And with just those few words, I knew Burl well enough to know he stood straight as a ramrod, held his hat in his hands, and looked Larry straight in the eye.
If Larry had expected Burl to bow and scrape, it was immediately obvious that Burl was not the bowing and scraping kind and that the two men would have to meet more as equals if Burl was going to be the new farm manager. In spite of the blunt request and the unspoken tone of independence, Larry sounded open to Burl’s words, and perhaps goaded on by Daddy’s solid recommendation, Larry did not to rest on ceremony.
“Ed tells me you’re a good man. I am not easy to work for, and the pay is no better than what you are getting in the mine, but I don’t have my fingers on your paycheck like the commissary does either.”
With all the dignity Burl could muster, he replied, “I’ll be there tonight to study what’s going on, and I’ll be there tomorrow at dawn.”
The two men walked out of the office and stood near where I was sitting. Neither one of them paid the slightest attention to me as they shook hands on the deal.
As Burl left the bank, Larry walked over to one of the tellers and said, “I do believe I am going to have some more time to get things done. I’ve just hired a good man to take care of the farm.”
The teller nodded and smiled. After all, what could she say to the boss? Burl did not exactly skip out of the bank, but he sort of walked with a jaunt that might make anyone watching him remark, “There goes a happy man.”
Daddy and I had talked about it, and it was clear that the work on the farm would give Burl his first satisfaction in a day’s work in seventeen years. He had gone into the mines the week after marrying Fleetie. Their plan was to save enough money with what he was making to buy a nice piece of land so he could go back to farming. The babies started coming, the commissary began eating his paycheck, and the savings never materialized.
He had won a few riverbank acres in a poker game before he was married, and that was all the land he had ever owned. He said often that across the road was a piece of lane he was going to buy from Daddy. Burl and his brothers had even carried load after load of foundation stones up there and started the foundation wall several years back.
Up the street in the Bays Building, Daddy glanced out his office window just as Burl walked out of the bank. I glanced up at his window and saw him watching Burl cross the street to the courthouse and on to the barbershop. As it took him closer to the Bays Building, Daddy waved, trying to catch his eye, but Burl did not glance up. Daddy must have given up because he stepped away from the window, and I lost sight of him.
I turned to go back up the street to the doctor’s office to join Fleetie and Leatha when I noticed two men sitting in a black Chevy, watching every move Burl made. Daddy came out of the front door of his building and hurried to catch up with Burl. When he got closer to Burl, the car slipped its clutch and slowly rolled down the street and into the scattered traffic.
Chapter 35
OUTLANDER QUESTIONS
Mother had spent most of the day sewing school clothes for Jane and me. School would be starting soon, and Janey’s school dresses from last year were much too short for her, and I had been begging for a full skirt and a flowered blouse. This was an outfit that was all the rage at school, and of course, I wanted to look like everyone else.
Mother relented, but her first answer was, “Why in the world would you want to look that tacky?”
There was a mysterious force that loosed itself in our house when Mother sewed. Every other thing in our house seemed to disintegrate around our ears. It was as if order was preserved in the house only if Mother remained vigilant. Just let her attention be focused elsewhere, and chaos resulted. Daddy hated to come home when the sewing machine was out. He wasn’t a neat person and could be counted on to destroy order quicker than any of the rest of us, even Logan, but he wanted to walk in the door each evening and find perfect peace, complete with dinner bubbling on the stove.
Not tonight. As he swung open the screeching screen, piles of cloth, snippets of thread and fabric, and a shower of pins and pattern paper swirled in his draft. “Hell, Katie, I can’t even walk through this maze. Let’s eat!”
“‘Let’s eat,’ he says. For pity’s sake, Ed, you come home early, and the first thing you say is, ‘Let’s eat.’ You must think I am some kind of mind reader. What are you doing home? It’s only three o’clock.”
“Larry Windham hired Burl. The two of us hung over a cup of coffee for the best part of the afternoon, planning his new house. He is finally going to get back to building that house on that piece of land I promised to deed him right after he married. He can finally finish the house for Fleetie and the kids and get them off that damp riverbank. His foundation is good and high, and they won’t have to dread every heavy rain for fear they are going to be flooded out again.”
“Does Fleetie know? How soon will he start on the house? How much land did you sell him?”
“Whoa, Nellie! To tell the truth, I didn’t really sell it to him. We sort of cut for it, and I lost. That was when he went up there and dug that partial foundation and started the work that has been sitting there since before you decided to marry me.”
“Is that why that wall is standing on that hill, looking abandoned and lonesome? I didn’t know it was Fleetie’s. The kids like to play around there, and when they do, it makes me a nervous wreck. Snakes love rock walls.”
“Well, you can stop being nervous. He is going to finish the wall and build the house.”
I walked out of the kitchen and onto the back porch, on my way to discuss this new turn of events with Leatha. We were going to be closer neighbors. Mother and Daddy were still in deep conversation about the new house. As I stepped off the porch and turned to go around the house to the driveway, I saw the same black car from this morning sitting in our turnaround. Two men had left the car and were going up the steps to the front door. They knocked, and Daddy opened the door. I went back inside the back door. Daddy invited them in, and they sat on the stiff Victorian settee that none of us in the family would touch. I stood around the corner of the hall, just out of sight.
