Under a Cloudless Sky

by Chris Fabry

  Hollis got out and looked into the woods but there was nothing. He got back in and closed the door and put his key in the ignition but waited. There it was again. It started and stopped, quickly this time. Then a pause and the horn gave a long blast that echoed through the valley. Quickly he got out and walked back down the road. It seemed to be coming from the trail the deer had taken. Gingerly he took a step off the pavement. One wrong move could turn his knee and send him tumbling. His right one had given him problems for years.

  He kept walking on the berm of the road, around the bend, until he saw a silver glint in the woods. He found a sapling to hold on to and eased down the hill, one step at a time, backhanding branches from his face. Coming to a muddy place where the hills formed a V, he saw the back end of a white Town Car. Teenagers parked in out-of-the-way places up and down the road and did what teenagers did in cars, but there was something about this one that made Hollis think he was dealing with something altogether different.

  The car must have plunged off the road and into the grove of dogwoods. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how it got that far. The ground was wet and mushy and the tires had left deep impressions in the earth. No, it hadn’t plunged. Someone had driven it here and wasn’t concerned about getting it out. They had left it to rot, but the car was in surprisingly good shape, not old and rusted.

  Hollis lifted the branches of the tree from the windshield and cupped his hands over the glass. What he saw made his heart beat faster than the fawn in the road had. The front seat was empty, but in the back was a wrinkled old woman with her head back and her eyes closed and her mouth open. A cane lay tangled in the steering wheel, the handle reaching over the headrest of the driver’s seat. Hollis was as sure as he could be that he was looking at a dead woman.

  34

  RUBY GETS A LATE-NIGHT VISITOR

  BEULAH MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  OCTOBER 1, 1933

  Ruby took the dumbwaiter to the first floor and hurried upstairs just as her father rushed out of their apartment. When he saw her, he hugged her tightly. He was not a man of great affection. He pulled her inside the apartment and looked into her eyes.

  “I told you to stay here. Why did you disobey?”

  “I thought it would be all right to go downstairs. I’m sorry.”

  He hugged her again and Ruby thought she felt her father trembling. Was it from the confrontation with Coleman?

  She wanted to tell him what she had heard. She wanted to ask what Coleman had meant when he said to “pay her a visit.” But she couldn’t. It would hurt him too much to know what she had done. So she told her father she was tired and needed to sleep.

  “Things are going to get better, Ruby,” her father said as she stood in the door. “When you’re at school, you won’t have to worry about what’s going on here.”

  “I’ll worry about you,” she said.

  He smiled sadly. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Ruby checked her small suitcase for the thousandth time and crawled into bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She listened to the sounds of the night encroaching through the window, open slightly to let in the cool mountain air. That was something she would miss. She tried to imagine her room at school, a picture of her father and mother by her bed next to a picture of Bean. What would happen to her friend? If only Bean could come with her. If only Ruby could figure out a way to help.

  And then she realized there was something she could do. Something tangible and real.

  God, you know how much I care about Bean. And I know you do, too. You know how hard her life is. And how hard it is for her mother. I don’t even know what to pray. If her dad were to change and stop his drinking, maybe that would help. Do you have enough power to make him a good dad and to work out life for her so that she finds good things? I know it says in the Bible that you raised people from the dead. Could you do that with Bean’s daddy? Don’t let Bean get hard in her heart because of all that’s happened. Take care of her mother. Take care of the little baby.

  Her thoughts drifted then, but as Ruby fell asleep, she continued to pray for her friend and to beg God to do something good for her.

  She awoke with a start and a feeling something was wrong. The night was pitch-black and her room was the same. She had drifted off praying. Had God awakened her for some reason? Did he want her to pray for something else?

  “Psst,” someone said outside her window. Then a peck on the glass.

  Ruby sat up and peered outside, trying to see. She opened the window a few inches more.

  “Open up. I need to come in,” Bean whispered.

  “What are you doing out there?” Ruby said, pushing the window up all the way.

  “I didn’t know where else to go.” Bean climbed inside and onto Ruby’s bed, wiping the dirt she had brought with her off the blanket.

  “You’re shaking,” Ruby said. “Come on, get under the covers.”

  “Ain’t no amount of covers going to take away what’s making me shake,” Bean said.

  Ruby put an arm around her friend. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “It was awful, Ruby. I got nowhere to go now. Nowhere in the world.”

  “Calm down. Tell me what happened. You left to go home—start there.”

  “I ran to see about Mama. Tilly Mae had been there and checked on her. Mama was fine. We was talking about what we’d name a girl or a boy, laughing at all the funny names you can put with ‘Dingess,’ and then Mama got quiet because there was somebody coming. I looked out and saw that flat-head who hangs around Coleman.”

  “Saunders?”

  “Yeah. Mama got jumpy. I thought it was because we were being evicted. I told her they wouldn’t throw us out right when she was going to have a baby, but she wouldn’t listen. She told me to go find my daddy back on the ridge. I told her no, it’d be all right, but she hissed at me and told me to run for him. So I did. I never run so fast in all my life because the sun was almost down and I don’t like being in the woods when it’s dark.”

