“Well, she might’ve been okay,” Lynn suggested, but Phil could tell that even she didn’t believe that.
“She might’ve been okay?” Phil said. “She still won’t talk to Mister Henderson over at the bank, and he’s been in town ten years.”
Lynn grunted her agreement. “You’re right,” she said, and then she quoted the ninth commandment to him. “But, thou shalt not bear false witness.”
“I know, I know,” Phil said. “But I didn’t say that Len was my cousin to hurt anybody, or for personal gain. I don’t know how long Len’s gonna stay in Hayden, but it seems like he might stay for a while. I said what I said to make his life easier around here, and also to make it easier for the folks in town. Is there really anything wrong with that?”
“No, I guess not,” Lynn admitted grudgingly.
“Besides,” he said, “you just lied too.”
“What?” she said, raising her hand and slapping lightly at his arm. “I did not.”
“You did,” Phil said. “I asked you what was wrong, and you said nothing. But really you were upset.”
“I just didn’t want to argue on a Sunday night,” she said.
“I know,” Phil said. “It’s all right. I’m just saying that sometimes we say things to make life a little easier. I don’t really think it’s bearing false witness.”
“Maybe not,” Lynn said.
“Besides, if all men are brothers,” he said, mentioning a message that Pastor Gallagher often preached, “then Len and I must be related some way.”
“Oh,” Lynn said, and she playfully pushed him. He quickly rolled over to her side and planted a kiss on the front of her shoulder. “You better stop that,” she said, swatting lightly at his back. “If we’re all the family of God, then you and I must be brother and sister,” she joked.
Phil trailed kisses up her neck, interspersing them with single words: “I…don’t…think…so.” His mouth reached hers, and he kissed her in a way he doubted anybody would ever consider brotherly.
“Probably not,” Lynn said when their lips parted. Phil peered into her beautiful blue eyes, the feature that had first drawn him to her. “Put out the light,” she said.
Phil did.
The Model A—that’s what Phil had called it—raced down Tindal’s Lane quite a bit faster than it had yesterday, when McCoy had ridden with Lynn and Phil into town. McCoy clutched the top of the door with one hand and the edge of the bench seat with the other as the truck bounded over the ruts and depressions in the road. His hair whipped about his head, blown by the cool dawn air coming in through the open windows. The front right tire dipped into a particularly deep hole, and McCoy thought for a second that the top of his head might hit the roof.
“Sorry about that,” Phil called over the rush of the wind passing through the cab. His feet danced on the pedals, and he moved the metal rod that rose up out of the floor. The truck slowed with a bit of a jerk, but then the ride settled down.
“That’s all right,” McCoy said. “As long as you don’t bounce me out the window, I’ll be okay.”
“I like going fast,” Phil said, a fact McCoy had already guessed. “Lynn doesn’t like it much, so I usually rev it up when she’s not in the truck.”
“I just hope you don’t run anybody over,” McCoy said.
“I only go fast out here on Tindal’s Lane,” Phil explained, “’cause with the other farms down there closed up—” He hiked a thumb up over his shoulder, toward the small glass window in the rear wall of the cab. “—almost nobody comes out this way anymore.”
The road curved slightly to the right, and up ahead, McCoy saw where it ended, at an intersection with Church Street. Phil braked even more, almost to a stop, then accelerated again after he’d turned right onto the wider road, though at a much slower speed than before. In the distance, McCoy spotted somebody walking along the left side of the road, carrying a basket in each hand. As the truck drew closer, he recognized the woman as one of the many people Lynn and Phil had introduced him to yesterday outside the church. He could not recall her name.
When they’d nearly reached the woman, Phil touched a button near the hub of the four-spoke steering wheel and a horn tooted. Phil waved out the window as they passed her, and she lifted one of the baskets and moved it back and forth in response. She appeared to be in her late thirties, but McCoy suspected that she might be younger than that, and that days she’d spent in the sun had taken their toll on her skin. “I met that woman yesterday, didn’t I?” he asked.
