Sky of Stone

by Homer Hickam

  “You’re wrong, Captain,” Mom said. “If I have any resentment against Homer, and I’m not saying I do, it’s because he’s always put this town and the mine before his family.”

  “Are you talking about Parkyacarcass, Captain?” I interrupted.

  The Captain glanced at me, then locked his eyes on Mom. “Elsie, Homer didn’t carry off your fox. And he sure didn’t kill it. Nate Dooley and I did.”

  Dad sat back in his chair, touched his forehead, then brushed at his hair. He still didn’t say anything. I looked from him to the Captain to Mom. She was standing very still. Then she went to a chair and sat down, and folded her hands in her lap. It was like she’d had the wind knocked out of her.

  The Captain shrugged, a vast gesture for him. “Nate ran traps—coons mostly, and possums. He made a little money on the side selling the furs over in Welch, and the meat down in Mudhole and Snakeroot. But he’d heard rumors about a fox over on Sis’s Mountain, so he set a special trap out for it. He did it for me.”

  Mom raised her eyes.

  “I’d spread it around the mine as how I wanted a foxtail for my car antenna and would pay good money for it. Foxtails were all the rage in the late forties, you may recall. Nate didn’t know it was your fox. He hadn’t heard that you had one. When he brought the tail to me, I recognized it by the silver on it, and called Homer. Homer got a shovel at the mine and headed up on Sis’s Mountain to find your fox’s body and bury it before you found out. Nate said the fox had chewed itself up something terrible, even eaten at its own guts. Homer never wanted you to find that out. He wanted you to think your fox was running free.”

  Mom put a hand on her cheek. Her frown softened. Her eyes turned into liquid blots.

  “Nate felt terrible about it, vowed to make it up to you. When you asked for help, I think that’s why he gave it.”

  Neither Mom or Dad moved. I didn’t, either. I just kept thinking of Mom’s story, how she loved to say at the end that at least she had hope Parky was running free, and how Dad had allowed her to have that hope over all those years while he and any dreams he might ever have had were locked forever into the Coalwood proposition.

  To me the emptys seem

  like dreams I sometimes dream . . .

  “Well, I feel better,” the Captain said, sighing. He looked toward the parlor doors. “Floretta, you out there?” he called softly.

  Tag threw the doors open immediately. Floretta nearly stumbled inside the parlor. I guess she’d been leaning against the door pretty hard.

  The Captain said, “Homer, I’d say you’ve got a job to do, like taking that pretty girl inside the mine. Me, I’m going to eat some pie!”

  Floretta said, “Come on in the dining room, Captain, and set yourself down.”

  “Make me up a room, too, if you please, Floretta. I’d like to spend one more night breathing in Coalwood’s sweet air.”

  “I’ll get that fixed for you right away, sir.” She looked at me. “Sonny, you come on. Right now, you hear?”

  I did as I was told. Tag shut the doors behind us, but I turned and drew the curtain aside. Before Floretta slapped my hand away, I caught just a glimpse of my parents. Dad had gone down on one knee before my mom and was reaching up to touch her cheek.

  41

  JOHNNY’S LAST LESSON

  CAPTAIN LAIRD had his blackberry pie and a last night’s rest in Coalwood’s mountain air and then, having patched up Coalwood business, at least to his satisfaction, left early the next morning. With his departure, it occurred to me that Coalwood was pretty much back the way it was before Tuck Dillon’s accident, and the town’s proposition, though eroded, was still in place. The biggest change, when I got down to it, was personal. My parents finally shared the truth about Mom’s fox, and Elsie Hickam was back in town, if not to stay, at least not to leave—not yet, anyway. The beach house was still going to be there, her safety valve.

  Over pie in the Club House dining room the night of the third testimony, Mom let me know that she was resuming her responsibility not only for her job as the mine superintendent’s wife but for me as well. “I want you to move back to the house, Sonny,” she said, tipping her fork in my direction. “And—”

  “But I’ve got all my stuff here,” I interrupted. “And Floretta’s a great cook, too.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and then she shook her fork at me again. “And I want you to quit the mine.”

