He came out onto the porch. "Water's on 401and the wings're drying. I 'm going to wash up."
Passing her by with a shy look, he went down the steps.
"Where ye going to?" "The creek."
"Stay here. There's a wash pan inside ye can use,"
Miz Elda said with decision. "T ake some water from the barrel. When ye're done, toss the water out the side window there. The black-eyed Susans'll take it kindly."
Gripping the arms of the rocker, she rose with difficulty.
"Come on, now, Cadi. We'll do our talking inside where there's none to see us."
First thing she asked us was to repeat every word the man by the river said all over again. I t was our pleasure to do so, though we was eager to ask our own questions.
"I ain't never gonna get tired of hearing about Jesus,"
she said, nodding. "Never in a million years." The boiling water and steam drew her attention. Risingfrom her chair, she took up the turkey by its legs and eased it into the boiling water. "Now, what's the question that's so important ye'd risk life and limb to get an answer."
"We was wondering about Indians, ma'am," Fagan said, easing into it.
"Indians?" Miz Elda kept her back to us. "What do ye want to know about Indians?"
402"Was there any living here when our people first come."
"Well, now, boy, that was a mighty long time ago,"
she said, still not looking at us. She kept dipping that turkey up and down so's I figured she wasn't going to tell us nothing unless we asked straight-out. So I did.
"We want to know about the Indians who was murdered." Fagan shot me a look I 'm sure he hoped would wither my tongue. I looked back at him. "We ain't got all day." And we had her full attention now.
"Who told ye such a story as that?"
T o my mind, she didn't look shocked or angry, justwary.
"No one told us, Miz Elda," Fagan said gently. "Not in words leastwise."
I leaned forward, resting my arms on her table.
"There was pictures painted in a cave up on Dead Man's Mountain, painted in blood."
"Blood, ye say?" That did seem to shock her.
"Be quiet, Cadi. Let me do the talking."
I ignored him. Next, he'd want us to pluck the turkey before he got to the point. "In the cave behind the one where Sim's been living nigh on twenty years." Let him roll his eyes in frustration. Sooner we got our answers, 403the sooner we could hightail it back to Dead Man's Mountain and out of reachof his raging pa.
"Sim?" Miz Elda said.
"Sim Gillivray," Fagan said. "The sin eater."
She smiled at me. "So, he finally told ye his name. Or was it Bletsung done it?""He told us soon as he accepted Jesus as his Savior."
"Glory be," she breathed, eyes bright, and then, just as suddenly, a look of anxiety came down over her face.
I leaned forward. "What about those Indians, Miz Elda?"
"Y e've a fixed mind, girl," she said, irritated. She lifted the turkey out of the boiling water, carrying it by its feet to the table. She took a basket and laid it and the scalded bird on the table and started working at it.
"I 'll pluck feathers, ma'am," I said, grabbing the bird by the feet and dragging it closer to me. "Y ou tell us what happened."
"What makes ye think it's summat I 'd want to talk about?"
"Are ye saying ye won't tell us the truth?"
"I dinna say that. Just don't be in such a hurry. I t ain't a pretty story and it was a long404time ago. I need to collect my thoughts." She looked at Fagan and then closed her eyes and turned her head away. "I can't tell it without speaking ill of the dead."
"I t's all right, ma'am," he said gently. "Don't hold back on my account. I ain't deaf and blind to the things my kin've done over the years. I f they was part of what happened, it won't surprise me none."
"And it don't mean Fagan'll turn out like 'em, neither,"
I said, yanking a handful of feathers and putting them in the basket.
"Never thought he would," she said quietly.
"I 'm hoping I take after Mama's side of the family."
Miz Elda raised her head and looked at him. "So ye know." He nodded. "Did Sim Gillivray tell ye?"
"I knew from Mama."
"Oh."
I 'd never heard one word so heaped up with pain.
Pulling a few more feathers, I glanced at her as I put them in the basket. A tear was running down herthem in the basket. A tear was running down her weathered face as she looked at him. All the longing and loneliness she must have felt for all those years showed plain.
"I never dared hope . .
Fagan leaned forward and put his hand 405over hers. "I don't understand why she never said nothing."
