Wish You Well

by David Baldacci

  COTTON AND LOUISA ENTERED THE HOUSE THROUGH the back door. As they headed down the hallway to the front room, Cotton stopped, his gaze holding through the partially opened door and into the room where Amanda lay in bed.

  Cotton said, "What do the doctors say?"

  "Men... tal trau ... ma." Louisa formed the strange words slowly. "That what the nurse call it."

  They went to the kitchen and sat down in stump-legged chairs of hand-planed oak worn so smooth the wood felt like glass. Cotton pulled some papers from his briefcase and slid a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from his pocket. He slipped them on and studied the papers for a moment, and then settled back, prepared to discuss them. Louisa poured out a cup of chicory coffee for him. He took a swallow and smiled. "If this don't get you going, then you must be dead."

  Louisa poured herself a cup and said, "So what'd you find out from them fellers?"

  "Your grandson didn't have a will, Louisa. Not that it mattered much, because he also didn't have any money."

  Louisa looked bewildered. "With all bis fine writing?"

  Cotton nodded. "As wonderful as they were, the books didn't sell all that well. He had to take on other writing assignments to make ends meet. Also, Oz had some health problems when he was born. Lot of expenses. And New York City is not exactly cheap."

  Louisa looked down. "And that ain't all," she said. He looked at her curiously. "Jack sent me money all these years, he did. I wrote him back once, told him it weren't right for him to be doing it. Got his own family and all. But he say he were a rich man. He told me that! Wanted me to have it, he say, after all I done for him. But I ain't really done nothing."

  "Well, it seems Jack was planning to go write for a movie studio in California when the accident happened."

  "California?" Louisa said the word like it was a malignancy, and then sat back and sighed. "That little boy always run circles round me. But giving me money when he ain't got it. And curse me for taking it." She stared off for a bit before speaking again. "I got me a problem, Cotton. Last three years of drought and ain't no crops come in. Down to five hogs and gotta butcher me one purty soon. Got me three sows and one boar left over. Last Utter more runts than anythin'. Three passable milking cows. Had one studded out, but she ain't dropped her calf yet and I getting right worried. And Bran got the fever. Sheep getting to be more bother than anything. And that old nag ain't do a lick of work no more, and eats me out of house and home. And yet that old girl done worked herself to death all these years for me." She paused and drew a breath. "And McKenzie on down at the store, he ain't giving no more credit to us folk up here."

  "Hard times, Louisa, no denying that."

  "I know I can't complain none, this old mountain give me all it can over the years."

  Cotton hunched forward. "Well, the one thing you do have, Louisa, is land. Now, there's an asset."

  "Can't sell it, Cotton. When time comes, it'll go to Lou and Oz. Their daddy loved this place as much as me. And Eugene too. He my family. He work hard. He getting some of this land so's he can have his own place, raise his own family. Only fair."

  Cotton said, "I think so too."

  "When them folks wrote to see if'n I'd take the children, how could I not? Amanda's people all gone, I'm all they got left. And a sorry savior I am, long past being worth a spit for farming." Her fingers clustered nervously together, and she stared anxiously out the window. "I been thinking 'bout them all these years, wondering what they was like. Reading Amanda's letters, seeing them pictures she sent. Just busting with pride over what Jack done. And them beautiful children." She let out a troubled sigh, the deeply cut wrinkles on her long forehead like tiny furrows in a field.

  Cotton said, "You'll get by, Louisa. You need me for anything, come up and help with the planting, the children, you just let me know. I'd be beyond proud to help you."

  "G'on now, Cotton, you a busy lawyer."

  "Folks up here don't have much need for the likes of me. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Got a problem, go down to Judge Atkins over the courthouse and just talk it out. Lawyers just make things complicated." He smiled and patted her hand. "It'll be okay, Louisa.

  Those children being here with you is the right thing. For everybody."

  Louisa smiled, and then her expression slowly changed to a frown. "Cotton, Diamond said some men coming round folks' coal mines. Don't like that."

  "Surveyors, mineral experts, so I've heard."

  "Ain't they cutting the mountains up fast enough? Make me sick ever' time I see another hole. I never sell out to the coal folk. Rip all that's beautiful out."

  "I've heard these folks are looking for oil, not coal."

  "Oil!" she said in disbelief. "This ain't Texas."

  "Just what I've heard."

  "Can't worry about that nonsense." She stood. "You right, Cotton, it'll be just fine. Lord'11 give us rain this year. If not, well, I figger something out."

  As Cotton rose to leave, he looked back down the hallway. "Louisa, do you mind if I stop in and pay my respects to Miss Amanda?"

  Louisa thought about this. "Another voice might do her good. And you got a nice way about you, Cotton. How come you ain't never married?"

  "I've yet to find the good woman who could put up with the sorry likes of me."

