Bone's Gift

by Angie Smibert

  A still-pink Ruby searched the floor for her arrowhead, until she locked eyes with Bone.

  “Well, hand it to me, Bone Meal.” Ruby jabbed a finger toward the stone at Bone’s feet.

  Bone couldn’t quite reach it with her foot, so she reluctantly picked up the charm off the wooden floor, holding the stone’s still-sharp edges between her fingers. She braced herself for the flood of images, expecting to see the deer drown all over again. This time, Aunt Mattie’s voice rang in her head, yelling awful things at Ruby. You’ll never amount to anything. What man will have you looking like that? You are a constant disappointment to me. Ruby was squeezing the arrowhead in her palm until its edges drew blood. The sting blotted out the rest of the world, including her mother’s tongue-lashing.

  As Bone opened her eyes, she was painfully aware of her cousin’s horrified stare.

  “What did you see? Me?” Ruby asked. “Don’t say a thing.”

  Bone narrowed her eyes at her cousin. Ruby had believed her all along.

  “Miss Albert. Is there anything you and Miss Phillips want to share with the class?”

  “No ma’am.” Ruby’s face reddened again as she turned around, but Bone saw the look of anger and something else in her eyes. Bone stashed the arrowhead in her math book.

  Ruby wouldn’t even look in Bone’s direction for the rest of class, and Bone didn’t much care if she did.

  After school, Bone waited for Ruby by the picnic tables. The boys were tossing a ball back and forth in the yard. No one liked to rush right home. Home meant chores for most.

  “Give it,” Ruby demanded as she stuck her hand in Bone’s face. “Quick, before they see.” But it was too late. Robbie Matthews, Pearl, and Opal had spotted them.

  “Are you coming, Ruby?” Robbie asked. He was carrying her books. That only happened in the movies.

  “Just as soon as Bone Meal gives me back my property,” Ruby said.

  Bone opened up her math book to the spot where she’d stashed the arrowhead. She held up the book like a platter.

  “Why do you want that old thing?” Opal asked. Pearl cackled.

  Ruby flushed. “I don’t.” She snatched the arrowhead and flung it off in the woods. Or at least that was her intention. The arrowhead smacked Clay Whitaker on the ear.

  Robbie Matthews had a good laugh at that.

  Ruby leaned in close to a stunned Bone and whispered, “Be careful. Mama says the Gifts are the devil’s work.”

  Ruby knew about the Gifts. That day at the river, Ruby, of course, had been the one who’d picked up Bone’s overalls and hung them back on the bush.

  “You put the note in my pocket!” Bone whispered back, a little louder than she intended.

  Ruby pressed a finger to her lips and whipped around, the Little Jewels nipping at her heels.

  Bone couldn’t move. She just stared dumbly after Ruby and her friends strolling toward the Matthews’ big house on the hill.

  “What in tarnation was that about?” Clay asked, still holding his earlobe where the arrowhead had struck him.

  Bone wasn’t entirely sure.

  “You all want this?” Jake was wiping off the bloodied arrowhead with his handkerchief.

  Bone carefully took the object, hankie and all, from Jake. It tingled a bit, even through the fabric. Bone wrapped the arrowhead up tight and stuffed it in her pocket.

  The boys offered to walk her home, but Bone wanted to be by herself. She was at a loss.

  Why would Ruby put that note in her pocket? She’d seen a glimpse of how Aunt Mattie treated Ruby. What did she know about the Gift?

  6

  RUBY’S WORDS STILL RUNG in Bone’s ears as she dashed up the boardinghouse steps. Bone shut the screen door with an unsatisfying thwack and slammed her composition book on the small kitchen table. She stuffed the arrowhead wrapped in Jake’s kerchief deep in her sweater pocket.

  “Rough day at school?” Mrs. Price chopped greens on the butcher block. She didn’t look up.

  Bone sank onto the stepstool by the icebox. “School ain’t … isn’t the problem.”

  “Ruby?”

  Bone’s head snapped up. Mrs. Lydia Price knew everything that went on around Big Vein, above or below. And she and Bone’s mother had been friends since they were little.

