On Sunday, we drove to the church, and as we turned off the highway, we saw a dozen men lining the driveway and entrance, Daddy nodded at the men who were serving as pallbearers, deputies, and off-duty police. The hearse had not yet arrived, and as we pulled up, one of the men took our car keys, and Daddy, Mother, Janey, and I hurried from the car and slipped into the church. The small building was already packed, and at first, it looked like every seat was taken, but one of the men slipped out, and room was made for Mother. She held Jane on her lap and gave me about three inches of perching room beside her knee. I was too tall to stand and too big to actually sit. I twisted and fidgeted, trying to find some way to land. Mother gave me a stern look and placed her hand on my shoulder and held it there firmly until I quit wiggling. With no other option, I settled on a kind of lean. My feet were stretched under the pew in front, and I utilized my three inches as a leaning post. Splinters from the bench began to work their way through my clothes, giving me even more misery. A heavy silence draped itself over all of us in the congregation, and not even muffled whispers escaped the stifling heat and misery choking all of us.
In that long day, four caskets were carried in one at a time. Four times, grieving children and their stricken mother followed the slow progress up the aisle. Every person in the crowded church averted their eyes. It was not polite to intrude, even by sight, on the misery-racked families. Their haunted eyes, sunken deep in tear-streaked faces, were too painful to look into anyway, and we all knew it would be rude if we did. Four times, funeral eulogies berated those of us in the congregation for delaying conversion and turning from our sinful ways. Four times, the emotion of so much loss twisted the gut, slowed our breathing, and left us with a deep ache deep inside our very middles.
During the hour between the morning funerals and the afternoon services, long tables were stretched on sawhorses and filled with enough food to feed twice as many people as were there. But the heat and the emotion had drained away even the most voracious appetite, and very little of the food disappeared. As we sat under the two large trees in the churchyard, we were more interested in quenching our deep thirsts than eating. A soft rumble of thunder growled a warning from across Black Mountain. The whispers among the group assured one another that the rain would hold off until evening, maybe pass on off altogether. In the distance, we could see the third hearse approach. Even the children stood still as it pulled up in front of the stoop. Six men from the congregation stepped out and moved to the back of the long black car. The six of them stood, three on each side, and slowly slid the walnut casket down the guiding ramp. They took the seven steps in tandem and placed the casket on a short rolling carriage. Walking two in front, one on each side and two in the back, they moved the casket to the front of the church. As the men from the funeral home placed the flowers, we took our places once again inside the sweltering building. The only sound we could hear was the soft rustling, settling with a slight shuffle of feet. There had been some shifting on our pew, and now there was room for all of us to sit together. The widow, her family, and four children were the last to enter. Once again, we averted our eyes, but there was no way to shut out the cries and moans as we witnessed more pain and felt even more loss in this day that seemed to go on forever. Hours ago, I had started wishing that Mother had won the argument about us staying home.
Just before the last service, the one for Junior Sargeant, Burl’s first cousin, Burl moved to Daddy’s side and whispered, “Ed, could you give my pap a hand at the cemetery? It’s a right smart climb, and he’d never admit it, but he’s not strong enough to go up the whole way by hisself. Could you walk by him and spell him when he needs it?”
“I’d be proud to.”
Mother whispered to Daddy, “Ed, if you can ride home in the truck with Burl and Fleetie, I’ll drive the girls on home.”
Daddy nodded as the last service finally started.
I leaned over and whispered to Mother, “I know where that cemetery is. We went up there for Decoration. Please let me go with Daddy.”
She shook her head and put her hand over her mouth, indicating an end to my plea. I was so frustrated, I wanted to kick something. I couldn’t believe she would not let me go with Leatha and the others to bury Junior. Mother ignored me and turned her attention to the service, leaving me to fume on my own.
