River Rocks: A West Virginia Adventure Novel

by Steve Kittner

  They had a document that looked something like this:

  Whe-- -teel --r--s r-n

  St---ms f-ow fr-- hil-- -igh

  A southern -ewel rest-

  Fr-m - -ain- n-gh-

  San- -s a -aul-

  Key -rom -he doo-

  In -n I- -an- -ank

  “That third line is the best,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah…no doubt,” Josh agreed. “A southern -ewel rest-. It’s gotta be Jewel, right? And R-E-S-T and an S on the end, Rests. A Southern Jewel rests. What in the world is that?”

  “Not sure,” Eddie replied with a half grin.

  CRACK!!!

  The two boys just about jumped through the roof as the sound of something pretty large and pretty hard broke the silence and whacked the back of Eddie’s garage. The two boys rolled up the deer hide and ran through the service door to the back yard to investigate. There was a slight dent the size of one’s fist about eight feet up the back of the garage wall. A little bit of paint had been taken off in the process and when the boys looked around they found the projectile that had done the damage. A three-inch round river rock lay at the foundation of the garage with the incriminating paint chips still on it.

  Eddie squinted, looked down toward the river and shook his head. “Who would do this?” Eddie ran down to the edge of his yard where it started to tier off to the river and scanned the bank. He saw nothing. “They ran off pretty quick, whoever it was,” Eddie said, returning to the area of the garage where Josh stood biting his lip.

  “Eddie, let me tell ya something…. but don’t think I’m crazy or anything. When we were leaving the sand bar, something caught my eye through the tunnel…some kind of movement but I didn’t think anything of it. It just kind of made a move real quick like. And I heard it, too. Could have been a deer, even. Then again just a few minutes ago while we were eating our lunch…something caught my eye through your back door down by that biggest tree on the bank.

  “Did it look like a person?”

  “I don’t know…I didn’t think enough of it at the time to see.”

  “But why would anyone throw a rock at us?”

  “Made any enemies, lately Ed?”

  Eddie thought for a minute.

  “Nope.” He paused. “Not that I know of. How about some more of Mom’s fudge?”

  “Sounds good,” Josh said. “I love dessert!”

  Josh scanned the riverbank once more, not really ready to suspend his investigation just yet, but Eddie didn’t seem real concerned about it, so darned if Josh was going to be either.

  “Ya know, it could have been that jerk Radcliffe screwing around. He has nothing better to do than cause trouble,” Josh said.

  “Coulda been.” Eddie shrugged one shoulder.

  Josh glanced over at the door to Eddie’s garage.

  “Ed, is your garage lock still busted?”

  Eddie nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t gotten it fixed yet. It’s on Dad’s to do list.”

  “Why don’t we take this over to my place, just for safe keeping? I mean, ya never know.”

  Josh picked up another piece of fudge.

  “That’s fine. Might be a good idea. You need some help?”

  “No, I can get it. I’m gonna run home for a little bit and clean up.”

  Josh walked over to the bench, rolled up the deer hide and placed it back into the can. He then pushed the lid on tight and grabbed his copy off of the yellow legal pad lying on the bench.

  “Alright, I’ll see ya a little later then.”

  “See ya later. Gimmee a call.”

  Josh headed out the garage door with the old milk can in one hand, his fishing gear in the other and fudge in his mouth. His mind was not on the heavy load he was hauling, but on their newly found adventure.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  That evening Josh Baker lay silent in his bed with eyes wide open. The crank-out window in his second story bedroom was open and the sounds and smells of a summer night drifted in. He could hear the crickets by the hundreds along the riverbank and the owls, too. Occasionally a firefly would drift high enough for him to see. It would flicker a hello and then disappear.

  In the far distance he heard his favorite night sound of all. A coal train chugging out of the hills of Red Creek and making its way down the straight stretch across the river from his house. He could hear it two miles away and, as it got closer and closer, it got louder and louder until it was directly across the river and Josh could hear the clackity, clack, clack of the big steel wheels on the tracks. He would listen to it until it disappeared into the night, heading who knows where. He never got tired of this, never thought the train noise a nuisance. It was comforting to him and he liked it.

