Читать книгу Christmas On Snowbird Mountain - Fay Robinson - Страница 9

SUSANNAH PARKED the truck at the pumps, filled the tank and checked the tires. This area here was beautiful, like a Christmas card scene. Snow frosted the branches of the trees and a blue mist veiled the mountains in the distance, making them seem painted.

Despite the beauty, driving the winding roads in icy conditions had made her tense. She was tired and hungry and her thermos was empty. A cup of hot coffee and a sandwich would be heaven. She also needed to get directions to see how far she was from Sitting Dog and the studio of the artist she wanted to talk to. She hoped he gave lessons. If he’d work with her, she might be able to mark another item off her list.

First, though, she had to find a place to stay for the night. When possible, and to save money, she stopped at RV parks and slept on the truck seat or used her sleeping bag in the back, under the camper. Tonight would be too cold for that. She’d have to squeeze money out of her tight budget for a motel room.

Well, at least she’d be able to take a hot shower. That alone was worth the extra expense.

Sleeping in a real bed and being able to go online to update her Web site were other pluses of a night indoors. Her travel diary, or “Web log” as the people on the Internet preferred to call it, was getting more than a hundred thousand hits a month from visitors signing on to read about her adventures.

Cranking the truck, she pulled away from the pumps so others could use them. She found a parking space in front of the store.

The warmth of the store was welcome. The building, much larger than it looked from outside, had three parts. The entry room held groceries, clothing and household items. At the back were two doorways. Through one was a self-service laundry. The other appeared to be a small restaurant.

Four old men sat near a gas heater playing a game with rectangular blocks. Cherokee, she guessed they were. Full-blooded or close to it.

She’d seen photographs of Native Americans, but had met very few in person. She hadn’t imagined them to be so beautiful or their faces to hold so much expression.

Her fingers itched to get her art pad out of the truck and sketch them, but as a stranger in this isolated place she was already the center of attention. Everyone had turned to look at her as she walked in. They continued to stare as she picked up toothpaste and deodorant and walked to the cash register.

“Hello,” she said brightly to the men. She gave them her warmest smile.

A man in a brown shirt threw up his hand in response and smiled back. “Welcome.”

“Thank you.” After paying for the gas and toiletries, she went to the rest room to freshen up and wandered over to the restaurant to have a look at what they offered. She took a seat at the counter, where one large woman seemed to be both taking orders and fixing meals. Bitsy, as one of the other patrons called her, had to weigh three hundred pounds.

“What would you like?” she asked.

“I’d love a cup of coffee. And do you have soup or sandwiches?”

“Both. I have ham, turkey, barbecued pork or venison sandwiches. Pumpkin soup, walnut, tomato or chicken noodle, all homemade. If you want a hot dinner, your choices are vegetables, hamburger steak or chicken gizzards.” She handed her a small chalk-board that listed the vegetables; many were traditional and some—like ramps—Susannah had never heard of.

She wavered between being adventurous and satisfying her hunger.

“I’d like to try something exotic, but I’m also starving and don’t want to order and then not like what you bring. Any suggestions for something unique, but that I’ll probably enjoy?”

“What are you leaning toward?”

“Well, definitely not the gizzards, but the venison sounds intriguing. And the pumpkin soup. And the walnut soup. But, then again, ham I know I like. Maybe I should play it safe.”

“I can make you a half ham, half deer meat sandwich and put the two kinds of soup in small cups instead of bowls so you can have a taste of both for the same price. And I make a nice bean bread that goes well with soup.”

“Oh, sounds perfect.”

“It’ll be right up.”

“Can you also tell me how far it is to Sitting Dog?”

“You’re here.”

“But where’s the town?”

“You’re smack-dab in the middle of it. If you want a town, then Robbinsville, fifteen or twenty miles to the northeast, is the place to head. They’ve got, oh, maybe seven hundred folks.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a town.”

“Sugar, you’re in Graham County. We’ve got plenty of mountains, creeks and trees, but we’re way short on people. Only about eight thousand of us are crazy enough to live here.”

“In the whole county?”

“Yep. The land’s mostly government-owned national forest. We’re the only county in North Carolina that doesn’t even have a four-lane road.”

“I passed through some of the forest land. I went nearly fifty miles without seeing another car.”

“Which way did you come in?”

“From Tellico Plains, Tennessee, over the Cherohala Skyway.”

“Lord, girl! You took a chance in this weather. That’s a desolate trip this time of the year, and this early snow must’ve made the going even tougher. Some of those curves never get enough sun to melt the ice.”

“The scenery was worth it. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life.”

“It is pretty.”

“Is there a motel close by?”

“No, sorry. We don’t get many tourists this late in the year. In warm weather we attract nature lovers who hike the back country, but they mostly camp out.”

“I imagine with this fresh snowfall everyone’s farther upstate at the ski resorts.”

