Raincrow

Copyright © 2009 by JB Hamilton Queen and Louie Dillon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-8178-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8179-5 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/24/2009

Contents

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

For Mom, who has always stood as an inspiration to us in all we have done, especially this novel.

With Love, we thank you.

Also by JB Hamilton Queen and Louie Dillon

Sweet Gums

Imminent Reprisal

Masters of the Breed

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Many thanks to manuscript readers; Madonna Dries Christensen, Nadja Bernitt, Peg Russell, Joanne Meyer, McClaren Davies, Donna Singer, Chris Angerman, Tami Kramer, Robin Abner, Donna Lincks, and the late Barbara Anton. We thank our husbands, Hugh and Tony, for their patience and encouragement, and for reading countless drafts. Special thanks to Donald Maass who believed in us, contributed endless hours of comment, and pushed us to become better writers. To Maureen Baron, whose editorial input took Raincrow to another level. To Phyllis Fleiss for her wonderful sense of direction. And last but not least, we thank our families and friends.

Chapter One

Though the sun blazed with Indian summer, a chill crept through Katelin Bennue Stone as she stood atop a boulder at the creek’s edge. The rain would come before this day ended, and there would be a new beginning. Her life was about to be changed. Forever.

Her eyes swept over the autumn foliage of the Kentucky mountainsides, searching for the raincrows, whose mournful cries set her insides to quivering and shaking. She listened, trying to hone in on the sound, though she truly doubted she would see them. Elusive, that’s what they were.

Several yards up the bank, Walter, her best friend, the boy she would marry nearly two years down the road, just went on about his business, carving their initials in the trunk of an old maple, whistling that new tune You’re The Cream In My Coffee as though nothing was wrong. But she knew there was. Something dreadful, more dreadful than when Grandmother Idie died a few years back. Wintertime, after the first snowfall, when the raincrows should have long flown south. That day, she heard them just the same. It rained and rained, turned dead-winter-cold that night, just like Grandmother Idie, all cold, the warmth of her soul gone on to a better place.

A lot of Reeds Crossing didn’t believe the legend, that the raincrows called down the rain to wash the earth clean to make ready for new beginnings, sometimes good ones and sometimes bad. Not that those who did not believe the legend were bad people. They just didn’t have the gift or they were too caught up in the strife of living. Grandmother Idie said it was a gift from God to be able to feel things like that, that it was given to those whose souls were kindred spirits with mother earth from whence they came, like her people, the Cherokee.

Katelin was glad she was half Cherokee, but today, she wished God had not seen fit to give her that gift. And if she could, she would tie it up with fiery orange ribbons and give it to Brother Prince. Preaching hellfire and brimstone all the time, like all of Reeds Crossing was going straight to hell no matter how many times they repented or rededicated their lives. Maybe if he had a better understanding of his heart, he would preach about things that made people happy, not scare the living daylights out of them.

The wind swept her long dark hair across her face. Annoyed, she raked it back. She wished she had gone on and bobbed it clean up to her ears like she aimed to do last week, before her father told her she would be shamed if she did. Hair’s a woman’s glory, he had said, and went on and on about it being a sin for a woman to bob her hair, quoting the Bible and telling stories. What with the wind blowing her hair every which way, and Walter chattering on and on about chickens, it was becoming harder to concentrate.

What are you talking about, a chicken in the garage?

I might as well be a talking to myself, ‘cause you aren’t paying me no attention. I was talking about Herbert Hoover’s campaign slogan, a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage. If I was old enough to vote, I’d vote for him.

Well good. Now will you please hush up?

You’re ‘bout as much fun to be with this morning as a bristled up porcupine. He gave her a wink, and set the knife blade back against the groove of the number eight he was carving below their initials.

So? Why do you care?

Walter’s brow furrowed. He slung his sandy blond hair from his eyes and looked at her. That you’re a porcupine?

You just stop calling me that. About what Hoover says. Your father owns the store. You always have food . . . chickens, and there’s a mighty fine looking Model A that sits in front of McCormick’s General Store.

You think it’s stocked for free, that things magically appear on the shelves, that chickens strut in, his hands went under his armpits, his arms flapping, and say, hi, I’m a free chicken, wring my neck, I’m just dying to be fried up for somebody’s dinner? He dropped his arms and went back to carving. Coolidge has done a fine job. The country’s prospering, and if he supports Hoover, so do 1. If you wasn’t rich, then you’d know about things like this.

Katelin’s hands snapped to her waist. I am not rich. I live in a four room house on Cinder Street, a section house owned by the L & N Railroad.

Walter kept his eyes on the tree. Then what do you call it when your father’s having that big mansion built for you all over yonder on Cow Creek? he said, aiming his knife’s blade northwest. Five of us, counting Mom and Dad, live in four rooms over the store.

Well? It is a big store.

You’re spoiled, Katelin Bennue Stone.

Katelin wrinkled up her face with her worse frown and started to climb from the boulder. She slipped and nearly fell. The leather soles of her Mary Jane shoes were not exactly for rock climbing, and neither was her flapper-style dress.

