Mom placed her hand on Mrs. Ledford’s and whispered with a sniff, “Rest in peace, Helen.”
Dad found some seats for Mom and me at the back of the church and went to stand against the wall with the other men. Even Crazy Coote, wearing an old suit with his hair slicked back, was there. He looked right at me with that intense stare of his before I turned away.
Pastor Raht talked about Mrs. Ledford being in a better place with her Lord and not having to suffer anymore. Watching Mr. Ledford through the tangle of shoulders and stiff hair, I wondered if the preacher’s words made him feel any better.
It seemed like everybody in town wanted to stand up and say somethin’ about Mrs. Ledford. After a while, I had a hard time keeping still. I looked around at all the familiar faces. Without smiles, everybody looked tired and old. Nobody looked right in their Sunday suits—too tight here, too short there. They fiddled with their collars and pulled at their ties, ready to throw on overalls the minute they got home. That’s what I planned to do anyhow.
I twisted around and stared at the big hole high on the wall above the church entrance. It was about three feet wide, like a round window but without glass.
“Mom, what’s that?” I whispered, pointing quickly.
“It’s called a spirit hole. It’s there so Mrs. Ledford’s soul can float out to Heaven,” she replied.
“Is it always open like that?”
“Yes, shhh.”
“Even when it rains or snows?”
“Yes, Jack. Now hush.”
I spent the rest of the sermon trying to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Ledford heading out that spirit hole as a winged angel, or maybe a misty ghost. I wasn’t sure what she’d look like, so I stared hard—I didn’t want to miss her.
We went to the Ledfords’ house after the funeral. Mom wedged her casserole onto the dining-room table already overflowing with cookies, sandwiches, and more casseroles, then joined the other wives in the kitchen. Dad talked in the corner with his fellow strikers, their faces grim. There wasn’t much for Piran and me to do except stand around and listen to gossip.
Even at fourteen, we were still young enough, I guess, that people didn’t think nothin’ about saying stuff around us. Unfortunately, I ended up next to the old biddies—three miners’ wives who liked to get everybody in trouble.
“I heard that Nat Faysal crossed the picket line to talk to those guards yesterday.”
“He did not. That’s not true.”
“My son’s wife’s sister saw him with her own eyes.”
“Whatever for, though? Why would he do it?”
“Who knows. Maybe he was trying to put in a word for his son—get him a job?”
“Well! That does it. I will never shop at Faysal’s again! I won’t support no strikebuster.”
“Me neither.”
Father Huckabay interrupted them. “Ladies, my ears were buzzing with your wicked gossip. True or not, do you really think this appropriate conversation for a funeral?”
Good for him! I hid my grin.
The women looked at the floor and at each other, then broke up and found other ears to burn.
I kept getting jostled as people passed me to get to the food or the kitchen. I backed up against a wall and ended up around a corner from Sheriff Elder. His conversation with his deputy was much more interesting.
“…found a field over in Cherokee County. They set up cameras and got enough evidence to bust a small growing ring—only five guys, but over a million dollars’ worth of marijuana. We’re gonna start a helicopter flyover here in Polk County as soon as the budget gets approved. We’ll be able to spot growin’ fields much easier from above, though we’ve already got two we’re closing in on. That one in Hell’s Holler and another in Devil’s Den. Got cameras on ’em both—just waitin’ for enough evidence.”
“Jack, come help with this,” Mom said. I spun around, but not before Sheriff Elder caught my eye and frowned.
Mom handed me a large glass bowl full of red punch. “Careful now.”
I turned around slowly, trying to keep it from sloshing.
“Where should I put it?” I asked. Between all the CorningWare casserole dishes, slabs of meat, and mystery dishes still covered in tinfoil, there wasn’t a bare surface anywhere.
“Just find a spot,” she said as she waved her hand and returned to the kitchen.
“Right,” I said and rolled my eyes.
