Furnace Mountain: or The Day President Roosevelt Came to Town

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  He would never forget the look on his Alice’s face. He hadn’t just made her cry, he’d disappointed her. Just like he’d disappointed his Martha so many times when she’d been alive.

  Robert couldn’t do it anymore. This wasn’t a life.

  His shotgun leaned against the corner. He’d cleaned her that morning and now she was gleaming. She was loaded, ready to go.

  The way he saw it, he had two choices. He could either get busy living or dying but, either way, it was time to start moving. This in-between business was killing him.

  Robert walked over to the gun and lifted it. It was heavy in his hands, almost as heavy as the ax. His hands shook again, unable to hold it steady. No matter which one he picked up, he could screw things up. Hi hands just didn’t work the way they used to.

  Sighing, Robert put the gun back down. Knowing his luck, he’d miss his dang-gummed brain and just blow his tongue out or something. He liked to eat and yap too much for that.

  The pile of wood was calling. It was good wood, too.

  Alice wanted her a fancy wheelchair for the president. Then, by God, he was going to give her one. Just watch.

  Chapter Thirty

  LOUELLA SCANNED THE STREET, the school, the train yard, and the empty park. Then, she turned around on her heels and marched back into the office. It was hotter than blazes outside and bound to get worse. July was bad but August was hotter. The president couldn’t have picked a more miserable time to visit, in her opinion.

  And the factory people were coming on the very same day. Of course they were. They weren’t going to miss out on an opportunity like that.

  Sometimes, when she was not quite feeling her best, Louella wished everything was back to normal. She missed the quiet. Those days were probably gone, however, and probably for the best. She liked to see people coming together, but she’d been around long enough to know that eventually something was going to go sour. She just liked to know what that something was sooner rather than later so that she could start preparing for it.

  The Gingerroot Festival was going to be difficult. Alice had gone home the night before and come back the next morning with a list. The girl was hard working–that was for certain. Marianne would have good help out of her. Furnace Mountain was lucky to have young people like Alice and Sam to carry on. Her generation was on its way out. They had built the town and seen it thrive and then watched it decay before their eyes. For Alice and Sam, things were just beginning and it was anyone’s guess where they would go.

  There were others, too, who were just as bright. She had watched the children painting and hammering and carrying lumber as much as the men. More, she had seen them playing in the streets, catching lightning bugs, and swimming in the creek. She thought those things were good, too. Louella approved of polite, well-behaved children but she had a fondness for those who enjoyed being “regular” children as well. Their time was so short.

  Most of the ideas Alice had come up with would work and that was fine. It would take some convincing to get folks involved in yet another idea but she thought that most would be fine with the idea. She would suggest that the older ones travel to the other towns in the county and counties hang up posters to let everyone know. The more people they could bring in, the better. The children could make the posters; she’d inform Marianne.

  Homer stood at the window in his office, watching. “Well?” she prompted.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, Lou. Maybe. If we can prove that we can raise some of it, maybe it will be enough. If not then at least we tried.”

  “How much help is the club going to be?”

  “A lot, I think. They’re donating tables, chairs, the dance floor…There’s a little money in the treasury. Not much, but enough for one big thing if they can find what they’re looking for. No word yet on what that may be.”

  Louella sighed. “People will come, of course.”

  “Of course, but will they spend money? Does anyone have any money to spend?”

  “It’s not likely,” she said honestly. “Those who do don’t spend freely and those that would don’t have it to spend. That’s always been the way of things. I’ve been surprised before, though.”

  “Working is one thing,” Homer sighed. “We got people involved with that because we’re used to hard work. Well, some of us are anyway,” he smiled.

  He’d worked in the lumber yards before becoming a railroad man and it had not been an easy task. Sweating, pulling, pushing, lifting–sometimes in temperatures more than one hundred degrees. Fingers wanted to freeze off in the winter and air so thick you could taste it in the summer.

  “You might be right about that. I’m always surprised at what people will and will not do around here.”

  “Well, I sure do hope this works anyway. Right now I’m worried,” he admitted.

  “About the festival and the money?”

  “More than that. About what happens next. We’ve been working hard on this and everybody feels like they’re working toward something. And we are, don’t get me wrong. But the day’s going to come and go and then we’re back to where we were. Only…”

  “Only it’s not the same anymore because things will have changed. Nobody will want to go back to the way things were anymore,” Louella finished for him.

  “Right. They’ll be ready for something more. They’ll want me to make it happen. I don’t know that I can.”

  “Well,” she patted him on the arm like she might her son if she had one. “I suppose you’ll try anyway.”

  ***

  Donald Maynard was important.

  Well, perhaps not essential in an everyday sense, not like Sam Walters, but on that morning he felt like he could be.

  Tomorrow was the 4th of July and the foreman on the depot job had given him the important task of ringing the bell before the firecrackers went off. He hadn’t asked Sam or any of the other boys–he’d asked him, Donald.