  “Did you find him?”

  “I found the place he goes. Just about got shot doing it too. Those people think everybody who comes up there’s a customer or a revenuer and I wasn’t neither. They said they hadn’t seen him, but I knew they had. I told them we were in a fix and that he needed to get home. Then I lit out of there. And as soon as I walked in the house, I could tell something was wrong. There was a kerosene lamp burning and I saw busted chairs in pieces on the floor. And there was a strange smell in the house.”

  Ruby leaned forward. “What kind of smell?”

  “Like copper. The taste of a penny. I called for Mama. And I walked into her bedroom but I couldn’t see, so I got the lamp . . .”

  Bean stopped and put her face in her hands. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and Ruby couldn’t look away.

  “What happened?” Ruby said.

  “She was covered with a blanket. Up over her face. I pulled it off, and there was so much blood. I shook her and tried to talk to her but she wasn’t breathing. She was bruised on her face . . . and there was blood on the floor underneath the bed.”

  Ruby hugged her friend. It was the only thing she could think to do. “I’m so sorry, Bean.”

  Bean put her head on Ruby’s shoulder and it muffled her sobs. She finally lifted her head enough to whisper in Ruby’s ear. “Before I left, when Mama told me to go get my daddy, she called out to me. I was at the back door looking at her. She just said, ‘I love you, Bean.’ That was the last thing my mama ever said to me.”

  “We need to go to the sheriff,” Ruby said.

  “That ain’t gonna do no good,” Bean said. “Mama’s dead. I don’t know if Saunders killed her or if she died trying to have the baby. But the sheriff ain’t gonna do nothing. There’s nobody that will do anything for people like us. We got to make our own way. We got to get our own revenge.”

  “Stop talking like that,” Ruby said.

  “It’s true. There
ain’t no way around it.”

  “Take your shoes off and lie down,” Ruby said. “You can sleep here and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”

  35

  RUBY SITS IN A GULLY IN THE BACKSEAT OF HER TOWN CAR

  BEULAH MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2004

  Somebody’s trying to get in.

  Ruby felt immediate danger and knew she had to tell someone. Her mother. Her father. She wasn’t sure where she was, what day it was, what year it was. All she could sense was the fear of someone trying to get in, trying to hurt her. Banging on the window.

  She closed her mouth and it felt like someone had stuffed a ball of cotton inside and her tongue was as big as a rutabaga. She was one of the few people on the planet who knew the difference between a turnip and a rutabaga. Funny how the mind turned at times of terror.

  “Help!” Ruby said out loud. “He’s trying to get in. He’s going to hurt us.”

  She yelled into the void and tried opening her eyes but there was something wrong. Or maybe she had them open and couldn’t see. She moved a hand to touch her forehead but couldn’t find it, finally touching the bridge of her nose. She heard someone yelling something a long way off.

  Finally she got her hands to her eyes and rubbed. It was stuffy and the air smelled stale and she was the reason. She blinked and saw the cloth upholstery of her own car. She was in the backseat on an old quilt. And there was her cane. That’s right. She had tried to honk the horn, but the pain in her wrist had knocked her out. But who was trying to get in?

  She glanced out the window and saw a face, and she opened her mouth to scream. It was a man. He jiggled the handle. Ruby thought the face looked familiar in some way, but she couldn’t place it.

  “Ma’am, are you all right? Can you unlock the door?”

  His voice was muffled by the closed window but she could still hear him. She moved but became disoriented and the car started to spin. When she reached for the handle, a pain shot through her arm and she yelped. Finally she got it unlocked and he pulled it open. She swung her legs toward him but only one of them obeyed and the sudden movement made her sick to her stomach.

  “Better stand back. I’m gonna heave,” she said, and heave she did. The man grabbed her arm and another pain shot through it all the way to the shoulder. She managed to plant both feet on the earth to steady herself, then gathered her wounded arm to her chest.

  “I thought you were dead,” the man said. “What are you doing way out here?”

  When she caught her breath and the spinning slowed, Ruby said, “Tell you the truth, mister, I don’t know. There were two people at a gas station. They got me a gas cap because . . . It turned out to be a scam. They took me to their trailer and I drank something that put me to sleep, I guess. They must have driven me here and left me to die.”

  The man knelt on one knee and his cartilage cracked. “What happened to your arm?”

  “I don’t . . . No, wait. One of them grabbed me and pulled. I heard it snap.”

  “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “No, I don’t want a hospital. People go there with a head cold and wind up dead. This will heal on its own.”

  “We’ll have to disagree about that,” he said.

  “Can you help me get my car out of here so I can get on the road?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  She stared at him. “I was born serious.”

  “Ma’am, there’s no way this car is moving an inch without a tow truck. Where are you headed?”

  “I was headed to a place called Beulah Mountain. But I’d better get home. I’m from—”

  “That’s where I live, Beulah Mountain,” he said, and he cocked his head slightly as if he had figured something out. “If I can get you to my truck, we can get you help. Can you stand? We’ll take it a step at a time.”

