Fleetie's Crossing

by K. Bruce Florence

  “I will not participate in a service that considers me less important than a man,” she would say and say it often. My only hope was that she would not say it out in the settlement and let the whole valley know how she felt. We were odd enough anyway already without her making every man mad and confusing the women over the difference between preaching doctrine and expounding on the Bible.

  I kept my eye on Dorotha, who seemed to be watching for what or who might be us ahead of us. I moved up so I could walk beside her. We both could see that Hobe had disappeared around the river bend curve ahead of us about a quarter of a mile. At the head of the curve, we stopped for Peachy, who lived very close to the county road. She climbed the railroad bank to join us. Maggie Stewart and her two children joined the group with Peachy. While we were waiting for them, I spotted a rowboat moving downstream away from us. I nodded to Dorotha, and the two of us could see someone standing in the back of the boat, poling two men down the river.

  “That’s Hobe for sure,” she whispered. I don’t think she knew I heard her.

  Dorotha turned to see if any of the women might be watching to see where Hobe went. But even Mary did not show a flicker of interest in the river. Sunday fishing was as natural as the river itself. But three men fishing in the same boat wasn’t usual. The boats were small, and with poles, minnow buckets, and other gear, three made it too crowded for good fishing.

  I had to say something to her. “What do you care where old Hobe is going? He hasn’t got a lick of sense anyway, and he is mean as a haint. Don’t worry about him.”

  “That’s all you know, Rach. You better watch him. He is more than just mean. He will hurt you if you give him half a chance. Stay away from him.”

  “Did he hit you the night of the flood? Is that why you are so skittish about him now?”

  “Don’t say nothing to Daddy or Mommy. Just be quiet and mind what I say. He is more than mean. He is as dirty as he is mean.”

  Her words were more than enough to shut my mouth. Dorotha didn’t scare easily, and it was written all over her that Hobe had her spooked bad. My imagination was working overtime. It was not a good time to talk about what did happen, but one of these days, when I could get her alone, maybe she would open up more. I was going to have to wait.

  As we left that morning, Daddy was sitting on the front porch, dozing in the morning sun. For the last few years since he had gotten home from World War II, he seldom darkened the door of his old church in town, but he encouraged us to go to the settlement church with the neighbors. His great-grandmother had lived for a spell in town after her husband had been killed felling trees for Lawson Lumber. During that time, she had taken Daddy and his brother Walter to the big-brick Christian church across the street from the city hall on Second Street. That was where he was baptized, and so it would be a natural thing for him to would take us there.

  That church was as different from the nonmusical Church of Christ as human beings could make it. The service was very formal, and when the church organ played, it seemed to throb right through the middle of you. There was a thick carpet on the floor that muffled sound, so it was never noisy. The Church of Christ service could rattle the windows when we really got wound up.

  There was something almost holy about the way the stained-glass windows splintered the sunlight into brilliant shafts and cast color on the sills and pews. It didn’t take much imagination to feel that in that place, you were surrounded by the majesty and power of the Almighty. Daddy always told us he did not have to try to imagine God’s power. It seemed to be right there for the taking. He and Mother said several times that soon, the whole family would return to his church, but all that summer, he and Mother kept delaying making the move.

  That was fine with me. I loved the Sunday journeys up the track with our friends and neighbors, and I might have been the excuse he needed to wait. But when fall came, the meetings at the Poor Fork Church of Christ would be fewer, and going to church in town would be a new adventure for Logan. He was a homebody and liked to stay close to Mother. When we went to town, she had to allow him to carry his stuffed doll O’Malley. That was his courage toy, and with it, he might have walked with Meshach and Abednego right into the fiery furnace.

  Dorotha nodded at the river, and I could see that the boat was coming closer to us, and I could get a good look at the three men. It was for sure they were not laying any trot line or hanging poles over the side. The boat was laying low in the water and moving fast. It was hugging the shore, keeping the boat under the overhanging trees in what looked to me like they were trying to stay out of sight. Hobe was sitting in the middle, Billy Cantrill in front and Tom Hendley standing in the stern with the pole.

