by Homer Hickam
Jack watched all our nonsense in his rearview mirror. “Younger Hickam,” he barked, “you want to get thrown off again? No? Then get down here, right now!” I pushed my way through the dozing aisle to sit, at Jack’s point, on the steps. Jack went through his gears, selected one, and we were off, crunching up the short straightaway before the first curve of Coalwood Mountain.
The fifth curve up was especially precarious. It canted toward a one-hundred-foot-high precipice without even a tree to slow the bus down if it went over. Jack braked. “Everybody out,” he ordered. “Walk around that curve and go about halfway up the straightaway and wait for me. Leave your stuff.”
He opened the door, and I climbed out with a busload of half-asleep students stumbling behind me. We trudged silently around the curve and kept going as ordered and then turned to wait for Jack. He eased the bus around the curve and then, gears changing, ground his way up to us. He opened the door and we all climbed back on. I took up station once more on the steps. Cresting the top of Coalwood Mountain, we were faced with a steep, straight stretch followed by a series of curves that dipped and turned. Jack slipped into a low gear and we trundled slowly through them, coming out at a short straight stretch that bottomed out into a wide inside curve, a rocky cliff looming over it. I gazed with wonder at thirty-foot-long icicles hanging from the cliffs like crystalline stalactites.
We rolled with ease down Little Daytona and through Caretta, past the minehead there, and then up on War Mountain, where again Jack ordered us off the bus to walk around a particularly treacherous curve. We arrived an hour late for school. Mr. Turner was waiting for us at the door. “Go to your scheduled classes,” he said. “Get the homework for the classes you’ve missed from your friends. Move, people!”
Before chemistry class started, Miss Riley called me to her desk. “I have something for you, Sonny,” she said. “See me before you go home.” With the excitement of watching the snow fall all day and school dismissed an hour early, I was on the bus home before I remembered that I was supposed to see her.
It kept snowing through the night. Lucifer moved inside, taking possession of the rug at the bottom of the basement steps. Dandy and Poteet also stayed in the basement, except for quick runs to the yard to do their business. The next morning, I crawled out of bed to silence. Nothing was moving outside except walking miners. Johnny Villani made the announcement: The schools were open, but the buses weren’t running. If students could walk to school, they were expected to go. The rest of us had the day off.
I went into the living room for a rare treat, to watch the Today Show all the way through. But I got barely a glimpse of J. Fred Muggs before a snowball hit the living-room window. When I looked out, I saw O’Dell, Roy Lee, and Sherman with sleds. Jim and a knot of his pals had already grabbed their sleds and headed to Coalwood central to test the road between the church and the Club House. “Come on!” O’Dell yelped, so excited he was bouncing up and down. “We’re going to Big Creek! Nobody’s ever done that before on sleds. We’re going to be the first ones ever!”
Mom was sipping coffee in front of her tropical beach. The palm tree was done, and it looked as if she was adding coconuts to it. “We’re going to sled all the way to Big Creek,” I said.
“Well, don’t freeze to death,” she sighed over the rim of her cup.
I trotted down the basement steps, carefully stepping over Lucifer, who raised a single irritated eye. Dandy and Poteet ran in circles, excited by my excitement. I found my sled and pitched it outside. Then I went back to my room and put on another pair of jeans, an undershirt, and a thick flannel shirt over it, two pairs of socks, my galoshes, and a heavy wool coat. No hat. It was not the style of teenage West Virginia boys to wear a hat, except the black-felt kind with a feather in it, and then only at dances. Mom saw me go and called me back, handing me a knit watch cap. “If you don’t wear this, your brains are going to freeze,” she said, and then waved at the other boys. “Are y’all crazy?”
“Yes, ma’am!” they chorused happily. “Come with us!”
“Not in this lifetime,” Mom replied. I took the cap from her, put it on to satisfy her, and then whipped it off as soon as she shut the door. I stuffed it in my coat pocket. A few cars were managing to move, their chains clanking. We crossed to the filling station and waited until one headed toward Coalwood Mountain. Roy Lee grabbed its bumper, falling onto his sled, and one by one we formed a chain, hanging on the feet in front of us. I was the last sled. When the car pulled into the company store at Six, we let go. We trudged up the road and then set ourselves against Coalwood Mountain.
