It was nothing short of pure hell finding the way back out of the cave. Rochelle was dead weight all the way. The crawl between the flat layers of rock had been the worst, but at least he had the blanket to drag her along on. Otherwise the harsh layers of stone would have scraped her skin off to the bone. He had thought Becky might balk at snaking through that terrifying narrow space, but it seemed to jangle her nerves less than it did his own.
Eventually the lantern flickered out, which was one of the things Mel had worried about most. But at least it had happened near the end. Becky plunged into complete panic when that last glow of the wick died away and absolute darkness swallowed them. Mel had to grab her and hold her tight in his arms, which seemed like trying to control a writhing, scratching, biting, screaming bobcat. It took a long time before she began to calm down and find her senses again. He promised her over and over that they were all right and would still make it out, and he sure hoped his promises were true.
Finally, as a new day dawned, Mel began to make out a faint glow of light ahead and above. He woke Becky and let her go ahead as fast as she could scramble up the long jumble of stones that led up to the surface of the earth and salvation. It was slower going with the still-unconscious Rochelle, but eventually he reached the top. Then he went back in the cave and fumbled around in the dark until he had retrieved his pack, tossing aside everything except the guns, powder, and shot to lighten the load.
Once outside, the remainder of the trip back to the Adderly farm continued to be an ordeal. Although the distance wasn’t that great after they escaped the cave, less than a three-hour walk at a regular pace, it took far longer with Rochelle and Becky.
He fashioned a travois of sorts with the blanket and a pair of long saplings. It seemed like days since he’d last slept, and he knew his body wouldn’t hold up to carrying her all the way back. After a couple of hours of slow, bumpy, downhill progress, pulling Rochelle down a narrow game trail and nearly tumbling her off the travois a dozen times, Mel called a halt under the protective boughs of a weeping willow beside a narrow, brisk creek.
Mel fed Becky watercress, wild onions, turnips, and a few little minnows that he managed to seine out of a creek with his shirt. Becky told him she didn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She gulped it all down without complaint, even the flopping little fish, which she swallowed alive and whole. They tickled inside, she told Mel, but not for long.
Rochelle never came around to try the simple food, and Mel’s heart sank every time he looked at her. She was bruised and battered from head to foot. Some of the injuries were from the abuse by the men in the cave, but others, he knew, were from the ordeal he had put her through making their escape. Her face was so bruised and swollen that she was hardly recognizable.
Becky poured tiny sips of water into her sister’s mouth from time to time, and some seemed to trickle down her throat. Sitting on the damp moss beside the softly breathing form of the young woman he had faced so many hardships to save, Mel fought hard to reject the heartsick notion that, despite all his efforts, the Lord was about to take her anyway. The loss of his cabin and barn, his crops and stock, literally all he owned except a scarred scorched hilltop, seemed like nothing compared to this. He wondered if he’d grieve inside, like Daddy had, for months or years, or right on to the end of his days.
“When they dragged us into that cave, she fought for me long as she was able,” Becky said quietly. She had eased up beside Mel, and gently began to bathe her sister’s face with the dampened hem of her skirt. “The one you bashed in there, the one beside her, did this to her. He went upside her head with a gun barrel, and she blinked out like a lamp.”
“I wish I’d known that,” Mel said bitterly. “I’d have made dying a lot worse for him.”
The washing reopened a wound above Rochelle’s right ear, the one her sister had referred to, and it began to bleed. Becky tore some cloth free from Rochelle’s skirt, rinsed it in the creek, and bandaged the long, ugly cut. She seemed to know what she was doing, and didn’t squirm at the blood.
Mel recalled a story Mother used to tell about a cousin back home in Virginia who fell off the porch roof, landed on his head, and never woke up again. He’d been up there gathering apple slices that his mother was drying in the sun, when he got careless and fell off backwards. They managed to force enough fresh milk, grits and broth down his throat to keep him alive for weeks, but he never opened his eyes again, or moved, or spoke, or seemed to recognize anybody. That blow was on the back of his head, and Rochelle’s was on the side, so Mel prayed it wasn’t the same.