The last funeral was mercifully short. The emotional impact of the previous week was beginning to exact its toll on every person in the valley. A preacher who did not use up a full hour of exhorting at a funeral was considered a poor specimen, but today, no one in the church was of a mind to check their watches. The heat pounding on our heads, the weight of the heavy loss, the sight of even more orphans, and the stark stare of one more widow had snuffed out any hidden wish to share in the communal grief. Stoic faces hid an even more determined wish to escape from one another and retreat to their porches, barns, or kitchens. Company was good, but time and room to think after all the pain and misery of today was better.
As soon as the congregation began filing out of the building, I asked again if I could go to the burying. As we walked from the church, Mother found herself surrounded by somber mourners for whom the choice to go up the steep mountain to the family cemetery was never a question.
Fleetie stepped to Mother’s side and put her hand on my shoulder. “Rachel can walk with us. I’ll watch her good. The kids always walk in front so they are in sight. I wore my old shoes so I could keep up with them. You and Jane can walk with Ed.”
Fleetie moved away quickly before Mother could blurt out that she was not going up the mountain. Fleetie would have been baffled. It wasn’t polite to skip the burial.
“Fleetie . . .”
But Fleetie had melted into the group. Mother took a firm hold on Janey’s arm and steered the two of us around the side of the church and into the car just as a loud clap of thunder silenced me for the moment. The group scattered all in the direction of the mountain cemetery, Daddy with them.
I tried one more time. “Want me to go get Daddy? I’ll bring him back.”
She didn’t even answer. Her blue eyes had turned the dangerous gray she flashed when we were in for it.
She waited until the casket bearers and the others made their way down the path leading to the steep climb up the side of the mountain. The wind was beginning to freshen, but the rain held off. High up on the mountain, lightning cracked as it hit the trees that provided protection from electric strikes down below. As the last of the mourners disappeared under the pine canopy, she pulled the car out of the small lot and turned it away from the cemetery path.
We had gone nearly two miles along the county road when all at once, lightning exploded, and streaks slashed across the road in front of us. She slammed on the brakes and maneuvered the car around to return to the church.
“Ed, what are you doing out in this? Oh, Lord, keep him safe,” she shrieked as the two of us huddled in the back seat.
Jane hid her face in my lap, and I put my arm around her. As we neared the church, the car shuddered with a sudden burst of rising wind. When the noise of the thunder reverberated through the car, Jane began screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Mommy, Mommy, hold me,” she cried as she flung herself over the back of the seat and grabbed Mother’s neck in a death grip.
Mother slammed on the brakes in front of the church, but the lightning was so intense, she ordered us to stay in the car. That was wasted breath; neither one of us could have been dragged out by force.
She tried to comfort us. “It’s all right, Janey. We’ll sit right here. The car will keep us safe. Don’t cry. Help Mother look for Daddy.”
The car continued rocking as the wind grew stronger and threatened to roll our small Plymouth over on its side.
“Don’t cry anymore, Janey. Hide your eyes, and I’ll hold you close. We’ll be fine, just fine. It’s just a big wind. It’s not even raining.”
Mother was talking to me and to herself as much as she was trying to calm Janey. We stared through the window, straining to catch any glimpse of the group struggling to reach the top of the mountain.
“Where could they be, Mother? How in the world are they protecting themselves?”
The group was now near the top of the mountain where a looming rock ledge, named Rebel Rock by the valley’s children, was thrust outward, far enough beyond the ledge to provide shelter for the women and children. We could just make out the men huddled together under an ancient oak where the water-slicked casket jutted halfway outside a hollowed-out trunk. With their bodies, they sheltered the coffin and one another from the ripping wind.
Lightning bolts hurled themselves over the shivering relatives, one after the other, over and over. As far as we could see beyond the ledge of rock, the trees were as bent as fish hooks on a trot line. The thunder pounded our ears with wave after wave of belly-shaking vibration. And then all of a sudden, I would have sworn I heard the sound of the locomotive rumbling down the mountain. I screamed and dropped to the floor of the car. Mother threw herself over Jane as the ghost train charged over us with a deafening roar, metal crashing into metal, howling its way from the mountainside and over our car.
