by Homer Hickam
The miners walked across the Club House lawn to the manger and took off their helmets and knelt to the side of the sleeping baby in the cradle. The choir sang:
Joy to the world! The Lord has come:
Let’s now receive our King.
Let ev’ry family, show Him our love,
And Coalwood’s people sing,
And Coalwood’s people sing,
And Coalwood’s, let Coalwood’s people sing.
Joy to the town! Our Savior reigns:
Let all their songs employ,
While mountains, mines, and hollows,
And slack dumps and coal trains,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy.
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
When the choir finished, Sherman began to read again.
Now, behold, there were three Kings in Coalwood,
Saying, we have seen his star, and a rocket, too, and are come to worship him.
What was coming next was tricky. At the crest of the wide pavement between the Club House and the Community Church sat a small rocket, topped by the cargo canister Mr. Bolt had given me just after Veterans Day. Quentin and Billy had loaded the rocket with rocket candy, a propellant that burned hot and long and produced a pretty pink exhaust. Tug and Hug monitored the rocket, keeping curious folk from approaching too close.
Quentin threw the switch. I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and closed my eyes. Actually, I squinted. But I opened them wide when I heard the rocket take off. It flew perfectly. Good old rocket candy! The audience let out a long, slow “ooooooh” as the rocket climbed, the pink flame from its tail shooting up into the darkness. At around a thousand feet, a mix of flash powder in the cargo canister went off, producing a big white and red burst of streaming fireflies. Presently, we heard something crash into the trees behind the church. I let out a long sigh of relief. The audience broke into sustained applause.
Billy threw a switch that went to colored lights strung around a Christmas star (an aluminum construction courtesy of the machine shop) on top of the manger. It looked glorious. Quentin got up and took a little bow. I made him stop it. I had been against the idea of the rocket, launched so close to a seated audience. “You worry too much, old boy,” Quentin said in disdain.
And lo, they followed his special star till it stopped over the mule barn.
There was the sound of tire chains slapping the snow-covered road, and an Olga Coal Company Jeep pulled up at the Club House entrance.
Then the Kings of Coalwood rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
And so they gave Him gifts.
First came the Company King who brought the baby a gift
of West Virginia coal, the black diamond from which steel is made. For without coal, steel fails, and without steel, the country fails.
My dad, wearing his old cowhide jacket and white foreman’s helmet, climbed awkwardly from behind the wheel of the Jeep and walked up the steps to the Club House sidewalk. In his outstretched hands was a white pillow, and on it was a large chunk of very black coal, sparkling even in the muted light. He stopped at the cradle in the manger, bowed, and went down on one knee, placing the pillow at the cradle’s foot.
Second came the Union King who brought a gift of West Virginia labor, without which there would be no coal, or steel, or country, either.
Mr. Dubonnet got out of the Jeep, dressed in his miner’s clothes and his black helmet. He carried a coal shovel. He knelt beside Dad, jostling him a little, which earned a dirty look, and put the shovel down beside the pillow.
And third came the Teacher King who brought the baby the greatest of West Virginia gifts, education, by which He might learn to read and write and understand our history and traditionsand see an end to all ignorance.
Jake went over and helped Miss Riley out of the Jeep. Although I’d originally selected Mr. Likens, the Coalwood school principal, to play the part, he and his teachers had decided to give the honor to Miss Riley, instead. Technically, of course, she was a queen, but sometimes a writer has to trust his audience to understand that words are as much art as definition.
Miss Riley, wearing a tweed coat and borrowed galoshes that were too big for her, leaned against Jake and then straightened and came forward on her own. She carried school books. She put them at the end of the cradle beside the coal and the shovel and then knelt with Dad and Mr. Dubonnet.
Then they worshipped Him as did all the people of Coalwood who had come together as never before.
Roy Lee suddenly appeared from the shadow of the Club House. He worked his way over to me and Quentin and Billy. He had the casement I had loaded during the past two days. “Look!” he whispered. The casement was discolored, as if it had gotten very hot.
