The Witch of Tin Mountain(16)

Seth whispers something to Morris, then laughs in a quiet rumble. “You want some of our moonshine, Gracie? It’s blackberry. Real good.”

“No thank you,” I say. I got no use for drink and what it does to a person. “Y’all go ahead, though.”

“Let’s walk down to the tracks,” Morris says. His voice is all nervous and trembly. “Ain’t nobody down there this time of night.”

Seth pulls a silver flask out of his britches pocket and hands it to Morris. They pass it back and forth as we head toward the one-lane road that winds down the low-slung northern face of the mountain. By the time we pass Hosea Ray’s farm, with Bellflower’s dark tent looming over the alfalfa, they’re jostlin’ and jawing, loud as a pair of crows. I try shushing them, but they just laugh at me. Ain’t nobody gonna be laughing if the Klan’s out tonight.

We make our way past the timber camp’s deserted saloon, windows broken by bored hill kids. Granny says it used to be a whorehouse for the loggers, till the county sheriff got wise. The scent of pine and cedar sap hangs sharp in the air. Below, the railroad tracks stretch out in a long curve, next to stacks of freshly mown trees. Some will only go a few miles around the bend to Northrup’s sawmill. Some north to my hometown—Springfield, then on east to the Mississippi or out west. Maybe even all the way to California.

We settle at the edge of the tracks, where the clover-strewn grass grows thick like a carpet. Seth folds his pelican-like legs and sits next to me. Morris takes another swig of moonshine and passes the flask back to Seth before settling at his side.

I worry. I worry about Morris’s drinking. I worry about him running illegal hooch up and down the creek and sharing kisses with a colored boy—something that could get them both killed. But Morris is grown, and grown folks are gonna do what they do.

“It sure is pretty out here tonight, ain’t it?” Seth says, his words thick and slow. “Look at them stars.”

I lay back on the ground. Out here, where there’s no other light but the moon, the sky is clear as spring water, all indigo blue and draped with ribbons of silver.

“That’s Arcturus, there,” Seth says, pointing a thin finger at the brightest star in the sky, just beyond the handle of the Big Dipper. “It’s in the constellation Bo?tes, which means herdsman. Like my pa.” I hear a sad note in his voice, and I know it’s because he ain’t seen his daddy in years. John Cornelison left Tin Mountain long ago to work in the wilds of Montana, where he earns a healthy wage as a cowboy—money enough so’s his wife and kids won’t never have to worry about going hungry. There’s love in that kind of sacrifice.

“What’s that one next to it? The one that looks like a crown?” I ask.

Seth lights up at my interest, his eyes gleaming. “Oh, that’s the Corona Borealis. And you’re right—it’s a crown. Ariadne’s crown. If you like looking at stars, Gracie, I can draw you a constellation map sometime.”

Morris belches, loud. I roll my eyes. “Say ‘Excuse me,’ Morris Clyde.”

“Excuse me,” he slurs, then flops onto the ground next to Seth. They lace their fingers together and whisper to one another. I feel uncomfortable—like I’m intruding where I shouldn’t.

A low whistle sounds from around the bend, and the ground shakes beneath us. We all sit up at once to watch the westbound Frisco rush past. Some of its cars are lit up bright yellow. A few people inside turn their heads to look out at us, and I wave. A pretty woman in a red dress leans out her window and hollers something, her words stripped away by the rush of air. I wonder where she’s from. I wonder where she’s going.

There’s a part of me that misses being on the Frisco, brushing up against those finely dressed ladies in their perfumed furs, my pickpocket hands sly and quick. But that was a different time, when I was just doing what I needed to do to survive. My daddy weren’t a good man like Seth’s pa. I had to hide everything I made, else he’d blow it on liquor and loudmouthed women.

“Y’all ever wonder what it’s like out there, beyond Tin Mountain?” Seth asks, all wistful.

“All the time,” I say softly. “All the damn time.”



After a while, I leave Seth and Morris and pick my way back up the hill. Even though they’re too bashful to admit when they want to be alone, I know when to take my leave. I just hope they’ll be careful.

I thread through the woods, breath straining against the muggy air. Everything’s still and silent apart from the whir of cicadas. It’s a little early for cicadas, and that don’t bode well for summer. If it’s already this hot in May, what will July and August be like?

Whitacre Point is just ahead, through a break in the trees shaped like a keyhole. A person can stand out on the point in the clear light of morning and see all the way past Sutter’s holler, to where the big Buffalo River winds like a ribbon of gold in the distance. When I first came to Tin Mountain, I used to get up in the early hours and hike to the point to watch the sun come up. Then Aunt Val figured out that all those years of taking care of myself had made me a decent cook and housekeeper.

There wasn’t much time for leisurely morning strolls after that.

I push through the pine boughs. The outcrop juts from the bluff like the head of a hawk, shining white under the moon. I step out onto the crag, where it’s flat and solid. Folks braver than me walk to the edge, but a lot of them folks have slipped and ended up dead at the bottom of the holler. Sometimes they don’t find their bodies for months. If they find them at all.