One of the men showed a badge. “I am with the FBI. My partner and I need to ask you a few questions about some of your neighbors.”
Daddy pulled up a straight chair and sat down. It was not unusual for there to be a parade of people who needed to see Daddy, but there was something different about these two. They had this stiff attitude as if they were really in charge and we were more or less expected to do what they asked. They had a cover of very polite, forced words that, on the surface, sounded very correct, but listening to them talk gave you the feeling that they didn’t mean a word of it. The good manners and deference were a pretty transparent cover.
Mother interrupted them with an offer of coffee, and they were very gracious in accepting it. Here was my chance to get in on whatever it was that had brought them here. While Mother put the coffee to perking, I grabbed the sick tray and dropped a clean white napkin on it and stacked three cup and saucers and three spoons in the middle of the napkin. Before she could say to wait, I was out the kitchen door.
Just as I walked in the living room with the tray, I heard one of the men say, “We are here about a federal crime. Dead baby or not, no one can take revenge on a whole mine full of good men, Mr. Ramsey. If you know something, as an officer of the court, you know you are bound by law to help our investigation.”
“You don’t need to read the law to me, sir. If I knew anything to help you, I would. No one in this valley wants this mess cleared up more than we or any of the neighbors around here do. My wife helped deliver that baby. And that young lady handing you a cup and saucer was right there with her. Don’t be sitting here in my living room about half-accusing me with your polite words. I am not holding back on you. You’ll not find any of us in this valley protecting the bastard that killed Hershel and burned
Fred and Geneva out. But you can’t get us to talk about what we don’t know. Whoever did this was pretty slick, and I wish you all the luck in the world finding them, but I would warn you to be careful whom you accuse. Nobody around here takes too kindly to being pushed around by strangers. Not even official, badge-carrying strangers.”
I slipped back into the kitchen and picked up the coffee pot, but of course, Mother, the stickler, stopped me and poured the coffee into a serving carafe.
As I walked back in the room with the coffee, the second man was speaking to Daddy. “Will you assist our investigation?”
“I’ll mention around that you are trying to find out who killed that baby. I can open some doors that you’re going to find closed otherwise. But don’t push it. If you start throwing your weight around, the information will dry up so quick, you’ll think you’re in a seven-year drought.”
Mother was standing in the doorway, watching my every move to make sure I didn’t scald the visitors. After the last drop was poured, she stepped back and returned to the kitchen.
“Who do you think we should talk to first, Mr. Ramsey?” You couldn’t help but notice there was a big change in his attitude toward Daddy. I figured it must have been the coffee and that fancy carafe that set the new tone. Daddy had relaxed as well as he began to mention names of some of the men who would give what information they had.
I moved to the door and stepped across the threshold and into the kitchen to see about helping Mother clear the table of the sewing machine and scraps of material and thread so we could fix dinner. A worry line popped up and found its way to settle between her blue eyes.
“Lordy, lordy, is there never going to be any peace around here again?” she mumbled.
“What do you think those men are looking for?”
“More trouble. That’s about all that bubbles up around here.”
“The new house is not trouble. May I go down and talk to Leatha and see if she knows about the house?”
“I think you had better let Fleetie tell her. Maybe Burl wants to keep it a secret for a while. Just wait and let her tell you.”
“May I go if I promise not to tell?”
“I guess so, after you help me put away all this sewing stuff so we can have some dinner. Daddy is home, and he thinks he has to eat as soon as he hits the door, or starvation will mow him down, even with the crickets. Take Jane with you, and get back up this hill in one hour. Absolutely no later, hear me?”
I was about to fly out the back door to grab Jane off the swing, but Mother caught me. The kitchen floor needed to be swept clean of the day’s sewing mess.
Daddy walked into the kitchen just as I heard the men’s car move down the driveway. “Ed, what is going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“The FBI men are working on the mine explosion. They think the blow was done by an expert, and there is only one around here.”
“Ed, they can’t think Burl has something to do with it. Oh my lord, no! He wouldn’t do that, would he? That explosion released the black damp that killed his own relatives. Even in his meanest and drunkest rage, he couldn’t kill his own. Tell me they don’t suspect him. No, Ed!”
“Most murder is done by kin or friends. Not many people are killed by out-and-out strangers, but Burl didn’t have anything to do with this. Burl is as good a demolition man as there is in these mountains. If he had wanted to blow up the mine, he wouldn’t have planned on mine gas to fuel it. It’s impossible to control black damp or methane once its loose, and he knows it well.”
“What makes them think anybody did it? Mines have explosions all the time. Why was this one different?”
“They’ve got evidence it was set off, and they know their business. They also know Burl was giving the orders, and the men were doing pretty much what he told them. So that makes him the first one they suspect. It will be almost impossible to prove, and since Fred was burned out too, it weakens their case against him. But, Katie, what worries me is that it sets Burl up. Now it would be pretty easy for whoever is behind all this to dump it on his doorstep. Perjury is another possibility. I can see someone testifying against him for the right price if this thing gets into court.”
