The Run for the Elbertas (4 page)

“Cat!” he said, big as life.

The Proud Walkers

W
E moved out of Houndshell mine camp in May to the homeplace Father had built on Shoal Creek, and I recollect foxgrapes were blooming and there was a spring chill in the air. Fern and Lark and I ran ahead of the wagon, frightening water thrushes, shouting back at the poky mare. We broke cowcumber branches to wave at the baby, wanting to call to him, but he did not then have a name.

Only Mother forbore stretching eyes to see afar. She held the baby atop a shuck tick, her face pale with dread to look upon the house. A mort of things she had told Father before he had gone to raise the dwelling. “Ere a board is rived,” she'd said, “dig a cellar. There'll be no more pokes o' victuals coming from the commissary.” She had told him the pattern for the chimney, roof, and walls; she told him more than a body could keep in his head, saying at last, “Could I lend a hand, 'twould be a satisfaction.”

Father had grinned. “A nail you drove would turn corkscrew. A blow-sarpent couldn't quile to your saw marks. Hit's man's work. A man's got to wear the breeches.” Oh, Father nearly had a laughing spell listening to Mother's talk. Mother had said, “A house proper to raise chaps in, a cellar for laying by food, and lasty neighbors. Now, that hain't asking for the moon-ball.”

I recollect bull-bats soared overhead when we reached Shoal Creek in the late afternoon; I recollect Mother looked at the house, and all she had feared was true. The building stood windowless, board ends of walls were unsawn, and the chimney pot barely cleared the hip-roof. But Fern and Lark
and I were awed. We could not think why Mother dabbed her eyes with baby's dress tail.

“Hit's not finished to a square T,” Father said uneasily. “After planting they'll be time in plenty. A late start I've got. Why, field corn and a garden ought to be breaking ground. Just taste a grain o' patience.”

Mother glanced into the sky where bull-bats hawked. She was heartsick with the mulligrubs. Her voice sounded tight and strange. “A man's notions are ontelling,” she said, “but if this creek's a fitten place to bring up chaps, if good neighbors live nigh, reckon I've got no right to complain.”

“The Crownover family lives yon side the ridge,” Father said. “Only folks in handy walking distance. I hear they're the earth's salt. No needcessity o' lock or key on Shoal Creek.”

The wagon was unloaded by dusk dark. Father lighted the lamp on coming from stabling the mare, and we hovered to a smidgen of fire. We trembled in the night chill, for it was foxgrape winter. Mother feared to heap wood on the blaze, the chimney pot being low enough to set sparks to the roof. She knelt by the hearth, frying a skillet of hominy, cooking it mortal slow.

Father saddled the baby on a knee. “Well, now,” he said, buttoning his jump jacket and peeping to see what the skillet held, “reckon I've caught a glimpse o' neighbors already. I heard footsteps yon side the barn in a brushy draw, though I couldn't see for blackness till they'd topped the ridge. There walked two fellers, with heads size o' washpots.”

Lark crept nearer Mother. Fern and I glanced behind us. Nailheads shone on the walls as bright as the eyes of beasts.

“I figure it to be men carrying churns or jugs on their shoulders,” Mother spoke coldly.

“I saw a water-head baby in the camps once,” Fern said. “I did.”

“Hit might a-been Old Bloody Tom and some'un,” Lark said.

“Odd they'd go by our place,” Father mused, “traveling
no path.” He joggled the baby on his knee, making him squeal. “But it's said them Crownovers can be trusted to Jordan River and back ag'in. I'm wanting to get acquainted the first chance.”

“A man's fancy to take short cuts,” Mother replied, nodding her head at the boxed room. “They're men cutting across from one place to another, taking the lazy trail.”

Fern's teeth chattered. She was ever the scary one.

“I hain't a chip afraid,” I bragged, rashy with curiosity. “Be they boys amongst them Crownovers? I'm a-mind to play with one.”

“Gee-o,” Father chuckled, “a whole bee swarm o' chaps. Stair-steppers, creepers, and climbers, biddy ones to nigh growns. Fourteen, by honest count. A sawyer at Beddo Tillett's mill says they all can whoop weeds out of a crop in one day.”

“I be not to play with water-heads,” Lark said.

“That sawyer says every one o' Izard Crownover's young 'uns have rhymy names,” Father went on. “He spun me a few, many as he could think of. Bard, Nard, Dard, Guard, Shard—names so slick yore tongue trips up.”

