Clinch Mountain Echoes

By Alfred Patrick

Clinch Mountain Echoes is a gripping tale of betrayal, prejudice, budding young love, wartime memories, abductions, and murder in a small Appalachian community. From years past, echoes of wrenching losses—lost innocence, loves, and lives—reverberate anew in Southwest Virginia. Residents of Powell County endure ills and heartaches that human flesh and spirit are heir to, but some face daunting circumstances born of trying, troubling repercussions from their past.
Can a deceived and deserted young woman, a persecuted Melungeon family, and a grieving boy overcome soul-wrenching heartache and sadness? A unique bond forms between the mourning boy and a reclusive war veteran who suffers from his own losses and wartime memories. Will that bond help comfort each of them, lessen their sorrow and anger, and dispel haunting memories?
Can effects of physical and emotional threats be lessened by friendship, acceptance, and forgiveness? Must the wronged seek their just revenge, or will a final echo surface with fitting retribution for a lecherous Clinch Mountain murderer?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483515106

Alfred Patrick

Alfred Patrick grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia, the setting for Clinch Valley Pursuit and for his earlier novels, Clinch River Justice and Clinch Mountain Echoes. With degrees from Bluefield College, Virginia Tech, and the University of Tennessee, he taught at high school and college levels in Virginia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. At Eastern Kentucky University, where he retired, Alfred served as professor, department chair, and dean in the College of Business. He enjoys writing, reading, traveling, gardening, crossword puzzles, and backpacking and has completed the Appalachian Trail, the John Muir Trail in California, and trails in other states. He and his wife, Peggy, live in Richmond, Kentucky.

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Epilogue

PROLOGUE

November 1924-1930

A BABY LOST AND MORE

A grieving young woman dabbed at tears she could not stem; with a wadded handkerchief, she muffled moans she could not suppress as a man and woman walked away from her. That woman carried a tiny baby wrapped in a sky blue blanket. The baby was the weeping woman’s own child, her flesh and blood. With every step the retreating couple took, the girl felt a pang of guilt and a searing stab of heartache. She was losing the one thing in life she loved most, her little boy.

This miserable young woman, Tabitha Turner, knew, though, that she was doing what was best for her baby. The couple would love him; they would care for him and provide for his needs as she could not. The couple reached the street, turned and waved at the girl, got in their car with the baby, and drove out of sight.

When the mourning girl had barely turned sixteen, she was pregnant. Tabitha and the baby’s father lived in the same small town in Southwest Virginia. She loved the father-to-be and thought he loved her; he had vowed that he did. But the bitter, almost unbelievable, truth struck and shocked her when the young man refused to be seen with her after he learned she was carrying his child. The man’s father was a well-to-do landowner in Scott County, and he paid the girl’s family to take care of the problem and cautioned them to let nobody know about the pregnancy.

Ashamed of their daughter, of what she had done, of the child she would have, Tabitha’s parents sent her to live with an aunt in Roanoke until after the baby arrived. They explained their daughter’s absence by telling anyone who asked about her that she had gone to live with a relative in Richmond so she could get better schooling in her senior high school year and go to college there after she graduated.

In Roanoke, Tabitha didn’t finish high school. She didn’t go to school. She stayed inside her Aunt Alma’s house most of the time, reading from her aunt’s extensive library holdings, learning to sew expertly under her aunt’s able tutelage, and venturing out of the house after dark to take lonely but precious walks by herself. Money from the family of the baby’s father paid the aunt for the girl’s room and board and for doctor visits to check on her health as well as her baby’s. Tabitha’s parents made clear to her that they didn’t want her to come back to Gate City with or without the baby.