“What in the world can you do, Daddy? We can’t just let him be tarred and feathered with all this.”
“Like I said, it will be a hard case to prove. Burl will need to keep his mouth shut and wait for this to blow over for lack of evidence. He can’t start drinking and fighting and lord-knows-what-else.”
“You have to make him behave himself, and how you are going to do that will be a sight to see. He’s the most hardheaded man in all these hills. All of them are pretty stubborn, but he wins the prize,” said Mother.
“Building that house will keep him good and busy. I’ll talk to him. He won’t let on, but I can put the fear of God in him at least for a while, if we’re lucky, maybe long enough for the Feds to dig out the truth. What about supper? I’m starving!”
“Ed Ramsey, it is only four o’clock in the afternoon. Just because your foot is on the doorstep with the newspaper tucked under your arm doesn’t mean your stomach is empty. Go get Logan, and take him for a ride or play with him on the swings or something useful.”
“Maybe it’s not food I’m hankering for then. I am a simple creature. Come here, Katie Bell. I bet I know what is better than pork chops and gravy for a starving man.”
“Out of my kitchen. It’s broad daylight. Stop your foolishness this minute.”
Daddy ignored me as he laughed at his prim and predictable wife before he went out the back door, looking for Logan. I didn’t know much about sex, but I knew enough to know that poor old Daddy had struck out. I giggled all the way down the hill. Leatha would get a good laugh out of this, even if I couldn’t tell her about the house.
Chapter 36
THE FUNERAL WIND
Headlines in the Knoxville News Sentinel of the week of August 10, 1947, screamed out our settlement’s tragedy to the whole world. The words jumped out at us—“Miners Killed in Blast,” “Black Damp Claims Victims,” “Strike Not Implicated in Mine Accident.”
The various newspapers in Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee kept the story on the front page for what seemed like days but was really only a couple of editions. A bank robbery in Knoxville knocked the story off most front pages, but the human interest columns kept up a steady stream of “inside” stories of the plight of the widows and their orphaned children, along with interviews of other grieving relatives. These stories refused to fade away, and because of them, there seemed to be a reporter spying on us behind every bush. There was a rumor that even national magazines had alerted their regional bureaus to be on the lookout for information.
The blistering heat of dog days crept into every corner and crevice of the small houses in Ross’s Point. It had been bone dry for weeks, but in spite of the hot wind, humidity hung heavy in the air. No one stayed inside for a minute longer than necessary. The funerals for the twelve men were to begin on Friday, and for the next three days and in spite of the heat, the entire valley would live in their best clothes with their feet crammed into stiff Sunday shoes. An ancient stoicism gripped the features of all the people in our valley.
Only widows and children allowed themselves to give in to the weight of grief at the ceremonies. There were gawkers with their cameras lining the streets and hanging in the churchyards, but nothing in our clan code would allow us to parade our grief in front of strangers.
Even at four services a day, the county resources were stretched tight as a cheap balloon. The new sheriff, Ambrose Childers, parceled out his two cars and, by tripling duty, managed to cover each ceremony. Lonnie Napier over at State Police Headquarters agreed to have his men help with traffic control at the cemeteries.
Daddy made up his mind to attend all the funerals, and Mother was to accompany him to the four funerals held at Ross’s
Point Church of Christ. She felt uneasy about taking us kids to any of the ceremonies and certainly not twelve of them.
Mother didn’t seem to understand what she called “this strange phenomenon” that overtook mountain children in times of family trouble. When she mentioned it to Daddy, he laughed at her and said she could just figure that their pattern of behavior must have bubbled up with the water. He couldn’t come up with any better explanation. The children in the valley could scream, squabble, and find mischief with the best of them, but when the stillness of grief or fear came upon the adults, the children became a mirror image—huge round eyes, grief-etched faces, rigid little bodies, and the unnatural quiet, so quiet, it seemed all sound had been sucked out of them.
Mother had some strange notion that her children were not like the “mountain” kids whom we were with every chance we could get. So she had convinced herself that we would not react well when we saw our friends with no more emotion that the stones on the mountain. Roberta calmed her down some by telling her that no one had a moment’s thought for how her or anyone else’s children might act. People had so much misery to deal with, they weren’t about to be spending any energy on young’uns.
At the dinner table the night before, Mother had tackled the subject. “Ed, I think Roberta will stay with the children during the funerals. Don’t you think we should spare them? I don’t want them traumatized by all this if I can help it.”
“Logan can stay here, but the other two are going. If they can sneak off to a snake-handling, they are old enough to go to simple funerals of men whose children they have known since they were babies,” said Daddy.
The line between his eyes had deepened and given his face added fierceness. He had spoken. No one had ever been known to move Ed Ramsey once he declared a position. Mother knew better than to try. She backed off and gave up the battle. It was not the last time anger and frustration would rise up between them because of the gaping difference in their cultural backgrounds. Daddy oversimplified, and Mother exaggerated, and we kids just went our merry ways, soaking up as much of both sides as we could. As a result, our cultural mindset was, for the most part, unnoticed by either parent. Ironically, we were becoming the people that both our parents thought they would be when they married each other.
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