  Mrs. Price threw handfuls of greens into the pot of boiling water on the stove until it was full to the brim, the smell of the ham bone already rising in the steam.

  “What killed Mama?” Bone asked. She really wanted to know why she’d died at all, but that question didn’t have an answer.

  Mrs. Price turned to Bone, a fistful of greens still in hand. “What did Ruby say to you?”

  Bone couldn’t tell Mrs. Price exactly what had been said. The Gift might be a family thing. And Mrs. Price wasn’t family, not really. “Nothing.”

  “I swear that Ruby is getting to be just like her mother.” Mrs. Price dropped the last of the greens in the pot. “You know your mother died of the influenza.”

  Bone nodded. That was the sudden illness in the obituary.

  “Your daddy’s parents died of it, too, after the Great War.”

  Bone rubbed the sleeve of the yellow sweater between her fingers. She caught a whiff of lavender. Then a flash of warmth, like fever, washed over her. Bone scrambled to peel off the sweater.

  “What did Ruby say?” Mrs. Price eyed Bone.

  “Nothing.” Bone sank back onto the stool.

  “Your mother and Mattie were a lot like you and Ruby.” Mrs. P. wiped her hands on her King Arthur Flour apron. “Except they started out close, but then Mattie changed.”

  “How did she change?” Bone sat up.

  “Sometimes folks, even sisters, grow in different directions.” With a shrug, Mrs. Price stirred the greens once, put the lid on, and turned down the heat a mite.

  “But how?” Bone wasn’t going to let Mrs. Price off the hook so easy.

  “Well, your mother was more of a free spirit.” Mrs. Price waved the wooden spoon in Bone’s general direction. “She ran around the countryside with her brother Ash and helped your grandmother with her work. Mattie was more concerned about socials and dressing nice.”

  Like Bone and Ruby.

  “And Mattie started going to church two, three times a week,” Mrs. Price added. She cracked open the oven, and Bone spied an extra-large pan of chicken and dumplings on one rack and corn bread on another. Mrs. P. poked the pan of corn bread with a toothpick before closing the oven door. It was more food than they usually had for weekday supper. Plus a pie was cooling on the windowsill above the sink.

  “Are we having a visitor?” Bone sprang to her feet. “Who?”

  Mrs. Price nodded. “Thought that would cheer you up.”

  It did. Bone set the table happily. They hadn’t had a visitor at the boardinghouse since the war began. Before Pearl Harbor, back when the Depression was on, men (and boys) used to ride the rails looking for work. At least once a month, a man from Pennsylvania or New York or Ohio would step off the freight car and walk down the road to the mine office to ask about work. The jobs were nearly always taken, but her daddy would invite the gentleman back to the boardinghouse for one square meal before sending him on his way. The price was telling his story over ham and green beans and apple pie. Bone loved hearing those stories, even if they always had the same sad plot. The bank had taken the farm or the factory had shut down and they heard there was work in the mines or at the powder plant over in Radford. Or they had a mind to work their way south to pick tobacco or apples or even oranges down in Florida.

  Now that the war was on everyone seemed to have plenty of work, and the train only brought empty cars thirsty for coal to Big Vein.

  As Bone set out the extra plate at the far end of the table, the news of the war—along with the scent of cherry-soaked tobacco—filtered in from the front parlor. Newly scrubbed from the change house, Daddy sat in there smoking his pipe and reading the paper in the big leather chair next to the ra
dio. He liked to smoke one pipe and catch up on the outside world after a long day deep in the mines. It reminded him there was more to the world than Big Vein, he liked to say.

  The visitor turned out not to be a dusty, travel-worn man off the train or Uncle Ash or even a Gypsy. Miss Johnson—the only other boarder—entered the dining room arm in arm with a willowy woman in neatly pressed charcoal trousers and a pale blue blouse with padded shoulders—and bright red lipstick. She looked smart and practical and womanly all at once. She reminded Bone of Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, the movie they’d showed at the camp earlier this summer. Hepburn played a reporter who traveled the world, but her husband didn’t like it much. Bone had made Will sit through both showings of the movie while she imagined she was like Katharine Hepburn. Bone didn’t like the ending, but she changed it in her head. She had Hepburn fly off to Spain or England or some such place—instead of staying home with Spencer Tracy.

