Lord of the Mountain

by Ronald Kidd

  Daddy blinked a few times, then looked at me, almost like he was pleading. “He’s real. I feel him. I see him every day.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  He was quiet, but I think his head was filled with voices—shouting, screaming, begging. I felt sorry for him…until he spoke.

  “You’re not going back,” he told me.

  “To the recording sessions? I have to. I’m helping them.”

  “You’ll be at home all week. Thinking about what you did. Repenting.”

  “I can’t go out?”

  “You’ll go to church. That’s all.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Daddy—”

  “That’s it. I’m not changing my mind.”

  He walked out of the shed and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 16

  It just about killed me.

  Not the showdown with Daddy, though that still made me mad. The hard part was thinking about Peer and his friends going on without me. The auditions were over, and recording sessions were scheduled all week. They were carving grooves, and I was cleaning my room, helping my mother, staring at the walls. I pictured myself in wonderful scenes—listening to new singers, operating the machines, working in Camden, New Jersey, with an office next to Ralph Peer.

  Daddy preached his bonus sermon Wednesday night, and attendance was light. I was there, because it was my one chance to get out of the house. Sitting in the tent, I remembered the signs Arnie and I had posted around town advertising the Wednesday night service. Turned out we’d been wasting our time, because most of the folks who had come to audition were long gone, headed back home with their music.

  At times that night it felt like Daddy was preaching straight at me, the way you’d load a rifle and aim it. It was all about music and Satan, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t hear much of it. I was back at the hat company, listening to the Carters.

  Sue Dean stopped by that night after the service. She had worked at the hotel that day, and afterward, dropping by the sessions, she’d been surprised I wasn’t there and had decided to check on me. She found me sitting on the front porch, and I told her what had happened.

  “You’re grounded all week?” she said. “That’s serious.”

  “Music is a serious sin. The worst. He would have let me off easy if I’d just killed someone.”

  “Why is he like that?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew. Just thinking about music sets him off. You should have heard him. But you know what was strange? Deep down, it almost seemed that he was mad at himself. All the yelling, the punishment—like it was for him as much as me. So why do I have to suffer?”

  “My father gets mad sometimes,” said Sue Dean. “Usually it’s about union stuff. He said work is getting dangerous. He calls it a war.”

  I snorted. “His war, his music. Why do we have to worry about our parents’ problems? We’ve got enough of our own.”

  Sue Dean looked at me, surprised. “Nate, it’s family.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  What was family? Memories. Rules. Fragments of a song. A mystery.

  “Did you see Mr. Peer?” I asked

  “No, but I did talk to that engineer. The nice one.”

  “Mr. Holt.”

  “He showed me the recording schedule. Nate, they finish on Friday. You’re going to miss it all.”

  So that was it. The end of my big adventure.

  The moon was out that night. It lit up her face and the trees and some clouds over the mountains. It was a wide world, but mine was getting narrower by the day.

  Sue Dean went on home, leaving me with my thoughts. After Friday, Peer and his friends would pack up their things and go. They would float off like those clouds, disappear into the ether, and I’d never see them again.

  The thoughts were eating me alive. They gnawed all day Thursday and Friday. By Saturday morning I’d had enough. The world was moving on, and I was missing out.

  It was time to do something.

  Getting dressed, I checked the hallway, opened my bedroom window, and climbed out. I made my way down the street, going from tree to tree to stay out of sight. When I reached the end of the block, I took off running. Downtown was straight ahead. The hat company loomed in the distance like a beacon, like Oz.

  When I got there, I glanced around, looking for Ralph Peer. As I did, Holt and Crabtree pulled up in their Ford.

  “Morning,” said Holt, wearing a wry grin. “Want to help?”

  He and Crabtree were headed for the stairs with their sleeves rolled up, like they were ready to work.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Packing was harder than I expected. The equipment had to be taken apart and put into special boxes. Crabtree was in charge of the packing. He seemed to do better with nuts and bolts than with people. Finally, a little before lunch, we loaded the boxes into the Ford.

  Holt wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and grinned at me. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve noticed you want to learn. That’s good.”

  Beside him, Crabtree mumbled something.

  “Pardon me?” I said.

  Crabtree said, “You’re all right, kid.”

  He was still mumbling, but that time I had heard him loud and clear.

  “Is Mr. Peer around?” I asked.

  I rode with them to the hotel. I sat in the back seat of the Ford, next to the boxes of equipment that were covered with blankets, like that first day. Resting my hand on top of one, I thought of what was inside and wondered if I’d see it again.

  At the hotel, Peer and his wife were just coming out through the lobby door. Behind them, a bellman struggled with their bags, finally loading them into the back of their Cadillac. Peer peeled off a dollar and gave it to him.

  “Thank you for your help,” Mrs. Peer told him, smiling warmly.

  The bellman tipped his cap and gazed at her. Unfortunately, he also kept walking and tripped over the curb. “Fine, fine,” he said. He straightened up and then disappeared into the lobby, dripping mud.

  Peer opened the car door for his wife, then came around to the driver’s side.

  “Sir?” I said.

