A local woman who worked at the hospital gave Piper directions.
“It’s a good ways up there.” The slim little woman shoved her gray hair away from her face and studied Piper’s map. A frown deepened the wrinkles around her eyes. “You could go to Wilder Ridge and then on up, but you and the little one would be better off sliding to the east away from Middle Fork to follow Greasy Creek a mile or two and then go up Lower Bad Creek.” The woman pointed at a spot on the map.
Piper must have looked lost, because the woman smiled. “It ain’t so hard. Once you get to Lower Bad Creek, Billy is likely to know where he is. He probably ran all over that hillside afore he got hurt.”
“Thank you.” Piper folded the map and stuffed it in her pocket.
The woman patted her arm. “If’n you get a little addled on your directions, you can ask anybody you meet. Folks will be glad to point the way. But be careful about that quicksand in the river coming back from Wilder Ridge. That can give a horse some trouble.”
“Quicksand?” Suze hadn’t told Piper anything about quicksand.
“I reckon it’s not like you’ve maybe read about in jungle stories where it swallows people up, but it can bog down a horse.”
“How will I know where it is in the river?”
“Just trust your horse. They generally step ginger-like if they feel the river bottom sucking at them.”
Rattlesnakes. Quicksand in the river crossings. Piper shook away her worries. Bella was a good horse. Things would be fine. Even if the clouds in the west were darker when they went outside.
“I’m a little hungry,” Billy said as he watched her tie on his poke. “You think it would be okay if I ate a piece of Dr. Jack’s candy?”
“It’s your candy now to eat if you want.”
“But Dr. Jack told me to share.”
“Maybe you can sample one piece.” Piper untied his sack of stuff and pulled out the candy.
“I could put it in my pocket.” Billy clutched the bag of candy.
“You might lose it on the trail. I better put it in your poke.” Piper held out her hand and the little boy reluctantly handed it over.
“You could have a piece if’n you wanted to.”
“That’s okay. I’m not hungry right now.” Piper smiled and adjusted the packs again. “Now go stand on that rock. After I get on Bella, I’ll help you aboard.”
Billy giggled when she pulled him up in front of her on the saddle. “I ain’t never been on a horse before. Just Pa’s mule when he’s plowing. Pa says I make Spec pay attention to what he’s supposed to be doing, but my brother says Pa’s just getting me out of the house so Ma don’t have to keep an eye on me.”
“Do you need an eye kept on you?” Piper headed the mare down the hill toward the river.
Billy sighed. “Most all the time. Pa says I could hurt myself sitting in the middle of a featherbed. That I’m an accident waiting to happen. Guess I proved that spilling lye on me.”
“That had to hurt.”
“Dr. Jack said Ma did the right thing to douse me in the rain barrel, but mighta ruined the water. Sometimes I ain’t nothing but trouble.”
“Accidents happen.” Piper kept her arms loose around him as she held the reins. “So you’ve got a brother. Any sisters?”
“One brother older than me and a sister younger than me. Ma was thinking on a new baby. Don’t know if the nurses have brought her one yet.”
“Oh.” Suze had told Piper how the mountain children thought the nurses brought babies in their saddlebags. “So you think a nurse might have visited your house with a baby while you were at the hospital?”
“Could be. Seems like they bring babies pretty regular. Ma says they catch babies, but that sounds kinda funny. Babies can’t do no running, so I can’t see why they’d have to chase them down to catch them.”
Piper didn’t laugh. “I’m like you. I’ve never seen babies running.”
Billy thought a minute. “You think maybe they fall out of the sky? Ma says the Lord sends her babies, so I reckon maybe God might pitch them down to the nurses. Careful like.”
Piper did have to smile then. “That’s an idea. Your mother and father will tell you more about that when you get older. Now rest back against me. We’ve got a ways to go.”
“I don’t want to nod off. I ain’t wanting to miss nothing.” The little boy did lean back against Piper. “The clouds are getting kinda dark. We’re liable to get wet.”
“Maybe they’ll blow over.” But Billy was right. Dark clouds had spread ominously across the sky to cover the sun as the wind picked up. “Maybe we’ll get there before the rain hits.”
“Ain’t no problem for me. I’ve been wet before.”
Piper should have listened to Mrs. Miller’s warning that morning and brought her rain slicker. But no going back for it now. They would just have to weather the storm. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and Piper tried to think how long it would take to get Billy home. Too long, from the looks of the clouds.
