Lotti's Gift: A Story of Old Cass

By John Corns

Brendan Matthews comes to the Cass lumber town of 1919 searching for something shrouded in his tortured memories of war. Against the backdrop of the taking of the Red Spruce timber and the churning of the Shay engines on Cass Mountain, he becomes both the hunter and the hunted, pursued by the imposing Sheriff Lance Harder.

He finds Lotti and hope, but draws her into his own mystery and dangers.

Can anyone stop their slide toward loss and sacrifice or have events in Cass been predetermined on the battlefield in France?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469787084

John Corns

The author, a native born West Virginian and graduate of Marshall University, is a retired Army officer and lives with his wife, Carol, in the Shenandoah Valley near Staunton, Virginia. The book is dedicated to their children and spouses and to their grandchildren.

Book preview

Prologue

Cass—1907

It was a hand. It hit her forehead and stung her nose and made black the night that had been shadowy in the carnival lights. It was rough, like bark, and it smelled like sour sawdust. It jerked her head back against something metal hard and small. Another hand slapped against her throat and then slid to the right side of her neck. The pressure against her throat was like a tree branch wrapped in cloth. A wrist. It smelled of iodine. The hand over her eyes jerked her head to the right and her cheek was up against cloth, damp cloth that smelled like her father’s wood hick shirt. And leather. She could smell and feel the leather at the corner of her mouth. A belt. A man. Her head caught between a man’s belly and crushing hands. She felt the rough wool of his trousers with her hands. She pushed against his legs, but she was lifted. Her feet left the ground and her head was thrown to the right like a ball. She thought that her body was moving with it—out into space. The hands were gone, but there was still only blackness. And silence. But there had always been the silence.

Lotti. Lotti. Mrs. Griffith called to her daughter and walked quickly along the path toward the river. She was leading her younger daughter who could not keep up and she reached down and swung her up into her arms and walked more rapidly down the damp dirt walkway. She had only looked away briefly. She had thought Lotti was still standing by her side, watching the coins skip out of the plates and deny yet another lumberjack an apparently easy prize. She could see the end of the swinging footbridge and the form of a man hurrying away across the bridge and into the shadows above the river.

Lotti, she screamed when she saw the whiteness of the summer dress in the darkness under the trees. Lotti, she screamed again and ran to the prone figure. She stumbled to her knees as someone else, a man, came to her side.

What happened? He asked. It was Mr. Nethken, the iceman.

I don’t know. She was there and then she was gone. I found her here. Is she…Is she…

The man was carefully picking Lotti up.

Let’s get her to some light, he said. Mrs. Griffith followed him, still carrying the five-year old who had suddenly become too heavy to carry. She put her down and led her to the grassy spot where the man laid Lotti down.

Her eyes are open, he said. Here, Mrs. Griffith, you take her hand. Let me find Doc Hannah. He was here earlier. Mr. Nethken walked to several people now moving toward the spot where Lotti lay. He asked where the doctor was. Mrs. Griffith turned back to Lotti.

Lotti’s eyes stared at her in fright. She wanted to ask her girl if she was hurt; if she was all right. But she knew better. She felt her daughter’s limbs. She lifted the girl’s dress and smoothed it back quickly. Her underclothes were…were all right. Suddenly she had to struggle to breathe and her forehead bore a cold sweat of fear.

How long had it been? How long was her daughter gone from her side? What had happened? Did that man? There had not been time.

She bent and pulled Lotti to her breast. She hugged both of her daughters close. She knew she should not cry, but she did. And her daughters cried with her.

1.

Pit

They sat on the south bank of Leatherbark Run and watched intently the line on the end of Pit’s hickory fishing pole. At the other end of the line, on the hook lying at the bottom of the deep hole, was a worm. By now it had lost its wriggle, but it was still a treat to a trout; so they watched closely. For years they had done this. Pit knew that Lotti did not share her love for fishing but, at seventeen, Pit guessed she would want to fish when she was seventy. Lotti, two years older, sat to Pit’s right and the late evening sun highlighted her golden smooth hair that hung nearly to the waist of her dress. Lotti shuffled her skirt and Pit looked at the shape of her sister’s long legs beneath the light fabric. Lotti’s bare feet extended well beyond Pit’s shorter legs clothed in the man-like trousers that she wore year-round. Pit’s hair, coarse and dark brown, she shared only at church and at the table where her father permitted no hats—men or women’s. All other times except in sleep she kept it swirled or platted under the felt hat with its too-wide crown and too-large band size that caused the hat to sit atop her ears as much as on the top of her head.

