Lingering Echoes

by Angie Smibert

  Bone narrowed her eyes at Ruby. The fury boiling up inside her choked off her words. She wanted to say that she wasn’t one of the Jewels to be bullied into doing whatever Ruby wanted. The words stuck in her craw. Bone had been that close to saying yes before Ruby opened her big mouth. Now Bone just wanted to wipe the ugly clean off her cousin’s face.

  “Now you done it,” Clay whispered, shaking his head.

  Bone methodically wrapped the remains of her Spam sandwich in the wax paper, put it back in the paper sack, and pushed herself up. She was fixing to go eat her lunch inside. Alone.

  “She didn’t mean that,” Jake told Bone. “Did you?” he implored Ruby.

  Ruby glowered at Bone. Then she took a deep breath. “Wait,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

  Bone found her voice. “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she told Ruby. Bone kept standing. The boys stifled a gasp.

  It took a moment for the penny to drop. When it did, Ruby rose in a very Mattie-like huff. She motioned for the Little Jewels to follow. They hesitated. Ruby took another deep breath and smoothed out her dress. “Please think about it,” she said cool as a cucumber. Ruby gathered up her lunch and went to another table. Pearl and Opal exchanged a worried look and followed.

  Bone sunk back down into her seat.

  Jake shook his head ruefully. “Aw, forget her.”

  “She’s just grieving,” Clay said. “She can’t help it.” He tucked into his egg without much relish. He set it down. Jake put a hand on his friend’s back.

  Clay’s whole family was grieving.

  Bone spread out her lunch again. She stared at the half-eaten sandwich for a moment and then pushed it aside. Clay’s head was bowed over the remains of his egg. “Uncle Ash told me this story the other day.”

  Clay looked up with a grin.

  “There’s this haunted mirror …”

  8

  ALL WILL WANTED to talk about was the dad-blame jar.

  Will you read it?

  Can we do another experiment?

  Will you read it if we try all the things on my list?

  Bone wasn’t ready by a long shot to touch the jar. (And she was still mad at Ruby.) Plus she wasn’t sure capturing more sounds would get them any closer to solving its mystery. They needed to know more about what had happened to Will’s father in order to figure out what was going on with the jar. She’d seen just a teeny bit of his death when she’d touched the dinner bucket. As soon as she’d laid her fingers on the metal, it all went dark inside her head. She could hear the moaning of timbers giving way and the rumble of rock collapsing around her. That was scary enough. The jar somehow had a power of its own, one that pulled at her and captured sounds. What had happened down in that mine to cause that?

  “I think we need to do a little detective work first,” she told Will. He was none too happy about it, but he gave in. And the logical person to start with was the one who’d given him the jar in the first place, the only other person who’d been right there when Mr. Kincaid died. “Meet me at the store after work tomorrow,” she told Will.

  The war had changed the Scott Brothers’ store in small ways. It still had almost everything a miner or his family needed. The older men still played checkers over a cracker barrel. Only now, war posters plastered the walls. LOOSE LIPS MIGHT SINK SHIPS. SAVE GAS BY SHARING CARS. JOIN THE ARMY. TOGETHER WE CAN DO IT. GET IN THE SCRAP! THEIR LIVES ARE IN YOUR HANDS! THERE’S AMMUNITION IN YOUR KITCHEN! Some of the shelves were barer. And you had to buy some things—like sugar—with a war ration book.

  Bone patted her pocket to make sure hers was still there. Both Mamaw and Mrs. Price had stressed the importance of keeping track of it. In fact, Mrs. Price usually kept it for Bone, but today she’d had to run over to Radford. She’d entrusted Bone with getting the boardinghouse some sugar for canning. Bone waited for Will to get off work so they could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Will had to talk to Mr. Scott about that jar.

  Mrs. Linkous was ahead of them in line. Bone watched as she opened up her and the twins’ ration books and tore off the little numbered squares. Bone got hers out. The small paper book was about the size of a postcard. Across the front it said, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WAR RATION BOOK ONE. Bone opened it. Inside, her name, address, height, weight, eye and hair colors, and age were filled in. Some of the numbered squares were gone already. Mrs. Price usually did the shopping for the entire boardinghouse. How did she know which ones to use? The book didn’t say what number was for what rationed thing.