Another young woman came from Scott County to Roanoke; she came to visit Tabitha. Tabitha knew her well and thought highly of her. And this woman knew who fathered Tabitha’s baby. She proposed taking the baby just a few days after Tabitha would deliver it, which would also be a few days after this visitor married. The newlyweds would love the baby and raise it as their own. The distraught mother-to-be wrestled with the decision of whether to keep her baby or to let another couple raise it. She finally made the heartrending decision. Just now, she had watched as her baby was torn from her heart, removed from her life, probably forever.

Now without her baby, Tabitha decided to leave Virginia and go to a far away place where nobody knew her or anything about her. Her aunt had already told her she had a few hundred dollars left from the amount furnished for her care, and she wanted Tabitha to have it. Tabitha decided to head west. She set her course for either California or Oregon; she would decide which when she got closer to the west coast.

So Tabitha and her aunt arrived at Roanoke’s Norfolk and Western train station on a raw November morning. Gusty winds flung stinging pellets of sleet against their uncovered faces as they scurried from the depot toward a passenger train car that would take her from Virginia. Tabitha carried all her possessions in a small valise and a kit containing needles, scissors, thimbles, various kinds and colors of threads, tape measure, and other items a good seamstress required.

Tabitha and her Aunt Alma held each other in a long, tender embrace as tears coursed from their eyes. Then with a conductor holding her elbow, the slim, frightened, blonde girl climbed steps to board the train. At the top of the steps, she turned to take one last, long look at her sad-faced aunt; they waved at each other. Tears still glistened on their cheeks as the train hissed steam, belched black smoke, and chugged slowly away from the station and from everything and everyone Tabitha Turner had known in her seventeen years. The train would take her to St. Louis, then to Denver, then on to wherever she decided she wanted to try to begin her life anew and alone.

As Tabitha waited in the Denver station for the train that would take her farther toward her tentative destination, Oregon, she tried to conceal her grief and sorrow. But she couldn’t blot from her mind the picture of a young couple carrying her baby boy away from her. A kindly older woman also waiting for a train observed the young, strawberry blonde girl’s sad and worried countenance and her occasional dabs at tears that welled from doleful, red-rimmed eyes.

That woman, Maude Ella Meade, walked the few feet separating her from the girl, sat beside Tabitha, and engaged her in conversation. She learned that the girl was heading farther west but had no inkling of what she would do for a living or even where she would end her train trip. Judging by the quality of the dress the girl wore, which she said she made herself, the woman decided the girl was a good seamstress.

Mrs. Meade operated a clothing store; she also hand-tailored women’s clothes and made alterations in both women and men’s clothes. So she invited the girl to accompany her to Helena, Montana, to work for her. After a brief discussion with the woman, Tabitha asked the ticket agent to change her destination from Salem, Oregon, to Helena and joined her new friend and employer on the next train to Montana.

Tabitha proved to be a fast learner in the clothing store operation. Mrs. Meade was pleased with the girl’s quick mind, skill as a seamstress, and willingness to work. As months passed, Tabitha became the strong, reliable right arm of the business woman.

The girl did not lack young men who wanted to date her, but because of painful memories of her past boyfriend and her fear of making another mistake with men, she rebuffed all suitors. After spending a half dozen years in Helena, she finally met a man she could trust and enjoy being with. Tabitha fell in love with Cody Waterfield, the handsome, cheerful son of a local rancher, and he felt a deep love and devotion for her. The young couple set a date to be married.

Tabitha had never been so happy, so hopeful for a wonderful life with her husband. She looked forward to having children, thereby filling the aching, longing void in her soul. Maybe she could rid herself of the bone-deep sadness she had carried ever since she placed her firstborn in the hands and lives of another couple.

Barely more than a month before his wedding day arrived, Cody rode from the ranch house under dark, tumbling clouds; gusty, whistling winds buffeted men and their horses. The sudden early storm had already dropped the temperature to near freezing as Cody and three ranch hands accompanying him hurried up the mountain to bring a small herd of cattle down from a high pasture.

