Light to the Hills: A Novel (62)



Sass was suddenly bone-tired, and taters were the last thing she wanted to worry about, but if they didn’t worry about them now, she knew, they’d for certain worry about not having them later. She laid the sack on the table, and a flash of white caught her eye. A feather hung in the burlap weave. Sass’s throat burned, and she bit her lip to stay the tears that welled there. She plucked the feather from the threads where it was snagged and opened the door of the cast-iron stove, where the fire from supper still smoldered. Unhooking the iron poker from the side of the stove where it hung, she pushed the feather deep into the glowing coals until it was nothing but ash.





Chapter 19


Sass stuck close to home after her run-in with the rooster man, as she thought of him. The familiar woods that surrounded her cabin no longer beckoned as a welcome retreat for her to explore and admire. She was no child. She’d heard low-voiced stories at shuckings and on occasions when the women would gather to string beans or piece a wedding quilt. “The Mitchell girl showed up on her front porch with her dress torn and bruises on her face. Her uncles and pa aimed to settle it. Sheriff found a stranger’s body floating down Flat Creek a few days later, full of lead.” Mountain justice tended to be swift and unmerciful, meted out for trespasses of honor, thievery, or more heinous acts, and even the official lawmen, who more often than not were kin to the parties involved, looked the other way in sympathy and accord.

Sass didn’t want to stir up trouble, and she sure didn’t want to be gossiped about the way the women talked about the Mitchell girl. Sass didn’t even know her, but she pitied her because her name always carried knowing looks and whispers, her story remembered and repeated forever and ever, amen. The mountains were full of stories, pitiful and otherwise. That’s how folks here came out of the womb, finding their voices with that first breath, a wail of complaint, their speech of a rhythm and pattern unlike anyplace else. When Sass had heard the radio show and President FDR chatting with the country, her ears had picked up the difference right off. The voices from elsewhere were less colorful, less musical.

Every chance they got, folks had a story ready to go. The other night after supper, they’d taken turns reading from the Bible, and Fern had read that God made the world just by speaking it so. Maybe when God shared His breath with folks in the first place and made them alive, that same breath mixed with ours to speak and sing and spin tales, tales of remembering and made-up fancies, too, for the sheer joy of it. That preacher, Amanda’s daddy, had said the Word became flesh and lived alongside of us. He’d meant Jesus, though Sass couldn’t figure exactly what sort of word Jesus might have been to begin with before God put skin on Him. Mercy, perhaps? Or maybe Forgive?

What about the stories you didn’t care to remember? If they weren’t spoken out loud or set down on a page, would they disappear as if they didn’t ever happen? Sass remembered the night Myrtle birthed her calf, when Finn told his story about the cave-in. He’d done tamped the whole thing down, keeping it from the air, and felt freer for its telling. Sass rolled that over in her head, considering. She didn’t think she wanted to let the rooster man loose quite yet.

Mama had let up on the planting for a blessed day because the horns of the moon weren’t facing right, and she piled everyone in the wagon for a rare trip six miles down the far side of the mountain into the free town, where goods were a fair price better than at the closer mine stores. It had been dry enough that the wagon could get down the creek bed without hanging in a rut, and Cricket, for one, could use some shoes. Mama had several small bags of seeds she wanted to trade, if she could, for different ones so that they could eat something other than pole beans and tomatoes all summer. Finn handed Mama several dollars to use if she needed it.

“I don’t believe we’re needing anything bad enough for that,” she said, fixing him with one of her hard looks.

“It’s either that or back to the coal, and I intend to keep on top of the ground ’less I’m laid out in a pine box. I’d ’preciate you picking up a bit o’ cloth for a new shirt. This ’un’s done worn through.” He poked two fingers through a hole that flapped down the side. “I’d go along with you myself, but I’ve got work to do.”

Mama shook her head slowly but said nothing, her lips pressed tight together. She clucked to Plain Jane, who perked her ears forward and set off down the trail, the wagon creaking and swaying behind her muscled bay hindquarters. In about a half mile, the trail opened up enough that they could quit ducking and pushing at the branches as they brushed by, and Mama sang softly to Hiccup to pass the time, pausing at the end of a line to let Hiccup chime in.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little—”

“Star!”

“How I wonder what you—”

“Are!”

The sun shone warm on their legs as Fern, Cricket, and Sass sat opposite one another in the wagon bed, braced against the sides. Sass was tired, and she’d woken up with her head aching. Her eyes roved over the trees and underbrush as the wagon rolled past. Blushes of pink and white colored the sides of the trail, the palette of redbuds and dogwoods opening their petals to the bees that hovered, intent on the sticky pollen. They passed familiar thickets of wild blackberries already in bloom, and Sass spotted one or two pawpaws with budding fruit starting on the branch tips.

“Stop, Mama! Stop the wagon,” Sass yelled. Before Mama had pulled up the horse all the way, Sass had clambered over the side and jumped to the ground, her headache forgotten.

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