by Ninie Hammon
Will forcibly shook off the image of headlamp beams shining out like pallid light sabers into dusty blackness and concentrated on figuring out why he wasn’t moved in some intensely emotional way by what he saw. The splendor of the mountains folded protectively around the hollows was the canvass on which his dreams had been painted every night for decades. Every night the nightmares didn’t mug him, beat him senseless, and leave him bloody and broken—reaching out for the blessed comfort of oblivion.
Why didn’t he feel…well, something? The ragged ache of homesickness had throbbed like a rotted tooth in those early years, took his breath away as he stood on the deck of some ship in some ocean and stared at flat blue water all the way to the horizon. How he’d longed then to swing on a grapevine over a creek, or go sangin’—hunting for ginseng in the woods. How desperately his soul had yearned to hear his own sound, the one-of-a-kind Eastern Kentucky dialect it had taken years of concentrated effort to erase from his own speech.
So why couldn’t he manage to conjure up a single emotion now?
Maybe he had mourned so long all the feelings had finally bled out of him.
No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything. He did, just not what he’d expected. He felt—normal. The sights that greeted him looked sublimely ordinary. Everything else he’d seen in the past 20 years—that was foreign. This was reality, like waking from a dream and seeing the walls of your own bedroom, the curtains stirring in a breeze perfumed by wisteria, honeysuckle, and the ancient outhouse in the backyard.
He’d been screwed up to feel something big—euphoric, maybe. More likely some razor-edged emotion that would slice him open if he got anywhere near it. So he gladly settled for what he felt instead. Peaceful. For these few moments as he lumbered along the rutted road back into his world, the warring factions inside him declared a truce. The weight of pain he carried every day lifted; the fear that consumed him abated; the guilt that was his constant companion faded. And the compulsion, the itch that screamed every second to be scratched—even that eased.
His eyes filled with unexpected tears and he turned his face toward the window, his own reflection in the dirty glass superimposed on the view he could see through it like one of the haints Ma Sparrow teased would slither up out of the graveyard when the moon was full. And for an instant, he could see the faint image of a ghost in the reflection—the ghost of the shattered young man who’d run away from his whole life, fled everything and everybody he knew or cared about. Then it was gone and what stared back at him was the ruin of a face. All hard lines and sharp edges—haggard, drawn, and gaunt. Eyes once a bright, arresting ice blue were now the color of faded denim, sunk deep in hollows, underlined by dark shadows. Way-too-early furrows in his brow and around his mouth, a thick scar on his chin, skin ashen, thinning hair almost as gray as brown that hung limp over the tops of his ears. Will needed a haircut.
“Where was you at when that squirrel gotcha’?” asked the coal truck driver who’d offered to “carry” Will up the mountain when he saw him walking along the roadside of the Kingdom Come Parkway with everything he owned in a borrowed turquoise-and-black gym bag. The irony had struck Will as he climbed up into the rig—he’d left these mountains two decades ago hitching a ride on a coal truck; it was fitting that he came back the same way. “They cut its head off and test it? ’Cause rabies can stay in your guts for years, sleepin’ like, then one day it’ll whup up on you and you’ll start to foamin’ at the mouth. Wait that long, though, and it’ll be too late and they cain’t do nothin’ ’bout it.”
“Can’t” pronounced so it rhymed with “saint.” Welcome home, Will.
“I had great medical care,” he told the driver with a smile. “Matter of fact, these bites saved my life. If I hadn’t gotten bit, I’m sure I’d be dead by now.” Before the man had time to question further, Will waved him off. “Complicated story and you’d be welcome to hear it, but this is as far as I need to go. If you’d pull over up there at that dirt road, I can walk the rest of the way.”
The driver eased the truck to a stop. Will thanked him, sincerely touched that the generous mountain spirit he remembered hadn’t faded with the years. He climbed down out of the rig and watched the big truck lumber away, dribbling little pieces of coal out the back as it bumped along.
