Troublesome Creek

1881

Girl! You’d better get to the house. If your mam catches you in that creek again, she’ll skin you alive!

Copper Brown jumped. The jar slicked through her hands and fell into the swiftly flowing water of Troublesome Creek. Caught again, she muttered under her breath. I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ll be home directly.

You’d best be! he boomed from the ridge above.

She shaded her eyes from the hot summer sun and saw him stride away, his tall shadow bumping along behind. She should have seined farther upstream where the willows wept upon the bank, the perfect hiding place; her father wouldn’t have found her.

Then again, she shouldn’t have left the breakfast dishes soaking in the pan, and she should have scrubbed the floor like she was supposed to, but the day had called to her from beyond the kitchen door and she couldn’t resist. Without a moment’s thought to Mam’s wrath, she was out the door and into the creek, assuming that Mam was too busy ironing to notice her missing anyway.

Now, from her perch on the footbridge, she watched a dozen bug-eyed tadpoles dart out of the canning jar and into the riffle beneath her dangling feet. The creek was as clear as the window glass she’d polished just this morning. She dipped her big toe in the cool water. A minnow-size, muddy-green newt slid out from under a ledge and cautiously nibbled the offering then flitted away, disappointed.

Copper had meant to keep the tadpoles on her windowsill and watch as they turned into long-legged jumpers. Last spring she’d garnered eight frogs from her collections. The secret was creek water. You couldn’t use well water or water from the rain barrel: only creek water, adding a little fresh each day. It had been such fun to watch the tadpoles develop—fun until they got loose and hopped all over Mam’s clean kitchen. Copper liked to have never heard the end of the one that got in the lard bucket. Mam screamed and dashed at the poor thing with a broom until it jumped out the door and slid right off the porch. Copper hoped he made it back to the creek. Maybe these were some of his children. . . .

It seemed to Copper that everything fun last year was just confusing now. She used to play in the creek every day, once she finished her chores. It was her favorite place. But things had changed somehow, and she didn’t know why. It seemed Mam was always watching her, just like the red-tailed hawk circling the chicken yard, ever vigilant. Laura Grace, act like a lady was her constant refrain. Copper didn’t like being called such a stuffy name. It asked too much somehow, like she was supposed to act all straitlaced and buttoned-up.

Mam didn’t understand that a lady was the last thing Copper wanted to be. Ladies didn’t have any fun. Ladies wore their hair up and never lost their ribbons. They wore confining undergarments and shoes. Shoes even in the summertime!

Daddy was on her side, though. She’d been about to open the screen door just yesterday, coming in with a basket of sun-dried laundry on her hip, when she heard him tell Mam that Copper did not need to grow up so fast, that Mam was too strict with her. But then, as she snuck a peek through the fly-specked screen, she also heard Mam’s stern reply: Will Brown— she’d shaken her long-handled, wooden spoon in his frowning face—my sister was a lady, and if it takes the last breath in my body, I will raise her daughter to be a lady too.

Copper nearly dropped her basket. She’d learned not to ask about her long-dead natural mother, because when she did, Mam got all pinch-faced and turned away, and Daddy looked funny and talked about something else. Most times she didn’t even remember that Mam was not her real mother, for she was the only one Copper had ever known.

She gathered her supplies—a dented tin dipper, three green Mason jars, four zinc lids she’d punched air holes in, and the seine she had fashioned from an old window screen—then placed them in the woven willow basket Mam had given her for her fifteenth birthday a few months before. She grabbed a dead sycamore limb, snagged the jar she’d dropped in the creek, and dragged it to the bank. She dried it with the hem of her faded feed-sack dress, nearly dropping it again when two little boys suddenly appeared in front of her.

Usually she heard the five-year-old twins well before she saw them, for they were rarely quiet. If they weren’t talking or singing, they were whistling, a trick Copper was sorry she had encouraged them to learn. It wouldn’t be so bad if either of them could actually pucker up to a tune, but generally they just made loud blowing noises. Then it was, Sissy, Sissy, we forgot how to whistle. Show us again.

And that’s another thing: I’ve got way too many names. The boys call me Sissy; Mam calls me Laura Grace; Daddy calls me Copper; and John Pelfrey calls me Pest. . . . How could anyone keep it all straight?

Guess what, Sissy, Willy demanded, right in her face. We tracked you here! We’re better’n Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers. Don’t you reckon so?

