“So, you’re thirteen?” I say.
“Yep.”
I feel like crap. I don’t even know my own flesh and blood. He’s tall for his age, with feet he’s still growing into. Skinny, too, with long legs like daddy had. He has my nose but dark hair like momma’s sticking out under his ball cap. His face is impassive as he leans against the wooden beam at the front entrance of the stable watching Monty gallop around his pen. I wish I knew what he’s thinking. Monty neighs again long and loud, hooves scraping the ground.
“Ya want me to saddle him for ya?” Jake says.
“Really?” I say because that’s all I can think to say. I haven’t ridden a horse since I left.
“Really,” he says.
“Yes, please. I can take him up the trail that leads up the mountain to find some yellow root for momma. She asked me to go,” I explain.
“Okay,” he says. He winks at me and walks over to Monty. “Whoa boy,” he says, making himself big until Monty succumbs and lets him grab his halter.
He walks him into the stable as I follow. It smells like wood, hay, saddle leather, horses, and fresh mountain air. I feel giddy.
“Can I brush him?” I say, through my huge grin.
“Yep, brush is right there,” Jake says, pointing at the wooden box on the floor by the door.
I watch as little particles of dust float into the air while I brush him. His muscles flex under the brush and he clears his horsey throat over and over. I’ve missed this. I think I have a real honest to goodness smile on my face. This is a rare thing.
“Yeah, you should be glad it’s me here and not Seth,” Jake explains.
“Why’s that?”
“He’s pissed at you. He still remembers you from when he was four. He don’t like to say it but it hurt his feelings when you just left like that. He remembers you pretty good from before.”
“Oh,” is all I can say. I guess I’m going to have to deal with an angry fifteen year old at tonight at dinner.
“Is he at school?”
“Yep,” he says, as he slides the saddle on top of the saddle blanket. The saddle says, ‘Sadie’ on the part that runs down the side of the horse’s belly.
“I forgot about my saddle,” I squeal.
“We didn’t want to throw it out. Nobody’d buy it with your name on it like that. ‘Cept Dillon maybe,” he says, with a chuckle.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, everybody knows!” he laughs.
“Knows what?” I press.
“He’s crazy about you. Crazy being the right word. Got your name tattooed on his arm with some Bible verse,” he laughs again. “We all see it every summer whenever he wears a wife beater.”
My head is spinning. “A wife beater?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a white T-shirt without the sleeves. You know,” he explains.
“I guess.”
“Miss Robbins is so jealous. She tried to make him get the thing burnt off or somethin’ but he got mad. They were screaming ‘bout it last year at the Country Roads Festival. It was kinda funny.”
“Miss Robbins?” I ask as I slip the bridle’s bit past Monty’s front teeth.
“His girlfriend, oh, and my English teacher too,” he says, plainly.
I clear my throat as I close the strap over the cheek piece and pat Monty’s forehead. I don’t know a woman named Robbins. There was Mike Robbins. He was older than us, though. He joined the Army and left his new wife behind when he went to basic training. I don’t really remember her, though. She was a lot older than me. I wonder?
Dillon.
Here I am fresh off the highway and I’m already hearing about him. Part of me is pleased that Dillon never forgot me; the other part, the part that wants him to be happy, not fighting with his girlfriend about me, is displeased and I frown. Jake elbows me.
“Hey, earth to Sadie,” he mocks.
I elbow him back, “Okay, Jerky Jake,” I christen him. That will be his new nickname. It seems like I’ve known him forever.
“Well, over to you,” he says, handing me the reins. I look at Monty and back at him. I purse my lips in a thin line. “Oh, no you don’t,” he scolds. “That’s rule number one. Can’t be nervous on a horse.”
I blink rapidly and push my foot into the stirrup, pull up with my leg and swing the other one over. Monty shifts under me and jolts forward.
“See, he knows you’re nervous,” Jake shouts as Monty gallops around the pen. My legs tense around his belly on both sides as my nerves turn to excitement. There’s a freedom I forgot about when I’m on a horse—this horse in particular.
I laugh out loud and Monty slows down, pulls against the reins, yawns on his bridle bit and walks toward the swinging gate in his pen.
“Just follow that path. It’s the same one,” Jake explains as he opens the gate, hands me my thin sack and points toward the trail leading up the hill toward Gauley Mountain. “Up yonder you ought to run into a patch or two of yella’ root.”
“See ya,” I call to him. As long as I don’t run into anything else.
Chapter Six—His Flower
Monty and I have been trotting up the path for probably thirty minutes. I’m starting to grasp just how much I’ve missed my homeland. I feel fantastic! This is better than writing. Better than signing autographs on my books. Better than shopping for antiques or silk scarves, better than anything I can remember.
The dense trees are a canopy above my strawberry blonde hair shielding me from any fear I’d felt as I left the safety of momma’s house. I’m whistling a tune I remember Dillon playing me on his courting dulcimer when we were teenagers.
He’d been teaching me the song right up until the end. Once we got older, daddy insisted we play together on Dillon’s granddaddy’s courting dulcimer if he was going to sit with me on the porch. It had a place for two people to play as it sat on both our laps while we faced each other. Obviously, Dillon was teaching me as I hadn’t a clue how to do it. But it made daddy feel better. As he used to say, “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.”