  Dorotha was walking beside me and saw them the same time I did. “What are they doing, you reckon?” she asked.

  Fleetie overheard her. “Whatever they are doing, it is none of our business. Don’t pay it no mind.”

  That was what she said, but I noticed she let us walk on ahead, while she stood very still, watching the boat as it skipped in and out of her vision. A cold chill rippled down my back. Trouble had a way of hanging around. It sat in the air, on the mountains, along the river, and anywhere else your mind might want to run to, even on a pretty Sunday morning. I glanced at Dorotha. Her head hung low, and her hands were clenched into fists. Something was for sure bad wrong.

  Part 4

  ADAGIO

  Chapter 31

  BLACK DAMP

  The miners finally got back to work, and the first day at Pridemore’s, things seemed reasonably normal. Daddy told me that reopening mines was complicated, expensive, and dangerous. If they left out or scrimped on any safety need, there could be trouble. Nerves were raw up and down the creeks and hollers. The giant fans were supposed to remove deadly gases, and they had been left running during the strike, but no one made the daily checks on oxygen levels. When the mines were working, the miners could be counted on to be vigilant about unusual sounds, movement, or odors. They protected one another against the threat of explosion, slate falls, black damp, and all the dangers lurking in the dark tunnels of coal mines.

  There had been about as many versions of what happened at the mine on that Friday as there were people to tell it. Miners’ wives had one version, the owners had an altogether different story, and the man on the street might give out a tale with little if any truth in it. Daddy had been gone with Burl all night, but when he finally came home, he sat with us at the kitchen table and told us as much of the truth as was known by then. Some of it, Burl told him, and some, he had figured out for himself.

  Burl said that after the shutdown, the first few shifts back in the mine made the men jumpy. Time on top broke down some of the men’s resistance to the nerves that came with black days deep in the earth. In spite of the tension, the first days moved along pretty well.

  As the week rolled on toward payday, the men began to step a little lighter. Jokes were sharper and laughter easier. On Friday morning, just before dawn, the first twelve men of the early shift climbed on the mantrip. Gripping their lunchboxes, they eased their limber bodies onto the hard seats for the long ride to the face. The mantrip was low to the ground, and the riders were crowded together. The clank and rattle of the ’trip was so loud, the men did not try to talk to one another. They used the morning ride to shut down the outside and turn their minds to the job and the day ahead. They could not doze no matter how sleepy they might have felt in the early morning. The dangers ahead kept their eyes peeled. The banter and gossip stopped, and even the biggest joker in the bunch was pretty much squelched by the weight of the day ahead.

  Friday morning was no different, but payday and the promise of some hard-earned cash at last lightened the mood. They were ten minutes into the ride when all the men felt something like rolling thunder off somewhere in the distance. Maybe they figured at first there was nothing to worry about, except in a coal mine, everybody worried
about every odd sound. A man in the mine who didn’t pay attention was a fool. Fools were rare deep in the bowels of the earth. Just ask any miner.

  No one lived to tell the world exactly what happened, but Daddy explained that it probably went something like what Burl told him.

  Hulan Howard shouted, “Roy, reverse the ’trip. That don’t sound right.”

  Every man in the car strained to listen, and the first thing they heard was a soft shuffling off in the distance.

  “Reverse, reverse—do it now! Rats is running for the drift mouth. Reverse!”

  Roy slammed and locked the reverse gear rod into place just before he felt hundreds of rat feet running over him, as if he and the other men were no more than a stretch of sand in front of an ocean wave. The mantrip groaned to a stop, engaged its gears, and began backing the half mile to the mouth. The men screamed and fought off the blanket of rats and failed to see the rolling cloud racing to catch them.

