The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

by Christopher Scotton

  Smith’s is long gone, out of business soon after 2003. It reopened as a 7-Eleven. The movie theater is a movie theater again, offering first-run films. Bank of America took over the Monongahela Bank and Trust in 2005, people two deep at the ATM.

  A McDonald’s gilds the corner of Watford and Main. The coming of the arches was a bitter blow for Hank Biddle, and he sold out soon after to an Indian family who turned the place into a Sizzler franchise.

  Perhaps the most jarring casualty on Main Street is Hivey’s Farm Supply. Shortly after the new century, a modern farm store opened in the Walmart complex in Glassville, and Hivey’s business dropped precipitously. Bump Hivey finally closed the store on Christmas Eve 2006 and moved his family to Johnson City. The place idled for eight years until it reopened four months ago as an overpriced coffee shop.

  I push through the front door, half expecting Jesper Jensen, Bobby Clinch, and Grubby Mitchell to be sipping Venti Skinny Lattes at the back by the plastic woodstove built into the coffee bean display.

  Unfortunately, Jesper died of a heart attack in 1999 during a round of Auction Pinochle with Lo Gilvens, who went undefeated in ten straight games. With Jesper gone, the loafing at Hivey’s just wasn’t the same and the group gradually disbanded. Bobby took over booth six at Sizzler, and Grubby drifted through make-work, then down to Florida after Mayna passed.

  Several young couples are at tables by the coffee-shop window, reading the Saturday paper. Two people in line at the counter face smiling baristas. I take away a black coffee and walk around the corner to the alley on Green Street.

  Although the signs out front have been swapped out, the alley and the attending memories remain as before—I try to shift them toward the positive; toward Paul happening upon a flat-tired Paitsel or wearing level-five hazmat gear to a gutter cleaning; toward the hair ribbon and the rifle-shot slap. But they drift back to the beating and the boy and the curious paradox of it all. I’ve thought about it often in the years since that first summer in Medgar, and I’m no closer to understanding how evil can be both numbingly complex and so astonishingly simple at once. I linger a while longer, then go back to the truck and drive up Watford.

  I turn onto Chisold and Pops’ old house comes into view. Wise and experienced next to the new houses crocusing the neighborhood. A crowd is gathered on the porch. An elderly man sits in the old green wicker chair. In the heat I think for a moment that it is Pops, but as I come closer I see it’s Chester Skill. Mom is next to him, holding a pitcher of iced tea and pouring it into passing half-empty glasses.

  Audy Rae comes out the front door with a tray of brownies, and several of the children line up reverently for one before escaping into the yard, the way a puppy jiggers off with a treat. The new neighbors are there, mostly young couples.

  I park and walk into the yard, pausing by the big hickory to watch Pops’ old and new friends chat, drink tea, sip sour mash, and tell stories about his life. Kate takes the iced tea pitcher from Mom and goes into the house to refill it. Chester tells about the time Pops drove Sarah Winthorpe’s father’s car into the reservoir in Lexington because he was too proud to admit to her that he didn’t know how to drive. Several people throw their heads back in laughter. Paitsel tells of the turkeys and toys Pops delivered secretly every Christmas. Most nod their heads, smiling sadly.

  Sarah sidles to Mom’s legs and raises her arms to be picked up. Mom bends and sweeps her from the porch. She sees me standing by the hickory and wiggles back to the floor.

  “Daddy!” she squeals and bounds the steps toward me, her chestnut hair giving itself to the sun.

  The last of friends leave the porch and I pile the old camping gear in the back of Pops’ truck, kiss Kate and Sarah, then head through town to Jukes Hollow Road.

  I park at the huge rocks by the entrance and stand next to Ahab, running my hand along its cool, dark length. As I do, an image comes to me of a boy striding up Jukes Hollow Road, leather-bound book tucked under his arm, walking stick pushing off the hardpack. He passes me, passes through me, running his hand along Ahab in the exact path of mine.