Be careful, K. Wouldn’t want you to break your arm like you did a few years back. Might just stop you from talking altogether, that is if you’re as mad as you look.

What in the world do you mean? She jumped the rest of the way to the ground, immediately propping her hands at her waist. I believe it is you, Walter McCormick, who’s done gone mad.

Grinning, he glanced from her eyes to where her hands were. See what I said? You get riled up, your hands go right where they are now.

She wanted to take her hands from her waist more than anything, but she would leave them there to spite him. If you hadn’t scared me with that old frog I wouldn’t have fell. She let her hands slide to her sides, stepped between clumps of ferns and patches of calico asters and walked over to Walter. This past summer, he had spurted up like a ragweed, nearly a foot taller than her now. She hoped her growing time wouldn’t wait too long.

She watched his gentle fingers trace over the deep grooves of their initials, then brush wood shavings from the heart. He folded the blade and slid the knife into his pocket. K. S. plus W. M., 1928. This is our tree, Katelin, our spot.

She wanted to be happy, to smile, but she just couldn’t. Something had an awful hold on her heart.

One day, when I’m a doctor and start making money, I’ll buy this property so nobody will ever cut down our tree.

Katelin crossed her arms and flopped down on the damp leaves, not even caring that she might get stains on the dress she and her mother finished sewing just last night. You’ve got two more years of school, then college, then more schooling. By that time the tree will be dead of old age. She fiddled with the seam of the dropped waist, wishing she had added lace or something fancy. Flapper fringe would have been the bees knees, but Miller’s Dress Shoppe did not carry it, did not carry anything that vulgar and unladylike, the two Miller sisters had said. Made her feel like she had been slapped without them having laid a hand on her.

Katelin, what’s wrong with you today? Are you mad at me for talking to Laura Jean last night at the picture show? He sat down next to her and leaned back against the tree.

It wasn’t the talking that got me riled up. She was making eyes at you and you was likin’ it.

I was no such thing.

Yes you was. She dropped her head, angry at herself for making Walter the target of the frightful feeling creeping up her spine.

Don’t you know you’re the only girl for me? I’ve loved you all my life, his tone took on an air of joking, ever since the day I first saw your funny little face and looked into those blue eyes . . . and I don’t plan on stopping. His grin vanished. You are part of me, my soul.

Where did you learn those words, from a picture show? she snapped.

From my heart.

Katelin’s eyes filled with tears. Oh, Walter, I’m so sorry. I love you so much.

He bent his head and kissed her tenderly. Now are you going to tell me what’s really bothering you?

Can’t you hear the raincrows? Something bad’s about to happen. She looked to the birch trees across the creek, to the yellow leaves that trembled in the wind.

Nothing’s going to happen ‘cept rain, most likely. That’s all.

No, Walter. What if something happens that separates us, like maybe your father sells the store and you have to move to Ohio like he was talking about?

Then I’d stay here and pay my own way, work after school like I do now. See there? Nothing for you to worry about, and another thing, by the time I graduate, I’ll have enough money saved up so we can get married and you can come with me when I enroll at Cornell.

Walter raked the leaves from a spot on the ground, and began to pick up small pebbles. I’ve been reading up on New York. There’s all kinds of fashion schools up there you can go to, and there ought a be plenty of work I can get after classes. He rattled the stones in his hand, looked down to the creek, then to her. We’ll have our dreams, Katelin, I promise you we will.

Katelin looked toward the hollowed out gap of the valley that ran like a mile-wide river of land through the foothills of the Appalachians. Farther on, eighty miles or so, she guessed, the ridgeline of the Appalachians stretched across the sky like a smoky gray monument. She tried to ignore the raincrows’ haunting calls as Walter skipped stones across the muddy, fast-moving water. Last week’s rain had pushed the water nearly over the creek’s banks. It was always plenty deep enough to take a good swim, probably way over Walter’s head now, not that it would be safe to swim in, at least not until the current died down.

She let out a ragged breath. It was no use. Whatever had a hold on her heart wasn’t about to turn loose, like a snapping turtle that latches onto you and won’t let go until it thunders. She closed her eyes, praying the awful feeling would go away. In a flash of light, she saw her mother’s face. An unseen force pulled her to her feet.

It’s Mother, she burst out. We’ve got to go home.

Walter tossed the remaining stones to the ground and rose. Fine, then maybe when you see there ain’t nothing wrong you’ll forget about them raincrows and---

Well, well, if it ain’t the love birds, Nathan Bowling said, as he and the two McIntosh boys, Clem and Jeb, scrambled down the rocky bank from the road.

Jeb was her age, fourteen, and Nathan and Clem, sixteen, Walter’s age. The McIntosh boys were possum poor, scroungy to look at, and barely had enough meat on their bones to hold up their patched up britches. Nathan came from wealth, and was all jazzed out from his wide-legged bags to his leather newsboy cap. All three were as mean as a two-headed rattlesnake, and Nathan meaner than the whole lot.

