The Waking Bell Page 2

  His smile softened. “Good to hear. Thank ya.”

  Saying nothing else, he turned and walked back to the truck. I watched him until another caught my eye.

  Why it was Loretta Hopkins giving a prisoner a jar of homemade jam! Not only that, but she was doing it in front of everyone. Without a doubt, Loretta would be the talk of the town by morning, reviled for befriending the enemy.

  My shock faded, replaced by a surge of pity for poor Loretta. I knew what it was like to be whispered about.

  A minute later, the army truck pulled away from the field, headed toward the old bridge, and then crossed the creek. A rabble of children followed along behind, yelling and throwing dirt clods. Sitting in the open bed, the prisoners looked stiff with the soldier-guard slouched at the tailgate and ignored the outburst.

  The truck continued its way. The children halted in its dust and laughed. I frowned. There was Dickie right smack in the middle of them.

  I shook my head. I should have whaled him in front of everyone and sent him to Otis. On second thought, Otis might be proud of his son. Instead, I shook my head and continued to our table. Otis expected me to fix supper.

  Somewhere nearby, a fiddle started up. The music soothed me as I let the rhythm soak into me. Smiling to myself, I admitted I loved it when the community came together. It didn’t happen often, but the revival was perfect timing.

  The rye harvest was in, fields plowed and lying fallow until fall planting. Farmers came to talk crops, but also the war, which was on everyone’s mind. The war had hit the area hard. Every able-bodied man and some not much more than boys were off fighting the Nazis and Japs.

  The ones that were left would come to smoke and drink when the preachers weren’t looking. The women set up the tables and cooked and enjoyed the gossip that would ensue while they tried to keep up with the children who got muddy down by the creek and played in the woods.

  As I walked through the mingling, I nodded shyly at first, then lowered my gaze. I could feel eyes lingering on me too long. Their stares hurried my steps.

  My nerves steadied when I saw Otis sitting amongst a group of his friends by our table. I slowed as I approached. Since it was Goldie’s field, Otis had picked the best spot, level and near the curling creek, allowing the breeze to flow off the water.

  Otis had hung a lantern on the limb of an oak that seemed to have half its roots above ground. I stepped around the table and caught a whiff of the distinct odor of whiskey. Otis had already brought out his jug.

  “Cady Blue, where ya been? You were supposed to be here laying out supper. Can’t you see we got company?”

  “I tried to see to Dickie. He was trailing after the trucks,” I said, smoothing out the tablecloth. I reached down and took one of the boxes out from under the table. “He’s not listening.”

  “Just being a boy,” Otis mumbled, turning back to Bucky Sanders, who already looked more than a little drunk. The poor man got word last week that his boy, Billy, had gone missing in the war.

  I turned my attention back to the meal at hand. I knew it would do no good telling on Dickie. Otis just ignored me. I poured the beans into the black pot Otis had pulled out and started heating up the food.

  The night turned into one of merriment and camaraderie. It hung in the air like smoke from a fire, camouflaged as good Christian fellowship but with a welter of expectancy. Still, my senses became sharp-edged.

  There was an undercurrent of anticipation in the voices of those sitting around Otis’s table. A small crowd had gathered around the site with their attention directed on the golden young preacher in white, Frazier Clayton.

  Surreptitiously, I watched his every movement. He ate elegantly, tearing the fried chicken with his fingertips into bite-sized pieces.

  Though I worked fixing plates and cleaning up after Otis’s guests, I heard every word spoken. When we returned home, I was certain that Goldie would grill me on the happenings. She said her rheumatism was acting up and couldn’t attend tonight. I thought she was mad at Otis for one thing or another.

  Goldie always let her temper get the best of her.

  I imagined she would want to know all about the new reverend. I had learned the young man had been born outside of Nashville twenty-two years ago and was third generation evangelist. He signed up for the army at the beginning of the war but was turned away due to asthma.

  To be honest, he fascinated me along with every other woman at the revival, especially the single ones. Vivienne Montgomery had seated herself across from the man, batting her eyelashes and singing hallelujah on Brother Clayton’s every utterance.

