Lizzy and the Rainmaker Read online

"What's your name?" Luke asked the little girl riding in back of the wagon with Billy.

  I reckoned he already knew Billy's name from the frantic screams of Ma right before he pulled him from the path of the oncoming stage coach.

  "My name is Katie. I'm six years old. Pleased to meet you."

  "Katie…that's a pretty name."

  "Thank you, very much. My ma gave me my name."

  "And what's your ma's name?"

  "Ma."

  Everyone chuckled.

  "What do your ma's friends call her?"

  "Annie"

  "And what do your friends call your ma?"

  "Miss Cooper."

  Luke extended his hand out to Ma who removed one hand from the reins and shook his hand.

  "Annie Cooper…it's nice to meet you."

  "That was cute, but it was a long way around in getting my name. You could’ve just asked. Anyhow, it's good to meet you too, Luke…?"

  "Just, Luke." He then turned his attention to me. "And what's your name?"

  I remained tight-lipped, still frustrated Ma was bringing a stranger to our home, a stranger who refused to indulge his last name.

  "That's Lizzy," Katie blurted out.

  "Lizzy…what a beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

  I looked towards the river we were riding beside to keep Luke from seeing the grin that formed on my face without my permission. I didn’t know why I cared this stranger found me beautiful? He was indeed handsome, but I’ve never needed or even wanted the affection of a man… well… besides Pa’s, but I surprisingly found it exhilarating when Luke called me “beautiful”.

  We rode the remainder of the hour long trip not saying a whole lot. Katie entertained us by reciting her ABC's and counting to ten several dozen times. Billy tossed left-over corn kernels out of the back of the wagon, trying to hit passing trees. Ma hummed a few spiritual hymns to herself and I pretended to still be mad about bringing a stranger home, even though I couldn't help myself from periodically glancing up at his handsome face and enjoying the feel of his shoulder against mine.

  We finally arrived home which was a small log cabin built by Pa. Its roof was adorned with weather-worn cedar shake shingles. A wrap-around cedar porch encircled the perimeter of our cabin and a stone chimney hugged the right outside wall, getting narrower at the top as it rose beyond the roof line. A picture-glass window embellished the front of the cabin, positioned beside a red front door. A wood framed barn, matching the color of the front door, stood behind the cabin to the right while a small outhouse sat to the left. A small section of land next to the barn was fenced to corral our black and white dairy cow which was grazing on a few twigs of grass stubbornly growing around the fence posts despite the lack of rain.

  Luke helped Ma and I unhitch the wagon and take the horse into the barn. We put some feed in the horse troth, closed the stall door, and led Luke to the front of the cabin where Grandma Viola was sitting. She was sewing a quilt. Her hands were moving so fast, I often wondered how she did not poke the needle straight through her finger.

  Ma presented Luke to our seamstress.

  "Luke, this is my mother, Viola Wilson. Ma, this is Luke."

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Wilson."

  Grandma Viola was in her early sixties with snow-white hair stacked in a bun on top of her head. She had relatively few wrinkles for a woman her age which she contributed to “honest living”. She was wearing a multi-colored dress with sleeves that ran all the way to her wrist. She looked up from her quilt through her glasses and gave Luke the once over.

  "You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Have a sit down."

  I couldn't help but smile at Grandma Viola. She seldom had a good thing to say about anyone; “mean and on'ry" is what people called her. But I knew it was all put on, for underneath the rough façade was a heart of gold which I was fortunate to witness on a few occasions.

  Luke sat down in one of the porch chairs.

  "Would you like some lemonade?" Ma asked Luke.

  "That would be nice, thanks."

  "It'll make your face pucker like wet sheepskin before a hot fire," Grandma Viola commented.

  "Oh, it ain't that bad,” Ma said, shaking her head and smiling.

  "Ma, you said don't say "ain't"," Billy said as he walked onto the porch from inside the cabin.

  "You're right, I'm sorry. It isn't that bad."

  "Where's Katie?" Ma asked.

  "She's inside the cabin playing with her rat," Grandma Viola answered in disgust.

  From somewhere inside the cabin, Katie's voice could be heard yelling, "It's not a rat. It's a chipmunk and his name is Chippy."

  "Whatever it is, you best not be playing with it inside the cabin," Ma warned.