  They were meant to go up the hill a little ways behind the school and some were already up there, digging a big dirt spot so that they didn’t catch anything on fire. People said that a lot of the town would come out and that before it started he could ring that bell as loud as he wanted, letting everybody know. He knew it was heavy, too, because he’d practiced once.

  Strutting down the sidewalk in front of the stores, he puffed out his chest and admired himself in one of the windows. He had a new shirt and a new hat and had washed his face and even his ears in the creek that morning. His mama had said he’d looked real fine and he thought he did, too. He even thought she looked a whole lot better, even though she was sick a lot and had to stay in the barn on most days. When she did eat she had to go outside real fast afterwards and sometimes she couldn’t make it. His daddy had brought in a bucket from behind the chicken coop at the farm and put it close to her bed so she wouldn’t have to go so far. The doctor said she had some stomach sickness from the things that had happened before they got to Furnace Mountain but he thought she’d feel better soon.

  “Hello, there, Donald,” a sweet voice came from behind him.

  He turned around and grinned, conscious of his missing front tooth. It was the teacher and, like always, she wore a clean dress and shoes that looked liked she’d just bought them from the store.

  “Hi Miss Casteel,” he replied shyly.

  “I heard you’re going to ring the bell tomorrow night. I bet you’re excited,” she said brightly.

  “I sure am!” he shouted. “And it’s real heavy, too. I tried to ring it a little, but not too hard cause it’s not the 4th of July just yet you know.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Best wait until tomorrow for that. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.”

  As he watched her walk away, he looked at his reflection in the window again. If things went really well here then they might just stay. He didn’t know where they’d live yet but they could make it here if they tried. He really wanted to go to that school.

  ***

  Sam knew
he shouldn’t have been excited, but he was. Tomorrow was his birthday. The 4th of July had always been a fun day for a birthday when he was little. His daddy had taken them to town for the fireworks and before that they had a picnic, either out in the yard or up by the creek. It was always stinking hot on his birthday so he liked it when they went to the creek. He could go swimming and then dry off on the grass while Jonathan fished.

  His expectations weren’t real high this year, but he had faith. Ruth was better on some days and getting out of bed more so he thought, and hoped, that maybe tomorrow would be a good one. She hadn’t forgotten his birthday last year. She’d made him a real big chocolate cake with chocolate icing and strawberries on top. She’d also had a new fishing pole made for him and it was a real beauty. He’d used it that very day and brought home two big catfish from the pay lake. (He didn’t have to pay because he was very good at remembering to weed Mrs. Landry’s flower garden in the spring.)

  He tried really hard not to, but he couldn’t help but think about the big cake he’d probably have and the present that was always on the kitchen table when he woke up. She wouldn’t forget this year, because she was a lot better. Sitting on the front porch with a bowl of stringing beans in his lap, he could almost taste the icing and feel the strawberry juice running down his fingers.

  He figured that after they had some cake he could take them down to the creek if Ruth wanted to walk that far. He could fish while she rested and then maybe they could go to the fireworks. He was sure they’d have them this year. He’d seen them clearing out the grass to set them off and the bell was working just fine.

  It was going to be a good day. He knew it.

  ***

  Robert had a pile of wood about five feet tall and the wood shed was almost full. Since it was dry, he’d keep the pile uncovered and let it season. It was still green now, but would be alright by the time winter come around. He should really let it season longer than that but he hadn’t been thinking long-term last spring. He figured that when he was feeling up to it he’d cut some more and maybe have some for the next winter, too. Wood that burnt hot would be something.

  Of course, he was tired to the bone now. His arms ached, his back ached, and he didn’t think there was a joint in his body that wasn’t creaking. It was a good day to head down to the pool hall and see what doing.

  It was a long walk, though. Chances were, not many people around today anyhow. Tomorrow might be a different story, what with it being the Independence Day and all and but most of the men he knew had given up going down there. They were working on the depot or on the school or on some of those other buildings. Fools, they were, to do that much work and just for a bite of chicken and some pie. Of course, he wouldn’t mind some of that fried chicken himself. Alice made good chicken but they hadn’t had any in a long time. Probably the chickens they had running around here now would be tough.

  He’d overheard some of them from the Kiwanis Club talking about Hartside Morgan coming in and opening a plant. That they needed $50,000 to get them in. He shook his head and spat at his feet, his ax shimmering in the sun. Hell of a lot of money to raise from a bunch of folks that didn’t have any. He didn’t think it was worth it, not really. The same people always benefited. If they brought in a plant, the same people would get the jobs that always did. Bunch of fools to think anything would change. Sure, the Kiwanis might be able to get them to come but they’d be the first in line to get those jobs. The ones that put up the money wouldn’t see any kind of change. That’s the way it always had been.

  He saw it now when he looked at those houses in town. New houses they were, almost all of them. Houses that weren’t more than fifteen years old. Houses the railroad had built, promising people that there’d be jobs and money for everyone for years.

