"Enough!" I bit back.
"Then send twice as much, fer when I have my baby girl, I'll need every cent ya kin spare. An if ya disappoint me, Heaven Casteel, I'll find my way inta yer life, an I won't give a damn if ya lose everythin'! Ya don't deserve it anyway!"
The wind from the Willies reached out and chilled me even more. I thought I heard the distant wolves howling; I thought I saw the snow banking high around the mountain shack, closing me in. With difficulty I tried to focus on what to do and what to say, as long seconds ticked slowly toward eternity and the dirty, tattered curtains billowed out into the room like wraiths of God.
Not for a moment did I doubt that Fanny would do exactly what-she said she'd do, just to strike back at me for being born first, and having what she considered some sort of invisible advantage, when I'd never had anything advantageous happen to me until Logan chose me instead of her.
And only then did it slap me directly in the face. I hadn't believed her when she said it. Logan was the reason she hated me! All along she'd wanted him and he'd never really looked at her despite all she'd done to draw him her way.
I put my hands to my fevered cheeks, wondering just what was wrong with mountain girls who grew up too soon--and
determined way before their time just what man was right for them, when none of us could possibly know.
Sarah and her miserable choice. Loving a man like Luke Casteel. Kitty Setterton and her insane love for a man who had only used her to scratch his itch. But Fanny standing there with her dark, hating eyes, trying to glare me into extinction, when Logan wasn't mine anymore--but damned if I'd turn him over to her to ruin!
"All right, Fanny, calm down," I said with as much authority as possible. "I'll go to Winnerrow. I'll talk to the Wises about buying back your baby that you sold. But while I'm gone, you sit down and you think long and hard about just what you are going to do to take care of that little girl, and see to it that she has a healthy and good life. It takes more than money to make a good mother. It takes devotion and caring more for your daughter than for yourself. You'll have to give up your stage aspirations and stay home to take care of Darcy."
"Ain't got what it takes t'hit it big at t'Opry, like always thought I could," she wailed pitifully, and for a moment I felt pity. "So I might as well give up. There's a guy here who's asked me t'marry up wid him, an I might as well go on an do it. He's fifty-two years ole, an I don't really love him, but he has a good job an kin support me an my kid--wid yer help, that is. I'll wait here fer ya t'come back, an by t'time ya do, him an' me will be hitched fer life. An .I won't spend no more of this here money ya gave me than I have ta."
Maybe I said something smart, or something dumb then, but I said it out of desperation. "Don't be so stupid as to marry a man so much older. Find a young man, near your own age, then get married, and keep quiet, and when I'm back with your baby I'll see you through until you no longer need me."
Her brilliant and pleased smile shone. "Sure, I'll stay. I won't say a word. Not even t'Mallory. He's t'guy who loves me. Ya jus' go on an' do what ya kin . . . an' you'll win . . . don't ya always win, Heaven, don't ya?"
And once more she swept her greedy eyes over my clothes and the jewelry I'd grown so accustomed to wearing I had forgotten I had it on.
But it wasn't Winnerrow I headed for when I left Fanny lying on her bed in Nashville. It was Tom I called. "Fanny wants me to buy her baby back, Tom. Use some of the money I left with Grandpa and fly to Winnerrow and come with me when I confront the Wises."
"Heavenly, you know I can't do that! You were a dope to give Grandpa all that money, for now he can't even find it! You know he's never had more than a buck in his pocket--whatever possessed you to give him cash?" --'
"Because you wouldn't take it!" I cried, near tears from his stubbornness.
"I want to earn my way, not have it bought for me," Tom said stubbornly. "And if you're smart you'll forget about keeping that promise to Fanny, and let the Wises have the little girl everyone thinks is their own. Fanny won't make a fit mother, even if you feed her a million a month--and you know it."
"Goodbye, Tom," I whispered with a certain feeling of finality. Time and circumstances had robbed me of the brother who had once been my champion. Now I had only Troy, and he wasn't feeling exceptionally well when I called.
"I wish you'd hurry back, Heaven," he said in an odd voice. "Sometimes when I wake up at night I think you are only a dream and I'll never see you again."
"I love you, Troy! I'm not a dream! After I've seen the Wises I'm flying back to be your wife."
"But you sound distant and different"
"It's the wind on the telephone lines. I always hear it. I'm glad someone else does, too."
"Heaven . . ." He paused, then said, "Never mind, I don't want to beg."
I waited on stand-by for a flight to take me to West Virginia, to Winnerrow, to Main Street where Logan lived in the apartment over Stonewall's Pharmacy.
Oh, I was tempting fate to do its worst, but I didn't know that at the time. I only knew I wanted to win at one game of chance I played . . and maybe money could buy back one little girl who might be grateful in the future . . .
Seventeen Against All Odds
. THEY WERE SINGING IN THE CHURCH WHEN I ENTERED, singing with pious faces upraised, the glorious, spiritual songs that reminded me of my youth when Sarah had been my mother, when home had been the cabin in the Willies; and the sweetest things in my life had been my love for Logan Stonewall, and the hours we both spent on Sundays in this church.
And their voices, so uplifted in celebration of the best part of their lives that came on Sundays, were incredibly clear on this sizzling hot summer's evening. Electric heat bolts lit up the sky every so often. Following the last of the stragglers into the church, where hand-held fans fluttered the air, as if the central air conditioning was off, I was again transported back in time to when I was just a scumbag Casteel.
Oh, those sweet and wholesome angel voices were the same ones that could rant and rave and curse, but who could believe that now? Not any stranger who didn't know them intimately, as all residents of the valley and hills knew each other. I quietly sat in the last side pew of the last row and was surprised to see that quite a number of hill folks were in church, when customarily they didn't attend evening services in overwhelming numbers, especially on a scorching night like this one. The town folks wore their newest and best, and didn't bother to turn their heads, only their eyes to stare my way. Look down their noses over my clothes, in their combined hypocrisy they united to form mindless judgments seldom based on facts, only on suspicions and herd instinct.
They knew me despite my fine raiment. Despite my clothes, they didn't want me in their midst. They didn't even have to speak a word; their animosity was sharp and needling, and if I hadn't been in such a determined mood, I might have been driven away, knowing that, no matter how rich or famous I might become, I'd never win their respect, or their admiration, or what I wanted more than anything else, their envy. Nothing had changed in the order of what they considered right and wrong and suitable--for such as me.