Chapter Forty-Nine
Forty-Nine
Elijah Jack was almost two weeks old when Rose said, “It’s nearly Christmas.
Defiance will have on her finest holiday dress.
It’s a spectacle. Go see it and enjoy yourselves.
Be sure and stop in at Bud’s restaurant and have yourself some delicious lake perch.
” She rocked the baby in her arms and patted his bottom, shooing us toward the door after passing a small shopping list to me.
Eager to visit the hardware store, Jackson quickly accepted her offer.
In town, I bought diaper cloths, Oxydol washing powders, and a few candles Rose requested for the guest rooms while Jackson shopped over at the hardware store for a new latch for her busted gate and a rope cord and pulley for an upstairs window.
Although cold, it was an eye-scaldingly bright day, and the town carried the sparkles of Christmas finery.
Lampposts were dressed in holly and evergreens.
Shop windows displayed scenes of toys, dollies, sleds, skates, and wrapped presents with shiny bows that rested atop snowy blankets of sparkled cotton.
I slipped up beside a small boy who had his nose and face smashed to one of the windows, and I smiled at the child’s wonderment.
A mix of pine, gingerbread, Christmas oranges, and cinnamon wafted out of doors, and like the young’un, I marveled at all the regalia and drooled over the candied almonds, an invitation to step inside.
On a corner, a bundled vendor hawked his pine wreaths and cord-wrapped spruces as families waded through rows searching for the perfect tree. I walked the pathways a bit, then stopped.
Suddenly, the pine aromas pulled me back to the hills—to the crowning balsam paths Junia had ridden us on.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the perfumes, thinking of the apostle gal who’d been my loyal protector for so long.
Ol’ Junia riding us through those rough, winding hills to get me safely home night after night.
Through winter’s snowy drifts and summer’s prickly brambles.
How I yearned for one more ride with her.
Longed to be home for Christmas with Honey.
A giggling couple whisked past me, and I breathed in the fragrance one last time before moving along.
Later, I met up with Jackson in front of the drugstore. “I searched inside the hardware store but couldn’t find you.”
“I was rummaging through their supply room in the back to find the right-size pulley.” He pulled the small bag from a pocket and inspected inside.
“The house is so old; I should replace all the sash cords on those heavy double-hung windows for her safety. They only had the two at the hardware, but the clerk said he’d have more in next week.
Rose can’t risk a guest losing a finger if another rope breaks. ”
We stopped in to have dinner at Bud’s restaurant, then strolled down the streets, pausing to admire the treasures inside shop windows. When we turned away from one display, Jackson stiffened and pulled me back to the glass. “Keep your eyes on the window dressing. Don’t let him see you.”
“Who, Jack—”
He lifted a finger to his lips.
I tucked the coat tighter to my chin, twisted slightly toward the sidewalk.
“Chester,” Jackson called out, extending an arm and turning him away from the display.
“Well, Jackson Lovett, as I live and breathe.” He shook Jackson’s hand.
“Why, just in October, I met up with some other Kentucky folks. They were visiting the old soldiers’ burial ground.
Every year I see more of our people trekking this way to visit kinsmen lost in the battle.
” Chester pulled him into a hug and thumped his back.
“I heard they’d been in town.” Jackson grinned, returning the friendly slap.
“It’s always good to run into an old pal.
” Chester shared gossip about the Kentucky visitors for a few more minutes while Jackson smiled, enjoying the chatter.
Then: “Hey, Jackson, a couple years back, a feller from your neck of the woods made the trip up here to the burial grounds looking for his kin. You might know him.” He scratched his wool cap.
“He was a tall, older feller named Davies, uh… Can’t recall the full name right now, but maybe you’ll know it.
” Chester rooted again in his mind. “Oh, yeah, I ’member something else.
He said he’d been the sheriff of Troublesome for a bit and he’d be back soon enough.
I looked for him this year, and I found out… ”
The rest of his words were interrupted by noisy passersby.
But I heard enough to realize it was Ken Davies, the very same sheriff who had torn up our marriage license and made it his moral duty to keep Jackson banned from Kentucky.
That he had traveled here, walked these same streets, knocked the soft blue from my skin.
Jackson shifted his stance but remained quiet while Chester rambled on.