Just as suddenly as it came, total silence captured every inch of the mountain. Nothing moved. It was over. Mother sat up and caught her breath as a twirling black cone swept on beyond the church and tore itself, twisting and writhing, across the valley and up Black Mountain.
“Rachel, that was a tornado! I have not seen a tornado since I left the Bluegrass, but a good thing about them is that once they go over, they don’t come back.”
That was a comfort for both of us, but Janey was still terrified. The path of the twister had veered away from the church and passed over us.
Mother picked her up and pointed to the sky ahead. “Look, Janey. See the big cloud marching up the mountain? It’s going away. The storm is almost over. Let’s wait for Daddy.”
No sooner than she got the words out of her mouth before the rain sluiced down even harder. Huge raindrops fell so thick, we could see almost nothing out of the car windows.
“Mother, I heard some of the men say they saw some smoke on the mountain this morning. They were worried about a forest fire.”
“Well, fire season is going to have to wait thanks to the rain. I think we have had quite enough misery for a while, don’t you?”
I nodded, but I was not convinced. Lately, something bad is always just around the bend.
Chapter 37
BUILDING
Hobe watched from his porch as Burl and Daddy and a changing assortment of relatives worked on Burl’s new house. Hobe’s only neighborly contribution to the project was to witch the location for the new well. He had stomped around on Burl’s property several nights in a row with his witching fork. One of those nights, I was sitting on the big rock near the foundation of the new house, waiting for Daddy to finish talking to Burl, and I watched Hobe.
When anyone came over the crossing and started driving or walking up the hill, he would slip into the brush surrounding the property lines and disappear. He for sure did not want anyone to see him, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Everybody around here knew where Hobe lived. I swear he looked like he was dodging revenuers. He had his faults, but he for sure wasn’t running a still. Still running is miserable hard work, and Hobe avoided as much of that as he could.
A few days later, Burl went up the hill to pull some wires for a drop cord for the front porch. When he came back down the hill, he told Fleetie he found Hobe’s stick rammed deep into the hill that rose pretty steep behind the new house. There was a small square of blue fabric fluttering from the top of it so the well drillers could spot it right off. It was Hobe’s way of telling Dougherty and his boy where a good water vein could be found without having to talk to him.
The next week, a gaggle of us watched as Jake Dougherty drove his rig up the hill to start the well-drilling project. But he wouldn’t be going down in the earth from that awkward placement of Hobe’s. Earlier that morning, Daddy had spotted the water flag, and I watched him as he grunted and then stood for a long time, looking at the flagged spot. He was deep in thought. He tugged at his ear, a sure sign of concentration. He stood as still as the poplars beside the road with his mind far away as he worked on some problem. Burl was in his smokehouse, planing trim for the kitchen, as Daddy stood looking at the awkward location of the flag and stick. He seemed to measure with his eye the contour on the hill above the flag before he turned and looked past the flag at the same contour as it fell below the flag and down the hill.
While he was deep in thought, the rest of us spotted or rather heard the drilling rig coming up over the crossing. If we had been paying attention, we might have been able to hear that conglomeration of cables, buckets, and drills coming a mile away. It seemed to me that there was nothing on that rig that didn’t bang or clang, pop and crack, or make a noise that sounded something like a cross between a sigh and a moan. Daddy turned with the rest of us and watched as the truck, with all its drilling paraphernalia, backed off the narrow drive and ground to a stop. Dougherty and his boy climbed down out of the cab.
“Hello, Ed,” said Jake. “Where’s Burl?”
