Under a Cloudless Sky

by Chris Fabry

  Lillian welcomed them politely, then turned the TV down and retreated to the kitchen.

  “I don’t think I can eat anything,” Ruby said. “But I’d like to get cleaned up. I smell like I’ve wrestled a polecat.”

  Frances took their suitcases into the guest room, where she found two twin beds and a dresser. She helped her mother navigate out of her blouse, being careful with her injured arm, then ran her a bath.

  “I’ll be all right now,” Ruby said, standing in the bathroom. “There are still some things I need to do myself.”

  Frances argued, to no avail. “Call me when you want to get out. Last thing we need is another visit to the emergency room from a fall.”

  Ruby gave her a slack-jawed stare and Frances scurried to the kitchen.

  “Your mother is something else,” Lillian said. “She’s had quite an adventure.”

  The toilet flushed in the bathroom. “Yes, and I have a feeling the adventure is not over.”

  Lillian smiled. “I know what you mean. We’re going through this with Hollis and Juniper, my in-laws. They’ve been more like family to me than my own. I worry about them on that mountain.”

  “It’s peaceful up there,” Frances said, looking around. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “She said she needed to get something from the office.”

  “The picture,” Frances said. “She didn’t have to do that.”

  “She seemed on a mission. I hope she doesn’t mind me telling you this, but Charlotte has been obsessed with your mother’s story. She was so excited to hear that your mother might be coming here for the dedication. And sad when it looked like she wouldn’t be. It’s been like preparing for the arrival of royalty.”

  Frances thought about the radio man who called her mother Queen Ruby. “How did she find out about my mother?”

  “Ruby has been a mystery around here for a long time. The massacre, her inheritance—the fact that she never returned.” She lowered her voice. “Hollis has spoken about her, but not too kindly. I think he considers her part of the industry that wants to take so much.”

  “Well, he was kind to her today. I didn’t pick up any animosity.”

  “I think he’s changing. But he’s still stubborn. A trait passed down through the family, I suppose. When Charlotte was in school, just a young thing, she would stay up half the night working on some project. Had to have everything in place. Science project, writing project, didn’t matter. I fought her. I told her to do it and leave it alone. Go to bed. And then her daddy died. I realized we don’t have forever with the people we love, at least on this earth, so I started looking at Charlotte differently. I praised her for the grades she was making and the work she was doing. Instead of fighting her about the way she did things, I tried to give her a vision for the future and go with her. She’s going to do something great someday. I can tell it.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she became very successful at whatever she decides to do.”

  “You and me both. When she gets it in her mind to find something, she runs at it.”

  Lillian offered Frances salad and stew she had made for supper, and Frances wanted to decline, but she was so hungry. From the bathroom came the sound of sloshing water and she went to the door and asked Ruby if she was all right.

  “Stop your worrying, Frances. I’m fine.”

  “Don’t get the cast wet.”

  Ruby groaned. Frances returned as Lillian took corn bread from the oven and cut a huge slice for her and put a pat of butter on top that melted quickly.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how did your husband die?”

  “I don’t mind. It helps to talk about him because nobody else does. Hollis and Juniper don’t say his name anymore. It’s like he never existed, but I know they’re still hurting like I am.”

  Lillian crumbled some corn bread in her stew and let it soak. “The company said it was operator error. Basically they blamed Daniel. They were making a friend of his, Johnny Maxwell, clear an area for blasting. And Johnny was scared. It was too steep. So Daniel volunteered and took a front-end loader up on this hill.” She held out an arm to show how steep an incline it was. “Johnny watched the whole thing. He said Daniel saved his life by doing what he did. I take a little comfort in that. The loader tipped over and started to roll and he jumped off, but he couldn’t get far enough away and it fell on him.”

  Frances took a deep breath. “But the company didn’t take responsibility?”

  “CCE settled with us for enough to buy this house and they paid Charlotte’s tuition at school, basically. Called it a scholarship. The company lawyer sat at this very table and told me to my face that we could file a lawsuit and ask for whatever amount of money we wanted, but we’d never get it. He’d fight it all the way on principle.”

  “What principle was that?”

  “The principle that says if you pay one worker’s family for an accident he caused, you’ll wind up paying everybody. He said I’d be a lot better off taking what the company was offering. His voice was low and gravelly, like he was all sad for us. I was in a state of shock.

  “I think Hollis has held it against me that I didn’t fight. Not in a mean way, just disappointed I took the money. Part of me wishes we would have fought. Part of me is glad it’s over.”

  Frances ate as she listened and Lillian rose and refilled her bowl. The bathroom door opened and Ruby toddled out in her nightgown, the back of her hair wet.

  “I feel like a new woman,” Ruby said.

  “I told you to let me help you get out of the tub,” Frances said.

  “I’m not letting you see my old wrinkled body.”

  Frances shook her head. Lillian chuckled.

  “Now I told you earlier that I couldn’t eat anything, but my bath and the smell of that stew has changed my mind,” Ruby said. “You think I could try some?”

  “I’d be offended if you didn’t,” Lillian said, jumping up.

