The Witch of Tin Mountain(2)

The kind of learnin’ I got from Granny was a far sight better, anyways.

I keep my head down and hurry up the road, not stopping again until I come to the big house on the corner. It’s three stories of painted timber decked out with peeling gingerbread and stained glass—proof that old Bill Bledsoe was once the richest man in town until the Northrups stripped him of that honor. I hoist my bag with its sloshing liquid and climb the steps trimmed with splintered millwork.

Calvina, Bledsoe’s maid, flings open the door before I have a chance to knock. “Come on in, Miss Gracelynn. Mr. Bledsoe’s been ’specting you.”

I step over the threshold, blinking from the sudden change in light. Calvina’s dark eyes flit nervously from mine to the stairs. “He’s in mighty bad pain. Been tryin’ the castor oil like you said. Ain’t nothing moved.”

“Locked up tight again, ain’t he?”

A loud groan filters from the floor above. “Goddammit, Calvina! Bring that girl up here!”

Lands. Old Bledsoe is in mighty rare form.

I follow Calvina up the stairs to a room draped in scarlet silk. Faded pink wallpaper curls at the corners. Mr. Bledsoe’s propped up in a bed as wide as a railway car, sweat sliding down his wrinkled face in rivulets. He squeezes his eyes shut and rolls onto his side as another cramp seizes him. “I’m dyin’, Lord Jesus,” he groans.

I cross the room and kneel next to the bed, unwinding the scarf from my hair and locking eyes with Mr. Bledsoe. “Now listen here, sir. You ain’t dyin’. You just need a good shit.”

“It hurts! Bloody Judas, it hurts!”

He rolls again, clutching at his pajamas. Ah, hell. Granny once told me Mr. Bledsoe had a tragic past, and that’s what’s made him the way he is, but all I see is a bitter old man with too much money and time on his hands. I rummage through my bag and pull out the jar with its fern frond tisane. “Drink as much of this as you can muster. It won’t taste good. But it’ll get things to moving.”

Calvina holds out a teacup, and I fill it with the thick green liquid. She offers it to him. He takes the smallest of sips, then pulls a face like a gargoyle. Another cramp rolls through him, and he flails around, cursing a stream of filthy words. The flimsy teacup nearly flies from Calvina’s hand. She purses her lips and shakes her head.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years I been helping Granny deliver babies and work her cures, it’s that ladies are miles tougher than menfolk, and much nicer patients, too.

“Now, Mr. Bledsoe,” I say, “if you don’t drink that, you’ll have to go see Doc Gallagher. He’ll give you something called an enema. That means up the rear with a rubber hose.” His eyes get real wide. “I don’t reckon you want that, or the bill that’ll come with it, so if I were you, I’d drink up.”

He pushes out his lower lip like a pouting baby, but this time, when Calvina offers the cup, he chugs it down. A few minutes later, a rumbling sound comes from under the covers. A stench stronger than a day-old bloated deer wafts through the room.

Old Bledsoe really starts howling then.

“Them cramps just mean it’s working! I’ll help you get him to the privy, Calvina. Otherwise, you’ll be washin’ his sheets for a week.”



After we’ve gotten Mr. Bledsoe settled back in bed, Calvina presses a silver dollar in my palm and walks me out to the street. “You heard anything about that evangelist comin’ to town tomorrow night?”

“I sure haven’t.”

Calvina reaches into her apron pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, smoothing it with long brown fingers. I take it, scanning the boldface headline:

Reverend Josiah Bellflower

Miracles and Wonders

Are you sick? Crippled in body or touched with infirmities of the mind?

Reverend Bellflower has a message of healing and prosperity from The Lord.

Below the circus-like script is a date, May 1, and a photo of a tall man with longish hair and sharp features, one hand pressed to the forehead of the woman kneeling before him, the other up to God. I sniff and hand it back to Calvina. “Looks like a bunch of Holy Roller hogwash to me.”

“All the same, I’m thinking about bringing Mama. Her hip won’t stop gripin’ her.”

Something prideful in me rears up. “She been doing the Epsom soaks and taking the willow bark Granny prescribed?”

Calvina looks off somewhere above my shoulder and nods. “Been following your granny’s advice to the letter, but there ain’t no change. And we can’t afford no doctor.”

I gesture up to the bedroom window, where Mr. Bledsoe’s lying in a bed bigger than our kitchen, on down pillows and satin sheets. “You can’t, but he can. Pardon me, Calvina, but you sure do put up with a lot from that old man.”

She shakes her head. “He lost most of his money in the crash, just like them city folk did. I’m thankful to have the work. Mr. Bledsoe is cranky, sure enough, but at least he keeps me fed—keeps Mama fed, too.”

She ain’t wrong. Any work is better than no work in these times.

By now, the sun is sliding under the broad-hipped roof of Mr. Bledsoe’s big, soulless house. I’ve got about an hour to do our trading at the mercantile before it closes. If I hurry, there’ll be just enough time to see Abby before Aunt Val and the cousins get home from the fields, their bellies aching for dinner. I reach for Calvina’s hand. “Don’t you worry about your mama. Granny’ll figure something out. She always does.”