by Ninie Hammon
Bad things had happened to Will. She could see into the darkness behind his eyes where bats flew around with blood dripping off their fangs. But sometimes bad things happened to you so you could comfort somebody else, and maybe that was the way of it with Will. If life had taught her anything in her 76 years in this hollow it was that God never wasted a hurt.
Will and JoJo stopped and looked up at Jamey Boy; he said nothing, just stood there with that odd look he got sometimes, like wasn’t nothing at all going on inside his head. And maybe there wasn’t. Granny knew he was being polite, didn’t want to interrupt. But Will didn’t understand how long Jamey could stand there like that. She’d never in all her days met anybody as patient as he was. That boy would sit and wait for hours for a hummingbird to show up at the sugar water jar they’d set out back.
“Jamey Boy, did you want some’m, Sugar?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
Silence.
“What is it?”
“It’s this here carvin’.” He held the piece of jet out in front of him. “I need to know what I’m s’posed to do with it.” He didn’t look at anyone, tucked his head, and took a deep breath. “I done part of it as you can see but soon’s I did I seen it wasn’t people dancin’ but they’s movin’ an’ it felt in my belly like they’s hurtin’ and I don’t want it to make you cry like that other one done so if ’n you don’t want me to, I ain’t gonna carve nary another piece, just give the jet back to Lloyd and tell him to put it back in the hole he dug it out of in the mountain. The end.”
Granny crossed to where Jamey Boy stood, lifted the stone out of his hands, removed the pillowcase and set the carving down on the table. JoJo and Will got up and the three of them stared down at it. Jamey Boy stepped over beside Granny but he didn’t look at the carving. His gaze wandered like it was following a fly buzzing around the room.
“Oh.” Just the one word from Will.
JoJo said nothing at all, just put both hands over her mouth, and stared wide-eyed at the stone.
Granny got down close enough to see it and far enough away so she could make out the detail. JoJo’d said she’d ought to get glasses. Soon as it registered with Granny what she was looking at, she let out a little squeak of a gasp. It wasn’t near done, but enough was finished that you could see it was like that mural of her and Bowman’s wedding—a moment frozen in time. Right up front was a lone miner; behind him was a great crowd of them. The up-front miner had no details, but he was the only one raised in relief on the stone; the miners behind him were mere sketches, etched outlines not yet “pulled up outta the rock.”
All the figures in the carving were flying through the air. A tangle of men, twisting and turning, and a mangled piece of machinery that was either a mantrip or a shuttle had been flung backward by some invisible force.
None of the miners had faces.
Will was the first one to find his voice.
“It’s the explosion, isn’t it,” he said, but it wasn’t no question. “This is what it looked like at the face of the mine when #7 blew.”
Will was right, of course. It was plain that Jamey Boy had carved the disaster. Granny shouldn’t have been surprised. All anybody in the hollow had talked about for the past month was the anniversary and the ceremony. When he wasn’t in the mine or his shed, Jamey Boy hung out in town at the grocery, Pete’s Place, the post office. And somewhere in that brain of his—that didn’t get no oxygen so it was different and special—somewhere in there he’d seen what no other living human being had eyes to see.
Jamey Boy said nothing, just wagged his head back and forth and looked at no one.
JoJo turned to Granny. “What did he mean about the other carvin’ that made you cry? Has he carved the explosion before and I ain’t never seen it?”
Will watched her closely. He’d already heard Jamey Boy mention an arts that made her cry. Granny fumbled, then finally got out an honest answer. “No, he ain’t never carved the ’xplosion.” That was true. He hadn’t. Then she remembered what she’d told Will when he’d asked. “Lots of what Jamey does is so powerful, I get all teary-eyed.” She looked back at the piece of unfinished art on the table. “But this…”
“You don’t want me to finish it, I won’t,” Jamey said and looked out the window. “I don’t aim to make you sad.”
Granny put her arm around him and patted his back.
“Life just gets away from me some days; ain’t yore fault.”