  In Amanda's room, Cotton put down his briefcase and hat and quietly approached the bed. "Miss Cardinal, I'm Cotton Longfellow. It's a real pleasure to meet you. I feel like I know you already, for Louisa has read me some of the letters you sent." Amanda of course moved not one muscle, and Cotton looked over at Louisa.

  "I been talking to her. Oz too. But she ain't never say nothing back. Don't never even wiggle a finger."

  "And Lou?" asked Cotton.

  Louisa shook her head. "That child's gonna bust one day, all she keep inside."

  "Louisa, it might be a good idea to have Travis Barnes from Dickens come up and look at Amanda."

  "Doctors cost money, Cotton."

  "Travis owes me a favor. He'll come."

  Louisa said quietly, "I thank you."

  He looked around the room and noted a Bible on the dresser. "Can I come back?" he asked. Louisa looked at him curiously. "I thought I might, well, that I might read to her. Mental stimulation. I've heard of such. There are no guarantees. But if I can do nothing else well, I can read."

  Before Louisa could answer, Cotton looked at Amanda. "It'll be my real privilege to read to you."

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AS DAWN BROKE, LOUISA, EUGENE, LOU, AND Oz stood in one of the fields. Hit, the mule, was harnessed on a singletree to a plow with a turnover blade.

  Lou and Oz had already had their milk and cornbread in gravy for breakfast. The food was good, and filling, but eating by lantern light had already grown old. Oz had gathered chicken eggs while Lou had milked the two healthy cows under Louisa's watchful eye. Eugene had split wood, and Lou and Oz had hauled it in for the cook-stove and then carried buckets of water for the animals. Livestock had been turned out and hay dropped for them. And now, apparently, the real work was about to begin.

  "Got to plow unner this whole field," said Louisa.

  Lou sniffed the air. "What's that awful smell?"

  Louisa bent down, picked up some earth, and crumbled it between her fingers. "Manure. Muck the stalls ever fall, drop it here. Makes rich soil even better."

  "It stinks," said Lou.

  Louisa let the bits of dirt in her hand swirl away in the morning breeze as she stared pointedly at the girl. "You'll come to love that smell."

  Eugene handled the plow while Louisa and the children walked beside him.

  'This here's a turnover blade," Louisa said, pointing to the oddly shaped disc of metal. "You run it down one row, turn mule and plow round, kick the blade over, go down the row again. Throws up same furrows of dirt on both sides. It kicks up big clods of earth too. So's after we plow, we drag the field to break up the clods. Then we harrow, makes the dirt real smooth. Then w
e use what's called a laid-off plow. Gives you fine rows. Then we plant."

  She had Eugene plow one row to show them how, and then Louisa kicked at the plow. "You look purty strong, Lou. You want'a give it a go?"

  "Sure," she said. "It'll be easy."

  Eugene set her up properly, put the guide straps around her waist, handed her the whip, and then stepped back. Hit apparently summed her up as an easy mark, because he took off unexpectedly fast. Strong Lou very quickly got a taste of the rich earth.

  As Louisa pulled her up and wiped her face, she said, "That old mule had the best of you this time. Bet it won't next go round."

  "I don't want to do this anymore," Lou said, hiding her face with her sleeve, spitting up chunks of things she didn't want to think about. Her cheeks were red, and tears edged from under her eyelids.

  Louisa knelt in front of her. "First time your daddy tried to plow, he your age. Mule took him on a ride ended in the crick. Took me the better part of a day to get him and that durn animal out. Your daddy said the same thing you did. And I decided to let him be about it."

  Lou stopped brushing at her face, her eyes drying up. "And what happened?"

  "For two days he wouldn't go near the fields. Or that mule. And men I come out here to work one morning and there he was."

  "And he plowed the whole field?" Oz guessed.

  Louisa shook her head. "Mule and your daddy ended up in the hog pen with enough slop on both choke a bear." Oz and Lou laughed, and then Louisa continued, "Next time, boy and mule reached an unnerstanding. Boy had paid his dues, and mule had had his fun, and them two made the best plow team I ever saw."

  From across the valley there came the sound of a siren. It was so loud that Lou and Oz had to cover their ears. The mule snorted and jerked against its harness. Louisa frowned.

  "What is that?" Lou shouted.

  "Coal mine horn," said Louisa.

  "Was there a cave-in?"

  "No, hush now," Louisa said, her eyes scanning the slopes. Five anxious minutes passed by and the siren finally stopped. And then from all sides they heard the low rumbling sound. It rose around them like an avalanche coming. Lou thought she could see the trees, even the mountain, shaking. She gripped Oz's hand and was thinking of fleeing, but she didn't because Louisa hadn't budged. And then the quiet returned.

