by Glen Krisch
Their dad had been sick with blacklung for so long, everyone in the family assumed it would eventually take him. Junior had never known his father to be well, to be youthful, without infirmity.
"We buried him just after sunup," Betty lied, speaking her mom's words, still unable to meet Junior's gaze.
"Daddy's gone?"
"You'll go by Gerald now, son. You're the man of the house."
Junior didn't cry, at least not in front of Betty. He walked away, dismayed, as if he'd just heard that tomorrow it'd rain buckets and he'd have to spend the day inside. He took a few steps down the trail leading to Aunt Paulette's house, but backtracked quickly when he realized his dad was buried at the end of the path. Still not saying a word, he went to the barn, to the comfort of his gray foal, Iggy. He slid the door closed behind him. The horse whinnied in greeting, and then the barn was quiet. Junior didn't come out until Betty was in bed, and then, he merely slinked into his own bed. A boy changed instantly, never to return to who he was.
Her mom had been right. Junior hadn't questioned the illogic of the swift burial. He was still too young.
Noontime was sunny and their mom had yet to return from her trip to town. She'd come home with a paltry credit slip instead of real money. Her dad always prided himself on making something of that small garden plot. Betty didn't care about the credit and didn't understand his glowing pride whenever someone lauded his green thumb. Instead, she dreamed of going to those fancy shops in Peoria and picking out a new dress and bringing it to the check out girl without even looking for a price tag. But no. All of that toil and sweat in the garden would get them store credit for ice or flour or some other trivial purchase.
Betty leaned her temple against the window frame and watched Junior sitting Indian-style next to the empty grave. It was too far away for her to see the headstone, for which she was grateful. Seeing Junior's messy blond hair shifting in the breeze, his slumped shoulders and downward gaze, she felt terribly guilty for lying to him.
He'd gone out there after breakfast, still having not said much of anything. Since then, she'd kept an eye on him, worried. His only movement was to snag a fresh blade of grass to chew on before returning his hands to his lap. He was broken. Like a shattered piece of pottery. Seeing him like that made her feel fragile herself, as if she too could shatter under the weight of an uncertain world.
Junior startled Betty by standing. His blond head popped up quick as a frog jumping from a lily pad, but his expression didn't match his energy. She still hadn't seen him shed a tear, but his eyes were bloodshot. When he reached the rear of the house, he stormed up the three steps to the door, came in and swept past Betty.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
"No." He didn't slow down. He marched right back to their bedroom.
"I can make us some sandwiches. Tomatoes and cheese."
"I said no."
His curtness made her flash with anger. She wanted to spill the secret, let him know their dad was still alive. But she didn't. He slammed the door. In a way, she was grateful for Junior's sadness. Otherwise, she might've spilled the beans. She couldn't do such a thing to her brother.
Distraction was a powerful thing. She thought about the tomato and cheese sandwich she tried to ply Junior with, and decided to make one for herself.
Gotta keep busy. Gotta get on with things. Because nothing bad really happened.
Her daddy was nearby and alive, and by now his illness would be healed as if by magic. He would never again cough up blood, his face flushed with purple blotches from the effort. Yes, he was alive, and even if he'd never walk her down the aisle at her wedding, or bounce a grandchild on his knee, he was alive.
She sliced the tomato and bread and cheese, slapping together her sandwich. She bit into it, the tomato gushing and cold against her teeth.
If he was unharmed--better than unharmed, actually healed of his sickness--why did she feel so empty?
Her appetite disappeared. She set aside the sandwich and walked down the hall. The cellar door was off to the right, but she avoided it, ignored its very existence, instead, she pressed her ear to her bedroom door. Junior's mewling cry sounded like a smothered kitten. She imagined his head under his pillow, both seething with pain and fighting to control his emotions. She was glad he was crying. Crying meant he'd get over it and move on. All for the better. She still felt guilty.
The screen door screeched open, then slammed shut. Betty jumped away from the bedroom, embarrassed for having listened to Junior when all he wanted was to mourn in private.
