Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees Read online

  Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees

  Janie DeVos

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  PART 1 - Rachel

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2 - Secrets in the Laurel

  CHAPTER 3 - The Wart Buyer

  CHAPTER 4 - A Slow Unveiling

  CHAPTER 5 - The Killing Time

  CHAPTER 6 - The Darkest Night

  CHAPTER 7 - The Wait

  CHAPTER 8 - Farewell, Safe Harbor

  CHAPTER 9 - Answers in a Cup

  CHAPTER 10 - A Heart Shift

  CHAPTER 11 - A Snake in the Garden of Ginseng

  CHAPTER 12 - Hail the Floundering Hero

  CHAPTER 13 - The Birthday Redeemer

  CHAPTER 14 - Into the Mist

  CHAPTER 15 - The Moon Man

  PART 2 - Willa

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17 - Beginnings

  CHAPTER 18 - The Best-Laid Plans

  CHAPTER 19 - In the Cards

  CHAPTER 20 - Ties that Bind

  CHAPTER 21 - Fractured Lives

  CHAPTER 22 - Hanging in the Balance

  CHAPTER 23 - A Ballot Cast

  CHAPTER 24 - The Peace of Letting Go

  CHAPTER 25 - The Means to a Beginning

  CHAPTER 26 - A Wayward Son

  PART 3 - Rachel

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28 - News from the Orchard

  CHAPTER 29 - Three Things to Keep

  CHAPTER 30 - Jack

  CHAPTER 31 - A Merry Fourth of July

  CHAPTER 32 - Those We Think We Know

  CHAPTER 33 - Moonshine on the Mountain

  CHAPTER 34 - The River Home

  PART 4 - Willa and Rachel

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36 - Apple Jack

  CHAPTER 37 - Onions and Lightnin’

  CHAPTER 38 - A Mill Reincarnated

  CHAPTER 39 - Moon Shine and Moonshine

  CHAPTER 40 - The Betrayal

  CHAPTER 41 - And Justice for All

  PART 5 - Rachel

  CHAPTER 42 - The Different Somethings

  CHAPTER 43 - Something Old

  EPILOGUE - The Harrises

  Author’s Note

  Teaser chapter

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 by Janie DeVos

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: August 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-6018-3681-6

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-682-3

  ISBN-10: 1-60183-682-1

  This book is dedicated to two of the strongest women I am privileged to know: Cindy Lindsey, and Gertrude Huskins, whose dignity and amazing grace are constants, even when life strikes its cruelest blows. May the years ahead be as gentle as Appalachian days in May.

  Acknowledgments

  The writing of this book would have been impossible had it not been for a large number of exceedingly wise and patient—and I emphasize patient—people. Many hours were spent with them as they shared stories with me about the realities of growing up in such a beautiful, but often harsh and unforgiving place as the Appalachian Mountains. In order to survive, these wonderful people have always relied on each other, and, in order to write this book, I, too, had to rely on them. In their usual way, they were there for me, and I am forever grateful.

  First, I’d like to thank Bill Carson, proprietor of The Orchard at Altapass. For hours, we sat on the deck of his country store overlooking his massive apple orchard as he patiently and painstakingly explained what goes into the running of an orchard. Every part of my novel pertaining to anything apple-related is because of the time and interest Mr. Carson took in my project. Many thanks, Bill. I’d write another story about apples just to sit on your deck with you again.

  Next, I’d like to thank Keith Woody and Ricky Hollifield, members of the world-renowned family of chair makers who run Woody’s Chair Shop in Spruce Pine, NC. I’d also like to posthumously thank their mentor, Arval Woody, whose beautiful rockers grace the Smithsonian Institute, as well as the Kennedy Library, in Washington, DC. My novel’s characters, Prescott Guinn and Salvatore Lupari, both furniture makers, came to life because of Mr. Woody’s and Mr. Hollifield’s furniture-making expertise. My deepest gratitude to both of you.

  I’m also indebted to Mr. Tim Parker, of Parker Forest Products. Without his personal guided tour through his timber mill, I would never have been able to adequately explain my character Rachel’s terrible injury suffered at her father’s mill, nor describe the day-today business of running one. Thank you, Tim. Letting you test drive my new Jeep was small payment for your tour.

  Lastly, I’d like to thank Calvin Hall, whose family has graced these mountains for hundreds of years. As we sat on Calvin’s front porch, looking off into the distance at the leaning, vine-covered cabin his grandfather built in the 1800s, I learned about the enormous courage and resilience of these amazing people, not to mention their undiluted dedication to their land and their people. Thank you, Calvin, for making me feel like one of your clan.

  There are many others who contributed to this novel but in the interest of saving space for the actual story itself, I will just add a very broad but heartfelt thank you. You know who you are, as I do, and because of you, Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees was born.

