Wildwood Creek (21 page)

Blake let his fork settle against his plate. “I didn’t get any fruit pie when I rescued her.” He turned an incredulous expression my way, as in,
What’s wrong with this picture?

The blush raced up my neck and suddenly the tips of my ears were burning. I probably could’ve shot a blood pressure meter completely off the charts. Seriously, who was this guy, really? And was he always this . . . this . . . flirty? Clearly, Netta and Genie were thoroughly charmed, much like the deli girl in the grocery store down the street from the Berman.

Across the table, Kim’s eyes were like big blue baseballs.

Netta stuck her hand out and introduced herself properly, then smiled adoringly at Blake and added, “Hon’, you come on up to the big house any ol’ day and there’ll be a pie there waiting on you.”

Blake grinned, and I had to admit, the effect of it was dazzling. “Miss Netta, you can expect me for a visit.”

Kim gave me another pointed look. She was obviously about to explode, the questions no doubt jamming up like commuter cars at rush hour.
I want details,
that look said
. What in the world have you been doing while I’m slaving away, learning the bathhouse-and-laundry trade?

She’d just leaned across to introduce herself to Blake when the fiddle-and-guitar duo who’d been entertaining us suddenly stopped playing, and the sound system let out an ear-piercing screech. I looked up just in time to see Rav Singh step onto an old hay wagon, microphone in hand. He moved like a rock star taking the stage, lithe and confident, his head tipped back and his arms splayed out. A breeze whirled down the street and lifted the filmy black fabric of his shirt, swirling it in the amber light of lanterns and torches. Behind him,
Chinquapin Peaks drew a dark, jagged line against a spill of stars and a full moon.

“Greetings, cast and crew of
Wildwood Creek
!” he said, and a hush fell over the crowd, the silence pregnant with expectation. “Welcome to the final night of the modern age. When you awaken in the morning, you will have stepped through time and been transported into
Mysterious History
, ready and willing . . . or not.”

He paused, scanned the crowd. I felt as if the last part of that sentence might be aimed directly at me. He seemed to be looking my way, waiting for me to flinch as reality set in. Instead, I straightened in my chair. All my life I’d doubted my own abilities, and Wildwood was no exception, but I was going to do this or die trying. My dream, and my ticket into the business, depended on it. This was my chance to prove how much I wanted it.

Rav strode to the other end of the wagon, cutting a dramatic figure against the lamplight, the tails of his shirt dancing loose over his smooth brown skin, his long, sleek hair fluttering around his head like a curtain, parting and closing, then parting again.

“There is one detail I’ve not revealed until now. Many of you may have been wondering, what will be the secret mystery in this newest
Mysterious History
journey? What awaits you here beyond assuming the lives of those who came to Wildwood trusting their futures, their very survival, to the promise of gold?”

He paused, seeming to contemplate his own question as a murmur circled the tables. “There are so many questions about Wildwood, some of which you’ve already considered yourselves. Where did the people go? How can an entire community vanish with no record left behind? Did the people of Wildwood flee? Were they taken? Do they lie somewhere near
here still, their resting places unmarked? Do they yet walk these hills and valleys, as the locals say?”

In the trees, the cicadas suddenly grew impossibly loud, their throbbing song rising to a deafening crescendo, then stopping all at once. Kim glanced over her shoulder, slanted a nervous look my way as the eerie speech continued.

“And what of the gold? A vast deposit that was, as we now know, never to be found. The vein that yielded the ore found near Wildwood was later determined to have been volcanic in nature. The mother lode that brought gold fever to these hills lay far beneath the surface, unreachable. But in 1861, it was the stuff of dreams and dreamers. A reason to leave behind all that was safe, all that was familiar, and to risk . . . all. It was the impetus of hope and courage . . . but was it also the spark that ignited the darker traits of human nature? Greed? Envy? Money lust? Perhaps murder? Mass hysteria? Madness? Does this explain the disintegration of Wildwood?”

Again, the cicadas lifted their song, and Singh waited, his shirt swirling around his waist. “We’ve no way of knowing, but perhaps through
Mysterious History
, we will learn. And so, my question now—
your
question as you
become
Wildwood—is how do we accurately re-create the emotions, the decisions, the driving forces—the beauty and the hideousness of
that
time in
this
place?”

An uneasy hum traveled the tables. A chill walked over me, and I rubbed away gooseflesh.

Across the table, Netta whispered, “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Beside me, Blake calmly ate another spoonful of purple-hulled peas and took a swig of lemonade, as if he hadn’t the slightest concern.

Singh paced back to the middle of the wagon, stopped there, gazed over the tops of the buildings into the night
sky, then slowly scanned the crowd, commanding a snap of instant and rapt attention. All side conversations stopped abruptly. “How . . . indeed?”