As the four men located the cattle and urged the herd down the mountain, an arctic cold front swept in behind the leading edge of the storm and descended full force on riders and animals. Near-zero temperatures soon encased them, and howling winds drove a blinding mixture of sleet and snow. With visibility of only a few yards in the swirling blizzard, the men tried to hurry the reluctant herd toward lower ground and safer conditions.

A half dozen steers veered off from the herd and into a short, narrow canyon. Cody rode over to one of the other cowpunchers and shouted above the noise of the wind and driven precipitation, managing to convey the message that the other three men should keep the cattle moving down the mountain. Cody would bring the few deserter steers on down by himself and would see the men at the ranch. Wishing he had worn his sheepskin coat, Cody pulled his flannel-lined denim jacket collar up around his neck and his hat brim down to try to deflect some of the stinging pellets of the maelstrom. He urged his horse into the canyon as he tried to spot the wayward steers through the moving curtain of snow and sleet driven by roaring winds.

As Cody looked for the steers and for their tracks, his horse stepped into a small gulley, lost its footing, and fell onto its side, throwing its rider from his saddle. The horse regained its footing and stood, but Cody, now hatless, remained on the snow-covered ground. His head hit a rock when he pitched onto the ground, and a patch of snow under his head turned crimson.

Cody’s horse whinnied and moved close to its master. It snorted, pawed the snow, and whinnied again. After a few minutes, and seeing no movement from Cody, the horse nudged him with its muzzle. Still, Cody did not move. For several more minutes, the horse stood with its head near the man and its tail facing the wind; sleet and snow soon coated its hindquarters and matted its tail, mane, and eyelashes.

Another quarter hour passed. Whether as a result of instinct or habit, the horse left its unmoving master in the snow and trotted in the direction of the ranch house and stable. By the time the ice-encrusted horse reached the barn and somebody realized Cody hadn’t ridden it home, more than an hour had passed since any of the riders had seen him. The rider Cody had last spoken to thought he remembered generally the area they had been in when Cody left the herd to find the few wandering steers.

With the blizzard still raging and temperatures dropping even lower, more than another hour passed before a group of searchers entered a little canyon and heard the mournful bawling of a few freezing cattle. As the men rode toward that sound, the horse of the front rider suddenly threw up its head and snorted. It stopped and quickly began prancing backward with its nostrils distended and its eyes flared in fright. The rider calmed his horse, dismounted, and walked up to where the animal had stopped. Three feet away was a snow-covered mound. The cowboy walked to the mound, bent over it, and brushed snow off of it. He realized what the mound was and uttered a passionate plea, Oh, no! Not Cody! Not you, Cody!

Cody Waterfield was dead, his body frozen stiff.

Later, a doctor determined that Cody had a gash on his head where it struck a rock, but the injury had not killed the man; it had, however, rendered him unconscious. Cody froze to death before he regained consciousness.

For Tabitha Turner, Cody’s death was another bitter pill to swallow. She lost her love. She lost her hopes for having more children. She steeled her will with a vow that she would never meet anyone who could take Cody’s place in her heart. She would never again let herself love another man. Tabitha buried the man she loved, and she buried all hope of ever knowing another man who could measure up to Cody. She threw herself into her work at the clothing store and seamstress business, a business of which she was now the sole manager and a partner with aging Maude Meade.

May 1939

NIGHTMARE OR PREMONITION?

Fear and panic seized another woman when she saw a man in a black cloth hood that covered his head, face, and neck. The hood had two large eye holes. The man stood beside a pretty girl lying on the ground; her eyes radiated pleading, panic, and pain. The terrified young girl was just beginning to show her development into womanhood. The man enjoyed looking at her, remembering how much more he had enjoyed her body during the past few hours.