Pit’s brothers sometimes kidded her about her long trousers and man’s hat, but they did not make fun of her when she had the long barreled squirrel rifle in her hands. She could outshoot all of them except Fred. He was the oldest of their four brothers. And sometimes she would outshoot him too.

She lifted the tip of the hickory pole high and the line and hook rose and cleared the water. She swung the hook toward her and could see that the worm was gone. She hated that. Most times she could feel the slightest bump of a trout against the hook or line. But this evening her heart had not been in the fishing. She stood and began to wind the line around the tip of the pole. She looked down at Lotti. Her sister was watching her closely, a smile on her pretty face. Lotti took the sun like a princess, their mother used to say. She meant that before mid-summer Lotti’s face was an even golden tan and the light blue eyes grew a shade darker. Her smile was bigger in the summer too. Or that was how it seemed to Pit. Her mother never said much about Pit’s nose and the sun. Her nose always lost, the tip getting only slightly darker in hue as the summer went on and the freckles became denser. Maybe that was why she had started wearing a bonnet, and later a hat—to keep down the number and size of the freckles on her face. Her mother would never have approved of the hat that she laughingly took from her youngest brother, Lester. She had never given it back and she thought that he had considered it good riddance. By then her mother was gone, taken by the cough that kept everybody awake the last few weeks of her life.

It was in that time that her father had started to call her Pit. Now everybody did. She had been ten, and she and Lotti were well up on Back Mountain alongside Leatherbark Run when she had found the flower. It was beautiful. A slender stem a bit over a foot tall was topped with a trumpet like flower pointing to the sky, but with a graceful canopy that continued up from about one half of the circumference of the trumpet and draped back over the opening of the flower. Vertical white stripes ran up the side of the trumpet and over the length of the canopy. The plant was otherwise a fresh green with a purple tint to the veins that showed on the top surface of the canopy. There were two other stems, both two or three inches taller than the one with the trumpet and each had three leaves that reminded her of the leaves of her mother’s pole beans. She pulled the plant from the ground and turned to see disapproval in Lotti’s eyes.

I’m sorry, Lotti. I really am. I didn’t think, she said. But she had done it. She did not think it would live if she tried to plant it back in the soil. Her sister looked at her sternly and Pit took some fern and wrapped it around the small bulb that was the base of the plant. The black soil clung to the root fibers that splayed down from the bottom of the bulb. She dipped the base in the cool water of the creek. The water reminded her that it was still May even though the air was warm. Lotti still looked sad. When they got home her father told her what she had.

It’s a Jack in the Pulpit. Used to see a lot more of them than you do now. See how the top of the plant is like a green roof that bends forward to protect the little post that stands up like a preacher in his pulpit?

Why is he called Jack? Pit asked.

Don’t rightly know, her father said. Don’t look like your sister liked the idea of pickin the flower.

She don’t like it if a soul picks any flower, Lester said.

Well, in this case, I think she’s right. Best leave those in whatever shaded and damp forest they can find. Soon there won’t be any left. There was a time the Indians ate ’em like turnips.

So what? Asked Lester.

His father hit his son lightly on the back of the head with his open hand. It will be just as bad as when there ain’t a single red spruce thicker than a half foot left on top of the mountain, Lester. And the time is gonna come for both.

There ain’t enough hicks in America to cut down all the red spruce on Cheat River, Lester said.

Won’t be any left in a few years, even down to Bemis, their father said and walked into the bedroom where their mother was coughing again. No one said anything more. They could tell when he was through with a subject.

