Follow the Creek

By Joyce Taylor Dennis

Hannah Ruth Tucker was born into a life of hardship and misery. Living on a failing farm along Copper Creek in rural Tennessee, she loses her two baby sisters and, in short order, her mother all to pneumonia, leaving her with a mentally challenged older brother and an alcoholic, abusive father. Then one night, she is abducted by a local trapper who has severe psychological damage and attaches his fantasies to the small child. He subjects her to deep physical and emotional trauma. When she finally evades her kidnapper, she is found by a kindly widow who supplies her the first real home she has ever known. Later, we follow a grown-up Hannah through years of being on the run from the same man who has constantly stalked and hunted her, causing her to reinvent herself from state to state. She does what she must to survive and escape him, eventually being sought by the FBI for crimes committed in her flight. This thriller will lead you on a dizzying chase, as a young woman fights for her life to find freedom and a normal existence. Detectives and the FBI investigate to make sense of a case that defies comprehension at times and keeps the reader on a fine edge as you Follow the Creek to find a way back home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646547777

Book preview

Chapter One

The once lively village of Copper Creek, Tennessee (years later resurrected and renamed Copper Mill), was nestled quite harmoniously in the shelter of the backwaters of the vast Great Smoky Mountains. It was devastated by an outbreak of tuberculosis in the early 1930s, which spread wildly among the residents, sentencing six of the villagers to a slow, lingering death and another five to life confined in solitary, depressing sanitariums. Local officials wisely quarantined the whole area, which eventually kept it from spreading to the nearby small towns of Ayres and Trilby. It was said to be an omen or perhaps a curse on the villagers—but few really believed that. When Sheriff Chub Elsey finally opened the one main road out of the village, most along the creek simply packed up and left, never to return. It had been a harsh existence at any course, and those leaving took few possessions with them, not wanting any reminders of their terrible struggles here. But the Tucker family stayed on in this house, for there was nowhere else for them to go. All they had was here on this land—alive and dead.

In the bleak decade that followed, as the grandparents passed on, the seven haggard offspring were forced to face what the future might bring and to weigh their chances elsewhere. Two hapless sons were killed in combat as World War II raged across Europe and other fronts, but here at home, little else altered the family’s destiny. By the time the war ended, four of the remaining five children scattered with the four winds with no love lost and no desire to recall their past kinship on this hostile land. Only the youngest son, Matthew, remained to claim the property as his own, having a sad affinity with the intolerable solitude, and unfortunately, knowing nothing else to do, he chose to carry on along Copper Creek. He fixed up the house as best he could to make it moderately clean, patched the leaking roof and broken windows to keep out the driving rain and howling winds, and began searching in earnest for a bride to settle in with and raise a family of his own.

He took to wife a rawboned, docile young woman from Ayres in 1950 named Anna Claire Brewer, the youngest daughter of Hiram and Lettie Mae Brewer, and brought her to the Tucker homeplace. The Brewers were not well-to-do certainly, but old Hiram had hoped to settle his youngest girl with a man with much better prospects than the likes of Matthew Tucker. Then as Anna Claire grew older with no real suitors crossing the threshold regularly, and her being plain and of a rather solemn nature, he finally submitted and agreed to the match.

Anna was devastated by the poverty she saw along the creek and with the plain homestead that was to be her new home, but she had been drawn at first to the quiet, manly strength of Matthew Tucker and wanted to make him a good wife. She was the last of three sisters to be settled and brought aught with her but a small trunk of clothes, forty dollars, and a few basic household items as a dowry. The pair worked diligently side by side to begin a new life as Matthew tried hard to please Anna Claire in those early years together. Somehow, no matter how hard he worked, he was constantly dealt a losing hand. New crops failed, storms washed out the land, droughts followed, babies died, and eventually, the only solace Matthew found came from a bottle. With one failure after another, hardship became his master, and slowly, he gave up all hope.

Anna also grew more embittered with every mounting disappointment. After three painful miscarriages, she despaired of ever holding a full-term baby. By the fourth pregnancy, she became resolute to her lot in life, but still she steadfastly concentrated all her frail energy on bringing forth a healthy child. She prayed desperately to be a proper wife and to present her husband with a child. Their firstborn was a weak-minded baby boy they named Caleb. Caleb’s birth was so labored and difficult that the child was oxygen-starved during the delivery, and it was soon clear he would never develop mentally. Another sadness to swallow down in their life.

Then she was born here-—that one, on a rainy April afternoon in a tiny upstairs room at the back, overlooking the brackish creek. They named her Hannah Ruth after her maternal great-grandmother. Two more unfortunate children followed, two tiny girls—Nita and baby Macie-—both of whom died from the pneumonia that eventually took their momma as well.