Will spoke slowly and quietly as he stared at the carving with the empty look of a man who can’t believe he’s seeing what he’s seeing. “Granny, when this is finished…” He pointed to the sketched miners in the background. “…when all these are pulled out of the rock like the one in front, you’ll be able to tell who…”
One of them miners was Bowman. One was Ed. One was...how could she stand to watch them die, to see the looks on their faces?
Jamey Boy spoke then. “The reason they ain’t got no faces is ’cause I ain’t seen none. Maybe they faces got stuck in the rock and can’t get out. I can’t give ’em faces if ’n they don’t got none.” He stopped, then continued softly. “But maybe the faces is comin’ later.”
Granny reached out and touched the stone, ran her fingers over the lone raised miner in front and over the shadowy outlines of the others in the background.
“You ’member what I told you that time ’bout yore arts?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said and began a first-grader recitation. “You said it was my job to dig out of the rocks whatever God put in ’em and it didn’t matter if people didn’t like what was there.”
“Ain’t no less true now than it was then,” Granny said. “This here arts ain’t no worse’n some of the pictures I made up my own self.” She took a deep breath and turned to Jamey Boy. “if ’n the ’xplosion is what’s in the rock, then the ’xplosion is what you got to set free.”
CHAPTER 21
LLOYD JACOBS LIVED in a house, not a trailer; Will gave him points for that. It was small and nondescript and clung to a hillside about half a mile off Frog Hole Lane. A place that might once have been charming, it had descended into trashy. Weeds strangled the garden next to the porch where an unpruned climbing rose bush had gobbled up the lattice railing as well as the trellis by the door. The yard looked like it might not have been mowed the whole summer. Lloyd’s truck was parked out front, so Will knew he’d found the right house, knew Lloyd was home, and he quickly pulled off the road into the driveway. He wouldn’t allow himself to hesitate because he knew if he did, he’d lose his nerve altogether, turn around and go back to Granny’s without ever making an attempt to put things right between him and Lloyd.
Out of nowhere, Will was blind-sided by an overwhelming longing for a drink. His mouth watered, ached for the sweet caramel flavor and the kick of good bourbon—a taste he hadn’t experienced in years. At the end, Will was down to cheap wine when he could get it and cough syrup or mouthwash when he couldn’t.
A wave of self-pity swept over him and demon booze appeared out of the shadows, slipped his arm around Will’s shoulders and whispered in his ear like a trusted friend.
Only one won’t hurt. You’re back on your feet and strong enough to handle it now. A little self-control and you can drink responsibly—in moderation.
Will broke into a cold sweat
I need to go to a meeting!
But there were no AA meetings in Aintree Hollow. Nothing here to keep him sober but his past, the people he’d hurt and the little flame of hope that still burned inside him.
Will parked JoJo’s car behind Lloyd’s truck. It was the only space there was, and it did preclude Lloyd’s bolting—though Will knew that was absurd. Lloyd could refuse to talk to him. The two of them might even end up beating the crap out of each other, but Lloyd had no reason to run from him.
Will began to second-guess that assumption, however, as soon as Lloyd opened the door. A look of such…what? surprise? anger? No, more like fear washe
d over Lloyd’s face, and for an instant, Will thought the man might actually turn and run. Then the contesting emotions at war on his face resolved into the single most powerful one—fury.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Lloyd’s voice sounded odd. It had a much lower pitch than Will remembered. It wasn’t a hoarse sound. More like the words came out of a rain barrel. Or from some very deep, dark place.
“I came to talk.”
“’Bout what?”
“What do you think?”
Lloyd squared his jaw, his face dark with unspent rage, and said defiantly, “If you’re here to accuse me of some’m, go ahead, spit it out.”
“Accuse you? Of what?”
“You think you can prove it, go on, call the sheriff. Now…” Lloyd spit out the next words like the taste of them made him sick. “…get off my porch!”
Will didn’t budge. The two men glared at each other for a couple of beats, and Will noticed the gray cast to Lloyd’s skin, the black circles under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept—or shaved—in three days.