He ushered someone onto the platform, and I quickly recognized the woman who’d guided me through the dark halls of the Berman on the day of my initial interview. I’d seen her only occasionally during my months at the Berman. My suspicion was that she traveled with Singh. She handed him a sheet of paper, then stood behind him and to the right, statue-still, motionless, her hair bound so tightly that even the breeze couldn’t tease it.

Singh held up the sheet of paper. “In the centers of your tables, you will each find a box. The box contains information needed for staking claims in and around Wildwood, and the price that will be required, in terms of your 1861 funding. Various sites along the river have been individually seeded with over one million dollars in ore—only fool’s gold by the world’s standards, but here in Wildwood, those with the fortitude and good fortune to choose their claims wisely may profit beyond their wildest dreams. In Wildwood, all that glitters is worth its weight in gold at the Miners Exchange. The locations of paying claims are not known to any among the cast and crew. And they
will
not
be known . . . unless and
until
they are discovered by
you
, the residents of this town. The Claims Office will open in the morning for filing. I and Razor Point Productions wish you good luck and good hunting as you re-create not only the time period of Wildwood, but its mysterious history as well.”

The crowd held silent in a moment of collective shock, heads turning slowly side-to-side, wives whispering to husbands, new neighbors looking across tables at one another, suddenly seeing something completely different. Potential competitors.

Singh descended from the wagon with his assistant in tow, seeming unconcerned by the murmur rippling through the crowd. Across the table, Kim was already wondering how much a claim might cost, and whether she could take her salary from the bathhouse and go into mining instead. “If I’m stuck here all summer, I want a chance at the gold.”

“I knew that man had something up his sleeve!” Netta struck a palm against the table. “I can always tell. This isn’t what we signed up for at all. We were supposed to spend two and a half months living like pioneers, not fighting each other tooth and nail for gold. It’s not . . .”

I didn’t hear the rest. I was busy watching Blake Fulton scoop up another spoonful of peas. One thing was clear enough. This news did not come as any surprise to him.

B
ONNIE
R
OSE
J
UNE
1861

Dear Ms. Rose,

I’d not thought, upon your departure from the New Ila, to inquire as to your permission that I might address you by your given name. I hope, in light of the distance between us now, that you will forgive my taking this familiar liberty. Many’s the hour since watching you disappear into the distance, that I have cursed my lack of courage in not saying more. Indeed, were that scene to play itself out again, Bonnie, I would have committed whatever egregious breach of etiquette might have been necessary to prevent your leaving altogether.

It is my belief that trouble may befall you in Wildwood. I pray that I am quite mistaken. I pray that this letter reaches your hands, finding you unharmed and at the very least somewhat contented in your new position there. I pray that your gentle spirit and bold, independent nature are not dimmed by the realities of life in such a town as Wildwood.

I have long held concerns as to the nature of our in-common employer and his intentions for his holdings,
as well as for those who are bound financially to his employment. With shots fired this spring at Fort Sumter, and the entry of Texas into the conflict as a Confederate state, animosities draw to a boil all around us. It may well be that I will soon be forced to scuttle the New Ila to prevent her from being conscripted as a tool in the Confederate cause. While I may not own her lock, stock, and title, she is my boat, and I will not see her used against the union of these United States.

If our employer should intercept this letter, if you should find it with the wax seal broken, it may be that I am already deceased, or otherwise detained. If so, my greatest regret, other than allowing you to disappear from my sight on that last day, is that I will not be capable of coming to your aid, as I had promised on our parting.

But know this, Bonnie. If it is a man’s heart and his prayers that can preserve him and rejoin him again with another human soul, I will find you. Know also, that there is another in Wildwood who watches over you. If you recall our final conversation onboard the New Ila, you will and do know the identity of this person. Should the need of your rescue from Wildwood become imminent, go to him. He will help you to find a way.

Please, Bonnie, forgive my impetuous declaration of love in these words as I write. I have, many nights, struggled to reason myself from them. But there are times when a man’s soul knows what his mind cannot yet comprehend.

If there is a possibility that I may find you again in this world, I will do it, if only you would bid it of me.

Could you ever love me, Bonnie Rose?

Yours affectionately,
James

I sit lookin’ at the letter, touching my finger to the stroke of the pen, and inside, my heart flutters like a shore bird bound in a fisherman’s net. I’m feeling I must escape and I must surrender, all at once. Alone in the darkness with Maggie asleep nearby, I read it again and again, hoping with one breath and fearin’ with the next.

Could the eyes of love ever take away my scars, my shame? Could such eyes look at me and see the soul beneath the broken skin?

An ember lights inside, and I hold the letter close. I feel it flickering up. Hope.

