Copper couldn’t remember when she’d first missed the necklace, but it had been a while since she’d worn it. John had made it for her fourteenth birthday, a perfect basket made from a black walnut shell and threaded on a thin leather thong. Inside, he’d placed the tiniest brown pebbles he’d gathered from the creek. They looked just like eggs.
Her cheek tingled when she thought of John. Yawning, she wondered if he’d try to kiss her again. And she wondered if she would kiss him back.
She climbed into bed, then out again, sinking to her knees on the cold cabin floor to thank the Lord for her wonderful day and to pray for Remy, her little found friend.
CHAPTER 17
It was a perfect February day, bright and clear without threat of snow. John had saddled two horses, and he and Copper were off for a day of hunting. He wanted to scout for deer, but Copper couldn’t bring herself to kill one of those soulful animals.
John made fun of her. “There’s too many of them roaming the woods, Pest. Would you druther they starve? ’Sides, I’ve seen how you tuck into a mess of deer meat.”
“I don’t care if you take a buck. I just can’t shoot one myself. They remind me too much of Molly. I’ll be content with squirrels.”
Daddy was sick with a winter cough, and he pined for fresh meat. He’d fussed about the house last night getting his gear together for a morning hunt, but she and Mam had conspired against him. And so he was toasting his feet in front of the fire and sipping from a cup of General Washington’s Cure. Copper had made the tonic herself, and her hands still smelled of onion. Daddy’s craving gave Copper the perfect excuse for another sort of hunt.
She’d broken her vow of secrecy to Remy and told John about the girl and her predicament. If Remy could be found, John was the one to do it. Copper had a good knowledge of the forest and mountains surrounding her home, but her roaming was often circumscribed by Mam’s restraint, while John was free to explore at will.
Copper hadn’t seen Remy since Christmas, and she couldn’t help but worry. John had told her of some strange folks he’d come across up on Gobbler’s Knob. Nobody much bothered going that far up, for the hunting was scarce. He said the knob was just a big old slick rock that jutted out into the air as sharp as Lincoln’s nose. But on its back side there was a series of caves that would keep you dry or warm if need be. That’s where he’d spied the people who might be Remy’s kin.
He’d been coon hunting one night before Christmas when he lost his best dog, Faithful. She had run ahead, her nose pressed to the ground, and she didn’t respond when he called her back. That had never happened before. John told Copper that her deep bay had sounded like it was coming from the top of the mountain, like it bounced off the sheer rock of the knob itself. He figured Faithful had trapped herself somehow.
He’d pulled himself up the rugged slope by vines and little bushes that poked out of the limestone. Faithful’s bark was his compass, and the silver shine from the moon cut through the dark like the cold steel blade of a knife. Edging his way around the cliff, he found himself in a flat meadow bereft of trees. It was coming up daybreak by the time he finished his climb; he’d been out all night. Hearing a splash of water up ahead, he caught sight of a wet-weather spring gushing down a sheer rock cliff. Faithful’s hoarse woof was coming from behind that spring. The dog had been yapping off and on for hours. He whistled loud and long, but she didn’t come.
The rising sun surged over the top of Gobbler’s Knob and revealed a great cleft, as clean as butchered meat, in the side of the mountain. John had been certain Faithful was hurt. He walked right into the fissure and made his way between damp rock walls that pressed like a vise against his shoulders. He kept his gun ready, afraid he’d find his dog mauled by a bear or a catamount. Strangely, his hunter’s nose picked up woodsmoke mixed with the coal and packed-dirt odors of the mountain.
He rounded a corner, and there was Faithful. A ridge of hair rose on her back. Her long nose pointed straight ahead, her tail pointed straight behind. She stood on three feet, her left front paw curled close to her side.
“Quiet!” he commanded.