“Probably. We don’t normally get our first snowfall for a couple more weeks, so I’m sure the skiers have headed up to Maggie Valley. But they’re missing a treat. These mountains are the place to be in winter, especially during the holidays.” She refilled the coffee of a man two seats down. “You only passing through?” she asked Susannah.

“I’m not sure yet. Do you have a bed-and-breakfast? Even a boardinghouse would do.”

“A couple B-and-Bs. And there’s a lodge, but they’re probably closed for the season and won’t open up again until late March or mid-April. When you’ve finished eating, you can borrow my phone book and call around. Maybe someone around here is open.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

Several people sat down to order and the woman got busy filling orders. The venison she brought Susannah a few minutes later was delicious, the pumpkin and walnut soups interesting. The best part was the bread—simply out of this world. Susannah was glad she’d taken a chance on something different.

She was finishing her coffee when she felt a presence. She glanced to her side and found a young girl with huge brown eyes staring up at her.

“Hi,” Susannah said.

“Si yo,” the girl answered. Her front teeth on the top and bottom were missing, making her whistle slightly when she talked.

“I’m sorry. I don’t speak your language.”

“I said hello.”

“Oh, well, then si yo to you, too.”

The girl pointed to the cast that protruded from the left sleeve of Susannah’s sweater. “Did you hurt your arm?”

“I broke my wrist.”

“How?”

“Mm, I guess you could say I tried to fly and found out I wasn’t any good at it.”

Actually, the flying part had gone well. She’d jumped from the bridge, her chute had opened perfectly and she’d drifted down toward the landing area without problems. At the last second the wind had shifted. In an attempt to stay out of the water, Susannah had overcompensated and hit the rocks.

“Does it hurt?” the child asked.

“Not so much now, but it did in the beginning. The doctor put this on to make it better.” The girl kept staring at it, seemingly fascinated. “Would you like to see?”

She nodded.

Susannah turned on the stool and pushed up her sweater. The cast covered her hand, except for her fingers and thumb, and went up to below her elbow.

“It’s white. My friend Iva broke her arm last year and her thing was purple.”

“That’s because this one’s made out of plaster. Your friend Iva’s was probably made out of fiber-glass and those come in purple and other colors.”

“How come you didn’t get a pretty one?” She reached out and lightly rubbed her fingers over it.

“Because the pretty ones cost a lot more money and I was being frugal.”

“Fruit girl?”

“Frugal,” Susannah repeated with a smile. “That means I was trying not to spend too much money.”

“How come you don’t got any of your friends’ names on it?”

“Well, that’s a very good question.” And one Susannah didn’t know how to answer for a child. How did you explain to someone her age that you didn’t have any friends? Fortunately she didn’t have to.

“We printed our names on Iva’s,” the girl said, forging ahead. “I put mine right there.” She placed her index finger in the middle of Susannah’s forearm.

“That sounds pretty.”

“I could only print then, but I can write my name in cursive now.” She looked up with expectation, her sweet face showing exactly what she longed to do. “I can write it real good.”

“You can already write in cursive? Goodness. How old are you?”

“Sudali.” She held up six fingers.

“Well, this must be my lucky day because I’ve been looking all over for a six-year-old to write her name on my cast and couldn’t find one. Do you think you could do it for me?”

Her eyes lit up. “Uh-huh. I even got a marker.” Hastily she took off her school backpack and rummaged around until she came out with two. Susannah held her arm steady in her lap while the girl slowly and carefully wrote the name Nia in black. Instead of dotting the I she drew a red heart.

“How beautiful. Thank you.”

“You won’t wash it off?”

“No.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” The cast would be removed and thrown away in four to six weeks, but the child probably hadn’t thought about that.

Nia looked quickly over her shoulder, as if realizing she’d strayed too far from the person who’d brought her. “I got to go.” She returned her things to her pack.

“Are you here with your mother?”

“My daddy. My mama’s dead. She got the cancer in her stomach.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You got a mama?”

“No, not anymore.”

“Did she get the cancer?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Very much.”

“You got a daddy?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Who tucks you in at night?”

“I…” The question sent a sharp pain through Susannah’s heart. “I tuck myself in.”

“My daddy tucks me in. I got a Gran and a Nana Sipsey to help.”

“Then I’d say you’re a very lucky little girl to have so many people who love you.”

The child said goodbye and left. Susannah ordered another cup of coffee. “Anything else?” the waitress asked when she’d finished.

“No, thanks. Everything was delicious.”

“Glad you enjoyed it. Want that phone book now?”

“Yes, please.” Susannah paid for her meal, then Bitsy helped her look up numbers for places where she might stay the night. She wrote them down.

While she had the book, she flipped over to the W section and skimmed the listings.

“Do you know Ryan Whitepath, the artist? This lists only a post office address and I’d like to drop by and speak to him.”

“Sure. Everybody knows the Whitepaths. They’ve lived here all their lives. That was Ryan’s little girl you were talking to.”

“You’re kidding!”