Nathan pushed up the brim of his cap. His mossy-green eyes, flaked with brown and deep-set beneath a protruding forehead, gave him the look of a demon. What’s you all doin’ down here?

We were just leaving, Walter said.

Walter, we’ve really got to get home. As Katelin turned to go, she saw the burlap coffee sack Clem carried, the end all tied up with hemp twine. The bottom bulged out and moved. What’s in there?

Clem held up the sack, and Nathan grabbed it away, shaking it. You a half breed injun, ain’t ye, can’t you smell what it is?

That’ll be enough, Nathan, Walter said. You all been in your daddy’s shine again I see, he said, looking at Clem.

Nathan snickered and started chanting and dancing Indian style around Katelin and Walter, Jeb and Clem joining in, hollering and whooping.

Katelin couldn’t worry about what was in the sack, didn’t even want to think about it. She had to get home. Then as Nathan danced past her, she heard kitten meows, scared helpless cries. She couldn’t leave now.

You all stop actin’ like idle-headed heathens! she shouted. Nathan, I’m marchin’ right into town and tellin’ your father on you!

Their dance and whooping came to an abrupt halt. The corners of Nathan’s mouth dropped, then he aimed a set of cold hard eyes at her. As far as tellin’ my daddy, you go on. He don’t care none about me, about what I do.

You all been drinking, and I don’t think you ought to be doing what you’ve got in mind to do with those kittens, Walter said.

Nathan grinned that egg-sucking-mule grin of his. We wuz jus’ goin’ to baptize ‘em in the creek. They’s jus’ cats. They got nine lives. He let out a loud burst of laughter.

Walter held out his hand. Give ‘em to me, I’ll find homes for them.

Now I can’t see no fun in that, Worm McCormick.

Clem and Jeb laughed.

You all hush up, Katelin said. You all’d be better off if you took to learning and reading books like Walter instead of using what little brains you got to think up all kinds of mean nasty things to do to poor defenseless animals. Now give the kittens to Walter.

Nathan stared at her, and brought the sack within Walter’s reach, then heaved it back and sailed it toward the creek.

Katelin screamed, her eyes wide with horror as the sack twisted and turned through the air, the kittens screaming pitifully. The sack hit the water with a deafening splash in the deepest part of the creek. It moved rapidly on the current, then caught in a curve of boulders.

Walter bolted to go after it, but Nathan and Clem pinned him before his second step.

Katelin ran down the bank and dove into the water, swimming as hard as she could toward the sack. She could hear Walter screaming for her to come back; it was too dangerous. She could hear Nathan, Clem, and Jeb, their taunting laughter echoing all around her. She could hear the rising screams of the kittens, see the sack sinking. Please, God, don’t let them drown, she prayed while fighting the current with all her might not to be swept downstream.

She was only feet away when the muddy water swallowed up the kittens. She dove under, legs kicking, her arms aching with her strokes. The water was so muddy, she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. Her arms became her eyes, flailing about, reaching, feeling, searching, her chest bursting as the air left her lungs. She saw her mother’s face, heard her voice; Katelin, come home.

Chapter Two

The quickest way back to Reeds Crossing was to cut across the fields to where the railroad tracks meet the Kentucky River, then cross by way of the old steel railroad bridge. Katelin, her dress and hair slinging muddy water, cried as she ran beside Walter through shaded woods, tobacco fields green with fescue, and fields where fodder stood in reckless tepees among pumpkins and winter squash. She had nearly drowned trying to save those kittens, and felt like dying because she hadn’t. How could she go on about living with that terrible thing in her heart?

She despised Nathan Bowling; for the rest of her life she would. Surely God would punish him. And Clem and Jeb, too. She prayed He would. To somehow make Nathan feel the torment the helpless kittens felt as their lungs filled water, the misery she felt for seeing it and not being able to stop it. Seeking revenge and carrying hate in her heart wasn’t the Christian way, but surely God had to see it her way, see the black in Nathan’s heart, and send some sort of plague on him like He had the Philistines.

What had happened to the kittens was a horrible tragedy, but she felt certain that it was not the one the raincrows foretold, because she could still hear them calling, even more mournful than before. And it had not rained. She looked up at the sky and stumbled. Walter caught her and kept her from pitching headfirst into the thick row of goldenrod and maroon-colored blackberry briars that all but hid a barbed-wire fence. Walter stomped down an opening, then stepped on the bottom wire and lifted the top one, helping Katelin ease through.

Their feet pounded the gravel as they ran up the steep embankment to the railroad track. The gray bridge loomed before them like a skeleton picked clean of any meat. Katelin felt home had never seemed so far away. As her foot landed on the black crossties, the smell of creosote rose strong to her nostrils. She glanced over the side, down a distance of a hundred feet or so to the writhing muddy water of the river. Most likely that’s where her body would be if Walter had not pulled her out of the creek when he did. She looked down the track behind her. If a train came along before they got across, they would have to climb up the metal workings and hang on until it passed, though they had done that many times before. Word usually got back to her father through the train’s engineer, and she usually promised she would not do it again.

