The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

  I imagined the law brewing gallons of Skullcap and using the old nerve tonic and mad-dog herb to do the same when needed around here.

  Brushing a lock from my face, I tucked it back under my bonnet, then unclasped my feral hands, now worried I’d been too bold in front of this patron. What if he went to the Center and told? I could lose my job for passing a banned book. They would banish me from the books forever. Maybe even think up a worse punishment. At that, my hands itched to snatch the book back and flee.

  Jackson said, “Your mother has good taste.”

  “Had, she done passed.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said with sincerity, and looked again at the book. “Hmm, clean you say? I’ve been sorely wanting to read this one but never could get my hands on it. Thank you, Cussy Mary.”

  I was pleased. More than pleased. Thrilled.

  “Let me get your library loan,” he said and strolled across the yard and into his cabin, returning a minute later with an apple and the Cobb book I’d left with him the last time, along with a different book atop it.

  He handed me his loan and a copy of Sons by Pearl S. Buck. “Have you read it yet?”

  “No, but I’ve heard good things about it, and I’ve read The Good Earth. It won the Pulitzer.” I tried to hand the book back.

  He raised a palm. “It would be my pleasure if you’d read it. And, yes, Earth deserved the prize, but I lost that one out west. An excellent book.”

  “I liked O-Lan best,” I said, thinking how O-Lan know’d she was too ugly to be loved.

  Jackson stared at me a moment, then said, “She was the real hero, you know?”

  “O-Lan was sure enough brave.” I admired him saying so. “And I liked how she didn’t have to say much neither.”

  “What’s unsaid can be just as important,” Jackson commented.

  I nodded, excited to be able to talk about books with him.

  “I especially liked Farmer Lung’s love of the land,” Jackson said and looked admiringly out at his own. “The power of land held a connection I could reckon with… For me, the earth gives life, and without it, we have none, not the smallest breath.”

  “Pa says if we hurt it, it won’t feed us. That’s what the Company’s doing.”

  “He’s right. And the Company is careless. I haven’t see a lot of bees up here like when I was young. You hurt ol’ Mother Earth, and she’s going to paddle your hindside. The same as she did to Farmer Lung.”

  I clutched the book to my chest. “I’ll start on it tonight.”

  “If you like it, I have her other in the set, A House Divided. You’re welcome to read them both.”

  “Much obliged. I didn’t think I’d ever get to read her others. Miss Eula and Miss Harriett scolded that her books weren’t proper for Kentuckians and could lead to tempting the good morals of our people, and offend deeply religious minds.”

  “Miss Eula and—?”

  “The librarian supervisors at the Center.”

  “I imagine they might make a small mind bigger.” Jackson grinned playfully, tossing the apple from hand to hand.

  “Reckon that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” I said, taking in his easy smile and friendly chatter. “Much obliged, I best get back to my route.”

  “And I need to get the soil worked before I can cut the timber and daylight’s gone an’ bedded.” He was strong like a tree, the cut of his face like the mountains surrounding us.

  “You sure have yourself plenty of room to build up here,” I said, not wanting to leave but knowing I should.

  “Eventually I will. It’ll take a lot of work. And I’m not a rich man, just a fool one with a strong back.” He straightened, loosening the creaks and cramps of overworked bones.

  I clasped my hands. “I don’t mean to pry.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m selling the lumber. I’ve got more orders for it than I can handle by myself. Enough woods and work to last two lifetimes.”

  I hated to think of it all bare, hurting the earth like that, but there was big business in timber and bigger money if a man wanted to work hard. “Sure is pretty.”

  “I’ll take only enough trees to have myself a proper barn, to thin these woods some and bring new growth.”

  I nodded. And then because I had said too much, stayed too long already, “Let’s get to our books, Junia. Thank you for the loan. Good day.”

  “It’s a fine read. I can’t wait to hear what you think of this one.” He followed me over to Junia.

  I stopped. That he would care astonished me, and I could only bleat out another thank-you.

