King of the Mountain

by Fran Baker

  Ben had watched the emotions parading across her face with an ominous emotion. Coal had written the epitaph of many a man in Cooperville, leaving untold numbers of children without fathers to guide them. With the mines having opened their ranks to women, it was only a matter of time until female names were carved in stone. He’d roast in hell before Jessie Reardon became one of those motherless children.

  Carol’s two boys rubbed their eyes. She ruffled their sleepy heads and turned them toward the rapidly emptying parking lot, saying over her shoulder, “Come on, Jamie, we’ll wait for Jessie in the car.”

  “I’m glad you’re all right.” Jamie flashed her shy smile from Kitty to Ben before running to catch up with her mother and brothers.

  Jessie stayed in her mother’s arms a moment longer, then pulled out of the embrace and tipped her head in puzzlement. “Mom, your dress is buttoned crooked.”

  Kitty wouldn’t have looked at Ben then to save her life. She felt the tattletale buttons, all of them over her breasts, and fumbled for an explanation.

  Ben didn’t miss a beat. “They probably came undone when you helped the paramedics lift that man into the ambulance.”

  “Right.” Kitty had never lied to Jessie before, and she hated to start now. But she felt it was best. “I was so busy, I must have rebuttoned them wrong.”

  To the adults’ relief, Jessie seemed to buy it. But after giving them both a good-bye hug and drifting back to a safe distance, she suddenly grinned from ear to ear. “I’m not exactly a child, you know.”

  Point made, she spun and scampered toward the parking lot.

  Kitty considered going after Jessie and telling her the truth before she got her hopes any higher and her heart broken again. But there’d be plenty of time for explanations and recriminations tomorrow.

  For now …

  She finally risked looking at Ben and saw her own regret mirrored in his silvery eyes.

  “Come here.” That was all he said, but that was all the prompting she needed to find shelter in the sanctuary of his arms this one last time.

  His shirt smelled of smoke, but she burrowed against it anyway; his jaw rasped against her fingertips like a fine grade of sandpaper, but she read his face as if to memorize it; his kiss—seasoned by her one tear—tasted of good-bye, but she folded her arms around his neck and welcomed it gladly.

  His mouth covered hers, fierce and gentle, both at the same time. She felt crushed yet cradled. Safe from harm yet assaulted. And she cherished each and every sensation.

  Through their kiss the knowledge seared that she could have been in that mine. That she could have been one of the injured. Or, given the hazardous nature of her job …

  An emptiness deep inside her yawned wide, yearning to be filled. Her lips parted and his tongue made one sweet, piercing stab. The masculine claim it symbolized made her womanhood ache for what might have been.

  Reflexively, her hungry body arched against him. Her response drove him a little mad, and his broad hands opened wide over her back, pressing her as close to him as possible. He had no gentleness now, and she wanted none from him.

  They remained locked in each other’s arms for timeless seconds, the fervency mounting, until he lifted his head and cupped her face with his hands. A brittle breeze exploded into action, fluttering her silky black hair as he stared down into her blue eyes.

  “I ought to throttle you for disobeying me.” He gazed at her mouth, now full and red and moist from their kiss.

  “I couldn’t stay away.” She swallowed the sting in her throat. “You knew that when you ordered me not to come.”

  His hands dropped to her narrow shoulders and squeezed before he let her go. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “I guess not.”

  “File a claim with the insurance company for the loss of your coat,” he instructed her gruffly.

  “I will.” She drew herself up ramrod straight, wanting him to remember her as strong in the face of defeat.

  They’d almost made it. His tenderness had won her trust; her smile had calmed his restless soul. His confidence in her skill as miner, woman, and mother had restored her self-esteem; her spirit had given him reason to come home. They’d hurdled over all the other obstacles in their path, but there was still the past. And this one seemed insurmountable.

  “We could have been so good together,” Ben said in a gravelly voice.

  “Very good.”

  “How are you fixed for money?”

  “I’ll have enough coming from the pension fund to tide me over until I get another job.”

  “You know where I am if you need anything,” he reminded her.

  She nodded and replied thickly, “I really appreciate that.”

  “I have to give you a chance to quit.” He stared her straight in the eye as he said it.

  “I know.” She tried a smile that wobbled painfully. “But I’m not a quitter.”

  “Fair enough.” His face might have been carved from the very mountain on which they stood. “You’re fired.”

  Eleven

  “Trick or treat!”

  Kitty smiled at the miniature pirate standing under her porch light and dropped a popcorn ball in his bag. “Happy Halloween.”

  “What do you say, Danny?” the five-year-old’s mother prompted from the bottom of the porch steps.

  The little buccaneer lifted his eye patch and looked Kitty up and down. “I like your clown costume.”

  Kitty laughed so hard, no one would have known she was crying inside. She knelt down in front of young Long John Silver and said, “I like your costume too.”

  “My mom made it.”

  “She sure did a good job.”

  “Danny …”

  “Thanks for the popcorn ball,” he shouted as he turned to run down the steps. He took his mother’s hand as he prepared to cross the street. “Next year I want to wear a big red nose like hers.”