  Frances pulled a chair out at the kitchen table for Ruby. She sat with a thump, then took a napkin from the holder in the middle and unfolded it on her lap.

  “It must bring lots of memories, you being back here,” Lillian said. “Or did you live here long enough to even have memories?”

  “I don’t think you could come to Beulah Mountain for a day and not have memories,” Ruby said. “Some of them I like and some I want to forget.”

  “I’ll bet things have changed a lot since you lived here,” Lillian said.

  Ruby blew on her stew. “When I was here, things were busy. People coming and going. Miners and their families trying to scratch by. The mine drew people like flies to potato salad at a church picnic. But now it seems the hills and hollows have spit a lot of them out. It’s nothing like it was.”

  “I agree. It’s shameful to see people leaving, but there’s just nothing left for them here and the kids have to leave to find jobs. We’ve stayed because the house is paid off and I have work at the hospital, but if people keep leaving, they’ll probably have to move that, too.”

  “Working in the hospital is job security,” Ruby said, not looking up at Frances. “Everybody gets sick and needs help at some point.” Ruby ate a spoonful of stew and closed her eyes, moaning with pleasure. “This is like the stew I used to eat when I was a girl. I could use a fork. Thick and tasty. What’s the meat in here?”

  “Venison. Hollis got him a deer last season and we’ve been chowing down on the last of it.”

  “My compliments to the chef and the hunter,” Ruby said. “You send a bowl of this to Campbell’s and they’re likely to give you a million dollars for the recipe.”

  Lillian laughed and Frances shook her head. She was glad someone else could see Ruby and respond, but why couldn’t Frances bring out that warmth in her own mother?

  “What did you think of the Company Store?” Lillian said. “They’ve done a good job, haven’t they?”

  “The building is just like I remember. But they’ve gotten the story wrong
. Frosts my socks. It was all I could do not to interrupt that little girl who had the spiel memorized.”

  “What parts are wrong?” Lillian said.

  “It would take me half the night to tell. All the things about the store and the owners doing this and that because they were so nice and cared so much. I got a different view. Being upstairs was the worst. The story about the third floor and what happened in that room. It’s enough to make you want to picket the place.”

  “You mean about the massacre?”

  “That’s part of it.” Ruby licked her lips and mashed her corn bread into the stew. She put a generous helping of pepper on top as a light shone behind them on the wall. A car door slammed outside.

  “That’ll be Charlotte,” Lillian said, rising to get another bowl.

  The girl swept into the house like a whirlwind and tossed her things on the living room couch. She had a large envelope and a square box with her as she approached Ruby. Charlotte looked like she was about to burst with anticipation. Ruby pushed her bowl back and Charlotte placed the black box in front of her.

  “Remember this?” Charlotte said.

  Ruby’s mouth formed an O. She picked it up with both hands, wincing a little, and examined it. “The camera I got before I went away to school.”

  “Do you remember the last time you used this?”

  Ruby looked toward the ceiling to retrieve a memory. “We took pictures of each other. So we could remember what we looked like. Bean put on my dress and . . .” Her voice trailed off and it seemed like memories were flooding. “I always thought the camera was lost. Will you look at this?”

  “It even has your initials here,” Charlotte said.

  “It surely does. Well, I’ll be.”

  “I found it in the bottom of a box at CCE,” Charlotte said. “And I took it to the newspaper office. My editor is a camera nut. And he got to looking inside.”

  Ruby squinted at Charlotte. “Was there something in there?”

  Charlotte nodded and pulled two pictures from the envelope. “Film. Unexposed and undeveloped.” She placed the photos in front of Ruby on the table.

  Ruby was clearly stunned. “There we are. And the favorite dress. And those are the shoes. Law, I never thought I’d see these pictures.” She clasped a hand over her mouth, shaking her head at the images before her. “Look at us. Look how innocent we were.”

  “This is amazing,” Frances said. “I can’t believe the film lasted that long.”

  “Something tells me this is not going to make it into Marilyn’s wall of photos,” Ruby said.

  “Not with the narrative they’ve been floating,” Charlotte said. “Do you remember the day you took these?”

  A cloud seemed to come over Ruby’s face. “We were playing with the camera. My friend and I.”

  “Bean? Beatrice Dingess?”

  “Mm-hmm. I don’t think two people could ever care about each other more than we did. We were two peas in a pod from the day we met. Although to say we were from different sides of the tracks would be an understatement. My father and her father couldn’t have been more different.”

  “So this proves there were shoes in that room,” Frances said.

  “Honey, I don’t need a picture to prove that. I lived it. I suppose this picture will make them change their story, unless they tear it up.”

  “Bean was the girl killed in the massacre, right?” Charlotte said, studying Ruby’s face.

  Ruby took a deep breath and brought her hands together. “Part of the reason I wanted to come back—” she looked at Frances—“alone was to make peace with all that happened. I’ve been running from it since I was young. I thought I could just move on with life. Put the past behind me.”

  “You mean run from the feelings?” Frances said.

  “Run from everything,” Ruby said. “The feelings. The memories. Watching people die and not being able to do a thing. There’s things that happened that I never even told your father. I’ve never told anybody. There are consequences to telling the truth.”