“Now, last I heard you were going to settle back down in Troublesome Creek? That must have been ten or more years ago. Myself, I haven’t been back to Hyden for at least two decades.”
“I stayed a while but had to move on,” Jackson said.
“I sure do miss it sometimes,” Chester said wistfully. “We had us a traveling Methodist preacher come through a few years back. I’ll never forget when he found himself failing to describe heaven to the congregation, he simply exclaimed, O my dear Honeys, Heaven is a Kentucky of a place.”
The men grew somber, each seeming to reflect on home.
Then Chester asked, “Did you ever get hitched?”
“I did.” Jackson dipped his head and said, “But I lost her not long ago.”
Chester spilled kind condolences. Then he asked, “Are you here for a while?”
I tugged the coat down a bit, stretching an ear toward the men’s conversation.
“Visiting, but heading to Toledo to see a man about a job,” Jackson fibbed.
“I’ve been here now for seven years. There’s plenty of good work in Defiance, pal. The town’s been building on the canals and—”
“I’ve already set my sights on Toledo, but I’ll keep it in mind should plans change.” Jackson snuck a peek at me, jingled the coins in his pants pockets.
“It would be nice working together again. Better working conditions too. They got themselves some decent camp houses here.” Chester quieted. “Say, what are they paying there in Toledo?”
“About to find out.” He patted Chester’s shoulder and moved away slightly. “I’m fixin’ to head back to my room. I’ve got business to wrap up before I leave town. Merry Christmas.”
When Chester crossed the street and turned a corner, Jackson stole over to me.
“Who was that, Jackson? What did he say he found out about the sheriff? Jackson?”
He stared after him, lost in thought. “Chester’s just a Kentucky fella I worked with long ago on the Boulder Dam project.
We had another buddy who was a high scaler, repelling down the giant canyon walls.
We lost him after a rope broke. I was able to help Chester when the same thing happened to him a week later. ”
Jackson rarely talked about his work on Boulder Dam or, as most called it now, Hoover Dam. But I’d read that over one hundred men lost their lives building it and that the one job requirement called only for men of strength, and cowards need not apply.
I followed Jackson’s eyes to where his friend had rounded the corner. “Are you concerned about the sheriff? Chester talking? Why did you tell him Toledo? I’m not ready to move Elijah Jack just yet.”
“Don’t you fret now. It’s Christmas. Come on, let’s have us a lil cheer.” He pulled me under the shop’s alcove and reached inside his coat and handed me a small box with a festive ribbon.
“But I didn’t get you—”
He pressed a finger to my lips. “I have you. I don’t need one more thing.”
I untied the ribbon and held up an exquisite, gold-blushed hankie made of silk and the finest laces, embroidered with delicate flowers and sprigs.
“You never had yourself a proper bridal trousseau on our wedding day.”
Jackson dug into another pocket. “When we were arrested, the law took away our rings.” He pushed a gold band onto my finger.
“Cussy Mary, I promise, I won’t allow anyone, God or man, to thieve our time, take my bride from me ever again.
I will not lose another minute of us together. ” A fire latched on to his promise.
My love and gratitude for him sprung to my eyes.
He nudged his chin to the mistletoe hanging above us, the wind tangling the festive red ribbon it was tethered to, then pressed his promise onto my lips, erasing my apprehension.
But with each passing day, he brooded, mulling over our safety, certain that word would get out.
We might run into the Kentucky sheriff or Chester again.
More Kentucky folks visiting their kin in the soldiers’ graveyard.
Fretted about the law, and what would happen to our son if we were caught.
“We need to go where we can lose ourselves in a crowd of millions,” he’d say.
Millions. Louisville had been big enough, but I couldn’t imagine living in such a place. It sounded terrifying. Smothering. And it left me wondering how folks could breathe, packed in and stealing each other’s air like that.
***
I’d been foolish, so busy with Elijah Jack and enjoying our newfound happiness, I’d pushed my cautions aside, stepped right into the shoes of a free dead woman, and learned how to breathe again.
The new baby had left me with bear teeth, a power I hadn’t felt since the birth of Honey, but the mantle I carried to protect us grew heavier, the load more difficult.
The air had changed since we ran into Chester. Jackson had become more cautious and began looking over his shoulder. I found myself skittish at every strange noise, spending too much time sneaking peeks out Rose’s windows.