“I had Roy Lee static-test our new nozzle,” Quentin told me. He was also whispering. “I couldn’t wait to see if we’d solved the problem.”
I was furious. “Couldn’t you have asked me?”
“The ignorant hesitate,” Quentin sniffed. “The intelligent demonstrate.”
I stared at him. “What?” His Quentinese had finally beaten me.
“I stuck the casement nosefirst in the slack,” Roy Lee said, ignoring our little tiff, “and lit the fuse. Man, it was loud!”
I recalled the odd thunder I’d heard coming in the direction of Frog Level.
“Did it work?” Bill whispered eagerly.
Roy Lee used a flashlight to show us the results. “Look!”
We all peered inside the casement at the nozzle. “Not a trace of erosion,” Quentin said aloud. “Is this not the most rigorous result there could possibly be? It’s a miracle!”
It was, but I hushed them, anyway. Quentin, Roy Lee, and Billy fell silent.
Ginger, having donned a choir robe, climbed to the top of the Club House steps and turned. Her smile was radiant. Her mother gave her a nearly inaudible cue on the pitch pipe, and then she began to sing in the purest, lightest voice anyone had ever heard. Each note was perfect. It was as if they had substance, made of the finest and purest crystal, floating from Ginger to cross the sky.
Silent night
Holy night
Coalwood’s calm
Coalwood’s bright
It had started to snow again and it seemed as if a white, translucent veil had been drawn across the Club House lawn. I heard a murmur of voices and then I saw that people on the front row of hay bales were standing up. Miss Riley was on her feet, too, and then Slug, Carol, Dad, and Mr. Dubonnet got up, too. Champion was making little neighing noises. The baby’s mother came and got her child out of the cradle, holding him close. They were all looking at a dark form that I couldn’t quite make out that had come around the manger. Then, as the snow lifted, I saw what it was. “A deer!” Quentin said.
It was the buck. It came into the manger and started grazing on the hay. Champion nickered a greeting. Then, another deer, this one a doe, crept up to the first row of hay bales. The people that had been sitting on them stood up to make room. “Look, Mommy,” one little girl cried. “It’s Santa Claus’s reindeer!”
The doe stuck her big black nose into the hay and snatched a clutch of it, chewing and swallowing in nervous gulps. Then another doe came out of the darkness and then, from around the Club House, came three more does and a fawn. Ginger sang on.
Round yon virgin
Mother and child Holy infant
So tender and mild
Shock was giving way to small chuckles. Soon, everyone was raptly watching as the deer made their way through the bales. “Merry Christmas,” I heard Sherman say. “I think we’re seeing a real miracle.”
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
As Ginger finished, another voice picked up on her final, perfect note. It was a woman’s voice, deeper, throatier. Then a chorus of voices. In front of the Community Church stood a vast choir, dressed in gold. I thought at first it truly was an angelic host. Then a woman stepped
out and sang “Silent Night” to the syncopated claps of the others, all swaying to a beat I had never imagined could be applied to the ancient song. I spotted a man standing apart from them, dressed in a suit of what appeared golden armor. It was actually gold lamé and wearing it was none other than the Reverend Julius “Little” Richard. The Mudhole Church of Distinct Christianity choir kept singing, and soon everybody was singing with them and clapping along. I looked and Ginger was doing a little dance on the Club House porch, singing and clapping enthusiastically in time with the Mudhole chorus.
When the choir was finished, Little stood in front of them. “My friends, you were so kind to invite me and my flock to this gathering but we had a gathering of our own planned, I swan, and so we are a mite late. I invite you now to walk back with us, praising God all the way, to see all that there is to see.”
And so we did, all the people, leaving the famished deer to eat their fill. The Mudhole church choir in gold mixed in with the Coalwood church choir in maroon. They began to sing “Joy to the World.” Everybody joined in. I looked over my shoulder, and the deer were still happily eating the hay. To them, there was joy indeed.
