Wonderland Creek Part 32

"No matter how much you love someone, Allie, don't expect marriage to be easy. Hank and I loved each other, but it was still very hard. After all the changes I made for him, I wanted him to change, too. I kept pressuring him to leave Acorn and get an education. Hank was smart, no question about it. But the more I nagged him, the more convinced he was that I looked down on him for never finishing school. Maybe I did feel that way a little. After everything I had given up for him, it made me angry when he decided to stay here and work at the mine instead of going to college. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't do this one thing for me. Hank said, 'I am what I am. I was born a miner and I'll probably die a miner.' "

I winced at the prophetic words.

"We loved each other, Allie. But even true love doesn't always make things easy. When we got married, I never considered how little we had in common. The way we were raised, family expectations, goals and dreams. Those are all part of who we are."

"I know Ike and I don't have much in common. But we certainly are attracted to each other."

"How would your parents react if you told them you'd fallen in love with this man and have decided to marry him? And that you're going to stay here and live in a log cabin?"

"They'll think I've lost my mind. My mother will sign me up for a water cure. My father will give me a list a mile long of all the reasons not to do it."

"My family begged me not to marry Hank. They offered me everything from a new roadster to a trip to France if I came to my senses and returned home at once. And when I didn't listen to them, we became estranged."

"I would miss home. These woods and hills are beautiful, but they aren't home."

"The best advice I can offer is this: Don't go into any relationship thinking you can change the other person. Accept him the way he is right now, for the rest of his life. And he needs to accept you, too. If you can't live without hot running water, then he can't expect you to change your mind."

"Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate your honesty."

But I was still hopelessly confused when I got on my horse again and rode home.

Maggie's words rolled around in my mind like marbles that evening as I fixed dinner for Lillie and me-potatoes fried with onions and a little bacon, a recipe Lillie had taught me. I was so distracted that the fire in the stove died out and I didn't even notice.

"What's the matter with you tonight?" Lillie asked when she came out to the kitchen to see what was taking so long. She stood with her arms folded, a sure sign that she was annoyed.

"Lillie, how do you know if you're really in love?"

"You talking about that Ike fella?" Lillie didn't miss much. I might as well confide in her the way I had with Maggie.

"Ike said he was falling in love with me, and I didn't know what to say. I've never been in love before, even though I've read about it in books. I think it might be love because I feel all the same symptoms as in the books, so I guess it's the real thing, but-"

"It ain't love."

Her blunt certainty irritated me. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I gave that boy some of my special love potion, that's why."

I dropped the wooden spoon into the pan of potatoes. "What? Love potion! I don't believe it. There's no such thing as love potion."

"Believe whatever you want, honey. But don't make the mistake of getting serious with him or you'll get your heart broken when that potion wears off."

"That's ridiculous!"

She gave me one of her knowing shrugs. "Don't say I didn't warn you. Now, you better put some wood on that fire or we won't be eating dinner until midnight." She started to walk away.

"Wait! Prove it to me, Lillie. Prove that you really know how to cook up some sort of magic potion."

She turned in the doorway to face me. "You see how Belle acts around Mack? I slipped her a little bit of that potion, too, so she would behave for him and do whatever he says. Mack's no good with horses. He got used to driving cars, up north."

I stared at her. Ike and Belle had been acting suspiciously alike, nuzzling necks, following Mack and me around like puppy dogs. But a love potion? My life had drifted into yet another genre of story-a fairy tale.

"Wait. Why would you give this so-called love potion to Ike in the first place-not that I believe it's true."

"That's my little secret, honey."

"Well, since it involves me, I think I have a right to know! And what will happen if you stop giving it to him? Or if it wears off?"

"Oh, it'll wear off one of these days. I'm just warning you ahead of time so you don't get your heart broke."

This was unbelievable. She had to be joking. Then I had another disturbing thought. "Did you give me any of this so-called potion?"

"Now, why would I do that?"

"I don't know! You won't even tell me why you gave it to Ike!" I was yelling. I wanted to shake her.