The snow we stepped through on the road was pristine, our tracks the first. There was good traction to it, and we were soon at the top of the mountain. We threw ourselves down on our sleds and, yodeling our delight all the way, flew down the dipping curves, slicing new double-runner tracks. We slid down Little Daytona and into Caretta. There, at the church, we chained onto another car and went all the way to the Spaghetti House. Others had walked up War Mountain, and we followed their tracks. We crunched past the little houses perched precariously on the nearly vertical slope on both sides of us. Then we slid down into War. We arrived at Big Creek High at lunchtime, leaned our sleds against the wall just inside the main door, and walked in as if we were kings of the earth. Mr. Turner caught sight of us. “If you boys think you’re going to class, you’re very much mistaken. The county superintendent has suspended classes for everyone for the remainder of the day. However,” he continued, “please go to your teachers and get your homework before you leave.”
I headed for Miss Riley’s room and was relieved to find her at her desk. “I’m sorry I forgot to see you yesterday,” I said.
I must have been a sorry sight, because she looked at me with sincere concern. “How did you get here?” When I told her, she held out her hand. “Let me feel your hands,” she said. “Oh, they’re ice cold. You go down to the cafeteria and get some hot chocolate.”
I did as I was told. When I got back, she opened her desk drawer and withdrew a book. It looked to be a textbook. Its cover was red. “This came in yesterday,” she said. “Miss Bryson and I put our heads together and ordered it for you. Here.”
Miss Bryson was the librarian. I took the book and read its title, written in gold gilt on a black bar imprinted on the front cover. It was the most wondrous book title I’d ever seen:
PRINCIPLES OF GUIDED MISSILE DESIGN
I flipped through the pages of the book, seeing chapter titles, amazing chapter titles, passing before my eyes: “Aerodynamics Relating to Missile Design,” “Wind Tunnels and Ballistic Ranges,” “Momentum Theory Applied to Propulsion,” and “Flow Through Nozzles.” Then I read the most wonderful title of a chapter in any book I had ever held: “Fundamentals of Rocket Engines.”
“There’s calculus in there and differential equations,” Miss Riley said. “You could ask Mr. Hartsfield. He might help you.”
I reverently turned the book in my hands. “Can I keep it for a while?”
“It’s yours, Sonny. You can keep it forever.”
I felt as if she had just given me something straight from God. “I don’t know how to thank you!” I blurted out.
“All I’ve done is give you a book,” she said. “You have to have the courage to learn what’s inside it. Come on. You can walk me out to my car.”
She put on her coat and I escorted Miss Riley down the hall, past Mr. Turner, who watched us suspiciously, and outside to the teachers’ parking lot. At her car, she put her hand on my arm. “Sonny, it may take a while, but I believe you can learn the things that are in this book. Then,” she smiled, “maybe Quentin and I will finally convince you to enter the science fair.”
“Miss Riley,” I said, “if you want me to enter, I’ll do it.”
“When you’re ready,” she said.
At that moment, I believed I was ready for anything just because she believed I was. Coming back, the other boys ran up, carrying their sle
ds. “Come on, Sonny! We’re going over to Emily Sue’s to play hearts.” I must have looked hesitant, because O’Dell added, “Dorothy will be there too!” Roy Lee eyed me, looking unhappy. For some reason, he’d developed a dislike for the love of my life.
Emily Sue lived in a house built on the side of a nearly vertical mountain across the creek and not more than a hundred yards from Big Creek High School. Her father owned a big scrap yard in War, and her mother was the third-grade schoolteacher at War Elementary.
On this strange sort of school-but-not-school day, and with the snowy vista outside, Emily Sue’s kitchen seemed twice as welcome, and warm, and fun. Her mother greeted us and then left us to ourselves. We sat around the kitchen table, drinking hot apple cider, eating homemade cookies fresh out of the oven, and playing hearts.
