“WHAT ARE YOU doing here, Fanny McCoy? Don’t you go to school anymore?”
I turned from the long white pine counter at the Pikeville General Store. Nancy McCoy. A baby in her arms and a knee-high at her skirts. “Hello, Nancy. Yes, I still go. But Ma’s sending me to stay the night with Martha.”
“Oh, that’s right. Your brother Jim moved his family to Saylorsville. Considerable smart of him. Keep his family safe.” Her mouth quivered.
I set down the goods I’d bought—some crackers, tallow candles, and coffee beans—and walked over to her. “You have a new baby.”
“Yes. This is Stella. She’s four months old. Isn’t she darlin’?”
I took the baby up and admired it. But I was seeing Nancy. She was older, and it was downright eerie. Some of the old Nancy was still there in the face, but just when you glimpsed it, it was gone. The new Nancy was still pretty, but now there were lines around the mouth. And something shadowy in the eyes. “How is Johnse?” I handed the baby back.
The mouth quivered again. “I’m a-leavin’ him. Why else would I be in Kentucky?” The beautiful violet eyes brimmed with tears, and she hugged her baby close.
“What happened, Nancy?”
“What didn’t happen? He’s been drinkin’. When he’s in his cups those Hatfields can get him to do anything. His people beat up my sister Mary and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Daniels, in a masked raid. Left ’em bleedin’ and unconscious. Johnse’s brother Cap was at the head of that. Mary’s husband said so. I told Johnse I won’t stay with him if his family hurts my family anymore. He promised they wouldn’t. Then they went and killed my brother Jeff.”
We’d heard about all that, of course. It was the reason Pa and my brothers Jim and Sam were off on a raid now into West Virginia, because of Jeff McCoy’s death last week. It’s why I was going to stay with Martha. Because Jim would be away. Ro would be there, of course. That was another reason I was going.
In the last two years I’d seen my sister Ro maybe four times. We’d had a fight after Bill died. I blamed her for telling him a body could will themselves to die. Ma didn’t know the reason for our fussing. But she’d finally said enough. “There’s feuding going on outside this family. We don’t need to add to it.”
“And then last night Johnse came in drunk and pointed a gun at me,” Nancy was saying. “I told him no more. It isn’t bad enough his brother Cap shot my brother Jeff.” Her voice trailed off, then picked up again. “I’m sorry about your brother Bill dyin’ and all. I haven’t seen ye since.”
Bill. Gone over two years now, but the pain inside was new every time somebody said his name. I blamed myself for Bill. I should have gone out that night and brought him home. Over and over again in my head the last two years I’d asked myself why I hadn’t. Why hadn’t I gone against my family and been strong? Why hadn’t I been strong enough, like Trinvilla?
“I have to go, Nancy.” I picked up my old straw suitcase and my sack of goods. “Martha and Ro will be along any minute to fetch me in the buggy.” I wanted to get outside and away from her. I didn’t want her following, to give her howdy to Ro. I was on the outs with Ro, sure, but even I couldn’t be the one to bring about a meeting between her and the woman who’d stolen away Johnse. Even though it looked like Ro was well shut of him.
MARTHA HAD A loom in the parlor. She said it was her great-grandmother’s and was over a hundred years old. “It’s a four-harness loom,” she told us. “’Bout a year ago I got Jim to get it out of the barn and set it up for me. Here, I’m making this bedcover.”
We’d put the children to bed in the loft. Martha put up coffee. Until now the little girls had kept us from talking of ourselves. Martha knew that Ro and I had been fussing. She knew this visit was a strain to me. But with her round, smiling face and sunny disposition, it was impossible to speak of trouble in front of Martha. She just wouldn’t hold with it.
The bedcover was red and white. The wild-rose pattern. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Don’t you like quilts?” Ro asked.
“’Course I do,” Martha said. “But my grandmother Gertrude taught me to weave like this, and I’m making this to hand down to my daughters. An heirloom. I just love heirlooms.”
“I wanted my quilt for my Sarah Elizabeth,” Ro said real sadlike. “But now I don’t know who I’ll give it to. Fanny, most likely.”
“I don’t want it,” I told her.
Martha’s innocent blue eyes went wide. “Why, Fanny McCoy, what an awful thing to say. You should be honored to have your sister’s quilt.”
I stared hard at Ro. It was clear that Martha knew nothing of the Coffin quilt, “I don’t want it,” I said again. I couldn’t forgive Ro for putting Bill’s coffin on the quilt.
Martha put a hand on my arm. “Honey, I know you two have been fussing. But don’t let your dear mama hear you say that. It’s cast her spirit down something awful. And don’t ever say such in front of your brother Jim. Family’s like religion to him. Why Ro is putting love into every stitch of that quilt of hers, I wager. Just like I’m putting love into every thread of my coverlet.”
Love? I wanted to laugh. They stood, both of them, firm and set against me. How unfair of Ro, I thought. How dishonest. I loved Martha. I couldn’t abide having her think ill of me. But she would now. And I couldn’t explain. “I think I’ll go to bed,” I said.
“Maybe you’d best,” Martha said coldly. “And think and pray on what you just said. This family needs to stick together. More now than ever before.”
THERE WAS A three-quarter moon and its light came through the window of my small room. And I thought, That’s what woke me. I’d been dreaming of Bill, dreaming that I was putting my coat on and going out the door to fetch him home. But when I went out the door there was a posse waiting there in our yard, armed and talking softly.
I sat up in bed. Why didn’t those men stop talking? Didn’t they know I was awake now? The night outside was bright as daylight. I peered out the window and gasped. Can you conjure people from dreams? A group of men sat in the front yard, exactly like in my dream, armed and talking softly, like it was broad daylight. They aimed to attack us!
I ran down the hall to wake Martha and Ro. In an instant they were up and looking out the window with me. “They aim to attack,” I said. “They know Jim’s away. Like they attacked Mary McCoy and Mrs. Daniels.”
“Not while I’ve got any breath in me,” Ro said. And she turned and ran downstairs. We followed. In the kitchen she took up a long rifle from next to the fireplace.
“What will you do?” Martha stood there, wringing her hands.
“I can shoot,” Ro said. “It’s the one good thing Johnse Hatfield taught me.” She unbolted the door and stepped out on the porch, the rifle set under her arm. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”
They stopped talking. There were at least six of them. Masked. Martha and I cowered just inside. These men could kill us all if they took the notion. Or beat us and make us cripples like Mrs. Daniels. Beside me I felt Martha trembling.
One of them urged his horse forward and spoke. “That you, Roseanna McCoy?”
“It’s me. The fallen woman of Pike County.”
Soft laughter. “We got no quarrel with you. Just come to warn Mrs. McCoy there. She better tell her husband to leave off huntin’ Hatfields.”
Ro had the gun aimed right at him. “She heard you. Now get off her land. And take your low-down women-beatin’ men with you.”
“That’s right unkind, Roseanna. We don’t beat up women.”
“Tell that to Mary McCoy and her mother-in-law. Now git. Johnse taught me to use this.”
Unbelievably, they went. Turned, pretty as you please, and rode off. Ro set down the gun and leaned against the doorjamb. Martha hugged her. “I’m so proud of you. You’re so brave.”
I looked at my sister Roseanna. And what I saw was not relief in her face. But disappointment. She was sorry they didn’t attack, I thought. She still wants to die.
The thought struck me full-face. I wanted to throw up. Without another word I left the two women standing there, talking and consoling, and ran upstairs to bed.