  I follow him on the road to the half circle of cabins, each busy with activity—folks working a cornfield, others hauling wood. A thin woman, aged beyond her years, is sweeping off the cabin porch with a home-tied broom. “Arthur, don’t you be readin til chores.”

  “Done em,” he says and races off to the waterfall before she can protest.

  I walk down the hill, across the creek to the wounded ground where Pops has been laid. It was spade and shovel work since Tingley’s couldn’t get a backhoe across the creek, and they packed it as best they could, spreading excess in the woods, then scattering flowers over the bruised earth.

  I notice stray chickweed around my grandmother’s headstone and kneel to pull it. I take two steps back and look at them together. Side by side, as if sleeping in on Saturday morning.

  SARAH WINTHORPE PEEBLES ARTHUR BRADLEY PEEBLES

  BORN APRIL 19, 1920 BORN JANUARY 3, 1919

  DIED IN LABOR

  DECEMBER 1, 1949 DIED JULY 3, 2014

  A VOICE LESS LOUD, THROUGH ITS JOYS AND FEARS THAN THE TWO HEARTS BEATING EACH TO EACH

  I let the chickweed fall from my hand to follow the wind.

  I walk over to the waterfall, to my grandparents’ picnic spot under the magnolia, and sit on the bench as evening comes, just listening to his voice in the action of the water. I reach into the pack and pull out a half bottle of Clinch Mountain sour mash and a glass with SWP etched fancy into it. A light pour and spinning ice as I contemplate the man who shaped my life so expertly. I raise the glass and tip it toward him. “You know, if Hannibal had used mountain goats instead of elephants, he might’ve conquered Rome.”

  I stay on the bench by the picnic spot, feeling the mash and the memories and the last of the afternoon air as it is pushed out by the settling night. After a while I walk up to the cabin, light the kerosene lamp, and follow the flickering yellow into Pops’ childhood room. Up onto the top bunk and under my old sleeping bag—the attic smell of the bedroll mixing with the faint scent of wood pulled from the ancient pine along with a century of living that resides there. They are a comfort as I drift off with Pops and Buzzy and that singular summer when we left the coverings of boy behind.

  The next morning I wake with the cabin still jacketed in dark and stay there listening to the old sounds from his youth. After a while I climb down and walk out to the porch as morning breaks over the hollow. I stand on the hill by the cabin side, looking out at the creek, the field, the rocks, the waterfall, and the fresh scar in the graveyard.

  I see in my mind how it must have looked when Pops was a boy. The rocky soil and sometimes sun yielding the best corn it could. I go back to the porch and linger, imagining a morning coffee gathering of weather predictors, crop forecasters, and coal pundits. I push open the front door and walk inside, feeling the history of the place rush to me. I amble through the kitchen to the doorway of the big bedroom, my footsteps submitting closed-museum echoes in the morning still.

  The bed is mattressed and quilted now, and the boys have run from their room to their parents’ bed and dove under the covers, kicking each other and pushing for position until their father tells them to quit. There’s a chill this morning, so they lay together under the warm quilts, three boys in the middle, the parents touching feet to feet in an unspoken embrace. They have a full day of work before them, she to the morning milking, then a day in the corn rows, picking the early ears before the crows; he to the Hogsback seam.

  But it’s Saturday. So they lie together five minutes more, just touching feet, floating on the quiet as the boys drift back off. Finally, she slips out of bed and into the kitchen to fire the stove for the beginnings of breakfast.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Several folks within Hachette created a swell of early enthusiasm for the novel and this initial momentum was critical for a complete unknown like me, with absolutely no writing credentials, to get not
iced among the many fine writers on the company’s list. Chris Murphy, Rick Cobban, Karen Torres, Lily Goldman, Erica Hohos, Steve Marz, John Lefler—thank you for reading Secret Wisdom… for loving it, backing it, and pitching it throughout 237 Park Avenue. Thanks also to the rest of the Hachette sales team for your passionate support of the novel—you are the essential unsungs in this industry!