"Reckon she couldn't. Y our father hates me.
"But why? What'd ye ever do to him?"
"I t ain't got much to do with me, but I reckon it's everything to do with those pictures ye found in the cave." She patted his hand and then left her own on top of his as though she didn't want to let go of him. "The truth ain't gonna be easy for ye to hear."
"The Lord is my comfort."
She nodded and then let out her breath slowly. "I t was your own grandfather Laochailand Kai who killed those Indians, Fagan. But he didn't do it all alone. Though I 'm loath to tell of it, my own darlin' Donal was part of it,except for the women and children. He was never the same after that day. Sick into his soul, he was, grieving like. So was the others, too. We thought to put it behind us and forget what happened, but I reckon it ain't to be.
Things done in dark come to light eventually."
"Start from the beginning, Granny," he said gently. "I don't understand how it came to be."
"I hate to speak of the dead, boy, especially when he's your own blood kin, but 406Laochailand Kai was the hardest, coldest, and cruelest man I ever knew. First time I knew it for certain, we was already on our way up here to the mountains, and there was no turning back. He was sitting at the fire one night, drinking, and he boasted of taking vengeance on a landowner back in Wales. He said the man told him he wasn't good enough to court his daughter. So he ruined the poor girl."
"What do ye mean `ruined'?"
"I mean he took from her what she was only to give to a husband." She looked at me and I looked back, still not understanding. "I t don't matter, Cadi. Y ou're too young to understand these things, but it was like this.Laochailand said if he wasn't good enough for her, then she wouldn't be good enough for anyone. And he made sure of it. When the deed was done, she begged him to bring her with him to America, but he said he'd had all of her he wanted."
"Didn't her father do nothing?" Fagan said, his face like thunder.
"The girl wouldn't tell him where Laochailand Kai had gone. She loved him, ye see, and was afraid her father would kill him for what he'd done. I reckon she lived in the hope he'd change his mind and come back for her.
I t took her father two yearsto 407find out Laochailand had come across to America, and by then, the girl was dead." "Dead?" I looked up from my work on the bird. "What happened to her?"
"She bore Laochailand Kai's child and then drowned herself and the wee bairn in a lake on her father's estate. Her father promised two hundred pounds to any man who could bring proof Laochailand Kai was dead.
One by one, four men hunted him down and tried to kill him, and all four died by his hand. Donal and Ireckoned that was one of the reasons Laochailand Kai was so set on heading east and settling into these high mountains, that and wanting to be a landowner himself with power over other men."
"Why would ye follow after a man like that, Miz Elda?
"Because we dinna know any better, Cadi dear. We dinna recognize him for what he was. Y e see, child, Laochailand Kai had great charm and presence. He was a handsome man and well spoken. He deceived us. Oh, there were times when he made me uncomfortable, but I never could put my finger on what it was about him that didn't seem quite right. So I suppressed the spirit within me that was telling me I was in the presence of such corruption. Laochailand 408Kai was a liar and a murderer." She withdrew her hand from Fagan's, hanging her head in shame. "And when we put ourselves in his charge, we became just like him."
Fagan was pale and still, saying nothing as he waited for her to tell the rest, the whole of it, no matter how deep it hurt.Miz Elda looked from him to me. Leaning forward, she began working at the bird as though she desperately needed something to do with her hands.
"When we come up into this valley, I thought I 'd never seen nothing more beautiful. Splashes of color everywhere. Y ellow tulip trees, the orange-red maples, and puffs of white dogwood and serviceberry along the river, the lavender of the Judas tree against the brown forest floor where new leaf growth was coming up.
Gorawen called it the God-green of spring."
"Granny Forbes was with ye?"
"Aye, child, Gorawen was among the first, and your grandfather Ian with her. And your mama's mother and father, too, darlin'. God rest their poor souls. Seven families in all come up with Laochailand Kai. We came up the trail past the falls and along the Narrows into the valley. I t took our breath away, it did. I remember feeling so happy. I was filled with such a feeling of hope. And then we reached the Indian village 409and the children came running toward us, greeting us."
She withdrew her hands from the work and clenchedthem until her knuckles were white.