"Betty, come here please." Her mom looked tired and sweaty, as if she'd just mowed the front lawn with their push mower.
"How did it go? Did you tell Hank Calder?" They'd agreed they should let the town know what had happened to Gerald Harris, doting father of two, generous and loving husband, lies and all.
"Yes, I did. I also stopped in on the doctor, and he respected our wishes for privacy. They'll help spread the word," she said. As if saying the words had taken up the last of her energy, she slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, then stared off at the floor.
"That's it?"
"We got our credit. Hank gave me too much for the lettuce, but he's a kind man underneath it all. I think he did that instead of talking to me. He understands; he's lost his wife, you know. He understands what it's like."
"But it's not the same. Not with Daddy."
"You can't let on it's not."
"It makes me sick, Momma. I don't know if I can do this."
"Someday we'll see your father again. Then it'll be worth it. Just think of that. Seeing your father again."
"I guess."
"There's something I heard in town, Betty-Mae. I'm not sure how to tell you this…"
"What?" Betty approached her mom when she saw tears in her eyes. "What is it?"
"It's George."
Sensing her bleak tone, Betty's heart thrummed forcefully in her chest. "What about George?"
"He's dead. He died last night."
Betty let out a pent-up breath. Dead? The term didn't mean much anymore, did it? She let out a sharp laugh.
"Betty, I'm serious. It's not like your dad. He was mauled. By some animal. Out in the swamps."
"George? George Banyon?"
"Yes. I'm so sorry."
Her mom stood from her chair and stepped toward Betty, her arms extended in comfort. Betty pushed by her and out the back door, the screen snapping shut.
14.
The sun was falling from its highpoint when Cooper woke. His muscles ached, but he felt rested for the first time in many weeks. He hadn't recovered from the many months on the road, but was heading in the right direction. He washed his face in the basin on the nightstand, and then changed clothes. He headed down the narrow stairwell to the dining area, letting his nose lead him. The air was infused with different aromas. Freshly baked bread and apple cider. Cinnamon sprigs. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes. The dinning room was empty. Crumbs littered the tablecloth, chairs were askew, but people weren't enjoying the food that went along with the phantom aromas.
He heard a clattering of dishes, and without thinking, he headed toward the noise, passing amateur paintings of placid Midwestern landscapes, portraits of severe-looking pioneers. A recessed curio cabinet filled a wall, so prominent it seemed as if the Calders had built the entire house around a preexisting structure. Framed family photos lined the cabinet, packed as tight as fish scales. In one photo, Henry Calder was actually smiling. He sat in a chair and held a beautiful doe-eyed baby in his arms. A woman stood beside him, her delicate hand resting on his shoulder. Thea's mom matched his seated height. Her small mouth formed a slight Mona Lisa smile. Cooper could understand Bo Tingsley's harbored feelings for her.
"What are you doing?"
Cooper nearly jumped at Thea's shrill voice. "Sorry, I was just looking." He stepped away from the curio display.
"Just looking? Without permission to come back here, you might as well be
a criminal." Thea's apron was wet, as if she'd been washing dishes for hours. Even so, plates and silverware were stacked in unstable towers behind her.
"I didn't mean any harm. I came down to eat, and when I didn't see anyone… I heard a noise, so I came this way."
"You missed lunch, obviously. I could shoot you for trespassing, and no court would convict me."
"I'm sorry, Miss Calder," he said as he turned quickly. "I'll be out of your way."
"Wait a minute."
Cooper faced her as she dried her hands on her apron.
"Maybe I shouldn't be so cross, especially with you being kind enough to at least drop off your payment last night."
"I didn't think I was going to wake for breakfast--"
"I heard what happened. It was all anyone could talk about at the supper table. George Banyon used to come in to buy penny candy, he and his sister. Such a shame. What a waste of a young life."
"I know. I'd never met him and it has me shaken. We didn't get back until the sun was starting to come up."
"Technically, you signed our contract, so I should boot you for breach." In the flash, Thea's spiteful side surfaced.