  “Bone, this is Miss India Spencer,” Miss Johnson introduced her. “She was my history professor at the women’s college in Roanoke.”

  Bone couldn’t recall meeting a woman Miss Spencer’s age who wasn’t a missus. She had to be as old as Mrs. Price, who was a widow with grown daughters.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, Bone.” Miss Spencer favored Bone with a knowing glance, which made her feel both thrilled and uncomfortable. Bone gulped down her sweet tea.

  “Me?” Bone asked. What was there to hear about her?

  “Miss Johnson says you know about every story there is to know.” The woman had a Yankee accent Bone couldn’t place, but she decided it was like Katharine Hepburn’s. “I collect stories.”

  As Mrs. Price ushered everyone into the dining room, India Spencer explained she was part of a government program—the Virginia Writers’ Project—that was collecting folktales from all over the state. The project was part of President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, or WPA. Miss Spencer was interested in the stories from the mountains.

  “We’re making one last effort before the war takes everyone away.” She raised a forkful of greens to her mouth. “These are excellent, Mrs. Price.”

  Mrs. Price beamed as she passed the corn bread.

  “Money could be spent better elsewhere. Like the war effort,” Daddy said.

  “The WPA created a lot of jobs for folks where it was needed, including writers.” Miss Johnson jumped to her teacher’s defense.

  “It’s okay. Mr. Phillips is right. The money now is going toward the war. A few of us are volunteering to finish up what we started. We don’t want to lose our history. A lot of stories, experience, and wisdom might vanish if folks don’t collect them.”

  Daddy nodded and quickly tucked into his chicken and dumplings.

  “Bone, we thought you might like to help Miss Spencer,” Miss Johnson said, passing the greens. “You could tell her some of the stories you’ve heard and maybe take her around to meet people, if that’s all right with your father.”

  Bone looked at Daddy expectantly. She couldn’t think of anything else she’d like to do better. “Please, can I? I promise to do my chores and my homework, too.”

  Her father tried to look stern, like he did when he scolded her, which wasn’t often, but Bone only saw that glimmer in his eye when she knew he was bluffing. Daddy winked. “Of course, you can, Laurel. It’ll keep you out of trouble. And you might learn a thing or two from Miss Spencer about college and such.” He exchanged a look with Miss Johnson, and Bone figured her daddy may have been in on this arrangement from the beginning. “But I want you to stay on this side of the river,” he added, pointing his butter knife at her.

  “But—,” Bone began. If she couldn’t cross the river, Bone couldn’t go see her grandmother. She didn’t like to come to Big Vein much.

  “No buts, young lady. That’s my condition.”

  Bone was flabbergasted. He’d never forbidden her to cross the river. He’d never forbidden her to do anything before. She studied her father as he slathered a last biscuit with butter. More and more Daddy was taking Aunt Mattie’s side of the family feud. It wasn’t really a feud, as far as Bone could tell. Aunt Mattie seemed to be the only one fighting, and it wasn’t entirely clear to Bone why. Daddy had once told her that there was a division between the Reed siblings that had only been made worse by her mother’s passing. The oldest—Uncle Junior and Aunt Mattie—were the practical ones. The youngest—Bone’s mother and Uncle Ash—were the different ones. But all that didn’t explain the rift between Aunt Mattie and her own mother, Bone’s mamaw. And now her daddy didn’t want her to go see Mamaw. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

  “It’s settled then,” Miss Spencer said. “Now how about one of those stories?”

  Mrs. Price excused herself to get the coffee and pie.

  “Oh, now you’ve done it.” Bone’s father chuckled as he leaned back in his chair to pack his pipe.

  Bone didn’t quite know where to start; there were so many stories running through her head, but most of the old-timey ones started this way: “There was this ole boy named Jack …” So she told Miss Spencer one of her favorites, the one about Jack and the robbers.

  It came to Bone while she was telling the story. Will was right. She needed to talk to Mamaw even if she had to walk the whole five miles to Dry Branch. She would know about the Gifts. When her father left the room, she whispered to Miss Spencer, “My grandmother and Uncle Ash know a ton of stories better than this one.”

