5DISCLAIMER: Catherine Marshall's story and characters of Christy are owned by the Marshall-LeSourd Family, L.L.C. I am in no way seeking profit or credit for her story. I am expounding the story for my own amusement only.
THE BACK OF BEYOND
A Tale of Appalachia; 1885
"Look at ye, playin' in dirt at your age. Your pa oughter tan your hide, gettin' your clothes all tore up like that."
Neil knew she wasn't serious. His mother spoiled him, but with good cause. At twenty-two she had already lost three children, and six year old Neil had been the only one whose struggle to survive had been successful. She still marveled at her robust, healthy young son, with all his vigor for life.
She was dusting him off. "There noo". Neil loved to hear his mother's voice, with its very slight Scottish burr. She had been brought by her parents to America as a baby, and living all her life in a remote hollow with her highland parents had affected her speech, which her son often tried to mimic.
He grinned at her and placed a hand on her small round belly.
"Wi'ye lemme hear the tyke?"
"I doobt ye can hear 'im, but ye cin feel . . . there!"
The boy's eyes brightened when he felt the tiny thump of a kick beneath his hand.
"How does the baby breathe in there?"
"Well son, I don't rightly know.—Now , let's git ye some supper. Is that corn all hoed up?"
"Aye ma. I hoed it and weeded it like pa showed me."
"Good lad."
Catherine MacNeill moved laboriously around the kitchen, cooking the trout that her husband had caught and her son had helped clean, peeling potatoes they had grown on the steep mountainside.
Little Neil was watching his mother closely; he saw how she gasped for breath and would stretch her back. Suddenly she groaned in pain.
"Ma, be ye a-hurtin'?"
"Ain't a-hurtin'. I'm just a bit tired is all, wee one."
Neil relaxed, lapsing into his thoughts even as he still observed her keenly.
"Ma, how do eyes be a-seein' things? And why are they colored?"
"I don't know how come," she replied slowly, pushing back her dark red hair with her wrist. "But I reckon we's all got different colored eyes 'cause of what's in our souls."
"What d'ye mean?"
"Wa-a-al—I reckon when a gal-woman comes along that ye take a fancy for, ye'll know what I mean," she chuckled.
"How come ye reckon that ye have blue eyes, ma?"
She laughed and shook her head. "For the same reason you have blue eyes."
Neil didn't understand that. "Well I like blue eyes, ma, and dark as water, like yers."
"'Dark as water'!" his mother laughed.
"Didn't Moses have blue eyes, ma?"
Immediately he saw his mother grow solemn at the mention of her second child, a year older than Neil, who had died three years ago. Neil didn't know why he had died, just that Moses had felt very hot, lying in bed all day, and nobody would answer his questions about what was happening to his older brother.
She nodded, staring eerily past Neil's shoulder, out the window of their cabin. "Dark as water," she whispered.
Neil remembered how angry he was when his brother died, his brother whom he practically worshipped. How he had pulled and kicked up the tiny oak tree they had found in the woods together, no bigger than a twig.
Then Neil remembered how two years ago the middle-aged Granny Barclay had come to the cabin one day while he was down at the river getting a bucket of water.
He saw her from there, hurrying up the steps. He rushed up after her, sloshing water all over his leg. Wherever Granny Barclay visited, babies always followed. How he wanted a little brother or sister!
He had stumbled up the steps, across the porch, pushed open the heavy door . . . There was a funny smell inside, like the way the razorback hog smelled during slaughtering time.
He remembered the feel of his father's big, calloused hand grabbing the straps of his overalls as he had raced towards his parents' bedroom.
"Don't ye go in thar, boy." The gruff voice stopped him in his tracks, and as he looked up at his tall, lean, tousled-looking father, with his blond-red beard growing out, his pa turned his face to the shadows.
Much later, Granny Barclay came down cupping something delicately in her hands.
'She looks right sad,' Neil thought. 'Whatever's in her hands looks red. Is that blood?'
"Is there a new baby?" he asked aloud, crowding Granny Barclay, who, startled, reached to keep what was in her hands out of his sight, walking straight out the door. Neil followed her, about to ask again when she whirled on the porch and said in a stony voice, "Neil MacNeill—stay right where you are!"
She left him, confused and hurt, standing in the doorway. He never knew what she did with the little red thing in her hand. Or, till sometime later, what had happened to the new baby.
The smell of fried trout and the feel of a rough wooden ladle being shoved into his hand startled Neil back to where he was.
"Eat, son." He had made his mother sad. He could tell by her downcast eyes and how she began moving faster, banging things around without knowing it.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the porch and a shadow reached through the open doorway.