I expect Mr. Lincoln would have been in a heap of trouble if he’d had you two jabbering jays in his army, she replied, grinning.

Mam’s getting mad, Sissy, Willy said, his smile turned upside down.

Yeah, Mam’s getting real mad, Daniel echoed, pulling his face into a frown, trying to match his brother’s. She sent us to find you and bring you home lickety-split. An’ I think Daddy’s gone to cut a switch.

She hung her basket on her arm. Then we’d best get started, boys.

But I don’t want Daddy to whip you. Daniel grabbed a fistful of Copper’s dress as tears welled up in his big green eyes. Let’s just stay here tonight.

Yeah, great idea! Willy agreed. We can make camp just like soldiers, and we’ll have a bonfire and go hunting. Sissy, you can fry us up some squirrel for supper. But first we’ll have to go see if Daddy will let us have his gun.

Daniel looked thoughtful. We could get the slingshot, Willy.

Boy howdy, Daniel, Willy responded as he hitched up his britches. Don’t you know soldiers don’t use slingshots?

Copper pulled both little boys into an embrace. Boys, you know you’re way too young to use the gun or the slingshot. We’ll make camp another time. Right now it’s time for me to face the music.

Music? We sure like music. Don’t we, Daniel? Let’s go see if Daddy will play his fiddle after supper.

Oh yeah, Daniel replied, then Mam will forget to be mad at Sissy. Hey, Willy! Race you to the barn. . . . Last one in’s a rotten egg!

Copper slowly trailed them, wondering if this whipping would be like all the others. And wondering too why Mam was so hard on her all of a sudden.

Will Brown folded his muscular arms and leaned against the rough wooden siding of the barn. A fit of coughing had left him suddenly tired. He stirred the dust at his feet with the switch he’d cut to please his wife. She and his daughter were always at odds lately. He knew Grace was a good wife and a good mother to Copper and the twins, but she was way too strict, bent on citifying country children. It was just her way. Once a schoolmarm always a schoolmarm.

Will himself was not much of a disciplinarian. He dreaded the whipping Grace deemed appropriate punishment for Copper’s misdeed. His problem was that he didn’t want to see his little girl grow up. He had been shocked when Grace told him of Copper’s recent physical development, shocked even more to learn of her desire to send Copper away to boarding school.

Oh, Will, she’d pleaded the day before. Do you want Laura Grace to live here forever? Do you want her to marry some coal miner and spend the rest of her life scrubbing floors and having babies?

He still lamented his stern reply. Would that be so terrible, Grace? He had caught her arms in his calloused hands and pulled her to him so he could look into her eyes. Do you regret the day I took you away from the life you so want for Copper and made you a coal miner’s wife?

She had turned away, and he’d seen her back stiffen. She’d fiddled in her apron pocket for the starched and ironed handkerchief she always kept there. He could tell she was dabbing tears.

He’d touched her shoulder. Ah, Grace, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.

She’d folded and refolded the handkerchief. I just want Laura Grace to get the education I can’t give her here. How can you deny her that?

How indeed? he wondered now on this hot, humid day as he waited for his daughter. How indeed?

Over the crest of a hill, two dust devils raced toward him, whirling this way and that until the mini tornadoes became instead his mischievous sons.

Whoa, boys. Will laughed as he caught one twin under each arm and let them dangle there. You’ll scare Molly into making buttermilk. You’ll make the hens lay green eggs. Why, with all your noise, you’ll turn Paw-paw into a cat.

Wiggling, Willy cried out, Let us down, Daddy. Let us down! Come on, Daniel. Let’s go find Paw-paw and see if he can meow.

As the boys tore around the side of the barn to find the dog, Will spied his daughter coming slowly over the wooded ridge that separated their cabin from the creek. Her hair flared as bright as fire in the sunlight. His heart caught. Grace was right—Copper was growing up.

Hello, Daddy, she said. I’m here to claim my punishment.

Copper, you know Mam just wants what’s best for you. You need to be more responsible. Let’s get this over with.

Copper turned her back to her father. Her shoulders shook.

Be quiet, he cautioned as he raised the supple willow branch over his head. It wouldn’t do for your mother to hear you laughing. Forcefully, he brought the switch down once, twice, and then again—three smacks to the barn door, then one more for good measure.

Do you want me to cry? Copper teased.