  “But I can’t leave Bobby and Johnny in the lurch,” I protested. “I mean, there’s the bet for one thing, and for another—”

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said in the practiced deferential tone I used with her, especially when we were face-to-face. “But, you know, I’ve got to pay for my college tuition.”

  “In case you never noticed,” Mom retorted, “your dad’s not the one who signs your tuition checks. He probably doesn’t even know where the checkbook is. I give him the cash money he needs to get around, not that he needs much. A haircut is about all he ever pays for out of his pocket. I gave him two hundred dollars when I went to the beach. I bet if I sneaked a look in his wallet, I’d find about a hundred and fifty of that left.”

  Upon reflection, I supposed that was why Dad needed me to give him the money to fix the Buick. But that no longer mattered. “I want to stay here, Mom,” I told her. “I like my Club House room. And I have an obligation to finish my job at the mine.” Then I thought to butter her up a bit. “I guess I’m like you. I start something, I have to finish it.”

  She wasn’t much buttered. “I’ve started plenty of things I never finished. And you know why? Because I realized I was going the wrong direction.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s a Hickam thing or maybe it’s a man thing, I don’t know. You’re not much like your dad except in a couple of ways, and this is one of them. I swan he’ll drive fifty miles the wrong way before he’ll ask somebody for directions, and even then he won’t follow them. One time I threatened to pee in his Buick if he didn’t at least find me a gas station.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh, look at you. Too grown-up to hear one of my stories!” She laughed. “If you were smaller, I’d get a switch, but you’re nearly as big as your brother. I should have made you work more when you were a kid, I suppose, and maybe you’d have grown up quicker. I always left you to lay around with a book while I shoveled coal in the furnace to keep you warm. I rue the day.”

  “I’m sorry for my whole life,” I said, deciding to go ahead and get it all covered.

  “Well, you should be,” she said, and for the first time since we’d begun our conversation, she looked pleased.

  I took it as an opening to ask some questions. I knew, considering my mom’s tendency to keep things to herself, that I’d never have a better opportunity to actually get some answers. “How’d you get involved in this?” I asked.

  She sighed, pondered my innocent expression for a moment, then relented. “Your Jake Mosby, that’s how. You got him all fired up, what with your theories on Nate Dooley and what happened that night. He called, wanting to know what I knew. I told him to ask Floretta or Tag or just about anybody along the fence in Coalwood. It all had to do with Nate, of course. Only somebody as dense as Jake Mosby or you wouldn’t have seen that from the start.”

  “So you knew, even when you called to tell me to go home?”

  She gave me a sour look. “I knew, at least most of it. I figured your dad was in for a hard time and that’s why I sent you back here, to be with him while he went through it. I figured maybe this was what it would take for you two to finally get to know each other, having your dad in trouble and you around to worry with him. What I didn’t figure was that you’d make such a hash of it, taking a job in the mine and all that. I could jerk a knot in John Dubonnet’s tail about that even now.” She looked me over. “But, gaw, I have to say it sure made you grow up. You’re about as big as Jim!”

  “What about Rita?” I asked. “Sh
e said you came up with the idea on how to get her in the mine.”

  “That girl just showed up on my doorstep,” she answered. “Stayed with me three whole days. She knows everything, Sonny, how to drywall, best lumber to use for decking. I had her supervising those old Carolina boys one morning, she had them change out about half of what they were doing. Best engineer I ever saw.”

  “Rita came to visit you in Myrtle Beach? Why?”

  Mom cocked her head. “Well, why do you think? She said talking to you gave her the idea that I was about the smartest woman who ever drew breath in Coalwood and that maybe I’d know what it would take to get her inside the mine. About then your Jake called and I gave up on my proposal and decided to just fix things back, at least for now.”

