He fumbled for another cigarette and stared off into the hills for a minute before lighting it and climbing into the truck. He felt far away, like he did sometimes, even though he was sitting right there. Corolla wiggled across Bone to plant herself in her master’s lap.
The yellow truck puttered back along the river road toward Goodwin’s ferry in silence. Bone played with the radio knob but couldn’t pick up anything good. Uncle Ash disappeared a little bit every time the subject of her mother’s death came up. And that made it the hardest of all to ask him about her—and about what Ruby had said.
Miss Spencer looked up from her notes. “Ash, weren’t you going to tell me about the spirit dogs?”
Bone gaped at Miss Spencer. If anything could pull her uncle back to the here and now, it was his dog stories. He loved any folktale or story about dogs, particularly black ones. Not that any of his were that color.
“There’s a lot of tales about spirit or devil dogs,” Uncle Ash began. He had the window rolled down, and Corolla was hanging her head out of the truck as they drove back toward Big Vein. “Sometimes the dog is a portent of death. Sometimes she’s a bringer of justice. Sometimes she’s both.”
Uncle Ash lit another cigarette before he dove into the story. Bone unwrapped a peppermint stick her uncle had got her at the filling station in Dry Branch. Miss Spencer had offered to pay for the gas, but Uncle Ash told her he had an arrangement with the proprietor, Mr. Burman, on account of curing his dairy cows of mastitis. Uncle Ash blew a smoke ring out the window and then started talking. Miss Spencer was poised with her pen and stenographers’ notebook to jot down his words in shorthand.
“A rich old man owned a passel of slaves. He was a wicked man. He had four or five wives. One would take sick and die suddenly, leaving him much richer than before. Then he’d marry him another one, and the same thing would happen.”
Bone could swear her uncle stole a glance at Miss Spencer as he took a drag on his cigarette. She was writing away but looked up as soon as he turned back to the road. Bone twirled the peppermint stick in her mouth until it formed a sharp point.
“Now, he was also a cruel master,” Uncle Ash continued. “He’d work his slaves to death and then leave them where they fell. He’d starve and torture them to entertain himself.
“Well, the wicked old man was finally on his death bed. His neighbors, being neighbors, set up with him, waiting for the end. At the stroke of midnight, there was scratching at the door. One of the neighbors opened it, and this big black dog bounded through. He jumped right on the bed and stared into the old man’s eyes.”
The scribbling stopped as Miss Spencer got caught up in Uncle Ash’s story. He noticed, too, looking once more in her direction. She blushed and got real interested in writing again. Bone bit the point off the peppermint stick and crunched it between her teeth.
“‘It’s the devil come to take me,’ the man screamed. He dropped plumb dead. The black dog trotted right back out the door and vanished.”
By then, they’d reached the river crossing, and the ferry was pulling up to the dock. As they crossed the river, Uncle Ash told them another tale, this one about a dog who warned the person that death was coming. Miss Spencer forgot all about writing that one down. And Uncle Ash seemed his old easy self again.
“Uncle Ash, you ever seen a spirit dog?” Bone licked the peppermint from her fingers. It was far easier to ask him about this kind of thing.
Uncle Ash didn’t say anything at first.
Miss Spencer peered at him, too, waiting for an answer.
“On two occasions,” he finally said, flicking his cigarette onto the road. “Once during the war, I saw a black dog come out the mists of no-man’s-land between the trenches and head toward our side. I thought we were done for.”
He paused, a sly grin on his face. “But it turned out to be one of the German messenger dogs that got lost.”
“What did you do with it?” Miss Spencer asked.
“Well, I fed her supper with our dogs, and then we sent her back to the Germans during a Christmas truce.”
“What was the other time?” Bone asked.
The grin slid right off Uncle Ash’s face, and he took even longer to answer this time. “About six years ago. Outside Mattie’s house when she had the influenza. I saw this black dog walk through the front gate and disappear. Thought I was coming down with the flu myself and was seeing things.” He fished out another cigarette but didn’t light it. His hand even shook a bit. “But Mattie must have scared the devil dog off when it came to claim her.” Uncle Ash laughed a little uneasily. “You know how she is.”