“It wasn’t all of them,” Becky explained. “When they raided the farm, mostly they was looking for food. Twelve or fifteen of them, I guess, ragged and wild-eyed and hungry-looking like wild dogs. Only the one you bashed and a few others wanted to take Ro and me. The rest, I guess, was too scared to argue. When we got in that cave, that mean one acted like he owned us. He made some of them give him stuff before he let them take care of their business.”
“Don’t tell me any more right now, girl,” Mel said, holding up his hand. “I’m afraid it might make me crazy.”
“Maybe Mama will know how to help her when we get back,” Becky said. “Some herb teas and poultices, or something like that. Or maybe all she needs is time to rest and heal.”
“Maybe,” Mel said. He thought of the batty old woman squatting in the dirt plucking a chicken and mumbling nonsense to herself. It didn’t seem like she’d have sense enough to help anybody.
“She doctored us all our lives,” Becky added hopefully.
Eventually, staggering and falling from fatigue, Becky had to join her sister on the travois during the long trudge back. Mel began to wonder if his own strength would fail him, and he found himself dropping the poles time and again. He had never felt so tired, so weak, and so helpless in all his life. But they did make it back to the farm late in the afternoon.
There was no one in sight as they approached the collapsed barn, but Mel could hear Henrietta talking inside. He called out, and shortly she came crawling out from under the downed building.
At the sight of her mother, Becky tumbled off the travois and stumbled to her. “Mama we’re back, we’re alive! Mel Carroll took us from them men, and kilt the worst of them in the doing,” Becky said, throwing her arms around the old woman so suddenly that they both nearly fell. “Ro was thumped on the head, but I know she’ll be okay now that we’re back home again.”
Mel glanced around the wreckage of the Adderly place and thought this wasn’t much of a home to return to, but at least they were together again and safe for now.
“I knew you girls oughtn’t to be up there in them caves,” Henrietta said. “I told your daddy that bad things would come of it. There’s bats and snakes and cave rats big as cats . . .”
Surprised by the scolding, Becky drew back and took a fresh look at her mother. Mel watched as the young girl’s face clouded with confusion and concern. “Mama, what’s the matter with you?” she said with alarm. “Don’t you remember those men took us? We didn’t want to go.”
“I told your daddy . . . ,” the old woman continued doggedly.
“Where is Daddy?” Becky asked. “Did his leg get better? We need to take him up to Cable Springs and find a doctor to look at it.”
“No need. He’s gone on,” Henrietta Adderly said simply.
“Gone on to Cable Springs? By himself?”
“He’s gone on to meet Jesus, child,” the old woman said. “It was his time.”
Becky’s face went pale and blank with disbelief, and her eyes welled up until a steady stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. She looked at Mel in disbelief, as if he might somehow bear some of the responsibility for Ezekiel Adderly’s death.
“By the time I made it here,” he said quietly, “it was already too late to do anything. The whole leg was putrified, and it was spreading fast. It’s pure mercy that he died quick as he did.” Then he added, almost defensively, “And besides, I had to head up to the caves and bring you girls home.”
Becky wrapped her arms around her mother and buried her face against her shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Motherly instinct took over, and the old woman stroked her daughter’s hair and muttered soft consoling words to her. Mel sat down on the dirt beside Rochelle’s travois and waited, feeling like an awkward intruder in the grief of this family. He had seen a lot of suffering and dying in these last several days, and was responsible for a share of it himself, but this put a human face on it that he hadn’t had much time to think about until now.
When the sharp unexpected pain of loss began to subside, Becky eased away from her mother and managed to turn her thoughts to the situation at hand. She looked down at her sister and said, “One of those men hit Ro in the head, Mama, and she ain’t woke up ever since. It’s been two days, and Mel and me don’t know what to do for her.”
“Them caves up there ain’t a fit place for no young girls,” the old woman said yet again. That one idea was stuck in her brain, and seemed about the only thing left in there. “Bad things was bound to happen . . .”
Becky looked at her mother, seeming to understand, then turned to look at Mel. He could only imagine how her heart must be breaking now, and an absolutely helpless feeling overwhelmed him. He could fight and shoot and do all the hard things a man had to do sometimes to protect himself and those he cared about, but it seemed like there was nothing he could do now to help this girl deal with her pain.
“She was this way when I came through before. This whole thing must have been too much for her, and something broke in her mind. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you how bad things were here while we were still up in the hills. But I guess I should have, so you’d have a little time to get ready.”