  “What can I get you, Bone?” Mr. Scott asked.

  “Mrs. Price wants some sugar for canning and some coffee.” Bone laid out the open ration book on the counter. “Which one do I use?” she asked.

  Mr. Scott pointed at numbers 15 and 19 before grabbing the bags from under the counter. Bone tore off the little pieces of paper, careful not to rip the other numbers, and handed the squares to Mr. Scott. He slid five pounds of sugar and one pound of coffee across the counter in exchange.

  “Thanks, Mr. Scott.”

  “That radio hasn’t come in yet, Will,” Mr. Scott said as he wiped down the counter. “Everything is a mite slower on account of the war.”

  Bone turned to Will. He’d neglected to mention he’d ordered a new radio. “Did y’all’s break?” she asked.

  Will nodded as he tucked the sack of sugar under his arm. He didn’t look her in the eye.

  An idea began to form at the back of Bone’s brain—but they were there to learn about something else. Bone turned again to Mr. Scott. “Will and me want to talk to you about something, if you have the time.” Bone took the lead, just as she had when they’d ordered Will’s mining gear.

  Mr. Scott stopped wiping. “Of course, what about?” he asked, amused.

  Bone leaned in to whisper it, but Will slid a note across the counter.

  Could you tell me about that day?

  Mr. Scott went white, but he nodded. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you on the porch after I take care of these ladies. Help yourself to a cold drink.”

  Mrs. McCoy and her daughter had come in behind them, war ration books in hand.

  Will slid a dime across the counter and tucked the pound of coffee under his arm with the sugar. Bone pulled a Nehi and an RC Cola out of the cooler in the corner. Over it hung a poster for a special exhibition baseball game in Pulaski. The semipro team was raising money for war bonds. “Will, over here!” Bone called. “I found you some baseball.” It was on his list of things he missed down in the mines. She handed him his pop.

  Will grinned as he gulped down his RC Cola.

  The game was Sunday. The poster said to bring tin cans if you couldn’t afford the fifty-cent admission. Bone was sure she could talk Uncle Ash into driving them.

  Outside on the porch, Bone settled down in one of the rockers to enjoy her grape soda. The thing about the radio niggled at her, though. She watched Will. He set down the sugar and coffee sacks on the porch railing and commenced to pace back and forth, his boots practically wearing a groove in the wood planks.

  “When did the radio break?” Bone asked, taking a sip of soda. She had an uneasy feeling she knew the answer.

  Will stopped in his tracks and just stood there looking out over the slag pile.

  “Was it after you heard Charlie McCarthy come out of that darn jar?” It did more than record sounds. It broke the radio somehow, like lightning maybe, shorting out its insides.

  Will’s shoulders sagged a bit as he nodded.

  He knew—and he hadn’t told her.

  What if she’d touched that darn thing? What if she’d told it a story? Would it have shorted her out, too? Bone gripped the Nehi bottle, fighting the urge to hurl it at the back of Will’s stubborn, fat head.

  Lucky for Will, the screen door swung open. Bone took a deep breath—and a long drink of her Nehi. It didn’t quite cool her insides off.

  Mr. Scott limped out and eased himself into the chair
beside Bone. He waved Will to sit down, but he just leaned against the banister, one hand in his jacket pocket.

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask me about it, son.” Mr. Scott looked up at Will. The older man took a moment or two to collect his thoughts. “It was a day like any other. William and me were taking timbers out of one of the old shafts.” He explained how back then they were digging so fast the mill couldn’t keep up with timbers, so they often took them out of closed-down shafts and reused the wood in new ones.

  Will nodded. He’d told Bone they still do this, only now it was because they didn’t have enough people to work the mill.

  “All my brothers—except the youngest—were down in the mines back then,” he said wistfully. Mr. Scott had four brothers, and none of them mined anymore. The youngest played semipro ball but had just signed up for the Army Air Corps.

  “It was lunchtime, and we were sitting in the shaft where we’d been working. We were talking about football—and our boys. He was going to take you to the college game that Saturday. He wanted to show you around campus—even if you was only five. He had dreams for you, young man.”