No, I want you to stay out of the creek. Now go apologize to your mother.

Will watched his daughter cross the barnyard and step up onto the porch. The main part of the cabin was the original log structure built by his grandfather for his young family on their arrival from Maryland in the late 1700s. Many a night of Will’s young life was spent listening to his father tell of the arduous journey through the Cumberland Gap and the hardship endured by his grandparents’ homesteading the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky.

His ancestors were of English, Scotch, and Irish descent—a stoic, courageous, dark-humored bunch of renegades seeking freedom from the tyranny of their governments. They didn’t want or need much—a rough-hewn cabin, a pipe of homegrown tobacco, sweet clean water. Rather, they sought a place of tolerance, where folks not unlike themselves could worship unopposed and live as they chose, unfettered by the rules of other men. They found that place on the banks of the creek they called Troublesome for its unpredictable nature.

Will had done well with the land inherited from his father. She centered him, helping him to focus his energy on the needs of his growing family. He rarely thought of that other time, that other wife, unless Grace herself caused him to. She seemed to cling to the memories of her sister, while he just wanted to forget. He had loved Julie fiercely, but the pain of her untimely death made him disremember the joyous times he had had with her.

Unbidden, his mind sought recollections that caused his gut to clench and a heaviness to settle in his heart. While a rapidly forming storm stirred the humid air and a sudden gust of wind stripped leaves from the sugar maple, Will’s attention drifted. Memories long stifled became as real as the warm rain that dampened his shirt.

As he stepped into the shelter of the barn, he closed his eyes and gave in to what he could no longer keep at bay. Julie came to him then, as young and beautiful as ever. His mind’s eye reflected on the first time he ever saw her, a yellow-haired girl with flashing eyes who had captured his heart with a rooster’s crow. Julie . . . Julie . . . Julie. The August heat faded away. Twenty years dissolved as if they had never been, and Will was transported to a time gone by. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he became the man he used to be. . . .

Young Will Brown met his intended, Julia Anne Taylor, in the city of Lexington, a much gentler clime than his mountain home. Named for the first glorious blow struck for independence, the Battle of Lexington, the city was not quite Southern, but certainly not Northern. Established on the Town Fork of Elkhorn Creek, Lexington proudly sported numerous churches and public buildings, paved streets, and lush green landscaping. The city most believed to be the handsomest in Kentucky never failed to impress.

Will had kin in town, his mother’s second cousin Sarah, and he’d come to Lexington that fall to stay with her family during court days, a time for bartering and selling goods. The streets, lined with booths and wagons from which people displayed their wares, had a festive air. Will was an excellent hunter and trapper and brought hides to trade as well as tins of molasses and the occasional hound puppy.

One evening he accompanied Sarah to a hymn sing at the Baptist church down the street from her house. The big brick building had floor-to-ceiling windows made of brightly colored pieces of glass held together with what looked like lines of lead. Each of the eight windows told a different story. Will wondered who had made such beautiful things. He thought he’d like to put one of those windows in his church at home, maybe like the one where Jesus knelt in the garden. That would be something to see. He’d have to study on it some more.

He hung back as Sarah made her way to a front pew in the crowded sanctuary. He had never been to a church like this before. It seemed everyone was dressed like a king. At home you didn’t have to wear finery to praise the Lord. He felt uncharacteristically shy, his homespun shirt not quite right, his overalls too short, his rough leather boots unpolished. He took a seat against the wall in the last row, folding his long arms across his chest and tucking his feet under the bench, trying to make his tall frame as inconspicuous as possible. He was sorry he’d let Sarah talk him into coming.

He took a hymnal from the wooden rack in front of his knees and stood when the song leader addressed the congregation. He wasn’t used to singing from books. At home everybody knew the words. Sometimes they’d be singing up a storm on one song when someone would start midverse on another. Then they’d all sing that one ’til they got tired or the preacher started to preach. His favorite hymn had eleven verses. He wondered if they’d sing it: Before the sun, the font of light, a single round had run; God’s church was present in His sight, as chosen in His Son.

Bringing in the Sheaves, he heard instead. He fumbled through the pages to find the proper place.

Two young men on one side of him looked his way and laughed, poking each other in the ribs. Hillbilly, one said under his breath. Won’t do you any good to hold a songbook when you don’t know how to read.

