David Baldacci Read online

  “You got you a gun,” said Diamond, “then go git your old mountain cat. ’Cept mebbe you scared.”

  Davis’s gaze burned into the boy, but then the scream came again, and hit them all just as hard, and Davis took off at a half-trot toward the trees.

  “Come on now!” cried out Diamond, and they ran as fast as they could between trees and along more open fields. Owls hooted at them, and a bobwhite bobwhited at them. Things they couldn’t see ran up and down tall oaks, or flitted in front of them, yet none of it came close to scaring them as much as they already had been by George Davis and his shotgun. Lou was a blur, faster even than Diamond. But when Oz tripped and fell, she rounded back and helped him.

  They finally stopped and squatted in the high grass, breathing heavy and listening for a crazy man or a wildcat coming after them.

  “Who is that awful man?” asked Lou.

  Diamond checked behind him before answering. “George Davis. He got a farm next Miss Louisa’s. He a hard man. A bad man! Dropped on his head when he were a baby, or mebbe mule kicked him, don’t know which. He got a corn liquor still up here in one of the hollows, so’s he don’t like people coming round. I wish somebody just shoot him.”

  They soon reached another small clearing. Diamond held up his hand for them to stop and then proudly pointed up ahead, as though he had just discovered Noah’s Ark on a simple mountaintop in Virginia.

  “There she is.”

  The well was moss-crusted brick, crumbling in places, and yet undeniably spooky. The three glided up to it; Jeb guarded their rear flank while hunting small prey in the high grass.

  They all peered over the edge of the well’s opening. It was black, seemingly without bottom; they could have been staring at the other side of the world. All sorts of things could have been peering back.

  “Why do you say it’s haunted?” Oz asked breathlessly.

  Diamond sprawled in the grass next to the well and they joined him.

  “’Bout a thousand million years ago,” he began in a thick and thrilling voice that made Oz’s eyes widen, fast-blink, and water all at the same time, “they was a man and woman live up chere. Now, they was in love, ain’t no denying that. And so’s they wanted to get hitched o’course. But they’s family hated each other, wouldn’t let ’em do it. No sir. So they come up with a plan to run off. Only somethin’ went bad and the feller thought the woman had done got herself kilt. He was so broke up, he came to this here well and jumped in. It’s way deep, shoot, you seed that. And he drowned hisself. Now the girl found out what was what, and she come and jumped in herself too. Never found ’em ’cause it was like they was plopped on the sun. Not a durn thing left.”

  Lou was completely unmoved by this sad tale. “That sounds a lot like Romeo and Juliet.”

  Diamond looked puzzled. “That kin of yours?”

  “You’re making this up,” she said.

  All around them sounds of peculiar quality started up, like millions of tiny voices all trying to jabber at once, as though ants had suddenly acquired larynxes.

  “What’s that?” Oz said, clinging to Lou.

  “Don’t be doubting my words, Lou,” Diamond hissed, his face the color of cream. “You riling the spirits.”

  “Yeah, Lou,” said Oz, who was looking everywhere for demons of hell coming for them. “Don’t be riling the spirits.”

  The noises finally died down, and Diamond, regaining his confidence, stared triumphantly at Lou. “Shoot, any fool can see this well’s magic. You see a house anywhere round? No, and I tell you why. This well growed up right out of the earth, that’s why. And it ain’t just a haunted well. It what you call a wishing well.”

  Oz said, “A wishing well? How?”

  “Them two people lost each other, but they’s still in love. Now, people die, but love don’t never die. Made the well magic. Anybody done got a wish, they come here, wish for it, and it’ll happen. Ever time. Rain or shine.”

  Oz clutched his arm. “Any wish? You’re sure?”

  “Yep. ’Cept they’s one little catch.”

  Lou spoke up, “I thought so. What is it?”

  “ ’Cause them folks died to make this here a wishing well, anybody want a wish, they’s got to give up somethin’ too.”

  “Give up what?” This came from Oz, who was so excited the boy seemed to float above the supple grass like a tethered bubble.

  Diamond lifted his arms to the dark sky. “Like just the most grandest, importantest thing they got in the whole dang world.”

  Lou was surprised he didn’t take a bow. She knew what was coming now, as Oz tugged at her sleeve.

  “Lou, maybe we can—”

  “No!” she said sharply. “Oz, you have got to understand that dangling necklaces and wishing wells won’t work. Nothing will.”

  “But, Lou.”

  The girl stood and pulled her brother’s hand free. “Don’t be stupid, Oz. You’ll just end up crying your eyes out again.”

  Lou ran off. After a second’s hesitation Oz followed her.

