A CHANGE FOR PEACE – A Short Story

Ancil walked along the pathway along the back of the garden center in Cherokee. It was called the Little Willow Garden Center, the name drawn from the last names of the two families, the Littlejohns and the Wilnotys, that jointly owned the garden center’s land along the highway as well as land beyond it. Ancil stopped to pull some weeds from a plant bed and picked up a few tree limbs that had blown down on the path from the storm last night.

He glanced up then, to see Euna Littlejohn coming toward him up the path. She waved, smiling that smile of hers that always made his heart skip a few beats. Euna had strong Cherokee looks, the black hair, olive skin, high cheekbones, thick dark hair and brown eyes common to the Eastern Cherokee of North Carolina. She was a strong, gifted, creative woman, attractive but not beautiful, smart and kind. The adjectives came easily the more he came to know her.

“Good afternoon to you,” she called out, drawing closer and dropping the big bucket of bulbs she carried to the ground for a moment. “Are we still meeting for dinner Sunday evening when we’re both off work? I already told the family I had shopping to do and would be gone for a time.”

Ancil studied her for a moment. “Did your family ask if you’d be seeing me, and did you tell them you would?” He saw her eyes drop. “I guess that means you didn’t,” he added more softly,

She sighed. “It would only cause more trouble and argument, but I want time with you.”

“Should we risk that?” He lifted her chin to look at him.

“Yes, I want to see you, Ancil. I want to spend time with you.” She leaned closer to kiss him softly.

Ancil’s good sense and caution slipped away then and he kissed her back. After a minute though he stepped away. “Don’t tell anyone you are coming to Bryson City to see me, Euna. My Uncle Charlie is still recovering, and if I come to meet you for dinner and leave him alone, I don’t want any of your family showing up to cause harassment and trouble for him again.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I am so sorry my brother Ross and Jase Wilnoty came and caused trouble for him.”

Ancil felt his anger rise. “They more than caused trouble. They threatened him, an old man wearing an orthopedic ankle brace on a healing ankle. Uncle Charlie talked back to them and they grew aggressive. Jase Wilnoty pulled a gun on him and waved it around, talking mean and ugly. A gun, Euna. Uncle Charlie’s dog Sunner flew at Jase, barking at Ross, brave and protective, and Jase shot him. He shot Uncle Charlie’s dog.”

She looked away, having difficulty meeting his gaze.

Ancil shook his head. “Sunner is all right now, thankfully. My Uncle Charlie’s neighbors next door came running when they heard the gunshot and Jase and Ross fled. The Jolsons helped Uncle Charlie get the dog to the vet.” He paused. “I know the police in Cherokee came to talk to your brother and Jase afterward, but nothing came of it but a warning.”

“They lied about everything,” she said, her own eyes flashing.

“I heard some of the lies they told later.” He glanced at the bucket on the ground. “You had better go take these bulbs to the new garden bed your father is creating. I was sent to dig up and divide more to bring back and plant, too. Your father wants more color in the long bed near the street front.”

“You won’t let this break us up?” she pleaded.

Ancil tried to decide what to say. “I may have no choice. I have already been given veiled threats that the Wilnotys and your family don’t want me working at the garden center anymore, and I don’t want to risk harm to my uncle.” He touched her face. “They want to break us up, and they want me to leave the area. Jase and Ross told my Uncle Charlie he had better encourage me to go back home where I came from and to stop trying to push my way into their families and lives. They reminded him I wasn’t full-blooded Cherokee, that my father was a white man even though my mother was Cherokee.”

She bristled. “Most of our people are not full-blooded Cherokee. You know that.”

“Yes, but your family and the Wilnotys have long ties here in North Carolina, linked into the original Cherokee who stayed behind in these mountains long ago. They have clan belonging and lands. I am an outsider. My mother’s Cherokee people were driven west from these lands on the Trail of Tears long ago.”

He paused. “The real issue is that your family and the Wilnotys want you and Jase Wilhoty to marry. As I have been told often, it has long been planned.”

She stomped her foot. “Planned by others, not by me. There is a dark side to Jase Wilnoty. He is not a man I want to spend my life with.”

“When I first came, when I saw you and asked about you, I was told you were promised and basically engaged to Jase Wilnoty. He has certainly told me so often enough himself.”