That winter of 1959 was very hard for all the creek folk. The once bustling little rural village of their grandparent’s day, before the outbreak, was gone. The abundant trapping trade played out; a prosperous gristmill and a copper works business went belly-up after the war. It was only a ghost town now with no country store, church, or mill to bring in commerce, lift the spirits, or serve even as a gathering place to bolster the townsfolk in their times of despair. Many had hoped that the end of the war would bring back returning soldiers to the area, eager to homestead, restore life, and generate newfound prosperity. But as the months turned into years, none did.

Still, the village lingered on, nestled amid the overgrowth of trees, ash and poplar, pine, and wild dogwood. The ever-changing water continued to flow quietly along Copper Creek, winding its way through miles of lazy twists and turns, then eventually bottlenecking into Braddock’s Swamp. The few small farmhouses here and there left along the ten-mile stretch were run-down, in dire need of paint, shutters, and new glass. Since the Great Depression, anyone with cash enough to make repairs had used it long ago to escape and start anew somewhere else where hope still abounded.

In good times, the surly man and his son trapped for what furs they could find, fished, or hunted for enough food to sustain them. They traded when they could and stole when they couldn’t. But they mainly kept to themselves. Matthew often told his children that if the creek or woods around them didn’t provide it, they didn’t need it no how.

So the girl child remained—keeping house for a crude, drunken father and a half-witted brother. Alone, without her mother and sisters for female kinship, she drifted through a nightmare of hard work and mind-numbing grief. Scorching summers of drought and bloodthirsty mosquitoes fled into freezing, barren winters, when the wind chilled her frail bones, the snow piled heavily against the old house, and the deep, dark creek froze solid for months on end. Her young life was a sore misery from morning to night, endless year after year. She prayed daily for a savior who did not come and for an escape that never succeeded as often as she tried, and finally, she prayed for death. But that eluded her as well. And so time passed.

Chapter Two

She was strong, with a boy’s lean body. The local man had been admiring her for a long time, watching her from a distance whenever she came with her Pa into town to sell their furs or buy a few sparse supplies. The girl had grown quite handsome—not pretty, mind you—but with a certain undefined quality about her that intrigued and pleased the man. He decided he would have her, no matter what came of it.

His wife was old, twenty years his senior, and smelled of rancid meat and sweat. He was tired of her harping on about everything he did. This young girl smelled all fresh and new—like life, not death. She worked like a boy, lithe with strong muscle tone, but she walked and moved like a graceful woman—a woman-child he realized he wanted very much. He had been in the mercantile on that first day when she appeared with her father out of the blue. He had looked up, and there she was, looking wide-eyed at the candy in the big glass jars. He had walked easily over to a nearby shelf that held a supply of tobacco and had nearly exploded with delight when she’d turned and absently smiled at him—quite innocently. She passed so close behind him that he could detect her sweet childlike scent of soap and baby powder, something so fragrant that he almost cried out in actual physical pain just inhaling her delicious scent! He couldn’t move, couldn’t think—just stared as she passed by and crossed the aisle to stand beside her old man. That had been the beginning of his stalking of the child—his child, he truly believed in his mind. She would belong to him and him alone. He would make it happen. Never had he felt so alive, so strongly about something—certainly about another human being’s welfare.

Now as he sat in the old pickup truck loaded with dry goods and new traps, he rubbed his crotch with the eager anticipation he always felt watching one so young and comely. He patiently watched and waited for the pair to return to their old truck. He licked his cracked, sun-dried lips as saliva seeped around the corners of his mouth. A horn blasted behind him, bringing him sharply out of his fantasy. He cursed loudly and turned to send a murderous stare at the old man in the black sedan pulling up beside him in the street.

Go on by, you damn idiot! he screamed out the window. The man in the sedan made a rude gesture and roared on past him down the main street. Just your luck I’m too damn busy today to follow you a’ways, buster, but mayhap we’ll meet ag’in one day. He smiled, showing broken front teeth as he glanced once more at the little girl climbing into her father’s truck. It took several tries for him to get the old truck started; it backfired loudly and then lurched off in a series of jerks up the street ahead of him. He followed the truck at a discreet distance—never taking his eyes off the back of the seat where the girl’s small head rested. Her hair was thin, golden blond, and tied back with a bright-red ribbon. It looked like the sun was surrounding her in the back window, her hair bouncing along with the motion of the truck. The man grew very excited again, thinking of how he would love to feel the long yellow hair running through his thick fingers. Visions of another small, sweet face suddenly crossed his mind. He blinked several times, willing the old vision to recede back into time where it belonged. He tried not to dwell on the past, yet it would not stay buried.