  “How’s the ol’ girl doing today?” he asked the mule and held up the apple.

  Junia pricked her ears forward, wiggled her back muscles as I mounted her.

  Jackson took out his knife, cut a big slice, and held it up to the mule.

  I shifted in the saddle, an uncomfortable rumble vibrating my belly. It had been ages since breakfast, and dinner was still two drops away.

  Junia snatched it up quickly, her big choppers savoring, enjoying.

  Jackson took a bite, swallowed, then said, “Would you like some?” He cut another slice and lifted up a fat piece to me.

  It was a kind present. This and the one in my bags would save me till supper. Before I could think twice, I leaned over Junia’s side to take the slice at the same time Jackson stepped over to me. I grasped the fruit, our hands touching.

  Junia screamed, swung her head sideways, braying loudly at him. The apple slipped from our hands and fell to the ground.

  I jerked on the mule’s reins. Jackson nearly tumbled backward.

  Junia stomped on the fruit, then barreled out of the yard with me holding on tight, her indignant cries cobbled across Jackson’s amused laughter.

  Twenty-One

  A short time later, the clouds parted as I rode into the schoolyard, scattering a brood of chickens and a cluster of loud, chasing boys.

  Winnie rushed out of the schoolhouse, shooing the hens and students out of her way.

  “I didn’t think you’d make it this Monday, Cussy Mary,” she said. “So glad you did.”

  I stayed atop Junia. “Sorry, I’m running behind today. I’ll fetch your books,” I said, feeling guilty because I’d tarried too long at the Moffits and Jackson Lovett’s.

  Winnie sent Clementine back inside for the loans.

  The children, all hankering for a peek at the new material, circled around their teacher. I called over Nessie and handed her the recipes for her sister to bake for the big dance, and she spun around and curtsied, then waved the paper. “I’ll have to learn her, ’cause she can’t read. Thank you, Book Woman.” The other girls gathered around her as she read the recipes to them.

  I scanned the student’s faces searching for Henry. He stood in the back of the group, a weakness in his eyes.

  In a minute, Clementine flew back out of the building, stumbled, and dropped the books, kicking up a kaleidoscope of swallowtails.

  Henry dashed over to her and scowled, picked up the books and dusted the jackets off on his pant legs and sleeves, scolding her as he ran up to me.

  “Here you are, ma’am,” he said, and blew on the books, again swiping the covers with his arms.

  Henry’s face was more hollowed, his bones again poked out of ragged clothes that had been passed down too many times and were tight and ill-fitting.

  “Thank you, Henry.” I bent over and caught the red, glossy necklace circling his neck, the thick scaly rash on his palms. He had the pellagra and was starving to death. And right before my eyes.

  With a steady hand, I took the books from him and slipped them into my bags, stretched around to my other satchel, pulling out my saved dinner. I held up the apple.

  “Everyone inside.” Winnie clapped loudly, hurrying over to me, and gave a sharp startl
ing clap once more, sending Henry and her pupils skittering back into their classroom and Junia toe-hopping nervously. “Inside. To your desks. Now,” she warned, and clapped once more. Dampness blotted under the armpits of her dress, spreading to her chest.

  When they were all inside, Winnie said firmly, “You can’t feed one, Cussy Mary, without feeding them all. They all have the hunger, just some of their bodies are able to hide the sickness better than the others.”

  She was right, and it wouldn’t be fair. Ashamed, I lowered the fruit to my side.

  Winnie clasped her hands. “If only we could get more outreach programs up here. If only they could send a block of cheese with every book, a loaf of bread.” She tilted her head to the sky as if telling it all to God.

  I wished it too. Their hunger for books could teach them of a better life free of the hunger, but without food they’d never live long enough or have the strength to find it.

  “Just one damn block of cheese,” Winnie scratched out in a whisper.

  I thought about the cheese Doc promised. If I could bargain with him for more food, I could give it to the schoolchildren.

