Sweetbriar Read online

  “She’s alive, but just barely,” he said when Agnes appeared.

  “Let’s get her home. She ain’t too heavy for you?” Doyle cast a contemptuous look at his mother. Would she never realize he was a grown man? He held her close to him, trying to warm her with his own body. She was as cold and stiff as a piece of iron, only, thank God, not as heavy. They reached the cabin quickly, and his mother motioned him to put her on the bed that she pulled nearer the fire.

  “Now go out and find Lonnie and your pa. I’ll get her warmed.” Doyle left quickly, wondering if anything as frozen as Linnet would ever be alive again. Agnes had to cut the dress from her, the cloth too cold to handle. Then she wrapped the girl in one of her own enormous flannel nightgowns, rubbing the little body all over with a coarse woolen blanket.

  The door opened and Doyle, his father and the eight-year-old Lonnie entered. “She looks awful, Ma. She dead?” Lonnie asked.

  “No,” Agnes snapped. “She ain’t dead and she ain’t gonna be. Lyttle,” she addressed her husband, “you rub her feet and, Doyle, you make some hot sassafras tea.”

  “What can I do?” Lonnie asked eagerly.

  “You rub her hands. Think you can do that?”

  “Sure, Ma.” He began his job. “Look at ’em; they’re so little and they’re a funny color, ain’t they?”

  Agnes sat on the bed, Linnet’s head cradled in her lap.

  “Why don’t she say somethin’, Ma? How come she just keeps layin’ there like she was dead?”

  “Because she’s cold, Lonnie, and we need to get her warm.”

  Lonnie held Linnet’s hands in his and blew on them, then looked to his mother for encouragement.

  Agnes gave her young son a faint smile, but everyone could see she was worried.

  “I’m gonna wrap her feet up,” Lyttle said. “Maybe we could put a lot of quilts on her and stoke up the fire.” Before the words were out, Doyle threw another log on the fire.

  “Ma,” Lonnie said, and when he looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “I don’t want her to die. She’s nice, and Mac’d be real mad if she died.”

  “She won’t die!” Agnes said with a force that startled even herself. “We won’t let her die.”

  Lyttle held a stack of quilts and began spreading them over Linnet. Agnes stretched out and pulled the cold girl close to her and Lyttle covered them both. Lonnie lifted the edge of the quilts.

  “Lonnie! What are you doing? We want to get her warm.”

  “I know,” the boy said seriously. “I’m gonna get in front.” He climbed under the covers and pressed the back of his little body to Linnet’s. “She sure is cold, ain’t she, Ma?”

  “She sure is, Lonnie,” Agnes whispered as she felt her heart swell in pride for her son.

  Chapter Seven

  LINNET OPENED HER EYES SLOWLY, AGNES BENT over the fire stirring something that smelled delicious in a big black pot. She turned and smiled at Linnet.

  “It’s good to have you back again.”

  Linnet tried to move one arm and found her muscles were incredibly sore. “What am I doing here?”

  “You don’t remember?” Agnes replaced the lid on the kettle and stood up. “Cord come to the house yesterday and said you was lost in the storm and could we help find you.”

  “Cord did that?” Linnet said with contempt, remembering all.

  Agnes lifted one eyebrow. “Cord ain’t all bad, just seems to be sometimes. Although I never heard no young girl complain about him afore.”

  “You have now.” Linnet obviously did not want to discuss Cord.

  “Here, I want you to drink this.” Agnes held a steaming mug before her. “You’re gonna be pretty weak and sore for a few days, I reckon, but we’ll take good care of you.”

  “Agnes, I can’t stay here.” Linnet tried to sit up, but Agnes quickly came to give her some much-needed support.

  “It seems to me I heard all this afore when you first come to Sweetbriar and I don’t want to hear it again.”

  Linnet laughed but stopped because the gesture made her stomach muscles hurt.

  Agnes smiled at her. “Now that that’s done, let’s get some food in you.”

  Linnet took another stitch in the stretched quilt. She’d been at Agnes’ house for nearly a week, and each time she mentioned leaving, the whole family refused to listen to her. She’d heard that Devon had returned, but he’d not come to visit her. Agnes, on the other side of the frame, ran her hand over the work and eyed it critically.

  “Rose of Sharon’s always been one of my favorite patterns. It was Mrs. Macalister’s?” Linnet asked as she paused in her sewing.

  “Mac’s ma, ’cept she wouldn’t let her boys call her Ma. They had to say ‘Mother.’ ”

  Linnet looked back at the quilt. Devon hadn’t been to see her since she’d been ill, but then there was no reason for him to visit. “You knew his mother, then. What was she like?”

  “Oh, she was a real fancy lady. Slade, that’s Mac’s pa, went north to see if he could get some money to open a tradin’ post in the new Kentucky territory. All of us, the Tuckers, the Starks, and Lyttle and me lived in North Carolina then. None of us was even married, just friends and neighbors. Like I said, Slade went up north. Ah.” Agnes paused and sighed. “Now Slade Macalister was a good-lookin’ man, tall, handsome, dark hair, broad shoulders, walked as quiet as a cat.”

  “Like Devon,” Linnet whispered to herself.

  Agnes paused but gave no other sign she heard Linnet’s comment. “When Slade come back from the north, he had hisself a bride, pretty little thing, talked all funny and had the funniest ways about her.” She eyed Linnet again, noticing the way the English girl made the crude mug of tea seem like a piece of translucent porcelain. “She was expectin’ already when they got back home and as soon as her twin boys was born, a whole passel of us lit out for the new land of Kentucky. Right off, Slade’s wife had troubles. She complained all the time about the travel, about all the work; near drove us crazy, but Slade sure loved her. I never seen no man dote on a woman like he done.” Agnes chuckled at some private joke. “At least that wife of his seemed to be good for somethin’, ’cause many a mornin’ Slade’d get up tireder’n when he went to bed.”

  Linnet kept her head bent, hiding her stained cheeks.

  “I reckon you can’t blame the woman too much. Slade told me she grew up in a house with ropes on the walls, and when you pulled one of those ropes, some man or woman came runnin’ just to see what they could do fer you.”

  Linnet looked at Agnes, startled. She could very well say that her own life had been like that until her father’s mines had been exhausted and the land sold to pay the debts. “What about Devon?” she asked quietly.

  “Those boys! They might have been twins, but two more opposites there couldn’t have been. Kevin looked just like his ma, yellow curly hair, white skin, while Mac was like his pa, dark but with them blue eyes. After a while, Slade began to stay away from Sweetbriar. I guess his wife’s complainin’ finally started to get to him, but then the real fights came with the Indians.”

  “What Indians?”

  “Slade’s ma was a pure Shawnee, some kind of higher-up in the tribe, and all the time her relatives was comin’ to see the twins. The Indians frightened the boys’ ma and she started to keep the boys in the house, never lettin’ ’em outside. Slade and her had a big row about that, could hear it a mile away. But after the boys started walkin’, they solved their own problems, at least Mac did.” She laughed.

  “How did Devon do that?”

  “That young’un was slipperier’n a greased pig. Couldn’t no room hold him inside. I ’member one time Slade nearly whaled the tar out of him when he found him on top of the roof. He was only four years old, and we never did figure out how he got up there.” Agnes laughed to herself and continued sewing.

  “But what happened to his mother, and where is Kevin?”

  Agnes sighed. “That was a real sad story. When the boys