  Kitty closed the door and set the bowl of treats on the hall table, where it would be handy for the next couple of trick-or-treaters. The soles of her huge clown shoes slapped hollowly against the wooden floor as she trudged to the living room sofa, and the polka-dotted pants of her costume billowed out about her slender legs when she sat down.

  She’d started dressing up for Halloween when Jessie was four. It had been a way to share the special holiday with her daughter.

  All she’d ever wanted to be when she was growing up was a wife and mother. She’d been well on her way to achieving her life’s ambition, grabbing the golden ring and getting pregnant on her honeymoon, when a hard right to the left side of her face had destroyed her dreams.

  She couldn’t recall now what had brought it about. All she really remembered was standing at the kitchen sink one minute, calmly arguing some minor point, and picking herself up off the linoleum the next.

  It had come as such a shock she hadn’t known how to react. Her head had told her she hadn’t deserved it. But when she’d gone in for her regular prenatal checkup a couple of days later and the doctor had asked about the bruise on her face, she’d lied and said she’d fallen. By that time her heart had convinced her she must have done something wrong.

  She’d lived that lie—or some variation of it—through the miscarriage that followed a particularly brutal beating. When she’d left the hospital, she’d gone straight to her parents’ house. They’d been horrified, of course, and had offered to help any way they could. But that hadn’t stopped them from wondering aloud what she’d done to make him so mad. Sadly enough she’d asked herself the same thing a million times.

  She’d been too ashamed to reveal to anyone else that she’d been beaten. Brainwashed by the prevailing social attitudes, bombarded with her ex-husband’s bouquets of roses and frantic promises that it would never happen again, she’d finally gone home. Two more miserable years of abuse followed.

  Only when the evil eye had turned toward Jessie did Kitty wake up from her nightmarish marriage. As long as she drew a bre
ath, as long as there was an ounce of fight in her body, no harm was going to come to her baby.

  From a couple of furtive phone calls, she’d learned about a shelter for abused women. The people who’d answered her call at the shelter had promised her both protection and anonymity. She’d packed only what she could carry in one trip to the car, grabbed Jessie, and run for their lives.

  Brrrring. The doorbell rang, bringing her out of the past and into the present.

  Since Jessie had declared she was too old to go trick-or-treating, she’d gone to a school dance instead, so Kitty got up now to answer the bell.

  “Trick or treat!” a mixed bag of hoboes and ballerinas greeted her in unison.

  Clown smile intact, she handed out popcorn balls and compliments to her cute little callers. But when she was done, instead of returning to the living room she stepped out onto the porch and breathed in the clean mountain air. She was going to miss it like crazy when she moved.

  These three days without Ben had been excruciating. But they’d also been revealing.

  Saturday morning she’d come home and cried clear through to Sunday morning. Then she’d dried her eyes, knowing it couldn’t possibly get any worse, picked up the shards of her broken heart, and taken a good hard look at where she’d been and where she was going.

  In the process she realized being fired was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her. Not financially, but emotionally. She was freed of the vendetta that had been handed down to her like some prized family heirloom. And she felt a lifelong burden being lifted from her heart.

  She still believed that the union filled a critical need in the lives of her fellow workers. Given the hard times for laborers such as miners, and the transition the country needed to take toward a service economy, organized labor could play an important role in retraining its members as new and different jobs became available. But they were going to have to work hand in glove with management to protect their mutual interests.

  In that respect Ben Cooper was the right owner at this time. His plans for that power plant would open up employment opportunities in Cooperville. His determination to clean up the environment was plain: the recovered spoil bank on the edge of town was only one example. And his concern for the miners’ well-being had shone through during the aftermath of Friday night’s explosion.

  So where did that leave her? In love and out of a job, that’s where. But not for long.

  “Trick or treat!” the princess from next door said.

  “Oh, how pretty.” Kitty dropped a popcorn ball into the little girl’s sack, hardly able to believe that it had been only a couple of years since Jessie had dressed up as Princess Diana. Sadly, she realized that her baby was growing up, that soon—too soon—she’d have to let her go.

  The neighbor girl curtsied her thanks and said good night.

  Kitty crossed the porch, the soles of her clown shoes whapping against the warping planks, and sat down on the railing to await the rest of the trick-or-treaters.

  A big old harvest moon smiled down on all the little ghosts and goblins making their Halloween rounds. Stars played peek-a-boo with the gauzy clouds. And the mansion on the hill looked more distant than ever.

  The other night Ben hadn’t mentioned love, but then, neither had she. Given both their experiences and the long-standing enmity between their families, it was hardly any wonder they’d shied clear of commitments. And yet Kitty knew she was committed, even if he wasn’t.

  She loved him with her entire being, but she wasn’t going to waste her life loving him from afar. She was fresh out of masochistic penchants. So she planned to put some distance between them.

  Tomorrow morning she would travel to the city to look for a job and a place to live. Although she hated to leave her family and her friends, it was better to make a clean break. Once again she would start over.

  Jessie would probably have a conniption fit when she told her they were moving, but she would adjust. Children did. The real question was, how would Kitty herself cope?