Will heard the driver grind the gears as he double-clutched up the steep incline around the next bend. Then it was quiet. In the silence, the familiar knot-in-the-belly dread returned. But now that he was actually here, this close to it all, his dread morphed into a fear as cold as a shark cruising dark currents in a night sea. Will Gribbins harbored no illusions, understood with absolute clarity what was at stake. It was simple when you got right down to it. Unless he could do what he had come here to do, he'd be dead before Christmas.
CHAPTER 2
THE CHERRY POPSICLE the little Hayes boy’d snitched out of the dairy case on the back wall was melting—in his hip pocket. He reached his hand back and felt the sticky wetness and the look of panic that instantly spread across his little-kid features was downright comical.
“You was plannin’ on paying for what you got there, wasn’t you?” JoJo Sparrow asked him innocently and bit down on her lip to keep a straight face. When the boy started to drag the mushy mess out of his pocket, she pointed out, “Don’t you think it’s a little late to return it?”
“I ain’t got no money right now,” he stammered, his face a brighter shade of red than either his hair or the growing wet spot on his backside. He glanced out the glass door at a man pumping gas into a beat-up pickup truck. “I can’t ask…I gotta go find my granny. She’ll give me a dollar if ’n I bring back the change.”
It would be easy to let the kid off the hook, but JoJo wouldn’t be doing the boy any favors if she did. The kindest thing she could do was to scare the bejeebers out of him now, before his daddy caught him stealing something else someday and beat the crap out of him. Not that thievery was a moral issue with Skeeter Hayes. He had a chop shop in the barn out back of his place. BMWs, Lincoln Town Cars, Cadillacs, Porsches, and Lexuses stolen from Lexington went in one side of that barn and untraceable car parts, batteries, transmissions, and Mag Wheels came out the other. But your own little boy stealing—now that was another thing altogether! A man had to raise up his kids proper, didn’t he, teach them right from wrong—beat it into them if he had to.
JoJo shook her head. Skeeter wasn’t smart enough to see any contradiction in that.
She stepped out from behind the counter, looked very official in the red Jiffy Stop smock she wore over her jeans, and her long, blond hair pulled back neatly in a ponytail. She stared down at the terrified 6-year-old.
“You listen here to me Riley Hayes,” she said, her voice stern. “I know what you done. It’s called shopliftin’. Stealin’. I could pick up the phone right now and call Sheriff Jack. He’d come over here, slap handcuffs on you, and haul you off to jail!”
The boy’s face went from the crimson of embarrassment to the chalk white of abject terror in the space between one heartbeat and the next. He didn’t say a word, just stared doe-eyed up at JoJo. The spray of freckles on his face stuck out like red sequins; his bottom lip trembled.
“Give me that popsicle,” she demanded and held out her hand.
The boy dug at the slush in his jeans pocket; all he managed to retrieve was two mush-covered sticks and a wad of wet wrapper.
“This popsicle costs 50 cents. That’s a lot of money.” She paused for effect. “But just this once I’m gonna let you come back and pay me for it later, the next time you’re here.” The boy almost collapsed in a puddle of soggy relief. “You got to earn it, though. Feed the chickens or wash your daddy’s truck.” The boy shook his head frantically up and down. “Don’t you bring me money somebody give you.” He shook equally frantically side to side. “Now scat!”
The child turned and bolted out of the store, trailing a little red convoy of popsicle droppings on the floor behind
him.
For a moment, JoJo let the thought of having Darrell’s child flit through her mind like a bright blue hummingbird zipping from one flower to the next—a cute little red-haired boy like Riley.
Who’d grow up to be a miner and get killed like his daddy and his granddaddy and his great granddaddy.
Come to think of it, he’d be lucky if that’s what did happen. There were worse ways to die than in a mine.
JoJo stepped back behind the counter, banished the image of a child from her mind and concentrated instead on figuring out where she could get her hands on a gun. Not a rifle; those were as common in the hollow as bumps on a pickle. But a rifle wouldn’t work. Her arms weren’t long enough. With the barrel of a rifle pointed at her head or stuck in her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to reach the trigger to pull it. No, she needed a handgun—a pistol.