Pit found one of the many small green bottles that their mother’s medicine came in and filled it halfway with water. She slid the stem of the flower down into the bottle and took it into her mother’s room. She would never forget the smile that came to her mother’s face. Because it looked like it hurt her to smile.

A Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Well I’ll be. Thank you. If you were a boy I’d call you Jack just for thinking of me, her mother said, weakly.

Well, you can call her Pit, her father said. Pit sounds like a good girl’s nickname to me.

Pit. Thank you, Pit, her mother said. Her father motioned by flipping his hand as it hung at his side. He wanted her to leave and let her mother rest.

When Pit turned to leave Lotti was standing in the doorway and was smiling at her.

Two days later Pit took the flower from her mother’s room. It had wilted away. And her mother was dead.

2.

Brendan

Brendan shoved the door of the railcar slightly ajar and leaned his head close to look out on the passing countryside. The train had been moving easily down the west bank of the Greenbrier River and now metal brakes signaled the slowing of the train. He wanted to jump free before it pulled into Cass, the lumber town at the base of the mountain. It was where he was going. It was where they said his man had gone. At the train stop in Durbin the ticket agent told him that Cass had grown to over a thousand people in the town and another fifteen hundred or so living south of the town and in the logging camps up on the mountain. That could make his task harder. But his man was not a logger; at least he had not been one before the war. His man had bragged about his work with pick and shovel. He would show the muscles in his forearms and tell of the Big Cut that he had made for the rail line near the lumber camp in the West Virginia hills. It was as if he had dug the cut all by himself. Before that he had lived in New York. Brendan had guessed that it would be to New York that his man would return but he had not. The brother would only tell him that his man had gone back to the West Virginia lumber town where he had lived and worked before the war. The brother had only seen his man when he came back for a while to be a boxer and later when the man had tried to get his brother to join the Army with him. The brother would not say the town in West Virginia, but Brendan remembered the name when he heard the ticket agent at the Maryland stop say it—Cass. That was the place. His man had never talked much, but it was the name his man had used; anyway, it was his actions that brought Brendan to this valley, not his words.

He had to jump soon, but he wanted to wait until the train had slowed down. He was sure there were not many other men stealing a ride on this train. It was unlike the rail line west out of Harrisburg. There had been many men trying to ride that train, and he heard the conductor speak with pride of the no-goods who had felt the club of the train guards. Those men were probably hoping to get all the way to Cincinnati or St. Louis, or even to California. He wanted only to go to Cass.

He couldn’t see much except the pleasant green waters of the river splashing to the south over the rocks and gravel. It was mid-October and recent rains had the river flowing smartly but the water remained clear. Brendan judged that the current was still a bit slower than the speed of the long line of empty flatcars, the two passenger cars and the few closed baggage cars like the one he had slipped into a couple of hours before. He slid the door to the left and leaned farther out and looked to the right, toward Cass. The train was curving slightly to the left and he could see the lead engine and the track beyond through the mostly bare trees that bordered the river. Above the trees he saw six smoke stacks and just beyond them another that was much taller and guided a slender white steam cloud into the sky. He wished the train would slow down more quickly. He had to jump before he got too close to the sawmill that he knew sat below those stacks. But he could not jump on this side. The bank was much too steep going down to the river and trees stood too close to the track. He slid the door and left just enough space for light and stepped quickly to the right side of the car. He slid the door open and to his right with his right hand. The hillside was slipping by and he was struck that it was nearly bare, tree stumps with green moss on the upriver side and gray lichen on the southern side and a few thick stands of laurel sprinkled about. The roadbed was black cinders and there was a ditch running alongside the track. He was wearing a dark gray suit, black leather shoes, white shirt and tie. The brown fedora had never done an exit from a moving train, and he tugged at the hat’s brim to bring it snuggly down on his forehead. In his left hand resting against the doorframe was a large, brown paper bag. Beyond his suit and the things in his pockets, the bag contained his total possessions—a pair of socks, a set of drawers, tooth brush and small glass vial of baking soda, a bar of soap, one razor, and one book, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. He was not sure what might be under the leaves in the ditch, but it looked safer for a jump here than on the riverside. The train was still moving too fast. But he knew he was rapidly nearing the mill that he could not see from this side of the train. He clutched the bag to his chest and jumped, hoping the oak leaves in the ditch beside the tracks were deep and soft.