  PART 1

  Rachel

  CHAPTER 1

  1916, Howling Cut, NC

  I wasn’t born with a bad right foot. Instead, I’d been dealt a bad hand when an accident at Papa’s timber mill crippled me. The man known as the off-bearer was busy stacking boards that had just been cut by the spinning, sharp-toothed saw and didn’t see me walk up beside him. With his mind a million miles away, he was simply repeating the tedious pulling-off-and-stacking motion of yet another board when he turned and dropped it on my foot.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion. The off-bearer, who was a stoic Irishman named Rusty Flaherty, saw me standing there just a fraction of a second after he’d let the board go, and the look of horror on his face was one I would never forget, and which froze me in place. I was lucky, they said, because it had narrowly missed my head. But I wasn’t lucky enough, for even though Papa immediately threw me in the wagon and hauled me over to Doc Pardie’s house, my foot had never healed right.

  The doctor wouldn’t operate because I was only four and “still had growin’ to do, and there ain’t any use but to wait ’til she’s done a-doin’ it,” he’d told my father. I heard Papa tell Mama later that he wouldn’t have let Doc do it anyway, since he smelled like he’d “dived into a bottle of one hundred proof. Maybe it’ll just straighten out on its own,” he’d said, without too much
conviction in his voice. And it had healed, just not straight enough or strong enough, and there’d never been enough money to do anything to correct it.

  I walked with a pronounced limp, and the fact that I was short and small-boned only helped to accentuate it. I’d been given the offensive name of Laggin’ Leg early on, and each time I was called by it, I wished the darn pine had, indeed, clobbered me in the head. But, as Grandma was quick to remind me when I came home in tears, I must have been saved from certain death for a reason, and “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” she’d point out, while pointing at me to emphasize her point.

  That’s all well and good, I thought, but I just wish the good Lord had warned me to stand on the other side of Mr. Flaherty, and found someone else to make a point with.

  The first time someone referred to me as Laggin’ Leg was when I was six. It was during Sunday school class as I walked back to my seat after reciting the first five verses of John. I’d proudly made it through my recital without omitting one word, and Mrs. Jacobson was in the midst of telling the class that I was “a true disciple of the Lord’s,” when nine-year-old Ray Coons deliberately stuck his foot out in front of me. Suddenly, I went from walking proudly with my chin up, to lying on the floor with a split in it. The whole class—all thirteen of them—fell into fits of laughter, while stars danced before my eyes as though they were having a celestial recital on the scuffed pine floor where I lay staring in dazed confusion.

  “Ray Coons!” Mrs. Jacobson scolded as she quickly walked over to me. “I saw that!”

  “Why, Miz Jacobson, I didn’t do nothin’,” Ray innocently objected. “She’s just a cripple, that’s all. She can’t walk too good. She’s got that laggin’ leg o’ hers, and she falls all the time, don’t ya, girl?” Ray looked at me as though he’d cut my throat if I didn’t concede that the fall had been my fault. I didn’t—couldn’t—say a word, however, as I was too busy trying to refill my lungs with air; the fall had knocked all of it out of me. And the wracking sobs that had followed only made the possibility of my breathing again that much more unlikely.

  The episode left me with two things: a scar on my chin from the gash that required four stitches (which Doc Pardie sewed during a rare moment of sobriety), and the cruel new nickname. I hid in the back of the loft in the barn after receiving my stitches until Grandma coaxed me out with the smell of a cheese biscuit. I think she’d given me time to process the event—and to get hungry enough to make cheese biscuits more important. I came down the ladder and turned around, facing her.

  Looking at her was like looking at an older version of myself, except for the fact that she had thick, medium-length, coal-black hair, with just a few streaks of gray blended throughout. My hair, however, was long and curly, and the same insignificant color brown as a withered maple leaf, just like my father’s. But Grandma and I had the same build, same face, and the same brilliant blue eyes; “Carolina blue,” she always called them. As we stood looking at each other, she pulled pieces of straw from my hair, then rather roughly rubbed away the telltale tracks of some dried up tears. I knew she wasn’t mad at me for crying, but was angry with whoever had been the cause of it.

  The wind whistled through the gaps in the plank siding on the north side of the barn, creating an eerie tune and causing me to shiver. Our town, Howling Cut, had been named for just that very reason—the eerie, howling sound the wind made when it rushed down the mountains and through one of the logging roads or “cuts” in the forests which surrounded us. And the place was living up to its name at the moment. Grandma handed me the biscuit and pulled the collar of my worn-out brown coat closed, trying in vain to keep the cold out.

  “I can’t keep life from hurtin’ ya, Rachel,” she said. “Alls I can do is learn ya to be tough enough to stand up to it.”

  She pulled me close to her and I could smell the smoke from our wood stove when I laid my face against her breast. She sighed after a long moment, held me away from her, and I caught the glint of tears that threatened to spill over from the reddened pockets of her lower lids.