  He then thought of the deer-hide and the strange wording on it. Was it even complete or was it part of a bigger document? What did it mean by A Southern Jewel Rests? And the numbers. Was that a date or was it something totally different at the top? The drawing would have to be studied, just to make any sense of it at all.

  Josh couldn’t help but be intrigued by the document and imagined it to be something very important. At the same time he thought it could turn out to be a huge let down. Some goofy thing a couple kids scrawled while playing a game many years ago. But even if that were all that it turned out to be, it would still be cool. A time capsule; a message from some kids generations ago. Hey, here’s what we used to do for fun!

  He lay there and pondered it all for a while, rolling ideas around in his head and then reached over to the table beside his bed and flicked on his old two-dollar Hallicrafters Ham radio receiver that he picked up at the flea market last summer. With his low budget radio, he was able to lie in bed at night and listen to far off, distant voices and wonder, literally, where on earth they might be. He would hear networks from ships at sea reporting weather conditions or Sargasso drifts or modern day pirating operations. The receiver, with the help of a copper-wire antenna strung between two trees outside, would pull in transmissions from all around the world. Occasionally he would hear broadcasts and chatter from exotic-sounding places like Bimini, Peru, Bermuda, Mexico, or the China Sea. For that moment, when he lay in bed at night, he could leave Red Creek and put himself in another place far different from where he lived, on a daily basis.

  Tonight it would be “Mystery Theater” on the AM band that he would listen to as he crawled deeper into the sheets, never admitting to anyone that the show creeped him out a little bit. The eerie voices of the radio actors and that creaking door crackled through the single speaker until the end of the show when the culprit was always revealed with symphonic music and high drama. Creepy, but he liked it!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Eddie Debord’s eyes flew open at the first smell of bacon in the morning. He glanced over at his clock to see that he had slept a little later than normal and felt very refreshed. Summer break is awesome when you are 14.

  He and Josh had a plan to go to the library later that day but for now, breakfast was the priority. Eddie absolutely loved his Mom’s good old-fashioned country breakfasts. On this morning, and before church, he would be digging into pancakes with butter and thick-cut bacon. Scrambled eggs and hash browns would be on a separate plate, (so the syrup wouldn’t touch them), and a tall glass of Tropicana orange juice would wash it all down. Jo Anne Debord was Eddie’s favorite chef, and that’s just the way it is with boys and moms.

  Eddie threw off the sheets and swung both legs around to the floor and bounced out of bed to go brush his hair and teeth and wash his face. A shower would have to wait. Boys.

  On this morning eight year old Amy beat Eddie to the table by about five minutes. Being the little sister and the early bird, Amy had rights to the first stack of buckwheat pancakes that came hot off the griddle and she let Eddie know that.

  Amy wrinkled her nose to tease him as she shoved in another mouthful.

  Eddie’s father was already up and outside doing early garden work before church on this warm Sunday morning. H
e would hoe weeds or pull ripe tomatoes or anything else that needed to be done to keep his garden neat and orderly.

  Everyone consumed their fill of Mrs. Debord’s breakfast then Amy and Eddie pitched in to help their mom clear the table and load the dishwasher. It was then time to get ready for church.

  *************************************************

  Josh Baker and Eddie Debord stepped outside of the First Church of The Nazarene and squinted a bit from the bright sunlight that warmed the day on that Sunday in June. The boys had a plan to ride their bikes to the library, by way of the old railroad tracks that ran parallel to the highway on their side of the river. The rails and ties had long been removed and now it was a great path for biking, motorcycles, quads, and the occasional horse rider. Pretty much anything that wasn’t street legal could be seen on the old railroad path from time to time.

  The library was about a five-mile ride for the boys and was nothing new. They would often ride nearly the same distance just to go to the Dairy Queen, which was in the same area and would be a likely pit stop for the boys today after the library.