"So, do you want me to leave?" Cooper wondered where he would stay if the Calders had the only housing in all of Coal Hollow. He could always hole up how he normally did. Wrapped up in his blanket, hoping the hard ground wasn't too damp.
"You know, with all that's gone on since last night, and with you just arriving, why don't we make a little compromise?"
"What did you have in mind?"
Thea stepped aside and extended a hand to the piled dirty dishes as if revealing a prize.
15.
Gerald Harris cheated death as he crawled through the numbing darkness. His time had come, had been hovering over him like a malevolent cloud since last year. He stubbornly ignored his fate when his burning cough started dredging up blood, and in recent weeks, bloody tissue. But ignore it he did. When stubbornness could no longer mask his fear, it was too late. He could do nothing to change his fate. Except, possibly, entering the Underground.
When they first entered the kitchen to take him from his family, he thought they were a bunch of coloreds bent on some kind of misguided revenge. But after a moment's hesitation, Gerald Harris recognized them for what they were. They weren't a bunch of crazed Negroes starting up a race war. Their skin was coal-blackened. Ashy dust coated their skin, clung to their curled mustaches and bushy sideburns. The melted candles at the crest of their helmets remained unlit. When they blinked, the whites of their eyes flickered like flinty moths in a dusky backdrop. They were white men stained black by their profession. His tension eased off to a steady hum.
Gerald knew about the Underground. Most of the old-timers could sift fact from fable easily enough. The three men who he had so easily followed into the hollows of the earth weren't alive, but they weren't exactly dead, either. They were the Collectors. Miners trapped years ago--long before Gerald first doffed his miner's helmet--trapped in some perpetual cycle of escape and rescue. They should've been dead, but weren't. They should have suffocated in their mining accident, should have long ago rotted and crumbled to nothing. But they hadn't.
The Collectors. With primal desperation they forged through their freshly cut tunnels, seeking out those who they could save. Their single-minded focus drove them to chip away at bedrock, layers of limestone, veins of coal, through topsoil and the foundations of houses, to at last save lives. The Collectors were myth when the mine was still open, a myth given a wink and a nod by the local miners as their patron saints. They were guardian angels looking out for them when they were at their weakest, guaranteeing their safety and survival as they toiled in the mines. In the bars after quitting time, the miners would tip a glass to the Collectors, followed by equal parts reverential silence and rowdy good cheer. Gerald never believed the stories, but respectfully tipped his glass, just in case.
When the mine closed, the young and able-bodied either signed on with other mining companies scarring the prairies of the middle-west, or wended their way back to the Appalachians, from which many of them originally emigrated. Those who remained in Coal Hollow accepted their burdens of diminished physical capacity and the poisoned lungs that accompanied a coal miner's old age. Over the years, the myth gained credibility as the old-timers closed in on their dying days. People were disappearing. Sick people. Sick miners. Last night had been Gerald Harris's time. The Collectors entered the Harris household with the promise of eternal life. He wondered what ultimate price they would exact as compensation for such a gift.
He couldn't see a thing, and only the shuffling ahead prevented him from colliding with the Collector leading the way. They had yet to say word one to him. The two trailing miners dragged their shovels and pickaxes, grinding the metal against the cold stone with every stride. In their silence he felt alone, as if he were a blind mole burrowing down into its den. They were moving at a generous clip, yet he couldn't hear their gusting breath. Maybe they didn't need to breathe. Gerald considered himself, and yes, from the gentle pull of his lungs in his chest, he was still breathing, still alive. But these other three men… being stuck in a lightless tunnel with these unbreathing, undead… Collectors, Gerald felt a surge of panic, the tight clench of claustrophobia. Thirty-six years in the mines and he had never felt so trapped; never to such an extent had he ever felt the weight of the world above him, the gravity of the cold stone earth pressing down as if to crush him.