Lightning stabbed the sky to the west. They should find shelter, but she didn’t see anything but trees. Nothing to do but keep going.
The trees above the trail began shaking their heads as if letting her know her thinking was faulty, but what else could she do? They had gone too far to head back to the hospital. They were already to Greasy Creek, and Bella didn’t seem bothered by the thunder or the wind. She just kept walking.
As they left Greasy Creek behind and started up Lower Bad Creek, Piper asked, “Do you recognize where we are, Billy? Are we on the right trail?”
He peered around. “Hard to tell with the wind blowing things around. Besides, I ain’t been here for a while. I been in the hospital since forever.”
Piper took that to mean the boy had no idea. They started climbing uphill. The branches swayed overhead as leaves shook loose and spun around them. Twilight was hours away, but the day went gray as though night was falling.
Lightning lit up the woods around them, and a second later a thunder boom seemed to shake the creek bed. Piper jumped and Bella danced to the side.
Billy twisted around in front of Piper to bury his face against her chest. “I don’t like thunder, Danny.”
“Me either.” Piper kept a strong hold on the reins. She didn’t like thunder, but lightning was what was really scary. Especially under these trees. As though somebody had opened the floodgates, rain dashed down on them in sheets. Could this be one of Kermit’s gullywashers?
Lightning flashed again, with an immediate cracking noise followed by another thunder boom. The lightning must have hit a tree.
“We need to find cover, Billy.” Piper leaned down to talk into Billy’s ear. “I think I see a house up the way there. Maybe a barn.”
Billy raised his head and peered the way she pointed. “That looks like Old Mann Taylor’s place. Pa told me never to go ’round about there. Old Mann Taylor don’t like nobody bothering him.”
“I don’t think he will mind us taking shelter in his barn until the storm passes.” Piper turned Bella out of the creek toward the house she could barely see through the rain. She shook her wet hair out of her face and bent her head to keep the water from hitting her eyes.
Billy clutched her tighter. This ride home wasn’t turning out the way he had hoped. With his face against her, she could barely hear him when he said, “He might shoot us.”
“He won’t shoot us.” She tried to sound very sure, but a tremble ran through her hands and arms that had nothing to do with the cold rain.
She rode straight to the barn. If the man was in the house, he might not even know they were there. Besides, Billy could be wrong about whose house this was, or his father could have simply been trying to keep Billy from worrying the neighbors. Then again, Old Mann Taylor might be a moonshiner who didn’t want anyone around his place. That could include a frontier nurse courier who was supposed to be safe up in the mountains, as long as said courier had the FNS patch on her sleeve. Piper resisted the urge to feel for the letters.
Piper rode Bella straight under the roof of an open shed on the side of the barn. The lightning flashed again outside and thunder cracked. Piper was very glad to be in the barn.
“It’s all right, Billy. As soon as the storm lets up, we’ll head on to your house. If you’re right and this is Mr. Taylor’s house, then you should know how much farther to your house.”
“I don’t know.” He sounded as though he might be crying.
Piper put her hand under his chin and lifted his face up. “I’m sorry this ride isn’t going the way you imagined, but we’re having an adventure.”
The poor kid looked terrified.
She smoothed his wet hair back away from his face. “Thunder and lightning can be scary.”
“So can Old Mann Taylor,” he mumbled. “He shot Pa’s dog. Dog still can’t run right. Ain’t no use for hunting no more.”
“Oh.” Piper was ready to say they could move on, look for a different barn, but lightning cracked again, hitting something so close that debris hit the barn roof.
Piper patted Bella’s neck, but the mare was standing like a rock, not bothered by the fury of the storm. So Piper tucked the reins under her leg, tightened her arms around Billy, and bent her head closer to him. “Someday you’ll tell this story to your children and laugh about being stuck with a city girl in a barn on the side of the mountain during a storm.”
She reached behind her for his sack of belongings. “Maybe another piece of Dr. Jack’s candy will make you feel better.” She dug out the candy sack and handed it to him.
He looked almost ready to smile, but the scared look came back as he pointed out the end of the barn. A man was striding toward them. Lightning flashed, but the man kept his steady pace as though he hardly noticed the thunder or the rain beating down on his hat. A rifle was looped over his arm.
Piper pulled in a breath. A lot of the mountain men carried guns, but that didn’t mean they were ready to use them. At least she hoped not, as she tightened her arms around Billy. It could be they had exchanged one storm for another.