  Vivienne was a year younger than I was but had buried two husbands and was already looking for her third. Her first one had died in a hunting accident, the second after he signed up for the navy. Before he got deployed to the Pacific, he stepped off the gang plank of his ship dead drunk and drowned.

  Despite my ability to make myself seem invisible, I kept catching the preacher’s eyes on me. Each time, I lowered my gaze as I felt the warmth of blood rushing to my cheeks. No man had openly given me his attention.

  Frazier Clayton was an impressive man, not only with his good looks. He had walked up to our site with Dickie by the ear. Seemed my younger brother had hit old Miss Owens in the head with a dirt wad he’d been throwing at the German prisoners.

  Otis slapped Dickie across the ears and had him sit with the adults. From the look Otis gave him, I realized Dickie was going to get it good when we got home.

  Dickie knew it, too.

  Shortly after his public humiliation, Dickie frowned when a small mite of a thing edged out from behind the wagon and gestured for Dickie to follow him. It was Alfie Walker. I imagined the other boys bullied Alfie to get Dickie. None of them had the courage to try.

  Alfie had been a sickly child from the time he was a baby and was a couple of inches shorter than anyone else his age. Alfie’s face had no color; his blue eyes were always red-rimmed and watery, his nose, snotty. He fingered the straps of his overalls, nervously picking at the metal hooks.

  Dickie grimaced and waved to Alfie to get going. My usually bold brother wasn’t even going to try to sneak away.

  Alfie turned on his heels and ran off into the woods with the other boys. The look on Dickie’s face told that being left behind ate him up inside.

  A horse neighed in the distance as I stoked the fire. I had no more food to heat, but thankfully Ida Jean and Ellie Mae had brought theirs over and shared. Given the women were the sweetest things in the world, I wasn’t surprised.

  Neighbors helped neighbors. That was the mountain way.

  The fiddler began playing again. Around the table, the sound of clapping and laughter filled the air. I soaked in the feeling of pure joy in the moment. It wasn’t often that I felt this at ease with people around.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed a moving shadow along the edge of the rye field. I paused and took a harder look. What in the world! Why it’s Moria Pritchard!

  Moria Pritchard wasn’t a woman that could be mistaken for another nor ignored. She was so different from anybody else I had ever met. She was sophisticated and always dressed to the hilt without a hair out of place.

  As the woman walked closer, I was shocked to see Moria quite out of sorts. Her long blond hair was disheveled under a tilted hat. Moreover, she was walking with a limp. The heel of her shoe had come off.

  Matt rushed to his wife’s side, but she pushed him back. He pulled his hat off and raked his fingers through his hair.

  From where I stood, I couldn’t make out what was being said, but this much I understood—Moria wasn’t a happy woman. I turned back to find Ida Jean staring at the same sight.

  Ida Jean looked at me. We broke into silent giggles.

  Leaning over, Ida Jean grabbed my arm and whispered, “I wondered where she was during the service. I kept seeing Matt looking around like he was expecting her.”

  I resisted the urge to look back at them. Lately, it
had become common knowledge that Moria was miserable in Oak Flatt. Dodie told Ginny Rose that the woman wanted to move back to Savannah but added there was no way Moria was going to get a Pritchard to leave his home.

  Nodding in agreement with Ida Jean, I admitted to myself that it was odd. Usually if you saw Moria, you saw Dodie on her arm. The two were inseparable. Where was Dodie? Had something happened?

  Ida Jean smirked. “I betcha the car broke down. Looks like she’s been walking for miles.”

  I nodded in agreement. Of course, it would be nothing more than running out of gas or a flat tire. Dodie was probably sitting there waiting at the car.

  Silently, I reprimanded myself. I always did that—jumped to conclusions. Mostly, thinking the worst possible outcome. Why, in a minute, I would have had Dodie lying on the side of the road dead. I hadn’t a clue why those thoughts entered my mind. Maybe something was wrong with me.