  I was lost. “Your proposal?”

  She looked at me as if I were the most ignorant person on the planet. “To your dad. During miners’ vacation, I proposed to your dad that if he’d quit and come live in Myrtle Beach, I’d agree to let him consult, spend a good part of his time up here in these godforsaken mountains telling other companies how to mine coal. I told him that way Nate’s secret would stay a secret, he’d still get to worry about coal mining, and I’d get him at least part-time at the beach. I just about had him agreeing, but when Jake called, and I could see Nate’s story was going to come out—thank you so very much, young man—I told him to go talk to the Captain. If there was anybody who could sort it all out, it was Captain Laird, who knows where all the skeletons in Coalwood are buried. I guess I was right, although I sure didn’t know about that handshake agreement—or Parkyacarcass. That was a surprise.”

  “And Rita?”

  “Thought I’d just go ahead and get that girl squared away while I was at it. I’ve known Saul Walicki for a coon’s age, told the Captain if he wanted leverage over Ohio, Saul was the man who would do it, at least for the price I had in mind.”

  “Amazing,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you write all these schemes down or do you just keep them in your head?”

  “Be careful,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I’ll get that switch.”

  I knew she just might, so I thought it best to change the subject, at least a little. “So how long are you going to stay in Coalwood?”

  “The rest of the summer,” she said. “My work crews have all gone off to build a hotel. When they finish, I’ll go back to the beach and whip them hard until they get the place ready. Then I’ll rent it out and come home and keep your dad company, at least until I can figure out some other way to get him to quit.”

  “Do you think he ever will?”

  Mom poked at her pie. “Sonny, your father is my problem. You just worry about yourself. Now, as to this fool idea of yours of staying in the Club House, all right, I’ll agree to it. If the food’s so good, maybe I’ll start taking my meals down here myself. Don’t you think I don’t know you prefer Floretta’s cooking to mine!” She waved off my objection before I could get my mouth half opened. “And you can keep working in that filthy pit, at least until you get your track laid. But don’t get killed. That’s all I ask. Don’t make me go to your funeral. A mother shouldn’t have to go to a son’s funeral.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mom.”

  She shook her fork at me again. “You’d better, young man, or when I catch you in heaven, I’ll tan your hide, don’t think I won’t.”

  “It’s a comfort to know you’re always going to keep me on the straight and narrow, Mom, even when I’m dead.”

  She eyed me for a long second, perhaps wondering if I was serious. Then, apparently satisfied that I was, she said, “It’s the least a mother can do.”

  THE FOLLOWING Monday, on the man-trip ride in, Johnny and Bobby listened as I told them what had transpired the night of the third testimony. I figured to give them inside information that no one else could possibly know, including what my mom had told me, but it turned into a most frustrating exercise. Every time I told them something, they told me they’d already heard it. Apparently the fence-line had nearly burned up over the weekend with all the news. “Anyway, it’s good to have it over,” I said.

  Bobby said, “Now maybe you can stay focused for more than ten minutes on your job.”

  “Just try to keep up with me,” I said. I was in great spirits and felt filled to the brim with energy.

  “We’re still behind,” Johnny said.

  “Not for long,” Bobby said. “We’re going to catch up and we’re going to win.”

  I marveled at his confidence, and then I admired it, too. “I think you’re right,” I said.

  Johnny was a bit taken aback. “You two agree on something?”

  We looked at each other. “Yeah!” we said.

  Johnny shrugged. “Then let’s lay some track.”

  THROUGH THE rest of July and on into the first weeks of August, we laid track. As the two teams battled ever closer, the chalkboard at the man-lift became the center of attention for the whole town. Even Reverend Richard turned up to give us a short Bible verse to consider:

  In all toil there is profit, but mere talk leads only to want.

  “So let’s stop talking and get these boys down in the mine to beat the socks off those Caretta boys!” he cried, clapping his Bible shut. It occurred to me that maybe the Reverend had laid some coin on our endeavors himself.