  It wasn’t a lie. And Miss Spencer was hooked.

  7

  THE RAP CAME AT THE SCREEN DOOR as Bone pored over the new National Geographic Miss Johnson had given her. She and Miss Spencer were catching up on old times in the parlor. Daddy was glued to the war news again. Bone knew Will’d come. She had a mason jar full of sweet tea ready for him.

  Will sat himself on the steps staring off into the darkness beyond the boardinghouse’s backyard. Miss Johnson’s tabby, Hester Prynne, rubbed up against his shin while he scratched behind the cat’s ear. Animals loved Will. Cats. Dogs. Horses. Even baby calves. All seemed attracted to his quiet. The only sounds were the whirring of cicadas, the low voices of the women in the parlor, and the contented purring at Will’s feet.

  “How was the first day?” Bone sank down beside Will (and Hester) on the wooden step.

  In reply, he drank the sweet tea in one long, thirsty gulp.

  The Virginian’s whistle sounded in the distance. Eight fifteen. The coal train was making its way toward Richmond.

  “What was it like down there? In the mine?” Bone asked. “Was it awful?” She asked the last in a whisper.

  Will shook his head vigorously.

  Your daddy had me digging right off, he wrote out.

  “I thought you’d start out hand loading.” Bone shivered a bit. Her daddy had told her that the boys worked mostly on filling up the cars or sorting coal up top.

  Your daddy said I’m a natural miner.

  “He did, huh?” Bone was peeved at both of them. What if something happened to all of them? Daddy, Junior, and now Will?

  Linkous twins got stuck hand loading.

  Marvin and Garvin Linkous were two years older than Will.

  “They are a mite puny,” Bone allowed. She was still peeved. “Weren’t you scared?”

  Will took off his miner’s cap and pressed it into Bone’s hand. A darkness, a different one, crept over them. She felt fear, mixed with a downright thrill, go through Will as the mantrip plunged into the pitch black of the mine. The ’trip was the squat little train that carried the men to and from the surface. The temperature dropped, and Bone soon heard the sound of digging. She didn’t feel scared anymore, though. She felt the peacefulness of it—and a quiet satisfaction. It was what Will felt down there. He could hear himself think, and he was good at it.

  Now I can take care of Mama, Will wrote.

  Bone nodded and put the cap back on Will’s head. His mother had scrubbed floors for the mine superintendent
’s family ever since his daddy died.

  Will handed her another scrap of paper.

  How was school? He looked at her expectantly.

  “It was Ruby who left the note,” Bone finally said. She didn’t feel like talking about her daddy going off to war. Or the bad dream she had. She could still see Mattie peering down at her—or was it her mother?—with the yellow sweater between them.

  Will raised an eyebrow at her again.

  Bone shrugged. She told him about the arrowhead and about what Ruby’d said after school. Be careful. Mama says the Gifts are the devil’s work.

  What are you going to do? Will scratched out.

  “Let’s take Miss Spencer to see Mamaw after church Sunday.”

  Will looked at her blankly.

  So she explained who Miss Spencer was and how she was collecting stories for the government.

  Bone sighed. “I wish it would stay summer.” In a forever summer, no one would have to do homework. No one would have to solve mysteries. No one would have to go down in the mines. No one would go off to war.

  Will nodded as he stared off into the dark, thinking thoughts she couldn’t hear. Then he squeezed her hand before releasing it. He stood, shook out the last drops of tea from the jar, and stepped down into the darkness.

  He marched off toward the trees at the edge of the property, toward a twinkling of light in the high grass.

  Summer wasn’t gone quite yet.

  Seconds later Will returned, his hand over the top of the jar, with a lightning bug flashing out its Morse code to the world.

  He’d caught the last of summer in a jar for her.

  Bone carefully replaced his hand with her own as he gave it to her. Will strode off into the darkness toward his house.

  Bone covered the jar with wax paper, which she held in place with a rubber band, and then poked holes in the paper with a toothpick. Throughout the night, tiny flashes of yellow-green light played across her ceiling while she dreamt of floating in the warm waters of the New River on a hot sunny day.

  In the morning, the lightning bug was still, and Bone pulled on her blue and green plaid dress and trudged off to school.