As we passed the old mule barn, the site of our fictional manger, I could see Little’s church. Built into the front of the church were two perfectly round windows. With the light from inside the church shining through them, they looked like the sun and the moon. “What does it mean, Reverend?”
“What does it mean? Why, child, those windows are meant to be the potter’s wheels. Remember the verse from Jeremiah?”
Little walked on to be with the joined choirs gathered beneath the glowing circles. They began to sing “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.” I kept looking at Little’s windows.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine.
Every Christmas carol anybody could think of was sung, and we held hands or locked elbows and swayed in time with the music. Then, finally, I could feel the perfect thing was complete. Everybody else seemed to know it, too, and people started walking home in warm groups of the spiritually satiated. I walked behind my mother and father. They were holding hands, like school kids in love.
When we reached the Big Store, I could see a small cluster of people gathered at its side. As we got closer, I saw that they were looking at a man standing on the loading dock. He had his head bowed and was shivering, his arms wrapped around himself. When he unwrapped them, I saw he was carrying a shotgun. It was Cuke Snoddy and, in the way of Coalwood, the light of the grand evening had given way to something of darkness.
Cuke was weeping, wiping at his nose and sniffling. He was swinging the shotgun around.
Tag stood on the concrete apron the trucks used to unload at the dock. He had his hands on his hips. His pistol was in its holster. “Cuke, you can’t be with decent people now,” he said. “Come down from there and let’s get you started on your way.”
Cuke said, “I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted to scare her a little. Then I got so mad at her, I didn’t know what I was doing. Don’t you see?”
“It isn’t for me to see,” Tag said quietly. “Come down, Cuke.”
“I won’t ever hurt nobody again,” Cuke sniveled. “Why can’t I just go home? Be like I always was?”
“Because you’ve crossed the line of decency, Cuke. A man who crosses the line of decency must leave us forever. It’s our way, you know that.”
Cuke stamped his feet in the snow on the dock. “What will become of me?”
“You will be locked up forever and we will think of you as dead,” Tag said without a trace of pity in his voice.
“I couldn’t stand that,” Cuke moaned. “Might as well end it now,” he said.
“Stop it, Cuke,” Tag said. “You’re scaring the ladies.”
“Tell them not to look, then,” Cuke said.
“Cuke, there’s been enough killing in Coalwood to last us a long, long time,” Tag said tiredly. He went slowly up the wooden steps to the dock as if his shoes weighed a ton apiece. Cuke backed away. Tag put out his hand. “Give me the shotgun and I’ll get you some food. You can sleep tonight in a warm place, too. You don’t even have to think. You can just sleep.”
Tag put his hand on the shotgun, then tightened his fist around it. Cuke let it go. Tag handed the gun down to someone in the crowd and then took Cuke by his arm and led him to the street. He looked over at Mr. Dubonnet. “I’ll lock him in the union hall, John, unless you got any objections.”
Mr. Dubonnet said, “He’s still a member of the union until we get around to kicking him out.”
“Will you help me, Mr. Dubonnet?” Cuke asked.
“No, Cuke. I will not,” Mr. Dubonnet replied grimly.
Mom and Dad and Jim and everybody else began to walk up Main Street while Tag led Cuke to the union hall. Cuke slipped once, went down on one knee, and Tag tenderly lifted him up. Then they went inside and the door was closed and a light came on.
I found myself alone except for the deer still grazing on the Club House lawn. I watched them for a long while. “It was a wonderful Christmas Pageant, wasn’t it?” Ginger asked, walking up the street from her house. “I saw you standing out here all alone,” she added.
“I’m pretty sure this one will go down in history,” I said.
She took my arm. “Are you all right?”
“Perfect. You?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going up on the Club House roof,” I said. “Do you want to go with me?”
“You can go on the Club House roof?”
I laughed. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I took her hand and helped her as she took the final step off the rickety wooden ladder onto the roof. Most of the snow had been cleared by people who had watched the pageant from there. “There’s where our telescope is set up,” I said, pointing at the telescope’s heavy base underneath its canvas shroud. “We keep the telescope downstairs and only bring it up when we need it.”
