I’d lost Junia.
Though I’d found my other boot that fell from the mountain path, when I slid off the ol’ girl to put it on, Junia lit back off toward the east—Thousandsticks and Mama—without a warning, taking my other packed boot with her. It seemed I was destined to have no more than one shoe at a time today, and inwardly, I cursed my foolishness.
I dropped my boot and chased after her, my curses hoarse and strangling, my calves tight and burning. If something happened to that mule, Mama would never forgive me. I wouldn’t neither. Junia was ornery, but she was also my protector and childhood pet, a legend in these parts. When I was seven, I’d been playing out in the yard when Junia let out one of her war cries and sped toward me. Confused, I jumped up, then spotted the snake slithering my way. Junia stomped down furious and fast on the ol’ copperhead, kicking it over into the woods. The same with the mama bear and her two cubs that wandered too close to me a few years later. Junia had risen up on her hind legs and protested so loud the windows rattled, chasing off the frightened bears.
Pearl caught up with me, carrying my boot. “Oh, Honey, I’m sorry. She is trouble with a capital T. How do you put up with her?”
Breathless, I rested my hands on my hips and took several deep breaths. “My folk will be upset if anything happens to her, Pearl.” Neither of them had ever so much as taken a switch to me, but I would take a hundred lashings rather than witness the sadness and disappointment in their eyes if something happened to Junia. “Junia!” I hollered. A light snow began to fall, and I grew frantic. “JUNIA!”
“Climb on up. Let’s go find her,” Pearl offered, pulling her coat collar up around her ears. “Maybe Pie can catch up with the old girl.”
“Much obliged, Pearl.” After this morning, I appreciated her kindness and was greatly relieved to know I wasn’t completely on my own.
“But first, can you take me by Devil John’s? I want to let him know what happened so he doesn’t haul my trunk up here and leave it where it would sit out in the snow. Maybe he can also send word to R.C. for me.”
I worried a moment that we wouldn’t be able to catch up with Junia.
“Is it far from here?” she asked.
“No, but let’s hurry.” I couldn’t let her trunk get ruined after she had her home vandalized. Likely, I’d catch Junia back in Thousandsticks waiting for Mama, and for as long as it took. I was sure I’d find her there, but what I wasn’t so sure of was whether the law would find me.
We smelled woodsmoke from the Smiths’ cabin minutes before we got there. I knocked on the old wooden door and Devil John’s wife, Martha Hannah, cracked it half-open, holding a baby. Three young’uns poked their heads out behind the skirts of her worn duster, pushing the door open wider.
“Honey,” she said, surprised. “Devil said you were home. Didn’t expect a visit so soon. Come in and have some warm food.” She sat the baby down behind her on the floor.
“We’re in a hurry, ma’am—”
One of the little ones yanked on her skirts. “Colleen, Colleen,” Martha Hannah yelled over her shoulder. “Come get these gran’babes so I can talk to our company. Lawsy,” she flipped back one of her silver braids, smoothed down her skirts. “My whole life’s been nothing but the babies. I get one batch good n’ grow’d, and another set of ’em finds their way in. Lil cockleburs they be.” She laughed and swatted a little one back inside.
“Ma’am, we ran into some trouble over at the lookout. Is Devil John around?” I asked.
Martha Hannah looked at Pearl. “Trouble? You must be the young firewoman Devil told me was lost. Welcome.”
“I’m Pearl Grant. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Smith, even under these poor circumstances,” Pearl said politely.
“Devil had some ’portant business to tend to after dinner,” Martha Hannah said, her eyes darting between our faces.
She didn’t say moonshine business, but it was there just the same as the foxtail, clover, and nightshade growing in these hills. Moonshine was farming for some, a living, an existence to keep shoes on the children and bellies fed.
“Ya sure ya can’t come in and let me fix y’all some supper? Fine stew, I have,” she said. It was tempting. I could smell it cooking, the delicious gravy with scents of onion and other herbs wafting out the door.
