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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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Will heard Julie moan in her sleep. She never complained but suffered the aches and pains with her usual good nature. She’d told him the bodily discomfort from having this baby was easy after having endured the heartache of losing their other three. She awoke easily when Will caressed her shoulder. She leaned forward as he positioned a pillow to her back, then slowly sipped the warm eggnog.
“How do you feel, sweetheart? You were moaning in your sleep.”
“I’m all right. Just a little sore. Did you notice our little chipmunk’s finally sleeping? She nursed for the longest time.” Julie leaned back against the pillow and handed him the cup. “I need to get up,” she said, slowly raising a hand to him. “Help me please, Will.”
Will proffered a steady hand as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “Oh, the room’s spinning,” she gasped. “I feel sick.” Will could feel her panic as she clutched his shoulders. “Something’s not right. I think I’m flooding!”
Forcing himself to stay calm, Will eased Julie back against the bed. An ominous red circle spread on the sheet beneath her. Granny had warned of this, but he had expected it would happen earlier if at all, and not this much. Struggling to remember all Granny had told him, Will placed his hand on Julie’s belly and began to rub.
“Will,” she cried, “you’re hurting me! Stop, please stop.”
“I have to do something!” Will replied as his mind spun nearly out of control. “You’re bleeding too much! Oh, Lord, please help us.”
Julie grabbed his hand, forcing him to stop. “You need to take me to Granny.” Her voice steadied as if the very thought of Granny calmed her fear. “She’ll know what to do.”
“It’s pouring outside. You’ll get soaked.” His mind cast about for a solution; he couldn’t take his wife out into this weather in her condition. “I’ll go fetch her.”
“No, Will. I’m so afraid. It’s just a short way. Please don’t leave me.” He could see the terror on her face, and hadn’t he promised years ago to never leave her?
“All right, sweetheart,” he said finally. “I’ll go get the horse and buggy. Can you sit up a little so you can nurse the baby? That will make your womb clamp down.”
Famished after her long nap, the baby suckled greedily.
Will wiped his bloody hands on his shirtfront, grabbed his slicker, and ran out into the storm, praying, pleading all the way to the barn. He fumbled with the leather gear as he harnessed the male of his pair of workhorses to the light carriage. Fleetly, he considered the sturdier wagon, but the surrey that Grace had sent would keep Julie and the baby dry.
He pulled the suddenly balky Samson to the barn door. The big horse neighed as he faced the thunder and lightning. Delilah, shut up in her stall, whinnied. She was always restive when Samson wasn’t in his stall next to hers. The barn cat stretched, came out to meet Will, and wound herself around his ankle. Her kittens mewled frantically from their gunnysack bed in the corner. Will shook his leg. The cat stalked off, her tail in the air. She and her new kittens would have to be company enough for Delilah until Samson came back.
He led the horse to the porch, speaking softly in spite of his urgency, stroking the animal’s long nose. Looping the reins loosely over the porch rail, he rushed back inside.
Julie stood by the bed, pale and shaky, her eyes closed. Her lips moved in silent prayer. She’d managed to put on a clean gown, and he knelt to help with her shoes. He handed her the only medicine they had—a little glass of whiskey—and she shuddered as she drank it in one gulp. Stripping off his oilcloth jacket and wrapping the baby in it, he pulled a quilt around them both and carried them to the buggy.
Will took up the reins and urged Samson forward. Within minutes they were at the banks of Troublesome Creek. They’d have to cross here to reach Daniel’s cabin. The creek was usually not much more than knee-high on this side of the footbridge, while farther downstream calm pools lay deep enough for swimming and fishing. This night, however, two days’ steady rain had given over to a deluge, causing muddy water to surge down the bed and overflow its banks.
The great horse balked at the water’s edge. Will flicked the reins sharply, then flicked them again. Samson was resistant, but as always he followed Will’s commands, pulling the carriage into the swollen creek. A tree limb swept past as they were caught in a torrent. Too late Will realized his mistake. There was nothing to do but go on. He shouted to Samson above the storm, “Gee! Gee!”
Thunder rolled. Samson did not respond. The stream they’d crossed a thousand times was suddenly no longer familiar. Water crashed against the horse and buggy. In a flash of lightning Will saw the horse falter. Samson flung his big head around as if he needed reassurance from his master. Then a tremendous bolt of lightning struck an ancient cottonwood on the far bank. Sparks flew as a large limb fell flaming to the ground.
Samson reared, neighing.
Will slacked the reins and called out, “Steady. Steady.” Darkness overtook them. The buggy tipped and swayed, then overturned, dumping its passengers into the roiling black water.
Will went under twice before his feet found purchase on the slick, moss-covered rocks. The frigid water swirled around him as he fought to stay upright. He sputtered and coughed and flailed, feeling for Julie and the baby beneath the surface before the buggy finally slammed against his chest. He inched to the other side of the vehicle, praying to find them.
Another bolt, and for seconds the scene was bright as day. Relief flooded through him when he caught sight of his wife clinging to a wheel that jutted incongruously from the water.
He circled her with one arm and tugged.
But she resisted. “My baby! My baby! I lost hold of her!”
“Let me get you to the bank!” he yelled against the howling wind, her words barely registering as he worked to get her to safety.
“Noooo!” she wailed in anguish. “The baby!”
He had forgotten all about Laura Grace, so anxious was he to find Julie. How could a little baby be found in this? Against his better judgment, knowing there’d be no hope for Julie if he didn’t find her baby girl, he left her holding securely to the carriage.
He ducked under the water and scrabbled along the bottom of the creek, scraping his hands raw on the rough rock that held the other wheel lodged under the water. Lungs bursting, he came up for air and found himself back where he had started. He inhaled deeply, ready to try again when the newborn’s lusty cry came from inside the overturned buggy! Reaching blindly, he felt the seat lying on its side. He leaned in, frantically feeling about, the infant’s bawl more distinct. Miraculously, his jacket had caught on a brace and held her inches above the surging muddy flood. Ever so thankful for his daughter’s loud cry, Will jerked the fabric loose and pulled the baby out.
Darkness black as a witch’s heart surrounded him; a roaring, pounding flood assaulted him as he fought his way back to Julie. Faint with relief, Will grabbed the wheel where he’d left her and pressed himself against a cold and empty space.
Julie was gone! His mind couldn’t grasp it. He’d left her clinging to the wheel only minutes before. She couldn’t be gone. The baby squirmed against his chest. Fighting rising panic, he gulped in ragged breaths. “Julie! God, please . . . Julie!” His head cleared.
She’s on the bank,
he told himself.
Somehow she’s made her way to safety.
The carriage provided him some protection on the downstream side, its bulk diverting the angry floodwater. Using it as a guide, Will made his way to the now docile Samson. The horse trembled in fear and exhaustion beneath Will’s hands. He grabbed the halter and called, “Gee! Gee, now!”
Samson shook himself, like a dog caught in the rain, and heaved forward. With a screech and a groan, the buggy dislodged from the creek bed and floated up as Samson strained toward the bank. Will feared it would drag the horse off. Struggling to hold the baby out of the water, he unhitched the carriage and held to Samson’s thick mane as, now free, the animal pulled them back to the opposite shore.
 