  He looked up. “Oh, hello. It’s Nate, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. I wonder if we could talk for a second.”

  “About what?”

  I had rehearsed the moment over and over in my head, but when it came, I found myself struggling for words.

  “Well, sir, I enjoyed working with you—you know, helping out. I was just wondering, you think I could help again?”

  “Sorry, Nate, but we’re leaving.”

  “I mean somewhere else. Not Bristol. Where are you going next?”

  He gave me a funny look. “Charleston, Savannah.”

  My future stretched out before me, in Charleston and beyond. I had to grab it.

  “I’ll come with you,” I blurted. “I can help with the equipment. I’ll do whatever you need. I’m good with machines.”

  He laughed, then caught himself. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. My goodness, you’re only—what? Twelve years old?”

  My face burned. “Thirteen.”

  “Don’t you see?”

  “I’m good. I’m a hard worker. Ask Mr. Crabtree.”

  Peer shook his head. “It’s not going to happen.”

  He got into the car and closed the door behind him. I watched him through the open window. Suddenly I was mad. I had hung around the sessions, watching and listening and working, and he had barely noticed.

  “The Wizard of Oz,” I said.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “You know, the man in the book. Dorothy and her friends asked him for what they wanted—brains, courage, a heart. But when they pulled back the curtain, he wasn’t a wizard at all. He was a phony.”

  Peer started the engine and looked
up at me. “Stay home and help your mother. She needs you. I don’t.”

  He signaled to the others, and they drove off. I saw my future disappear with those two cars.

  The world had changed and then moved on, out of town and out of reach. People had sung; the lathe had turned; Popular Mechanics had come alive. Science had gripped me, and music had shaken me, the way Daddy did when he was healing. Squeezing their heads. Grabbing their collars. Rolling them like dice. I’d seen them stumble back like they had been shoved.

  Someone touched my shoulder. I turned and saw Sue Dean.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Working. I just finished when Mr. Peer drove up. I saw what happened.”

  “I’m so stupid,” I said.

  “For getting mad at him?”

  “For hoping. For dreaming.”

  “He’s the one who’s stupid,” she said. “You really could have helped him.”

  “Camden, New Jersey. I wonder what it’s like.”

  She smiled hopefully. “Bristol’s a pretty nice place.”

  I shook my head. I shivered, even though it was the middle of summer. “I have to get out. I’m not staying in that tent. I can’t breathe.”

  Sue Dean studied my face like she was trying to make a decision.

  Finally she said, “There’s something I want to show you.”

  PART III

  WILDWOOD FLOWER

  I’ll sing, and I’ll dance,

  My laugh shall be gay,

  I’ll cease this wild weeping

  Drive sorrow away

  —A. P. Carter, “Wildwood Flower”

  CHAPTER 17

  We stood in a forest, surrounded by trees. A shaft of sunlight broke through, and Sue Dean’s red hair blazed.

  Leaning over, she showed me the faint outlines of a concrete step that was covered by dirt. Nearby, peeking out from some ferns, was another step and another. We followed them to a little clearing where a cabin was tucked out of sight.

  The cabin was tiny, and it looked as old as the trees. The wood, though weathered, appeared sturdy enough. Sue Dean unlatched the door, and it swung open with a groan. I stepped inside.

  There was one all-purpose room with a table, chairs, and a bed, beside which was a shelf with books on it. There was a lantern on the table and a woodstove in the corner, with logs stacked up next to it and an axe leaning against the wall. On the windows were flowered curtains, pulled back to let the sun in.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A special place. You’re not the only one who has to get away, you know.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I was walking in the woods a few months ago and tripped on those steps. When I followed them, I found the cabin. I knocked on the door, but no one answered, so I came inside. The place was covered with dust. There was a book on the table, published in 1896.”

  “That was over thirty years ago. You think the cabin’s that old?”

  “It could be. Maybe it was used by moonshiners. Maybe a logger built it, then died before he could show anyone. Whatever happened, I was the first person who’d been here in a long time.”

  “Do your parents know?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I never showed anybody until today. I come here to get away from an ugly world. Maybe you could too.”

  I looked around. “It’s old. But it’s nice.”

  “I cleaned it up. I hung some curtains. I was here once in a big rainstorm, and it didn’t leak. I think it’s well built.”

  “I like it,” I said.

  Ralph Peer had left on Saturday, and the next morning Daddy had told me I wasn’t grounded anymore. I was still a sinner, but I guess he figured there was less temptation.

  I checked with Sue Dean, and that afternoon we rode our bikes down Virginia Avenue, which turned into Highway 421 south of town. We passed a sign for Crystal Caverns, which told me how she had known about it that day with Peer, and we headed for the mountains. They loomed over Bristol and included my favorite, Holston Mountain, a four-thousand-foot ridge with trails and streams. When you climbed it, you could look back at Bristol and see how small it was—just a smudge on the land. I’d made it that far a few times. Whatever Daddy felt about his tent, I thought God probably lived on that mountain, enjoying the breeze, taking in the view, watching hawks dive for food.