For days our voices lingered in darkened hallways and crannies of the ol’ boardinghouse as I clutched the baby close, an alarm pummeling my flesh.
Jackson reminded me that the child of an immoral blue heathen would be easy prey and quickly snatched into the law’s cruel, iron grip, lost to the whims and misplaced paperwork of yawning officials in any one of many wrong states. Worse, he’d likely be locked away and experimented on.
“It’s dangerous to stay any longer,” he’d insisted yesterday as I placed Elijah Jack inside his bassinette. “That sheriff could show up in this town any day.”
Exasperated, I held up a hand to tamp the discussion, collect my muddled thoughts. “Likely if he comes, it won’t be until the Kentucky men make their fall pilgrimage.”
“Cussy Mary.” He fumbled a curse slipping off his tongue. “Angeline. I won’t ever lose you again. I must keep you and our son safe.” He kissed my forehead, the words fevered against my flesh. “I won’t lose another child. Us.”
But as Christmas came and went, I grew moody, plagued by thoughts of my daughter living alone. Agonized over the family she’d now lost and how I could give it back to her.
“It’s too dangerous here,” Jackson pressed again as I cleaned a guest room in the early morning.
Torn, I spun around. “What about Honey? It’s dangerous leaving our daughter all alone!
The hills are raising her, and it should be me,” I lashed out, not sure what had gotten into me.
“She needs her mama, Jackson.” I anguished over the thought of not being there to protect her, help her through the rough patches a young girl faced.
Listen to her hopes and dreams. Witness her growing into a woman.
He shook his head.
“Jackson, I don’t want Devil John and Martha Hannah giving their blessing for any marriage proposal that might be coming. I need to be closer to Honey. The thought of moving farther from Kaintuck and to a bigger city feels like I’m losing her forever.”
“You know that as a condition of my release, I had to agree to a banishment from home for twenty-five years. And if you’re found alive, people like that meddling sheriff would like nothing better than to cause you grave harm.
I would follow you to the ends of this tired old earth—back to our Kentucky and hide you in them hills again if I could keep you safe and be with our daughter.
But we can’t chance the law coming down on us and our son becoming an orphan. ”
“If only there was a way to be closer.”
“Honey has been emancipated. She is safe and free. But we can never forget: We are not.”
***
From the bed, two-month-old Elijah Jack kicked the knitted blanket off his legs. Patiently, Rose tucked it back around him, then lifted the babe up and kissed the top of his head. “You be a good boy for your mama, sweetheart. Grow up and be even a finer man for a good woman. Like your papa.”
She gripped my hand, the scent of powdered roses wafting around her.
“I sure will miss you around here.” She fiddled with the angel brooch Jackson had given her for Christmas.
“And my sweet Elijah. You did a good job cleaning and keeping the records. Jackson’s been a blessing and the home’s never looked better.
It’s been a big help for this old woman.
” She held up money. “Here’s your last pay. Write to me, Angeline.”
“I will as soon as we settle. But you keep it, Miss Rose.” I pushed away her hand. “Jackson has work waiting for him in the masonry business, and his lawyers have wired our funds from the sale of our home. We’ll be fine, ma’am.” But my words were weighted with doubt.
“I know you’ll be fine, young lady. Just fine.
” She lifted her stubborn chin bone, reminding me of Mrs. Claxton and my ol’ Loretta.
“Just the same, a smart lady should always have her some sneaky-Pete money set aside for emergencies. Pete being my grandfather and what Grandma taught me long ago after he went on one too many tears. Not that yours ever will, but… No need telling the menfolk now.” She rolled the bills inside the baby’s blanket and tucked tight.
From inside the pickup truck, I stared out, weary at having to put down roots again, anxious to one day be fine. Free of the laws that had shackled us to a nomad’s life.
I pulled the bundled infant closer and nodded to Jackson.
The truck roared to life, and he shifted it into gear, the loudness awakening sleeping pigeons perched on snow-covered roofs.
On the porch, Rose stood squint-eyed in her thread-worn flowered duster, a lace shawl to her chest, her darkened frame frail against the blowing snow that bibbed her grayed cropped curls. She raised a gnarled hand, slowly waved, and I pressed my burning farewell onto the glass.