  Winnie sighed, stroked Junia’s neck, then gently took the apple from my hand, slipped it into her dress pocket. “Henry’s new baby didn’t make it,” she said quietly.

  Saddened, I turned to the schoolhouse and saw a blush of boys peeking out the window. One was Henry.

  “I’ll make sure I give this to him.” Winnie patted her pocket. “Ride safe and give my best to Martha Hannah and the children.” She turned, her long skirts bristling as she hurried back to her charges.

  From inside, Henry pressed his head to the pane, watching me. I tossed him a smile and vowed silently to get him food. The boy broke into a sluggish grin, struggled to raise the window—once, then again—but was too weak. He coughed, pressed his rash-reddened hand to the glass, and mouthed, Goodbye, Book Woman. Then he was gone, his handprint a milk-ghosted blur disappearing into glass, a shiver left needling my spine.

  Twenty-Two

  After we left the schoolyard, I stopped on the path and double-checked my bags. I didn’t have a newsmagazine for Mr. Prine so I headed straight to Martha Hannah’s, looking forward to having an extra moment to chat with her and the young’uns.

  I sang lightly as Junia rode us around a covey of oaks, trampled over squawroot and showy jewelweed, until she stopped and sounded an alarm.

  I’d been thinking about the medical tests, the food. How much I could get from the doc in exchange for giving him more blood. I wondered just how much blood a person could lose, then remembered the article I’d read about Marie Antoinette’s bloodletting she’d gotten while giving birth. How it didn’t hurt her none to lose the blood.

  Then I turned my mind to the book Jackson Lovett loaned me and became so riddled in thoughts of him that I hadn’t kept a keen eye on the paths. I’d been speculating about his life, his kin. Jackson Lovett had burrowed into me like a tune I couldn’t turn off, like the popular Benny Goodman song “Blue Moon” that played on Harriett’s radio from time to time. I scolded myself and vowed not to pry into my patron’s affairs, to keep a quiet tongue around the man next time. I’d been too bold and risked my job as well.

  Junia blew hard as if shaming me, and I snapped my head up and pressed a hand to my galloping heart, half expecting to see Frazier lurking in the woods, still stalking me.

  I cupped my eyes against the sun, relieved to see Martha Hannah’s husband, Devil John, and not another Frazier. But his stance offered no relief, but something more, something disquieting and unbending, and I feared troublesome for me.

  “Book Woman,” he called out, standing there in his thin britches and faded shirt, a long rifle strapped over his shoulder. Devil John Smith was a moonshiner and, folks whispered, one of the best. He wore a black floppy hat with a raccoon dick fastened above the brim, what the bootleggers placed in a still’s copper worm to direct the flow into the catch jug so there wouldn’t be any loss of shine, and a handy way to alert a thirsty fellar he was in the business.

  “Mr. Smith.” I chanced a wobbly smile, stiffened atop the saddle.

  “Ma’am.” He tipped his hat. “I’ve come to tell you there’s a problem with them books,” he said soberly.

  I felt my smile slip downward.

  Junia blew a hot breath, and I wrapped the reins tighter around my sweating hands.

  Devil John went on. “The young’uns won’t do their chores, and yesterday, Martha Hannah was nearly an hour late with my supper. An hour! Them books are doing that—surely making them lazy. The girls are letting the laundry an’ sewing pile up around their ears, and the boys are reading at the creek when they ought to be fishing and working the garden. Plumb can’t get ’em to work ’cause they’s so busy sitting and reading them foolish books you’re bent on bringing. And I can’t have it. Won’t have it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith,” I said, secretly touched they loved the books so dearly. Without the loans, his young’uns couldn’t learn because the moonshiner refused to send them to school. No man, no Kentucky law, could make a hillman do that. Most folks hadn’t even heard it was law. The land had its own decrees, held tight its hard ways of handling harder things. Folks would pack their little ones off to school only if it suited them, and not because of something written somewhere far away by city folks they’d never seen, or would ever see.

