or breach of promise. The father of the damsel in question has not yet made up his applejack-befuddled mind.

  Lydy dragged the rough homespun of his shirtsleeve across his eyes. Law, Professor, looks like hit’s the love of woman that’s overthrowed the both of us. Hit’s a fearsome, powerful thing, that kind of love is. I’ve studied on hit but be damned iffen I can make it out.

  The young man looked down at his big rough hands and slowly turned them, palms up and then down. His face wore a puzzled frown, as if the hands were strangers to him. After a moment’s study he wrapped his arms around himself to hide the hands in his armpits. His voice trailed into a dreaming whisper.

  You know, some of the time hit seems like a hundred years ago and other times I’d swear hit was only yesterday that I was back at my uncl
e’s place, way up there on Bear Tree Creek.

  Lydy leaned his head against the wall, once again fixing his eyes on the little window. What brung me here…I’d have to say it started back there, back on this one day when I was huntin a little spotted heifer what had come in season and had took a notion to travel. Well sir, I followed her trace clear to the top of Old Baldy. When at last the heifer come into view, I seen that she had found what she was atter. Hit was a red and white bull what I hadn’t never seed before and he was a-ridin her like one thing. I seen there weren’t no way of turnin her back down the mountain till they was done, so I set down there in the grass to wait.

  Hit was in the spring of last year—eighteen and fifty-nine—and the day was one of them bright sparkly ones with all the world looking like hit had been washed clean. Old Baldy’s the highest peak on Bear Tree and with the sky so close hit seemed to me like hit wouldn’t be no trouble atall to reach out and maybe grab God’s shirttail.

  The bull got done at last but I just set there, thinkin how I had spent all of my life down in the holler, a-clearin my uncle’s ground, bustin his wood, and choppin his corn, with my eyes looking at the dirt till it grew too dark to see. Then hit would be back to my pallet in the loft and up before first light to begin all over again.

  Off in the far distance I could see the mountain humps a-stretchin out in blue rows till they kindly melted into the sky. And then it come to me as how I’d like to travel beyond them mountains someday, maybe see the great ocean that my kin had crossed, back when they first come to this land. I stared off into that blue far-away and, like I had heard the preacher say one time, my spirit took wing.

  The young man was on his feet now, still gazing up at the window and the darkening sky beyond. And then, all to once, there’s my uncle, a-standin over me afore ever I heared his step. He had come lookin fer the heifer too and when he saw her and the bull croppin grass and me just a-settin there not doin nothing, why he commenced to whup on me with his ole walkin stick. Called me a worthless, loaferin woods-colt and said though he’d kept me on like his sister had begged on her deathbed, now I had plagued him a time too many. I thought to fight him but he was a stout, full-growed man and I feared I’d be beaten bad.

  I left him there, a-shoutin vile curses at me whilst I lit out down the mountain. Weren’t none of the others to the house, so I took the blanket offen my pallet and rolled my good shirt in hit, along with my few other bits of plunder. I helped myself to cornbread from the safe and set out down the creek.

  Hit was late evening when I come to the river and the ol’ feller with the ferry was just puttin off fer a man and a mule what was waitin on the far bank. I didn’t have no money but the ol’ feller agreed to put me across iffen I did the haulin.

  I’ll ride like a gentleman for once, says he, and set hisself upon an empty nail keg. That ol’ feller grinned like a fool whilst I hauled his flat-bottom raft across the fast-runnin waters of the French Broad. Hit was a stout rope he had strung over the water and hard though my hands were with the use of the axe and hoe, by the time the far shore was nigh, I had raised me a blister or two.

  But I paid no mind to the burnin of my hands for there on the slope above the turnpike was the place I’d been making for—the inn on the Drovers’ Road. I looked up at that fine big place with its porches and galleries and its two stone chimbleys reaching up so tall and hit seemed to me that Gudger’s Stand had been a-waitin fer me all the years of my life.

  Chapter 4

  Snowbound

  Sunday, December 3

  Elizabeth wakened slowly in the half-light of early morning. Through slitted lids she could see her breath making little puffs in the frigid air, and she dragged the heavy comforter higher, temporarily dislodging the small dog James from his nest at her feet. Beside her she could feel the long, warm curve of Phillip’s back and hear his regular breathing. Keeping the covers well over her shoulders, she lifted her head from the pillows to see what sort of day the weather gods had arranged.

  Beyond the big east-facing windows was a world stripped of form or color. A pearly white void that, as her eyes began to focus, became a moving curtain of thick, blowing flakes. She raised her head higher, turning to look at the clock on the chest just beyond Phillip’s pillow.

  Seven-fifty and hardly light. I know the sun’s cleared the mountains by now, but there’s not even a smudge of brightness showing. It’s like a scene from Doctor Zhivago.

  Briefly she debated getting up, building a fire, starting breakfast. Molly and Ursa were still asleep on their denim-covered dog beds; James, reestablished in a fold of the soft comforter, had begun to snore softly. Maybe another fifteen minutes, she decided.