“No, it’s okay, Mel,” Becky said, reaching out to touch his arm lightly. “You did right. It would have been one more worry.”
“We’ll take care of her, and your sister, too. We’ll do the best we can.”
Becky had Mel carry Rochelle down to the bank of the river where there was water. Then he wandered away to give them their privacy. Becky bathed in the river while the old woman bathed and tended to her unconscious daughter with touching tenderness, talking to her all the while, as if Rochelle understood every word. When they called him back, Henrietta Adderly had come up with a white dress from someplace, and managed to clothe her daughter in it. The tattered, filthy rags she’d had on during the trip down from the cave were cast aside on the riverbank. The white dress was dingy and dirty, but Mel could tell that it had once been a fine and special garment. Mel’s throat tightened and his eyes went blurry when the old woman explained that it had been her own wedding dress. She was saving it for Rochelle’s wedding day.
“Don’t worry, Mama,” Becky said consolingly. “She’ll still wear it at her wedding someday. And maybe so will I.”
Mel had to admire Becky Adderly for how she had collected herself together in the midst of all these terrible circumstances. Home and farm lay in total ruins around her, and everyone she cared about was now dead, damaged, or gone. How could a child of thirteen or fourteen have so much come at her so quickly, and still keep her wits about her? In all their lives, Becky and Mel had never exchanged more than a handful of words, and before he led her out of the cave and back home, he felt as if he scarcely knew her. But now he recognized the true strength in her.
Becky crawled into the ruins of the barn and spent some solitary time with her father’s body, although the stench drifting out of there by now was almost more than Mel could stand, even from the outside. Mel roamed out into the woods to forage and hunt, and came back with enough to feed them for the night.
They buried Ezekiel Adderly in the little family cemetery, up a grassy slope from where the house had been. Mel dug a shallow grave with a plank pulled from the barn, vowing to return someday with a shovel and do a more fitting job of it. There were no tools to build a coffin but he lined the hole with more random lumber from the fallen barn. Hauling the body up the hillside and into the hole was the hardest part. The stink of the rotting corpse that old Ezekiel’s fleeing soul had left behind was nearly unbearable.
He had the hole filled in by the time Becky and her mother returned with wildflowers for the grave. Mel carried Rochelle up to the family cemetery, and held her in his arms while they said good-bye to Ezekiel. It didn’t seem fitting to lay her on the ground through all this, as if she was little more than another corpse, waiting her turn.
None of them knew the right words to say, but Becky and her mother sang some hymns, their voices blending with surprising harmony and beauty. Mel knew every word and note they sang, but didn’t spoil their familiar harmony by trying to join in. “Amazing Grace,” “Take Me Home to Beulah Land,” “Through the Dark to Jesus’s Arms,” and “Death’s Sweet Victory.” All familiar funeral standards that seemed to add a touch of dignity and finality to the moment.
At one point Mel looked down at Rochelle, and it seemed like he saw her lips moving slightly, as if she was joining in the chorus for her father. His heart leaped for an instant, but then she fell still again, not making a sound. Her eyelids seemed to flutter and he imagined that she might be trying to look at him. But how could he tell for sure through the bruising on her swollen face?
It all seemed so strange and incomprehensible to Mel. He had traveled so far, put himself in all sorts of danger, fought and nearly died, to see, to save, and hopefully to marry, this young woman. Now he stood holding her in his arms, warm and soft, even wearing a wedding dress for heaven’s sake, but somehow she seemed farther away than she had been when he first determined to leave his farm and come in search of her. In his mind he cobbled together a simple clumsy prayer for her, as well as for her mother and sister, but he felt like he did a sorry job of it. It probably wasn’t deserving of much of the Lord’s attention, given everything else that was happening around these parts right now.
Afterward they turned and walked away, Becky clinging to her mother and sobbing. Mel followed, still carrying Rochelle, a dozen thoughts and feelings racing through his mind.
“That was some fine singing you did over the grave,” Mel said at last. “I’m sure Mister Zeke would have been proud of the two of you.”
“Our family always sang together,” Becky said. “Jaipeth had the purest tenor voice you’d ever want to hear, and Ro could sing either alto or soprano, depending on the song.”