  Will shifted uneasily. Then he pulled up a milk crate and sat down, looking up at Mr. Scott.

  “Suddenly it all went to hell in a handbasket. I don’t remember much of anything after that, not until I woke up in the hospital in Radford with a crushed leg.” Mr. Scott rubbed his left knee. “I cried like a little baby when they told me William didn’t make it out alive.” He paused for a long moment. Then he pushed himself to his feet and shook out his bad leg. “Can’t sit too long or it gets to hurting me.”

  Will got up, too.

  “William and me were like Bone’s daddy and Junior,” Mr. Scott told Will. “We were always working together—and we were good friends. What makes me the saddest is him not seeing what a fine young man you turned out to be, Will.” He held out his hand.

  Will shook Mr. Scott’s hand and then headed down the road, his hand in his jacket pocket again.

  Bone started after him but thought better of it. He needed some time to himself, and she still needed to ask Mr. Scott something. “How did you get the dinner bucket?”

  “Junior brought it to me. After the funeral, I think.” Mr. Scott watched Will walking away. “William really wanted Will to go to college. Or maybe join up and see the world. There’s nothing wrong with mining, mind you, but William wanted so much more for his son. I want more for my kids.” Mr. Scott’s youngest son had just signed up for the marines. He turned to limp back into the store. Stopping in the doorway, he added, “Right now, I’m just praying they make it out of this war alive.”

  Bone watched Will walk past his house and down the road toward the river, one hand still in his pocket. Was he going to the cemetery again? Was that jelly jar in his pocket?

  9

  AFTER SUPPER, BONE spread her homework—and the new National Geographic—out on the kitchen table. Miss Johnson gave Bone the magazines after she was done reading them. This one had a pull-out map of South America that Miss Johnson had already pinned up in the classroom. One photo was of Brazilian soldiers going off to war. One of them looked a bit like Daddy. As Bone ran a finger over its glossy surface, she wondered where he was now. Would these fellas run into him? Bone was studying the other pictures—looking for familiar faces—when Will rapped on the back door.

  Before she could move, Will entered and placed the jelly jar on the table in front of her.

  Please read it, his eyes said. He longed to know everything about his daddy. Bone could see that in his eyes, too. She’d also ached to find out all she could about Mama.

  Bone held her hand above it. She still felt that pull. It was warm like an ember but it made her feel hollow. The fire inside snuffed out all the air in the jar. And it pulled in sounds like moth to a flame. Could it trap her, too? What if she touched it and couldn’t find her way back out? She yanked her hand away and shook her head. Not yet at least.

  “We still got the baseball game,” she said. “And maybe we ought to talk to some more people—like Mamaw—or your mother.”

  Will snatched the jar off the table and stuffed it in his pocket. He scribbled out a note and held it in front of her.

  No good comes from talking.

  Bone sat back in her chair, confused and frankly a bit stung by the remark. He may not talk—but she sure did. It was her best thing. One of them, at least. But there was an old saying: Talk is silver, but silence is gold.

  “Hey, Will,” Mrs. Price said as she walked into the kitchen. “I’m plumb out of cookies. But we got corn bread. Can I get you a piece? Or coffee maybe?”

  Will shook his head as he stuck the note back in his pocket. He tipped his hat and left.

  “Did you two have a fight?” Mrs. Price asked. It was very unusual for Will to turn down Mrs. Price’s cooking.

  “I’m not sure,” Bone said. Will would go to the baseball game and try out the jar. He loved baseball almost more than anything. But he didn’t want to talk to Mamaw—or maybe it was his mother he was afraid to talk to. Maybe Bone needed to do his talking for him like she used to.

  Mrs. Price kissed Bone on the top of the head and went upstairs.

  The sounds of Father Flanagan’s Boys Town drifted in from the parlor. The show wasn’t Bone’s favorite. They were mostly true stories about the orphans. But Uncle Junior liked it. Uncle Junior! He was there, too, when Will’s daddy died. He might know a piece of the puzzle. Bone packed up her homework and took it into the parlor.