Abruptly, the pickup turned off to follow the dirt road up to Copper Creek. He knew the area well, having on a few other occasions secretly traversed up the narrow road through the woods to the old Tucker farmhouse when he knew the man would not be at home. But today, he pulled off the side of the main road and watched the progress of the man and girl as the old truck bounced along. Shortly, they disappeared up the dirt road, and he could no longer make out their brake lights as they swerved, attempting to avoid the potholes in the road. Only then did he head on back to his own cabin on the far edge of the mountain. He knew by now the old woman would be on the rampage wanting her dry goods—his delay was sure to start a row. Someday, he would need to shut her up for good, he realized, smiling at the mere thought of it—but not yet. Not just yet.

Chapter Three

Hannah Ruth didn’t consider her brother as family, mostly because he was dumb. Not just dumb but also mean. Caleb was born tetched in the head. Everybody knew it and accepted it along the creek. Their Paw had to beat him all the time for being so bad, sometimes violently. She had never been able to play with him like she had played with Nita or even fat little baby Macie when she was born. The baby had cried most of the time early on because their Maw had no milk left, but sometimes, she had played a game with her little baby toes—This Little Piggy. Baby Macie would always giggle then. But if Macie and Nita were with the angels as folks said, they were better off. So suddenly, she was all alone—except for Paw—and she hated and feared Paw. So she figured she might as well be alone.

Two weeks after watching Matthew and his daughter in town, when Hannah Ruth was eight years old, the stranger came up the road one night looking for Matthew Tucker. He had been sick for a week and couldn’t trap or hunt, and there was no food to feed his family. The giant trapper was dressed in dirty pants and a stained leather vest and wore thick, heavy boots caked in mud. He brought with him a jug and said he wanted to barter. He stared long and hard at the girl child with blazing, hungry, green eyes that made her stomach nearly turn with fear. Something about him looked familiar, yet she didn’t ever remember seeing such a big man or one who looked as much like a savage, wild animal. She did not like the smelly man and hoped her Paw would send him away soon.

All through the night, the men drank heavily, their voices raised in anger echoing through the house, and although her brother slept peacefully, the child tossed and turned on her pallet with worry. She felt something sinister had entered the house with the giant, and she was very afraid. Much later, as she lay curled by the low-burning fire, the trapper moved into the room and stood over her quietly. He breathed heavily, and the odor of his sweat and the whiskey mixed to fill the void until she felt his nearness. Before she could even move, heavy hands grabbed her up, blanket and all, and threw her over his broad shoulders. She tried to scream out for her Paw, but a big calloused hand clamped tightly over her small mouth. She struggled fiercely, but the bad man struck her twice over the head with his fist until she at last fell quiet. The child went limp in his arms, and he moved easily through the night. No one impeded his progress to the rusty pickup truck parked behind the house. He tossed her easily into the front seat beside him and then drove quickly down the long lane. He glanced down at the small ragged bundle draped across the front seat and thrilled as the strands of long blond hair splayed out across his muscular thigh. He smiled easily, playing with the silky mass as he drove across the old wooden bridge. The truck’s headlights bounced recklessly in the darkness, glancing up and down into the trees. He had made a good bargain. The child was finally all his now.

An hour later, Hannah Ruth lay curled up into a tight little ball on a narrow, filthy mattress. It smelled of urine, puke, and mold. The thin piece of flannel thrown over it was stained and also smelled. It smells like him, she thought—bad. Maybe if she curled up small enough or shut her eyes tight enough, the giant couldn’t find her anymore. Maybe she could disappear like her Maw and baby sisters. They had gone away and never came back. Maybe she could too. That had been years ago, of course, but she still remembered them. She forced her eyes shut and thought back to a time before her small world fell apart. Scalding tears seeped from the corners of her eyes as she cloaked herself in the faded memory.

The pudgy little face of her dear sister Nita appeared in her mind’s eye, and as usual, a bright smile crinkled the corners of her pretty bow-shaped mouth. She had been full of mischief from the day she had been born and was her bestest friend. Nita had been only two years old: the first one the sickness took. She had soft, curly red hair that bounced like little springs when she ran. After Nita’s lifeless small body was washed by the neighbor ladies, Maw laid her out in her only dress. It was a delicate shade of pink with tiny white bows, cleaned and starched. They all stood around as she was buried behind the woodshed. Later, their mother broke down crying and said an angel had come to take Nita to heaven, but the girl child knew better. She knew her baby sister was in the cold, hard ground, and no real for true angel would ever put someone as sweet as their Nita in the ground and cover her up like that. It must be a very bad angel, she thought.

The baby was so tiny, less than a year old—still suckling Maw when she took bad, and she got so still and didn’t cry no more. Maw was bad sick too now with the pneumonie, her cough sounding deep and croupy long into the night. Hannah Ruth had covered her ears until she couldn’t hear the coughing no more and would finally be able to go to sleep. After baby Macie was put into the small wooden box and Paw dug the hole in the cold, hard ground to put her to sleep in, their Maw cried somethin’ fierce, until she finally just sat out