Chapter 24

Grandpa’s Sisters

After we eat, it’s time for David and Johnny to head home.

“Ya needn’t carry home tales that’ll worry folks,” Grandpa tells them.

He makes sure David can handle Stonewall and pats Johnny’s shoulder. “Ya won’t git lost. General knows these hills better’n man or beast.”

But it takes a peck of convincing to get General to leave Grandpa and me. He licks my hand with a whimper, nudging my skirt, before following the boys up the trail.

They disappear in the distance and Grandpa and I are alone.

“We aren’t going back to that town, are we?” I ask.

“Like the wise men in the Good Book, we’s a-goin’ by a differ’nt route.”

We follow a stony creek bed. I don’t need more to carry, but I shuck off my shoes and stockings, and walk from stone to stone letting rivulets of water spill across my toes.

Where rocks are far apart, my feet sink into the squishy creek bottom. Minnows dart around my ankles. As my foot reaches for another flat rock, a rust-colored mud-puppy swishes out from under it, startling me. With the heavy suitcase in one hand and my shoes in the other, I nearly lose my balance. I plant both feet on the creek bottom quick-like.

“Ya sogged up your skirt,” Grandpa says.

Back on dry, sun-baked stones that make my feet pine for cool creek water, I check my hem. “Just a dab. It’ll dry.”

”Ya’s gittin’ too old ta play like a young’un,” he scolds. “Put yer shoes on and behave like a lady.” Twice in two days Grandpa told me to behave like a lady, but this is no town. I put on my most ladylike face, waiting for him to laugh, but he doesn’t even smile.

My shoes back in place, we climb the creek bank to a hard-packed dirt road. Heavy travel has ground its top layer to fine dust that rises around our feet with each step. A wagon passes, and Grandpa tips his hat, tossing the driver a Howdy.

An old plug of a horse plods by, looking scarcely strong enough to carry its own weight, much less the two boys astride it. Fishing poles lie across the animal’s withers, and a string of pike hangs down its side. Grandpa tips his hat.

“You took with one’a them boys, Ginnie Lee?” he asks.

I look over my shoulder. “I scarcely saw them.”

“Not the two with the fish,” he says as though his meaning were clear as window glass. “Crutcher’s boys.”

We parted from David and Johnny near an hour ago. How am I supposed to know who he meant?

“So are ya took with one of ‘em?”

“David and Johnny? They’re young’uns.”

“Won’t stay young forever.”

Has Grandpa plumb lost his buttons?

“Ain’t no other fittin’ young men back home,” he says. “I were a-lookin’ at church. Onliest men I seen was way too long in the tooth fer ya.”

“You were looking in church? For men? For me?” My voice starts to screech. He haslost his buttons.

“Ya ain’t too young ta be a-lookin’ fer a husband.”

“I’m fourteen!”

“Some girls marry younger.”

“Mama was twenty-two.”

“Your ma lived in the city. Could afford ta be choicy. Men thick as flies at a butcherin’. ‘Round Skitter Falls, pickin’s is right spare.

I recall saying similar words to Jackson a while back, but I have trouble speaking of it to Grandpa “I…I… There’s… Not all boys go to church,” I finally say.

Grandpa stops walking. “Ya know some that don’t?”

I dip into my memory like a fishhook in search of a bite. “Kirtland Hayes,” I say.

“Hayes? Not Clem Hayes’s boy?”

“The same.”

“Clem Hayes is crooked as a crosscut saw. Been swindlin’ flatlanders fer years. Sellin’ ‘em watered-down moonshine, more water’n shine, palmin’ off gen-u-ine Indian arrowheads he done carved hisself. A pa like that, young Hayes’ll be behind bars one day. Mark my words. A vulture’s egg don’t hatch out no barn owl.”

If Grandpa can vex me about getting married, I can vex him right back. “There’s Jess Willoughby.”

“Willoughby!” Grandpa spits as though the word fills his mouth with something vile. “Ain’t no Willoughby fit fer ya to talk to, much less marry.”

He spits again. “Our kin’s battled them varmints since the first of ‘em come over the mountains. Was them what squatted on our land, so’s George Kent had ta go ta court.

“Even so, my brother friendlied up with Thaddeus when they was boys. Til Thad lost ‘is thumb. They blamed Fred fer it.”

Grandpa looks me square in the face. “Then war come. And the Willoughbys kilt my ma and sisters.”

“Killed them? I thought they died of typhoid.”

“Typhoid took part, but Willoughbys kilt ‘em sure as if they’d shot ‘em.” I’m so filled with confusion, I can barely speak. “How?”

“Whilst me and Fred was in the War, some folks ‘round our slope’a the hills didn’t cotton ta Confederate thinkin’. Willoughbys was Yankee ta the core, but without gumption ta fight legal-like in the Yankee army. Slunk around at night, tormentin’ innocent folks. Burnt down a house when the mister were off fightin’ Confederate. Sent the missus and young’uns fleein’ fer the woods. Chased ‘em on horseback. A young’un fell down a gully in the dark. Busted his neck. Willoughbys never so much as fetched a doctor.”

I open my mouth to speak, but my mind can’t find words.

“My sister Carolyn were just your age, twins Abigail and Annie barely ten. Ma and Pa was scairt by what happened ta that boy. Pa stayed to defend the house, sent the womenfolk to Ma’s kin on the Kanawha. Didn’t know typhoid was down there.”

Grandpa commences walking again, but the flow of his words has hit a dam. His eyes stay on the road ahead, and the air grows thick with his silence. Though I’m right beside him, I feel miles away.