Wonderland Creek Part 11

"Please don't make me get on a horse again. Please!" My tears did no good.

"You're the one who helped Mack get up there, so why do you want to leave him up there all alone to starve to death?"

"But I helped him pack some food-"

"Besides, while you're out on your route, you can do some poking around for us."

"Poking around?"

"Um hmm. Try to figure out who shot Mack and why."

"I thought you knew who shot him."

"Well, it turns out there are several folks who mighta done it, and we got to figure out which one it was for sure."

"How could there be more than one suspect? What did Mack do to make people want to murder him?" Although I could have cheerfully murdered him myself.

"It happens, honey. People get riled up, start feuding . . ."

"But what if the killer finds out that I'm helping Mack and decides to shoot me, too?"

"That's why it's best if you pretend to be one of the library gals, taking books to people. Folks around here get real suspicious of flatlanders riding around in the hills and hollows, especially when she comes outta nowhere like you done. Those boots fit you all right, honey?"

Would this ever end?

I leaned my head against the kitchen doorframe, wishing I had never gotten out of bed this morning. Or out of Uncle Cecil's car nine days ago. "Isn't there any other way?"

"Not that I can think of. Listen, I know you're feeling mighty peeved with me, but can't you find it in your heart to help out these poor gals and their families? Fact is, between the four of them, they're supporting nearly every family in Acorn. Everybody is kin to everybody else up in these hills, and we're falling on some real hard times around here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to bring out the truth about Mack and these gals had to lose their livelihood, wouldn't it?"

I closed my eyes, at a loss as to how to answer.

"Here's your lunch, honey." She handed me a small bundle wrapped in a dish towel and tied with string.

"When did you make this?"

"Last night. While you was out. Go on now. Cora probably has Belle all saddled up and waiting for you."

"Are you going to threaten me with the rifle again if I don't go?"

She smiled. "Don't you worry none about that. Just have yourself a real nice ride."

I was about to become a packhorse librarian whether I wanted to or not.

The horse didn't seem any happier about going for a ride this morning than she had last night. Belle snorted and stomped her feet like a petulant child as Cora led her up to the back door where her own horse was waiting. I knew exactly how Belle felt.

"I don't think Mack has ridden her in a while," Cora said. "Seems like she's not used to being bossed around."

"Maybe I shouldn't ride her, then. I don't know anything about horses. I've never even been on one before." Except for last night, of course, but I couldn't tell Cora about that ride.

"Really? No kidding?" Cora stared at me as if I'd told her I usually rode dragons instead of horses. "Well, I'll give you a quick lesson. First, you always mount on the horse's left side."

"You do? Why?" I was stalling for time.

"Just put your left foot in that left stirrup there, and swing your right leg up and over." But before I could even get close to Belle, she backed away from me, shaking her head as if trying to shake off her bridle.

"I don't think the horse likes me very much," I said. And the feeling was mutual.

"She doesn't know you, that's all. You gotta win her trust. Horses are basically afraid of people. See how her eyes are on the sides of her head and yours and mine are in front? That's so she can look all around and see her enemies coming. She's the kind of animal that gets hunted by other animals. And we're the kind of animal that does the hunting. You gotta convince her that you ain't a threat to her."

"Oh, believe me, I'm not a threat. I'm terrified of her!"

"But you can't let her know that. Show her who's in control."

"How do I do that?"

Cora gave me a quick riding lesson, explaining how to use my legs and which way to tug the reins when I wanted the horse to turn or stop. She may as well have been speaking another language. I was so frightened that her words of advice fell all around me without sinking in, as forgotten as raindrops in the creek.

"Okay, climb on," she said when she was finished. I had to drag the bench over from beside the back door, and even then Cora had to give me a boost before I made it up into the saddle. "You sure are a little bit of a thing, ain't you?" she said. I knew it was impossible to ever do this on my own the way Lillie expected me to.

Cora mounted her own horse and motioned toward the creek, leading the way. "Okay, turn her this way . . . no, not that way, this way . . ."

"I'm trying to go that way, but she won't do it!" I flapped the reins and managed to turn us around in a complete circle before Belle gave up trying to obey me and headed back toward her shed.