He then heard a grunt from behind, a discordant friable voice lost in an undead chest cavity. Did their blood still flow? he wondered. Did they have any thoughts other than to dig, shovel and pick their way through this lightless Underground maze? Again, the grunt sounded from behind him, insistent and irritated. Ahead, the shuffling sounds ceased.
The sweat clinging to his skin dried unnervingly. He realized he was no longer crawling. He had stopped in order to catch his panic-stricken breath, questioning why he had so willingly followed these monsters into their lair, knowing it was far too late at this point to change his mind. There was a scraping sound from behind as a shovel was thrown forward, followed by a cold pinging sound as the shovel slammed into his right ankle. He screamed, his voice absorbed by the surrounding tons of solid rock. White hot pain burst from the impact and up his leg. After the initial pain subsided, all he heard was the Collectors' angered grunts. He couldn't find his voice--he choked on any words forming on his lips--rubbing the barbs of pain from his ankle. He blinked in the darkness, searching for clarity or understanding to this situation, but was left wanting. A shovel prodded his calf, urging him on.
"Okay, okay." Wondering if his ankle was broken, Gerald pressed on, following at the pace of his Collectors, not wanting to further anger them.
He lost all sense of time, but hours had passed, surely, since he first entered the dark tunnel. He hadn't coughed since they reached a certain level below ground, a level at least a half mile deep by his educated guess. In fact, he didn't even feel the urge, which had rarely happened in the last decade. Hand over hand he crawled through the lightless void, his knees going numb and his calloused hands sanding down to more sensitive layers for all the friction, yet with all the motion and effort, still no coughing.
He inhaled deeply, his lungs expanding to what he thought was their physical limit, then expanded more, taking in more chilly air. With every fraction of an ounce of additional air, his energy was building, and he could have sworn he felt a tingling in his chest. A good tingling. Warm and… healing. Yes, healing. A wood fire was close, and also, the warm doughy sweetness of… apple pie? In the darkness, Gerald Harris, though tentative and beyond confused, felt a smile crease his lips.
16.
Cooper finished the last of the dishes, and was wiping down a water spill around the sink's edge. How did she do that? he wondered. Thea Calder was beautiful, but he'd encountered beautiful women before. She hadn't blinded him by batting her eyelashes or offering him a charming smile. He co
uldn't pinpoint it beyond an unnatural ability for manipulation.
A heady swirl of pipe smoke let Cooper know he wasn't alone.
"She got you pretty good, didn't she?" Henry Calder stood against the doorframe, his thick arms folded across his chest. He offered a knowing smirk. His cob pipe bobbed as he gnawed on its tip, his teeth clicking along its well-chewed surface.
"I suppose she did, Mr. Calder." Cooper worked the dishrag around, chasing spilled water. "I'm sure if I stay for any length of time, I'll wind up cooking for everyone, too." He tossed the dishrag in the sink, finished with his end of the "deal."
Henry Calder laughed, the gruff tenor sounding uncommon for him, as if his voice had long ago forgotten that facility. "I think my daughter could convince a beggar to give up his last penny, and feel good about it, too. Thea's got a good heart, it's just sometimes hard to see." His expression hardened back to what Cooper expected of him. All scowl and jowl.
"I better get going."
"Before you do, can I ask you something?"
"Sure." Cooper had a suspicious feeling. Whenever someone from Coal Hollow asked him a question, it always seemed to lead him to regret.
"If you're going to stay a while, I was curious if you had any leads on what you're going to do?"
"Actually, I was hoping to find out today."
"Well, I might help you with that. It's not much, but it's something."
"You've piqued my interest." Cooper was relieved at Calder's innocuous line of questioning.
"Then follow me."
Cooper followed Henry through the general store and out the front door. He just now noticed the man's limp, how he favored his right leg, shortening his left stride to compensate.
Henry surprised him by heading toward the icehouse. Inside the first door, Calder noticed his pipe had died, so he tapped it empty against his shoe, stowing the pipe in a pocket. Shy of opening the second door, he grabbed a coat from a hook in the corner. He threw it to Cooper. "It's not the greatest, but once inside, you'll be glad for it."