  Forcing a small smile, I rubbed the back of my neck. My spirit lifted when I looked at the table. Brother Clayton’s eyes were fixed on me with a brilliant smile.

  Moria Pritchard and Dodie Reeves were forgotten.

  A voice broke the moment. “Alfie Walker, where are you?”

  Unconsciously, I turned toward the voice and saw Helen Walker move toward Dickie. She was mad as an old wet hen. I had never seen her this upset.

  Helen was a little thing and usually so meek and mild. Matter of fact, I had never even heard her lift her voice.

  “What’s wrong, Helen?” Otis stood, nodding toward Dickie. “Doubt Dickie knows much. The boy has been sitting with us for most of the night.”

  Helen drew in a deep breath. “He didn’t come back with the other boys. None of them seem to know where Alfie’s at.”

  Otis turned to Dickie. “Do ya know where Alfie would have gone to?”

  Dickie shrugged. “All we were going to do was skip rocks down on the creek.”

  “His daddy has already been down there…” Helen’s voice faded. She grimaced, turned back slowly, and walked away. Under her breath, I heard Helen plea to the God she had come to worship this night, “Please, dear lord, take care of my boy.”

  Staring helplessly after the woman, a shiver swept through me. A dark ominous feeling flooded me without warning. There was no helping this one.

  The bells began to ring.

  Chapter 2

  Morning came with a deathly quiet in the air as if Mother Nature had demanded the silence.

  A child was missing.

  On the harvested rye field, the gray-stained canvas tent heaved with each breath of the wind. Gone was the innocence of children playing without a care, women and men congregating around the tables in discussions from everything from the war to Loretta Hopkins’s obsession with the German POWs, and the sound of fiddles playing while babies cried.

  Instead, the field was littered with men searching for Alfie Walker. Dogs had been brought in, including some of the best trackers in the county, but it had done no good. The trail ended at the bend of the creek, about a couple of miles away.

  I parked Goldie’s old truck in front of the tent and turned off the ignition. The truck sputtered for a time before it decided to behave. I was beyond being embarrassed by the vehicle. Most days, it got me where I wanted to go.

  Goldie stormed out of the tent. One glance told me the short dumpy woman wasn’t happy. A deep frown sat entrenched on her face as wetness glistened around the corners of her mouth. Old-age liver spots dotted her cheeks, and her dark eyes flamed with anger.

  I held no doubt where her fury was directed. Nothing happened on this mountain without Goldie’s consent. She had set herself up as its sovereign ruler long before my birth. Nothing would change that until she was six feet under.

  With Alfie’s disappearance, Goldie’s control came into question. At least, that was how Goldie saw it, I was certain. It made no difference that no one knew what had happened to the boy.

  Questions and rumors abounded. Was he wandering around lost in the thick woods, desperately searching for his family? Was he lying hurt hoping to be found? Had a stranger snatched him?

  “Didja make a batch of biscuits?” Goldie asked ten feet before she got to the truck.

  “Two,” I answered, “And made some sandwiches and tea. Afraid we don’t have any more ice.”

  “We’ll make do.”

  Reaching into the bed of the truck, I took out a basket of biscuits. Goldie came behind me and grabbed the jug of tea with her knobby hands. Her cracked and broken fingernails showed the signs of the hard work she had done.

  I frowned. Goldie hadn’t bothered to put in her bottom plate, having been in a hurry upon hearing about Alfie vanishing. Her upper lip was protruded.

  A wail sliced through the tension-riddled air. Helen Walker cried out for her son.

  Goldie sadly shook her head as she walked into the tent. I followed behind with the promised food.

  I stepped back into the shelter of shadow. The words of last night still echoed the warning of damnation and being cast into the fire inferno, but one glance at Alfie’s mother told of an earthly hell.

  Helen looked awful. Her puffy red eyes with dark circles underneath betrayed her lack of rest. A small woman, her dress from the night before hung wrinkled and loose around her frail body.

  She was surrounded by her neighbors, mountainfolk. They were like that, rallying around one another in time of need. Ida Jean sat next to Helen on a bench that had been brought into the tent and rocked the poor woman in her arms as if the frail woman had woken from a nightmare. I was afraid that there would be no comfort until that nightmare ended with her son’s return.

