3

Later that evening Aunt Maisie lay on the sofa, a quilt she’d stitched with her own two hands tucked up to her chin. She smiled weakly and drew one of those hands from beneath the cover to beckon Fleeta over.

“Have any luck hunting today?”

Fleeta flicked a glance toward Elnora, who stood in the doorway looking grim. She’d wanted her mother to go on to the hospital, but Aunt Maisie refused.

“Saw a nice buck, but he got shut of me.” She couldn’t help but feel that the deer and the day’s tragedy were bound up together in some strange way.

Her aunt laughed softly. “You mean someone or something spoiled your shot. Once my Fleeta takes aim . . .” She grimaced and closed her eyes.

“Aunt Maisie, you won’t get pregnant again, will you?” Fleeta grasped her aunt’s cold hand, hoping her words weren’t too impetuous.

“I hope not.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “But things like that are best left up to the Lord.”

Fleeta wanted to cry out at the sorrow in her aunt’s voice. How could she talk about the will of a God who would let a baby die? Especially since Aunt Maisie had lost so many before. The last one had barely taken root before Aunt Maisie lost it. They didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl—just made a wooden marker that said Baby Brady. Well. She would never let herself be in such a position. After growing up with four boy cousins and her uncle, she’d had her fill of men. She’d take care of herself and never look to a husband for anything.

“I’m going to start supper, Mother. Fleeta will sit with you for a while.” Elnora spoke softly from the doorway, her own three-year-old son clinging to her skirt.

Fleeta had to confess that her only girl cousin had done tolerably well in the husband department. He was good to her and the sweet little boy they’d named after his grandpa. And as best Fleeta could tell, there wasn’t another baby in the offing yet. Maybe they had more self-control than Uncle Oscar did. Fleeta blushed at the very thought. Another reason to avoid marriage.

Aunt Maisie squeezed her hand. “Fleeta, it’s high time I gave you something. How old are you now?”

Fleeta raised her chin. “Twenty-two.”

“That means it’s been twenty years since your sweet mother died of grief after losing your father when that log truck turned over.” Aunt Maisie shook her head. “They were so in love. . . .”

Fleeta was grateful her parents had loved each other, but she hated when her aunt talked about Mother dying of a broken heart. It made her seem weak and unwilling to suffer so she could stick around for her only child.

“Before she died, your mother asked me to give you something.”

Fleeta perked her ears. Something from her mother? Aunt Maisie could be dramatic, but she’d never mentioned this before.

“Go to my room and get that pasteboard box down off the top of the armoire.”

Fleeta scurried to do her aunt’s bidding. She dragged a chair over to the armoire and climbed on it, wishing for the umpteenth time that she was taller. She peered over the dusty top of the furniture and saw a box shoved all the way to the back. She hooked it and dragged it forward, then took it to the front door and blew off as much dust as she could, sneezing at the cloud she made.

“Here you go, Aunt Maisie.” She tried not to sound too eager.

“Take the lid off and see if you can’t find a cloth bag tucked in there somewhere.”

Fleeta set the lid aside, breathing in the scent of old paper and . . . lavender maybe. There was a stack of letters tied with pink ribbon, some loose Valentine’s cards, a few official-looking documents, an old pair of eyeglasses, and there—at the bottom—a cloth pouch with a spray of purple flowers on it. She pulled it out and handed it to her aunt, who curled her fingers around it and seemed to look off into space—or time maybe.

“Your mother married Eb when she was twenty-seven—practically an old maid. But she always said she was waiting for her true love like your grandma Naomi had with her Harper.” Aunt Maisie grimaced as she shifted on the sofa. “I always thought that kind of romance only happened in books, although Naomi and Harper did seem happier with each other than anyone has a right to be. And when Eb came home from the city after the bank he worked in failed, well, it was like your mother had been waiting just for him.” Aunt Maisie closed her eyes and drew her quilt tighter. “And maybe she had been.”

Now this was the kind of story Fleeta liked. Not the mushy part, but the story about her father learning the timber business after being forced out of banking. The story of how her parents got married two months after laying eyes on each other and how her mother was a terrible cook, but her father just smiled and ate what she gave him. She hoped Aunt Maisie would tell one of those.

Instead, she handed Fleeta the little pouch, still warm from her palm. “Open it.”