An answer comes snarlin’ and pantin’ and nippin’, cutting the hope from my mind like a lamb from the herd, driven off to the hills to wander.
No decent man could ever love you, Bonnie Rose,
the voice growls, sneers, and whispers.
None can look beyond the scars. None have until now, after all.

He’s only seeing what he believes to be true. He knows nothin’ of your shame.
If you’ve feelings for him in the slightest, you’ll save him ever hearing of it.

I know it is true. I must bid him to go about his life without thinking of me. For a decent man such as he, there would be only guilt in knowing the truth and being forced, as surely he would, to rescind his proposal of love. Or worse, to honor it. A burdened heart, a soiled body . . . that’s all I have to offer him.

I begin again to reply, to say what I must—that I’ve met another here in Wildwood, that indeed, I’ve settled well into my position here and I’ve no fear of my own safety. None is true. Not a word. Quite the opposite, but I’ve only a few more hours to respond to the letter. I’ve only received it thus, because Mr. Hardwick was kind enough to hand it to Maggie May directly this evenin’. He could be bringing trouble upon himself by doing this, I know. But she has charmed him, my
little Maggie May. Hers is the only face that can coax his smile. When he looks at her, I find myself believing he’s seen the shadow of someone else he’s known, some child he has loved, but I’ve no way of guessing who it might be. He’s not a man to share his stories.

He has told Maggie, should she bring my letter of reply to him before the freight travels tomorrow, he will personally carry it with the post and deliver it to the
New Ila
himself. Both of us know, should such a letter pass through the mail in Unger’s Store, I’ll likely be among those who’ve gone away in the dark of midnight, leaving behind all their belongings as if they full well expected to wake and live another day in Wildwood.

I’ve lost count now of how many have vanished since the young woman from Red Leaf Hollow flung herself from the cliffs. Unlike that girl, whose body was fished from the river, many of the others have disappeared and not a trace of them found.

I fold the letter on the desk and lay my head down upon it, not knowing what more to do. I want the answers to come clear, but they refuse, and time is running out. Mr. Delevan has been away this past week to one of his gatherin’s of men who will raise troops from Texas to move east and join in the fighting of what’s fast become a larger war. James Engle is no fool, for certain. From the
New Ila
, he’s seen it growing clearly enough, swellin’ like a fog that’ll slip over us all before it’s finished.

These weeks that’ve gone past since Essie Jane brought news of that young woman drowned in the river, Mr. Delevan’s meetings have kept him mostly away from Wildwood. It’s been a mercy for my own situation that he’s had no time to devote his attentions toward me, but he’ll be returning soon enough, and what then? Even now his men patrol the
town, and there’s no explainin’ those who’ve disappeared into the night. There is only fear. And talk of monsters and men bewitched and renegades raiding in the night, taking only a few at a time.

I feel my mind asking the questions and drifting over answers I cannot bear. In a dream, I’m going the way of that poor girl from Red Leaf. Over the bluffs and down into the river, dead. And Maggie May along with me, or worse yet—left behind in his hands.

My dreaming mind sees that they’ve dressed little Maggie up for tea, paintin’ red upon her lips and hanging baubles ’round her neck. She steals away down the kitchen women’s path along the spring creek and comes looking for her sister, but I’m nowhere she can find me. I’m lyin’ on the river bottom, and I see her there above, but I can’t speak. He comes to find her then, slips his hand upon her shoulder, whispers to her, “Come away, Maggie. Your sister’s gone and left you behind. You have only me now.”

From the river bottom I’m screaming, but she can’t hear me.

I wake to the feel of her shaking me, her fingers clutched tight over my arm. “Sister. Sister, wake up,” she whispers.

I find her standing over me in her nightdress and cap. Outside the window, the day is risin’ over the hills. I’m frightened of knowing what it will bring. Each morning, more disturbing news circles the town. More folks gone from their places.

Maggie catches my cheek with her palm. I’m soaked to the bone beneath my shift. My sweet sister doesn’t trouble with asking why. She’s found me this way many nights before, tossing and sweat-covered, drowning in a pool of my own fear. “You were callin’ out my name,” she whispers, and she curls herself over my shoulders, hugging away the cool kiss of the night air against my dampened skin.

“I must’ve fallen off and been gone in a dream. I can’t
remember a thing of it.” I tell another lie. There’s no good in her knowing one more morsel that a girl of just nine years shouldn’t. “I’m sorry for wakin’ you.”

“I don’t mind it,” she says. “I’ll put the coffee on.” She’s giving me no trouble these days. No fuss about keeping shoes and stockin’s on her feet, no wandering off in the wood. She’s heard the talk around town. She knows the fear that’s about. All the whispering.