“Yup,” Phil said. “That’s Daisy Palmer. You met her and her husband Woodward and their boys, Justin and Henry. They got twenty acres down-valley. Cotton farmers mostly, but they also keep a passel of chickens. Probably Daisy had a mess of eggs to sell down at Jackson’s this morning and she wanted to beat the heat.” Although the chill of the dawn hadn’t yet lifted, McCoy knew from the rising temperatures of the last few days that today would likely be hotter still.
“I’m going to need to start writing some of these names down,” McCoy said, “otherwise I’m won’t remember who anybody is.” After they’d come out of church yesterday, Lynn and Phil had been gracious enough to introduce him to quite a few people. Some had greeted him warmly, but most, at least at first, had seemed to regard him with some dubiety—at least until Phil had begun presenting McCoy as a member of his family. After that, virtually everybody had seemed more friendly.
As the truck reached the southwest corner of the town commons, McCoy saw a great deal more activity than he had when he’d walked around here yesterday. A few vehicles, mostly trucks and horse-drawn carriages, rolled along the streets, and a number of people, both men and women, made their way along on foot, many toward the far corner. Phil passed Carolina Street on the right and the church—HAYDEN FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, a sign proclaimed out front—on the left, then turned right onto Mill Road. As they drove along the length of the commons, Phil called out by name to some of the pedestrians they passed. Some just waved, but more than half a dozen men climbed aboard the truck’s flat, rear platform.
“All these people work out at the mill?” McCoy asked, motioning toward all of those walking in that direction.
“Yessir,” Phil said. “We got ’tween three and four hundred there most days.” He paused and then added, “That might seem like a lot, but they’re pushing it with that many. Specially these days.”
“I understand,” McCoy said as they crossed over Main Street and passed between Colton’s Shell and Town Hall. “I don’t expect anybody to hire me today, but it’s worth taking a look.” After supper last night, McCoy had sat with Lynn and Phil in their parlor and talked. As they spoke of themselves and the place they’d chosen to live—Phil had actually grown up here, a little farther south down the valley—McCoy had discovered himself taken with the town. The easy comfort he’d felt while walking through Hayden yesterday—his tense visit with Dr. Lyles notwithstanding—had matured today from a willingness to stay here to a desire to stay. Although he’d lived for a year at the mission, and then for more than a year in his own apartment, he’d never stopped feeling on the run, looking for an escape. Even if he’d only been here for a couple of weeks, he liked being back in the American south.
The road began to veer left, descending on a slight decline before flattening out. Trees speckled the countryside, and broad, deep fields stretched away on both sides of the road, most of them appearing planted. “Keetoowah’s down that way,” Phil said, pointing out his side of the truck. He’d mentioned the river a couple of times to McCoy, telling him how they’d had to dredge the mill race this past year. They’d had to dam the channel, drain it, and then clear out the sediment that had settled along its length so that the swift current of the river could better drive the mill wheel. McCoy listened at his window for the sound of rushing water, but could hear nothing over the combined racket of the truck engine and the men talking loudly in the back.
They climbed a short hill, and as they crested it,
McCoy saw the mill. Built of stone and with a peaked roof, it consisted of three stories, with rows of windows lining each. Another large building, of one story and with almost no windows, stood beyond it, and appeared connected to the mill by a long pipe. A number of smaller outbuildings sat scattered about. Several projections looked as though they had been added onto the mill building itself after its original construction. At the far end, rising from where the land sloped away from the foundation and up almost to the third story, a tall, narrow structure must have housed the mill wheel. Sunlight glinted off the canal that led away from there, and not too far beyond that, McCoy could see the river itself.
Phil pulled off the dusty road about thirty meters from the mill, parking his vehicle at the end of a line of thirty or forty others. Even before he’d come to a complete stop, the men who’d been riding on the back hopped off. Most started for the mill, but one walked up to the driver’s side of the truck and peered inside. “Morning, Phil,” the young man said with a nasal twang. Lanky and with a face that had gone unshaven for at least a few days, he looked undernourished and as though he hadn’t yet reached his eighteenth birthday.