The girl had a wadded white handkerchief stuck in her mouth—held there by a blue bandana. The man had folded the bandana into a triangle, rolled it into a slender tapering cylinder, and placed it across her mouth. He’d tied the two ends together at the back of her head. One end of a cotton rope bound her wrists behind her, and the other knotted end circled the base of a mountain laurel bush. The young girl lay in wet leaves on her back with her hands under her. The terrified woman couldn’t determine who the girl was. As she looked at the girl, the man turned toward the woman and told her not to look at the girl any more, so the woman turned her gaze away.

The man realized that people who must be searching for the girl were calling her name, and they drew closer and closer to where he and the girl were hidden in the midst of a large, thick mountain laurel clump. The girl tried to get sounds out of her mouth but made only low grunts and growls; her captor was afraid even those sounds might be heard by searchers if they got close enough to the laurel thicket. So he clasped the girl’s nostrils tightly between a thumb and forefinger with his hand over her mouth.

The girl, though weakened by lack of sleep, assaults on her body, and sheer terror at what had happened to her, fought and struggled. The gaping, horrified woman seemed to know what had happened to the girl as the young one writhed, twisted, wrenched her head from side to side, and thrashed with her legs as she tried to get the cruel hand away from her face. The hapless girl tried to make sounds loud enough for whoever might be nearby to hear. She couldn’t breathe through her nose or mouth because of the handkerchief, bandana, and the man’s brutal hand.

In spite of the man’s warning not to look at the girl, the woman’s eyes were again riveted on the girl and the man holding her. The frightened woman tried to call out to whoever was nearby, but she couldn’t produce more than a grunting sound. She tried to scream, but no sound came forth. And she couldn’t do anything to help the girl; she couldn’t move. One second the girl looked familiar to the woman; the next second she seemed to be a complete stranger.

With her nostrils pinched together and the man’s hand clasped tightly over her mouth, the struggling girl still could not breathe. Quickly, her energy faded, her haunted eyes closed, and she went limp. Her lips turned blue, her face ashen. Searchers passed by the hiding place and seemed to be moving farther away, so the man took his hand from the girl’s nose and mumbled to himself, They’re too fer away to hyear ‘er now.

The girl didn’t move. He removed the bandana and handkerchief from her mouth and said in a whisper, Wake up now, gal.

No movement from the girl. He leaned down closer to the girl’s face and whispered harshly, Girl, I said wake up!

He patted her cheeks. No response from the girl. With a quizzical look, he surveyed the still form. Finally, the captor realized the girl wasn’t going to awaken.

Oh, damn, he sputtered, she’s dead.

He gazed at the pretty, lifeless face several seconds and said, I shorely didn’t mean fer that to happen. Then he muttered, I better git out of hyere while I can.

The man untied the rope around the girl’s wrists, loosened it from the laurel bush, and shoved it into a pocket. With his back to the woman, he removed the hood from his head and stuffed it in a front pocket of his pants. He reached to feel in his left back pocket to assure himself that it still held the folded sheet of paper he wanted to keep as a cherished memento. The woman observing him never got to see his face, but now she was afraid that he would look at her and decide to silence her also.

The man surveyed the small cleared area inside the copse of laurel bushes. The girl lay on her back as if she might be sleeping peacefully. But the lower part of her dress was pulled up, showing her naked body from her waist to her toes. The dress bodice was ripped asunder down to the waist line and spread open, revealing her small, developing breasts. His parting comment to himself was an expression of disappointment, not remorse or shame. Sich a purty little thing. Too bad I’ll never git to see ‘er or be with ‘er agin.

As the horrified woman watched, the man walked cautiously through the cluster of laurel bushes. He neared the outer fringe of the concealing leafy branches. He stopped and peered around at as much of the area as he could see, but he didn’t see anyone. He took two more short steps, saw nobody, and stepped out into the open woodland. He looked around once more, stuck his hand in his back pocket again, and fingered the folded piece of paper. He hurried from the area, leaving no evidence outside the thicket that he had ever been there.

Again, the woman tried to call out or scream, but she couldn’t make a sound. She tried to run in the direction she thought the searchers had passed, but she couldn’t move her legs. She was terrified; she began to weep.