  They’d flocked in from all over the state and even out–of–state to take them. Lined up for that money and that work in their shiny white houses and their brick buildings. He’d lined up, too, and opened his store, as optimistic as the next person. They’d come from the hills to work.

  For awhile, it’d been alright. Things had been good. Then, they left. Furnace Mountain didn’t matter to nobody anymore. That mayor that still had his big house was lucky that he’d been elected. Robert knew he would have been one of the first ones to have wound up in the bread lines if not. He’d lost his store later. Maybe the rest of the country was hurting from what had happened up in New York but Furnace Mountain had been suffering even longer, mostly from people who came in and promised big things and then left without a how-de-do.

  Robert left the yard and started for the road. He’d try the pool hall anyway, even if he was alone. But then he paused and looked back at the barn.

  “Well, shit,” he mumbled. It was still daylight. He could get more work done on the chair if he wanted to.

  For some strange reason, Robert wanted to.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  HOMER FELT GOOD. He’d been on the phone with Hartside Morgan for half an hour and the news was encouraging–enough to get his hopes up. They had talked about settling for a lesser sum. And they were looking forward to the president’s arrival.

  “Thank you, Sam,” Homer laughed. Had Sam Walters not written to the president, the company never would have considered putting in a plant. Sam’s letter had put Furnace Mountain back on the radar.

  Of course, he hadn’t told them how they were planning on raising the money but they hadn’t asked. He was optimistic on that front as well.

  There would have to be another town meeting. He was scheduling it for the next day and would announce it at the fireworks display. Everyone in town would be at that and there was no time to waste. In his experience, it was best to strike while the iron was hot.

  The Gingerroot Festival was scheduled in two weeks’ time. There was much to do.

  The Kiwanis had put out the word and, as things tended to do, word had gotten back to him that women were already scurrying around for ways to get involved. He imagined there would be pies baking and fish frying and quilting bees going on in a frenzy. It was a good image to think about anyway. Little Alice Johnson was handling most of it, God bless her soul.

  Thinking of Alice, with her youthful beauty and sweet nature, made him think of Ruth Walters. That night he’d walked her home…something had happened then, something that had disturbed and excited him. He needed to see her again, had been thinking about her. The idea tormented him.

  “Excuse me?” So lost in thought, he almost jumped out of his chair when Alice peeked her head around the corner.

  “Yes dear, may I help you?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you but Miss Hinkle wasn’t in her office and I thought…”

  “No, that’s fine,” he waved his hand in the air. Louella had stepped out for lunch and he was alone. Alice was shy and quiet but lovely in the way that all young women are. She had an air of springtime about her with her soft, bouncy blonde hair and her bright eyes and he was again reminded briefly of the young Ruth.

  “I’ve posted all the signs about the festival and I was wondering if we could get some more?”

  “Already?” he asked, surprised. It had only been two days.

  “Well, I didn’t have a lot to do and I thought it was important.”

  “You’ll be after my job next,” he chuckled. “Public office could use the expediency of the youth we have in this town. I can get more posters to you but you’ll have to wait a few days. The busy little bees in Miss Casteel’s school are on break for the holiday at the moment.”

  Alice smiled, thanked him, and left. Her summer dress was lifted briefly in the breeze while she stood on the steps and he got a glimpse of her calf. He suddenly missed his wife terribly. It wouldn’t have crossed his mind to have thought of Alice as anything other than a child, but the sight of a young girl made him nostalgic for his own youth. And sometimes sad for the things he had lost and would never have again.

  ***

  Furnace Mountain was a
wash in late afternoon sunlight. Picnic tables were placed next to one another in the vacant field behind the school, ready to hold the fireworks that would be set off the next evening. Work had stopped for the day, but the streets were not yet empty. Folks lingered, still catching up on the afternoon gossip. Children ran between buildings and shouted with glee as the adults chatted with one another, fervently making plans for the holiday ahead. The buildings themselves seem to swell with pride–their personalities shining through after so many years of being stifled. Even once everyone went home the downtown no longer felt deserted anymore. The side streets might still be filled with shadows and everyone agreed that Poplar Street had seen better days, but it was a start.

  Some might have argued that the fresh paint, the clean windows, and the new wood were all facades–Band-Aids hiding the deep wounds. And, they might have been right to an extent. The problems were still there, of course. But, as with any wound, the healing has to start somewhere.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  NORMALLY, ALICE WOKE UP a little after sunrise, even on days that she didn’t have anything particular to look forward to. Her body was timed with the rising of the sun, though she liked to take the time to stretch in bed and try to remember her dreams before getting up. When her mother was alive, it was always the smell of breakfast that would have her moving quickly, but the idea of having to make it herself took out the thrill.

  Today, Alice woke before the sun. The sky was gray instead of black; it was the time of day that fascinated her, it being neither day nor night. The air smelled damp, a vestige of the rain from the night before, but it was hot and the sun would soon burn it all away. She didn’t mind some dampness. Sometimes, stepping out on the grass when it was still slightly wet from the night before was invigorating and she liked the feel of wet grass beneath her toes.