“Should others decide my life?” she asked in anger, tears in her eyes again. “I have never promised myself to Jase Wilnoty. I admit I have long been told how good it would be if our families were linked by blood. They all know I live with my grandmother and that she wants me to have her home and property when I marry.”

“It is a fine, well-built home and a large portion of your grandmother’s property includes sections of land that are a part of the nursery and garden center.” He smoothed his hand down her hair. “The Littlejohn and Wilnoty families will not allow me to easily interfere in their well-laid plans, Euna, no matter how qualified I might be to help improve and run the family business. With each day their hatred and resentment toward me grows, and even worse, I know Jase has come after you more aggressively and been abusive.”

“Who told you that?” She wiped away more tears.

“I hear things. Other people hear and see things. It is a small world here. Is it not true?”

She put a fist to her mouth, crying again. “So should I marry such a man who would try to rape me, who gave me bruises and threatened me?”

“Before I came, did he ever hurt you?”

She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her face. “No, but I heard other stories that weren’t good and I have seen his cruelty to animals. I watched him heartlessly shoot a songbird from a tree one day, laughing over it. He frightens me now.”

A voice called out, interrupting them. “Euna. Are you coming with those bulbs?”

“I’ve got to go,” she whispered. “That’s my father calling. I don’t want more trouble for you.”

“Nor do I,” he said quietly as he watched her race down the pathway.

What should I do? Ancil wondered.

He talked with his uncle about it that evening as they sat on the porch after dinner. “It’s a real problem, Uncle Charlie,” he confided. “After dad died last year and after the hard year of handling all the affairs related to the estate and selling the house, I was ready for a change and a break. You know my brother Logan is stationed at the naval base in Australia now and unlikely to come home soon with the security work he does there. You’re really my only relative in the states now, so I was glad to come stay with you for a time when you called to tell me you’d fallen and broken your ankle.”

“I fell fishing, slipped on a dang rock,” his uncle said grinning. “I’m an old bachelor, so I took a chance calling you to see if you might come help me out for a time. However, I know you’ve started to really like it here, too. This area around the Smoky Mountains is a beautiful place, isn’t it? I’d hate to see you go back to Ohio again. Do you want to?”

“Not really, but the big garden center I worked with has a horticulture management job they’d like me to take this fall. It’s with Casa Verde growers, good money, a good job.”

His uncle propped his foot on a stool, wincing a little with the movement.

“Is your foot hurting?” Ancil asked, studying him for a moment. His uncle’s hair was gray and thinning now, his black glasses slipping down on his nose like they always did. But he had a happy style and manner, and a love for life, Ancil had always liked.

“I stand on my feet all day as a barber, Ancil,” his uncle answered. “My foot aches a bit at night but it’s about healed.  This brace they gave me helps. But I’ll be fine. You don’t need to stay here longer for me, although I admit I’ll miss you.” He winked at Ancil. “My guess is that it’s a certain sweet Cherokee girl that’s kept you here this long more than me.”

Ancil shook his head. “It wasn’t something I expected to happen. I’ve fallen strong in love with her and she with me, Uncle Charlie, but how can I propose to her or think of a life with her knowing it will tear her family’s affection from her. They don’t like me, not any of them. I think her father respects my skills, my education, my knowledge of plants and work background with other garden centers. The others resent it, resent that I know more than they do.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Would you think it none of my business to make a suggestion?”

“No, I’d value your advice.”

His uncle leaned forward. “Well, I’ve an idea for you to consider. An old school mate of mine, Wrylin Trent, became a minister, and some years back he took the pastor’s job at a church over in Cosby, Tennessee. Do you know where that is, over the mountain from us and east of busy Gatlinburg?”

“I’ve hiked over there in past and visited around the area.”

He nodded. “Well, Wrylin and I were talking after that incident here last week. He’d given me my dog Sunner as a pup when his own dog had a litter, and you well know I was worried for Sunner there for a bit.”

“Me, too,” said Ancil, looking over at the big yellow dog asleep on the porch near them, a bandage still on his side.

“I admit I was telling Wrylin about the girl, too, and about you falling for her. I told him the man her family wanted for her wasn’t much of a man, and I told him some of what Jase Wilnoty did here, with Euna’s own brother a party to it, and some of what I’d heard he did to Euna pushing on her.” He paused to rub a hand over his neck. “I like that girl. I don’t care so much for her family though. Never have much. I even saw her own sister, giggling and sauntering down the street over here in Bryson City one day, walking right by my barber shop with Jase Wilnoty, his hands in places they didn’t to belong and his actions not like a man promised to another woman.”

