The Heartbeat of the Mountain

by Joan Foley Baier

  “You are a happy mystery to my family.” The voice startled Luvella, and she jumped. From the side of the house, Luke leapt over the railing and onto the porch, barely making a thud. “Sorry I scared you.”

  “You didn’t scare me,” Luvella retorted.

  He stood next to her, and in the glow from the dining room lantern light, Luvella could see the puzzled look on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “That’s all right.” Luvella couldn’t think of one other sensible thing to say, so she turned and opened the screen door into the house.

  “Good night,” he called to her back.

  She continued walking, straight and stiff, across the dining room into her bedroom. She scooped up the quilt covering the bed, her nightgown with it, and walked to Aunt Hilda’s room. Uncle Isaac was quiet, so Luvella entered the room.

  “I can stay with her now, Uncle Isaac. You should get some rest.”

  Uncle Isaac stood and looked at her and then the quilt.

  “I’ll sleep right here in the chair,” she said. “Aunt Hilda will not be alone.”

  Isaac smiled, then reached down to touch Hilda’s head and to slide his hand down her cheek, holding his hand there for a moment. He left the room in silence.

  Luvella walked to Aunt Hilda’s bedside, where she had stood just a little while before. “This is Luvella again, Aunt Hilda,” she said softly. “Mama told me to tell you she has missed you all these years, and she loves you very much. I wish so much that I’d gotten to know you.” She studied Aunt Hilda’s face for any sign of awareness, of having heard her words. But there was no movement, no frown or raised eyebrows, just the slow, slight rise and fall of her breathing.

  “It’s funny,” Luvella murmured. “Last night at supper, Mama was telling us about that clothespin doll she’d made for you. She laughed and told us it was the ugliest doll she’d ever seen, but you just loved it and treasured it.” Luvella swallowed noisily and brushed her eyes. “Aunt Hilda, this will be the most loved ugly doll in the whole world.” She started to chuckle, but it turned into a sob. “It will be held in your honor for all of Mama’s and my whole life.” She backed down to the foot of Hilda’s bed.

  “I’ll be sleeping right here at the foot of your bed, Aunt Hilda. Mama’s heart is with us, I know, so the three of us are all together. And if what Uncle Isaac said is true, maybe the Great Spirit is with us, too.”

  Luvella changed into her nightgown, pulled the chair close so she could rest her feet on the bed to feel any movement of Aunt Hilda’s during the night. She snuggled into the chair under the quilt and, with a sliver of light shining through the slight opening of the door, examined the doll in her hand.

  The wooden clothespin had two painted dots on the front of its top for eyes, an upturned arc just below the eyes for its mouth, and a faded piece of red and white gingham tied to its middle to give the dress effect. Luvella smiled. Clutching the doll to her chest, she closed her eyes and tried not to think of the events of the day. Especially the Luke events.

  Chapter Nine

  The murmured sounds of Uncle Isaac’s deep tones and Luke’s husky voice wafted into Aunt Hilda’s bedroom like a muted lullaby. Their voices blended with Aunt Hilda’s shallow breaths, creating a hazy background for Luvella. She burrowed into the chair and a deep, exhausted sleep.

  Hours later, as early morning light pried open Luvella’s eyelids, it took her only seconds to remember she was in Aunt Hilda’s room. Her muscles, stiff from yesterday’s long ride and from sitting in the chair all night, began to cramp when she tried to stretch them. Her legs and back were tight, but she didn’t want to move them and disturb Aunt Hilda. She sat up slowly and frowned. Something was very different.

  Aunt Hilda was there, still not moving. But… But…she wasn’t breathing!

  The absence of sound in the room wrapped Luvella like a shroud. Wide awake now, she pulled her legs from the bed and stood. She put her hand, the one not holding the doll, on Aunt Hilda’s blanketed arm and then up to rest on her aunt’s forehead.

  “Oh, Aunt Hilda.” She gulped the sob that was choking her. “I should have been here earlier for you. What have our families missed all these years?” She rubbed Hilda’s forehead and pushed the hair back from her face—a face that looked remarkably like Mama’s across the forehead and eyes.