“Are there girls too?” Fern asked.

“Beulah, Dulah, Eulah. A string like that.”

Mother stirred the hominy. “Clever neighbors I've allus wanted,” she said, her voice gloomy, “and allus I've longed for a house fitten to make them welcome.”

“Be-jibs!” Father spoke impatiently. “A fair homeseat we'll have once the crop's planted, and they's a spare minute. Why, I raised this place off the ground in twelve days, elbow for axle. I didn't have half the proper tools; I had no helphands. I hauled lumber twelve miles from Beddo Tillett's sawmill.” He grunted, untangling baby's fingers from his watch chain. “Anyhow, hit might take them Crownovers a year's thawing to visit. Hain't like the camps where folks stick noses in, the first thing. I say let time get in its lick.”

We were quieted by the thought of enduring a lonesome year, of nobody coming to put his feet under our table, no
body to borrow, or heave and set and calculate weather. Oh, the camps had spoiled us with their slew of chaps and rattling coal conveyors and people's talky-talk. Dwelling there, you couldn't stretch your elbows without hitting people.

I said, sticking my lips out, “I hain't waiting till I'm crook-back ere I play with some'un.”

Fern batted her eyes, trying to cry. “Ruther to live on a gob heap than where no girls are.”

The skillet jiggled in Mother's hand. She spoke, complaining of the house, though now it was small in her mind compared with this new anxiety. “Nary a window cut,” she said. “A house blind as a mole varmint.”

“Jonah's whale!” Father exclaimed angrily. His ears reddened. He galloped his knee. “A feller can't whittle windowframes with a pocket knife. I reckon nothing will do but I hie at daybreak to Tillett's and 'gin making them. Two days it'll take; two I ought to be rattling clods. Why, a week's grubbing to be done before a furrow's lined. Crops won't mature planted so late.” He swallowed a great breath. “Had we the finest cellar in Amerikee, a particle o' nothing there'd be for winter storing.”

“I reckon I've set my bonnet too high,” Mother admitted. “The cellar's got to be filled with canning, turnips, cabbages, and pickling, if we're to eat the year through. Now, windows can be put off, but the chimley's bound to have a taller stacking.”

The blood hasted from Father's ears. Never could he stay angry long. He coaxed baby to latch hands on his lifted arm and swing. “Ought to fill the new barn loft so full o' corn and fodder hits tongue will hang out,” he said. He taught the baby to skin a cat, come-Andy-over, head foremost. “One thing besides frames I'm fotching, and that's a name for this tadwhacker. Long enough he's gone without.”

“Hain't going to call him Beddo,” Fern said. “That's the ugliest name-word ever was.”

“Not to be Tillett neither,” Lark said.

The hominy browned. We held plates in our laps. The
yellow kernels steamed a mellow smell. It was hard not to gobble them down like an old craney crow.

Mother ate a bit, then sat watching Father. “I had a house pattern in my head,” she said, “and I ached to help build, to try my hand making it according. And I'd wished for good neighbors. But house and neighbors hain't a circumstance to getting a crop and the garden planted. Hit's back to the mines for us if we don't make victuals. Them windowframes can wait.”

“I can't follow a woman's notions,” Father said. “For peace o' mind I'd better gamble two days and get the windows in.” He chuckled, his mouth crammed. “I'd give a Tennessee pearl to see you atop a twenty-foot ladder potting nails.” His chuckle grew to laughter; it caught like a wind in his chest, blowing out in gusts, shaking him. He began to cough. A kernel had got in his windpipe. His jaws turned beety; he sneezed a great sneeze. We struck our doubled fists against his back, and presently the grain was dislodged. “Ah, ho,” he said, swallowing, “had I a-died, 'twould been in good cause.”

Mother lightened. “I'm no witty with a hammer and saw,” she said, “and if that cellar's not dug to my fancy, I can spade.”

Father sobered. He got as restless in his chair as a caged bird. Of a sudden he turned his head to the door, listening. “Hush-o!” he said. We pricked our ears. “Hush!”

We waited, unbreathing, hearing the harsh
peent
of bull-bats.

“I heard nothing onnatural,” Mother said.

Fern shivered. Lark searched under the beds. He knew boogers were abroad at night.

Father reached the baby to Mother, and got up. So sleepy baby was, his head rolled like a dropped gourd. “The mare's restless,” Father decided. “She might o' heard Crownover's stally bray yon side the mountain. I'll see that she's latched in tight.” He went outside.