Faithful stopped barking, but her eyes never left her prey. He was right proud of his dog. He cocked his gun and peered around a corner into a cave as cozy as any lean-to he’d ever made. A hollow-cheeked woman sat hunched over a smoky fire. Her hair stood in disarray, a mass of black coils springing from her scalp. She stirred something in a large iron pot, then set it to the side to cool. A half-naked boy stood a few feet in front of Faithful, a piece of jerky in his hand. He didn’t seem surprised to see John.
“Is this here yore dog, mister?” he asked. “Ma said I could keep it if’n I could ketch it.”
At the sound of the boy’s voice, the woman whirled to face John. “Riser!” she screamed. “It’s the law come to git ye!”
The cave burst into action. Quick as doodlebugs from under a rock, half a dozen children, all with hair as dark as the woman’s, darted out of a mound of ratty hides and dirty blankets heaped in the middle of the floor. A toddler tugged the corner of a blanket, and a sickly looking baby, wrapped as tight as a papoose, rolled toward the fire through no effort of its own. The woman plucked it up, and it opened its mouth like a baby bird, but no sound came out.
A tall, skinny fellow about John’s age, dressed in buckskin, slept on a ledge rock. He never stirred when the woman screamed. A round tan-colored jug rested in the crook of his arm, and a long rifle lay close beside him.
The woman drew back with the only weapon she had at hand—the baby. Her eyes narrowed as she made a flinging motion. “Mister,” she said, “what you want?”
“Ma,” a girl said, “that’s the baby.”
The woman kept her eyes on John as she dropped her arm and slid the infant into the front of the greasy shift she wore. “Shorely,” she pleaded, “you ain’t aiming to take my boy Riser. You already got my man.”
When John held out his hand, the small boy hung like a monkey on his outstretched arm. “I don’t aim to make no trouble,” John told the woman. “I was just looking for my dog.”
“You swear you ain’t the law?”
“I don’t much care for the sheriff myself, ma’am,” he replied.
“Then,” she said, her furrowed brow relaxing, “stay fer vittles.”
The cave was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and rancid fat, but John hunched around the fire with the rest of them as the mother stuck a wooden spoon into the stewpot. He cupped his hands like the children and ate what she plopped in them.
“Sorry ye ain’t got a bowl,” the woman said, her coal black eyes on him. “We left out of our place in a right hurry, trying to keep ahead of the law.”
John kept an eye on the fellow on the ledge she’d called Riser while he slurped the stew. It wasn’t half bad. He’d always liked possum, especially cooked with onion, but if possum was all they had, then the passed-out drunk wasn’t much of a hunter.
“What are you doing here, ma’am? Ain’t you afraid these young’uns will freeze?”
“They’s right sturdy, cept for this’n.” She patted her dress, then reached around him and clunked the boy, who clung to John like a burr, up the side of his head with her spoon. “Rancy,” she said, pausing to aim a spit of tobacco juice into the fire, “git off the man.”
The fire popped and hissed, and the pungent smell of cured tobacco wafted up in a thin stream of steam. Rancy paid his mother no mind. John felt small hands going through his pockets.
“Huh,” Rancy grunted when he came across John’s knife. “Huh” again when he discovered the biscuit and sausage. Rancy let go of the knife and settled against John’s side with the poke of food. Out of the corner of his eye, John could see a girl creeping up on them, but she stopped when the woman said, “Rilly, feed this’n. Leave what’s in the bottom for Riser.”
The girl took the baby and settled down by the stewpot. Every so often, she’d run her finger inside the rim and stick it in the baby’s open mouth. The infant could barely suck, and its eyes had no color. The little thing was puny.
The woman’s eyes met his across the fire. “I ain’t making milk,” she said, as if that explained the situation.
“The law took your man?” John asked.
“For a spell.” She spit again. “Ain’t no jail can keep Rastus Riddle fer long.”
John stood and put his knife back in its sheath.
Rancy slid down John’s side and scuttled across the floor, where he disappeared in the huddle of blankets with his biscuit and sausage.
“Ma’am,” John said, “it’d be a right pleasure if you’d let me bring you some grub.”
She looked through slanted eyes toward the sleeper on the ledge. “Ye’d have to leave it where Riser could stumble upon it,” she whispered. “Riddles don’t take handouts.”