"Make her stop, Alice. Pull back on the reins a little."

"Whoa!" I begged. "Whoa!" My efforts did no good. Belle refused to cooperate and nothing would change her mind. Cora finally trotted her horse down to the shed behind us and grabbed Belle's bridle. It took some tugging, but she managed to get us turned around and headed in the right direction. We rode side by side up the path beside the stream.

"Now, the creek is your main road," Cora said. She sounded weary and the day had just begun. "All you gotta do is ride up Wonderland Creek on the way out in the morning and follow it back home at night. There are a few turnoffs along the way, so you'll have to learn to watch for the landmarks. There ain't any signposts up this way. But your route always comes back to Wonderland Creek. You can't get lost."

Want to bet?

When the path we were following narrowed and started to climb up the hill, Cora pulled in front and led the way. Thirty minutes later we reached the cabin where Mack was hiding. The trip had seemed to take much longer last night. Once I was on my own, I would have to stop here and deliver things to him. I'd like to deliver him a punch in the nose. The cabin looked even more weather-beaten in daylight, as if the forest was doing its best to squash the ramshackle structure and reclaim that patch of land for itself. Knee-high weeds sprouted through cracks in the porch floor. A sapling peeked out of the front window through the broken pane of gla.s.s. A thick layer of fuzzy moss claimed the cabin's roof.

"See that cabin?" Cora pointed to it and my heart began to thump.

"Um . . . yes?" Had I given Mack away by staring at it? Had Belle left hoofprints in the mud last night? My traitorous horse suddenly turned toward the incline as if ready to climb up to the cabin again and pay Mack a visit. I tugged desperately on the reins. "Whoa, horsey! Whoa!"

"When you get here," Cora said, "start watching for the trail to the Larkin place. The turnoff will be on your left, across the creek. It's just a little ways up."

Cora turned her horse toward the creek again and got it moving as effortlessly as Uncle Cecil steered his huge car. I jiggled Belle's reins, but she didn't budge. "Come on, horsey . . . Giddyup . . . please . . . ?" Belle finally started to move, but she turned the opposite way and headed downhill toward home. "Whoa! Whoa!" I begged. She ignored me. "Cora! Help!"

She turned her own horse around and caught up to us, leaning over to grab Belle's bridle again. "Hey! Behave yourself now!" I didn't know if she meant Belle or me. Cora offered me another quick riding lesson, explaining how much slack I should leave in the reins and how I shouldn't let them get too tight or too loose, and how to use my legs to help steer. "You'll get used to each other before long," she said. I doubted it. I already hated and feared this horse every bit as much as I despised and feared her owners.

When we'd traveled a short distance past Mack's cabin, Cora stopped to show me where there was a ford in the creek. "This is where we cross over to the opposite bank and head up that trail to the Larkin place."

"What trail? There's a trail over there?"

"You'll see it in a minute. Now, it'll be even harder to see it in wintertime when the snow hides it. I can tie a rag around one of the tree trunks if you want, so you can find it better."

I started to explain that I would be leaving next week, long before summer began, let alone winter, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. No one in this town listened to a word I said anyway, including my horse. I squeezed Belle's sides with my legs and urged her across the rock-strewn creek behind Cora. The water looked clear and cold. On the other side, we followed a narrow dirt trail that led back into the woods. The trees linked arms above us, crowding close, blocking out the sky.

Five minutes later we reached a log cabin in a clearing. A crude picket fence surrounded the house, and chickens flapped and squawked and chased each other inside the enclosure. Everything was a dull brown color-the cabin, the fence, the dirt yard. Even the chickens were brown and probably laid brown eggs. But alongside the house, a fruit tree of some kind was about to bloom, its vulnerable pink buds offering a blink of color in the otherwise bland landscape. Something about the cabin, constructed from rough squared-off logs, looked odd. It took me a moment to realize that it didn't have any windows. A door in front and another one on the side both stood wide open. At the edge of the property I saw a man with a mule and an old-fashioned plow, tilling a patch of brown soil.