A monstrous rupture split the eastern sky and sent a jagged finger of fire to strike a rotted stump and reveal a surreal scene: a horse, too weary for fear; a whimpering baby wrapped tightly in a brown slicker; and a tall, disheveled man screaming his wife’s name over and over. The buggy rode a wash of water downstream, one wheel spinning wildly as it went. There was no woman waiting on the shore.
Julie had vanished.
CHAPTER 4
 
Granny sat in a bent-willow rocker close to the fire, a cup of sassafras tea cooling on her knee. A tattered quilt, faded from many washings, covered her thin shoulders. Her Bible lay open in her lap. She loved this quietest part of the day, after everyone had gone to bed. The need for less sleep was one of the blessings of old age. Nothing made her feel cozier than listening to a good thunder boomer while she rocked by the fire.
She was not enjoying the storm that raged this night, however. The vague sense of unease that had started with the birth of Julie’s baby had been replaced by the sure knowledge that someone she cherished would be passing this turbulent night.
The signs could not be denied. Just last week, while walking up the mountain in the woods above the cabin, she’d spied a cluster of honeybees swarming from a hollow log. It was an early spring, so the apple trees were releasing their fragrant blossoms, enticing the bees from their dormant state. The air was soft and clear, the sunlight slanted just right to reveal to her clouded vision the color of the bees—black, solid black. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen black bees. . . . Maybe that time just before they found Lost-Lum Sizemore swinging from the black walnut tree up Crook-Neck Holler.
God rest his soul. Poor Lum, he couldn’t bear the burden of hisself no longer.
And then, the morning after the birth, when Will had burst jubilantly into the house, a little brown wren followed through the door. In the clamor that followed, she’d quietly guided the bird outside with a broom. The foretelling signs continued that very morning when Emilee showed her tea leaves forming the shape of a coffin in the bottom of her cup.
Granny leaned her tired old head back against the chair. Her own mommy had taught her the signs, way back before Jesus came into her heart. Her daddy liked to say, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” He’d try to persuade her mother that “the only real sign is the cross.” They were all happy when at last her mommy was saved. And even though Granny was a born-again believer, she couldn’t help remembering the signs her mommy had taught her and believing that somehow they were God’s way of using His creation to warn of things to come.
Granny had not shared her foreboding with Emilee. She’d grieve soon enough. Young folks had such a hard time with loss. The older a body got, the sweeter the beckoning of heaven’s gates. Granny was readying to enter that land. She just couldn’t figure out why the chariot was coming for one of the young’uns and not for her.
She closed her eyes, too old for tears, and bowed her head. “Lord, help me to get a holt of this,” she whispered as the rain drummed on the roof and the wind rattled the windowpane. “I put my trust in Ye.”
The death knell sounded. The veil would part before midnight.
 
Will felt himself floating above the riverbank, as if he could look down and observe himself, a stranger. Surely that was not him clutching a baby and screaming his wife’s name while his heart splintered in his chest.

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