As O’Dell had advertised, Dorothy was indeed there, sitting across from me. I saw, almost as if for the first time, how gorgeous a girl she was. She had this great laugh, kind of a backward hiccup, that I found absolutely charming. Roy Lee nudged me. I followed him into the living room. “Will you stop staring at Dorothy like some kind of heartsick puppy? You’re going to give me diabetes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She doesn’t love you, you sap!”
I felt like slugging him. Instead, I said, “I bet I can get her to kiss me.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“This,” Roy Lee said, “I gotta see.”
We went back to the game. “Dorothy,” I said, my heart racing, “I bet Roy Lee you’d kiss me. Today. Now.”
Dorothy looked up from her cards, her mouth open. “What did you bet?”
“Just that you’d do it.”
Silence fell around the table. Dorothy glanced at Roy Lee, who rolled his eyes. She put down her cards, stood up, and kissed me on the forehead. “There,” she said.
“No good,” Roy Lee said. “Got to be on the lips.”
That wasn’t part of our bet, but I didn’t care to disagree with him. I looked at Dorothy expectantly. “I guess he’s right,” I said.
She took a short, unhappy breath. “Stand up,” she said. I did, and she walked around the table and pecked me on the mouth. “There. Happy now?” She stalked out of the room.
“Dorothy?” I called after her.
Emily Sue snickered. “Fastest kiss in the history of the universe.”
“See what you’ve done?” I snapped at Roy Lee.
He shrugged. “Me? The question is, do you understand what just happened?”
“Go to hell.”
The hearts game broke up, and Roy Lee, Sherman, and O’Dell put on their coats for the journey back. “Come on, Sonny,” Sherman said. “It’ll be dark if we don’t get going.”
I looked at the closed door of the bathroom where Dorothy had disappeared. “I’ll be along. Go ahead.”
As soon as the others had left, she came out. I started to apologize. “It’s that Roy Lee,” she said, biting her lip. “He’s such a greasy rat.”
I showed her the book Miss Riley had given me. She made me sit down beside her on the couch so that she could look at it closer. “I’d like to learn calculus too,” she said. “I want to learn everything I can.”
The telephone rang, and Emily Sue said it was Dorothy’s mother. She was on her way to pick her up. I followed her outside. My sled was leaning alone on the fence at the street level. Emily Sue’s mother called from the front door. “I saw the other boys catch a ride in a truck, Sonny.”
Dorothy’s mother offered me a ride back through War. I climbed out of the car in front of Dorothy’s house, retrieving my sled from the trunk. Dorothy got out with me. “Will you be all right?” she asked. The snow had started falling again.
“I’ll have fun the whole way,” I told her.
She looked around, as if to see if anyone was watching. Her mother had already parked the car and gone inside. Without warning, she hugged me and kissed me on the mouth, this time a lingering caress. “Be careful,” she said, her sweet lips brushing my ear. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
I stood in a state of rapture after she left. Two cars passed by, but I was too dazed to stick out my thumb. After that, no one came along and I started to walk. It was getting dark. Halfway up War Mountain, the wind started to blow and the snow pelted down so thick I couldn’t see the lights of the houses in the valley below. My ears were freezing, and I remembered the knit cap. I pulled it out of my coat pocket and put it on, pulling it over my ears. Miss Riley’s book was safe, comfortably pressing against my stomach, my belt cinched tight against it. I trudged on, leaning against the wind, until I reached the top of the mountain, and then I gratefully threw my sled down and slid to the Spaghetti House.
I walked on through Caretta. Any of the families there would have taken me in, but I wanted to go home. By the time I made it halfway up Little Daytona, I was thinking that I had made a mistake. The wind howled down the straightaway with near-hurricane force, almost knocking me down. My face stung from the driven sleet, and my eyelashes were coated with ice crystals. I considered turning around, but decided that I could make it if I just kept plodding along. I wasn’t afraid, not yet.
