Peggy Poe Stern

When the Whippoorwill Calls Peggy Poe Stern

Southern historical fiction novel of drama and intrigue set on the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina. Excerpt from Chapter Nine: She hid in the woods all night long. Didn't even come out to milk the goat or feed her mother's chickens. The goat was starting to bleat to be milked by the next morning, but she was too afraid to take a chance on being out in the open long enough to milk her. By the time the sun started going down, she gathered enough determination to slip close enough to the cabin to see through the open door. There was enough light left in the cabin to see her dad lying on the floor with a jug lying on its side and another one sitting upright only inches from his hand. She could hear his snoring from where she hid. He didn't look anything like the dad she feared. The man she was looking at was no longer the broad, powerful man she remembered. His body had shrunk, his beard was white, and thin hair that hung in greasy clumps on his round head. She could smell an odor coming from him even from the long distance from the cabin to where she hid. Hurriedly, she rushed from her hiding place through the woods to the shelter where the goat and chickens were. She fed and milked the goat, fed the chickens, and gathered the eggs. She drank every drop of the warm milk, but she didn't want to eat a slimy, raw eggs. She hid the eggs in a hollow stump where she could get them later. She went back to her hiding place in the woods as the gloaming of night set in. All she had to comfort her was the call of a whippoorwill coming from high on tall, rugged mountain. She wondered if Clancy was able to listen to the mournful sound, and if he felt desperate the way she did.