  Diamond was left with the spoils of something, surely not victory, judging by his disappointed face. He looked around and whistled, and Jeb came running. “Let’s get on home, Jeb,” he said quietly.

  The pair ran off in the opposite direction from Lou and Oz, as the mountains headed for sleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THERE WAS NO TRACE OF OUTSIDE LIGHT AS yet, when Lou heard the creak of foot on stair. The door to her room opened and Lou sat up in bed. The glow of lantern light eased into the space, followed by Louisa, already fully dressed. With her flow of silver hair and the gentle illumination around her, the woman seemed a messenger from heaven to Lou’s sleepy mind. The air in the room was chilly; Lou thought she could see her own breath.

  “Thought I’d let you and Oz sleep in,” Louisa said softly as she came and sat next to Lou.

  Lou stifled a yawn and looked out the window at the blackness. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly five.”

  “Five!” Lou dropped back against her pillow and pulled the covers over her head.

  Louisa smiled. “Eugene’s milking the cows. Be good you learn how.”

  “I can’t do it later?” Lou asked from under the blanket.

  “Cows don’t care to wait round for us people,” Louisa said. “They moan till the bag’s dry.” She added, “Oz is already dressed.”

  Lou jolted upright. “Mom couldn’t get him out of bed before eight, and even that was a fight.”

  “He’s right now having a bowl of molasses over cornbread and fresh milk. Be good if you’d join us.”

  Lou threw off the covers and touched the cold floor, which sent a shiver directly to her brain. Now she was convinced she could see her breath. “Give me five minutes,” she said bravely.

  Louisa noted the girl’s obvious physical distress. “Had us a frost last night,” Louisa said. “Stays cold up here longer. Works into your bones like a little knife. Be warm afore long, and then when winter comes, we move you and Oz down to the front room, right by the fire. Fill it with coal, keep you warm all night. We’ll make it right good for you here.” She paused and looked around the room. “Can’t give you what you had in the city, but we do our best.” She rose and went to the door. “I put hot water in the washbowl earlier so’s you can clean up.”

  “Louisa?”

  She turned back, the arc of lantern light throwing and then magnifying her shadow against the wall. “Yes, honey?”

  “This was my dad’s room, wasn’t it?”

  Louisa looked around slowly before coming back to the girl, and the question. “From time he was four till he gone away. Ain’t nobody use this room since.”

  Lou pointed to the covered walls. “Did my dad do that?”

  Louisa nodded. “He’d walk ten miles to get ahold of a paper or a book. Read ’em all a dozen times and then stuck them newspapers up there and kept right on reading. Never saw a boy that curious in all my life.” She looked at Lou.
“Bet you just like him.”

  “I want to thank you for taking Oz and me in.”

  Louisa looked toward the door. “This place be good for your mother too. We all pitch in, she be fine.”

  Lou looked away, started to fumble with her nightdress. “I’ll be down in a minute,” she said abruptly.

  Louisa accepted this change in the girl’s manner without comment and softly closed the door behind her.

  Downstairs, Oz was just finishing the last of his breakfast when Lou appeared, dressed, as he was, in faded overalls, long john shirt, and lace-up boots Louisa had laid out for them. A lantern hanging on a wall hook, and the coal fire, gave the room its only light. Lou looked at the grandmother clock on the fireplace mantel, itself a six-by-six timber of planed oak. It was indeed a little past five. Who would have thought cows would be up so early? she thought.

  “Hey, Lou,” Oz said. “You’ve got to taste this milk. It’s great.”

  Louisa looked at Lou and smiled. “Those clothes fit real good. Said a prayer they would. If ’n the boots too big, we fill ’em with rags.”

  “They’re fine,” said Lou, though they were actually too small, pinching her feet some.

  Louisa brought over a bucket and a glass. She put the glass on the table, draped a cloth over it, and poured the milk from the bucket into it, foam bubbling up on the cloth. “Want molasses on your cornbread?” she asked. “Real good that way. Line your belly.”

  “It’s great,” gushed Oz as he swallowed the last bite of his meal and washed it down with the rest of his milk.

  Lou looked at her glass. “What’s the cloth for?”

  “Take things out the milk you don’t need in you,” answered Louisa.

  “You mean the milk’s not pasteurized?” Lou said this in such a distressed tone that Oz gaped at his empty glass, looking as though he might drop dead that very instant.

  “What’s pastures?” he asked anxiously. “Can it get me?”

  “The milk’s fine,” Louisa said in a calm tone. “I’ve had it this way all my life. And your daddy too.”

  At her words, a relieved Oz sat back and commenced breathing again. Lou sniffed at her milk, tasted it gingerly a couple of times, and then took a longer swallow.