“Let's play Old Bloody Tom,” Lark said. “I be Tom, a-rambling, smoking my pipe. You all be sheeps.”

“Now, no,” Fern snuffed. “It'd make me scared.”

We children were abed when Father returned. He shucked off his boots and dabbed tallow on them; he breathed on the leather and rubbed it fiercely with a linsey rag. He spoke, faltering, hunting words, “I've been aiming to tell about the cellar.”

Mother fitted a skillet's eye to a peg. She paused.

“After I'd shingled the roof,” Father said, “I put in to dig. Got three feet down and struck bottom. This house is setting on living rock. I've larnt they hain't a cellar on Shoal Creek. This vein runs under all.”

And later, when the light was blown, I heard Father speak from his pillow. “I saw more fellers on the ridge a while ago, walking with heads so square I figured they hefted boxes on their shoulders. I'm a-mind to stop by the Crownovers' tomorrow, asking a hinting question. Hit's quare folks would go a dark way no road treads.”

The sun-ball was eating creek fog when Mother waked me. The door stood wide upon morning. “Your father's gone to Tillett's already,” she said, “and against my will and beg. He hurried off afoot, saying he'd let the mare rest, saying he'd get the windowframes hauled somehow.” She gazed dolesomely upon the fields where blackgum, sassafras, and redbud grew as in a young forest. “I argued, I plead, yet he would to go. Oh, man-judgment's like weather. Hit's onknowing.”

My breeches were on in a wink. I'd thought to go feed the mare, then hie to the brushy draw to quest for signs of walkers. I went before eating, being more curious than hungry. I fed the mare ten ears of corn; I stole beyond the barn. The draw was a moggy place. Wahoos grew thick against a limerock wall, and a sprangle of water ran out. I found a nest of brogan tracks set in the mud; I saw where they printed the ridge. “If I was growed up,” I spoke aloud, “I'd follow them
steps, be they go to the world's end.” Then I ran to the house; I ran so fast a bluesnake racer couldn't have caught me.

Mother was putting dough bread and rashers on the table when I hurried indoors. Her face was gaunt with worry. She circled the table where Fern and Lark ate. Baby threshed in his tall chair, sucking a meat rind. “It would take Adam's grands and greats to rid that ground in time for planting,” she said. “I tried grubbing a pawpaw, but its roots sunk to Chiney. I'm afeared we might have to backtrack to the mines. We'll be bound to, if the crops don't bear.”

“I've seen a quare thing,” I said.

Mother paid me no mind. “Two days your father will be gone, and no satisfaction I'll see till he returns. Yet he can't grub by his lone. He'd not get through in time.” She halted, staring at the walls, searching in her head for what to do.

“Never was a mine shack darker,” she said at last, having decided. She rolled her sleeves above her elbows, like a man's. “I can't grub fitten. I can't dig a cellar through puore rock. But window holes I can saw—holes three feet by five.” She fetched a hatchet and a handsaw; she marked a window by tape.

“I'd be scared of a night, with holes cut,” Fern complained. “Robber men might come.”

“I saw tracks,” I blurted. My words were drowned under Mother's chopping. She hewed a crevice to give the sawblade lee.

“It's Father's work,” Fern whined. She squeezed her eyelids, trying to cry.

I recollect Mother worked that day through, cutting four windows, true as a sawyer's. The hours crawled turkle-slow. Fern and Lark and I longed for shouting children; we longed for the busy noises of the camps. We could only mope and look at the empty road. Nobody passed up-creek or down, nobody we glimpsed from daybreak to dusk dark. Oft when Mother took a little rest she'd glance the hills over. Oh, she was lost as anyone. Loneliness swelled large as mast-balls inside of us.

When night came we heard the first lorn cry of a chuckwill's-widow. The evening chill was sharp. We ate supper huddled to a mite of fire. “One spark against a shingle,” Mother explained, “and we'd have to roust a fox from his cave house. That chimley begs fixing.”

The dishes were washed and put away. We sat quietly, our faces yellow in the lamplight. The
peent
of bull-bats came through the window holes. Spring lizards prayed for rain in the bottoms.

Mother saw how our eyes kept stealing to the window. The darkness there was black as corpse cloth. “Sing a ballad or play a game,” she urged. “Then hap baby will go to sleep.”