It bothered Mel that Becky was speaking as if that was all in the past, and the people she mentioned were already gone.
“Seemed to me Rochelle was trying to join in back there at the grave,” Mel offered. “And for a second, it seemed like she was trying to look up at me. Prob’ly just my imagination.”
“Maybe trying to get a peek at the daddy,” Henrietta offered.
“Ma’am?”
“At the daddy,” she repeated.
“You mean her daddy?”
“No, no. At the daddy of that new little soul she’s carrying around inside of her.”
“Becky, what’s she talking about?” Mel said.
“You’re not the only one who held their tongue on the way down from the hills,” Becky admitted, turning to look at him. “By rights it’s Rochelle that should tell you. But there’s no arguing that you should know, one way or t’other. So now it’s out.”
For a moment, Mel was too stunned to speak.
“When she missed her time last month, she was so scared she couldn’t keep it to herself. She told me, and I told Mama, and Mama told Daddy. After that it didn’t take them long to find out from her the when and where and who.”
“My Ezekiel was coming for you, boy,” Henrietta Adderly said with pride and resolve. “He put a fresh load in the shotgun, and he figured to leave soon as the mare foaled. But then them soldiers come, and all the rest happened.”
“I aimed to marry her, anyway, Miss Henrietta,” Mel said quietly, “even if I didn’t know about the baby.” He looked down at Rochelle and said, “I did. I swear to it.” Rochelle did not react in any way, nor did the old woman. Mel decided it was time to let things stand as they were, and continued to follow Becky and her mother to the barn.
The sun slid down into the band of trees to the west, and full darkness approached. Mel knew that he had to arrange someplace for them to spend the night. Crawling back into the sanctuary of the fallen barn was no longer reasonable. The stench of death was too much to deal with, and old Ezekiel’s spirit, if it hadn’t yet moved on to some better place, might get angry about the intrusion. Or it might still be angry about his defiled daughter.
Fresh dead spirits, so people said, weren’t something you wanted to mess around with. They didn’t have the sense and emotions of real living people, and they hadn’t had the time to get used to how they were now. Some didn’t even know they were dead yet, or hadn’t accepted it. Others were just mad as hell about the whole thing, and ready to take it out on anybody who was handy.
He wondered what it might be like if Rochelle died and he came across her spirit before it traveled on to the heavenly realms. Would she know him? Would she know that he had loved her and wanted to do right by her? Or would she just be another lonely, scary, disconnected soul, angry, resentful of the living, and desperate to cross over to some better place?
He pushed those thoughts out of his mind, realizing that no good could come of them. Mel wasn’t sure what sort of damage a spirit might do to a living person, and he didn’t want to find out.
Mel made a lean-to by propping up one plank wall of a demolished chicken coop. In the growing darkness they all crowded under it, bone tired, and the three women shared the filthy blanket that Mel had wrapped Rochelle in when he took her from the cave. Mel lay on the ground outside the shelter with one pistol ready in each hand, folded atop his chest. Within seconds the old woman began to snore, a droning nasal rumble that alternated in pitch as the air entered in, then left, her chest. Beside her Rochelle was the same, laying as they put her, like a corpse that still breathed.
Becky lay on the outside, an arm’s length from Mel, sniffling softly, uttering an occasional quiet sob. Mel let her alone, understanding that she needed some time to let out all the stored-up fear and grief that she held inside. After a time, she fell still, and Mel thought she had gone to sleep.
“I’m scared they’ll come back,” Becky said quietly, unexpectedly, as if sharing a secret with the night. Mel had been nearly out, and it took a moment for him to come back awake. “They might be out of food, or they might think they can take me and Ro back. Or they might come looking for revenge ’cause of what you did to their friends.”
“They could come back,” Mel agreed. “But they’d know that this time a fight was waiting for them if they did. I don’t ’spect they’d have the stomach for that. It’s why they’re up there hiding now, ’cause they ran away from the fighting.”
“Even so, they might still stay around these parts and turn into outlaws. There’s enough of them to cause a lot of trouble to the folks still left in these parts. And what better place to hide out in than those hills and caves?”
“They don’t have time enough left to be a bother to anyone. I’ve made up my mind about it.”