  “I told you it was good,” Oz said. “Putting it out to pasture probably makes it taste bad, I bet.”

  Lou said, “Pasteurization is named after Louis Pasteur, the scientist who discovered a process that kills bacteria and makes milk safe to drink.”

  “I’m sure he were a smart man,” said Louisa, as she set down a bowl of cornbread and molasses in front of Lou. “But we boil the cloth in between, and we get by just fine.” The way she said this made Lou not want to wrestle the issue anymore.

  Lou took a forkful of the cornbread and molasses. Her eyes widened at the taste. “Where do you buy this?” she asked Louisa.

  “Buy what?”

  “This food. It’s really good.”

  “Told you,” said Oz again smugly.

  Louisa said, “Don’t buy it, honey. Make it.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Show, remember? A lot better’n telling. And best way of all is doing. Now, hurry up and you get yourself together with a cow by the name of Bran. Old Bran’s got trouble you two can help Eugene fix.”

  With this enticement, Lou quickly finished her breakfast, and she and Oz hurried to the door.

  “Wait, children,” Louisa said. “Plates in the tub here, and you gonna need this.” She picked up another lantern and lit it. The smell of working kerosene filled the room.

  “This house really doesn’t have electricity?” Lou asked.

  “Know some folks down Tremont got the dang thing. It go off sometimes and they got no idea what to do with theirselves. Like they forgot how to light kerosene. Just give me a good lantern in hand and I be fine.”

  Oz and Lou carried their plates to the sink.

  “After you done in the barn, I show you the springhouse. Where we get our water. Haul it up twice a day. Be one of your chores.”

  Lou looked confused. “But you have the pump.”

  “That just for dishes and such. Need water for lots of things. Animals, washing, tool grinder, bathing. Pump ain’t got no pressure. Take you a day to fill up a good-sized lard bucket.” She smiled. “Sometimes seems we spend most our breath hauling wood and water. First ten years’a my life, I thought my name was ‘git.’ “

  They were about to go out the door again, Lou carrying the lantern, when she stopped. “Uh, which one’s the cow barn?”

  “How’s ’bout I show you?”

  The air was bone-hurting cold and Lou was grateful for the thick shirt, but still wedged her bare hands under her armpits. With Louisa and her lantern leading the way, they went past the chicken coop and corrals and over to the barn, a big A-frame building with a wide set of double doors. These doors stood open and a solitary light was on inside. From the barn Lou heard the snorts and calls of animals, the shuffling of restless hoofs on dirt, and from the coop came the flapping of skittish wings. The sky was curiously darker in some places than in others, and then Lou realized these ebony patches were the Appalachians.

  She had never encountered night such as this. No streetlights, no lights from buildings, no cars, no illumination of any kind granted by battery or electricity. The only lights were the few stars overhead, the kerosene lamp Louisa was carrying, and the one Eugene presumably had on in the barn. The darkness didn’t frighten Lou at all, though. In fact she felt oddly safe here as she followed the tall figure of her great-grandmother. Oz trailed close, and Lou could sense he was not nearly so comfortable right now. She well knew that, given time to think about it, her brother could imagine unspeakable terror in just about anything.

  The barn smelled of stacked hay, wet earth, large animals and their warm manure. The floor was dirt covered with straw. On the walls hung bridles and harnesses, some cracked and worn out, others well oiled and supple. There were single- and doubletrees stacked on top of each other. A hayloft was reached by a wooden ladder with a broken second step. The loft took up most of the upper level and was filled with both loose and baled hay. There were center poles of poplar, which Lou assumed helped hold up the building. The barn had small wings built onto it on the sides and rear. Stalls and pens had been constructed there, and the mare, mules, hogs, and sheep loitered in their respective areas. Lou could see clouds of cold air erupting from warm animal nostrils.

  In one stall, Eugene sat on a small three-legged stool that was barely visible under his bulk. Right next to him was a cow, white with black patches. Her tail twitched back and forth, her head dipping into the manger box.

  Louisa left them there with Eugene and returned to the farmhouse. Oz crowded close to Lou as the cow in the next stall bumped into the partition and let out a moo. Eugene looked up at them.

  “Old Bran got the milk fever,” he said. “Got to hep Old Bran out.” He pointed to a rusty tire pump in one corner of the stall. “Hand me that there pump, Miss Lou.”

  Lou gave it to him, and Eugene held the hose tightly against one of Bran’s teats.

  “Now g’on pump.”

  Oz pumped while Eugene went about holding the hose end against each of the four teats and rubbing the cow’s udder, which was inflating like a ball.