Around the River's Bend (8 page)

The rains had fallen earlier, and now the air was cold. Sion looked across the way, and to him the hills in their sullen haze seemed to brood some brutal thought. He pulled his coat tighter around his throat and trudged along the road, filled with nothing much except a desire for warmth and food. For the past two weeks he had walked not only the immediate area, where he knew everyone, but the neighboring villages as well. Times were hard, and he had found no permanent work—only a few jobs by the day that paid a few farthings.

A large yellow dog rushed out from the house that lay to his right, filling the air with a rapid staccato of barking. Sion was good with animals and simply stood and waited until the animal reached him. Then he stretched out his hand and said, “Here, boy.” The dog stared at him for a moment, absolutely still, then cautiously the animal advanced. Sion did not move until the dog had sniffed his hand thoroughly. Carefully Sion stroked his head.

“You're a fine one,” he said as he looked up at the house. “This is my last hope,” he muttered, and the dog whined at his tone. “Not your fault, old boy, but it's been a rough time for me.” He straightened up and started toward the house. Smoke was rising in a wreath of gray from the chimney. It was soon caught by the cold wind and dissipated. Three cows were in a pen to the left of the house, and they put their heads over the fence and lowed at him as if they were expecting their dinner.

Sion stepped onto the porch, his bedroll over his shoulder, and felt the weariness that afflicted his soul more than his body. His body was strong enough, but the constant series of rejections had worn him down. It had been hard for him to take. He had long been an amateur pugilist and had learned to suffer hard blows to his body, but the blows to his spirit hurt worse.

He knocked on the door sharply. No one came for a moment, then finally a man opened the door. “Yes, what will it be?”

“I am looking for Angor Grufydd.”

Something changed in the man's face. “Me father,” he said, “but you'll not have heard. He passed on two years ago.”

Quickly Sion said, “Sorry, I am. I didn't know your father, but he was a good friend of my own dad a long time ago. They worked together in the mines.”

“And what might your name be?”

“Sion Kenyon. My father's name was Hugh.”

“Why, me father spoke of him many times.” The speaker was a man of thirty or thirty-five with dark hair and eyes. He was shorter than Sion but trim, and the scars turned black with coal dust around his face. The black ground into his hands told Sion that he was a miner.

“I'm Rees Grufydd. Come in and warm yourself at the fire. Will a cup of tea go down well?”

“I wouldn't want to be a bother.”

“Bother! Well, devil fly off, if it ever becomes a bother for Rees Grufydd to give a man a cup of tea, I'd rue the day. Come in! Come in!”

Sion stepped in and took in the main room, which contained a fireplace, a table, a few cabinets nailed to the wall on one end, and several chairs and a sad relic of a couch on the other. The walls were covered with pictures clipped out of magazines, as well as one painting of a young couple.

Rees saw his glance and said, “That's me dad and mum painted a year after they were married.”

“You look very much like your father.”

“So they say.”

A pretty woman with two children came in from outside.

“Here, this is me wife, Glenda.”

“I'm glad to know you, sir.” Glenda Grufydd was a tall woman with bright blue eyes and red hair. She smiled and said, “And these are our two children. This is Ysbail, and this is Merin, our son.”

Ysbail was a girl of twelve or thirteen—the exact image of her mother with bright blue eyes and red hair. She nodded as she examined Sion carefully. Merin appeared to be about six. He was a sturdy young man with brown hair and warm brown eyes. They both greeted Sion politely.

“Come and take a seat by the fire. Dinner will be ready soon. Me wife's a terrible cook, but no matter.” He winked at Sion, and his lip twitched with a grin.

“I never notice you turning anything down!” Glenda laughed.

“Oh, I couldn't do that. It would be an imposition.”

“None of that,” Rees insisted. “Have a seat, and I'll tell you something that, perhaps, you don't know about your own father.”