He knew to hit the cindered roadbed and to run; that he would tend to go forward on his face, and that only quick movement of his feet could prevent a bloodied nose at best. But the train had been too fast. He never had a chance to keep his feet. He pulled the bag to his face as he careened forward and thought of the soft socks, but then of the razor and the heavy, stiffly bound novel. He went down. His knees jammed against the cinders and he pitched forward. He braced for his chest and head to hit the black ground but instead he hurtled toward the ditch. He heard the plop as his upper body compressed the leaves and slammed against the water in the ditch. The cold water seeped through his shirt even as his unbuttoned suit coat billowed behind him in his landing. His relief that he was unhurt was replaced by the concern to keep his suit from getting too wet. He scrambled from the ditch. His shoes were overflowing with water and his paper luggage bag had exploded. Its contents were mixed with the leaves down in the ditch. Except for the socks and the vial of baking soda. They were floating on top of the watery lake that retained the form of a spread-eagle man.

He jumped across the ditch to the hillside as the train of flatbeds continued to pass. There would be a brakeman, at least one near the last car. He rushed up the steep bank to a stand of mountain laurel. Fishing for a toothbrush would have to wait. The fedora was still in place. Dripping slightly from the front brim, but still on tight. He nestled into the laurel and looked back. He saw no other illegal passengers, but there was one brakeman leaning out on the uphill side of the caboose as it slowed…and slowed…and stopped directly down the hill from him, and in spitting distance of his socks floating atop the water of the ditch. The man must have seen him when he jumped. He would have been looking right down the line of cars as he was now. But he was not looking up the hillside. As Brendan stared alternately at the brakeman and the socks, praying for them to sink, Victor Hugo bobbed to the surface. Brendan wondered where he had been and wished that he had remained in his deep, wet cell just a little longer.

The brakeman never took his eyes off whatever was going on down the tracks. He jumped deftly from the low step on the caboose, fixed his eyes on his goal and strode south at a quick pace. Brendan waited until he could no longer see the man and started down the slope. He crawled the last twenty or so feet, leaving his wet coat and tie hanging on the back side of the laurel bushes. He retrieved the book, socks, and the baking soda. He quickly found the soaked drawers, but it took longer to locate the razor. He could not find the soap. He finally gave up on the thin bar that he had bought weeks ago in New York. Maybe it was for the best. It smelled of lye and gave only the slightest bit of lather even if the water was hot. As he made his way back up the bank to his coat and tie, he thought how valuable the now soggy paper bag had been. He tied the legs of his drawers closed and dropped the items in. The drawers had been white, almost new, but now they were yellowed by the ditch water. He pulled the material into a tight ball. No one would know that it was his under shorts. And it was just a temporary sack to carry his valuables into Cass. But first he needed to dry his suit. He could not walk into town looking like he had just jumped off a logging train.

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He waited for over an hour and after the empty flat cars were uncoupled onto a siding and the engine pulled the short train north again he made his way along the base of the track that paralleled the river. His clothes were still damp, but he had to get into town and find a place to sleep before the sunlight was gone. The air was already cooling and the sun had set behind the tall mountain to his right.

It was good that he had not waited longer to jump, despite the hard impact that had left black stains on the knees of his trousers. He was now looking across the tracks at a large water pond on the north side of the sawmill. It was filled with floating logs and two men were working to float one log at a time to a moving chain that was already carrying one log to a higher level and into a wide and open doorway of the mill. One of the men used a metal spike on the end of a long wooden shaft to guide the log onto the incline. A third man stood ready at the higher level to roll the log to the side using a similar pole with a curved hook on the end. A fourth man standing nearby on the upper level seemed to be more a watcher than a doer and for a brief time he seemed to be watching Brendan. Then he turned back to his task. Brendan came to a trestle across a small stream that flowed out of a valley to his right. A branch rail line left the main line just south of the mouth of the valley, passed beside two low, long unpainted wood buildings and continued up the grade and disappeared where the valley walls narrowed. He could see no one near the low buildings, but he could hear the shrill sound of metal grinding on metal and the vibrating chatter of moving belts.