  Outside, the rumble had been felt through the heavy brogans and boots worn by the waiting miners. Complete silence fell in the early morning dark. Breathing stopped. The second group of that shift stood waiting for the mantrip to return. Every ear was tuned to the slightest whisper of sound that might come flying from the drift mouth. Another grinding rumble swept past their ears, followed by the soft shuffling of rat’s feet sweeping ahead of the underground terror.

  When Burl saw the racing flush of rats, he shouted, “Full mantrip in trouble! Boys, get at it. Roy and Hulan and the others is in trouble!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the empty mantrip filled with twelve men bent on finding the endangered miners. John N. ran to the foreman shack for the emergency packs, and as he was throwing them into the laps of the two men in the middle of the mantrip, they heard the clack of wheels moving fast, and it did not slow as it closed in on the mine face. Every man in the mover rolled over the side just before the racing cart slammed into it. Metal crushed metal as both carriers ground into the steel bumper.

  There was total silence in this barest piece of time from which no one would emerge unscathed. For the first few seconds, no one moved to the men, as if by standing where they were, they could avoid the truth of what had happened. They probably didn’t realize it then, but those few seconds would be the last reprieve from the consequences of the explosion they would have for a long time. As long as they stood in place, the narrow piece of ground that separated the living from the dead protected them from all the tomorrows.

  “Daddy, all of them? Not even one?”

  “Yes, Rachel, every man was dead.” He stood up and poured another cup of coffee. I supposed he was trying to get his thoughts together as he revealed the sad details. He sat back down and started talking again.

  Their faces and bodies were contorted by their fight against suffocation. Black damp death is hard and fast. In just a few seconds more, the shriek of the alarm horn blasted the news from the top of the mountain. It broke dreaded news throughout the valley. All up and down the river, men and women and children stood and prayed that their family’s time had not come. The days ahead would be filled with investigation, speculation, and blame. Twelve families with ties that reached into every corner of the county would carry this burden as long as there were survivors alive to tell it.

  The first to move, Burl and John N., waved off the others. Stepping into no-man’s-land, Burl lifted Hulan out of the wrecked carrier and brought him to a grassy rise far to the left of the mine road. He closed his eyes and straightened his limbs and clothes. John N. smoothed his face to soften the marks of death carved onto his features. He placed his hat, lamp, and dinner bucket just above his head. Eleven more times, John N. and Burl repeated the ritual for each man lost to all of them forever. Several other men unearthed mine tarps to cover each body before the first of the families began arriving. Burl lit a carbide lamp and placed it there beside each body, and then he turned and walked alone down the mine road. As he moved down the hill, the first of the families and the ambulance moved past him. He could hear the shouts of grief, followed by gut-tearing sobs as each one recoiled from the news they spent their life dreading. He stepped onto the railroad and began the long walk to Ross’s Station. He told me that he had mined his last day.

  “By the time I found Burl, he was nearly home. I pulled over and yelled up the bank to him to get in and let me take him home. From his fog of shock and grief, he showed no sign of hearing me, but he stopped, and I got out of the car and walked up the bank to him.

  “‘That’s it, Ed. No more. Did you hear? They’re gone. Twelve men, just like that. No more. I’m going to get drunk. Not one bone in me is going to know how to move. When I wake up, I’m never going back to the mines. There’s bound to be somebody who’ll hire me. I’m getting out while I can still feed the young’uns.’

  “I guided him to the car, and all the way down the road, Burl repeated the same thing again and again. ‘No more, Ed. No more. Ed, it’s over. No more, no more.’

  “I drove us over the mountain to Sal’s, loaded the trunk with bootleg whiskey, and took off to the Overlook Café. There’s not much use in wondering what happened during that long night. After, we tried to drink each other under the table, but instead, we fell asleep, slumped right over on that hard table.

  “This morning, I brought Burl down the mountain. Both of us need a hot bath and hot food. When I let Burl out of the car, he waved off the kids who were watching his every move. Fleetie was standing just inside the screen door. She didn’t keep the relief out of her voice, but she was good and angry at both of us. With the whole valley in deep mourning, it wasn’t a good time for the two of us to be at the Overlook.