“You saw that?” Ancil leaned forward with his hands fisted.

His uncle glanced toward Ancil’s fists. “That girl deserves better than that man. He will only bring her sorrows. If you stay around he’s only going to bring you sorrows, too.”

Ancil sighed. “So you think I should go back to Ohio, maybe even see if Euna would go with me? As much as she probably needs to leave, or at least get away from Jase Wilnoty, I hate to ask her to leave everyone she loves and all her family and friends behind.”

“She loves you more, son. I’ve seen it in her eyes when she’s been here, and I’ve seen the love and desire to care for her and protect her in your eyes, too. Love doesn’t come often in life, that chance to find someone you can be one with.”

Ancil leaned his head back. “I do love her, but I wish there was a better answer than taking her off to northeast Ohio, so far away from all she knows.”

His uncle grinned. “Well, I might have an answer for that, too. The Merton family, that owns the Wildflower Haven garden center and nursery over in Cosby, go to Wrylin’s church. The man that did a lot of work for them and lived on their property died last year. Will and Rowan Merton, a father and son, who own and work the nursery and garden center with their family, need more help with their place. You’ve got good skills, better than the Littlejohn and Wilnoty garden center deserves. I took the liberty of telling Wrylin about you, about the problems we’ve been having, and about the girl and my worries for her and you. Wrylin went down to visit the Mertons after our phone call, and Will and Rowan Merton would like to talk with you about a job there. Wrylin says the pay sounds good and there’s a cabin on the property where Old Billy, who worked for them before, lived. You’d have a ready-made place to live, a big garden center to work for. Wrylin says the Mertons are fine Christian folks and he’s in a position to know.”

His uncle paused and looked at Ancil. “You’re off tomorrow. Drive over there and talk to them.” He held out a piece of paper. “Here’s Will Merton’s phone number and some directions to his place. You can read more about the Wildflower Haven on the internet, too. It’s a far bigger place and operation than the little place here in Cherokee where you’ve been working. It has a fine gift shop right on the main highway, too, and the entire garden center and grounds are beautifully landscaped. I’ve stopped by there when over visiting Wrylin. It could be an answer.”

Thoughts raced through Ancil’s mind.

His uncle put a hand on his knee. “You won’t know if it might be an option unless you check it out.” He laughed then. “Wrylin said he’d marry you and Euna right there at the church, too, if she decides to run off with you. She’d have a name change then, and it would be difficult after that to try to get her to come back here.”

Ancil ran a hand over his neck. “They might come after me to hurt me or to hurt her. They’re a nasty bunch.”

“Well, if you like that job opportunity and decide to take it, don’t tell them where you’re going. Tell them you’re going back to Ohio to your old house and a new job you’ve been offered. Then help Euna slip off later to come join you. She can send them one of those texts after you’re married, telling them she’s in Ohio and married. Your house up there is probably still on the internet in your daddy’s name right now if they hunted for an address. Besides even if they check on things, I can’t quite see that bunch taking off to travel all the way to Ohio to look for either of you.”

Ancil couldn’t help smiling over that idea. “Neither can I.”

His uncle laughed. “I like thinking on this idea. It would keep you and Euna around close so I could see you both every now and then. I come to Cosby to get together with Wrylin right often. From what he says you’ll be just down the road a ways from his church and where he lives. It’s pretty country over there in Cosby. You’d get to work with plants like you love. I don’t think I could make a barber out of you, nor would it be happy for you and Euna to live around here. Her family and those Wilnotys would probably shun you and make trouble for you. I doubt you’d know any real peace.”

The yellow dog got up from the porch to wander over to get his head scratched by his uncle while Ancil thought over all his words.

“So, will you check it out?” his Uncle Charlie asked after a while. “Like the old saying, ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained.’ I’ve always believed that nothing will change in your life if you’re not open for change.”

“What if my leaving causes more trouble for you?”

“I wouldn’t be lying to anyone to say you’d only come to stay a while to help me out when I got injured. Everyone has long expected you to leave and head back home after a while. You can be sure I won’t be telling that bunch over in Cherokee, or anyone else, that you decided to stay around the mountains rather than going back to Ohio. Most folks will assume you did go back to Ohio. You’d be smart to give that reason for quitting your job over at the garden center, too. I won’t have need to dispute it. With you gone they won’t have need to bother me, either. It’s what they wanted me to do, to help get rid of you. They’ll probably figure I pushed on you to leave.”