“You look at the stars up here?”
“I do when it’s clear. And sometimes, I just look at Coalwood.”
I led her to the edge of the roof. Beneath us, in the lights from the company buildings, the snow glistened as if a giant had scattered a billion diamonds across the ground. The air was fragrant with hay and Christmas greens. In the distance, I could hear the gurgling of the little creek that ran behind the machine shop, and up on the mountains the low note of the winter wind passing through the leafless trees. Coalwood’s industrial symphony had paused, just for a moment, to listen to the ancient things that someday would reclaim their places.
“I love coming up here,” I said.
“I’ve never seen Coalwood from this angle,” Ginger said. “It really is pretty, isn’t it?”
“I can’t imagine anywhere prettier.”
Then I realized it was past midnight, and it was Christmas, the last one I would ever know as a Coalwood boy. I stood, watching, and listening, and smelling the fragrances, and then I knew that it wasn’t so, that I would never leave Coalwood, not at Christmas or any other time. Coalwood was my potter’s wheel. It had shaped me into who I was. And no matter where I went or what I did, I would forever be a Coalwood boy whose father . . . I smiled . . . whose father, even though it was against his better judgment, respected his second son enough to give him drawing instruments and a slide rule to build his rockets. And whose mother . . . I broke out in a grin . . . whose mother loved him enough to give him the gift of inspired vexations so that he could rise above his own petty ones.
My parents, and all the people of Coalwood, had given me the only true gifts they could give, that of their wisdom, and of their dreams, and of their love. All fear, sadness, and anger inside me had vanished. I knew who I was and where I came from and who my people were. I was ready to leave because I could never leave.
Ginger leaned against me. “Sleepy?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go home?”
&nbs
p; “No.”
We sat down on the edge of the Club House roof and watched Coalwood together. Ginger put her head on my shoulder. She began to breathe slowly and rhythmically. I thought she was asleep, but then she said, as if from a faraway place, “I still think we would have made a cute couple.”
I raised my eyes from Coalwood and peered into the sky. It was covered by a dense layer of clouds, but I kept looking. Somewhere up there, I was certain there were stars as far as we could see.
Homer Hickam concludes his trilogy of
Coalwood memoirs with Sky of Stone,
now available in paperback from Dell.
Sky of Stone takes us back to the summer
of ’61, deep into the heart of the troubled West
Virginia town readers first came to know and
love in Homer’s #1 New York Times bestseller
October Sky.
Read on for a preview of Sky of Stone . . .
2
THE CALL
IN THE FALL of 1960, when I was seventeen years old, I left Coalwood and crossed the West Virginia state line to attend the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. My brother was already there on a football scholarship, but the reason I’d picked VPI was that it had one of the toughest engineering schools in the country. It was my intention to become as fine an engineer as ever existed upon this planet so that Dr. Wernher von Braun, the famous rocket scientist, would hire me the day I graduated. I had already gotten a head start in that direction in high school. When Sputnik, the world’s first earth satellite, had been launched in October 1957, five other Big Creek High School boys and I had decided to join the space race between the United States and Russia and build our own rockets. We launched them from an old slack dump we called Cape Coalwood and had done so well we’d even gone to the 1960 National Science Fair and returned to Coalwood with a gold and silver medal for propulsion. We were, for a little while, as famous as any boys from McDowell County were ever likely to be.
Upon my arrival in Blacksburg, I was a bit surprised to learn VPI had a military cadet corps in which I was required to serve. Jim, being a football player, had escaped the corps, but I found myself not only trying to cope with classroom work but also the regimen required of a “rat” freshman. Fortunately, the mysterious regulations and ancient military traditions of the corps intrigued me enough that I set out to master them. The most desirable quality for a cadet turned out to be standing up straight, which I could do, and knowing how to march, which I could learn, and polishing brass and spit-shining shoes, which I could tolerate. By the time my freshman year was done, I had even managed to get myself promoted to private first class.