  “What consequences?” Frances said. “Mama, you haven’t survived all you’ve been through to clam up now.”

  Ruby put the pictures down and moved her jaw back and forth, repositioning her dentures in thought.

  “Maybe I can help,” Charlotte said, scooting closer and ignoring the food her mother had put in front of her. “Let’s go back to the day of the massacre. Can you tell us what you remember?”

  Ruby stared at the uneaten stew as if the venison were tea leaves. “I remember a lot of clouds. Thick as smoke, hanging over the town and blocking the sun. In Beulah Mountain, we had to order out for sunshine, and on that day God was all out. Wet leaves on the ground. The two of us were in the apartment.”

  “You and Bean?”

  Ruby was silent for what seemed too long, then nodded. “It was before I got on the train. And the train was delayed. That girl didn’t have it right that I left in the afternoon before the massacre. The two of us had talked about going to school together. Her making the trip and staying at the boarding school with me.”

  “Why didn’t she go?” Charlotte said.

  “The Dingess family wouldn’t let her. Her father wouldn’t take charity.”

  “And your father?”

  “He didn’t think a mining town girl leaving with the daughter of the owner was a good idea. There were a million reasons it didn’t happen. But there we were with the rain coming down, spending our last hours together. Waiting for the train whistle.”

  When Ruby paused, Frances reached out a hand and rubbed her mother’s shoulder. The muscles there were tight. “Mama, do you need the medicine the doctor gave for pain?”

  “Last thing I need is something that will knock me out. I had enough of that with those two I met at the gas station.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this now,” Lillian said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  Ruby didn’t speak. She just stared at the tablecloth.

  “Mama, from what I gather,” Frances said, breaking the silence, “you said coming back here was about forgiving someone. Franklin Brown told me that.”

  “I never thought I’d be betrayed by a man on the radio.”

  “It’s not a betrayal to tell the truth,” Frances said.

  “I know. It’s just my pride. I want to keep this to myself and deal with it between me and the Lord, but it appears he has other plans.”

  “Who do you need to forgive?” Charlotte said. “Is it Bean’s father? The one who killed your daddy?”

  Ruby narrowed her gaze at the girl. “I suppose he’s part of it, though not in the way you’ve heard the story. All they’re saying is so mixed up.”

  “Forgiveness is elusive,” Lillian said. “I’ve had to deal with that regarding my husband. I was mad for so long it nearly ate me alive. I knew I had to forgive for my own sanity.”

  Ruby nodded. “The man on the radio—you probably don’t hear him down here—he was talking about forgiveness as releasing somebody from the hurt they’ve caused. It’s something you do where you let go of them and give them to God. And even if that other person who hurt you never apologizes or admits their wrong, you’ve done your part.”

  “That sounds like a wise man,” Lillian said.

  Ruby ran her wrinkled hand across the tablecloth. “Frances, I need to ask you something important. And now is as good a time as any.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want to know if you can forgive me.”

  “Of course, Mama. You don’t need to ask. I understand that coming here was important. I just wish you had—”

  “No, I’m not asking you to forgive me for driving down here.”

  “Then for what?” Frances said.

  “The reason I needed to come here and see all of this was what I did that day. And every day since then.”

  “Mama, I don’t understand. What happened?”

  Ruby pushed back from the table and tried to stand. Frances rea
ched out to help, but Ruby put her right hand down and yelped in pain and fell forward, hitting her head on the table before she fell to the floor.

  Frances tried to cushion the fall and Lillian and Charlotte were by her side quickly. Lillian got a wet washcloth and handed it to Frances, and she patted her mother’s forehead.

  “Mama, can you hear me?” Frances said.

  “Just got a little woozy,” Ruby said.

  “Did you hurt yourself? Is anything broken?”

  “I’m fine. Just get me up and into the bedroom. I think I need to rest.”

  42

  RUBY AND HER FATHER MAKE A DECISION

  BEULAH MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  OCTOBER 2, 1933

  Ruby stayed awake all night, trying to think. When she heard her father going down the stairs, she slipped out of bed and left Bean asleep.

  She found her father rustling in the kitchen. “I’m not going to school,” she whispered. “I’m not going on the train.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “Bean came last night. Her mother is dead. I think Saunders killed her.”

  Her father’s face turned ashen. “What are you talking about?”

  Ruby explained what she’d learned and her father’s eyes fell to the table. “I’m going over there. I want you to stay here with Bean and lock the door. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’m not getting on that train,” Ruby said. “I’m not leaving Bean like this.”

  “Stay here. Do you understand?”

  She watched her father from the kitchen window. He ran across the tracks and through the woods the same way Bean walked home. When he disappeared into the brush, she made breakfast for Bean and herself, but the girl didn’t stir. She must have been so exhausted from her ordeal the night before that she slept the sleep of the dead.

  The town awakened slowly, coming to life with miners heading for the train that would take them to the mine. Those who had worked overnight got off the train so black with coal dust Ruby couldn’t see faces. The men would wash and sleep and repeat the process in a few hours.