She had good reason to break her promise one more time. Again, the chill of fear crept up her spine with the overpowering feeling that her mother needed her. Her heart pounded, as much out of fear as from the effort of running. At the end of the bridge, through a gap in the trees, Katelin could see the back of her house. The gravel along the track crunched loud as her and Walter’s feet hammered into it. It was not far now.

The small two-story house was second from the end in a row of seven identical clapboard houses that backed up to the train track. There was no sign of her mother in the backyard, no clothes on the clothesline. Hardly a day went by that she did not wash something by midmorning and hang it out to dry. She ran faster, Walter struggling to match her gait through the back yard to the kitchen door.

Katelin flung open the screen door and raced through the kitchen, through the sitting room, to her mother and father’s bedroom. At the doorway, her breath caught in her throat. Her mother lay in bed, her face twisted up with pain, white as the gown she wore. For an instant, Katelin felt paralyzed, then the shaking chill returned, cutting to the bone. She rushed to the bed. Mother?

It’s the baby. I’m afraid . . . he’s a little impatient, Mae said, and smiled faintly.

I’ll go get Doctor Broadus, Walter said.

Katelin called after him,Walter! Find Father. Hurry.

Although Katelin was scared, she was near tears with relief. The raincrows had wanted her to come home because her mother needed her. The new beginning was the birth of the baby. That was all. Wasn’t it?

But, Mother, you said not until around Christmas. Seeing the fearful look in her mother’s eyes, Katelin realized she should not have said that.

I know, honey, but it’ll be all right. She raised her head and looked from Katelin’s wet hair to her muddy dress and shoes. My word, did you fall in the creek? Your new dress. I don’t think that mud’ll ever scrub out. She grimaced with pain.

Katelin took her hand. Her mother gripped it so tightly it hurt, but she never let on as she watched beads of sweat pop out on her mother’s face. She could see that she was holding her breath, and for some unexplainable reason, she held hers. Mae loosened her hold and breathed in long guarded breaths.

I’m going to the kitchen. I’ll be right back, Katelin said.

Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes? Mae called after her.

I will. Katelin went on to the kitchen sink and pumped water into the white enamel wash pan, then went to the ice box and filled a glass with cold water. On Doctor Broadus’s last visit, she heard him tell her mother she never should have gotten in the family way again, that it looked to him that after losing two babies, she would understand that a baby was not in God’s plans for her. That day, after Doctor Broadus left, she had tried to remember if her mother’s stomach was ever fat like it was now, but couldn’t. Her mother had always been tiny, slender, like herself. She had wanted to ask her about the babies but didn’t dare. Having babies was never talked about, not even with grown daughters like her, like it was something shameful; like last year when she had her first time of the month. You’re just growing up, becoming a woman, whatever that meant, was the only thing her mother would say, as though it was too shameful to talk about, and Katelin was too ashamed to ask more.

The girls at school talked about sex and having babies. They said a man plants his seed in a woman’s belly, that it was in the Bible that way. It was, because she had read it. That sounded closer to the truth than the stories mothers told their children; finding babies in cabbage patches or white long-legged birds flying in from babyland or where ever, carrying babies wrapped in diapers in their beaks. She felt so stupid for not knowing these things. And here she was almost a grown woman.

She wondered what a baby seed would look like. It was for certain she had never seen one. She loved Walter more than anything, and he loved her the same way, but being Christians and believers of the Bible, they had agreed he would keep his seeds to himself until they were married.

Katelin grabbed a dishtowel from a drawer, slung it over her shoulder and hurried back to the bedroom with the water.

The water’s nice and cold, she said, helping her mother drink, then she put another pillow under her mother’s head, and began bathing her forehead. She felt helpless and wanted to cry.

Katelin, you need to get out of that dress and put it in the washtub to soak with some lye soap. It was . . . such a pretty dress, one of your best designs. Go on, I’ll be fine.

Katelin nodded and hurried to her upstairs bedroom, changed quickly into a skirt and blouse, put her dress and undergarments in to soak and rushed back to her mother.

Katelin, Mae patted the feather mattress, sit here. Katelin sat. Mae stroked Katelin’s wet hair. Just look at you, all grown up. Where did all those years go? She gritted her teeth and waited for a pain to ease. Did I ever tell you that I wanted to be an artist?

No, you didn’t.

When I was your age. I wanted to be an artist as bad as you want to be a famous dress designer. Katelin, hold on to that dream. Never let it go. It’s your God-given gift. Don’t disappoint Him, but most of all, don’t disappoint yourself. There’s nothing in this world you can’t do if you truly want to. I want you to believe that. In your heart, your soul.

Katelin doubted anybody could want anything as much as she wanted to be a clothes designer. Why didn’t you become an artist?

My father told me that was foolish talk, that I would do what a woman was meant to do; marry and raise children.

Katelin wiped at her mother’s brow with the cold cloth. I think that was mean of Grandfather.

He didn’t mean it to be. His upbringing, that’s what it was. She clasped Katelin’s hand, smiled a little and let out a held ragged breath. Your father . . . is such a good man, Katelin. She looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for her next words. I want you to always respect him.