Lillie gave me her gap-toothed smile and said, "I never did see a person get as worked up as you do, honey. You worry too much about all sorts of silly things. See how upset it's making you? You need to sit back and enjoy your life."

"How can I possibly enjoy my life when you keep interfering with it?"

She turned away from me again, shaking her head. "You let me know when that food is cooked, honey," she said before hobbling away.

The stove may not have been red-hot, but I was.

After we finished eating, I went upstairs to Lillie's workroom. I sat down on the floor and leafed through her notebooks by lamplight, page after page of blurred, wispy writing. I found recipes for curing everything from warts to whooping cough but not a single entry was labeled Love Potion. By the time I finished struggling through the third notebook, I couldn't read anymore. Love potion? Lillie had to be making that up.

Didn't she?

Ike finally returned from his weekend travels on Wednesday morning. He burst into the library and picked me up by my waist and swung me around in circles. I'd seen couples do that in movies, but never in real life. I couldn't tell if I was dizzy from the spin or because I was happy to see him. "Where have you been?" I asked when he set me down again. "I was getting worried about you."

"I would have been here sooner, but my truck broke down on the way home. Hey, I got wonderful news!"

"Tell me."

"Someone heard me fiddling on Sat.u.r.day night and asked me to play with his band on a road trip. They need a new fiddle player. It's a very popular group, and they travel a lot and play in more places than our little band does. They make good money, too."

"Oh, Ike! I'm so happy for you!" I couldn't help hugging him. "What a wonderful opportunity."

"It'll be sort of a trial run for me, to see how it works out. And one of the places we'll be playing is close to Nashville. Who knows? Maybe I'll get there yet."

"You can do it, Ike. I know you can." I remained in his arms, and he rested his cheek on top of my head. I closed my eyes, imagining us moving to Nashville. We would live in a real house, not a log cabin, and Ike would play his fiddle for the Grand Ole Opry every week. He would be famous! We would both have to make a lot of changes, like Maggie said, but Tennessee would be middle ground for us, a compromise between Kentucky and Illinois. It could work.

"The tour starts this weekend and that means I'll be leaving again in a day or so. I'll be gone for at least two weeks, and boy, am I going to miss you, Alice."

"I'll miss you, too."

Would Lillie's love potion wear off while Ike was gone? a.s.suming that her ridiculous story was even true, of course. I was confused about being in love in the first place-why did Lillie have to confuse me even more by talking about a love potion?

Ike released me from his arms and sighed. "I guess we won't be able to look for the treasure until I get back. But I'll save every penny I make, and I'll come back. Promise you'll still be here?"

"I'll be here." I couldn't go anywhere until Mack finished his investigation at the mine and could be resurrected from the dead. Which reminded me, I was supposed to ask Ike about the mine.

"May I ask you a question, Ike? It has nothing to do with your good news; it has to do with Maggie Coots."

"What about her?"

"We've become friends, and we were talking the other day about Hank. I don't think she'll ever get over his death. You said you didn't think it was an accident. Why is that?"

"One of the reasons is because the company usually runs union organizers like Hank out of town. Instead, they put him in charge."

"What's it like inside the mine? Is it just one long tunnel going straight in? Or do you have to go down in an elevator or something?"

"The Acorn Mine is pretty new, so it's just a tunnel into the mountain. You can walk straight in. There are a couple of side tunnels off the main one."

"Did you ever worry about cave-ins or explosions, like the one that killed Hank?"

"You can't think about it. You just have to go in and do your job." Ike's habitual grin had changed to a frown. He looked down at his feet, not at me. I had never seen such a serious expression on his face before. He held my hand in his, squeezing it gently as he talked.

"Were you in the mine the day that Hank died?"

"Yeah, but the cave-in that killed him wasn't close to where we were working. They'd just found a new vein of coal in a side shaft, and Hank was supposed to set the charges. They went off too soon, before he was out."

"So you heard the explosion?"