"Pa's home!" Neil shouted, and running to him stopped before throwing his arms around his middle, half afraid of the man from whom he was seeking some sort of assurance.
There was a sort of assurance showing through, but to Neil's childlike mind, there was none in the rough bear-like exterior of his father.
Charles MacNeill at twenty-seven acted twice his age, feeling the responsibilities of the Cove on his shoulders. Of the Clan MacNeill, he was one of the last, and a "chieftain by death" as the saying was. His older brothers had been killed in the War Between the States. Now he felt he was the highlanders protector, their standard, because of the MacNeill of Barra having led them to that mountain in the year 1750. He never spoke of this burden to others outside the sparse MacNeill clan, but imparted the idea through word and deed to his only son. His single wish for little Neil would be for him to help their people.
Neil stared up into the piercing hazel gaze of his father, wondering what that look meant.
His father sighed, rumpled the shock of sandy-reddish curls on Neil's head, and went to eat his supper.
After all the cleaning had been done, Neil watched his mother ease slowly into the low, spindle back chair that his grandfather always bragged about coming from Scotland. His father sat looking hard into the crackling fire, a pipe in his mouth, a pipe very familiar to Neil, with its silver inscripted band on the stem, smoke wafting out.
He breathed in deeply as he pulled up the three-legged stool between the knees of his parents. The loud ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece soothed Neil, listening to its rhythmic beating. It stayed the same—it was constant.
His mother sat idly; she had no need to make clothes for the coming "bairn", as she had made so many before for the children who were not to be.
"Neil", she spoke gently. "Fetch your granny's Bible froom the chest in my room."
He did so, always glad to do something, climbing the makeshift stairs to his parents' bedroom, past the big four-poster bed to the cherry chest of drawers—also from Scotland—where the heavy black Bible sat.
He was careful as he handed it to his mother, and resituated himself on the hard stool.
Her work-worn hand smoothed the tattered cover, and then sifted through the creased pages.
Neil saw his father shift restlessly in his chair. Did pa not like ma to read the Bible? Well if he didn't, then Neil wouldn't like it either. But ma liked to read it to him . . . he would at least listen.
"I'm gon' tell ye the tale of Gideon. Says right here that Gideon was a mighty man of valor, like you will be Neil, when ye be all grown up."
Neil glanced at his father, who seemed to be paying heed. His mother went on.
"But Gideon was a doubter. He said to the Lord, 'Where're all yer miracles our granddaddy's tol' us 'bout? An' if'n you is really with us, then how come all o' these bad things be a-happenin'? No sir, Lord A'mighty, I dast say that I think ye've forsaken us.'"
"Ye ain't a-joshin' me? He honest done said that to the Lord A'mighty?"
"I'm a-tellin' ye the sure-fired truth. But the good Lord didn't pay 'im no heed. He jest up and said, 'Haven't I done sent ye? You are gonna save yer people.' But I reckon Gideon was in a right argufyin' mood, an' he said, 'How can I save my people? My family is poor and I'm the least'un.' An' do ye know what the Lord said to that, Neil?"
"What'd 'e say?" he asked eagerly, caught up in the drama of the story.
His mother leaned her face in close and whispered, "I am with thee."
I am with thee? That was it? Neil thought.
His mother laughed at his confused face.
"That's what He said, an' He meant it, too. But I reckon Gideon was aboot as stubborn as you, Neil. An' he up and asked God to prove it. And God did. He didn't git a mite angry with Gideon-."
"How did God prove it?" Neil demanded.
"To Gideon, He used what was asked; a peck of fleece. But the good Lord proves it many a different way. Why, Neil, God may use a person you love to show you He's with ye. He'll use anything 'e wants to to bring ye to Him."
Solemn truth rang in those words, even to young Neil.
"A person I love?"
"Sometimes that's the way He does, son. When everything seems at the worst, someone you love'll show you the way."
His father stood and walked away. "Best get on with your next readin' lesson boy."
"But what happens next?" Neil asked urgently. He had to know.
The MacNeill turned and answered slowly, looking deep into his son's eyes. "He saved his people from death."
His son met his gaze just as earnestly. "Is that what I should do, pa?"
"That's what you should do."
TO BE CONTINUED
A/N Yes, a little different, I know. After all, it's a Christy fanfic that doesn't have Christy in it. (Figure that one out!) But I'm counting on lots of feedback as I'm sure I'll miss several things pertaining to the characters and to Appalachian life in general. So y'all keep me on my toes and make sure you tell me if I didn't get anything right or you think it should be different. Please review and tell me what you think, as I have quite a bit more of this story that hopefully explains the motives and futures of a few of the characters, right up till Neil leaves for college. Don't worry; I don't cover every single year. ;)