  At the Big Store, the women admired my biceps while the men bought me soda pop and wanted to hear the latest, what new scheme we might have to lay our track faster. I was always happy to talk about it, but the truth was we were going about as fast as we could go. We and the Caretta boys were accelerating toward one another like locomotives on a downhill grade.

  Only once did I slow down on a shift, and that was when I looked up and found Dad and Rita standing in the gob watching us work. I couldn’t hear anything they were saying over the din of our pounding spikes and uprooting ties, but Rita was in Dad’s ear about something. Now that she had been allowed to go down into the mine, I’d heard she had already accomplished some remarkable engineering, including the installation of a new kind of ventilation fan that used variable dampers, whatever they were. By the look on Dad’s face as he listened to her, it occurred to me that Rita was the son he’d always wanted. I allowed myself a long sigh and got back to work. Rita had always been after a Hickam’s heart. It just wasn’t mine.

  It was the third day of the third week in August when we saw the lights of the Caretta boys up ahead. “Two more days,” Johnny said, “and we’ll meet.” He didn’t say what Bobby and I were thinking. Would we meet in front or behind the lime-marked post? It was going to be close. We had twenty rails to go. They had sixteen.

  It had become apparent during August that there was a very real chance that the two teams might reach the limed post at the same time. Fearing that we might start a fight over the last rail, the Main Line Track-Laying Bet Rules Committee (the MLTLBRC), an ad hoc organization formed by the bettors and John Eye, went to Mr. Bundini for an idea in the case of a tie. Mr. Bundini’s solution was to paint red the two sections of track that overlapped the limed post. If one team reached those rails before the other one, a clean win would be declared. But if the two teams reached the two red-painted tracks at the same time, then a sudden-death play-off would be declared. Each team would then start at the same time with one red rail each to change out. Whoever drove the last spike in their rail would win the whole bet. This was such a satisfactory solution it started a whole new series of side bets, on whether there’d be a tie or not. Pretty soon, John Eye had collected so much town money that Tag was assigned to keep an eye on him, lest he leave with his fortune. I didn’t think there was cause for concern. John Eye was a businessman and he was going to make money, no matter what happened.

  As we put down track during the last days before we reached the red rails, I noticed that Johnny kept getting quieter and quieter. He’d cry out an occasional “Praise God!” at a well-driven spike, but otherwise he didn’t always seem to have his heart in
his work. Bobby and I, however, were finding more and more things to talk about, more or less constantly. Maybe it was our chatter that drove Johnny to silence. I had pretty well concluded, in fact, that Bobby Likens was about as smart a fellow as I’d ever been privileged to know, although I did have to point out once that I thought he was maybe a tad more arrogant and conceited than what was healthy for a young man. Bobby responded that he couldn’t help it and that was that. I was astonished at the simple notion of accepting what couldn’t be changed about yourself. It opened my mind to a wealth of possibilities.

  One day, as we were carrying a tie on the run, I said, “You know, Bobby, you’re like the brother I never had.”

  “But you have a brother,” he pointed out, ducking under a protruding roof bolt.

  “True enough,” I replied, simultaneously jumping a rail and ducking a high-voltage tram cable, “but Jim never gave me the first advice about life and love.”

  “But you hardly ever listen to what I say, anyway,” he said, throwing down his end of the tie the same time I did mine.

  “That’s true,” I replied. I jumped down in the ditchline to roll a rail into position. “But I appreciate you trying, all the same.”

  Bobby laughed as he raced for the hammer. I went after the spikes. I dropped them along the rail as he started pounding. “I like you, Sonny Hickam,” he said suddenly.

  “I like you, too, Bobby Likens,” I replied, and then we stopped talking for about an hour. In Coalwood, you were allowed to like a man who wasn’t your relative, but it was best if you kept it to yourself.