  Small footsteps could be heard quickly descending from the loft and running towards them. Katie had her chipmunk cupped in the palms of her hands, running for the door to get outside. As she passed Ma going inside to fetch some lemonade, she said, "Sorry, I forgot."

  "Forget again and that rat finds a new home!"

  "Chippy's a chipmunk, Ma!"

  Katie took Chippy to the edge of the porch, sat down cross-legged, and began playing with him.

  "Chickabiddy, don't let that varmint near me! I don't like rats!" Grandma Viola told Katie.

  "Chipmunk, Grandma!"

  She grinned at her grand-daughter for a second, and then turned her attention to Luke as her grin faded into a frown. "Where'd you say you were from?"

  "Down South."

  "What do you do for work?"

  "Whatever odd jobs I can find in whatever town I find myself in."

  "Are you one of those land-loppers?"

  "Land-loppers?"

  "Those vagrants who stroll about from one town to another, usually up to no good."

  "No, ma'am, I'm not a land-lopper. I'm just trying to find where I belong."

  "You got any kin folks?"

  "None I’m aware of."

  "How can you not have any kin folks? What… did you just fall from the sky?"

  "Ma, leave the boy alone. Stop prying in his personal affairs," Ma said as she came out on the porch with a mason jar full of lemonade for Luke. "Here you go. I'm going back inside to start supper." She then looked sternly at her mother. "Ma, you be nice!"

  "Ain't I always?" Grandma Viola said while nudging me in the side and smiling.

  "Grandma, you're mean enough to steal a fly from a blind spider," I joked.

  "Well, you're mean enough to steal the coins off a dead man's eyes." Grandma Viola came back.

  I saw Luke smiled as he watched Grandma Viola and me laugh together.

  "Chippy, where'd you go? Chippy?" I heard Katie cry.

  "He probably jumped off the porch again," I assumed. "Look under there."

  Katie jumped from the edge of the porch and began frantically searching for her pet. Then the three of us remaining on the porch heard an awful "crunch" sound. It came from underneath Grandma Viola’s rocking chair. She immediately stopped rocking…her eyes round as saucers.

  "Please tell me what I think just happened, didn't," she pleaded as she was frozen in her chair, too afraid to move.

  I was the first to dare to look. The chipmunk, a little flatter now, was under one of the rockers in a small pool of blood, his left hind leg still twitching.

  "Oh, poor little guy."

  I felt a sickening taste in the back of my throat. Not for the death of a chipmunk, but for the death of Katie's chipmunk. I knew she was going to be devastated.

  "Chippy, where are you, Chippy? Where are you hiding?" Katie called from underneath the porch.

  Luke quickly got out of his rocking chair and went over to the grizzly scene. He bent down, gently pushed the rocking chair forward enough to retrieve the chipmunk, cupped it in his hands so Katie wouldn’t see it, and hurried around to the back of the cabin.

  "Where's that boy going with the road-kill?" Grandma Viola asked.
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  "Beats me."

  "Well, go see, Lizzy."

  I stood up and went around the cabin in search of Luke. I found him standing in a field of waist-high grass with his back to me. For an instant, I thought I saw a flash of light pulse around him. As I got nearer to him, I noticed he still had his hands cupped, holding them tight against his chest. His eyes were closed and he jumped slightly when I spoke.

  "What are you doing?" I asked him.

  Luke turned to face me. "You scared me."

  He was still clutching his hands to his chest. I could see part of the chipmunk’s tail dangling between two of his fingers.

  "What are you doing with Chippy?"

  Luke was about to answer when Katie approached us.

  "Grandma said you have Chippy! Where is he?"

  "Did she tell you what happened?" I asked, hoping I wouldn't have to be the one to tell Katie what happened to her beloved pet.

  "She said Luke has Chippy. Do you have him?"

  I knelt down on one knee in front of my sister and placed my hands on the side of her arms to brace her for the shocking news.

  "Oh, Katie…something terrible has---"

  "Chippy! You found Chippy!" Katie screamed in jubilation.

  Katie ran to Luke who held out his hands palm up. Chippy was sitting in them unharmed, his little nose sniffing the air.

  Katie scooped the chipmunk up and ran off with him back towards the front porch.

  I looked at Luke, confused and shocked.

  "That chipmunk was squashed! I saw it! Deader than dead!"

  "Not completely dead."

  "What did you do to it? How's it alive?"

  Luke pressed his lips together hard, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He then looked down at the ground for several seconds, obviously not wanting to tell me what I wanted to know. But, finally, he confessed.