  Tears streamed down Luvella’s cheeks as she continued to rub her aunt’s forehead. “Aunt Hilda, I wish so much I had known you. Now the only thing left to say is goodbye.” She pulled her hand back and wiped the tears from her face. “Mama says goodbye to you, too.” Luvella picked up the doll she had dropped on the bed. “Aunt Hilda, Mama and I will both treasure this doll for our whole lives, so in a way, we’ll always be together.”

  She stood by the bed, not knowing what to do next. A knot had formed in her stomach, and she felt a powerful urge to sob. Oh, I mustn’t cry in front of all these people, especially poor Uncle Isaac. She suddenly realized that Aunt Hilda’s head had felt warm. She must have just now died. That’s what woke me up—her not breathing!

  Luvella searched the room and saw her clothes folded on top of the commode. She rushed over and grabbed them, clutching them inside the blanket she wrapped around herself. Uncle Isaac. I have to get Uncle Isaac.

  Once in the dining room, her eyes lifted up to the loft. “Uncle Isaac,” she said, her voice wobbly with suppressed tears. A low rumble of deep breathing answered her. “Uncle Isaac!” she repeated, loudly this time, her voice gaining strength.

  There was silence again as the breathing sounds stopped; Luvella waited. Then Uncle Isaac leaped from his bed to the railing. “Is it Hilda?” He disappeared to the back of the loft, not needing an answer. When he raced down the stairs, his shirt was billowing behind him, his suspenders hanging loosely at his sides. He took long strides directly into Aunt Hilda’s room.

  Luvella followed him and waited at the door, watching because she didn’t know what else to do. Uncle Isaac stood at Aunt Hilda’s side for a brief second. He threw himself across the bed, his face buried in Hilda’s blanket, his shoulders heaving. Luvella remembered Mama’s shoulders shaking with sobs, too, that awful day when Bessie’s baby had lost his battle with the typhoid. Was that two years ago already?

  Luvella had had the same sense of exclusion then, too. Each family member had experienced his or her own raw grief as she was left to grieve alone, in her own solitary way.

  She left her uncle so he could mourn in private. She went to her room, washed up, and dressed as quickly as she could. I’ll do what I did then—I’ll keep busy. Things need to be done; I’ll do them. The emptiness in my heart will just have to wait. She fought back tears and hurried to the kitchen. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help. She began preparing breakfast, stoking the stove fire for coffee first. She found the battered tin coffee pot, pumped water into it, and looked around the unfamiliar kitchen. What to make for breakfast?

  She found the coffee and then the flour. Flapjacks. She grabbed a basket from a stack near the door and went out to gather eggs from the hen house and milk and bacon from the springhouse.

  She raced back to the house, hesitating, listening, once she was inside the door. Uncle Isaac was whispering and humming his sad songs in Aunt Hilda’s room. Luvella rushed into the kitchen and scurried from cupboard to table to stove.

  Why do I feel so…so abandoned? The coffee was perking, and it seemed like only seconds had passed before the bacon was sizzling. I hardly knew Aunt Hilda. But I feel like I’ve lost a part of me…a part of my soul.

  She poured some of the bacon grease onto the hot griddle and arranged three equal dollops of flapjack batter on it.

  She thought of the wedding ring pattern, the intertwining circles, on Aunt Hilda’s quilt. We are connected. She nodded as she watched the circles of flapjacks spread into each other. We are connected by blood, but Aunt Hilda’s coming out of her deep sleep to hold my hands…that’s a connection of love. How I wish I’d kn
own her.

  Luvella raised her shoulders in a huge sigh and looked about her. She had never in her life prepared any meal so quickly. She felt like a log on a mountain stream, current-driven to the waterfall. The closer she came to the deadly precipice, the faster the tide carried her. She knew the day ahead of her would be awful, and she couldn’t keep it from happening, no matter how fast she worked.

  “I thought I smelled bacon,” Luke said.

  Luvella jumped. She had been so immersed in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the door open.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I seem to have a talent for startling you.” He didn’t give her a chance to reply. His smile faded when he saw her face, and his became serious, a concerned frown pinching his brows together. He looked toward Aunt Hilda’s room and Uncle Isaac’s chants. “Did Aunt Hilda…”

  Luvella nodded. Neither she nor Luke said the word die.