Before we reached the picket fence, a dog tore around from behind the house and raced straight toward us, barking and snarling. The sound echoed off the surrounding hills as if there was an entire pack of dogs. Belle halted, dancing in place the way she had last night when she'd smelled the wildcat. A young girl-bone thin and very pregnant-came out onto the porch and yelled for him to shut up. Her hair was the flaming red color of maple leaves in the fall.

"Hey, June Ann. How you doing?" Cora called above the din.

"Pretty good . . . Rex! Shut up!"

Cora leaned over in her saddle, unlatched the gate, and rode inside the yard. I tried to follow her, but Belle wouldn't budge, spooked by the barking dog. June Ann waddled down off the porch and caught the dog by the scruff of its neck. "Hush now, Rex!" The dog finally obeyed, and June Ann beckoned to me, "It's okay. He won't hurt you none. Come on in."

Cora turned around in her saddle, and I thought I saw her roll her eyes at the sight of me and my disobedient horse, frozen in place.

"Give her a kick, Alice. Kick her hard!" I kicked as hard as I dared, aware that Belle might seek revenge and try to kick me in return the next time I unbuckled her saddle. But she finally began to move again. We clomped into the yard behind Cora, who introduced me to June Ann Larkin.

"So nice to meet you, Alice. Can I get you ladies some coffee or something?"

I exhaled. "Yes, please. I'm dying of thirst. And I need to get off this horse and rest my backside for a while . . . if that's okay."

Cora frowned at me and I knew I'd said something wrong. "Water will be just fine," she told June Ann. "For both of us. We can't stay long."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Don't fuss on our account." Cora dismounted as June Ann went into the house, then she helped me down off my horse. "They always offer you things," she whispered, "but they're just being polite. They'll give you their last crust of bread or drop of coffee if you let them."

June Ann was back in a minute with two mismatched gla.s.ses of water. She had her library book tucked under her arm. "I finished reading it in one day," she said. "So I read it all over again."

"I figured you would like it," Cora said. "I brought you another one by the same writer." Cora set her water on gla.s.s on the porch railing and began digging through her library bags.

"When is your baby due, June Ann?" I asked.

"Any day."

It looked more like any minute to me. June Ann was no taller than I was and stick thin. She couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old-much too young to be married and pregnant. But I remembered Faye saying that she had been married at age sixteen. I already knew there was no doctor or hospital in town to deliver June Ann's baby. Women back in Illinois often had their babies at home, but they could at least telephone a doctor and he would drive over to the house and deliver them. The only way a doctor could get up to June Ann's house was by horseback. I knew better than to ask nosy questions, but I couldn't help myself.

"What will you do when your time comes? Are you all alone out here?"

"My husband, Wayne, will ride down and fetch one of the midwives. I sure wish Miss Lillie could come up and birth my baby, but I guess she's getting on in years. Miss Lillie birthed me and all my brothers and sisters. She birthed my mama, too. In fact, she birthed pretty near everybody in the county."

"Yep, me too," Cora said. I couldn't picture it. If you put two Lillies together, you still wouldn't have a woman as tall and st.u.r.dy as Cora. Nor could I imagine Cora as a newborn.

"I guess Lillie trained the two midwives, Sadie and Ida," June Ann said with a sigh, "so I suppose they'll be just as good."

June Ann seemed sad to me, not at all like other expectant mothers I'd seen. My two sisters had been as round and jolly as St. Nicholas when they were ready to deliver their first babies. June Ann looked tired and weary, as if she'd already been staying up nights with a cranky newborn. She was barely a woman, yet she seemed as old and frail as the men who had been playing cards in the post office. I sipped my water, watching Wayne Larkin and his mule wrestling dark clods of earth. There was a sadness here in this little clearing, the same melancholy I had felt at the deserted mining camp.

Then Cora handed June Ann a book from her saddlebag and the girl smiled faintly for the first time. "I really enjoyed the last one," she said. "Hope this new one is just as good."

"They're both written by the same person, Grace Livingston Hill. You didn't read this one already, did you?"

"Nope. And even if I did, I wouldn't mind reading it again." She caressed the worn cover and smiled faintly again. I knew the antic.i.p.ation June Ann felt as she was about to open a book and lose herself in the story, living a more interesting, colorful life along with the characters. That's when I realized that I hadn't read a single novel since the night I had arrived in Acorn and had tried to read the book of ghost stories before bed.