  My editor, Deb Futter, is an absolute joy to work with—her instincts are spot-on and her edits made this a much richer, more focused story. Thanks to the rest of the Grand Central team: Dianne Choie, who kept me on task with patience and grace; Brian McLendon, a man of a thousand ideas and the tactical chops to make them happen; and Sonya Cheuse, yin to Brian’s yang—I don’t think I could have a better marketing and publicity team.

  Thanks to my agent, Stephanie Cabot, whose deft mingling of encouragement and reality kept me grounded through this exhilarating, wrenching, incredibly fun process. To the fantastic Gernert team: Anna Worrall, Ellen Goodson, Chris Paris-Lamb, Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts, and the rest of the crew—to the balcony all!

  A special thank-you to a young man who probably had more to do with getting this novel published than most, Andy Kifer—long-distance runner and reciter of perfect St. Crispin’s Day speeches. He was the first in the industry to read Secret Wisdom, plucked fresh from the Gernert slush pile, stayed up all night on a weekend to finish it, then raved about it on a Monday to his colleagues throughout the eighteenth floor. Andy, I owe you a huge debt and some Shakespeare mangling lessons.

  To my family: Michael, Connor, and Janice—your love, support, patience, ideas, and encouragement made the journey possible and the destination achievable.

  And to God, from whom all wisdom comes… secret or otherwise.

  Reading Group Guide

  Discussion Questions

  How did your view of what happened to Joshua (and, subsequently, what happened to Kevin and the rest of his family) change as it was gradually revealed exactly how he died and how his death affected each member of the family?

  Kevin is withdrawn, angry, and wracked with guilt when he arrives in Medgar. How does Pops make Kevin feel comfortable in his home away from home? How does Pops’ influence in particular change Kevin as a person?

  Describe Buzzy’s relationship with Cleo. How does each brother view the other? What were the different ways that each of them was tested, and how do they each end up ultimately?

  Pops works with animals and grew up on the land he continued to live on, while Buzzy knows all about the forest and the ways its inhabitants can help humans. How are their relationships with nature different from Kevin’s? How is Kevin’s understanding of land and nature changed by the end?

  Is it possible for Joshua’s accident to have been Kevin’s fault, even partially? How would you feel in Kevin’s place? In his parents’ place?

  How did Kevin’s grandmother Sarah affect Medgar? Pops? Kevin?

  Why was Paul’s reveal of his homosexuality—a fact that almost everyone knew—such a shock at the town meeting?

  Pops describes the Budget family as “different.” What role do they play in the community of Medgar? How does Tilroy fit in with his family at the beginning of the novel, and how does his death change the family in the end?

  How do class and financial status shape the different inhabitants of Medgar? Discuss the meaning of quotes such as the following one from Pops about Buzzy’s family: “The Finks are poor, but they’re proud poor. Esmer runs the Hollow hard. Kids stay in school, they truck their garbage out once a week. These are solid people.”

  Compare the attitude toward Paul and Paitsel at the meeting the night before Paul’s beating (“We can’t be havin this kinda sick, Satan devil cancer in our town”) and the conversations Kevin heard from all different townspeople regarding Paul days later (“Uncommon generous. No better man in town, I say”). How do those two different perspectives get pulled back and forth, both in the town and in Kevin’s mind?

  Pops physically punished Bubba Boyd for speaking ill of Sarah: “The fury that exploded and the speed with which it arrived frightened me—it was as if a raging magma, held down for so long by rearing and position ruptured its vessel and spewed forth in an overpowering surge.” How does this capacity to become enraged fit with the rest of Pops’ character?

  Describe the turmoil that Buzzy suffered between when he witnessed the attack on Paul and when he finally confessed to Kevin. What would you have done in his place?

  When Buzzy got an A in school, his father’s reaction was surprising to Kevin: “Buzzy the Brain, gonna live above his rearin.” Why would a parent react like that? What did that statement make Kevin realize about the truth of living in the hollow?

  “It’s like you own the universe.” Why did Tilroy attack Paul?