  Josh and Eddie had an idea to research the library local archives for old newspaper clippings of anything that had the words “Southern Jewel” referenced in it. A small-town library can be a treasure trove of information when looking for something local. The deer hide document that they had found had strummed a major curiosity chord in them and they wanted to know more.

  The two boys had agreed to meet at Josh’s house after Sunday lunch and be on their way. Eddie showed up at Josh’s house at around 12:45 and they saddled up on their mountain bikes and headed out. The library would open at 1:00.

  “I brought a notebook in my backpack to write stuff down on, in case we find something.” Josh said.

  “Good idea.”

  The ride took the two boys out of their neighborhood and headed them south down WV State route 119. The boys took occasional diversions off the railroad path to swoop down into a ditch or two that acted as a natural “half pipe.” They would run hard down into the ditch about 10 feet or so and pedal like crazy up the other side, doing their best to pull a wheelie as they came up out of the deep trench on the other side. These drainage ditches were usually well worn from teenage boys doing teenage things.

  The old railroad bed rocks that were laid down under the railroad ties to give foundation and stability to the tracks had been long scavenged by people with pick-up trucks looking to fill in holes and low spots in their unpaved driveways. Miles and miles of bedrock were taken over the years, and left behind was the dust of many tons of coal that was hauled along these tracks in days gone by. The railroad bed was now a mix of black dust and dirt which made a real nice smooth riding surface, but did nothing for chrome rims or clean shoes.

  They rode on as they started to feel the summer heat on their backs and at about the halfway point, they stopped and chugged down about half of a bottle of water each.

  “We’re gonna smell nice for the library crowd.” Josh laughed.

  “Yeah.” Eddie paused for a while, catching his breath. “Let’s get going.”

  Break time was over and once again the two friends were on their way down the path that once carried coal trains to far away destinations but now provided a path for two boys searching out an adventure. There were no steep grades to speak of on their ride and the two boys made pretty good time getting to the library just before 2:00.

  They parked their bikes in front of the building without having to lock them up and walked towards the front door noticing that the library was open until 5 o’clock that day. Three hours. Plenty of time.

  Josh did a quick sniff test on his underarms before opening the door and Eddie tried to suppress a laugh and, instead, blew the last drink from his water bottle straight out of his nose. Both boys laughed hard as they stood on the outside of the door, with Josh hanging onto the door handle. Eddie pitched the empty bottle in the outside recycle can and, as Josh proceeded to open the door, he noticed that the front desk librarian was staring at them from over the top of his skinny reading glasses.

  The boys were still smiling as they walked into a room of silence. In an almost whispered voice the librarian, whose nametag read “Elton Mansfield,” asked, “May I help you gentlemen?”

  “Yes sir” Eddie replied. “Where might we find old newspaper articles, like from the early 1900s?” Eddie spoke it with confidence as if he knew exactly what he wanted to find.

  Elton Mansfield gave the two young boys a curious look while cocking his head maybe a half inch. “Anything in particular you might be looking for?” he asked.

  Josh bit his lower lip and glanced over at his friend. They didn’t want to tell anyone what they were looking for or why, at this point. They didn’t want to be laughed at for thinking such ridiculous thoughts or dreaming too big about something that was probably nothing more than a recipe for corn liquor hidden away by a long-dead mountain farmer.

  “Just current events type stuff for the early part of the century, I guess,” said Eddie. “It’s school stuff.”

  Eddie knew he had screwed up as soon as he said it. School had been out for two weeks.

  Elton Mansfield’s head turned sideways about ten degrees as one eyebrow went up. “OK” he said, still wondering what the boys were up to. You will need to go downstairs to the microfilms. There is a young lady down there who will help you get started. Her name is “Giselle.”

  “Thank you very much,” Josh said politely.

  The two boys made for the stairway, taking two steps at a time on their way down. They found the young lady with the name “Giselle” on her nametag. She was young and pretty and the boys didn’t mind taking instruction from her at all. In a few minutes the boys had signed out the films they wanted and were winding their way through old newspaper clippings of events in the early 1900s.

