A Misty Mourning (30 page)

“My purse. In the dining room.”

I stood there and watched the sheriff as he lay unconscious the whole time it took Danette to get my key ring and get me out of the elevator. It was at that moment that Dexter Calloway came in, followed by the police and an ambulance. I would have only had
to hold on three, four, five more minutes at the most, if Danette hadn't conked the sheriff on the head. I'm not sure I could have. I'd played all of my trump cards.

Three cheers for hormone-pumped teenagers who can't face reality.

E
lliott stood on the stairs of the Panther Run Boardinghouse waiting to see me off. I couldn't leave without seeing it again. I had to see it, with its rusted screens and cracked paint. I had to look out upon the lynching tree, the Gauley River running slowly behind it.

I loved West Virginia. It was the land of my forefathers, and their blood ran in me so deep that I knew this was home the minute I'd seen it for the first time as a child. It's peculiar the way things work. Southeast Missouri is my home, too. The home of my paternal ancestors. The place where I grew up. I am that plateau of high country on the edge of the Ozarks in Middle America. And yet, I am Appalachia, too.

I suppose it works the same way genetics work. You get your nose from your father and your eyes from your mother. An equal partnership. It's what makes us who we are.

I would miss this place. I knew that I wouldn't make it back here for another five or so years. And that left a big old ache inside of me.

“Elliott,” I said. “It was a pleasure.”

He reached down and gave me a big hug, careful not to squeeze
my arm that was in a sling. “Next time you come to West Virginia, call first. I'll go on vacation and up my life insurance policy.”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “You weren't the one trapped inside the elevator.”

Gert stepped out of the boardinghouse onto the front porch with Lafayette following close behind. She wore a yellow flower in her hair that I'd seen Lafayette pick earlier in the morning. The bump on her head was almost gone.

My stuff was packed, even the things I had decided to keep from inside the boardinghouse. Dexter had packed them all up, safe and sound. Speaking of Dexter, he also made his appearance on the front porch.

“Nice meeting you, Mrs. O'Shea,” he said and held out his hand. I shook it and smiled.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I said.

“You sure you're not due for another six weeks or so? You look awfully big and you're carrying awfully low.”

“Well, I suppose there is always the possibility that something somewhere got screwed up. I think I look so big because I'm short,” I said.

“Well, have a safe trip. We'll see you again.”

I nodded to him, although I wasn't sure if or when I'd ever see him again.

“So, we really did it, didn't we?” Elliott asked. “We really figured it out.”

“Yes, we did. I can tell you that I couldn't have done it without you. You were awesome. You, the man,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” he asked. His chest puffed out about five inches and he smiled from ear to ear. After a moment of thought he spoke again. “What do you think will happen to Sherise Tyler?”

“You mean after she gets out of the hospital and finishes the umpteen reconstructive surgeries she's going to have to have done on her elbow? I'm not sure. She wasn't really an accomplice to the murder. She only suspected it was the sheriff, and what could she
do? Go to the sheriff? I think she'll be all right,” I said. “At least the deputy is okay. I mean, what's a concussion when he could have been floating in the river?”

I looked around, again. I tried to soak it all up to take home with me.

“Well, Gert, are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Get me the hell out of here.”

I couldn't help but laugh at her, as did Dexter and Elliott. Lafayette didn't think it was very funny. Oh, and Lafayette had come forward and said that Edwin was the one who had conked my grandmother over the head. Lafayette had apologized profusely. Maribelle would barely look at us all morning. And Edwin? Well, Edwin was long gone. Who knew where he was?

We stepped down into the yard and had made it all the way to the car when Danette ran out of the house and ran over to the car. Of course she ran. The whole time I was here I don't think I saw her walk anywhere. She was always running.

She held her hand out and offered me something brightly colored. I took it and said, “What's this?”

“I just want you to know that you've given me faith that just because you're over thirty you don't have to be a big dork. You're the coolest,” she said and hugged me.

I unfolded the brightly colored fabric and held it up. It was a tie-dyed maternity shirt.

“I made it myself,” she said.

“Oh, Danette. I will cherish it always. I'll even wear it when I'm not pregnant,” I said. And that was no lie, because with all of the weight that I was gaining, I probably wouldn't fit back into my normal clothes for another two years.

“Get in the car,” Gert said. “I am never going anywhere with you again. Dragging me all over God's creation and getting me hit over the head. I coulda had a heart attack. And there's panthers and everything.”

“See ya, everybody,” I said and waved. Just as I was about to get
in the car, I stopped and took a piece of paper out of my purse. I walked back to Elliott and handed it to him.

“What's this?”

“The boardinghouse. I'm signing it over to you.”

“What?” he asked. “No . . . I can't—”

“Take it. Make me proud,” I said. “Restore it. Besides, you may not thank me for it if turns out to be really cursed.”

“I don't know what to say,” he choked.

“That I'm welcome anytime?”

“You are welcome anytime,” he said and hugged me again.

I was happy with that decision, I thought as I got in the car. Elliott had the same relationship to Bridie that I had, and he already lived in West Virginia. He was a family historian, too. He knew what he had and he'd take care of it. If I kept it, I would feel as though I had to be here, and I couldn't do that. I belonged in New Kassel. And I couldn't live with myself if I sold it and two years from now they built those cheap pop-up houses in some stupid subdivision named River's Bend Luxury Homes, or something. No, it was where it should be.