The pianist pounded away. ‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,’ rang through the sanctuary, nearly but not quite, drowning out the other feller’s stage-whispered taunt.

Hey, Slick, why don’t you crawl back up the hollow you came from? We don’t need your kind here.

Will’s temper flared. Nobody talked to him thataway. Back home he wouldn’t put up with bullies. About two years before, Calvin Huff had pushed him just one time too many and come up with a mouthful of mud. Will didn’t like to fight, but he could. His big hands shook as he set the hymnal back in the rack. He thought about the knife in his pocket. He could gut a buck with that knife quick as any man. Maybe he’d take it out just to scare the loudmouths. He could tell by their doughy hands they’d never used a knife.

‘We shall come rejoicing,’ the song continued, ‘bringing in the sheaves.’

And he remembered where he was. No call for his temper. No call to bring disrespect to the Lord in His own house. He kept his eyes straight ahead. He couldn’t bring himself to take the songbook back out of the rack, but he’d stay there and wait out the service.

You deaf as well as dumb? the first one started in again.

You hush up, Oscar Thornton, a quiet voice said. At the end of the pew a yellow-haired girl near his age pushed her way past the fellows to his other side. Here, she said, handing Will her songbook. You can turn the pages for me.

Will was struck dumb. He couldn’t get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. The girl was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. Prettier even than the top of Pine Mountain when the sun first came up—prettier than a rainbow trout flashing on the end of a line. She even smelled pretty.

It was bad enough before she started to sing, but when she did, his knees got weak. Surely, the angels’ chorus wouldn’t sound this good.

He was sorry when the service ended. He couldn’t get his long legs untangled fast enough, and so she was out the door, his tormentors in hot pursuit, well before he was. Once outside, he eyed the crowd, not sure what he’d do if he did see her. She was too fine for the likes of him—like a rare mountain canary in a raucous blue jay’s nest.

Will was about to give up and head out to Sarah’s house when there she was right in front of him. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

You may walk me home, she said.

Then the one she called Oscar staked his claim. Hold on just a minute, he said. "You told me at Sunday school this morning that I could take you home tonight."

That was before I learned that you have no manners, Oscar Thornton.

Come on, Julie Anne.

Apologize, she replied.

He stuck his hand out to Will. Sorry. No hard feelings?

Will squeezed until he saw Oscar flinch. Apology or not, Will was the one to escort Julie Anne.

They walked a piece before she spoke again. Well, can you talk?

He opened his mouth and what came out sounded like a screen door rusted upon its hinges after a long wet spell. He was glad they were in the shadows between gaslights because her tinkling laugh brought the blood rushing to his face. He’d never felt so embarrassed. He wished he was anywhere but standing here with her.

She clapped her little hands together. Do it again, she begged. Do it again.

And so he did; then he did it once more just to please her.

I can do a rooster. She tucked her hands under her arms, flapped her elbows, and crowed loud enough to raise Lazarus.

Before he knew it, he was laughing with her, and much too soon she was taking her leave.

We have to stop here, she said. I don’t want my sister to know you walked me home. I’m only allowed to walk alone to church—not socialize. She glanced up at him, and her face looked so sad he felt his heart reach out to her. But, she continued, I get so lonely sometimes . . . if I don’t talk to someone, I might burst.

They stood at the edge of a well-trimmed lawn. A winding brick path led to a two-story house fronted by white columns. The porch lights were on, but the windows were dark and uninviting.

We don’t talk much in my house, for Father is ill and my sister, Grace, does not want him disturbed. She touched his arm. Come to revival again tomorrow night, and save me a seat.

Then she was gone, and he realized he’d never said a word.

And so, the romance of Julie and Will began with the innocent flirtation of youth. Will was smitten. He couldn’t seem to leave her, so he lay over in Lexington for several weeks, the longest he’d ever been away from the mountains. He knew his friend Daniel would see to things for him.

Julie told him about the death of her mother from pneumonia the year before. She said her father had taken to his bed, and her older sister didn’t allow talking above a whisper in the house. Grace was twenty-eight, ten years Julie’s senior. Julie said Grace taught music and deportment at the same finishing school Julie had just graduated from. When her sister was working, Julie sat in her father’s darkened room and read to him. But she didn’t think he heard.

