The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd Read online

  The Regrets of

  Cyrus Dodd

  Wyattsville Series

  Book Four

  BETTE LEE CROSBY

  THE REGRETS OF CYRUS DODD

  Wyattsville Series, Book Four

  Copyright © 2016 by Bette Lee Crosby

  Cover design: damonza.com

  Formatting by Author E.M.S.

  Editor: Ekta Garg

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages for a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on life experiences and conclusions drawn from research, all names, characters, places and specific instances are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. No actual reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or inferred.

  ISBN-978-0-9969214-3-5

  BENT PINE PUBLISHING

  Port Saint Lucie, FL

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  THE REGRETS OF CYRUS DODD

  Cyrus Dodd

  Elk Bend, West Virginia

  The Following Summer

  Cyrus Dodd

  The Dodd Family

  The Jackson Family

  A Year of Change

  Cyrus Dodd

  Leaving Elk Bend

  An Easy Job

  Cyrus Dodd

  Back in Elk Bend

  Bethany Jackson

  Murder in Elk Bend

  Birth of Joy

  Wyattsville

  Cyrus Dodd

  The Greenly House

  Ruth Dodd

  The Quiet Years

  Elk Bend

  Virgil Jackson

  The Last Homecoming

  The House on Harrison Street

  Wedding Bells

  Cyrus Dodd

  Empty Nesters

  The Decision

  Cyrus Dodd

  Jobless

  The Storm

  Virginia Beach

  KWNB Evening News

  Homecoming

  Ruth Dodd

  The Apartment

  The Move

  Cyrus Dodd

  The Thing about Plans

  The Vacation

  Return to Elk Bend

  The Secret Gift

  Cyrus Dodd

  More by Bette Lee Crosby

  Also by Bette Lee Crosby

  For Ekta Garg

  Because you make

  my stories shine

  Acknowledgments

  Some books are battles. Others are wars that would be impossible to fight alone.

  I owe an overwhelming debt of gratitude to Ekta Garg, my editor and friend. Thank you, Ekta, for always demanding my very best and for reeling in my characters when they wander away from the story. You tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear, and those truths are often worth their weight in gold. I cannot imagine waging even one of these wars without you.

  Thanks also to Coral Russell, my publicity agent, right arm, sidekick, partner and friend. Without you I would be hopelessly lost in the jungle of technology. As I have said many times, you are indeed a genius.

  Thank you to Amy Atwell at Author E.M.S. for helping me to meet ridiculously short turnaround times and for your overwhelming patience when I come back with last-minute changes. Your ability to juggle seventeen balls in the air at one time is amazing.

  And to the gals in my BFF Fan Club, I thank you for always being there for me, for laughing with me, sighing with me and reading every word I have written. Your thoughts and comments have brightened many a day. I often write stories about friendship, and I am truly blessed to have found such beautiful friendships in my own life.

  Lastly, I thank my husband, Richard, who truly is the wind beneath my wings. There are a million wonderful things I could say about him, but for now I will say only that I am blessed to have such a man love me.

  The Regrets of

  Cyrus Dodd

  Wyattsville Series

  Book Four

  Cyrus Dodd

  I have heard it said that a man who cries is spineless, a weakling not worthy of his salt, but this I can tell you: a man who has never shed a tear has not yet learned to love.

  Love and sorrow come into your life hand in hand. I’m an old man now and over these many years I have seen more than my share of sorrows, some so great they brought me to my knees. But I have also loved with such passion that it set my soul afire. Were you to ask me would I give up one to avoid the other, I would turn away.

  What could I possibly give up? Certainly not my love of a woman much stronger and wiser than me. Ruth gave me reason to place one foot in front of the other and move forward into an uncertain future. When I could no longer see the road before me she trusted in me, and that trust forced me to stand taller.

  I also could not give up my love of the land; it is a thing I was born into.

  A man cannot change who he is. He can only hope that with age comes the wisdom to see his folly. I would like to believe I have achieved that.

  As I grow ever closer to the end of my time, I look back at this life and tell you that the only thing I would wish to give up is the regret I’ve carried in my heart for all these years. At long last I have come to realize the things I once counted as regrets were indeed blessings that I was too blind to see.

  Mine has been a complicated life, a story worthy of telling, but to appreciate the end you have to go back to the beginning.

  Elk Bend, West Virginia

  1930

  Before the incident with the pig, Cyrus Dodd and Virgil Jackson had no quarrel with each other. They were neighbors; not friends necessarily, but friendly enough to stand side by side and share a cup of cider at the Harvest Festival. If you watched them from the corner of your eye, you’d generally see Cyrus nodding as Virgil pontificated on one thing or another. Standing close as they were it was easy to believe there was a sense of camaraderie between the two men, but in truth Virgil’s high-handed ways rankled Cyrus to no end.