  "I healed it."

  "But how?"

  "I'm not sure. I know I can do it but I don’t know how I do it. There's a lot about myself I'm not sure about."

  At that moment, I realized why he wouldn’t tell us his last name.

  "You don't know your last name, do you?"

  "No, I don't."

  “Or where you’re from?”

  “No.”

  "Did you bump your head or something?"

  "I don't think so."

  "What do you know about yourself?"

  "About two years ago, I remember waking up in a field outside a little town in Georgia, naked as a new born baby. I couldn't remember anything… how I got there, where my clothes were, or even my name. I borrowed some clothes from a scare-crow standing in a corn field and made my way into town."

  "Wearing clothes from a scare-crow? That must've been a sight," I chuckled.

  "Yeah, I guess it was. I walked into town and ask everyone I saw if they recognized me. No one did. So, I traveled to the surrounding towns asking folks there if they knew me, but always with the same results. I continued my trek from town to town trying to figure out who I am."

  “So your name isn’t Luke?”

  “I don’t know. It could be. I just don’t remember. I just choose it.”

  "When did you discover you could heal chipmunks?"

  "It's not just chipmunks. The first thing I healed was a wolf."

  "A wolf!"

  "Yeah, I was walking down this river between towns when I came upon a wolf lying near the shore line. His stomach was covered in blood. Someone had gut-shot him and he was slowly dying in agony. I had every intention of just passing him by, but his whimpers tugged at my heart. He was in such pain. I needed to end his suffering somehow. I cautiously approached the wolf and knelt down beside him. He showed no fear of me as he tried lifting his head to look at me, but, apparently, didn't have the strength. His eyes were glazed over. He was close to death."

  "I slowly placed my hand on his side wishing I could help him. I could barely feel his heart beating and his breathing was very shallow. Suddenly, it felt like my life was being drained from me… like the wolf was taking it from me… absorbing it. I couldn't control it and it scared me. I was about to remove my hand from the dying animal when I noticed his eyes were returning to a pale yellow, his breathing was becoming deeper, and I could feel his heart beating harder. Soon the strange draining feeling began slowing. I looked down at the wolf’s belly and could no longer see a wound, just blood-stained fur.

  Eventually, it was as if the wolf was full of… my life. I removed my hand and fell back on my butt, exhausted and dizzy. The wolf got to its feet and looked me in the eyes… into my soul, it felt like. He then turned and ran into the woods leaving me confused. As I was getting to my feet, I looked across the river and saw and old Indian man looking at me. I don't know if he witnessed the whole thing, but, just like the wolf, he to disappeared into the woods."

  "Is there anything else you can do?"

  "What? The power of healing ain't good enough for you?" Luke teased.

  "I was just wondering."

  Luke hesitated for a moment. "I know this is going to sound strange, but I can feel nature."

  "You can feel nature? What does that mean?"

  "It's hard to explain. I feel every living thing around me, like they’re part of me; everything from the tiniest beetle to a huge grizzle bear, from flowers to trees, from the rivers to the sky. It's like I'm connected to them somehow. Does that make any sense?"

  "Not really. Are you sure you didn't bump your head?"

  "You can't tell anyone about this. I've had folks find out what I can do and it has always turned out bad. Folks fear what they don't understand. I've been called everything from a witch to the Devil himself. Once, I was run out of town with a lynch mob chasing me."

  "Don't worry, this is our little secret. I won't tell a soul."

  I wasn’t sure why I trusted Luke as implicitly as I did. He had no idea who he was, yet I felt like I’d known him all my life. I felt comfortable around him. I felt drawn to him in a way I didn’t understand.

  Many times in the past, when my father was still alive, I was forced, many times, to listen to Ma’s story of when she first fell in love with Pa. She doesn’t tell that story anymore and, now, I miss it. I recall her saying that when she was with Pa she became aware of her own breathing and was conscious of her own heart beat. Her jaws would ache from smiling so much and the palms of her hands stayed moist with perspiration.

  I looked down at my sweaty hands, tried to control my breathing, struggled to regulate my heart beat, and did my best to keep from smiling so much. I was forced to come to the realization I might be falling for Luke… but how? It didn’t make sense to me. I’d know him for less than a day. I asked myself if a day could be long enough to fall in love with someone. I wondered if Ma fell for Pa so quickly and so easily.

  Chapter 3