Twelve hours later, Gert and I had not sung one song, nor had we played a single round of I'm Hiding Behind the Color. . . The trip home had been quiet. Reflective. I'd learned so much during my visit. So much about coal mining and life in the coal towns. I'd always known my family members were miners, but I never really
knew,
if you know what I mean. I'd learned a lot about desperation. Desperate people in desperate situations will do very desperate things.

I let out a huge sigh as the Gateway Arch and the St. Louis skyline came into view from the east side of the Mississippi. The Clarion Hotel the only round building sitting to the left, the riverboat casinos, all parallel-parked along the riverfront. New Kassel was just thirty or so minutes away. My home. My family. I was never leaving it again.

“Smooth sailing from here on, Gert,” I said.

“Yup,” she answered.

“Oh, my God.”

“What?” she asked.

“I think my water just broke.”

I
decided it was time to address the most popular question I get asked: Where is New Kassel? I thought long and hard when I started to write the first book in this series,
Family Skeletons,
about where the series should take place and decided it would be better if the setting was fictitious. New Kassel and Granite County do not exist. Nor do Wisteria, Partut County, or Progress. My inspiration for New Kassel can be found in Missouri's historic river towns, like Hannibal, Herman, Ste. Genevieve, Kimmswick, and St. Charles. Part of the reason I made this a fictitious place is because I can do so much more with it. I can place an ice cream shop anywhere I want. I don't have to be concerned if I accidentally pick a name that belonged to a real person from an actual place. Which brings me to the town in this book, Panther Run, West Virginia. For the same reason, the town and the town's coal company are both fictitious as well. The boardinghouse is architecturally based on the old Beech Glen boardinghouse located in Beech Glen, West Virginia, which was falling down and in disrepair when I saw it in the mid-1980s. The area along the Gauley and New River is real, however, and is, in fact, the land covered during Mary Draper Ingles's infamous escape from the Shawnee in the 1750s.

A note on the issue of coal mining: The miners of the early twentieth century led a very hard life, working sunup to sundown with no hope of a better life. I was humbled when I realized my great-grandfather, a slew of great uncles, my great-great-grandfather, and a plethora of other male and female relatives lived in those conditions during hard times. Some of the anecdotes in this book come from my family. If you are interested in learning further about the life of the coal miner, you might rent the movie
Matewan,
a John Sayles film that accurately depicts the coal miner's predicament in southern West Virginia. Also, see the following books:
Images of Appalachian Coalfields
by Builder Levy;
Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's
Blood} Coal
Industry
by Priscilla Long;
Lament for the Molly Maguires
by Arthur H. Lewis;
Hillbilly
Women by Kathy Kahn; and
Life, Work, Rebellion in the Coal Fields
by David Corbin.

I hope you will all forgive me for venturing out of New Kassel and join me for Torie's next adventure, which will have her back home with the whole cast of characters you all have come to know.

 

—Rett MacPherson

I
f anyone here has any reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace,” the Reverend McIlhenny said.

I just want to state for the record that I did not say a word. I just stood there in my peach satin gown, holding back tears and waiting to hear my mother and the sheriff say the words “I do.” Evidently everybody in attendance thought I
was
going to say something because the entire congregation looked at me. The reverend, my mother, the sheriff, everybody.

The breeze ruffled my dress, and I tried to think about the gorgeous weather on this August day and the pink and yellow roses that climbed up the trellises of the Laura Winery. My mother had picked the perfect spot to get married. High on a cliff, just north of town, the Laura Winery had attracted thousands of people for nearly seven decades. My mother had always said that if she ever remarried, she wanted to do it in the courtyard of the winery overlooking the Mississippi River. She got her wish.

It seemed like a full minute had passed since the reverend had asked his question and still everybody was staring at me. I couldn't help but wonder just how the entire town had found out that I wasn't real hip on this marriage. Well, I was all right with it now, but I hadn't been. My mother was marrying the sheriff. And let's
just say that the sheriff and I have had a few disagreements in the past.

I have to admit that my soon-to-be stepfather, Sheriff Colin Woodrow Brooke, looked spiffy in his dusty charcoal grey suit and spit-shined black shoes. He was a huge man, twelve years younger than my mother, tall and broad through the shoulders and just plain old big. No matter how many times I said we'd called a truce, I still couldn't help but think mean thoughts about him. Just how much food did he consume in one day, anyway? I imagined feeding him was much like feeding a horse. He probably bought his food in feed sacks rather than little cardboard boxes or cans. Did he use a trough or a plate? See, I can't help myself. What was my problem with him? Maybe it was that he was one of the few people who made me answer to authority. Yeah, that could be it.

So, there I stood next to my mother, who looked absolutely radiant in her ivory crocheted dress, imagining her soon-to-be husband on his hands and knees eating out of a trough when they said the words “I do.”

I looked over at Mom and thought that she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. A splash of baby's breath graced her salt-and-pepper hair, and her large brown eyes were full of joy. The sheriff had to bend down to kiss her because she was in a wheelchair, having been one of the last polio victims of the 1950s before the vaccine was made public.

And so they kissed and now I had a stepfather who was the sheriff. How fair was that? I looked over at my husband, Rudy, who was the best man, and he winked at me. He looked pretty good in his suit too, I might add.

My mother and the sheriff made their way down the aisle, and Rudy came over and grabbed my hand. “Torie,” he said. “Are you going to cry? You always cry at weddings.”

“No,” I said, as a tear ran down my cheek.

He smiled, squeezed my hand and kissed me. In the front row,
my infant son Matthew wailed at the top of his lungs. I knew just how he felt.