Light to the Hills: A Novel (29)
“People ain’t perfect, I know that. I’m just saying he makes the hair prickle on my neck sometimes.”
“You let me worry about your neck,” he’d teased. He’d lifted her braid and nuzzled under her ear then, and she’d laughed. Charming Frank, playful Frank. Frank would take care of it, wouldn’t he? It had never occurred to her to ask Frank if he, too, might be helping himself. He let on he was picking up work cutting lumber or filling in at the mine, and she believed him. He was muscled and strong and could certainly put in a good day.
Amanda shook her head, wishing she’d never run into Shirley Culpepper. She’d been having a fine day without raking over old coals. “Come on, Bug,” Amanda clucked. “I’m anxious to get on home.”
Chapter 10
When Amanda filled her saddlebags, she made sure to include some fried pies wrapped in wax paper and the apples she’d picked up the previous day. She gave a kiss to Miles and told him to behave, waved to Mooney, and rode out on Junebug under a pale-gray sky, the sun a faint haze of yellow bleeding through the heavy clouds. Frost on the pumpkins this morning for sure.
Over the course of a visiting day, they stopped first at one post, then the next on her eighteen-mile trek, greeting the eager families as knobby-kneed children sprang out onto the slanting wooden porches. The children’s initial shyness usually wore off by Amanda’s second visit; they caught on to her routine and looked forward to spotting Junebug rounding the bend. So anticipated were the books she carried, the young’uns would leave off fishing or delay the morning’s chores to look through her stores. Amanda stayed awhile at each homestead, trading books and tales, often reading to the families that couldn’t make out the words. Children followed along with the pictures, rapt by the stories and the way Amanda read the characters using different voices. Once she’d left, they’d mimic her as they flipped through the pages again and again, recounting the tale from memory.
More than once, she’d enter a cabin to find someone lying sick in bed, covers up to their noses to keep warm. The WPA required them to carry a book on first aid and medical treatments, and these she consulted with the adults, knowing they’d take the information with a grain of salt. Years of using what nature provided for healing and a lack of actual medical doctors made folks both largely self-sufficient and matter-of-fact about the comings and goings of life and death. She’d stopped in on the Hawthorn family once, a few months back, and Samson Hawthorn lay abed with a mysterious ailment his wife referred to in vague terms. With their three children sprawled out in a game of marbles on the hearth, Miz Hawthorn had her own share of worry. She’d waved her hand and said they’d done their best, and the Lord was taking His good time deciding which way to land with it. She was almost peeved to be bothered by the matter, and it seemed whichever way the decision ended, it was all the same to her. Amanda learned later the man had been shot during a dispute over a still. Samson had declared it to be on his property, and the other feller—unknown or unnamed—had figured otherwise and tried to settle things once and for all.
Conflict and contention were rife in the mountains, where a loose cow, a wayward hog, or a stray husband—things fences don’t tame—could be the genesis of a feud that would fester for generations. With hot tempers, hot loins, and hot-burning stills, there was always some good reason to pick a fight, particularly if it meant redeeming the honor of a woman or a family name. When gunshots rang out in the hills, echoing across the rocky slopes, it was just as likely to be a violent end to a day of hard words and hard liquor as a hunter bagging a squirrel for the stewpot.
The man unfortunate enough to bear the sheriff’s badge was summoned like a midwife to preside over both misfortune and misconduct, often throwing his hands up at both. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Tight-lipped family members weren’t likely to admit any role in mischief or mayhem, and once the mountains claimed a body through foolishness or accident, there wasn’t much the sheriff and his shiny badge could do at that point besides proclaim the obvious. The sheriff was mostly the frazzled parent of mountain families, preferring to let them work things out on their own, and barring that, if they wouldn’t let up, he’d give them something to cry about.
The close walls of a dim cabin could seem like a prison if a sickbed was the extent of your domain, especially to a young man accustomed to prowling the open terrain with the wind rustling his hair. Amanda had rushed through her first stops to leave extra time for her visit at the MacInteers’ place. The cold weather had given her an excuse to trade books through the space of an open window to save heat in the houses. Junebug stood high enough for her to reach the windows on the raised side of some cabins, but at the MacInteer house, she dismounted and tied him to the porch rail.
“Hidy!” Amanda called in her clear voice. “It’s the book woman!”
A clambering sounded from inside, and Rai cracked the door to usher her in. “Come on in outta the weather,” she said. “I didn’t expect you with it being so cold.”
Amanda set her saddlebag down and slipped out of her overcoat as her eyes adjusted to the firelit room. “It has to be howling and blowing worse than that to keep us at home. How y’all been?” She rubbed her hands together and took in the scene. It wasn’t warm enough to be cozy, but it was a sight better than standing out in the wind.