Aunt Mattie could send a harbinger of death packing, even from her deathbed.
15
A BLACK SEDAN STOOD OUTSIDE the Whitakers’ house the next day.
Clay’s older brothers, Carmen and Cliff, had gone down with their ship in a place called Guadalcanal, Daddy told Bone that evening. The Japanese torpedoed their aircraft carrier, drowning 192 sailors. Now everyone in the boardinghouse gathered around the radio in the parlor, waiting to hear more news of the war in the Pacific. Somewhere off in that big ocean, men kept on fighting—and the poor Whitaker boys lay at its bottom.
Bone and her father pored over a map. The tiny islands in the Pacific were so far away, and the ocean was so vast. It could swallow up everybody she’d ever known.
The newsman on the radio was talking about the Nazis and Russians fighting near Stalingrad. Her father pointed it out on the map. Things weren’t going so well in the war, Bone gathered. And her daddy would be in the thick of it in less than a week. At least, he’d be on his way.
Bone pulled the yellow sweater tight around her.
Something banged in the kitchen.
“Go help Mrs. Price,” Bone’s father said. “I’ll call you if there’s news.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Price was putting a pound of flour and a pound of sugar in a box for the Whitakers. “Pounding for the Whitakers.” She dried her eyes on her apron.
Bone poured a pound of dried pinto beans into another sack and tied it off.
Everyone, every household in Big Vein, would bring the Whitakers what they could spare. A pound of this. A pound of that.
“I can’t imagine losing two sons at once.” Mrs. Price put the pinto beans in the box. She dried her eyes again. She and Mrs. Whitaker were good friends and cousins once or twice removed.
Clay was now the oldest Whitaker boy, and the youngest was in diapers.
“I’ll take it over,” Bone said. When she scooped up the box, a flash of her mother carrying another pounding box long ago hit her, but Bone pushed the image from her head. It had been for Will and his mother.
Bone met Jake’s mother, Mrs. Lilly, on the way over to the Whitaker cottage. She was none too happy either.
As they came up the walk, Bone saw the boys—Clay, Jake, and Will—were sitting out on the steps talking seriously about something. Well, Will was scribbling out his answers in his notebook and showing them what he wrote—until he noticed Jake’s mother. Will stuffed his notebook back in his pocket. The other boys jumped up to take the boxes.
Clay and Jake carried them in and set them on the table next to the other boxes. Bone followed, meaning to pay her respects to Clay’s mother. She wasn’t there. His grandmother and aunts were sorting through the pounds of dried beans, coffee, and flour while the little ones played in the parlor. And Ruby was there quietly unpacking a box of canned goods. Mrs. Lilly jumped in to help the older ladies with the sorting.
“Hey,” Bone said as Ruby scooted past, box in hand, on her way out the door.
“Hey,” Ruby muttered back and was gone.
That was how it was going to be, living with Ruby. It gave Bone a hollow feeling in her gut.
“Thank your mama for the canned peaches, Miss Ruby,” Clay’s grandmother called after her. “Just like her mother,” the older woman clucked to Mrs. Lilly.
“You know what they say about apples,” Mrs. Li
lly agreed.
Bone and the boys snuck back outside and joined Will on the steps.
As soon as the door shut, Will brought out his notebook again and finished writing something.
“That much?” Clay asked.
Bone peered at Will’s paper. It said $1.20 a car. Then he scribbled, when you get a full share.
“Hey, you’re not—,” Bone said.
Jake rounded on Bone. “You got to swear to keep this a secret.”
“But you can’t.” She looked at Clay.
“They let Will, and my daddy started in the mines at my age,” Clay cut her off, daring Bone to say anything more.
Bone wanted to say that Clay wasn’t Will’s age, but she didn’t. Will was two years older than Clay.
Will wrote some more. Bone saw … sorting pays less.
“But why do you want to go down the mines?”
“I can’t join up yet, so I got to do something.” Clay fought back the tears, and Jake put an arm around him.
Bone felt like crying, too. They sat there in silence for a moment.