  Sliding back into the warmth of the bed, she turned on her side and once again pulled the comforter over her ears. Those few moments of sitting up had chilled her and she inched nearer to Phillip and the radiant heat of his comforting bulk. The mattress quivered as the heat source rolled over and reached out to pull her closer to him.

  “It’s still pretty damn cold out there, Lizabeth. Even if it clears, with this heavy cloud cover I don’t think the snow’s going to melt any time soon. I know you were planning to go in and see about Miss Barrett, but you might want to wait till tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth looked up from the stack of Christmas cards and envelopes on the table before her. There was a series of thumps as Phillip deposited a load of logs into the wood rack beside the fireplace. The rough bark of some of the logs still held snow deep in its crevices, and Phillip’s navy watch cap was dusted with white that quickly melted as he leaned down to add more wood to the fire.

  “Maybe I can go in after lunch.” She cast a dubious glance out the dining room window at the snow-covered scene. “The plows and the salt trucks’ll be out and the roads should be clear by then.”

  Nodding toward the phone on the table just beyond the cards, she continued. “I called the hospital again to ask about Nola and to find out about visiting hours. They—”

  As if activated by her glance, the telephone rang. The male voice at the other end was unfamiliar—an unctuous, self-assured tone with only a hint of the mountain twang to betray the speaker’s origin.

  “Mrs. Goodweather? This is Payne Morton. I pastor the church in Dewell Hill and I’m making some calls on behalf of Nola Barrett’s niece, Tracy—”

  A cold dread began to gnaw at Elizabeth and she broke in. “Nola…is she…? She’s not…?”

  “Praise God, Sister Nola is awake and the doctor seems confident that her physical recovery will be speedy. In fact, the hospital plans to discharge her tomorrow.”

  “That’s wonderful! I—”

  “Ah yes, the Lord was watching over her.” The caller paused, sighed, and then went on, his voice slightly lower. “Sadly, however, our poor sister’s mind is still wandering and confused and it’s obvious she’ll require special care. Her niece is making arrangements and she’s given me a list of her aunt’s friends who might be concerned. Poor Miss Nola, I’m afraid that her mind was badly disturbed to do such a thing. Terrible, terrible…”

  The resonant tones trailed off in an incoherent mutter, followed by a vigorous throat-clearing. “But I’m forgetting the purpose of my call. Tracy asked if I would inform her aunt’s friends that Miss Nola is being moved to the Layton Facility just outside Ransom. If you were thinking of a visit, Tracy feels that it would be best to wait till her aunt is settled in. Maybe midweek.”

  The oily flow of words continued as Pastor Morton explained that he had three more calls to make. “And our service begins in less than an hour.” He paused, meaningfully, it seemed to Elizabeth. “Perhaps I should apologize for interrupting your own Sabbath preparations, Mrs. Goodweather?”

  When Elizabeth didn’t respond, the pastor segued with practiced ease into an invitation. “Of course, if you don’t have a church home of your own, let me just say that Beulah Bethel is always happy to welcome in our unchurched neighbors….”

  “I don
’t understand, Phillip. Where’d this niece come from? Nola never mentioned any relatives.”

  Phillip, seated at the other end of the dining table, was absorbed in sharpening her motley assortment of kitchen knives. It was a job he seemed to relish, approaching each blade with the reverence a samurai might accord a fine sword. He had bought an elegant series of ever-finer whetstones and a special oil of some sort so that he could bring each edge to near-perfection. The slight whispering grind of metal against stone had come to be a familiar and comforting sound.

  We’re like an old married couple with these routines: Sunday afternoon—knife sharpening or some little repair job or grading papers for him, bills and correspondence for me, and the local NPR station for both of us.

  Phillip didn’t look up as he maintained a steady circular movement of the battered old chef’s knife against the wet surface of a grayish-white stone.

  “You just met Nola Barrett a few months ago, right? Maybe she hadn’t gotten around to filling you in on all her family. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with her recently but—”

  “But that’s just it. I was helping with her research about the county. A lot of what we talked about was her family and its ties to Gudger’s Stand. I know she believed that she was the old man’s only heir and that it would be her decision alone as to what would happen to the property.”

  “Did the old man leave a will, do you think?” Tiny ceaseless circles and still he didn’t look up.

  “I don’t know for sure. The last time I went to visit Nola, she told me she had come to a decision about what to do with the stand and the property. But she said there were some papers that she needed to find first. I assumed she meant the missing will Sallie Kate mentioned.”

  “Nola took care of that nasty old coot for years,” Sallie Kate had said. “She says he made a will namin’ her as his heir. And she’s paid the taxes on the place ever since he died. But the will’s never turned up and the title’s not clear. I don’t know why she hasn’t gotten things straightened out before this; I do know she hates the place and hasn’t set foot in it since she found the old man dead one mornin’. Of course, it’s only just in the past few years that there’s been all this interest in the property. As long as the taxes got paid, the county was content just to leave the whole mess unresolved.”