JAMEY SPARROW BRUSHED back the blond hair that had fallen into his eyes and wondered what his hands would decide to make today.
He picked up two lumps of coal, one about the size of his fist and one big as a small watermelon. When he did, he felt the tickly, fluttery feeling in his belly he always got when he commenced to working on one of his arts.
He set aside the smaller rock and fixed his attention on the watermelon one.
Just touching coal made Jamey feel warm all over, like he was holding sunshine in his hand. Granny said that’s what the old-timers had called it, black sunshine, because coal was made of squashed-up plants, and it give off the light and heat the sun had give them plants. Jamey liked the thought of holding a lump of sunshine in his hand and a smile stapled itself to his cheeks with deep-dish dimples. He liked every kind of coal—some of it hard and brittle, dark as the night sky but shiny; other pieces, flat black like a iron skillet, softer and more crumbly. He loved the feel of coal, all slicky-like, and the smell…
Jamey’s smile faltered. Neighbors said coal didn’t have no smell, laughed at him when he told them it did, too. They said he was storying. Made him cry so hard Granny’d marched over there and give them what for. That was when she’d still go all the way to the fence. She’d raised her voice even, said she’d put a quietus on the lot of them if they didn’t stop tormenting her Jamey Boy.
Jamey held the black rock up to his nose and breathed in. That day the Jewetts got so put out with him, Ray-Ray had sneered, “If ’n coal smells, what does it smell like?”
Jamey’d told him, “Coal smells like the color black, you mowron.” Ray-Ray just run off laughing.
He took another deep breath of the dull-as-smoke rock in his hand and his smile grew wider. Then it faded again, slipped down off his face entirely and he sighed.
Jamey loved coal and it troubled him something fierce that the other miners who spent their lives digging coal out of the mountain alongside him didn’t have no fondness for it at all. They was all the time down there in the dark keeping company with it, touching it, and caring for it like he done.
“How could they not love coal?”
He heard his voice and knew he’d spoken his thought. He clamped his hand over his mouth! He was supposed to think a thought and then decide if he wanted to say it, not spew out whatever was in his head like spitting watermelon seeds out his mouth. Granny said. But wasn’t nobody to hear him except ValVleen and she wasn’t no tattletale.
“You ain’t gonna tell on me, are you ValVleen?” he asked the bright yellow canary perched on his shoulder.
The bird cocked its head to one side and studied him, then let fly a warbling bird song full of tweets, chirps, and whistles that sounded just like she’d answered Jamey’s question. Oh, how Jamey ached to understand what ValVleen said! He’d tried, struggled hard, listened close as he could, sometimes seemed he was almost there—like when you hear somebody talking in another room and you can almost make out what they’re saying but not quite. Maybe if he was…what was it Granny’d told Ma Jewett?
Jamey grew very still. His only movement was unconsciously wiggling the fingers of both hands in his lap, intertwined like they were dancing. That’s what he always did when he put all his energy into thinking.
Granny’d said…They’s folks quicker on the uptake than my Jamey Boy. Yeah, that was it! He was proud that he’d remembered. So maybe if his uptake was faster, he’d know what ValVleen was saying. But then it struck him that didn’t nobody else understand bird songs neither so it didn’t appear being able to uptake quick, whatever that meant, was any help.
Jamey puckered up and made smooching sounds at the bird. The canary hopped over and pecked his lips and kept on singing, chirp, chirp, chirr, tweet, chirp, rbbb-rbbb, whistle, peep-peep. The world was full up with things Jamey loved, but coal and the sound of ValVleen’s songs was so dear, his throat hurt from the joy of them sometimes—like he was about to cry.
The bird didn’t sing much as she used to, though. There was a time ValVleen chirped from morning to night, didn’t never stop once. All mine canaries did. That’s how miners like Jamey’s grandfather knew to drop their picks and run—when the birds stopped singing. ValVleen still sang a lot, but not all the time no more. Probably because she was getting old.