Why, I would soon as bite off my tongue than to not.

I know that. What I’m saying is, he still lives in the old way, like my father did, the way of his Cherokee people; simple living, hard work with his hands. He may not see the same things for you that you see. You must make him understand how important becoming a clothes designer is to you. A wildness came to her eyes that made the hair on Katelin’s arms stand on end. Promise me that you’ll follow your dream, Katelin. Promise me.

Katelin swallowed back the lump in her throat, trying not to cry. I promise, Mother. She dipped the cloth back in the water and wrung it out. She wanted to ask her mother why she was talking like this, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t think about it. She was too frightened. Maybe that was it, her mother was just scared too. The same as her. All she wanted was for this day to end.

What she really wished was that today was yesterday, when everything was all right, when she and her mother were sewing her dress, laughing, and later when her father came home, how the three of them sat down at the kitchen table to a supper of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy, and her father told of his great grandfather and great grandmother’s escape from northern Georgia in 1829 after the Cherokee were driven from the land. If only it were yesterday, then the kittens would be alive, snuggled against their mother’s belly nursing, all safe and happy. And her mother would not be in such pain.

The slam of the screen door startled Katelin to her feet. Her father burst into the room. Strands of black hair fell down his forehead over eyes dark with worry.

He moved with silent quickness, his slender frame bending as a willow as he dropped to the bed and took Mae in his arms. Walter’s gone on to get Doc Broadus. Are you all right? Jeremy said, not taking his eyes from Mae.

She touched his face. I’ll be fine.

Jeremy stroked her hair, then looked at Katelin. K, go wait on the porch for the doctor, and shut the front door.

But, Father, I want to stay with Mother. I can help.

Do as I say. The sharpness in his voice softened, When your new brother or sister arrives, then you can help.

Mae patted Katelin’s hand. You go on now. Mind your father.

Katelin kissed her mother’s cheek and left.

Doctor Broadus arrived within minutes. Katelin let him in and closed the door behind him, then paced the length of the porch watching for Walter. From the swing that hung in front of the sitting room window to her parent’s bedroom window on the other end. He probably went home to change into dry clothes and to get his mother, Grace, since Grace and Carl McCormick were her parent’s best friends.

The McCormick’s General Store was not far, just three blocks down, in the heart of town on Main. No business in Reeds Crossing was far from Main Street, except the tobacco farmers lived a ways out in houses scattered along dirt roads, some so far back you’d never even know they were there.

Katelin wished this house had a telephone like their new house would have, then she could call Walter and see what was taking him so long. She leapt down the three steps to the walk and ran to the sidewalk to the corner of Main Street, where she stopped and looked in the direction of McCormick’s General Store. The street was busy as it was every Saturday. Noisy, wheezy cars sputtering back forth, and horse-drawn wagons, the wheels making grinding noises as they rolled on the pavement. But no Walter.

A-ooga-ooga, went a horn behind her. She turned and saw a shiny green Packard roadster. Mr. Hudson, Nathan Bowling’s grandfather, waved as he passed. For a split second, she thought about stopping him and telling him what Nathan had done, but concern over her mother sent her racing back down the street and up her porch steps to the window of her parent’s bedroom. The drapes were drawn and she could not hear a sound.

She walked over to the edge of the porch and looked out across the neighbors’ yards and down the street, up to the sky where dark clouds were moving angrily, covering the sun. Finally, she saw Walter and his mother coming down the sidewalk in a half-run. Grace was a fleshy woman, and her large breasts heaved from side to side as she ran, the bib of her apron shifting.

Reaching Katelin, Grace panted out a hello, then hurried on to the door. You all stay out here. She went inside and slammed the door behind her.

Walter grinned. We know, we know. I’ll never understand why something so wonderful as the birth of a baby is treated in such a . . . a, he turned and glared at the door, a closed door way. When I become a doctor I’ll have the whole family in on it.

Katelin’s eyes widened. Walter! You will not do that.

Why not?

I don’t know. It’s---it’s---it’s just not proper.

Oh, you mean because having babies is connected to sex?

Katelin’s cheeks burned with a sudden rush of blood. Walter. Don’t talk like that, somebody could hear you.

He grinned and leaned close to her ear. Sex, sex, sex.

Walter, stop it. She smacked his arm and scurried down the steps.

He laughed and ran after her. I was only teasing you, trying to make you laugh. You look so worried. Don’t be, your mother will be fine.

All afternoon Katelin and Walter never strayed far from the porch. They sat in the swing most of the time and talked of their plans for the future, things they often talked about. It made the future seem more solid, kept their dreams alive. After their marriage, Walter planned to go to Cornell University in New York, and she would finish her two years of high school in New York and go on to a clothing design school there. And when they could afford it, they would buy a big two-story home, where they could have a houseful of children. For Katelin, being an only child had been wonderful, but sometimes lonely.