  “Katie, Rachel, it probably doesn’t make much sense, but if I’d left Burl to take out his misery on Fleetie and the kids, we’d have had more than guitar pieces to sweep up. Hulan and Roy were his first cousins. They ran these hills as kids, married in the same church, and went off to war together. Burl lifted every one of those men out of that mantrip himself. He wouldn’t let anybody come near them until he had closed their eyes and covered them. I never saw a man in such pain, not even during the war. Whiskey was all I could think of to stop that much hurt quick.”

  Mother gave up the battle with one last jab. “You look awful and smell worse. Why were you drinking too? You might have been more help sober.”

  “Katie Bell,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her, “a man oughta be willing to keep a buddy from drinking alone.”

  Mother couldn’t keep from smiling at him. He looked like he had been dragged behind a fast horse, and the phrase “a man oughta” was the family joke about getting out of work.

  “You are a disgrace. Go get in the tub before Judge Harrison gets back here and catches me lying about where you were and what you were doing.”

  “Hot bath coming up then boiled eggs, toast, and coffee, woman!”

  “Don’t you ‘woman’ me. Cold oatmeal is what you deserve.”

  Mother held him close for just a minute before she pushed him toward the bathroom for a bath. Jane was crouched outside in the backyard behind the hydrangea bushes. She was probably expecting to hear shouts and anger. When she saw Mother with her arms around Daddy, she came running out of the bushes.

  “Daddy,” Jane said, lifting her arms to him, “there was a bad thing. Mother cried, and Fleetie cried. We thought the mine ’splosion ’sploded you too. Did you see the ’splosion?”

  “No, baby girl, I tried to take care of Burl. His two cousins were in the mine, and he is as sad as he has ever been in his life.”

  “Did you fix him all better, Daddy?”

  “Girls, let Daddy get a bath. You can help me fix his breakfast.”

  Janey clapped her hands. “Scrambled eggs. Let’s make scrambled eggs.” She thought that of all foods, scrambled eggs was the dish of angels.

  Daddy swept her up in his arm
s and carried her squealing down the hall.

  Chapter 32

  GENTLEMAN FARMER

  Larry Windham’s grandparents lived in Virginia, deep in the rich farmland of the Eastern coastal states. Larry’s frequent visits as a child left him with an indelible impression. He was forced by circumstances and economy to run his mines, log his forest leases, and oversee his banking interests, but he had a compelling fantasy to see the day when he could be a gentleman farmer, a squire with rolling acres, wide fields, abundant cattle, and towering barns stuffed with curing tobacco.

  When Larry turned fifty, he threw up his defenses against the weight of a half century of birthdays and gave his wife of nearly thirty years the divorce she wanted, whereupon he almost immediately married a blond beauty nearly half his age. Along with that good fortune, he also decided, in spite of geography or good sense, to indulge his childhood yearning and become a farmer. He built a barn, cleared and fenced forty hilly acres, and installed a small herd of Herefords. It didn’t take him long to find out that a young wife demanded more time than Emma had and that a farm, even a mountain excuse for one, was a jealous mistress. With the bank, his coal interests, and logging business, something had to give.

  The word had gone out some time back that Windham was looking for someone to keep the farm going by taking over the daily work and worry of the fields and herd. Larry was not a man that sat easy on Daddy’s mind. The good life just seemed to fall in Larry’s lap. He had a rich appetite for the best of everything, and nothing and no one was allowed to slow him down. If he wanted it, he bought it, or if it wasn’t for sale, he connived it out of someone. Daddy admitted that Larry had never been accused of real crimes, but he just had an uneasy feeling that he did more and hid more than a truly honest man should.

  Even with his conviction that Larry could leave a man hanging if it suited him, Daddy mentioned to Mother and me that a job on Windham’s farm might be the answer for Burl. As he left his front porch that morning, he told me he had made up his mind to give Larry the chance to do something decent for a change.