I slowly moved to the doorway of the living room, without spilling, but still couldn’t see a good place to put the punch bowl.
Suddenly, across the room, Mr. Ledford slumped over like Jell-O.
“Help him lie down. Give him some air!” everybody started yelling at once. “Call an ambulance!”
Somebody rushed by me, knockin’ the punch bowl right out of my arms. Red juice splashed everywhere and soaked into Mrs. Ledford’s white carpet.
“I’m sorry!” I cried to my mom, who was suddenly by my side with a towel and some club soda. My nose swelled and hot tears ran down my face.
“I’ve got it, Jack.”
I caught a glimpse of Mr. Ledford through the paisley dresses and navy pants. He was so pale, he matched the carpet he was lying on.
“Will he be okay?” I sobbed. Months of tension burst out of me in a flood. I was red with embarrassment, but I couldn’t stop.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she replied as she kneeled down, poured the club soda on the carpet, and scrubbed with the towel. “The ambulance will be here soon.” She looked up at me, her face wrinkled with concern. “Find Piran and yu’uns just go on, okay?” she said. “Be home before dark.”
I wiped my nose down my coat sleeve and rubbed the tears from my eyes. When I looked up, Hannah was staring right at me with a crinkled forehead and her pink lips forming a perfect O. Was that disgust or understanding on her face? I couldn’t tell. And even though she looked more beautiful than ever, I squinted my eyes at her—she wasn’t one to judge, and it was a little late for her to care. I pushed my way through the kitchen and out the back door.
Piran was already outside. “It was too stuffy in there,” he said. “What’s all the racket?”
“Mr. Ledford fainted,” I told him and looked down so he wouldn’t see I’d been cryin’. “They called an ambulance.”
We could already hear its siren leaving the hospital in the distance.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. I pulled off my jacket, shoes, and socks.
I ran down the road, the dirt warm under my bare feet. The wind dried my tears as I left Piran behind. At the bridge, I grabbed the rail and slipped my legs over the edge, letting my feet wave high above the water. I threw rocks as hard as I could, determined to break the river in half.
“That sucked,” Piran said when he finally caught up with me. He gasped a few times before he sat. “What was that about?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m just sick of funerals.” I threw a big rock. Kaplunk! “What a rotten start to summer.”
I was tired. Tired of money being so tight. Tired of my parents arguin’ and all the tension at home. Tired of my friends moving away and seeing FOR SALE signs on the stores in town. I wanted things back to normal.
But no, not that either, I thought. I didn’t want my dad back in the mines, not ever. I felt like my face was gonna stick in a permanent frown—things were all wrong.
Piran and I stared at the water for a long time.
A tiny blue shape gently left the shadow of the bridge and floated with the current into the sunlight.
What is that? I wondered. It looked like a little cup except for its ragged, sharp edge. The inside was white and the outside was a soft blue with brown spots.
I gasped and pointed. “It’s a bird’s egg!”
“No way,” Piran said. “Where would it come from?”
�
��Somewhere upstream, I suppose.”
I watched it bob on the water’s surface until it was out of sight.
Chapter 24
Fishing
I was going to meet Piran the next day to go fishing, which meant hiking way far south to get to where the fish could live. I checked my garden before I left. A green mass of leaves covered the string lattice with little white flowers and a few leaves that looked like…
“Mom, Mom!” I shouted as I ran inside. “Come look!”
She followed me out to the garden and I pointed to the fatter of the green leaves. “What are those?”
“Jack! You’ve grown sugar snap peas!” She hugged me and tried to swing me around but couldn’t lift me up. Instead, we ended up dancing in a circle like we’d lost our minds.
“So now what?” I asked as I stopped to catch my breath.
She plucked one of the pods off the vine and handed it to me. “You eat it!” Then she broke off another and took a bite out of hers. “Mmm. It’s so sweet! Try one.”
“Raw?” I made a face.
“Yes, raw. It’s good.”