Clay blew his nose in his sleeve. “I heard Mama and Daddy saying last night how we’re only getting by,” Clay whispered. “And now we won’t have Carmen’s and Cliff’s pay they sent home. I got to do something.”
“It ain’t fair.”
Will wrote down something. I’ll look after them.
Them? She looked at Jake. Of course, wherever Clay Whitaker went so did Jake Lilly.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Jake begged.
Bone jumped to her feet. Jake and Clay and Will all in the mines. One little accident could take them—and her father and Uncle Junior for that matter—out with one fell swoop.
The hollow feeling ate at her gut.
“I got homework,” she said, her lip quivering. She scrambled down the steps, pulled her sweater tight around her, and headed back to the boardinghouse. She pushed away an image of her mother watching Uncle Ash go off to war. Bone wanted to tear the sweater off and never put it back on. And then again, she didn’t. It was like Mama was here, nudging her along. Only Bone didn’t always want to hear what she had to say.
A few minutes later, the crunch of size 10 boots came up behind her on the gravel road. Will pressed a note into her hands.
Were you this upset when I went down the mines?
“I was, you fool.” Bone crumpled up the note and tossed it back at him. “But you were so happy about it that I didn’t want to ruin it for you. And this is different.” Now she had no one. She’d be all alone in school and at home. Bone pushed Will away as he tried to put his arm around her.
The two of them walked back up to the boardinghouse without saying a word. For once, Will’s rocklike silence didn’t make Bone feel any better. She was sitting out in the river with only this one rock to cling to, and the water was rising fast.
16
SCHOOL WAS QUIET without Clay and Jake. The mine hired them to sort coal. It was an outside job working under Jake’s father.
After another whirlwind afternoon of story collecting, Bone found herself sitting on the porch of the Scott Brothers’ store with her Uncle Ash. It was the Friday before her daddy was supposed to leave for war, and Bone felt only a tad closer to figuring out what had happened to her mother.
Miss Spencer had gone inside to mail a letter. She had a thick notebook chockful of stories now. Bone hadn’t made as much progress in her own private story collecting. Most people said what Mrs. Harless had. People missed Bone’s mother and her uncanny ability to suss out any illness. Today, Mr. DeHart told the story of Mama diagnosing his father’s bad heart. The doctors said there wasn’t much that could be done. They couldn’t up and give him a new heart, and none of Mamaw’s herbs would fix what ailed him. So Willow sat up with him until it was near the end. Mr. DeHart didn’t blame her for not being there for the dying part. That was for family.
Uncle Ash had overheard the story. “Willow didn’t like to lose,” he added. Mr. DeHart nodded like he understood completely.
That’s what Bone was pondering as she and Uncle Ash rocked in the big white chairs on the concrete porch of the company store. She buttoned up her sweater in the cool breeze. As she did, she saw her mother pitching a fit as Uncle Ash pulled her away from a patient.
“Uncle Ash?”
“Hmm?” he answered, sounding like he was about to doze off.
“What did you mean by Mama not liking to lose? Who was she losing to?”
Uncle Ash took a long drag on his cigarette before he straightened up. “You know what your mama’s favorite story was?”
Bone shrugged. Her mother had told her many, many stories when she was little.
“Soldier Jack. At least the part right before the end. You know, where Jack catches Death in the bag.”
“Yes!” Bone answered. It was one of her favorite stories, too. “The king’s daughter has gotten sick, and she’s on her deathbed. So Jack grabs the jar and the magic sack the old man had given him—”
“Did I miss a story?” Miss Spencer asked as she handed Bone a cold grape Nehi. She settled into the rocking chair next to Uncle Ash with an RC Cola of her own.
“I’ll tell you the rest later, India,” Uncle Ash whispered to her. He turned back to Bone. “Go on, Jack spies Death through the jar—”
“Old Death is standing at the foot of her bed, and Jack orders him into the sack,” Bone took up the story with relish. “The king’s daughter wakes up. He hangs that sack from a high tree, and then him and the daughter get married and lived happily ever after.”
“That’s where Willow always liked to leave off.” Uncle Ash reached into his pocket for something.
“There’s more?” Bone asked. She didn’t remember anything else coming after the happily ever afters.