The woman awakened, sitting upright in her bed, sobbing. Covered with sweat, she breathed rapidly; her heart hammered in her chest, and her pulsing blood gushed harsh moans in her ears. She was frightened, but she realized she had been dreaming. What an awful, shocking dream! This woman was not one to discount dreams. Stories of her mother’s and grandmother’s dreams caused her to believe that dreams often portend something good or bad that will affect the dreamer or a person close to him or her.

As her heartbeat slowed and her breathing became almost normal, the woman lay back on her pillow. Her husband slept soundly beside her, making occasional slight snoring, snorting sounds. The woman knew she would sleep no more this early morning; dawn would break soon and light her eastward-facing bedroom. She got out of bed and slipped on a worn robe, wondering if this wild nightmare was only that. Or was it an omen of a hurt or misfortune destined for her or someone she loved? She would make no mention of the dream to her husband or children. But she could not erase it from her memory.

CHAPTER 1

The Morgan farm nestled within the Clinch Mountain range in Powell County, Virginia, just southwest of the area local folks called River Mountain. The farm lay south of Clinch River and a few miles southwest of the nearest town, Creedy. The town’s stores offered groceries, hardware and farm supplies, clothing, and furniture; other businesses included a barber shop, post office, and drugstore.

The Norfolk & Western Railroad depot was a hub of activity for train passengers. Eula White ran the only public eating place in town, a café in one corner of the grocery store. Bruce Charles operated a repair shop and garage; his mechanic did welding and equipment repairs for farmers, serviced automobiles, and pumped gasoline.

At the Charles Boarding House, Bruce’s wife, Mandy, provided lodging, breakfast, and supper for a small clientele made up primarily of Norfolk & Western Railroad employees, drummers, an occasional visitor or government official, and anyone else who needed a place to stay for a few days or weeks. Three churches served the community—Clinch Missionary Baptist, Mt. Zion Primitive Baptist, and Powell Methodist.

The Morgan family’s farm consisted of approximately 250 acres, including pasture, woodland, and tracts of tillable cropland. The family’s main source of income was burley tobacco and beef cattle. The Morgans kept Jersey cows for milk and butter, but Kerby was especially proud of his herd of good beef cattle. Most of his cows and a big bull were a cross between Black Angus and Hereford breeds. The family raised corn, hay, and oats to feed their cattle, horses, hogs, and chickens.

Pasture and wooded mountains constituted many acres of the farm. Woodlands made up almost a third of the farm’s total acreage, and they boasted stands of huge trees that would provide excellent lumber—poplar, hemlock, and several varieties of oak. In addition, maple, hickory, sweet gum, black gum, and beech trees abounded in the mountains, and dogwoods displayed their flowery white blooms in spring and their dark maroon leaves in autumn. Scattered around in pastures and along the edges of fields and woods were fine, tall black walnut trees and yellow locusts, with redbuds that flaunted their beautiful pink spring blossoms.

Fallen dead chestnut trees littered the forest floor, and many of these skeletal giants measured more than five feet in diameter just above their exposed, groping, dead roots. Kerby Morgan had described to his children the vast stands of American chestnut trees that once thrived on the wooded mountains of their farm, as they did throughout Southwest Virginia and all of their range in the United States.

A blight killed the chestnut trees, and Kerby had read that the Appalachian Mountains lost about four billion chestnut trees, one-fourth of all its trees, in a generation. As the blight spread throughout the range of chestnut trees, those in Southwest Virginia died out quickly after the blight reached them in the mid- to late-1920s. In just over 35 years, the American chestnut was no longer part of the vast forests of this country.

