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A New York Yankee on Stinking Creek

By Carol McClain

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Chapter One


L
ike a bomb, Kiara’s world detonated and dumped her back in time to a stinking cabin on Stinking Creek. It might as well have been an explosion rather than a long cab ride that rattled her brain like mortar fire—or a ride on the A train.
Kiara’s eyes strained through the darkness, illuminated only from the taxi’s headlights. A log cabin looking like it was chinked with mud rose before her. Bryce, why did you call this place a haven?
“The far’s one-hundred-twenty.” The cabbie’s gravelly voice jarred her. “We’ll skip the cents seein’ as I ain’t gonna fuss with change at midnight.”
Kiara twisted the ring on her left index finger. One-twenty? I thought Manhattan cabbies gouged.
The driver jumped out of the taxi, popped the trunk, and grabbed her luggage. He plopped her bags on the front porch. The simple wooden structure stood no more than a foot off the ground. The rough planks disappeared into the gloom around the far side of the cabin.
“The far don’t include the tip.” The driver grinned. His face, lit by the taxi’s headlights looked like a kid holding a flashlight to his face to scare his friends around a campfire. Creepy.
She fished through her handbag and pulled out her wallet. Hopefully, the local taxis would be cheaper. A chirruping filled the air interspersed with a loud croaking. Manhattan was noisy, but this?
“What’s making the racket?” She waved her hand—the one grasping the fare.
The cabbie slanted his head and listened. “What? Them insects?”
“They’re bugs?” Visions of cockroaches scurrying across her floor in her Manhattan condo scuttled through her imagination. She wouldn’t survive these hills.
“They’re katydids. ‘Bout ready to die off for the season. The loud croakin’—them’s tree frogs.”
Katydids? Frogs living in trees? Kiara shuddered and handed the cabbie a hundred-dollar bill and a fifty. “Keep the change.” She turned her eyes back to the cabin, and her heart wrung out more misery. “Thank you.”
She fumbled for her key—the one Bryce had made a year ago when they bought this place. The key, splashed in different colors like a Kandinsky painting created while on LSD, swirled in a wild mix of pink and turquoise and yellow creating an abstract design. She had laughed out loud when he presented it to her as though he were giving her the keys to Windsor Castle.
“The cabin’s in your name, alone, my cherry-haired leprechaun.” He bent and kissed the whorls of hair she’d just begun training into dreadlocks. “Amanda won’t be able to lay her hands on it.” His eyes had danced with joy. “When we marry, we’ll have a retreat like Yaddo. A place for all artists—writers and photographers and sculptors—”
“Don’t forget painters,” she interjected.
“Of course, painters.” Bryce had pulled her into his arms and held her close. “Tennessee will get to know the world’s greatest abstract artist. We’re in this together. For the long haul.”
He lied.
Three weeks ago, he died.
The crunch of the cab’s tires faded leaving only the chirruping of the katydids and frogs to torment her. Can any good thing come out of Stinking Creek?
She took one step up onto the porch.
“Ah!” She danced off it, dropped her bags and flailed her arms. Spider webs tangled in her face, wove into her dreadlocks. She spat the fibers from her mouth. As she choked, Kiara felt a fat, pregnant spider, or worse, its silk-wrapped fly, slide down her gullet. She spit. Spit some more like a truck driver gorging on chew.
She unwrapped the narrow scarf binding up her dreads, scrubbed her hair with her hands to make sure Ms. Arachne didn’t take up residence there.
Shivering in the cold evening, she draped the cloth over her face in case another web tangled in the path to the door. No other creepy crawler would slide where only food should reside.
Kiara sank onto the porch’s one step. What else lurked in the dark? What else lived in the shack Bryce thought was such a great deal? Possums? Venomous snakes? Kiara shivered and squinted as she surveyed her yard. Nothing pierced the midnight, new moon blackness.
Beyond the bridge to her property and across the road, one light shone on her neighbors’ house. Aside from that, just inky black and the scent of a skunk—hopefully far away—surrounded her.
She needed light.
Kiara dug in her purse and flipped on her cell phone’s flashlight app. She stood and faced her … what? Her destiny? Not if she could help it. Tomorrow, she’d call a realtor and put this retreat on the market. With its sale, she’d head back to Manhattan. Friends promised they’d let her know when something affordable came up.
Right.
Affordable in New York City? Her art sold well, but only Bryce’s wealth enabled her to live there. She could find something in Jamaica or Astoria.
Brooklyn had priced her out a long time ago.
After surveying the porch, she took a hesitant step forward, inserted her key, and the door swung forward. Bryce said he’d left the utilities running.
She ran her hand along the wall and found a light switch. The cabin lit up.
No. Her hand clutched her chest. If the outside was pitiful, the inside was wretched.
Bryce, how did you envision this cabin as a place someone wanted to visit?
At least it was furnished. She wouldn’t be sitting on the floor until her few pieces of furniture arrived on Wednesday. Against the wall to her right sat a sheet-draped couch. She yanked off the covering. The worn, brown plaid upholstery sent up whiffs of dust as she slumped onto it. Under the other sheets, she knew she’d find like-minded furniture.
The living room—thankfully plastered or drywalled and not exposed logs—opened to a kitchen. Aside from a small alcove housing the fridge and a washer and dryer, the main floor was one large open-concept room. A farm sink sat under a window facing the road the cab had rumbled down before it clattered across her bridge. A curtain screened whatever plumbing or rodent traps sat under the sink.
Cracked maple doors hung loosely on the cupboards. One baker’s rack held pots and pans.
Was this the whole of the downstairs? There’d better be a bathroom. No way would she resort to an outhouse.
A stairwell with no railing rose against the back wall. Empty bookshelves made use of the space beneath.
Bile churned in Kiara’s throat. She looked at the key she still grasped. Bryce, you paid four-hundred thousand dollars for this dump and one hundred acres out in the boondocks? The board of health better not come snooping around.
She tossed the key onto the coffee table, a 1960s reject with turned legs on ball feet, then stood.
Lifting her ankle-length peasant skirt so she wouldn’t step on it with her Nike army boots, Kiara climbed the stairs, trailing her free hand along the far wall. Funny, the treads were wide and long, no chance of falling, but even a flimsy railing would assure she wasn’t going to tumble to the wide, pine-planked flooring below.
The stairs opened to a loft. A flimsy rail fenced off this area from the downstairs, though it didn’t reassure her that she wouldn’t tumble to the room below.
A double-sized brass bed and a mattress she wouldn’t donate to a homeless drunk on the Bowery sat against one wall. Across from the foot of the bed, a small dresser hugged the wall. Ragged curtains perched over a single-hung window—one of those guillotine types. Once opened, if you didn’t wedge a stick in it, the sash would crash on your neck and decapitate you.
Experience taught her well. Single-hung windows—bad.
Sweat tickled her neck. Too hot.
Kiara unlocked the window and lifted. It didn’t budge.
No problem. Her body would not touch that stained mattress.
Back downstairs, she found the bathroom across from the stairwell’s landing. It sported a beautiful claw-foot tub with a hand shower. The kitchen sink and this tub were the two saving graces of the cabin. She twisted the water in the bathroom’s nondescript sink with chipped enamel. Water sputtered and sprayed.
Bryce, her breath came fast in her chest, you better have turned on the—
The water ran rusty. Then it cleared.
She’d drink tea and coffee which she’d boil to make it safe for drinking. A laugh gurgled once more. Going to think positive. Her hair had become rusty colored, the fiery red of her youth faded with her advancing years. Maybe the red Stinking Creek water would turn it rosy again.
There, Universe. I can be positive. Pride straightened her shoulders and lifted her head. Nothing conquered Kiara.
From the linen closet, she pulled out sheets and sniffed. Whiffs of fabric softener clung to them, and the stiffness in her shoulders melted a mite. She hugged them to her. Clean linens, at least.
In the living room, she shook out a sheet, draped it over the couch, and laid another on top. She’d found no pillow, so she covered a couch cushion with a top sheet. She hoped to sleep.
Not with the house so unbearably warm. The door had no screen. If she left it open, the katydids and tree frogs would dance in here.
On the wall by the stairwell, she’d seen a thermostat. After punching a few buttons, machinery whirled to life. Cool air filtered in.
Water, air conditioning, and a locked door.
She’d survive the night.
Or better, if Karma was kind, she’d join Bryce in his reincarnated life.