  Luke hesitated for only a second, then moved quickly to his uncle. Luvella knew he would bring comfort to the old man. She stood by the sink, looking out the window at the rows of corn and tomato plants growing in the large garden behind the house, and hugged herself. What am I supposed to do today?

  Luke returned, shuffling his feet, deliberately, Luvella was sure, so she had no trouble hearing his approach. “I’ll go get Hannah to help you.” His face was flushed, and in his eyes Luvella thought she saw moisture. Had he been crying?

  Luvella turned. “Oh, that would be so nice,” she said. “I’d be really grateful. But let me fix you a plate of breakfast first.”

  They ate together in silence, although each was so engrossed in thought and sorrow, neither noticed. Finally, Luvella spoke. “I will not let Hannah do any work today. I know, in her condition, she shouldn’t be taking care of Aunt Hilda. But she can tell me what I should do.”

  Luke nodded and rose. “I’ll bring her back very soon. She doesn’t live far from here. Other women from our tribe will come later.”

  When he left, Luvella began clearing the table. She picked the remaining eggs from the basket and put them into another basket suspended from the ceiling near the window.

  As she picked up the basket she had used to gather eggs to put it back by the door, she felt the heft of it, its sturdiness. The straw was tightly woven, which gave the basket its strength, and there were colored designs entwined along the sides. This is one of the baskets Uncle Isaac was telling us about! She strode across the dining room to the door and examined the others. They were beautiful. Each one was a little different. There were different sizes, different designs, different colors.

  She was still looking at them when Uncle Isaac walked into the room. His shirt was buttoned now and tucked into his trousers, the suspenders doing their job over his shoulders. His feet were still bare. He walked noiselessly to the coffeepot and filled a mug he had picked up from the table.

  Luvella rushed to his side, resting her hand on his arm. “Uncle Isaac, I am so sorry.” She brought her arm back, embarrassed she had touched him. “Sit down, Uncle Isaac. You’ll need a good breakfast to carry you through.”

  She hurried into the kitchen and noticed he was following her command; he sat at the table. Oh, Hannah. Please hurry.

  “Luke has gone to get Hannah. She can tell me what to do. I’m sure there are certain preparations to be done now.”

  Uncle Isaac nodded and sipped his coffee. Luvella started making bread in the kitchen. We always need bread. And it feels good to work with my hands. Uncle Isaac ate, alone and quiet. Then he put on his boots and went outside.

  Luvella had the bread rising in pans covered with damp cloths and was just drying the dishes when Hannah came in with two women. “This is my mother, Luvella. Mrs. Raven.” She gestured toward the woman directly behind her, medium tall, with brown hair pulled to a knot at the nape of her neck. Smile lines around her hazel eyes and mouth spoke of youthful energy more than middle-aged merriment. Her nose was fine-cut and tilted up a little at its end. Luvella couldn’t help but notice that Mrs. Raven was not an Indian.

  “And this,” Hannah continued, pointing to the second woman, “is Mrs. Greycloud, a good friend of Aunt Hilda. They’re going to take care of Aunt Hilda and prepare her for her funeral tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Greycloud was short, almost as short as Luvella, and stout. She had high cheekbones and large, almond-shaped eyes set in smooth, copper skin. The two women went directly to Aunt Hilda’s room and began a series of chants. Luvella heard the first few words, which sounded like “Naro-nana Ro-a-nay-a…,” but Hannah had work for her to do. She held up a white shirt-like dress, her face serious, unsmiling.

  “This is what our people wear to the Spirit World. We need to iron this,” Hannah said as she duck-walked, holding her back, to the shed off the kitchen to get the flatirons. “You’d better stoke the fire to get it hot.” Together, they placed the flatirons on the stovetop to heat them. Hannah showed Luvella where the ironing board was.

  Holding up the long shirt, Hannah explained, “My mother made this for Aunt Hilda to wear now. Mother and Mrs. Greycloud will bathe and dress her and fix her hair.” Luvella wet her fingertip and, holding up one flatiron, quickly and lightly tapped her wet fingertip on it. The hiss told her the iron was hot enough, and she began to iron.

  As she ironed, Hannah told her what to expect. “Some women will come tonight to mourn Aunt Hilda. It is our Muncee tradition.” Luvella saw a hint of pride in Hannah’s face. “But, of course, we cannot let Forksville people know that we are practicing our customs.