“Obliged, but we need to hurry, ma’am.”
“I’ll have Carson fetch him.”
I glanced over my shoulder, looking up at the white, starless sky, the spitting snow. “It’s Junia. She took off, and I fear she may be heading back toward Thousandsticks. I hope to find her before she gets herself into trouble.” Or worse, the both of us.
“That sweet apostle sure has seen her share with your dear mama,” Martha Hannah said knowingly.
“If you’ll let Mr. Smith know someone vandalized the lookout stairs and that I’ll be staying with Honey here, I would appreciate it,” Pearl said. “Tell him I can get my trunk later.”
“Lawsy, I’ll send Carson right now. Carson, git out here and go fetch your pa!”
The couple’s twenty-three-year-old son poked his head out the window. “Pa done took off for Knoxville to meet Allen on some business ’bout an hour ago. Oh, hey, Honey.”
I smiled and waved a hello.
“Carson, get on your coat, saddle up, and go catch up with your pa,” Martha Hannah said.
Carson ducked his head back inside.
“Hoping he can also get word to the ranger station for me, Mrs. Smith,” Pearl said.
“I’ll make sure he tends to it for ya.” Martha Hannah nodded.
Birds hurried to their nest, pulling on the mantle of darkness. Snow dropped a little heavier and it looked as if it might get worse.
“Much obliged, ma’am,” I said. “We best be on our way. It would be great to find Junia before she gets to Thousandsticks. Otherwise, we might be stuck there for the night.”
“If I know’d Junia like I do, she’s already there, Honey.” She chuckled. “I’ll let Devil know you’re headed that way and send him over to check in with ya and our new lookout,” Martha Hannah assured us.
Pearl started to object. “I don’t want to trouble him any further—”
Martha Hannah dismissed Pearl, shaking her head. “I insist. We take care of our Kentucky daughters. Ride safe, girls. We have us a big snow a’comin’ in.”
***
Together we rode Pie, stopping occasionally to call out and search the paths for any signs of the mule. With each step closer to my home, an uneasiness took root. I hoped that Junia would be safe and my parents had been released and I’d find them there. I knew I was taking a chance, and the warning about the children’s prison weighed heavily.
We arrived back in Thousandsticks a little after one in the morning. We heard the ol’ mule before we saw her. Junia stood near the porch, her whinnying rising into the lonesome night song of whip-poor-wills and thrush. Still, something was wrong, with Junia out here alone and especially untethered like that.
I dismounted and flew up the steps, grabbing the porch lantern and matches off the wooden rail, calling, “Mama? Papa, Mama, are you back?” The door was unlocked. Inside, I lit the lantern and held it up. “Mama, Papa, Pa—” I choked, my heart sinking with each break of breath. Slowly, I moved into the kitchen and then into their small bedroom and to my loft above, calling out for my parents, the only family I had left in Kentucky, the world. “Mama, Papa?”
Outside, Junia’s worrisome ramblings rose as she tried to summon her beloved Book Woman.
Again, I walked around the cabin feeling helpless and scared, the cinch in my throat tightening, the old puncheon floorboards groaning with every shaky step. “Mama?”
“Honey, is everything okay in there?” Pearl called from the yard.
“They’re really gone,” I answered as I came out, not wanting to believe it, but finally realizing it was true. “Gone.”
“Honey, Honey—”
“They were taken earlier and I hoped they might have returned.” I hurried past her to the barn and flung open the door, searching. Papa’s ol’ Ford truck was there, but I was surprised to see his horse was missing. I could only hope that maybe, just maybe, my folk were free and coming for me.
The snow came down fast, in large, powdery flakes. I walked over to Junia, pressed my face into the mule’s trembling flesh.
Pearl put her hand on my shoulder, and I glanced up at my home and shuddered as the truth grabbed hold that Mama was right.
I wasn’t safe here.