"The chief came out and walked right up to Laochailand Kai, hand extended in welcome. For ye see, Laochailand Kai had been up here before and made friends with them. They was all happy to see him come back. For he had charmed them, too. They didn't know -" Her voice broke and she stopped.
Fagan reached out again and put both his hands over hers, caressing them gently, encouraging her, though his expression was filled with sorrow. "I f we confess, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
She opened her mouth as though in surprise. T ears filled her eyes and poured down her cheeks. And she went ahead swiftly and told the rest. "Laochailand Kai shook the chief's hand with one of his hands and drew a gun with the other. He shot the man square in the face. He had a second gun tucked in his belt and drew it, killing another, all the while shouting for our men to burn the hogans. All hell broke loose around us. The women and children were screaming. Men fell dead or wounded.410Some nights I can still hear 'em screaming. And Donal and Ian and all the rest were fighting for our lives.
"When it was over, Laochailand Kai sent the men out hunting for the women and children who'd run off to hide. Then he went round and clubbed the wounded to death. All but one, the chief's own son. When the men brought the others back, Laochailand Kai wanted them shot dead. Donal refused and so did the rest. None of them had the stomach to murder women and children in cold blood. So Laochailand Kai tied them together, one after another and took 'em to the Narrows. He shot the chief's son to death there, and when the young man fell, he took the rest with him down into the river. They all went over the falls."
I didn't want to believe her. With everything in me, I fought against it. Y et a still quiet voice within my soul said it was true. Every word of it was true.
"I t's all right now, Granny," Fagan said gently. "I t won't have the power over ye it did."
"I 've been so afeared of God knowin'."
"God always knew. He saw.""I reckon he did," she said brokenly. "There ain't never been a single moment's 411peace since that day. For all the beauty of this place, what we done has been like a terrible ugly scar upon the land. None of us has prospered. Many have fallen by the way. Two families are all dead and gone, wiped out by sickness. And the melancholy has run down into the blood of our children."
I thought of my mother. Had I been the only cause of her sorrow?
Fagan looked at me, and I could almost see the thoughts in his blue eyes. We had become like that, he and I , our minds moving in the same direction. Or maybe it was the Lord within us giving us like minds as he taught us the truth and brought us through it. For the thing I 'd dreaded most had come to pass. All had sinned. Not just Fagan's kin, but my own as well, and others besides. No one was better than another. All shared the legacy of murder.
But I knew something else. I knew it so deep within me, my soul sang with the knowledge and thanksgiving of it: Jesus Christ had redeemed me. Without him, Iwould be the same as they, locked in a prison of guilt and shame, afraid of death, terrified of being buried with my sins still upon my head. "But for Jesus, but for Jesus . . ." I said and could say no more.
"Y e believe what we told ye about Jesus, 412don't ye, Granny?" Fagan said. "Aye, I believe ye, every word."
"And do ye accept him as your own dear Savior and Lord?"
"I do, though I 'm unworthy to speak his name."
"Say it, Granny."
"I can't."
"None of us are worthy. He died for us, Granny. He was nailed to the cross for everything ye just told us."
"Oh, Jesus," she said softly and wept. "Oh, precious Savior, my Lord."
Fagan rose and put his arms around his grandmother. "Y e can lay your burdens down now, Granny. Y e can give them all to him, and he'll give yerest."
"Oh, I 'm tired, so tired," she said softly. "I could sleep a month of Sundays."
"I 'll help ye to bed."
"Shouldn't ye baptize me? Y e said the man did so with you."
He helped her to her feet. "There's time enough tomorrow."
"She could be dead in the morning," I said.
"Cadi!" Fagan looked at me as though I 'd grown horns.
"Well, it's the truth! Besides that, she can't walk all the way down to the river.She 413ain't strong enough to make it."
"Will you shut up?!"
"I reckon the good Lord's called her to tell things as they are," Miz Elda told Fagan. "There's a bucket there by the door, lad. Might as well baptize me now as takea chance I won't be breathing come morning."
"She didn't mean it. Did ye, Cadi?" I went for the bucket.
"Go on now," Miz Elda said. She sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. "Douse me good. We'll all feel better for it." "Y e're sure?" Fagan said.