  “C’mon. We’re gettin’ as cold as our supper is.” Turning, she led the way out of the barn.

  CHAPTER 2

  Secrets in the Laurel

  Big Grandma, Gertrude Cooper—Grandma’s mother—lived with us until her passing when I was seven years old. She’d come to live with us when my great-grandfather, Earl Cooper, died and I was four. The two had lived in a cabin that was much farther up the mountain than ours, making my great-grandparents’ cabin practically inaccessible to anyone that didn’t have a darn good reason for undertaking the long haul up there. Once my great-grandfather had passed away, Big Grandma felt the solitude and isolation far more than she ever had before, thus, she’d packed up most of what she had, gave the rest to the church—including the cabin—and moved in with us. Her small cabin was left to the ravages of creeping vines and thick laurel that quickly took over the place and created a well-hidden and safe haven for a couple of turkeys, a family of mice, and a rat snake, all of whom must have taken into consideration the fine accommodations and reluctantly agreed to live and let live. And there were two others who found the perfect use for the abandoned home place—Myra Jenkins and John Vespie.

  John was a married man, but forgot that small fact every Wednesday at noon. On those afternoons, John and Myra would casually leave the bank in town together, where they were both employed, he being the bank manager and she his secretary, and they’d make the rough trek up the old logging road in John’s fancy Model T Ford (one of only two in town) to my great-grandparents’ cabin. Their story was always the same: John had a standing date with his son for an afternoon of fishing on the river and, being the gentleman that he was, he was kindly dropping Myra off at her ailing mother’s so that the dear and unselfish daughter could tend to the soon-to-be-departed woman’s few remaining needs. Little did the town know that Myra’s mother had died when she was twelve, and that Myra, being the result of a tryst between her mother and a timber man who’d long since come and gone, had been brought up by a strict and overly protective spinster aunt who lived two towns over in Honeycutt.

  John had discovered the wonderful windfall of Big Grandma’s deserted cabin when the church pastor happened to mention “the Holy Spirit–driven generosity of Sister Gertrude.” Unfortunately, Pastor Franks said, the cabin was too high up and too far off the beaten path to be useful to the church. John, however, immediately thought of a wonderful use for it. Thus, Wednesday afternoons ended up being a blessed union for two of the most faithful of Pastor Franks’s flock.

  Their well-kept secret lasted two years, until one unfortunate Wednesday afternoon when John Vespie’s wife, Edna, and son, Little John, came in to the bank to see if John Sr. would like to take them for an early supper at the diner. When asked where her husband was, the bank manager’s assistant, Mr. Humphrey, stupidly replied that he was fishing with their son—their one-and-only son, who happened to be standing right before him. So, the already-suspicious Mrs. Vespie easily put two and two together, and figured the two absent bank employees were together. Unsurprisingly, Myra Jenkins put in her resignation the next morning, and left town that afternoon.

  Nothing more was heard from the disgraced woman, but it was a miracle to see how suddenly and humbly John J. Vespie became a deeply devoted lamb of the church. And show his devotion he did when it came time to ante-up for the offering plate each Sunday. Some said he was trying to buy his way back into the good graces of the church, and God, Himself. And I suppose he figured he had a lot of amends-making to do, for he never missed a Sunday’s service thereafter, nor slacked on his enormous tithing. Soon enough, the money seemed to make up for his indiscretions for no one, the preacher included, had any more to say about his “momentary dance with the devil” after the church got its long-awaited and much-prayed-for roof later that year. And Mrs. Vespie’s face got a little less dour looking and a little haughtier looking instead when she finally got th
e mansion that she’d always dreamed of. And it had nothing to do with the one that was being prepared for her in heaven.

  Big Grandma laughed about it and said that that poor old cabin had seen more life in it in the last two years since John and Myra had been sneaking around than it had had in the last twenty when she and my great-grandfather had lived there.

  Being seven at the time, though, I wasn’t privy to all the ins and outs of what was going on at Big Grandma’s old place, or in the town, either. And, truthfully, the little I’d heard hadn’t much interested me. But, something that did interest me and that I was well aware of, even at that young age, concerned Big Grandma herself. What she was fascinated me and lured me to her, yet, at the same time, caused me to keep a certain reverent distance from her. For my great-grandmother was the Wart Buyer.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Wart Buyer

  There was a certain awe and respect that went with the title of Wart Buyer. Perhaps it had something to do with a secret fascination with witchery, although a Wart Buyer was certainly not a witch. She was, however, thought of as a healer, although my great-grandmother never claimed to be such. But I know that when Big Grandma treated Minna George for the warts on her hand, Minna swore up and down that Big Grandma had also healed her rheumatism. And then there was Tycee Burns. She claimed that after Big Grandma got rid of the ugly wart on her forehead that she no longer had the paralyzing headaches either.