Will was in that house only once, on the night he was to return to the mountains. Will and Julie had met after dark in their trysting spot in the side yard by the apple tree. Julie still didn’t want her sister to find out. She sat in a rope swing, and he pushed her ever higher. She started to laugh, then caught herself and cried instead, but quietly with little choking sounds. He caught the swing, and she turned in his arms and he kissed her.

Please, she begged just like the first time they’d met, do it again.

Their nest under the tree smelled of summer apples and fallen leaves. The warm autumn night lay soft as a blanket upon their young bodies. He tried to stop. He was a farm boy; he knew where their passion might take them, but she was so beautiful . . . and then it was too late.

Afterward she pulled him along behind her into the kitchen. Funny, it was in the cellar, underneath the house. She said the cook and the other servants wouldn’t be about at that hour. She wanted him to sit with her at the table. She wanted to feed him. He guessed she wanted to play house.

She got out bread and cheese and poured goblets of cider. Please don’t leave me, she said.

He choked down a little piece of cheese and a crust of dry bread. Now, Julie, we already talked about this. I’ll be back come spring.

But you can’t just go! Not now. Not after— She jumped up from the table and started sobbing.

He went to her and gathered her in his arms. He kissed her tear-streaked face with tender longing kisses. Honey, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let that happen.

But what will I do without you? She twisted his shirtfront in her hands and leaned against his chest. Please, please don’t leave me.

Her pleading broke his heart, but there were things he had to do at home. He had led her into sin. He had to make it right. I’ll be back. I promise you I will. I want to meet your sister and ask your father for your hand. We’ll wed, and then I’ll take you home with me.

And so he left that very same night, saddling his horse in the dark, his heart in turmoil from a newfound love and a shame so stalwart it lodged in his soul like a living thing. How could he have taken something so pure and beautiful and tarnished it for his own selfish need? He would never forgive himself. The memory of Julie’s tears was fresh as he guided his mount eastward back to Troublesome Creek.

Before Will knew it, the guilt of autumn had turned into the chilly remorse of winter. Deep snows alternated with ice storms and kept him quarantined for a long spell. Julie’s tear-streaked face haunted his dreams, and every time the rooster crowed he remembered the night they’d met, and his heart seized with longing. He kept a few leaves from the apple tree in her side yard in his pocket until one day he reached for them and felt nothing but the dust of his promise to her.

He didn’t wait for the spring thaw but led his horse down the treacherous mountain, then rode out across the rolling hills toward Lexington.

At last he stood on Julie’s front porch, his heart slamming in his chest. Will wore the new leather jacket he’d sewn from hides he’d cured himself. He’d shined his boots with stove blacking. He was fresh from the barber, and in his hand a bouquet of roses trembled, an offering for Julie’s sister, Grace. He knocked and knocked.

Finally the door opened. An older, bespectacled version of Julie stood there, except for the hair. Julie’s was the color of the center of a daisy, but Grace’s was bright red and sprang out around her face in spite of her trying to slick it behind her ears.

I-I’m Will Brown, he stammered. I’ve come to marry Julie. He thrust the flowers toward her. These here are for you.

I know who you are, she said, her voice as hard as the ice on the mountain he’d slid down to get here. Don’t you think every gossip in town told me about your little summer romance with my sister? She flung the flowers across the porch. Go away. I’ve got trouble enough without your sort coming around.

Grace started back through the door but paused and turned toward him. Her green eyes flashed like those of the wildcat he’d once cornered in the henhouse. Mind my words, she hissed. Or I’ll have the law on you.

Grace Taylor stepped inside and leaned against the closed door. What was she to do? Everything had gone wrong since her mother’s death. Life had been so good, so full of God’s blessings. Grace taught music and deportment at the Finishing School for Young Ladies, a vocation she loved. She’d had a suitor and plans to marry, but she’d given up everything to care for her father and her sister, and this was the thanks she got? Julie sneaking around like a thief in the night with an ill-dressed young man who probably couldn’t even read.

The only thing that kept her going during this time of despair were the letters she received from Philadelphia, letters from her closest friend Millicent Dunaway. Millicent had married well, moved to Pennsylvania and, along with her husband, David, established a boarding school for children of the wealthy. What joy it must be to have a life like Millicent’s.

She shook her head to think of that man standing on her doorstep with his flowers. His presence threatened the careful plans she’d laid to save her sister. She wouldn’t let him ruin Julie’s life. If he came back, she’d