“He usually picks her up out front when she gets off the school bus. Hurry and you might catch him.”

Susannah raced through the store and outside. She scanned the parking lot for Nia, but didn’t see her anywhere. Damn! So close to Whitepath and she’d missed him.

The one item on her Life List that had caused her the most concern was “Create something beautiful and lasting.” For months she’d pondered what that should be and the training she needed to accomplish it. A painting maybe? An exquisite photograph? A sculpture? None of those things seemed exactly right, but she couldn’t explain why. She wanted the whatever she made to be admired long after she died, but it also had to “speak” to her heart, to be part of her somehow.

While waiting in the emergency room in Fayetteville to have her wrist set, she’d wandered off in search of a rest room and wound up in the lobby for the recently completed heart center. The floor had been the most stunning mosaic she’d ever seen, hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of tile expertly placed so that they gave the illusion of walking on a leafy forest floor in autumn. Looking at it had literally taken her breath away.

A pamphlet about the heart center credited the work to Cherokee artist Ryan Whitepath of Sitting Dog, North Carolina.

A mosaic. Perfect! They were beautiful and durable. She’d found out on the Internet that one dating back thirty-five hundred years had recently been uncovered by archaeologists and was still intact.

She believed she had the talent to learn the craft. She’d started college as an art major, planning to be a portrait painter. Her mother’s illness had killed that dream the following year, but in the last few months she’d taken up drawing again.

She possessed a sense of color and understood perspective. And it wasn’t as if she wanted to be an expert, only make a little piece of something Ryan Whitepath could insert in a larger work. If she could talk him into giving her lessons and letting her help in his studio.

That request, she felt, was best made in person rather than by telephone. So she’d rearranged her schedule and backtracked into North Carolina.

The timing was perfect. She planned to be in New York City to watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. That gave her eight weeks before she had to move on.

She reentered the store and went back to the lunch counter. “I wasn’t quick enough. Can you tell me how to get to Mr. Whitepath’s studio or home?”

“Be glad to.” The waitress picked up a napkin and started drawing a map. “I hope you have four-wheel drive.”

RYAN ENJOYED the walk back, but Nia struggled to keep up. He put her on his shoulders and carried her.

“Am I heavy, Daddy?” she asked in Tsalagi.

“Yes, you’re heavy. And you squirm like a trout. I can hardly hold on to you.”

She wriggled her behind, teasing him. “There was a lady with pretty hair in the store. She tried to fly and fell down and hurt herself.”

“She tried to fly in the store?”

“No, Daddy, not in the store.” She giggled, a welcome sound.

“Was she an eagle?”

“Uh-uh.”

“A big owl?”

“No.”

“A moth?”

“No!”

“Maybe she was a goose like you, Sa Sa.”

“No, silly. She was a lady.”

They came to the possum wood trees, persimmons some people called them. He set Nia on the ground and took a sack from his jacket pocket to hold their bounty. Deer and raccoons considered the tart fruit a treat, and the many tracks in the snow told him the animals had already found the ripe ones that had fallen.

“Help me dig down and get some good ones for a pie. The cold will have turned them sweet.”

They gathered enough for several pies, along with a few large pinecones Nia wanted to use for a Thanksgiving project at school. Few Indian families celebrated the holiday, but Nia, like all children in this area, went to the county school where such things were usual.

He and Nia thanked the earth for the possum wood berries and pinecones and then started back up the trail.

“We made it before the dark got us, Daddy,” Nia said as the house came into view.

“And I didn’t have to wrestle a single bear.”

Ryan didn’t stop at his place. A few years ago he’d converted the old equipment barn from his father’s defunct furniture-making business into a modern workshop with two kilns in the back and living quarters in the loft for him and Nia, but Nia most often ate in the house and sometimes slept there. Ryan did, too, unless he worked late, which was happening more often than he liked.

A vehicle he didn’t recognize was parked in the yard. “We have company.”

“Is it Uncle Joe?”

“No, not unless he’s bought a new truck.” That wasn’t likely. His youngest brother didn’t have money for luxuries. Joseph was a carpenter and furniture maker and worked hard, but employment opportunities were limited in the sparsely populated county. Most of the land was virgin forest. Only six percent was appropriate for cultivation. Except for one factory, they had no industry.

Just inside the door, he helped Nia take off her boots and coat. He followed her through the house to the kitchen.

A pretty young woman with red hair sat at the table with his mother and grandmother drinking tea. “You’re here!” Nia exclaimed. To his amazement, she rushed over and climbed into the stranger’s lap.

“Hi, sweetheart.” The woman playfully tugged on one of Nia’s long braids.

“Look, Daddy! I wrote my name on her arm.”

Nia badgered the woman into pushing up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal a cast with her signature.

Ryan couldn’t have been more stunned. The fiery hair. The broken “wing.”

His grandmother nodded to him with a satisfied smile. “Rejoice,” she said in their native tongue. “The redbird has come.”