Ancil thought on his words for a little while and then picked up the piece of paper with the phone number on it, glancing at his watch. “I think I might go over to Cosby tomorrow for the day to look around, You wanna go with me?”

“Nah, I got appointments all day for haircuts at the shop. But you go. You’re off work.” He leaned over to pat Ancil’s shoulder. “You can tell me all about it when you get back.”

October that year brought quiet to the Wildflower Haven nursery. One evening as the twilight settled in shortly after dinner, Euna came out on the porch of their cabin in Cosby with a little cake twinkling with lit candles.

Ancil looked up and smiled at her. “What’s the occasion?”

She sat the cake down on the rustic table in front of him and then settled into her favorite rocking chair beside his. “It’s our six-month wedding anniversary. I decided we should celebrate it and give thanks to the good Lord for our lives.” She took his hand. “Come blow the candles out with me and we’ll wish for many more blessed years.”

They did, and then Ancil leaned over to kiss her. “Are you happy, Euna?”

“Do you need to ask?” She smiled at him. “You gave me a new life of peace and happiness and saved me from sorrows. I worried for a time if our love would be enough for you in balance against all the injustice and cruelty of my family.”

He considered her words as he watched her cut them both a piece of the cake she’d made, a rich carrot cake with cream cheese icing like she knew he loved. “Do you miss your family?”

She sighed. “I miss the idea of family, the love and caring of what family should be, but not the reality of what my family had become, caring more for traditions, for money and land, than people, for turning blind eyes to my heart, my needs, and even my gifts, wanting only to control my life and willing to hurt me and others to do it.”

Ancil ate a little of his cake before answering. “I remember being worried that day six months ago before we married and you joined me here. You had good reason to go to Sylva to spend the weekend to help your friend Indica be married, but I was anxious all day that you would return home and not come here to me, that time had changed your mind, or that someone would learn of our plans or see you packing your possessions into your car and stop you.”

“You leaving without me threw everyone’s thinking off. They even jeered at me, being dumped by you, suggesting I’d been foolish and hoping I saw more clearly now my right path.” She paused to eat a bite of her cake. “You quit your job with my family and left shortly after your interview with the Mertons. You said you liked them and loved all you saw here at first sight. I could feel that excitement and certainty in you later when you shared about it and proposed to me, and you showed me all those pictures you’d taken, one of the cabin here.”

“We’ve fixed it up nicely, I think. It is well-built and comfortable.”

“It is, and I was happy here from the first night.” She blushed at those words.

“I watched for you all day, fearful you would not come.”

She grinned. “I had been stealthy over the weeks after you left, carefully packing things I’d need here, even sneaking boxes to your uncle to ship to you. I had little to take as I left for Sylva for Indica’s wedding.”

“Did you tell her your plans, that you would drive over the mountain to me instead of returning home?”

“No, I didn’t think it wise. As we planned, I communicated later to all that I went to Ohio to marry you and live there. No one knows I am here in Cosby.” She sighed. “It might create problems if we ever returned to Cherokee, Ancil. Property passes through the matriarchal line in Cherokee. I am the oldest daughter. In a sense, I have rights there to land and even the family business on the land. Your uncle says he’s learned my sister got pregnant by Jase. She is underage, but the family is giving their permission for them to marry. They go on, and we will go on.”

He smiled at her. “Our life is good here. I am a happy man with you, with my work, and with our home. I am saving and in time we will buy our own place.”

She paused, the sound of the creek through the woods coming to them and the sounds of early night frogs beginning. “I like our plaque on the wall with its Cherokee blessing.” She began to read it. “May the warm wings of heaven blow softly upon your house, and may the Great Spirit bless all who enter here.” She paused. “There is more but I like those words and hope blessings will continue to follow us.”

“Yes, I do, too,” he agreed. “Sometimes we must walk on, away from troubles and sorrows, in order to find our peace and the life God wants for us.”

“That is true. Sometimes we need a change for peace and for new joy.”

A drift of warm wind blew through the porch as she spoke as if confirming her words.

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In my upcoming book WILDFLOWER HAVEN, you will meet Ancil and Euna Yarbrough again as side characters and can catch up on their lives after many years have passed. For my February blog, I enjoyed creating a little story about the earlier years of this Cherokee couple.

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Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.