I nibbled at the end of my snap pea. It crunched cool and sweet in my mouth, still wet with dew.
“Hey, that’s not bad,” I said and pulled another one off.
We smiled as we munched on the green pods until there weren’t any left.
“Oh no, I’m sorry!” I said mid-chew. “Did you want these for dinner?”
Mom laughed. “Y’know, when I used to visit my grandma up on Beech Mountain, the sugar snap peas never made it out of her garden either.”
She squinted at me. “Jack, it’s time for your summer haircut. Let me grab my trimmers.”
“Nawww, Mom! Piran’s waitin’ for me.”
“This’ll only take a minute.”
I kicked at the ground as she went inside. I hated having my head shaved, but Mom did it every summer. “It’s easier to clean you up,” she said when she came back. “And it’s cooler.”
“Then why don’t you shave your head?” I mumbled.
“Here we go.” She pulled the extension cord after her. “Lean over.”
As I did, sunlight fluttered in the corner of my eye and I looked up quick. No way. Was that a…a bird? Nothing was there. Besides, there hadn’t been a bird in Coppertown for a hundred years. I had to be dreamin’.
Mom clicked the button and the trimmers whined to life, sounding too much like the saw Dr. Davis had used to remove my cast. As she buzzed across my head I winced and watched my hair fall to the ground at my feet.
A short time later I walked to the bridge with my new fishing rod over my shoulder. I rubbed my stubbly head. It felt so strange and naked. Then I burst out laughing when I saw Piran. He was bald too.
“My mom said it’s so she can find ticks easier,” Piran complained as we walked toward the Bait ’n Beer. “But I ask you, when was the last time anybody ever saw a tick in these parts?”
Grandpa’s store sat by Old Brawling Town Creek, a feeder creek for the Tohachee. It was called Old Brawling because a lot of fights used to break out down that way when the first miners came over. They hadn’t just come from Cornwall, England, but also from Germany, Italy, Greece, and even as far away as Lebanon. There were a few Black townsfolk too, but they weren’t miners. Grandpa Chase said they were superstitious about going underground. They may have been the smartest of the bunch for thinkin’ that way.
Not all those folks got along so well at first. Back then Coppertown was like livin’ in the Wild West. Grandpa told great stories about it—like the one about the man who was shot for cheatin’ at cards, but nobody knew who he was. So the coroner had him embalmed and they propped him up in a casket in the window of the hardware store so some passersby might identify him. Crazy.
Bells rang as we entered Grandpa’s store, which was filled with the chirp, chirp of live bait. He got one glimpse of our cue-ball heads and laughed ’til I worried he might choke.
“It’s not funny!” I said. “You’re lucky she can’t get a hold of you.”
Grandpa rubbed the top of his head. “Not much left for her to shave off anyhow. What yu’uns up to today?”
“Goin’ fishin’,” Piran said.
“You gonna walk all that way?” Grandpa asked.
“It’s only ’bout an hour upstream,” I said. Fish didn’t live downstream from the Company, and it took a while to get to ’em even on the upstream side. But it was one of the only places in Coppertown that had plants—a little kudzu and broom sage, which I found in my plant identification book—not much, but more than I was used to seein’. Being upwind of the smelters made all the difference. Someday I’d have a car to get there and it wouldn’t seem so far, although I didn’t really mind the walk.
“Well, you want crickets or worms?” Grandpa asked.
“Worms’ll be fine,” I said.
“Go get yourselves a cupful,” Grandpa said.
Piran held the cup while I dug through the dirt bin with my hands.
“You not gonna use the scoop?” Piran asked.
“Nah, I like to feel them wigglin’ around my fingers,” I said. “Besides, I get more worms than dirt this way.”
I set the cup on the counter right next to a new jar full of strange, gnarled shapes. “What’s that, Grandpa?”
“That there’s pickled ginseng,” he said. “Did you know your great-grandfather was a ‘sang’ hunter? He made good money selling it to Chinese merchants.”