Now that Travis Morgan would be going to school, he realized he couldn’t be out any day he chose to ramble around by himself, or with Nathan Crockett, over the fields of his family’s farm or through the woods he loved. He couldn’t fish anytime he pleased in Clinch River or Elk Run or Cedar Creek, the stream near which Miller Hill School sat. He was sorry he would have to give up the freedom to go almost anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted, but Travis wanted to go to school. Travis’s sister and brother would also be in school at Miller Hill—his sister, Verna, in fourth grade, and his brother, Cyrus, in seventh.

Nathan Crockett and Travis Morgan were good friends. Nathan’s family lived outside of Creedy on about five acres. His father, Clayton, was a supervisor at No. 1 Mine, one of Brewster McGraw’s coal mines.

Clayton Crockett was tall, over six feet by an inch or two. He was slim with black hair beginning to show traces of gray at his temples. His large brown eyes often narrowed as he talked with anyone about serious matters. Even though Clayton spent his work days in dim light from a mining lamp rather than in the sun, his skin was slightly darker than was his wife, Opal’s. With his straight, well-proportioned nose, strong chin, and even teeth, Clayton was a handsome man, but he never acted as though he knew it.

Clayton’s wife, Opal, usually wore her shoulder-length brown hair flowing loosely, but sometimes she fastened it up in a bun on the back of her head. She, too, was tall, at five feet, ten inches. She protected her skin from harsh sun rays to keep its light, creamy tone, and the light color of her face set off her large hazel eyes.

Opal was sickly. Opal’s mother, and her grandmother who died just after the granddaughter married Clayton Crockett, said the spells the young woman had were the vapors.

Opal experienced periods of excitability, nervousness, and headaches; at times, she was totally pessimistic, felt completely inadequate to perform even her most common and routine household duties, and often was overcome with despondent feelings. Opal fainted occasionally. She could be easily roused from her faint with smelling salts, but her other symptoms were not so easily treated.

Doctor Franklin Easton examined the woman several times, and he assured her there was no scientific evidence that the vapors was a specific, treatable ailment. Opal remained convinced, though, that her grandmother and mother had diagnosed her afflictions correctly.

Opal had three children—Nathan, Joe Ceefus, who was nine years older than Nathan, and Angela, who was three years younger than Nathan. Before she married, Opal was impressed by an evangelist who came to hold a revival meeting at the church her family attended. The preacher referred to writings of a Roman-Jewish historian, Josephus, whose works provided helpful insight into early Christianity. So even before she married Clayton, Opal decided she would name her first son Joe Ceefus, not realizing the name the preacher used was one word and spelled differently than she assumed.

Joe Ceefus was light skinned and freckled with pale eyes and sandy hair. He had what some called a weak chin. Joe’s nose was flatter than his parents or siblings’ noses. The oldest Crockett son was barely five feet, nine inches tall, but he had strong hands and powerful arms and chest. As the boy grew up, friends and a few of Opal and Clayton’s family commented about how the boy didn’t look much like either parent or either of their other two children.

Clayton usually responded with some offhand comment such as, Well, you know how it is with farm animals? Sometimes a colt don’t show the traits of its sire or dam. I reckon the same thing applies for people too.

Opal usually added some comment about Joe inheriting features of her father or grandfather, depending on who she was talking to.

Joe was born with an eye problem. His left eye turned outward when his right eye focused straight ahead. When Joe was a toddler, old Doc Whited labeled Joe’s problem as a small-angle strabismus which he said could cause another problem, amblyopia or lazy-eye. Clayton and Opal couldn’t pronounce the strange words, and they certainly didn’t know what they meant. The doctor explained in common terms that Joe was wall-eyed, and he told the parents that the baby might grow out of the condition naturally. But he cautioned them that if the condition persisted until Joe reached school age, he should be taken to an eye specialist to see what could be done to correct the problem.

By the time Joe was six years old, his eye problem had improved somewhat, but it still existed. Clayton and Opal hesitated to take their son to a specialist Dr. Whited had recommended, an ophthalmologist at the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville. That doctor was a surgeon; he could tell the parents whether the boy needed eye surgery