“Morning, Billy,” Phil said. “How’s by you?”
“Doing fine, doing fine,” Billy said as Phil and McCoy both opened their doors. “So who’s this?” he asked, looking across the roof of the truck at McCoy.
“Cousin,” Phil said, reaching back into the cab and grabbing his lunch pail. “Len McCoy, this is Billy Fuster. He cleans up and runs the cotton out of the storehouse for us. Works half days.” Phil waved McCoy around the truck, and they started down the road toward the mill.
“I been opening the bales some lately too,” Billy said, following behind. “And Mister Duncan says he might put me on full-time soon.”
“That’s good, Billy,” Phil said, but McCoy got the feeling that the gangly young man didn’t impress him much.
“After that,” Billy went on, “I might start feeding the blending machines, maybe then move on up to picking or carding.” As they approached the mill, he kept talking, mostly about what he would be doing at different points in the future. It didn’t take them long to reach the building, but McCoy supposed if the walk had been much longer, Billy would’ve revealed his plan for running the mill.
At the near end of the building, a small annex jutted out from the end of the long wall. Phil headed for it, giving a wave to Billy and saying that maybe he’d see him later.
“Where ya going?” Billy asked, but Phil kept walking, as though he hadn’t heard.
At the annex, Phil knocked on a worn door, slightly ajar, which might once have been painted green but now looked more like the color of a dying plant. McCoy heard something vaguely like a grunt of assent, and Phil pushed open the door and entered. McCoy followed.
Inside, shadows vied with the bright morning sun shining in through two east-facing windows. Gazing around, McCoy saw that the single room appeared to have two distinct personalities. Near the annex’s two doors—the one they’d just passed through and the one in the wall adjacent, which led into the mill itself—tools and parts hung seemingly at random on the walls and lay on tables, chairs, and even the floor. On the other end of the room, though, organization prevailed. A pair of tall wooden filing cabinets had been pushed up against the far wall, and a large desk sat beneath one of the windows. Seated at the desk, a large bull of a man leaned over some paperwork, a thick cigar sticking from the corner of his mouth like a mouse peeking out of its hole. He had short graying hair that had receded to the top of his head, and he looked as though he must be in his fifties.
“Mister Duncan,” Phil said.
“Yeah,” the man growled without looking up from the desk. Phil had identified Duncan earlier as the mill superintendent.
“I just wanted to introduce you to my cousin,” Phil said.
Duncan glanced up, still leaning over his papers. In the bright rays of the sun streaming in through the window above the superintendent, McCoy saw a haze of thin fibers floating through the air. He looked around and noted tufts of gray-white lint spread throughout the room, and realized that it all must be residue from the cotton processing.
“Morning, Mister Dickinson,” Duncan said around his cigar. McCoy questioned the wisdom of smoking in a place where flammable material filled the air and probably coated just about every available surface. Duncan pushed his chair back from the desk and lumbered to his feet. “Your cousin, huh?” Though only slightly taller than McCoy, he took up a considerably greater amount of room. Duncan had a bit of a gut, but mostly he was simply larger: broad shoulders, barrel chest, thick arms and legs, huge hands. He crossed toward McCoy, surprisingly spry for such a large man. “Macnair Duncan,” he said, extending his hand. “Pleased to meet ya.”
“Leonard McCoy,” he said. He shook Duncan’s hand, which nearly engulfed his own. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“So how this cur related to ya?” Duncan asked. McCoy thought he detected a brogue mixed in with his southern inflections.
“Second cousin,” McCoy said, remembering how Phil had introduced him to people yesterday.
“He’s the grandson of my ma’s uncle,” Phil further explained.
“Uh huh,” Duncan said, eying McCoy up and down. He gnawed on his cigar, and McCoy saw that it wasn’t lighted. “Looking for work, I suppose.”
“I know you don’t have anything right now, Mister Duncan,” Phil said.
“No, we’re full up,” the superintendent confirmed.