Ike nodded. He still wouldn't look up. "Felt it, too. It was a horrible day for all of us. Makes you realize that it could happen to you, and no one wants to be reminded of that. It was hard to go back the next day. Everybody was jumpy. And you make mistakes when you're jumpy."

The conversation was upsetting him. I could tell he didn't like to talk about it. I no longer cared about Mack and his spying mission. I didn't want to make Ike remember any more.

"I hope you never have to return to the mines again." I gave him a hug, then looked up at him. "Will you come and see me when you get back from your tour?"

His smile returned. "Count on it."

I woke up on Thursday morning to rain pattering on the roof above my head. The rain would be good for my garden but not so good for riding a horse up the creek through the woods. I asked the other librarians about venturing out in the storm, and Cora seemed offended by my suggestion that we should stay home. "Of course we ride, rain or shine. It's our job."

"We've been out in the snow, too," Faye said. "Last winter we rode in a blizzard."

"A little rain never hurt anyone," Alma added.

I wasn't so sure. Didn't people in novels catch pneumonia and die from a chill? I was unable to convince the others, so I plopped a straw hat on my head, saddled Belle, and headed upstream in a miserable drizzle. I planned to stop and see Mack on the way home that afternoon and tell him what I'd learned from Ike about the mineshaft. I hoped the information would be helpful and that Mack wouldn't need to return to the mine. Ever since he'd told me that he would be killed if he were caught, I'd been afraid for him. There had to be a better way for Mack to solve Hank's death than by putting himself in danger.

I rode past his cabin and was nearly to the ford that led to June Ann's cabin when I heard a grumble of thunder. The clouds had lowered like a thick gray sweater that seemed to be tangled in the treetops. The drizzle changed to raindrops the size of dimes. Any minute the gray sweater would tear and the rain would start to pour.

It thundered again, making Belle jittery. I nudged her to go faster, hoping we could get to June Ann's before the storm hit. I rode with my chin down to keep the rain off my face, but when I glanced up to see if we'd reached the ford, I saw a shadowy figure standing in our path. My heart leaped in fear. We were too far from Mack's cabin for it to be him. In all of my travels, I had never encountered anyone else out on the trail before. I was about to pull back on the reins when a flash of lightning lit up the woods and I recognized June Ann. I reined Belle to a halt beside her.

"June Ann! What are you doing way out here? There's a storm coming. I was on my way to your house to wait until it blows over."

"Here! Take this, Allie. Bring this to Miss Lillie for me." She was holding a plump bundle in her arms, wrapped in a feed sack and tied with twine. She thrust it up at me and I bent over in the saddle to take it.

"To Miss Lillie? What is it?" But the moment I had the bundle in my hands, I knew by its soft, warm weight that it was the baby. "June Ann, wait! I can't take her!"

She was already gone, disappearing into the woods. She wasn't following any path, and I quickly lost sight of her in the underbrush. How could she run like that? The baby moved in my arms and whimpered. Dread welled up inside me. I didn't know what to do.

"June Ann! Come back!" My voice echoed through the woods before being drowned out by a clap of thunder. Belle stomped her feet and flattened her ears as the rumble bounced off the surrounding hills like a dozen timpani drums. Before I could decide what to do, Belle decided for me, turning in a circle and heading downstream toward home. The rain was soaking me now, and I knew I needed help. Even if I went to June Ann's house, how could I dismount with a baby in my arms?

Thunder and lightning flashed and boomed as the storm intensified. Belle moved faster. She wanted to gallop, but I reined her in, knowing I couldn't stay in the saddle if she did. It was hard to control the reins and hang on tightly to the baby at the same time. I decided to head for Mack's cabin. It was only a mile or so down the mountain and much closer than going all the way back to Miss Lillie's house. I prayed he would be there so he could help me dismount. My hat was limp and dripping, the rain seeping through it. I was getting drenched. I unb.u.t.toned my jacket and tucked the baby inside it. She was crying loudly now, and I didn't blame her.