  “He’s got us over a barrel, and he knows it,” Cyrus said to his wife, Ruth.

  The barrel Cyrus spoke of was the pond on Virgil Jackson’s land. It had an underground spring that bubbled an endless stream of fresh water and fed the brooks running across three different farms. One of those brooks ran crosswise the Dodd cornfield. It enabled Cyrus to irrigate the bottomland and water the livestock without moving them across to the rocky creek bordering the edge of his property. He had no alternative other than to remain neighborly with Virgil Jackson.

  Virgil knew this and took advantage of every opportunity to remind Cyrus.

  “If it weren’t for my pond,” he’d say, “that bottomland of yours wouldn’t be worth plowing.”

  Digging his nails into the palm of his hand to keep from speaking the truth of how he felt, Cyrus inevitably thanked Virgil for his generosity and said having such a man for a neighbor was indeed a blessing.

  In the spring of 1930 Virgil Jackson and Cyrus Dodd both had sows furrowing. The piglets were born in early July. Virgil’s sow had seven piglets, one of them stillborn. Cyrus Dodd’s sow gave birth to nine, all of them alive and squealing.

  Toward the end of the month the two men happened upon one another at the feed store, and Virgil, as was his custom, began bragging about the fine litter his sow ha
d birthed.

  “Seven all together,” he declared. “Only one stillborn.”

  Cyrus held his tongue for a few minutes, but when Virgil took to saying there wasn’t a sow in the county who could best that Cyrus spoke up.

  “My Flossie had a litter of nine,” he said.

  Virgil slowly moved a chew of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other, giving Cyrus a black-eyed glare.

  “Maybe you got nine,” he finally replied, “but how many of them nine is still alive?”

  “All of them,” Cyrus answered. “They’re already weaned, and not one is less than ten pounds.”

  Stuck without a comeback, Virgil sputtered and stammered for another minute or two then stomped off, obviously angry at the idea of being bested.

  Less than a week later, a tornado touched down in Elk Bend. It left Olaf Andersen’s barn in splinters, uprooted a dozen pines and almost as many oaks. One of those oaks came crashing down on the fence circling Cyrus’s pigpen. It didn’t kill any of the creatures, but the frightened young piglets squeezed through the newly created opening and ran off.

  The tornado disappeared almost as quickly as it came, and once it was safe to step outside Cyrus saw the pigs were gone. He took a wheelbarrow, pocketed a few ears of corn to lure them in and began searching. That afternoon he rounded up five of the young pigs, and the next morning he located three more. He spent the remainder of the day scouring the underbrush of the woods, poking through the cornfield and searching as far out as the orchard. One pig was still missing.

  After he’d covered every inch of his own property, he rode over to Virgil Jackson’s place to ask if they’d seen his lost pig. Bethany, Virgil’s wife, was sweeping the front porch.

  “If you’re looking for Virgil,” she said, “he’s out back by the barn.”

  “Actually I’m looking for a missing pig,” Cyrus replied, then told of the damage the tornado had done to his pigpen. “Did y’all have any damage over here?”

  Bethany shook her head. “The big pine in back of the barn came down but didn’t damage the pigpen. Myrtle’s babies are safe and sound, all seven of them.”

  “Seven? I thought Virgil claimed your sow had one stillborn.”

  Bethany stopped sweeping and thought a moment.

  “I’m not certain,” she said, “but this morning I could’ve sworn there were seven.”

  “Mind if I take a look?” Cyrus asked.

  “That’s something you’ve gotta ask Virgil.”

  Cyrus circled the house and called out for Virgil. If the pigpen were on the near side of the barn he would’ve sneaked a peek without asking permission, but it was on the far side. To pass by the barn knowing Virgil was in there was something Cyrus wasn’t willing to do.

  He stuck his head in the barn and called, “Hey, Virgil, mind if I take a quick look at Myrtle and her babies?”

  Virgil came from the back stall. “Yeah, I mind. What business you got with my pigs?”

  Cyrus repeated the story he’d told Bethany.

  “I’ve found eight of the young pigs, but one’s still missing. I thought maybe it got in—”

  Virgil closed the distance between them and stood inches from Cyrus.

  “If you’re suggesting I stole one of those damn pigs—”

  “I ain’t suggesting anything of the sort. Could be it wandered off and figured your place was good as any to find food.”

  Virgil narrowed his eyes and stuck his nose in Cyrus’s face.

  “Get the hell out of here,” he said. “I ain’t got your damn pig, and I don’t have to show you nothing!”

  “Aw, come on,” Cyrus said. “Me looking ain’t gonna bother your pigs none. I got mine earmarked; once I see it ain’t there I’ll know to keep looking.”