  Well, she would take it a day at a time. Deal with it just as she had dealt with every other crisis in her life. Hurt a lot, cry a lot, and eventually heal over. Only this time it would take much longer. This time she had touched something so rare and wonderful that she knew it wouldn’t come again.

  * * *

  The mansion seemed like a tomb, silent and lifeless tonight.

  Ben hadn’t expected any trick-or-treaters, and they hadn’t surprised him. Miners’ kids rarely climbed the hill. Even as a grade-schooler, he’d always gone down to the hollow to play with his friends. An odd arrangement, considering he’d had every new toy money could buy, and they’d had nothing but an old clubhouse and keen imaginations.

  Funny he should remember that, he thought as he reached for the unopened bag of Snickers bars that lay on the kitchen table. He’d bought the candy just in case children had changed while he had been away. Obviously, they hadn’t.

  Now he was stuck with a whole bag of candy and a wealth of bittersweet memories.

  He opened the bag and unwrapped a candy bar, then wandered idly to the sun room window to stand looking out over the hollow below.

  The chocolate melted on his tongue, the caramel clung briefly to the roof of his mouth, and the nuts crumbled between his strong white teeth.

  He took another bite, savoring the taste and recalling the time he’d used his entire week’s allowance to buy enough treats to stock the “boys only” clubhouse for a month.

  It was more candy than his poor friends had ever seen outside the store on Main Street, and it had lasted all of an hour. Every one of the little gorgers—Ben included—had gone home green at the gills.

  Ben’s father had turned three shades of red when he’d heard that his heir was hanging out with those “trashy miners’ kids from the hollow.” His mother, God rest her soul, had turned as white as the little ghosts who hadn’t come knocking at the door tonight. Eventually, of course, she’d received the blame for not preapproving the next coal baron’s choice of companions.

  Less than a week after the clubhouse pig-out, the miners had struck over the issue of black lung compensation. Though the two incidents weren’t even remotely related, they were irrevocably linked in Ben’s mind.

  An ache crawled through him now as he remembered how at the time he’d had to beat up his best friend—the same miner who’d voiced his objections when Ben had first gone underground—for calling his father a bastard.

  That long-ago morning the battle lines were clearly drawn on the playground. It was “them” versus “him.” And except for becoming a star player in school sports, Ben had never played with the miners’ kids again.

  On the homefront it hadn’t been much better. His father had constantly verbally abused his mother, and his mother played the role of victim to the hilt. Looking back, he couldn’t remember a moment’s peace or even a pretense of affection between them.

  He’d jumped at the chance to go away to school. Eight years later, after graduating magna cum laude from Cal Tech, he’d joined the Marines. The engineer in him had been appalled at the wanton destruction in Vietnam, but the soldier in him had fought that undeclared war with honor. And returned home to scorn.

  In the driven years between the bobby-trapped rice paddies and his parents’ death, he’d taken over the company’s reclamation project—a healing of sorts. He’d had a house but not a home. And he’d had women, more than he was proud to admit, but the memory of his parents’ dysfunctional marriage had kept him from making a final commitment.

  Ben took the last bite of his candy bar now, but it failed to appease his hunger, a hunger of the soul rather than of the senses.

  Kitty … with her big blue eyes, her lilting laugh, and the skin of a Dresden figurine. Despite her fragile appearance, she’d had the guts to go it alone when her marriage turned violent. She’d shown that same kind of courage after the explosion.

  He didn’t regret firing her—he’d do
ne it for her own damn good, and he knew she knew it. What he did regret, was that he hadn’t told her how he felt about her before he lowered the boom.

  He loved her. It was heaven just being able to admit it to himself. And it was hell because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said the words aloud.

  He’d probably said the same words to his parents when he was six or so, before he’d realized they weren’t listening to him—or even to each other. But he’d never spoken those words to a woman before. Not even the ones he’d almost proposed to. Somewhere along the way they’d just gotten bottled up inside him.

  Now they were burning a hole in his gut.

  So spit ’em out, already!

  Kitty Reardon was a miner’s kid. She wasn’t going to climb that hill to hear them.

  Well, if Muhammad wouldn’t come to the mountain …

  The doorbell rang just as Kitty was stepping out of the shower. It was too late for trick-or-treaters and a little too early for Jessie to be home from the dance.

  She pulled on her flannel nightgown, wrapped a towel around her sopping hair, and grabbed her robe before she ran to unlock the front door.

  Carol smiled at her through the screen. “Hi.”

  Kitty’s first thought was that something had happened to Jessie. Her hand flattened reflexively over her heart. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Carol quickly assured her.

  “I thought you’d be on your way to pick up the girls from the dance.”

  “I’m on my way there now,” Carol said. “But I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Come on in.”

  “This won’t take but a minute.”

  “It’s not like I have to get up at five in the morning anymore,” Kitty reminded her with a rueful laugh. “Want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” Carol sat down on the sofa. “The boys are asleep in the backseat of the car, so I really can’t stay.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I just had to stop and tell you that Bob has entered a counseling program for male abusers.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful news.” Kitty gave her friend a quick hug, then took a wing chair opposite her. “I know you don’t want a divorce if you can avoid it.”