It was terribly dark. I pushed on, finally picking up my sled and carrying it under my arm since it wasn’t sliding very well in the deep snow. Somewhere near the top of Coalwood Mountain, I misjudged where I was and stepped off the road, disappearing under the snow into a deep ditch. When I finally clawed my way out, my pants and my coat were thoroughly wet. I could feel my pants freezing to my legs, and my coat felt as if it weighed a million pounds. For the first time, I felt fear. I was a long way from panic, but I knew what frostbite was—Coach Gainer had covered it in his health class—and I knew the danger of being wet in such cold temperatures. I peered down the road, hoping to hear the sound of a car or a truck, but there was nothing but silence. I had no choice but to keep walking.
When I reached the top of the mountain, I threw down my sled, but instead of sliding, it just lay there with me on top of it. The snow was too deep and sticky for the sled runners to slide. Groaning, I picked up the sled and walked into a near whiteout, feeling my way with each step. There were many places on the steep side of the road where there were no markers or fences. If I wandered off, I stood a very good chance of going over a cliff, and nobody was likely to find me until the next thaw. I stayed in the middle of the road. My teeth were chattering. I had to keep going.
I was shivering almost uncontrollably when I tripped and sprawled on my face. I lay for a moment with the thought that maybe if I just rested for a while, I would find the strength to go on. But I forced myself to stand. Coach Gainer had told us in health class how Arctic explorers had just gone to sleep when they froze to death. He claimed it was an easy way to die, but I didn’t want to find out. I had rockets to build and Dorothy to win. Besides, even though I would be dead, I would never live down the story of me freezing to death on Coalwood Mountain. People would gossip for ages about how stupid I was. I got to my feet and shuffled on until I saw a single bare light bulb on the porch of a house built about a hundred feet down the side of the mountain. It was an old, dilapidated shack with a tar-paper roof. I knew somebody lived in it—there was usually smoke coming out of its stovepipe—but I had no idea who it might be. I kept going. Southern West Virginia society did not allow for barging in on strangers in the middle of the night, no matter what the situation.
“Hey, boy, what you doin’ out on a night like this?”
I peered through the swirling snow and beheld a woman carrying a lantern above her head. She wore a long cloth coat and galoshes. “I’m going home,” I said, my frozen lips slurring the words. I couldn’t feel my face, and my feet felt more like blocks of ice than part of me.
“Where’s home?”
“Coalwood.”
“You better come inside ’n warm up or you ain’t gonna make it.”
When I hesitated, she came aft
er me, grabbing my coat. “Come on, boy!”
I gave in to her urging and followed her down a steep path to the little house. She pushed open a homemade wooden door and led me inside. An ancient pot-bellied stove glowed in the center of the room. A patched couch sat in front of the stove. A small rude table was set under a window that looked down into the valley. “Well, come on in!” the woman said when I hesitated. She doffed her coat, kicked off her galoshes, and put on a pair of moccasins. She took a pot off the stove and poured something into a cup. She brought it to me. I saw her in the pale light of the lantern on the table. She wore canvas pants and a plaid work shirt. She was about thirty years old, I guessed, and had long straight blond hair. Her thin face was plain but friendly. “Here’s some sassafras tea,” she said.
I took the cup and drank it greedily, savoring the sensation as the hot liquid flooded into my stomach. She took the cup from me before I was finished. “We got to get you outa those wet things. Everything off, let’s go.”
I hesitated, timid about taking off my clothes in the presence of a stranger. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You ain’t gonna show me nothin’ I ain’t already seen too many times.”
She had a curtain—it looked like an old sheet that had been sewn—slid across a pole nailed in a corner of the room for privacy. She pointed toward it and I went behind it, pulling off my coat and then my layers of shirts. I was relieved to see my book was still dry. I laid it on a little two-drawer bureau in the corner and then handed out my things to her, one by one. “I’ll hang ’em up near the stove,” she said. She came back and swept the curtain back. “You forgot your pants.” I covered my chest with crossed arms. “Gawdalmighty, boy. I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to you. Get them pants off right now!”