  “And some other Muncee women, maybe the same ones, too, will come at dawn tomorrow to mourn,” Hannah continued. “The minister from the Methodist church will come to lead his service, and there will be a short Muncee ceremony at the gravesite later in the morning. The men will bury her after that. They’re probably building the coffin right now.” She exhaled a long sigh.

  “Hannah,” Luvella said. “I think you were probably very close to Aunt Hilda. I’m sorry for you. I know you’ll miss her.”

  Hannah nodded, bowing her head and clenching her lips together. She ambled over to the stove and uncovered the bread, which had risen to mounds over the edges of the bread pans.

  They look like tiny graves! Luvella thought.

  Hannah floured her hand and punched each mound of dough, then pulled in the surrounding dough to make each a level loaf again, and turned them over, ready for the second rising. She pumped a little water onto the cloths, wrung them well, and replaced them on the bread loaves.

  After the older women had dressed Aunt Hilda in her freshly ironed shirt and prepared her for her new life, they joined Hannah and Luvella in the kitchen for some coffee. Uncle Isaac and Luke came in, and the older adults made plans for both the funerals. The required Christian funeral service would be first, to satisfy the local government. And after the minister left, they would secretly hold the Muncee ceremony, just as Hannah had told Luvella. After the decisions, a quiet descended on them as they each examined their coffee mugs in earnest.

  Luvella dared to take their minds off Aunt Hilda for a few moments. “Uncle Isaac, I think I collected all the eggs this morning. I’ll check again to make sure. I used one of those baskets by the door. Was that all right?”

  Isaac turned to look at them. “Oh yes, Luvella. We use them for everything we need to collect outdoors.” He spoke of we, of Hilda and him, as if it would always be we. People all around the table stared at their mugs again.

  “The basket is the strongest and most beautiful I’ve ever seen,” Luvella continued, and waited. She didn’t want to be too bold, or to appear to not respect their grief. But it worked. Uncle Isaac looked up at her, his eyes suddenly glimmering with a thought, an idea completely separate from his wife, or his loss of her.

  “Elizabeth here made the two top ones.” He gestured at Mrs. Raven, Hannah and Luke’s mother. “Martha made others”—he nodded toward the other woman—“and Hilda made the ones by the window. All those baskets are the kinds
I was telling you about for your festival.”

  Luvella smiled. “Oh, I was hoping that.”

  Quiet returned to the table, and Luvella went outside to check for more eggs. It felt good to get out in the sunshine.

  The women stayed for dinner and afterward went immediately into Hilda’s room. As they sang, “Coll ah ja na jah da nah jo…” Luvella heard weeping and someone was sobbing. This lasted for several hours.

  Hannah explained softly to Luvella as they worked in the kitchen. “My people believe that it is necessary for us to mourn. It helps rid our bodies of our grief, and it frees Aunt Hilda’s spirit to move on to the Spirit World.” She explained that the women would come back at dawn to mourn some more, and the funeral would probably take place about ten o’clock in the morning.

  “The funeral—our funeral—will be short but beautiful, Luvella,” she continued. “Aunt Hilda will be placed in a coffin and covered with a cloth. The men will place the coffin so Aunt Hilda’s head faces east and her feet point to the west. The sun rises in the east and brings us knowledge and spirituality. The west brings us the Spirit World and the rains that sustain our crops. The prayers will fill in the details for you tomorrow.” She dried her hands on the towel. “And later, after eating much food, we will dance. Our people dance for every occasion, every chance we get.” She smiled as her eyes brimmed.

  “Right now, I think we both ought to get to bed. Dawn comes very early!”

  Luvella went outside with Hannah and stood watching her leave. She walked with a straight back, like Luke, even with the heaviness in her belly. Luvella’s gaze wandered over the yard. I wonder where Luke is? She hadn’t seen him since this morning. I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow. I will have to talk to him, to tell him I’m sorry for his loss. I think losing Aunt Hilda is very hard for him.

  She couldn’t get to sleep right away, especially with the chanting coming from Aunt Hilda’s room. “Pay ya ah ha ya… Oy ya ca la…” But after a while, it was the chanting that lulled her to sleep.