~~

Kiara tossed on the couch, then the silence bolted her awake.
The bugs outside had stopped their singing.
She held her breath, hoping to hear something. Anything. How could a world be so quiet? How did someone live in this void?
She picked up her phone to turn on her playlist for background noise. Something zen by Namaste Pranayama to soothe her, but the battery had drained.
Her heart torqued, and the tears welled. She bolted to her feet. “No,” she whispered to the empty cabin. Sorrow mangled her like a rag mop squeezed through a wringer.
After fumbling through her carry-on, Kiara found Bryce’s favorite sweater. White cashmere, so soft, so full of his life. She held it to her nose and breathed in his scent. Woodsy-citrusy. With it clutched it to her chest, she lay back down.
I’ll never sleep again. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the sweater tighter. Inhaled deeply.
A raucous noise popped open her eyes. Her heart sped. Birds, louder than the aviary in the Central Park Zoo, tweeted and screeched in the gloom.
Weren’t those creatures supposed to be harmonious? The sirens on the streets outside her New York condo made less noise.
She rolled over and faced the back of the couch—the sweater pressed to her chest—and flopped the cushion over her head.
A rooster crowed.
Dogs barked.
Light seeped through the windows.
Might as well see if she had coffee or tea and charge her phone. She slipped the sweater over her tank top and padded to the kitchen.
If Bryce envisioned an artist retreat here, she’d make it so. She’d use her solitude to create then return to New York the instant the cabin sold. Sooner if something affordable came on the market.
A retreat didn’t last forever.

~~

The roosters crowed. Delia Mae McGuffrey rolled over and kissed her husband.
“Lia,” Beau mumbled, “how can you be so perky afore light?” He pulled the covers over his head. “Give me another hour.”
“Call you when breakfast’s ready.” Lia slipped on her work skirt and a long-sleeved cotton blouse. After winding her hair in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, she hurried down to the kitchen.
The best time of day—still cool and peaceful before the human world woke. The boys wouldn’t budge before noon if not for hunting or sports. Macie and Dixon, Shann’s twins, would spring to life like a whirligig if they heard her, but if she were quiet, she could sit on the porch and pray and watch the sun inch its way over the East Tennessee hills.
She sat in her rocker and closed her eyes. Used to be she’d wish Beau would wake with her. Now? She loved these early morning moments. They were her only time to be totally alone with God. The soft stench of a skunk wafted on the morning air. A pleasant smell from a distance and when not on Youtee, her bluetick hound. In the distance, her parents’ rooster crowed again trying to wake his harem.
She lifted her tea, breathed in the tang of tannin and honey, then sipped.
A light across the way blinked on.
She shook her head. Those Yankees finally visited. Some people had more money than they knew what do with—buying the old Oliver place for a price no sane person would ever consider. Then, they never came down to visit. Let the grass grow up to milkweed and goldenrod and wisteria. At least kudzu hadn’t taken hold there.
By the grace of God, they wouldn’t stay long. 

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