  “Uncle Junior?” she asked. His head was nodding as he sat in Daddy’s chair by the fire. The newspaper had slipped out of his hands.

  “Hmm?” He snapped awake.

  “Were you in the mines the day Will’s father died?” Bone sat on the hearth. She knew he was. He hadn’t missed work in thirty years.

  “Yes, I was. Why?” Junior looked at her peculiarly. “Are you worried about Will?”

  “What happened?” She set her homework aside.

  “Well, it was an ordinary enough day.” Uncle Junior leaned forward in his chair. “We had a lot more men working back then. Four or five shafts were being dug at a time. Me and your daddy were dynamiting a new shaft. William and Scotty were reclaiming lumber plumb on the other end of the mine in one of the old sections. It was lunchtime. And me and Bay were talking about football. The Giants had whupped the Eagles the night before. I was eating a slice of Evelyn’s pecan pie.” Uncle Junior closed his eyes for a moment as he savored the memory.

  Bone didn’t really remember Aunt Evelyn; she’d died a year or so before Mama did.

  Junior’s eyes flashed open again. “Then the mine rumbled. We hadn’t had an accident in ages, not like when I first started working in the mines as a kid. We scrambled up to the mantrip. It wasn’t until we got to the surface and took a count did we know William and Scotty were missing. Me, your daddy, Chuck Whitaker, and a few others went back down. Shaft twenty-three had collapsed, but we could hear something. After we powdered down the area, we commenced to digging, too. It took us a few hours and a change of shift to get through. Scotty was pinned under a beam, which saved him from getting crushed worse than he did. William was farther back.”

  “They were eating lunch, too,” Bone said matter-of-factly.

  “I expect so. We all stop at noon and eat right there in the cut.” Then it came to Junior. “Bone, is this because you touched Will’s dinner bucket?” Junior had seen Bone’s reaction that day when he thrust the pail into her hands. That was before he knew for sure she had a Gift. “Did you see William’s … death?”

  Bone nodded. She’d seen the darkness and much more falling on Will’s dad.

  “Oh, Bone. I should’ve put two and two together.” Junior sank back in the chair. “I told Mama that day I thought your Gift was coming on, but I didn’t give much thought to what you were actually seeing.”

  “Mr. Scott said you gave him the dinner bucket. Why didn’t Mrs. Kincaid keep i
t?” Bone asked.

  “Sarah didn’t want it in the house for some reason. She wouldn’t say why,” Uncle Junior said. “So Scotty, Bay, and me decided we’d keep the dinner bucket for Will, seeing as it was also his granddaddy’s.” Junior yawned mightily. “Funny thing, that dinner bucket was banged up a bit—but we found William holding on to this empty jelly jar. Not a scratch on it.”

  Bone shivered. Will’s daddy died with that damn jelly jar in his hand. Was the jar haunted? Somehow that didn’t feel right. But something happened in those last moments to give the jar power. And Bone did not want to see what that was.

  10

  UNCLE ASH WASN’T too hard to convince when it came down to it. He was a baseball fan just like everyone else in the coal camps. Uncle Junior wrangled one of the mine trucks to take the Big Vein team over to the minor league game in Pulaski. Will played right field for the miners. Even Aunt Mattie decided to go, seeing as it was a war bond drive, so she drove Mamaw and Ruby in their big black Ford. That left Bone and Uncle Ash in his truck, which suited them both just fine. They’d all meet up with Uncle Junior’s daughters at the game. The trip was only forty miles, but Bone had never been to a semipro game.

  Uncle Ash turned the radio down as they got onto the main road. “Bone, I’ve been thinking …” He lit a cigarette and rolled down the window partway. “If you practice on objects I know the history of, I can at least help you sort out what happened when. Look in the glove box.” It was more of a flap than a box.

  Bone opened it and pulled out a leather dog collar. It had the name Myrtle tooled into the leather. It was warm to the touch, even though the truck was cold. Bone closed her eyes and saw a dog running through the woods, barking for the pure joy of it. The happy was strong in this object.

  “She was my first dog, one that was just mine. Daddy and Junior had hunting dogs, and I took care of them. Daddy gave her to me as a pup for my eighth birthday. See if you can find that memory.”