  “That’s the first good idea I’ve heard,” Ruby said.

  She struggled to stand and the man stayed away from her injured arm, but she finally sat back. “I need a couple minutes to catch my breath.”

  “That’s all right. Take your time.”

  Ruby turned and looked at the road perched high above them. “How did you find me?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “A deer and two of its little ones were crossing the road. I thought one was going to get hit, so I stopped. They scampered down here and I heard the horn.”

  “The horn?” Ruby said. That’s right—she had tried the horn with her cane.

  “My name is Hollis.”

  “Ruby,” she said, and she grabbed his hand with her left and shook in an unorthodox manner. The man nodded like he was expecting her to say that.

  “Why were you traveling alone way out here?”

  “I lived in Beulah Mountain when I was a girl. Heard they were having a big to-do with the Company Store. I decided to drive down.”

  “It appears that wasn’t your best idea.”

  “You think?” She laughed and shook her head. “You sound like my kids. They’re going to kill me.”

  “They’ll be glad to hear you’re okay, I’ll bet. Probably worried sick. My granddaughter said something about you going missing. There’s a bunch of people worried.”

  Ruby turned. “I lost my purse. It had a phone in it.”

  “Well, I wish I could tell you I had one, but I don’t. I’ve avoided the technology. I can get you to a phone.”

  “I need to stay here a minute.”

  “All right.”

  Ruby reached up to grab the handle above the door and tried to breathe. She guessed it was the effects of whatever she was given to drink and the fact that her stomach was empty. Probably low blood sugar. “You got anything to eat in that truck of yours? I’m getting the shakes.”

  “Stay right here.”

  He trudged up the bank, and she watched him grab saplings to propel himself. How was she ever going to follow him up that hill? A few minutes later he returned with peanut-butter crackers wrapped in plastic. She took them, then handed them back and he opened the package for her and she stuffed two of them in her mouth and chewed.

  “I doubt you’d get reception here even if you did have a phone,” he said.

  “I need something to drink,” she said. “I’m dry as a bone. You don’t have any water, do you?”

  Hollis winced. “All I’ve got is half a Mountain Dew.”

  “Sold,” she said. “And if I’m going up there with you, you might as well take my suitcase this trip.”

  He grabbed the suitcase and climbed to the top. It took him a little longer to return. He appeared to Ruby to be in his late sixties or maybe into his seventies but still had a spring in his step. When he handed her the Mountain Dew, it reminded her of the root beer floats at the company store.

  “All right, how do we get out of here?” Ruby said when she was finished.

  “I don’t know that you can make it up the hill with that bad arm.”

  “I don’t walk with my arms. I use my legs. Just give me a little push and let’s see what happens.” She stood and gained her balance. “I think the Mountain Dew helped stop the world from spinning.”

  Hollis got on her left side and she hung on to him as he navigated the soft earth and up to the blacktop.

  “This is awful nice of you.”

  “You’d do the same for me, I bet.”

  She nearly toppled once but he grabbed her and held on until they stepped onto the pavement. It felt like standing on top of Everest when she made it to the truck and looked back at how far they’d come. Her car was hidden from view. Surely God had opened the eyes of this man to come to her rescue.

  She got in the truck and Hollis helped her buckle. He took something from the bed of his truck and put it by a tree. She guessed it was to help somebody find the car.

  Ruby put her head back and felt another stirring in her stomach. When Hollis returned, s
he asked him to put her window down in case she needed to heave. He eased out onto the road and drove slowly and that let her know he was a kind man. Then she realized she was trusting a stranger again.

  “You a lawyer?” she said.

  He chuckled. “What makes you ask that?”

  “That stack of papers on the seat.”

  “I’m taking that to a lawyer. I’m selling a piece of property. Kills me to do it, but it’s got to be done.”

  “Why are you selling if it kills you to do it?”

  “Long story. And you’re kind of tied up with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It don’t matter. It’s none of your concern.”

  “Well, I asked the question, so I guess it is my concern. Now whether you answer is your business.”

  He kept driving, the road bending around the mountain. Ruby was glad she wasn’t driving because this kind of road gave her the willies. She couldn’t believe she thought she could navigate these roads by herself. Then she remembered Frances and Jerry taking her keys and the anger returned.

  “I want you to take a look at something,” Hollis said.

  “And then you’ll answer my question?”

  “What you’ll see is the answer to your question.”

  The road went straight up and leveled out and he pulled the truck to the side where Ruby could see the vista of mountains and valleys for miles. She felt like they were too close to the edge of the cliff, but Hollis assured her they were all right.

  “You see that right over there? That’s Beulah Mountain.”

  Ruby smiled. “It is, isn’t it? Would you look at that.”

  “Now take a look that way and tell me what you see.”

  Ruby craned her neck. What she saw was like looking at craters on the moon. The trees and vegetation gave way to a dusty, rocky surface that flattened the hills. Even from this distance she could see the machinery lifting tons of dirt. It was like watching teenagers attack a layer cake.

  “The company your father started was with a man named Coleman—do you remember him?”

  Ruby nodded. “Who could forget a man like that?”