He needed to avoid drawing attention but he was not sure he could do that as he crossed the trestle with purposeful strides on the cross ties of the track. His impression of the mill that stretched along between the railway and the river was that it was big. Two long, tall buildings paralleled the track and beyond them were stack after stack of lumber easily two stories high. Nearest the spur track that ran into the mill area were long docks and some covered sheds that sheltered stacks of logs split and cut to the same short length. To his right, beyond the larger and longer valley that held the low buildings and branch rail line was a shorter, steeper valley or hollow with a clump of shanty-like buildings. He walked past the hollow, the stacks of wood and tall docks of the lumberyard still extending on his left. Atop the hill south of the shanties were four or five substantial buildings—homes he would guess, two-stories with porches and a long boardwalk that ran across their front. They were of wood—everything was built of wood—they would be nice homes. Directly below the line of houses was a long building of three stories. It looked newly painted in a bold white and overlooked the train depot and railroad tracks that included four siding rail lines. Two more ran into the lumberyard and one ran along the front of the upriver end of the long three-story. He looked up at a man atop one of the stacks of lumber in the lumberyard. He was wearing a large leather apron and leather gloves and was passing a long board to a man standing below on the dock. They had already moved a large stack of boards. Men at two other points along the dock were restacking lumber in the same way.

There was a crowd of people in front of the long, three-story building uphill from the depot. They were clustered toward the far end of the building. A few people were near the far end of the depot but seemed to be moving in the direction of the larger group. As he came closer he saw the sign on the long building, Pocahontas Supply Company. It was a company store. He had seen them along the railway and at two of the stops in Maryland. They were all smaller than this one. This building also had a post office sign near the door. Brendan slowed and walked off the track and along the front of the depot. No one seemed to notice him although most men were dressed differently than he was. Plaid wool shirts, dark trousers and heavy boots seemed almost a uniform. As he looked at the hundreds of small pock-like holes in the wooden walkway he saw that they were being made by the metal studs on the bottoms of the boots that most of the men were wearing. His hat was in style. Although most men wore the flat cap with the material of the crown pulled forward and snapped to the bill, many wore the fedora similar to his and a few, the men in coat and tie mostly, wore the round white or manila straw. A few had on long-billed caps with heavy earmuff flaps that were tied up alongside the cap with a bow on the top. A couple of men looked at him. He did not speak and neither did they. But there was much talking going on. He could not identify any one thing that was being talked more than another. Most of the people were laughing and seemed in good spirits.

He rounded the end of the depot and moved behind a couple of other men as they climbed the slope to the steps of the store building. Once he was standing on the boardwalk he saw that there were as many people inside the store as were outside. It was a big store and had a variety of clothing and dry goods on the shelves nearest the doorway and windows and a good size grocery counter. He turned to look east across the river where there were buildings that might include a hotel or boarding house. He felt the need to get into a room, away from all the people and think about what he would do next. He walked toward the end of the boardwalk and the roadway that went down the hill and crossed the bridge to the east. He smelled and saw the meat market that stood beside the company store. Beef and pork hung just inside the doorway dressed down halved and quartered. Still no one seemed to pay him any attention. It had worked. He had been told that many people met the train when it came in whether it arrived from the north as he did or from the south. It was not for lack of money that he had not bought a ticket. It was to arrive with as little attention as possible. He did not want the man to know that he was in Cass until he was ready.

At first he only noticed the young man and looked away. A slender boy who walked in his direction with a spring in his step just ahead of four young men walking closely behind him. Brendan thought he would need to get one of the paper bags like the one the boy carried. He pulled the damp shorts balled in one hand closer and gripped the heavy, damp book in the other.

A faint cry of alarm returned his attention to the boy. The four men, or boys, had overtaken the boy and were recklessly