Belle had the same idea that I did, and climbed the rise to Mack's cabin, coming to a halt near his porch. He came to the doorway before I had a chance to call out to him. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Can you help me down? I need you to take this baby."

"Baby? Did you say baby?"

"Yes. Please come here and get her." He walked out onto the porch, and I handed Feather down to him. He carried her inside while I dismounted. The storm was directly overhead now, and when thunder struck at the same moment that the lightning flashed, it startled both Belle and me. "Whoa. Steady, Belle," I soothed. I led her onto the porch where she would stay fairly dry, but she wasn't content with that. She pushed past me, pulling the slippery reins from my hands, and followed Mack into the house before I could stop her.

"Belle, wait! You can't go inside. Come back!"

"It's okay, Alice," Mack said. "I don't blame her for wanting to get in out of the rain, do you?"

The four of us-Mack, the baby, the horse, and I-all crowded into the tiny one-room cabin. Water plopped onto the floor from several leaks in the roof, and the wind blew more rain inside through the missing windowpanes.

"The driest spot is over here in this corner," Mack said. He slid to the floor and sat cross-legged, still holding the crying baby. I sat down beside him, expecting him to toss Feather back into my arms the first chance he got, but he surprised me. He had loosened the twine to unwrap her, and now he held her close to his heart, rocking and soothing her as though he knew exactly what to do. "Where in the world did this baby come from?" he asked above the sound of her cries.

"She's Wayne and June Ann Larkin's little girl. June Ann has been so depressed lately, and the baby is very colicky, crying all the time for no reason. June Ann waylaid me when I came up the trail today and she practically threw the baby into my arms, begging me to take her to Miss Lillie. I had no idea that she was handing me the baby, wrapped up like that."

"Where's her husband?"

"He finished planting all the crops weeks ago and went out looking for work. Mack, I didn't even have time to get down off the horse. June Ann just pushed the baby into my arms and ran off into the woods. I knew I could never dismount with a baby in my arms, so I came here."

"You don't think June Ann will hurt herself, do you?"

"I don't know what to think. Lillie's potion didn't seem to cure her baby blues. June Ann told me that she sometimes has terrible thoughts about drowning the baby in the creek whenever she won't stop crying. June Ann is up all night and she's exhausted. She told me to give her to Miss Lillie, but when the thunderstorm came up, Belle decided to come here."

"What's her name?"

"June Ann calls her Feather."

I realized that she had stopped crying. Mack had calmed her, somehow. He was surprisingly tender, gazing down at her, his dark eyes soft. Then he started singing. "Hush little baby don't you cry . . ." He had a fine baritone voice.

I couldn't help noticing the contrast between Mack's strong, muscular arms and the baby's tender, pink flesh; between his thick dark hair and Feather's wispy red hair. She seemed out of place in his st.u.r.dy arms, yet completely comfortable with him, and he with her. Mack seemed to have forgotten that I was there as he continued humming the melody after running out of words. The storm raged outside the wrecked cabin, but inside, the tiny infant slept peacefully in his arms. He unwrapped more layers, and we saw that June Ann had packed a few articles of clothing and extra diaper cloths inside the bundle, as if she wasn't planning to return for Feather anytime soon. But how could we feed a baby?

When Mack finally looked up at me, his faint smile turned to a frown. "You're soaked, Alice. Look at you, you're shivering. Here, you hold her while I make a fire."

He handed the baby to me, and as he laid her in my arms, I was aware that I held her more awkwardly than he had. "Wait. What if someone sees the smoke?"

"I'll climb out through the window if anyone comes, and you can pretend that you made the fire. But I don't think anyone will be out chasing smoke signals in this weather, do you?"

He ducked out through the rear door and returned a minute later with an armload of wood. Within minutes he had a fire blazing. I moved closer to the hearth, careful not to wake the baby.

Belle inched closer, too, to be near Mack. "You'd better hold the baby until my clothes dry," I told him, "or I'm going to get her all wet." I handed the sleeping baby back to him.