Sion was curious, and he took the offered seat. He could smell fresh meat cooking, and his stomach contracted, for he had had no substantial meal for two days. Only bits and pieces that couldn't sustain a man. He sat down and smiled at the boy and girl who had stationed themselves so they could see his face. “Did you know my father?” Sion asked Gruyfdd.

“No, but me father talked about him a lot.” Rees sat down across from Sion and filled a pipe as he talked. “The two were great friends.”

“So my father told me.”

“But I wonder, did he tell you that he saved me own father's life?”

“No, he never said a word about that.”

“Well, he did. There was a cave-in, and me father was caught along with three others. The gas was bad. They were dying. I've heard Father tell the story so many times. He was lying there unable to move, pinned down by a heavy timber, and he tried to keep the spirits of the other two men up.” Rees puffed on his pipe, sending miniature clouds of purple smoke upward. “And then Father said he heard a noise, and he knew someone was coming. Ah, bless me, that was a fine time for him. He said he'd never heard such a sweet sound in all his life.”

The fire crackled in the fireplace, and the smell of fresh food and the welcome he had received warmed Sion Kenyon. “It was my father, was it?”

“Indeed it was! Me father said yours came in like a giant throwing rocks and timbers away. When he got to him, he said, ‘Well, there's a pretty mess you've got yourself into!' and he laughed, Father said. My father said that was the best laugh he ever heard, and he knew that God had sent him.”

“My father never told me that.”

“Well, he should have. He lifted the timber off me father as if it were a matchstick, then got him out of there and went back for the other two. That was a long time ago, but me father remembered it always. And so do I in a way. And so should you. Your father was a man of great courage.”

“Indeed he was. I lost him to another mine accident almost ten years ago.”

“Man, it's sorry I am to hear that. But he's with the good Lord now, I trust.”

“Yes, he and my mum were both fine Christians. I try to follow their example.”

“I try to follow the example of my parents, as well. Now tell me something about yourself. Where have you been living all these years? Where are you headed?”

Sion spoke of his life simply and quickly and without any self-pity whatsoever. He finished by saying, “And so I've been tramping around looking for work on a farm.”

“Hard times for the farmers.”

“So I've discovered.”

At that moment Glenda Grufydd interrupted them. “Come and eat before I throw it to the pig.”

“Don't do that, me darling,” Rees laughed. He got up and said, “Come along, Sion. Traveling makes a man hungry.”

Indeed traveling had made Sion hungry, and after Rees asked a quick blessing, he applied himself to the food—boiled mutton, cabbage, cheese, and home-baked bread. He ate only a little until Rees urged him on.

“A big fellow like you can eat more than that. How much do you weigh?”

“About thirteen stone when I'm not thinned down. A little less than that now.”

“And would you be thinning down for a reason, then?”

“Merin, don't be impertinent!”

“It's all right, Mrs. Grufydd.” Sion turned to the boy and said, “Yes, son, I do a bit of friendly boxing.”

“Ah, you are a pugilist, then,” Rees said, his eyes lighting up. “I do a little of that line myself.”

“And you have no business doing it!” Glenda snapped. “A grown man scuffling and coming home with his nose bloody!”

“You see how it is, Sion? Women don't understand these things.”

Suddenly Sion laughed. It made him look even younger than his twenty-three years. “I'm much in the way of your missus,” he said. “I've come home so bruised I could hardly turn over. I wonder what makes a man make a fool of himself like that.”

“Why, it's sport, man—it's sport!”

“Sport indeed!” Glenda shook her head. “If I had my way, it would be against the law.”

“It
is
against the law in some places, I hear,” Sion said.

“Some of our counties have the same law, but that's for professionals.”

Sion enjoyed the meal and afterward rose, saying, “A better meal I've never had, Mrs. Grufydd.”

“Where will you be going?” Rees asked. “Are you looking for work?”

“Aye. I came to see your father. I knew he was a manager at one time.”

“That he was, and if it's to the mines you need to go, I can help you.”

“I always said I'd never go back to the mines again. I was a boy when I was last there, but it was an unpleasant time for me.”