  Louisa turned back to them. "Coal folks sound the horn afore they blast. They use dynamite. Sometimes too much and they's hill slides. And people get hurt. Not miners.

  Farmers working the land." Louisa scowled once more in the direction where the blast seemed to have come from, and then they went back to farming.

  At supper, they had steaming plates of pinto beans mixed with cornbread, grease, and milk, and washed down with springwater so cold it hurt. The night was chilly, the wind howling fiercely as it attacked the structure, but the walls and roof withstood this charge. The coal fire was warm, and the lantern light gentle on the eye. Oz was so tired he almost fell asleep in his Crystal Winters Oatmeal plate the color of the sky.

  After supper Eugene went out to the barn, while Oz lay in front of the fire, his little body so obviously sore and spent. Louisa watched as Lou went over to him, put his head in her lap, and stroked his hair. Louisa slid a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles over her eyes and worked on mending a shirt by the firelight. After a while, she stopped and sat down beside the children.

  "He's just tired," Lou said. "He's not used to this."

  "Can't say a body ever gets used to hard work." Louisa rubbed at Oz's hair too. It seemed the little boy just had a head people liked to touch. Maybe for luck.

  "You doing a good job. Real good. Better'n me when I your age. And I ain't come from no big city. Make it harder, don't it?"

  The door opened and the wind rushed in. Eugene looked worried. "Calf coming."

  In the barn the cow called Purty lay on her side in a wide birthing stall, pitching and rolling in agony. Eugene knelt and held her down, while Louisa got in behind her and pried with her fingers, looking for the slicked package of a fresh calf emerging. It was a hard-fought battle, the calf seeming not to want to enter the world just yet. But Eugene and Louisa coaxed it out, a slippery mass of limbs, eyes scrunched tight. The event was bloody, and Lou's and Oz's stomach took another jolt when Purty ate the afterbirth, but Louisa told them that was natural. Purty started licking her baby and didn't stop until its hair was sticking out all over. With Eugene's help, the calf rose on tottering stick legs, while Louisa got Purty ready for the next step, which the calf took to as the most natural endeavor of all: suckling. Eugene stayed with the mother and her calf while Louisa and the children went back inside.

  Lou and Oz were both excited and exhausted, the grandmother clock showing it was nearing midnight.

  "I've never seen a cow born before," said Oz.

  "You've never seen anything born before," said his sister.

  Oz thought about this. "Yes, I did. I was there when / was born."

  "That doesn't count," Lou shot back.

  "Well, it should," countered Oz. "It was a lot of work. Mom told me so."

  Louisa put another rock of coal on the fire, drove it into the flames with an iron poker, and then sat back down with her mending. The woman's dark-veined and knotted hands moved slowly yet with precision.

  "You get on to bed, both of you," she said.

  Oz said, "I'm going to see Mom first. Tell her about the cow." He looked at Lou. "My second time." He walked off.

  His sister made no move to leave the fire's warmth.

  "Lou, g'on see your mother too," said Louisa.

  Lou stared into the depths of the coal fire. "Oz is too young to understand, but I do."

  Louisa put down her mending. "Unnerstand what?"

  "The doctors in New York said that each day there was less chance Mom would come back. It's been too long now."

  "But you can't give up hope, honey."

  Lou turned to look at her. "You don't understand either, Louisa. Our dad's gone. I saw him die. Maybe"— Lou swallowed with difficulty—"maybe I was partly the reason he did die." She rubbed at her eyes and then Lou's hands curled to fists. "And it's not like she's laying in there healing. I listened to the doctors. I heard everything all the grown-ups said about her, even though they tried to hide it from me. Like it wasn't my business! They let us take her home, because there was nothing more they could do for her." She paused, took a long breath, and slowly grew calm. "And you just don't know Oz. He gets his hopes up so high, starts doing crazy things. And then..." Lou's voice trailed off, and she looked down. "I'll see you in the morning."

  In the fade of lantern light and the flickering coal fire, Louisa could only stare after the young girl as she trudged off. When her footsteps faded away, Louisa once more picked up her sewing, but the needle did not move. When Eugene came in and went to bed, she was still there, the fire having died down low, as thoughts as humbling as the mountains outside consumed her.

  After a bit, though, Louisa rose and went into her bedroom, where she pulled out a short stack of letters from her dresser. She went up the stairs to Lou's room and found the girl wide awake, staring out the window.

  Lou turned and saw the letters.

  "What are those?"

  "Letters your mother wrote to me. I want you to read 'em."

  "What for?"

  " 'Cause words say a lot about a person."

  "Words won't change anything. Oz can believe if he wants to. But he doesn't know any better."

  Louisa placed the letters on the bed. "Sometime older folks do right good to follow the young'uns. Might learn 'em something."

  After Louisa left, Lou put the letters in her father's old desk and very firmly shut the drawer.

  * * *