“I figured, but Len wanted to come out anyway, meet you, see the place,” Phil said. “He might be staying with us for a while, so if anything does open up, I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.”
“Be happy to,” Duncan said. Behind him, near his desk, a clock began to chime the hour. “That’s you, Phil,” Duncan said, and then he excused himself as he stepped past them and through the outside door. McCoy saw him reach up, and then a loud whistle rang out. Every morning at this time, miles away at Lynn and Phil’s house, McCoy had heard that whistle.
“I have to go,” Phil said. “You sure you don’t want to take the truck back home?”
“No, I could use the exercise,” McCoy said. In truth, McCoy had never driven an automobile—he’d never needed to in New York City, with its abundant public transportation—and so didn’t know how.
“All right,” Phil said. “I’ll see you later then.”
“See you,” McCoy said. Phil pulled open the inner door to the mill, and the noise level jumped dramatically for a moment before he pulled it closed. Duncan loped back into the annex.
“Ya ever work in a cotton mill?” he asked McCoy. Despite his imposing frame, the big man presented himself with an affable bearing.
“No, I haven’t,” McCoy said.
“Any kind of a millwork at all?” Duncan asked.
“No, I can’t say that I have,” McCoy said.
Duncan harrumphed and headed back toward his desk, though he didn’t sit down. “A lot of skilled jobs here, working on the machines,” he said.
“I’m a quick study,” McCoy said.
“Maybe so,” Duncan said, “but if something does open up for ya, it’s gonna have to be an unskilled job. I got too many men who know already what they’re doing.”
“I’ll take whatever you can offer,” McCoy said.
“Right,” Duncan said with a firm nod. “It’s good to know ya, Mister McCoy.”
“Good to know you,” McCoy echoed. As Duncan returned to the chair at his desk, McCoy left the way he’d entered. Outside, the road had cleared of people, all of them evidently getting to their jobs before the whistle sounded.
McCoy started up the road, passing the line of parked vehicles, including Phil’s truck. Dust kicked up off the dirt road as he walked, and so he padded over to the patchy grass that bordered it. He hadn’t expected to land a job at the mill today, but he felt glad that he’d come out with Phil anyway. As the single largest employer in town, by qu
ite a sizeable margin, he felt sure that if he stayed in Hayden long enough, something would open up there. In the meantime, he would look for whatever else he could find. Thanks to Lynn and Phil, he didn’t really have any expenses right now, but he wanted to start earning his own money so that he could repay what they’d already given him. He also wanted to finish paying the doctor.
Determined to find whatever employment he could, McCoy walked into town.
Twenty-Two
2813 BCE/2269 CE
Spock felt rage and hopelessness, love and despair. He had but little notion of how to manage any of these emotions, or any of the myriad other shades of feeling demanding expression. Control seemingly impossible, his focus gone, he attempted to concentrate on sensation, tried to distance himself through distraction.
The wind blustered across the boreal landscape, slicing without cease through the crags of rock and ice. Despite the animal hide he’d hastily wrapped about his torso, the fleet air currents bled his body of heat. The touch of the icy cliff face beneath his hand threatened to freeze his flesh, and yet…the surface should have been colder still.
Colder still, Spock repeated to himself. Yes. The portal had to be here. He and McCoy could push forward into the seemingly impenetrable stone and emerge on the other side, five thousand years into the future of this doomed world and back into their own present. And yet…and yet…
He turned and looked at Zarabeth, the hood of her fur pulled down around her neck, exposing her lovely face, her long red hair flowing out behind her in the wind. She’s so beautiful, he thought, and felt shame. He glanced at McCoy, pointlessly wishing the doctor elsewhere, wanting this moment to himself.
To himself…and Zarabeth.
Spock went to her anyway. He took her face in his hands, his fingers cupping her rosy cheeks. She looked back at him with her expressive green eyes, and he saw his own emotions reflected there.
“Come on, Spock!” McCoy called, echoing the urgency in Captain Kirk’s voice when he had called to them moments ago through the portal.
Crucible: McCoy Page 31