The moon was perched high in the western sky when Mel woke next. Becky lay close beside him, her head resting lightly on his shoulder, holding his arm in both of hers, snuggled up tight for warmth and safety, Mel figured. He was surprised that she hadn’t roused him because he wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone. He only allowed the dog, back when he had one, to sleep on the foot of his cot on the coldest nights when the fire had burned down and his feet were cold.
Somewhere in the distance a bobcat snarled, three abrupt, chilling screams, each slightly higher in pitch than the one before. Mel had learned young that a bobcat was an evil-tempered critter, and not to be taken lightly unless you had the means and will to fight to the death. But the screams were far enough away not to be worrisome. Closer around there was only the usual nighttime racket of crickets and frogs, welcome sounds because they meant that there was no other threat close by.
It annoyed him that he had slept so deeply. Anyone could have slipped up on them, and sleeping with a pistol in each hand wouldn’t be much help if he didn’t wake up in time to use them. By the time he closed his eyes last night he felt so completely exhausted that he figured a black bear could have come sniffing and growling and grumbling around them, and he might not know it until the critter started licking supper crumbs off his face.
After these few days of danger and discomfort, it was hard to imagine bedding down on a fresh straw tick, between clean blankets, with a feather pillow for his head, feeling safe and not needing to keep one ear cocked for the next threat to happen along. He figured it would feel as good as gold coins in his pocket or a new gun.
But those pleasures were still a ways off for him.
Moonlight bathed the landscape of the devastated farm, so bright that he could clearly make out the mound of the fresh grave fifty yards away up the hillside. He would make good time on his way back to the Meat Holler cave.
Mel shook Becky’s shoulder lightly and whispered her name, hoping not to rouse the old woman sleeping nearby.
“Mmmm?” the girl responded, still half asleep.
“Wake up, girl,” Mel said softly. He pushed her gently away from him so things would be proper. “It’s time for me to head back up there and finish this business.”
Becky raised her head from the comfort of Mel’s shoulder and drew back slightly so she could look at his face. In the moonlight she looked like a child. Her hair was tangled like a handful of straw, and her eyes were full of alarm.
“Now? Tonight?” she asked.
“There’s no use waiting,” Mel said. “Your daddy named me his blood avenger. I never heard of it then, but now I have an idea what he meant. Men like those up yonder got no right to keep their lives.”
He pulled back away so he could see her face more clearly. “Are you comfortable with handguns, Becky? Do you know how to aim and fire one?”
“Daddy taught us.”
“All right, I’m leaving one here with you, loaded and ready to shoot. If they come back, keep the gun out of sight until they’re close so you have a better chance of hitting someone. At first light, you and your mama put Rochelle on the travois and hide out in the woods someplace close about. Within hollering distance. I should be back by midday.”
“And if . . .” The girl hesitated, her voice breaking. “If you don’t never . . . I mean . . .”
“If I don’t make it back,” Mel told her, trying to sound calm, “then you’ll have to make do as best you can. Head toward a neighbor’s place, or up the post road toward Cable Springs. Don’t try to stay here, at least not until the sheriff and some of the local men can clean that bunch out.”
Mel rolled away, stood up, and stretched the stiffness out of his body. He showed Becky how to cock and fire the handgun he had given her, then turned it over to her. He shouldered the heavy pack that held the rest of his arsenal.
“If it comes a shower, make sure the loads in that gun stay dry,” he instructed. “There’s a piece of canvas up in the barn that’ll do fine for that.”
“I’ve lived around guns all my life, mister. I guess I know a couple of things about ’em.” Becky mustered a smile, and Mel gave her one back. He looked her up and down, holding the loaded revolver in her hand like it belonged there, and thought maybe she wasn’t quite the child he had been thinking she was.
“Now you listen to me, Mel Carroll. If things start to go bad for you up there, get away and come on back here. There ain’t no law, God’s nor man’s, that says you’ve got to finish this thing today, or any other day, for that matter.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mel said, grinning slightly.
“Mama and Ro and me need you, mister,” Becky said insistently. “You might or might not get this thing done. From what I saw, those men up there ain’t much. But you saved us, and now we sorta belong to you. Whether you like it or not. So you make sure you come on back. A live, ordinary man’s a lot more use to us than a dead Bible hero.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mel repeated.