"I also brought you these." Cora handed June Ann a small pile of magazines and booklets. "They got some good pieces in there about taking care of babies. If you like them, we'll bring some more."

"Thanks. Maybe next time you come my baby will be here." She caressed the front of her bulging dress the same way she had caressed the book. But this time she didn't smile.

"It won't be me coming next time, June Ann. Alice is gonna be taking over my route from now on. I'm showing her around today."

"My friends call me Allie," I said.

"Okay . . . Allie," she said shyly. "I guess I'll see you next week."

But she wouldn't see me again, of course. My aunt and uncle were coming back for me next week. I felt like a sneaky snake-oil salesman, making promises and telling fibs.

Long before my backside stopped aching, Cora told me it was time to leave. "Good luck with your little one," I called as I waved good-bye. I caught myself smiling and wishing I could see June Ann again. I recognized a kindred spirit in her love of books. It would be nice to come every week and bring a little happiness into what must be a hard and lonely life. But I was going home to Illinois, not riding a book route.

Cora and I headed down the trail through the woods the way we had come, back to Wonderland Creek. Once again, Belle tried to turn the opposite way and go downhill toward home. "Hey! Wrong way!" Cora shouted.

"I can't help it. She went this way all by herself." Belle finally stopped when I tugged hard on the reins. But then she wouldn't move at all. I would never be able to wrestle this ornery horse up Wonderland Creek all by myself. When we returned to the library today, Cora and I would have to explain to Lillie that it simply couldn't be done. Lillie would have to trust somebody else to bring supplies to Mack.

Cora splashed down to where I'd halted and grabbed Belle's bridle, turning her around. "This way, Belle. You behave yourself. We got a long way to go to the Sawyer place."

A long way? I tried not to groan. My hip joints ached and my rear end already felt like I'd been paddled with a two-by-four.

We followed the creek upstream for nearly half an hour to the next house on Cora's route. Once again it was tucked into a clearing among the hills, a few minutes' ride from the creek. She showed me the landmark: a huge pine tree growing out from between two large rocks-as if the tree had split the rock in two.

The moment we rode into the clearing, a swarm of children poured out of the cabin, surging toward us like bees out of a hive. They didn't stand still long enough for me to count them, but they all had the same straw-colored hair. I figured if someone lined them up, they'd probably look like stair steps. Their mother must have delivered one baby in the morning, then gotten pregnant again right after supper. But what a happy sight they made as they ran barefoot to meet us, whooping and hollering. "Here she comes! Here comes Miss Cora!" I hadn't seen this much excitement since the circus came to Blue Island.

"Did you bring us more stories to read?"

"Do you got more books for me?"

The boys wore ragged overalls and the little girls were in print dresses. I recognized the calico pattern-it was the same one as the feed sacks I'd filled with dirt and buried in Mack's coffin. The children followed our horses up to the house as if Cora were the Pied Piper.

"Can I please get down and rest again?" I begged.

"Sure. The young ones like it when I stop awhile."

"You gonna read to us today, Miss Cora?" one of the boys asked when he saw her dismounting.

"How about if Miss Alice reads to you? She's gonna be bringing books to you from now on, so I'm showing her how to get up here to your place."

Cora had to help me get down, and I heard the children chuckling and snickering at the ungainly way I slid to the ground, then tripped over my own feet and landed on my aching backside.

But the giggles and good-natured shoving settled into stillness as Cora opened her bag and unpacked the books. The children stared in such wide-eyed fascination that we might have been bringing toys and candy like Santa Claus. Cora handed me one of the books. "Here, why don't you read this one to them?"

The children clung to me like burs on a dog as I made my way to the porch steps and sat down. I could hear each child breathing as the group gathered in a tight circle around me, waiting for me to begin. Their mother came to the doorway in her ap.r.o.n to listen, too. The children took turns turning the pages for me, and they couldn't seem to resist running their hands across the pictures as if they could feel the colors and shapes. That explained why the pages of all of the children's books in Acorn's library had looked so grubby. But the loving caresses weren't meant to deface the books.

"You talk funny, Miss Alice," one of them said after I'd read a few pages.