“Hunt it?” Piran asked. “Is it some kind of animal?”
“Naw,” Grandpa said, laughing. “It’s a root. It’s supposed to be a cure for just about anything.”
“I guess Mrs. Ledford didn’t use it, then,” I said.
Grandpa replied quietly, “Nothing can cure lung cancer, Jack.”
I blushed, remembering Grandma Chase. “I’m sorry…” I mumbled.
“People pay money for it?” Piran asked. “Maybe we could hunt sang. Where do we get it?”
“Well now, that’s the big secret, ain’t it?” Grandpa leaned across the counter and whispered, “It’s very hard to find, and sang hunters are highly protective of their growin’ patches. Nowadays it’s grown commercially, like this here jar, but back in the day, it was a big deal. Sometimes men got shot over it.”
“Like pot fields,” Piran said.
“How do you know about that?” Grandpa leaned back with a frown.
“I just heard, is all.” Piran glanced at me and the tops of his ears turned red. I’d told him what I’d overheard Sheriff Elder say at the Ledfords’ house after the funeral.
“Maybe we should just stick to fishin’,” I said, and Piran nodded in agreement.
I pushed an escaping worm back into the cup and dug for change in the bottom of my pocket.
“Don’t worry about it, Jack,” Grandpa said. “This one is on the house. In honor of your sudden hair loss.” He smiled. “And go grab yourselves some RC Colas and peanuts to take with you too.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chase,” Piran said, grinning.
“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said as we waved goodbye, the bells jingling behind us.
“You’re so lucky your grandpa owns the Bait ’n Beer.” Piran poured his peanuts into his cola. “So, with the mines closed and you not wantin’ to be a miner anyhow, you think you might run his store someday?”
“Naw,” I replied. “I want to be a forest ranger.”
Piran spit soda out his nose. “A forest ranger?” He laughed. “Gotta have a forest first.”
“I’m gonna bring it back,” I said. “You just watch me.”
We sat on the front stoop of the bait shop as we finished our drinks and watched the men striking in front of the Company on the far side of the river. The protest wasn’t anywhere near as intense as it had been when the strike first be
gan. Some of the men still paced back and forth, but most of ’em sat in lawn chairs raising their signs for passing cars. I recognized Dad’s familiar silhouette standin’ among them.
“Why don’t they give it up?” Piran asked. “My dad says the Company will never hire back Union workers.”
“They just want their old lives back.” I frowned. “I wish my dad would find a job aboveground, something safe like your dad’s job. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about losing it either.”
“If people keep leavin’,” Piran replied, “there won’t need to be a post office.”
I sighed. It made me feel weird to see Dad and the other men put everything they had into what even I could see was a useless battle.
Piran and I put our glass bottles in the metal recyclin’ crate and continued upstream next to Old Brawling Town Creek. The farther we walked, the greener things got. My mood lightened considerably—in fact, I couldn’t stop smiling. It was happening. The longer the mine stayed closed, the better chance nature had, and it was moving in fast.
We hiked to our favorite fishing hole and waded to the big rock midstream, where we dropped our lines. Before long, we’d caught five hornyheads, but we threw them all back. Even upstream from the Company, it wasn’t a good idea to eat fish from the river.
The sun beat down on us and I grew sleepy. I lay back on the rock, careful not to burn myself on the buckles of my overalls. That was pretty much my summer uniform, overalls and not much else. The buckles cooled underneath me and I let my muscles relax, feeling the heat from the rock soak into my bare skin. I heard a splash as Piran threw another hornyhead back into the water, but there was another sound too—a soft clicking.
“What is that noise?” Piran asked. “You hear it?” His head swung the other way. “There it is again.”
“Bugs, I suppose,” I replied.
“We never had bugs before,” Piran said. “Why now?”
“They like the kudzu,” I said. “Haven’t you noticed things growing in?”
A Bird on Water Street Page 11