  They flipped past articles on new coal operations in Braxton County where they were surface mining coal out of the hills instead of using the conventional method of tunneling deep shafts that took miners to unthinkable depths underground with toxic methane gas ever present.

  There were articles on union organization talks amongst the ranks of miners and other labor groups tired of sweatshop work conditions and low pay. Words like Wildcatters were starting to appear in the headlines.

  Headlines chronicled uprisings in faraway places like Russia and Germany. The world was about to change.

  They whizzed past birth announcements and death notices, praying that something would catch their eye with the words “Southern Jewel.”

  The boys both smirked as they cranked past an article of a train robbery in Mountain County in 1903 and wondered what would be on a coal train worth robbing.

  They continued their search until 4:55 with no luck at all of finding their Southern Jewel.

  “We’ll be locking up in five minutes, boys.” Elton Mansfield’s voice rang from behind. “I hope you were able to find what you needed,” he said, once again raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah….it worked out good. Thank you,” Josh replied, putting on his best reassuring grin.

  “I will put that away for you if you like,” Elton offered.

  “Thanks, thanks very much,” Josh replied.

  The two friends climbed up the stairs with less enthusiasm than when they had bounded down them two and a half hours earlier. As they walked outside and flipped the kickstands up on their bikes, Eddie said, “Why don’t we go to DQ and get an ice cream so this ride isn’t a total bust.”

  “O.K….. It was a shot in the dark though, ya know,” Josh said. “Maybe that 9104 isn’t a date. Maybe it’s something else. I mean, this whole search was based on those numbers being a date. Could be we have to rethink this whole thing.”

  “Maybe this whole thing is nothing.” Skeptical Eddie again.

  Josh shook his head.

  The boys rode down over the embankment on a dirt path and made their way to the Dairy Queen, a short ride away.
They both ordered up their desserts piled high with whipped cream and nuts and lots of hot fudge. After paying, they went to the side of the building that gave them some shade, sat on the sidewalk and leaned up against the cinderblock wall to eat their treats.

  Eddie said, “Ya know what we could do? We could go home and search the Internet for anything with the phrase Southern Jewel in it. It’s another shot in the dark but you never know.”

  Josh raised his eyebrows and cocked his head back and forth while working a mouthful of sundae. “There might be a hundred things listed under that search ….but I guess it’s worth a try,” Josh replied, shrugging one shoulder while taking another bite. “This might be a hard nut to crack, ya know. Trying to figure out what this thing is?”

  “Yeah…. I don’t plan to spend all summer on it. We have a lot of other things to do. I wanna do some camping pretty soon. I’ve got the itch.” Eddie took his last bite.

  “Yeah, me too,” replied Josh. “I cleaned out my backpack Friday. I still had a can of tuna in there from last summer.”

  “Gross.”

  “Also, I still have my fork that we carved from a stick, remember?”

  Eddie grinned while nodding his head. He then pulled the yellow legal pad out of his backpack that had his copy of the hand written version of the document on it. Hey laid it on his lap and studied it while Josh worked his ice cream all the way to the bottom of the plastic cup. The two boys said nothing for a while. They sat there enjoying the summer, their ice cream and their teenage freedom. Josh felt as if he could take a nap.

  “Ready to hit the old dusty trail, partner?” Eddie said, doing his best Roy Rogers.

  Josh laughed and the two friends were on their way to Josh Baker’s house to see what they could dig up on the Internet on the illusive Southern Jewel.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Josh and Eddie came to a sideways, tire-screeching halt just inside Josh’s garage, propped their bikes up on the kickstands, and hurried inside to re-hydrate with whatever they could find in the Baker’s refrigerator. Josh grabbed a Gatorade for himself and one for his friend and the two boys headed into the den to power up the Dell and see what they could find. Josh hit the button and waited while the computer did its thing to bring itself up and into its operating mode.