By evening the air carried a chill. Noises and voices and food smells from inside the neighboring houses eked into it---cooked cabbage and cornbread. That would be the Thompson’s two houses up. She could smell gingerbread, too. She snarled up her nose as she caught a displeasing scent. Mutton. The German woman down the street was cooking the stuff again with that barley, or whatever. How could she stand to eat something that smelled like wet dog hair?

Katelin rose from the swing. What if the creek’s raging water had swept the kittens down to the river? They could be carried for hundreds of miles, maybe as far as Virginia, or perhaps the Atlantic Ocean. She leaned against one of the columns that supported the porch roof. The happenings of the day weighed heavily on her heart, and she was glad Walter was with her to take her mind from it for brief moments, and make the time pass more quickly, though it was not passing fast enough. It seemed to her that this baby was not the least bit impatient, as her mother had said. She went to the top step and sat. Walter came over and sat beside her.

The fuming wind swept leaves from the lawn and hurled them frantically in every direction. Some of the neighborhood kids were in the street playing a game of stickball. A ragged-looking black and white shepherd trotted down the sidewalk, stopped, sat and scratched it’s mangy fur, then trotted on. Katelin crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself to keep warm as she watched chimney swallows dart across the darkening sky. She heard a train coming, a passenger train snaking through the valley. Its whistle echoed mournfully from the river up the mountainsides, a lonely sound. The pitch changed as it rolled across the steel bridge, then came the screech of steel against steel as the train began to slow for the stop at the depot.

The depot was the next street down, not far from the roundhouse, a very large brick building where locomotives in need of repair were worked on. Her father worked there, and had for twenty-some years, since he was eleven. She liked trains and used to go watch him work on the engines. She often wondered what part of the world the passengers came from, where they were going. Sometimes, from her backyard, she waved to the faces in the windows and to the workmen who poked their heads out the windows of the locomotive and caboose cars. Most she knew by name. She wondered what her mother and father would name their baby, but she was beginning to wonder if he or she was ever going to get born.

She was unaware that Walter had gone inside until she felt a shawl go around her shoulders. Thanks, she said, tilting her head back to see him. Did you get to talk to anybody?

He dropped down beside her. No, I just snuck in and took that shawl off the hook. Mom would have skinned me alive if she knew I even opened that door.

They sat quietly, the shroud of evening about them, the street now empty and quiet. In the distance, veins of white streaked the western sky, and thunder rumbled. Katelin pulled the shawl snugly around her shoulders, inhaling the air. She could smell rain again. It was close now. Why had her mother told her all those things earlier, about holding onto her dreams? At the sound of the door opening behind her, Katelin turned toward it.

Grace stood in the doorway. Walter, I need you to go home. Get your dad to cut some lunch meat and cheese, and make some sandwiches and bring some back. Make enough for your brother and sister, too.

Walter was already to his feet. Yes, ma’am. I’ll make sure little Sally eats and then I’ll put her to bed.

Grace smiled and started to push the door to, but pulled it back open. Katelin, your mother’s doing fine. It won’t be long now.

Katelin nodded and watched her go back inside.

Walter tugged on her hand. Why don’t you come with me? I won’t be long.

No, you go on and hurry back. And bring me a box of Cracker Jacks, she added with a smile. I’ll give you the prize.

She watched him until he disappeared into the darkness of the street, then she looked over her shoulder to the lighted window of her mother’s bedroom. She couldn’t see the shadows of anyone moving about behind the closed curtains. She thought again of her mother’s face twisted with pain. She had known for at least two years how babies were born, so what made her think it would be painless? How could anyone have more than one child when they knew the pain it would cause? She thought on that for a while and decided Walter would have to be happy with only one child, and that loneliness was not so bad after all.

Thunder rumbled. Within seconds the sky opened and rain drummed loudly on the tin roof. Katelin dashed onto the porch and stood looking through the lace curtains of the sitting room window. Next to the staircase that led to her room was the kitchen doorway. On the kitchen table, a lamp burned brightly but no one was there. She moved closer so she could see more into the sitting room.

Her father sat on the edge of his chair, his elbows propped on his legs, his chin resting on the heels of his hands as he stared at the closed bedroom door across from him. He looked worried. So much so that Katelin drew in a hard trembling breath.

The door opened. Jeremy sprang from his chair. Doctor Broadus came out, a bundle cradled in his arms. Joy, blessed joy. She wanted to leap with it, squeal with it, then a dreadful feeling seized her. Something was wrong. Doc’s head was bent low with sadness, and his walk slow with defeat. He said something to her father as he placed the bundle in his arms. Jeremy’s face contorted. His body quaked as he buried his face in the baby’s blanket.

She pressed her face and palms against the window, tears streaking down her cheeks. She attempted to cry out to him, but only a whimper escaped the lump in her throat. He took slow unsteady steps toward the front door. She raced to it and flung it open.

He didn’t seem to see her for a long moment, and when he did, the light from inside showed his anguished, exhausted face, so full of pain, so old . . . and tears. She had never seen him cry, not even when Grandmother Idie died, and he had loved her dearly. The wind whipped the blanket’s corner from a tiny lifeless face.

Her hands muffled her cry. Father?