  “If you ain’t out of here in three seconds, I’m gonna run a pitchfork through your belly!” Virgil reached over and grabbed the pitchfork leaning against the wall.

  Left with no other option, Cyrus turned and walked away.

  “It ain’t the end of this,” he muttered as he climbed back onto his horse and rode off.

  By the time he reached home, Cyrus already had a plan.

  Sometime between three and four o’clock in the morning, he slipped out of bed and headed for the Jackson farm. He took the shortcut through the woods on foot because without a horse he could move silently. He crossed over the far corner of the Andersen farm and came through on the back side of Virgil’s barn.

  The moon was high in the sky and gave enough light for him to see Myrtle and her piglets in the corner. He threw one leg over the fence then climbed into the pen. Myrtle raised her head and snorted.

  “It’s okay, girl,” Cyrus whispered and thumped a hand against her side the same as he did with Flossie.

  Once Myrtle quieted down, he began feeling the ears of the piglets. Only one of them was earmarked. It was too dark to see clearly so he held the pig’s ear between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the mark. Sure enough, it was the inverted V with a short caret on the right side. Cyrus had no doubt this was his missing pig.

  He tucked the pig under his arm and slipped off the same way he’d come in. Before the sun rose, the piglet was back in Cyrus’s pen.

  The next morning Ruth saw the missing pig back in the pen and asked Cyrus how it got there.

  “I snuck over to the Jackson place and took back what was mine.”

  She inhaled sharply. “You stole this pig out of Virgil’s pen?”

  “I didn’t steal anything. The pig is mine, it’s got earmarks—”

  “Have you gone stark raving mad?” she shrieked. “If Virgil wants the pig all that much, give it to him!”

  “The pig is mine! It’s got my earmar—”

  “I don’t care if it’s got a red ribbon tied around its tail! Virgil Jackson is not the man to pick a fight with. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s his water that irrigates our cornfield!”

  “Okay, okay,” Cyrus mumbled. “I’ll give it to him so long as he’s willing to admit it was mine to start with.”

  Before the morning was out Virgil came tearing down the road with his face puffed up and red as a fire engine.

  “You stole my pig!” he screamed and jumped down before his horse had come to a full halt.

  “I didn’t steal nothing,” Cyrus said. Remembering Ruth’s warning he added, “But I’m willing to let you have the pig, so long as you’re willing to admit it was mine to start with.”

  “I ain’t gonna say any such thing!” Virgil shouted. “You came to our place yesterday looking for your lost pig, and when you didn’t find it you came back and stole one of mine. That’s the truth of it!”

  Watching from behind the kitchen curtain, Ruth could see Cyrus growing hot under the collar. Knowing such an argument could only lead to trouble, she stepped out onto the porch and called to Cyrus.

  “Cyrus, why don’t you just go ahead and give Virgil his pig?”

  Cyrus whirled around with fire in his eyes.

  “It’s not his pig!” he screamed. “Now get back in the house!”

  At that point things went from bad to worse. Virgil Jackson claimed he’d burn in hell before he’d say the pig rightfully belonged to Cyrus, and Cyrus retaliated by saying Virgil would then have to burn in hell because that was the only way he was getting the pig.

  Virgil threw the first punch, and Cyrus came back at him with both fists swinging.

  That’s when Ruth stepped onto the porch again. This time she had a shotgun. She fired a warning shot in the air and said if they didn’t back away from one another the next shot would be aimed at them. She didn’t mention which of them would be the target.

  Virgil climbed back on his horse and rode off, but Ruth knew that wasn’t the end of it. Virgil Jackson wasn’t the type of man to forgive or forget.

  * * *

  That very afternoon Virgil rode into town and told Sheriff Bradley that Cyrus Dodd had stolen one of his pigs.

  The sheriff, along with ever
yone else in Elk Bend, knew how Virgil Jackson lorded it over the farmers whose water supply came from his pond. He figured it highly unlikely that Cyrus, one of three such farmers, would risk Virgil’s wrath by stealing a pig. So Bradley took Virgil’s complaint and said he’d look into it.

  Two days later he rode out to the Dodd farm and got Cyrus’s side of the story. Cyrus took Sheriff Bradley back to the pen and showed him the pig in question. After checking the pig’s ear, the sheriff acknowledged the earmark was not new and had been there for a while.

  “This might be none of my business,” Bradley said, “but if I was you I’d try to make peace with Virgil. He’s not one who likes to lose an argument.”

  Cyrus considered doing just that but was slow to make a move. Two weeks later when the county judge came through town, Virgil presented the case to him.

  “Stealing is stealing,” he said. “That pig was on my property when Cyrus Dodd came and carried it off.”

  Normally the judge would not have overstepped the sheriff’s say-so, but Virgil Jackson had a cousin in the West Virginia state senate and was quick to remind people of it.