Then Will spoke in a voice that sounded far calmer than he felt. “Lloyd, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You’re not making any sense. Look…” he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “…can we just take a break from stupid for a minute? I came here because I want to talk. That’s all. Talk.”
Lloyd looked momentarily confused. Then he smiled an odd smile, a smirk.
“I done said everything I had to say. Me and you are quits.”
Will sensed that something had shifted in Lloyd. He’d pulled back from some edge, appeared to relax, like there had been a competition Will wasn’t aware of and Lloyd had won.
“I’m sorry, Lloyd.”
“For what?”
‘ “Everything.”
“It’d help if you narrowed that down some.”
“I’m sorry I bailed on you. Sorry I left, that I stayed gone, never came back. I’m sorry—”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Lloyd mimicked. “You’re sorry all right. A sorry excuse for a human being. Now like I said, get off my porch.”
He reached to close the door in Will’s face.
“Lloyd, I’m going to tell Granny,” Will tossed the words out into the air like a hand grenade without a pin. It took a few seconds for them to explode.
Lloyd froze, “Tell her what?”
“All of it,” Will pushed ahead. “Before the memorial service tomorrow, I’m going to tell her what happened, the whole story.”
“Why?” There was no anger in the question; Lloyd sounded genuinely bewildered.
“I have to, Lloyd,” Will’s voice, his eyes and his heart pleaded with Lloyd to understand. “It’s eaten me up inside. I won’t carry it around with me anymore.” Will paused, but not long enough for the stunned Lloyd to summon a response. When he continued speaking there was an edge of steel in his voice.
“And I’m not just talking about what the three of us did together, Lloyd. There was worse done to Ricky Dan than—”
Without warning, Lloyd lunged at Will, cried out in primeval, inarticulate rage, his lips skinned back from his teeth like a mad dog. He slammed Will backward into the porch post, seized his neck, and started to choke him.
Will didn’t grant Lloyd one-swing-he’s-entitled-to-it this time. His response was instinctive. Lloyd might have been bigger, but military training and years of bar brawls gave Will a clear advantage. He grabbed Lloyd’s right hand with both of his and pried Lloyd’s fingers off his neck. Then he continued to shove Lloyd’s fingers backward onto his forearm until Lloyd cried out in pain and let go his hold on Will’s neck with his other hand. Then Will stepped to the side, kept the wrist-breaking pressure on Lloyd’s right hand firm, and forced Lloyd to his knees. Only then did he let go.
But there was still fight left in Lloyd and he scrambled to his feet. Before he could completely regain his balance, Will shoved him backward into the porch railing. The old wood must have been rotten because the railing and the trellis behind it gave way when he struck them, dumping Lloyd on top of them in the front yard. Broken pieces of lattice and large, sharp rose bush thorns slashed deep scratches into his arms, back, and the side of his face.
Will leapt down off the porch, straddled Lloyd’s chest and drew his fist back to smash it into Lloyd’s face. But he let his arm drop to his side, instead, chilled by the eerie sensation of déjà vu. Will had knocked Lloyd on his back once before. He felt like throwing up this time, too, but at least his pants were dry.
“I don’t know what your problem is, man, but whether you like it or not, I’m telling Granny,” Will gasped, panting from exertion and from the adrenaline dump into his veins. “If she has any sense at all, she’ll toss me out on my ear and never speak to me again.”
He got up off Lloyd’s chest. “How she’ll feel about you once she knows the truth is your problem.”
Then Will marched out to JoJo’s car, got in, and drove away.
It was a warm morning. The sun up above the mountain to the east ignited the autumn trees in a blaze of color. But where Will’s mind had gone, there was no light. There was no color. There was only darkness and smoke and terror.
CHAPTER 22
Ricky Dan leads the way toward the rail shaft. Will and Lloyd follow him through the nearest break—one of hundreds of 18-foot open spaces between coal pillars that connect the shafts.
Halfway down the break, there should be a curtain across it, a dam in the middle that blocks the air flow and directs good air toward the face of the mine. There is no curtain.
In the absolute black, it is impossible to see more than a few feet ahead; walking bent over means they can’t shine their headlamps out front without squatting down.