His mouth opened as if he would speak, but the words never came. He drew the bundle close to his chest, curled his head over it and stepped from the porch into the drenching rain.

Katelin ran to the edge of the porch. Father! Come back, she shouted. You can’t do this.

He turned and looked at her, the rain soaking into his clothes and the baby blanket. Katelin, a body does what’s needed.

You can’t just bury the baby in this rain, just put it in a pine box and bury it . . . without words being said over it, like it’s no more than a dog. Her heart felt as if it would burst. The baby doesn’t even have a name. Please . . . don’t.

Katelin, I’ll hear no more of this, he said, angrily, then calmed, I’ll say words.

He turned, and as he headed for his T-Model parked in the street, he began to speak Cherokee, the Tsalagi language. Though she could not understand some of the words he was saying, she knew it was a prayer. To her it sounded like death itself, a rising and falling chant so chilling she felt his soul must surely be touching the edge of hell.

The headlights of a car speeding down the street drew her attention. Lightening flashed and she could see Walter and his father, Carl, through the windshield. Carl stopped the car beside her father, and Walter jumped out, a cardboard box under one arm. He spoke a few words to her father as he helped him into the passenger’s side, then Carl drove away with her father and the baby.

Walter leaped up the steps, dropped the box of food to the floor, and held Katelin in his arms. Her grieving shook them both. Her heart ached for her mother, her father, and the baby she would never know, never help raise, never hear laugh, never be given a name.

I’m so sorry, K. I’m so sorry.

She raised her head and looked toward the door. Mother . . . I need to go to her. But . . . what do I say?

His eyes wet, he gazed into the slanting sheets of rain and held her tighter. I don’t know, Princess. You’ll find the right words.

Walter grabbed the box of food and followed her inside.

Doctor Broadus and Grace came out Mae’s bedroom. From under bushy gray eyebrows, Doc glanced toward Katelin, and came to her. I’m sorry, K. His meaty hand patted her shoulder. I did all I could.

I know you did, Doctor Broadus. Katelin had known him since the day he delivered her, and could not remember him looking any sadder than he did right now. Was it a girl?

Yes, he said, smoothing his sparse gray hair back in place.

Is Mother going to be all right?

He looked away, then closed his eyes and nodded. I’m going to the kitchen for some coffee.

Walter stepped forward. I have sandwiches if you’re hungry, sir.

That I am, Walter. He gave Walter’s shoulder a couple of pats, then went on to the kitchen.

Grace pulled a handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped tears from Katelin’s face. Are you okay, dear?

Yes, ma’am. Mother really is all right . . . isn’t she?

She--- Grace glanced at Walter, then back. She’s a little tired, probably asleep now, but it’s all right if you want to go in and see her for a minute. Here, Walter, give me that food and I’ll take it on to Doctor Broadus.

Thanks, Mom. Walter handed her the box, then walked Katelin to her mother’s door. Princess, I’m so sorry. I feel so helpless. He pulled her close. Don’t worry about what to say. Sometimes more can be said with silence than words.

Katelin eased from his arms, opened the door, and closed it behind her, quietly. The flickering kerosene lamp on the bedside table cast ghostly shadows over her mother’s face. Her eyes fluttered open and she held out her hand. Katelin rushed to take it. A thought struck her with a searing grief; a hand to hold was all her mother had after months of waiting to hold her baby. Mother, she said, with so much love and warmth nothing else needed to be said.

Katelin, she said in a voice barely a whisper, my baby . . . did I hold her?

Katelin choked back her tears, trying to speak. Yes, she finally said, but her mother had fallen asleep and hadn’t heard her. She let go of her tears, crying silently, watching her mother’s chest rise and fall with quick shallow breaths. When she left the room, Walter was waiting just outside the door.

Mom wants me to go home to make sure everything’s all right.

Walter, did Doc say what happened to cause the baby to . . . to die?

The baby wasn’t turned right. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck, cutting off the oxygen. There wasn’t anything he could have done.

Katelin moved to the door with him. Is Father back?

No, Mom said it would be a while. I hate leaving you, but I’ve got to go.

I know.

I’ll see you in the morning. He kissed her, squeezed her hand and left.

Katelin closed the door and leaned against it. She had always loved Walter, but tonight she felt their love was deeper, stronger. Maybe the reason was the fear of knowing life is not something to be taken for granted. She thought of the tiny face she had seen in the blanket. Her Sister. She would call her Little Flower. Her father had told her stories of that Cherokee princess. He would like the name. But for herself, she would name her Angela, because she was already an angel in heaven. A beautiful baby angel.

She would never forget the way he looked when he came out carrying . . . Angela. She prayed that God would never let her experience such agony; to hold death in your arms, to never feel your baby’s warm breath on your cheek. Father, I’m so sorry, she whispered.

By now, her father and Carl McCormick would have buried Angela in the family cemetery, and the fresh dirt would be washed by the rain, seeping through the cracks of the tiny pine box. It was so cruel, but that’s the way babies were buried in Kentucky when they were born dead. Tomorrow, she and Walter would go there and say words over the grave, pray, and sing songs. She hoped her mother did not think of her baby being buried, but that she would see her baby as an angel in the arms of God in heaven.