Hank Chapin didn’t usually enjoy traveling so far from home, but this timber surveying trip could be just the break he needed. Judd Markley, his employer and his friend, had come along to visit his family in Bethel. Which meant Hank wasn’t having to sleep in a tent or a trailer—he was bunking with a nice family—and best of all, it was deer season. Judd had been telling him tales of the mighty bucks he’d be sure to see in West Virginia, and Hank was itching to try his new Remington 740 Woodsmaster rifle. Hank was generally conservative with his money and his resources, but he considered his gun collection an investment. And when he’d seen the Remington .30-06, he couldn’t resist. It was light, and his favorite scope fit perfectly. Yup, this work trip could be just the thing he needed to get his mind straight so he could decide what to do with his future.

Hank dressed quickly and started for the privy out back. A lack of indoor plumbing was something he’d grown accustomed to on trips like this one. At least the Markley family had a hand pump in the kitchen to bring in water.

He reached for the back door and heard a giggle on the other side. Pushing gently so as not to startle anyone, he peered through the opening. Blue eyes and gingery curls greeted him, along with a shriek of laughter, as a sprite of a girl scampered behind a boy only a little older. The boy sized him up, and Hank halfway expected him to spit.

“You must be Uncle Judd’s right-hand man,” the boy said in a way that made Hank think he was aiming to sound grown up.

“I like to think so.”

“Heard you’uns get in last night. Me and Gracie were in bed, but I was still awake.” He puffed his chest out a notch. “If you need anyone to show you around the place, I’d be glad to do it.”

Hank grinned. “Let me get ready to face the day and I just might take you up on that.”

The boy nodded as though making a lifelong commitment.

“James—Grace—get on in here and leave Mr. Chapin alone.” A woman’s voice came from the same direction as the aroma of sausage and coffee.

The pair scampered off, and Hank finished his morning ablutions undisturbed. As he stepped up onto the back porch, Judd appeared around the corner, carrying a bucket of foamy milk. His brother Abram, whom Hank met the night before, walked a few steps behind, although his voice carried on up ahead.

“George swears he saw that big ole piebald buck out on the hogback last week. Says he aims to bag him this year. I said, ‘Yeah, you and every other feller with a rifle in southern West Virginia.’” Abram paused midstep when he spotted Hank. “Mornin’—hope you slept hard enough to work up an appetite. Lydia aims to spoil you and Judd rotten while you’re with us.”

Hank found himself liking Judd’s family almost as much as he already liked Judd.

“I could eat something. And then I think I’m expected to go on a tour of the farm with James.”

A huge smile bloomed in the depths of Abram’s beard. “Fancies himself a man, and I don’t see any reason to tell him otherwise. Leastwise not yet. I know touring you around would just about make his year.”

“Then I’ll try not to founder at the breakfast table.”

Abram’s laugh rolled from deep inside and settled into all the tired places in Hank’s spirit. He felt tension he didn’t realize he’d been holding slide off his shoulders. He’d been feeling an itch he wasn’t quite ready to examine for a while now. This trip might be an opportunity to think about whether or not he wanted to scratch that itch. Whether or not it was time to leave Waccamaw Timber and strike out on his own in an entirely different direction. With Judd at the helm, he wasn’t exactly feeling squeezed out, but neither was he likely to ever rise any farther in the ranks. He smiled and slapped Abram on his broad back.

“Now what was that you were saying about a deer?”

Abram’s eyes lit even brighter. “Ah, he’s half deer, half ghost, and the rest of him’s just tall tales. Supposedly, there’s a twelve-point buck somewhere out in them hills.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “He’s mostly white with brown spots like a piebald pony—leastways that’s what the ones who claim to have seen him say. As the story goes, he’s been roaming around here for at least ten years, growing a bigger rack every summer. And when someone sees him, something big’s supposed to happen to ’em. Good or bad depends on who you ask.” He wrapped a muscled arm around Hank’s shoulders. “Amos—the feller who claimed to see him last—swears he shot him through the neck last fall, but somehow that ole buck survived. Maybe if you’ve brought some Southern luck with you, you’ll get a shot at him while you’re here.”

Hank laughed. “I’d hate to rob y’all of the chance to tell those same tales next year. Still, he sounds like just the prize Judd’s been promising me since we first talked about hunting up here.”

Judd shifted the milk bucket to his left hand and stepped up onto the porch. “Watch it, Abram. I promised him a deer, not a legend.”