Will is chilled. He’s always chilled in the mine—even when he’s hard at work. Maybe it’s because he’s always sweating—even when he’s sitting still. Fear sweat. The stink of it makes him nauseous. And the damp makes him shiver. There’s moisture on every surface. Water constantly drips from the roof; sometimes it comes down like rain. The shuttle driver has to grease the steering wheel when he leaves on Friday or it’ll be rusted when he returns for his shift Monday morning.
Cold, damp and dark. And small. He feels the walls begin to squeeze tighter and tighter; senses the weight of the mountain suspended above him. Ready to crush him…like that coal train that roared over him only inches…
Stop it!
Will grabs hold of his thoughts and forcibly wrenches them away from the spiral into panic. As long as he stays busy, he can cope. Well, busy at any job except helping the pinner on the roof-bolting machine. Drilling holes for the 4-foot-long bolts that attach the unstable slate of the mine roof to the denser layer of sandstone above it is the most dangerous job in the mine. Work under unbolted top so frightens Will he sometimes loses his breakfast—tells the pinner man he has a stomach virus. Greasing the belt line isn’t nearly as frightening and it keeps his mind occupied. But just walking along in the dark like this…
He turns his head and glances over to the right as they pass the next break. The headlamp on his red helmet lights up something crouched in the shadows in the shaft on the other side of it. He jumps back, loses his footing, and goes down on one knee.
Lloyd turns around. “You okay?”
“Fine, just tripped.” His voice is shaky but he doesn’t think Lloyd noticed. Headlamps mess with your eyes; the dark messes with your head. Makes you see things that aren’t there. Ghost images, formed out of shadows and dust and fear.
He shouldn’t have been able to see all the way through the break to begin with. This is the third one they’ve passed with no curtain. All the breaks along the rail line are supposed to be sealed off with heavy burlap or plastic curtains or with permanent concrete-block walls, “dammed up” to direct good air to the face of the mine.
Hob Bascomb does as good a job as he can, but curtain-hanging and building permanent seals are tasks he ge
ts around to when they don’t have him pulled away doing something else.
And Hob’s not here today.
The next break is sealed with a curtain. And as they go along, the rest are sealed, too. Some with curtains; others with piles of cinder block disguised with rock dust to look like concrete-block walls.
It seems to take an hour to travel the quarter mile up the rail shaft to the point where the track ends. Lloyd and Ricky Dan argue about basketball the whole way. The roar of Bowman’s continuous miner fades behind them; the rumble of the second crew’s miner farther down the face is a low hum. But Lloyd and Ricky Dan don’t bother to lower their voices as the sounds diminish; they’re already shouting at each other before the debate even heats up.
Lloyd is a rabid University of Kentucky fan, has “UK” painted in bright blue letters on the front of his helmet. Last night, Ricky Dan painted a blue “UK” on his own helmet, too—with a red X across it. Just to be ornery. When Granny saw it, she warned that Lloyd wouldn’t likely think it was funny. Granny was right.
“You tellin’ me you don’t think Joe B. Hall’s the best coach in the Southeast Conference? They won the NCAA championship 3 years ago—whadda ya want?”
“Three years ago’s the Stone Age,” Ricky Dan says, baiting him. “What’s he done lately?”
“Well, he—”
“He ain’t done squat, that’s what. This year, they couldn’t even take the conference!”
Lloyd stops so abruptly Will almost runs into him. There is a look in his eye, a glint of impending violence Will has seen more and more often in the past few years. Lloyd has an explosive temper and there’s no longer any doubt who’d be the winner if he and Will got into it. At 18, Lloyd has powerful shoulders and massive, muscular arms. After his mother died 2 years ago, he’d quit school to work in the mine—under age—and when he wasn’t on the job, he worked out, lifted weights, bulked up. His father had run off the Christmas after she died and folks said he probably left because Lloyd was so big now he couldn’t beat him up anymore. Though Ricky Dan was 7 years older, he was slender like Will; he’d be no match for Lloyd, either.