“He’ll be along. He’s trimming up some wood for the kitchen. Jake, look here a minute at the placement of Hobe’s witching flag. He’s got it placed up the hill on that bank way behind the house. That’s a hell of a bad place for Burl and Fred to have to put in the plumbing, don’t you think? You see any reason why it couldn’t just as well be closer to the house? I was studying the contour, and it looks to me the vein would pretty much follow right down this line. What does it look like to you?”
“If they’s water up that line, stands to reason they’s water right here,” said Jake. “Hit’s the old-timer’s way. They ain’t careful about location. If they find water, they quit right there, mark it, and let it stand. You’re right, Ed, they’ll be good water right here and a sight easier for the plumbing and for Fleetie and the girls to get at too.”
Hobe didn’t show himself the rest of the morning, but Daddy told Mother he was uneasy about how Hobe might react to the change in the location. “You know, Katie, it doesn’t take much to ruin a good well. I better see if I can make a little peace about this. No use starting off in a new place with old trouble.”
So while Mother, Leatha, Logan, Jane, and I were standing there, fascinated by all the maneuverings and effort of getting the drill set, Daddy pulled away and began climbing the steep hill that separated the two neighbors. I figured I knew where he was going, and I slipped away from the group and followed several yards behind him. He stepped up on Hobe’s porch and was about ready to knock when Mary swung the door wide and invited him in. I stood out of sight behind a stray pine that was just on the edge of their yard.
“Thank you, Mary. I’ll just wait out here. I need to speak to Hobe a minute. I want to thank him for finding that good vein for Burl.”
A shadow fell across Mary’s face as she stepped back into the house. She looked over her shoulder and turned back to Daddy with the lie written clearly on her. “Hobe ain’t here, Ed. He went up the mountain to check his traps this morning. I’ll shore tell him what you said.”
“Be sure and tell him I followed the vein and moved his stick closer to the house. I knew he would want the plumbing to go in easier. It’ll be easier for the women to have the outdoor spigot close too. We sure appreciate his finding it for us. You be sure and come see us soon.” Daddy tipped his old work hat and stepped back off the porch. There didn’t seem to be much reason for me to stay hidden, so I let him catch up to me, and we walked back to watch the well-drilling excitement together.
The rig was in full swing when we got back down the hill. Burl came up the road, carrying a load of planed lumber. He put down the lumber and wa
ved his arm and shouted, but Daddy could not hear him over the din of the drilling.
Burl yelled as he drew closer, “They’re digging in the wrong place, Ed. Hobe marked it up the hill over there.”
“That vein’ll run down here. Wait and see. Hobe tried to make it harder to plumb after he witched it out,” said Daddy. “He knows that vein runs this way down here. He is sour on everybody on this hill for some reason.”
Burl stood looking up the hill for a long time, then he turned. “He ain’t been right ever since his boy got killed trying to climb Rebel Rock. It done took something plumb out of him. He’s been trying to take it out on everybody he knows since.”
The two men lifted the lumber and walked it into the house to begin trimming out the kitchen sink and cabinets. As they worked through the morning, the rig kept a steady pounding as it dug to bring fresh water to the surface. The noise of the rig drowned out the rumble of the passing train and the rare car on the county road as they passed below them. It didn’t take us long before our ears began to ring, and Leatha went on down the road to her house, and Mother, Jane, and I walked the other way.
Just before the drillers were about to break for lunch, Mother, Jane, and I walked down the road, carrying a basket of food for any of the men who might be hungry. Logan trailed after us. He wanted to get as close to the roaring rig as he could. Jane and I had trailed along, hoping we would be able to stretch the walk into some visiting time with the Sargeant kids. Fall was getting ready to settle into the valley, and school started for all of us in two days. The end of summer meant long separations from one another as Leatha went to the county school and Jane and I went with Daddy to the city school. This year, as with every fall, we dreaded the long stretches between visits. Though I truly loved school, I could not deny the pull of the creeks, hills, and sunshine. But the separation of school was only a small part of what was in store for us. It was a blessing that we did not know what other miseries fall would bring.
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