Katelin could not bear to think of the baby’s last moments as it fought for life having known only its mother’s soul, lived in the warmth of her body, nourished by her love for seven months. No better a soul to have known, no better a place to have dwelled. I love you, Mother, Katelin whispered, then went back her mother’s bedroom door. She stopped to listen. There wasn’t a sound. Grace came from the kitchen carrying a wash pan of water. Torn white strips of bed sheets were draped over her arm.

Katelin, why don’t you go on to bed, honey? Doc is in with your mother now. She needs to sleep.

Did Mother get to hold her baby?

No. No, she didn’t.

Katelin lowered her head and climbed the stairs to her room. Her bed sat next to a window located at the highest point of the slanting roof. She lit the lamp on a small table beside her bed, then got into her nightgown. Shivering, she climbed into bed. She wondered about the raincrows. What had happened seemed to be an ending rather than a beginning. Maybe it was the beginning of her mother’s life without her baby girl she so wanted. Though she never talked about the baby, Katelin knew how very much she loved it, because once, when she thought she was alone, Katelin saw her lovingly stroking and talking to her belly.

Katelin blew out the light and tried to clear her mind of all the sadness today held, and lay listening to the last straggling raindrops. Just as she was beginning to drift off, she heard the hoot of an owl outside her window. She tried to recall the story her father had told her about the owl, something about a messenger, but before she could remember more, she fell into a deep sleep.

When the new dawn began to fill Katelin’s room, she awoke wide-eyed, bolting upright in her bed. She felt as if someone had hit her in the pit of her stomach, taking all her breath and replacing it with terror. She leaped from the bed and ran to the stairs. Walter stood at the bottom looking up at her, tears streaming down his face. Nooooo! Mother, she screamed.

Chapter Three

The sun had long set, and night lay over the valley when Katelin tiptoed down the dark stairs to the closed door of her father’s room. She lay her ear against the door, listening. Though she heard nothing, she doubted he was asleep. Neither of them had slept the night before, after her mother’s funeral. She and her father had come home to a house that was empty and eerily cold, and when it grew dark, they sat in unlighted rooms, alone with their grief.

Katelin crept into the kitchen, put on her heavy winter coat and went out the back door. The air was cold and the sky was black, as if the moon and stars had fallen from it, and the wind was strangely quiet and carried a smell of snow, like sheared metal, and the conflicting odors of burning wood and wet creek stones.

She hurried on to the tool shed at the back of the house and pulled open the door. Rusted hinges squealed. Something like an empty bucket fell, making a terrible racket and setting off the neighbor’s dog. She ducked inside and kept still until the dog quieted and she felt certain her father was not coming out to see what the noise was about, then she felt along a shelf and found a box of matches and the railroad lantern. She shook it to see how much kerosene was inside. It sounded almost full. She gathered up a crowbar and shovel, and set out for the cemetery south of town.

Hours later, she returned home, her face, coat, and shoes covered with dirt and clumps of clay-like mud. The smell of it was in her nostrils. A hundred years of living could never take it away. She had failed. She found herself locked in some nightmarish hell and could not find a way out.

She put the lantern and tools back in the shed and entered the house through the kitchen’s back door. As she eased the door to and turned, her breath caught. There, in the dark, sitting at the table and facing the door was the figure of her father.

Katelin, I’ve been worried nearly to death, he said, striking a match and lighting the lamp on the table. Where have you been?

Her insides trembled so hard she felt like she would break to pieces. She could never tell him what he was asking. I . . . I was walking. Just w . . . walking.

His deep set eyes, dark as the black sky, stared at her. If you was just walking, how come you’re covered with dirt?

She looked down the front of her tan coat. It w . . . was dark. I fell down.

I will not have you lie to me.

I . . . I’m not lying, father. I couldn’t sleep and went walking. The way he looked at her, she just wanted to die. She never wanted ever to lie to him, but she had to this time. She took off her coat and dropped it on the chair next to him.

Get cleaned up and go to bed. And don’t come out of your room until you think you can speak the truth. I don’t care when that may be.

Katelin went to the sink, and set the wash pan under the pump’s spout, then began pumping the handle. What she did tonight was right, or so she had thought, but if she had to tell about it, it would sound like she’d taken leave of her mind.

Maybe she had. Gone plum crazy. She hadn’t even told Walter what she had planned to do for fear of what he would think. Tears welled up in her eyes. All the pain in her seemed to be fighting to find a way out. She stood there, unconsciously pumping the pump’s handle as hard as she could, fighting not to let go and cry, but at the same time wanting to rid herself of her agony more than anything. She looked at the water spilling over the sides of the wash pan, then let out a screaming sob as she slid to the floor.

Katelin! Jeremy raced to her, dropped on his knees and held her. What’s wrong? Tell me, please.

Oh, father, she cried, I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I couldn’t bear knowing Mother was all alone . . . there at the cemetery.

Jeremy