“The mines are hard, but a man does what he must. Tomorrow morning you'll go with me. I think it will be fine. There have been no layoffs lately and no strikes.”

“I'll meet you here at dawn, then, is it?”

“Where will you be staying?” Rees demanded.

“I'll find a place.”

“We have a small room in the attic. It's not much, but it's warm. We can fix you up there.”

“Would it put you out?”

“You'll put Ysbail and Merin out. It's their playhouse.”

“I'd be sorry to do that.”

“It's all right,” Ysbail said. “I'll help make you a place.”

“There you are. You've got a volunteer, and Merin will help, too, won't you, boy?”

“Yes, sir, I will. Can I go to the fight next time you go, Daw?”

“No, you cannot. But it's fishing we may go when the weather breaks. Now, come along. We'll get this man settled in like a king on his throne!”

****

Sion entered the cage and felt the same fear he'd experienced as a boy of nine. Going down into the earth was not a thing for human beings to do, as far as he was concerned. He crowded in with the other men, shoulder to shoulder with Rees Grufydd as he waited for the stomach-wrenching descent into the mine. It began before he was ready, the cage simply dropping out beneath his feet. He took an involuntary breath and heard Rees's whisper, “Some things never change, and going down to the darkness is one of them. A man would be a fool not to feel something.”

The cage picked up speed until Sion felt like he was floating. He remembered this sensation and how hard it had been to keep from crying out each time the cage went down when he had been a boy. His own father had stood beside him then and had always kept a hand on his shoulder during those days.

The cage stopped with a violence that made Sion's knees bend, and then he followed the miners as they stepped out. Sion broke out into a sweat as he surveyed the scene illuminated with the pale glow of lamps. He had been assigned to work with Rees, and he knew he was on trial. They made their way through a long series of tunnels supported by huge black pillars of coal left to support the ceiling.

Finally Rees said, “Here's where we begin. You never dug coal before, Sion?”

“No.”

“It's hard work, but it'll put bread on the table. Watch me for a moment.”

There was little skill to the work but a great deal of physical labor. Some of the seams were so small that Sion had to practically crawl in and swing the pick with only the strength of his arm. Long before noon the muscles of his arms, shoulders, back, and stomach cried out, for he wasn't accustomed to such intense upper-body work.

After what seemed an eternity, they stopped to drink some of the cold tea they had brought in their lunch pails. “Your stomach aching?” Rees said.

“A bit.”

“Think of it this way, it'll be good training. Mining puts the stomach muscles on a man who can take a good blow to the belly.”

“A hard way to get in training.” Sion looked around and could see only a few of his fellow miners. The pale headlights glimmered, casting almost no light. He turned to Rees and said, “I was always afraid when I was a pit boy.”

“A man can be afraid. That's not the question. What he does with the fear? That's what's important.”

Sion looked up. “The whole thing could come crashing down.”

“That it could, and if you were topside, you could be struck by lightning. We're in God's hands.”

“You're right. Even way down below the earth where everything is black and dirty, God is still in charge.”

“Aye. Christ is here as much as He is topside.”

All day the two worked close together, and when they totaled up the weight of the coal they had sent to the top, Rees was shocked. “Why, you've almost got as much as I have!”

“That may be true, but I don't think I'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow,” Sion said ruefully. “I'll be sore as a boil.”

“You're a strong man. Come along. Glenda will have a good supper for us tonight.”

****

Sion darted to his right just as Ysbail pivoted and dashed off the other way, eluding his outstretched arm.

“You're slow, Sion. You couldn't catch a fly!” she taunted.

“You just wait. I'll get you, and when I do, I'm going to pull that red hair of yours out one hair at a time.”

Playing tag was just one of the many games that Sion played with the Grufydd children. There was little to do at night in the valley, and usually the men were tired enough that they wanted no more activity. But Sion had always liked games, and he delighted both Ysbail and Merin with his willingness to play with them. Rees loved to read, and Glenda was always sewing. But the children always found a willing play partner in Sion.