  The grieving mother’s head rose at the sound of Goldie returning. The woman’s face was like a finely painted picture of anguish. She looked up with brown eyes that were opaque and devoid of life.

  Goldie headed straight toward the woman. “Why doncha go back to my place, Helen. Cady Blue here will take you. Go lie down and rest. I’ll come getcha if there is any word.”

  Helen shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere without my Alfie. No, sir. He’ll need me…”

  Conviction rode on each word. I saw it in Goldie’s face that she wasn’t going to press her anymore. Goldie was a mother herself and understood.

  “Well, then.” Goldie patted Helen’s hand. “There are some fresh biscuits and, if I ain’t wrong, some fried bacon in those baskets. You eat up. Won’t do Alfie no good if you get yourself sick.”

  Helen gave Goldie a weak nod.

  “Mrs. Claudill.”

  I turned with Goldie to see a group of lawmen walking toward us. Brother Clayton was among them. The preacher looked as though he had stayed through the night as well. He still wore his clothes from the night before.

  Brother Clayton stood behind the others, but he caught my eye. He gave me a small sympathetic smile. I realized that he understood that Goldie didn’t have much love for lawmen, nor did anyone on the mountain. It was the way things were.

  Sheriff Raymond Brawner was a large man but seemingly not as tall as he was round. His chubby belly hung over his belt, and I doubted very much if he could see his shoes. His cheeks reddened on any activity, even his walk across the tent’s floor.

  He wore well-worn brown leather work boots, tan breeches, and a lumber jacket. His belt had a row of bullets sticking in it. Behind him, two deputies carried heavy rifles. I was unsure whether the deputies were there to help search for Alfie or for Sheriff Brawner’s protection.

  Goldie grimaced. “Whatcha here for? Shoulda ya be out looking for the boy?”

  “Got men all over the woods, Goldie, as well you know. Just have a couple of questions.”

  “Doncha know whatcha think I could tell ya. Wasn’t here last night. My rheumatism was acting up.”

  I stood back and said nothing, knowing Goldie did suffer from the ailment. She complained enough about her joints that never stopped aching. Most time, whiskey or moonshine seemed to help her overcome her infi
rmity. Last night, though, I wagered it was mostly that Otis made her mad.

  Most years, Otis hauled Goldie a chair right up front where she could reign over the festivities. She would sit there like an omniscient autocrat, listening to gossip and monitoring sin; but this year, Otis was all riled up and told Goldie she could make her own way down to the revival.

  Otis wanted Goldie to sign over her house and lands to him. Goldie had been appalled. There had been quite a row. Goldie told Otis he could wait until after she took her last breath like most folks did. Otis countered that he was tired of working at the chicken factory. Made no sense to him because they had enough money.

  Goldie went back at him and reminded him that it was hers, not his yet. She had the right mind to go into Oak Flatt and see Lawyer Fleming. She would change her will to leave everything to Dickie in a trust. She called Otis her lazy good-for-nothing son. He called her a stingy old miser.

  Truth be known, it was nothing new. They talked that way to each other all the time, but Goldie must have thought Otis was serious last evening. She begged off last night, saying she was sick. Goldie was prideful and wasn’t going to be embarrassed hauling her chair up front by herself.

  “Don’t give me that, Goldie.”

  Goldie’s face contorted as her temper flared. I realized Goldie was mad as hell. Some might say it was her perpetual state and rightly so. She thought people were damn idiots, especially lawmen. That and she never took flak from anyone.

  “You better make damn certain who ya talking to, Brawner, when ya open that mouth of yours.”

  Brawner took a step back. He was no fool. His position as sheriff did little to protect him from Goldie’s wrath. “Only wanted to point out that you know most everything that happens on this mountain. If you know anything that you’re not telling me…”

  From behind Sheriff Brawner, I noticed Matt Pritchard. He stepped forward. From the look of things, he seemed to believe he could calm the situation.