  “They’ve wasted the kerosene and burnt all the candles and damn near broke me,” Devil John complained.

  I reached into my satchel and held up a tape-covered magazine and a scrapbook. “Maybe these will help, sir.”

  Devil John grimaced, shaking his head. “Ain’t got no use for any more of them highfalutin books that fritters away time. It’s costing me good oil and wick and food, Book Woman! My farming’s gone to seed from laziness. Wasteful.”

  “This is Boys’ Life. And look, sir, here’s a good mountain book full of housecleaning tips and sewing.”

  He balled up his fists, crossed his arms.

  “Mr. Smith, the Boy Scouts just sent this latest magazine in. It’s about hunting and fishing, and there’s Bible stories inside.”

  He took a minute mulling it over.

  “Sir, Boys’ Life teaches a young’un how to knot rope, make a good fishing cane, and trap rabbit. Good hunting tips inside there, sir.” I dismounted and walked the magazine and scrapbook over to him. Though it was said he never partook, only bootlegged to provide for his family, Devil John still smelled of sweet mash from working his still—the angels’ share and what folks called the escaping spirits inside barrels. He loomed over me in his cow shoes, the large wooden blocks carved into cow hoofs that he’d attached to his boot soles to leave hoofprints and trick the revenuers.

  “Mr. Smith, there’s also an interesting article on tanning and some nice prayers they can learn. There’s some old church bulletins and a pastor’s sermons inside the scrapbook.”

  “Sermons!” he boomed, locking eyes with mine. “I don’t need a charlatan’s fire-wagging finger up my ass. The likes of that ol’ devil Frazier pastor’s falsehoods in my home.”

  Junia blew hard and stomped a hoof. I gasped and tore my eyes away, shaking inside, but not before I heard something more in how he’d said it. My mind pulled to Frazier’s attack. I’d seen a shadow and heard a noise that day. Had Devil John found Junia and sent her back to me? Had he seen Frazier accost me? Seen where Frazier lay?

  Devil John saw a lot in these woods, know’d every stick and stink of it. Finally I caught my breath and squeaked out, “No, sir. Yes, sir.”

  He frowned and scanned the woods, thinking. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen the false parson man, and if I never hear from him again, it’ll be none too soon.”

  I swallowed my agreement.

  He quieted a bit. “My Martha Hannah sees to their Bible studies—reads to ’em at first l
ight and every night,” he clipped, darting his eyes to the Boys’ Life and then to me, and once more back to the magazine, before snatching it from my hand and quickly fanning the pages.

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure Martha Hannah does a fine job. And there’s a lot of other fine things in the scrapbook for her, some tasty recipes for her to make.” The book shook a little in my hand. “There’s a pattern for britches and instructions for making a good hickory basket and a couple of canning recipes. Lot of fine chores in there, Mr. Smith.” I opened the scrapbook and showed him a recipe for sweet bread and another for a meat-and-onion pie. “That’s Mrs. Hamilton’s prized pie.” I tapped the page and handed to him, hoping he’d let his wife have it.

  “My garden ain’t even hoed ’cause they’s been reading too much.” Still, he took it and pondered whether to trust what I’d said. Not knowing how to read, Devil John weighed it in his hands and snuck glimpses at me and the recipes. He opened the Boys’ Life again, tapped a title beside a fish. “What’s this say, Book Woman?”

  “A boy’s guide to fishing,” I slowly read, underlining the words with my finger.

  “A boy’s guide to fishing,” he mouthed and trailed the print. “This word here,” he pointed, “says ‘boy.’”

  “Yes, sir. Boy, b-o-y.”

  He worked his tongue over the spelling. “This one’s ‘fishin’,’ then?”

  “Fish-ing,” I slowly pronounced, pausing my finger at the syllables. “F-i-s-h-i-n-g.”

  “Fish-n’.” He followed earnestly, mouthing the letters again, and then stole another glance at the scrapbook I held.

  Junia nudged my back, rested her head on my shoulder, and kept her big eyes nailed on him.