  Pops tells the boys about the magic and power he felt after climbing Red Cloud, a feeling he compares to theirs upon climbing Old Blue on their tramp, and Kevin feels he understands the new knowledge: “Yesterday was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The whole day was a test. I know I can do harder things, now.” What other experiences in the story brought out similar reactions in Kevin and Buzzy? Do you think the “magic” of Red Cloud or the white stag can really exist?

  How did the difficult and daring rescue of Pops help Kevin (and Buzzy) complete his summer transformation from boy to man?

  Kevin finds a moment of connection and empathy when he considers Tilroy’s body for a final time: “I stayed for just a moment more and thought about my own father; how I still wanted his approval, still craved his love, still drank up drops of attention. I considered the shell of Tilroy one last time and pondered the certainty of rearing; the inevitability of desire; and the turn life takes when the two are set hard against.” How was he able to call up understanding for this troubled young man who violently killed a good man and shot Kevin’s own grandfather and friend? How would you have felt in Kevin’s place?

  Considering what happened by the end of the summer to all the different characters—Kevin and his family, Buzzy and his, Tilroy and his, Paul and Paitsel—do you find everyone’s transformations (or lack thereof) satisfying? Why or why not?

  Kevin and Buzzy have changed since they became fast friends the summer that Kevin moved to Medgar. Buzzy expresses his envy of Kevin and the life he always knew Kevin would have, even when they were young. What kept the boys so close together during their teenage years, and why have they grown up to have such dissimilar lives? Do you think either of them could have done anything to maintain their close relationship?

  The lingering effects of violence are an important theme in the novel. How does the violence done to the mountains serve as an allegory for the violence perpetrated by and done to characters in the novel?

  A Conversation with Christopher Scotton

  Q: Why did you choose eastern Kentucky as the setting for the novel?

  A: That area of Appalachia is such a beautiful setting with incredibly unique, interesting people…but it’s also a tragic and quite sad place where the people have been forced into this Faustian bargain with coal. That paradox seemed to be a fascinating and rich backdrop for Kevin’s story.

  Q: Setting is such a critical part of the novel, almost a character itself, yet you’ve never lived in Appalachia—was that a hindrance in writing the novel?

  A: I think any capable writer can create an authentic setting with a reasonable amount of research and location work. I spent a good bit of time down in West Virginia and Kentucky, up in the hollows and in the small towns, meeting folks and just listening to their stories. The key is to let the marrow of a place sear into your consciousness so that when you are writing, you can transport yourself there.

  Q: Why did you choose to set the book in 1985? How did the events going on in Appalachia and in America as a whole at that time affect the characters in the novel?

  A: I thought it was important for the reader to understand and experience the complete arc of Kevin and Buzz
y’s friendship. Here are two kids from completely different backgrounds who come together at a critical time in their lives and forge such an important bond. Yet, as so often happens, both kids were already set on a certain life path defined by rearing and place, background and expectations. It’s a sad reality that early friendships sometime don’t survive the life we find ourselves in. So by setting the novel back in 1985, I could bring the reader to the present day at the end of the story so they can see how Buzzy and Kevin have changed as adults, bittersweet as it is.

  Nineteen eighty-five was also an important time in the region as mountaintop removal started to expand rapidly without much regulation. The analog today is the headlong rush to fracking without nearly enough data on aquifer contamination. I think it’s an interesting comparison.

  Q: You speak of a Faustian bargain the people of eastern Kentucky have made with big coal—is the book anti-coal?

  A: I don’t see it as anti-coal and I hope it’s not perceived that way. I certainly didn’t set out write a polemic about the evils of big coal because I think the issues are far more complicated and nuanced. But the reality is that the economy in this region is shackled to coal. The land is difficult to farm, access in and out is limited, so there is little scope to break the addiction, if you will, to the money coal brings. Now, back when the coal was extracted from underground mines, that Faustian bargain was somewhat hidden from public view—miners died underground or in the quiet of their homes. However, mountaintop removal has really laid it bare and exposed the great inequity of the deal. But without many economic alternatives, the people of Kentucky and West Virginia need to make some really hard choices about their economic future. They are loyal, hard-working folk who deserve much better, in my opinion.