Fear spread out in Jamey’s belly like icicles forming from snow runoff on the roof. His eyes filled with tears that didn’t have nothing to do with joy. No! Can’t think about ValVleen getting old. Next thing that happened after a body got old was they passed. Can’t think about ValVleen…dying. JoJo said he needed to start considering it, get himself ready, said ValVleen’d already lived way longer than most canaries. But Jamey wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. Life without ValVleen would be….
He started to breathe hard, pant like a hound dog chasing a coon and broke out in a sweat even though it was cool in the shed. He’d soon need a coat on to work out here.
He let out a little peep of a cry and streams of tears slipped down his face when he blinked. Then ValVleen hopped back over close to his cheek and cocked her head, like she wanted to comfort him, and Jamey pushed the awful thoughts that made him sad and scared right out of his mind. He couldn’t let himself wander around out there in tomorrow; it was dark and scary and spooky out there. Today was warm, happy, and good. He’d stay right here in today.
CHAPTER 3
WITH A BALL-PEEN hammer raised high above her head—it was all she could lay her hands on quick—Ruby Sparrow got down on her knees fast as she could and eased the trash basket away from the wall. The little gray mouse hidden behind it took out across the worn linoleum as she slammed the hammer down at it, missed it by inches—bam! bam! bam!—all the way across the kitchen. She thought she had him sure when she cornered him up against the refrigerator. But before she could squash him, he squeezed between it and the cabinet and was gone.
Ruby sat back on her heels and brushed a tendril of curly white hair out of her face.
“Think you got away from me, do ya? Well, you got two or three more thinks comin’ if you b’lieve the two of us is just gonna live here together all friendly like. You best find wherever you come in here this mornin’ and go right back out the same way. I ain’t gonna have me no mice in my house!”
She reached up and grabbed the cabinet and pulled herself slowly to her feet, turned and eyed the tabby cat sprawled on its back in the spot in front of the glass doors where sunlight warmed the rug for a few hours every day.
“Fat lot of good you done, Crawdad,” she grumbled. “You’re lazier’n a Mason jar full of slugs.” She walked over and nudged the cat with her foot. “Hey, you. I’m talkin’ to you.”
The cat opened one eye, looked up at her, then rolled over on its side and went back to sleep.
“Come Monday a week when Lloyd takes Jamey Boy’s arts to that gallery in Lexington, I’m gonna pack you ’long with him so’s he can drop you off at the animal shelter.” She paused. “You see if I don’t!”
All right, she might be bluffing Crawdad, but she had pure intent toward that mouse! She’d fairly well do something about that critter even if it meant
Jamey Boy had to move the refrigerator out from the wall and stuff steel wool into every itty-bitty crack and cranny behind it. Most times a mouse’d move out before it’d chew through steel wool.
Of course, it was bound to happen, mice and such. Trailer houses, especially a double-wide like hers, wasn’t built snug as a proper house. And this one was going on fifteen, no, more like 18 years old. It was already used when Jamey Boy set the house afire with that butane lighter he found up next to the Jewett’s fence. And he was only four then.
She and JoJo’d been out working in the garden while Jamey Boy was supposed to be taking a nap. When he was little, he was always poorly and he’d been up the night crying with an earache. So she left him asleep while she and his sister dug some carrots to put in soup for supper.
The garden had been way in the back of the yard then. Ruby paused, considered how she hadn’t been out that far in years. Bow’d made the garden so big the back side was right up next to the woods and the deer was all the time eating her tomato plants and pole beans. Had to tie plastic grocery sacks to sticks to flap in the wind and scare them away.
She hadn’t smelled the smoke that day; wind was blowing the other direction. JoJo seen it, though, screamed and pointed. Ruby liked to died when she turned and flames was licking up out of the roof. She run back in the house and found Jamey in the living room crying, his hand all red, still holding on to that lighter.
She scooped him up and run outside and then the three of them stood there with the neighbors and watched the house burn all the way to the ground. Didn’t even seem real when she was watching. It was like looking in through the window at a kitchen in hell—the table blazing and the curtains curled up, wiggling and dancing in the flames. It didn’t take no time at all for the fire to eat up that brittle old wood house. Volunteer fire department from Harlan got there and wasn’t nothing left but smoldering timbers.