John paused in his story and shook his head. “It pained me, Pest, to see them living like that, broke as Job’s turkey. Poor Miz Riddle left ever’thing to run from the law with her shiftless husband.”
Copper reined in her horse and turned in the saddle. “That’s them, John. Remy’s family! Remy told me the same thing. ‘Riddles don’t take handouts.’”
“Sounds like they’d druther thieve. People like that’d steal the dimes off a dead man’s eyes. It’d be best if you stayed clear of them.”
“But you fed them for weeks.” Copper’s face flushed from the cold and from the anticipation she felt as they neared the cave John had found. Her horse ambled along beside his. They’d gone slowly, lost in conversation, content to be together.
“A feller don’t like to see a bunch of starving kids,” he answered. “It ain’t their fault. I’d of liked to bring that one boy, that Rancy, home with me. He’d of fit right in.” He flicked the reins, and his horse picked up its pace. “Come on, Pest. Let’s get this over with.”
She followed his lead until they came to the edge of the meadow he’d described. They secured the horses in a grove of trees and made their way to the sheer rock wall that she would swear was solid as a whetstone. But then he led her around the spring of clear water that flowed down the face of the mountain. They entered a passageway that was open to the sky.
“Hello!” John called. “Miz Riddle—it’s John Pelfrey. I ain’t bringing no law.”
“John,” Copper cautioned at his back, “you’ll scare them away.”
“Better than getting shot. Besides, this is the only way out.”
Copper’s heart beat fast, and she held her breath against her hope of finding Remy. Oh, she missed her friend. She reached up and put her hand on John’s shoulder. He felt solid and safe beneath her touch.
They rounded a corner, and there was the cave. The passageway let in some light, and they could see remnants of a fire in the middle of the cave. John sifted ashes through his hand. He looked at Copper. “This has been cold for days.”
“Maybe they’re coming back,” she said.
“Don’t look like it.” He scanned the room. “The cook pot’s gone and so’s the hides and blankets where they slept.”
“We’re too late.” Her voice shook, and she couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes.
He patted her back awkwardly. “At least they ate good before they took off.” He kicked a pile of bones. “This is what’s left of the deer I brung them.” He stooped to pick up a withered potato. “They missed this’n.”
“I wanted to see Remy, John, to make sure she was safe. How do I know she was even with them?”
“You cain’t be certain, but it sounds like the girl knows how to take care of herself if need be.”
Copper smiled through her tears. “That’s for sure. Maybe she’ll show up again one day when I least expect it.” She walked to the shelf of rock that stuck out like an open drawer at the back of the cave. “Is this where you saw her brother Riser?”
“Yeah, sleeping off some corn liquor, I reckon. I never came back in here after that first time, just left stuff for him to find easy.”
“There’s something here, John.” Copper leaned across the ledge where a tip of white stuck out of a little pile of rocks and earth. She pulled on the furry tip, and a red foxtail matted with dirt slipped out. “Remy. I’m sure this was hers.”
“Reckon why she buried it? That seems kind of strange.” He moved the smooth stones that protected a little mound of tamped-down earth. “Oh no. Don’t look.”
But of course she did. Her hands flew to her mouth and stifled a scream. A tiny, wizened face stared up at her from its makeshift grave. She turned into John’s arms and hid her face against his chest. “Remy named her Angel,” she said, her voice soft against his leather coat.
“Poor little thing starved,” he said.
His words fueled a quick, hot anger. She turned away from him. “That stupid woman. Why in heaven’s name didn’t she feed her baby?”
“If you could have seen her, Pest, you would understand.” He took the foxtail from her hand and placed it over the body. “She wasn’t eating herself. ”
Copper wasn’t mollified. She wanted to be mad, for anger flamed bright and quick but didn’t last, unlike the sorrow that was sure to follow. Like the awful ache of missing Remy, sorrow took its own dread time, lingering in the heart like a high drift of dirty snow.