“It’s time for wakin’ up, anyway.” She nods toward the sound of the good reverend’s door opening onto the porch. The man often goes outside and sits in his rocking chair, drifting into sleep at odd hours of the day, the bottle tucked in his breast pocket. But at night I hear him beyond the wall, shifting and murmuring in his bed, and on occasion crying out.

I wonder sometimes if his dreams are as troubled as mine. How could they not be? Each day he delivers a lesson in religion to the schoolchildren, practically telling them that Mr. Delevan is seated at the right hand of the Father. It’s their duty to obey Mr. Delevan’s authority, to respect his decision that the men of this town come forth in support of mustering for the Confederacy now, rather than waiting for a draft order to begin. On Sundays, the good reverend seeks to instruct the adults of the same thing. Mr. Delevan’s men force them to gather here on the Sabbath now. Outside, the slaves listen in, silent on the benches that’ve been placed ’neath the windows for them. There’s no hint of their thoughts or even what understanding of these events they’ve been given. Only what the Delevans have told them, I suppose.

Big Neb sits at each service, his bulk making the bench seem a toy as he folds his hands and bows his head in prayer. He’s the one the captain has told to look after me, I know it. But he’d be risking his life if he did anything to help me here. I cannot ask that of him.

Maggie notices the captain’s letter, still waiting there on the desk. From outside the window, the first of the light catches the paper. I hear the sounds of the town coming to life. The day is beginnin’. My time for answering the captain is nearly gone.

“Have you written a letter for me to take to Mr. Hardwick?” Maggie is hoping for a reason to slip away from school and see her friend before he leaves Wildwood with his freight wagons today. Perhaps she knows more is at stake than just the writing of a letter, but I can’t see explaining to her my reasons for rejecting his proposal. She needn’t know more about my stains than she’s seen already. Someday, perhaps, there can be a place in the world for her without the shame in it. There are no scars on Maggie May that anyone else can see. I pray that her beauty and her sweetness will one day bring a man to love her.

I’ll not do anything to steal that hope from her.

“I may write later,” I say. “For now we should be up and about. I’ve the lessons to study for the school day. Go out and fetch the butter and milk from the springhouse, and be mindful of snakes. Keep an eye as you go. Don’t wander off the path. Only to the springhouse and back, Maggie May.” Most mornings I walk there myself, but today I need a moment for reading the letter again, then hidin’ it away in my pocket, where I can keep it close to me. “I’ll watch out the window after you.”

“Yes’m.” She scampers ’round to make herself ready, pleased that I’ve let her have the task. For a moment she’s forgotten about the trouble in Wildwood, and I am glad of it.

I watch her go, then stand at the window with the letter in hand. I read it again, my heart torn down the middle, and then I leave it unanswered.

We move through the rhythms of the morning, pretending
today is another common day. When I ring Big Neb’s bell to call the children in for school, one is missing. My heart falls and tears gather inside me, but I hold them away from the children. It’s little Helma who is gone this morning. The tiny one with a crippled leg below the knee. Just a week ago, Big Neb added a brace to her shoe. Just yesterday, she was laughing as she played stickball with the children outside the school. She was finally able to run with the rest of them.

The others see that her space is empty. I’m hoping perhaps she’s only sickly, home safe in her bed, but my heart fears something worse. Just days ago, her father presided at a meeting of the German folk, in secret in the wood. Maggie heard of it from the other children, but not of the subject of it. The children are careful around us. They don’t know what to make of me, and they’re takin’ no chances. Each day my young students become more withdrawn and suspicious. The parents wouldn’t be sending them to school at all if old Mrs. Delevan didn’t insist that they must.

“Has anyone news of Helma Kalb this morning?” I ask, and little eyes flutter up, then down again.

“Anyone?” I’m trying not to seem as fearful as I feel. Little Helma won’t survive the trip ’cross the wilds, if that’s where her parents have gone in the night. She’s a frail thing, and her mother not much better off, the family having suffered a terrible fever last year.

Please let them only be at home for the day,
I hear myself askin’. I wonder if God has turned His back on this place. I’ve heard others say the same.

“Shall I take her lessons out to her when school is finished, do you think?” I ask.

I can see it in the children’s eyes, the terrible answer.

“The river people took ’em.” Little Brady Riley blurts from the other side of the room where the Irish children sit.
“They’re Gonefolk now.” Some of the older children have told tales to the wee ones, making them think that the river people have come from the water and lured away those who’ve left Wildwood. There’s such terror in the children now. Some believe I am one of the river people—their queen, and all of this is my doing somehow.
Gonefolk
is what they’re callin’ the ones who’ve vanished.

But some of the German children say it’s the Irish who’ve done it, hoping to take over the emptied claims. All those gone missing so far are German folk, save for the girl from Red Leaf Hollow who threw herself into the river weeks ago when it all began.