“Yes.” Ash grinned. “Jack and the king’s daughter do get married and do live for quite a long time. In fact, everybody does. Death’s trapped up in the tree. Nobody dies. Babies keep getting born, but people keep getting older and older. And the world keeps getting more and more crowded. Soon Jack’s wife comes to him and says he’s got to let Death out of the sack. She’s awful tired. They can’t go on like this. Jack is eventually convinced. He lets Death down from the tree and opens up the sack. He and his wife pass away right on the spot.”
Miss Spencer rifled through her notes.
Bone raised the Nehi to her lips to take a sip and think on the story a bit, but the bottle cap was still on. “Are you saying that Mama didn’t like to lose to Death?” Bone finally asked.
Uncle Ash nodded as he reached for her bottle. “And she always said, ‘It cost too much to keep Death in the bag.’ I never quite knew what she meant by that.” Uncle Ash flipped open the army knife he’d fished out of his pocket. “It’s hard on me when an animal dies, but sometimes, a lot of the time, it’s kinder to let them go. Mostly there’s nothing I can do about death. It’ll come when it comes.”
His hand shook a bit when he popped off the bottle cap with the opener and handed the grape soda back to Bone. She took a thirsty gulp of it while she considered her mother’s peculiar words. Could Mama do something about death? She shook her head. That was silly. Wasn’t it?
“When are you going back to Roanoke?” Uncle Ash asked Miss Spencer as he opened her RC Cola. Then he lit a fresh cigarette, and Corolla settled at his feet.
“Before Thanksgiving. I’m teaching three sections of American History come January, and I’d like some time to go through all these stories before then.” Miss Spencer flipped through her notebook. “I never dreamed we’d get so many different ones. I don’t want them to end up moldering away in some office in Richmond.”
Bone reckoned they’d hit up everyone on both sides of the river. And they’d gotten a smattering of every kind of story: Jack tales, Cherokee legends, frontier stories, true crime, Gypsies, and the lot. But as she spied Oscar Fears and Tiny Sherman making their way up the road to the mine, Bone smacked her forehead. She’d forgotte
n about the folks of Sherman’s Forest. “Miss Spencer, you’re missing a whole bunch of good stories.” And some of my mother’s best customers. Bone waved. “Hey, Mr. Fears, Mr. Sherman.”
“Hey, Miss Bone.” They headed her way.
“Bone, don’t—” Miss Spencer shifted uneasily in her chair.
It was too late. Bone had already leapt up and met the two men halfway.
“Miss Spencer here is collecting folktales and such for the WPA. Y’all got time to tell her one of the Br’er Rabbit stories?”
Mr. Sherman’s face lit up.
Mr. Fears laughed. “Tiny always got time for a story.” He headed on to the change house.
“I’d love to, Miss Bone, but maybe some other time,” Mr. Sherman answered. He already had on his bank clothes, but instead of a miner’s cap, he wore a red baseball cap that said Memphis.
Uncle Ash rose and shook Mr. Sherman’s hand. “Always good to see you, Tiny. Ya’ll want a pop or a smoke?”
Mr. Sherman took one look at Miss Spencer and removed his cap. “Thanks, Ash, but I ain’t got too long before I need to be at the mantrip.”
The evening shift started in about fifteen minutes. Daddy, Uncle Junior, and Will would be heading down this way soon.
“You work at the mine?” Miss Spencer blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Ma’am, I know exactly what you meant,” Mr. Sherman said carefully but not unkindly. “But we got this saying down in the mine. We all the same color under all that coal.”
Ash laughed, and so did Miss Spencer, if a bit more slowly.
“Y’all coming to the game Sunday?” Mr. Sherman asked. “I’m pitching, and Miss Bone—” Mr. Sherman lightly swatted Bone’s shoulder with his Memphis Red Sox cap. “Will is playing left field, and them other friends of yours are warming the bench.”
As the ball cap touched her, Bone could see Tiny standing on the pitcher’s mound. The sun beat down. Sweat trickled into his eyes. He reared back and threw a fastball. The crowd roared. A grin flickered across his face as he wiped his brow. Then he tugged his cap back down tight and threw another strike.
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