  A few miles farther on, we entered Cherokee National Forest, where Sue Dean pulled off the road. We parked our bikes and headed up the trail surrounded by trees. There were sugar maples, yellow birch, beech trees. Trees had built Bristol. Lumber ran the town, along with things made from it—paper, boxes, furniture. But God only made so many trees, and there were fewer than there used to be. Across the canyon I could see hillsides that had been stripped bare, leaving rusted machinery, overgrown logging roads, and rotting stumps. They told the story of a lumber mill that was struggling.

  Soon we were picking our way among the trillium, stands of white, three-petal flowers found in our part of the world. I stopped to study one and, after weeks of reading Popular Mechanics, thought it looked like an airplane propeller. Twenty minutes later we were inside the cabin.

  Sue Dean pulled a box of cookies from a cabinet, and we sat down at the table. I took a fig newton and looked at it.

  “I know what a fig is. What’s a newton?”

  She clonked me on the head with her knuckles. “It’s what you get when you think too much.”

  It should have hurt, but it didn’t bother me. In fact, I sort of enjoyed it. It seemed like the kind of thing Sister might have done if she were still around. Sometimes I imagined what it would have been like to have a girl in our house. Sister wasn’t a ghost the way Daddy seemed to think. She had been real. We could have been friends.

  “So, you like this place?” Sue Dean asked.

  “It’s private,” I said.

  She nodded. “It’s special. It was mine. Now it’s yours too.”

  Sue Dean closed her eyes like she was having a beautiful dream. She hummed and started to sing. It reminded me of Mama that night when she sang in the kitchen. But Sue Dean wasn’t embarrassed. She seemed happy. Her voice started out raw and scratchy, then smoothed out. It blew across the room, reminding me of wind blowing through the trees.

  I recognized “Amazing Grace,” a song so famous that even I knew it. The words described a sinner, a wretch, maybe not very different from me. Then he got something called grace, which was like forgiveness but kept on going. I thought I could keep on going at that table, in that cabin, maybe for ten thousand years, like the song said.

  That summer, Sue Dean and I rode to the cabin whenever we could. Once school started, it was hard getting there during the week, but we tried to go on Sundays. I brought a stack of Popular Mechanics, and Sue Dean supplied the food, leftovers she had sneaked from work. We would read or talk or just sit, listening to the birds. Sue Dean would sing. Sometimes it was Mama’s song, or at least what I knew of it.

  Lord of the mountain

  Father on high

  Bend down and bless me

  Please won’t you try

  Listening to Sue Dean, I decided Mama’s song was kind of like “Amazing Grace,” except the grace was being asked for, not granted. I liked to think that God, if there was one, would bend down to help.

  Mama struggled. So did I. I guess Daddy did too, but it was different for him because he thought he knew the answer, and he shared it every Saturday night. If you asked me though, the answer wasn’t in what was shared. It was in the secrets, and the secrets were in that song.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sue Dean didn’t like Gray, but my feelings about him weren’t so simple. He was rich and liked to show it, but he was also sad. Sometimes I had the feeling that underneath it all was a nice person trying to get out. Then he would open his mouth, and I’d just shake my head.

  Whatever I thought about Gray, I found myself going back again and again to his house, dr
awn by the gadgets and the Packard and the feeling that, on that hill, I could be whoever I wanted to be.

  One day, when I was looking through a new stack of Popular Mechanics from Gray’s house, I came across an article: “A Crystal Set for the Boy Builder” by Will H. Bates.

  A crystal set, the article explained, was a homemade radio made up of a wooden base, some wire wrapped tightly in a coil, an antenna, a pair of earphones, and a “crystal holder,” which was a small piece of crystal rock. Unlike most radios, a crystal set didn’t need electrical power. Its power came from radio waves picked up by the antenna. The article, through instructions and diagrams, showed how to build a crystal set for less than four dollars.

  I looked up from the magazine and gazed out the window. I saw a way into the future with that radio, like steps to the cabin. I went to my dresser and counted out some of the money I’d made doing chores for church members. I had plans for it.

  ***

  Bunting’s Drug Store on State Street sold a little bit of everything, and with the help of a store employee, I rounded up all the parts I needed to build the homemade radio called a crystal set. I carried them to the cash register, where the clerk stood watching me.

  “What are these for?” she asked, smiling in a way that didn’t seem too friendly. “Is your daddy cooking up something for that church of his? Electric communion cups? Spring-loaded pews?”

  She glanced at the other employee, and he came down with a fit of coughing.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “Just a few things for the house.”

  She bagged them up, and I left the store. Heading home, I remembered the way the clerk had looked at me. She thought Daddy was some kind of fool, and she lumped me in with him. I wondered how many other people in town felt that way.

  For the rest of the week, I grabbed time whenever I could to work on the crystal set. I would lock my bedroom door and follow the directions in the magazine. By the end of the week my project was almost done.

  On Sunday morning, Arnie and I helped Daddy clean up the church. Then Daddy and Mama went for a walk. As soon as they left, I ditched Arnie, grabbed the box where I kept my project, and pedaled off to the mountains. I was supposed to meet Sue Dean at the cabin, and I wanted to get ready.