The song was called ‘You Are My Flower’. He said it reminded him of me. He’d learned it from listening to the Carter Family’s CD. He loved Johnny Cash and the Carters. He knew so many of their songs. He played the dulcimer and the harmonica both equally well. I didn’t know a lot about music, though.
I keep on humming the instrumental to You Are My Flower, remembering the way his long fingers moved over the strings as he sat the dulcimer on his lap—such a graceful touch he had when his hand grazed mine here and there. With his other hand he strummed, or he’d grasp my hand and help me strum so I’d get the pacing. He’d always say, “You’re not goin’ to get everything I do ‘cause I’m just havin’ too much fun, but if you can get the basics of it down you’ll be playin’ in no time.”
I’m humming loudly when I just break out into the chorus. It comes out of nowhere as if I’d just been singing it yesterday.
“You are my flower
that’s blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
that’s blooming there for me
Hmmm...hmmmm...hmmmm
The air is just as pure
The sunlight just as free
And nature seems to say
It’s all for you and me
Hmmm...hmmmm...hmmmm
You are my flower
that’s blooming in the mountain for me
You are my flower
that’s blooming there for me”
Hmmmm...Hmmmm....Hmmmm...”
I yelp as a bicyclist turns the corner coming down the hill toward us. Monty is spooked and starts to gallop full speed up the hill and off the trail into the woods as the bicyclist skids and falls on his side behind me.
I yank the reins, yelling, “Whoa, boy!” but he doesn’t seem to realize I’m on his back anymore. I duck my head as branches scratch my arms and narrowly miss my head. Monty neighs louder, runs over the path again, and tries to
jump down the side of the hill into a steep ravine.
I’m not a great rider anymore, so the only thing I can think to do is jump off him so he doesn’t take me down the side of the hill and break my neck. I grab a branch and hold on. Monty keeps going and the branch breaks with my full weight, crashing me into the soft ground below. It knocks the wind out of me and I’m exasperated and wide-eyed.
“What the hell!” I scream up to whoever is on the path above me.
“I’m so sorry,” apologizes the voice, oddly familiar to me.
As I lay on my back, a bicycle-gloved hand reaches out to help. “I’m fine. Just be on your way,” I snap.
A face comes into view, albeit upside down. He’s smiling. He’s wearing a black bicycle helmet and black spandex shorts with a matching yellow shirt.
It’s Dillon.
“Crap!” I squeak. He steps back like I’m a wolverine about to pounce as I sit up and slide around to face him. “I really hadn’t planned on seeing anyone up here,” I exclaim, loudly as I stand up and brush off the leaves and dirt now attached to me.
Dillon looks like he’s just been bitten by a mute-causing spider. His mouth is open, his arms dangling by his sides, his legs planted to the ground. I actually feel sorry for him. He looks like he’s going to faint or go into convulsions. He has to remind himself to breathe. When he does, “Sadie,” pops out of his stunned mouth.
He walks forward. I take a step back, so he stops. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m visiting my mom,” I state, dryly.
“Visiting your mom,” he says, as if he’s trying to remember what those words mean in that sequence.
“Dillon, are you alright?”
“Alright,” he says, as if he doesn’t remember what that means either.
“Here,” I say, grabbing his arm and putting it over my shoulder. Electricity runs down my arm from the contact. “Sit down on this log, okay? I have to get my horse and I’ll be right back.”
“No! Don’t go!” he pleads, his arm still over my shoulder as he sits down. I hear Monty pacing back and forth down in the ravine. He’s stuck.
“I’ve got to get my horse,” I explain.
He shakes his head looking so confused. “I’ll get him,” he states, seeming in control now.
Before I can say no, he’s jumping into the ravine and grabbing Monty’s reins. He finds a place up the hill and leads Monty down the path toward the trail I’m waiting on. As he brings Monty back to me, I watch his biking shoes caress the dirt under him.
He’s in amazing shape and I blush all over and my scalp prickles looking at his fit body masked in spandex, leaving nothing to the imagination. He looks like a Greek sculpture standing there as he takes his helmet off releasing his hay colored messy hair. He looks much the same as ten years ago, but his face is thinner, more angular, and mature. He’s stronger—leaner. It’s my turn to be dazed.
We just stand here looking at each other, taking stock of each other’s presence. We’re saying nothing. I reach forward to take Monty’s reins and he steps forward getting closer than I’d expected him to.
“You look beautiful,” he blurts out. “Even with all those leaves in your hair.” He smiles the long-missed I’m-yours-and-you’re-mine smile. I don’t know how to feel about that. Rather than focus on me, I realize his voice is different, deeper. His accent isn’t as pronounced anymore either.
He reaches up and takes a dried leaf out of my hair. Just that small gesture makes me blush from the inside out. My breath hitches in my throat. I shake the leaves out of my hair so he can’t keep doing that.
I say nothing but my lip starts to quiver. I don’t know what to do so I step back and look down. His proximity is intimidating, his scent familiar and invigorating. I peek up at him through my lashes.
When I finally straighten my gaze, his eyes take mine hostage. I feel as though I cannot look away. Then it hits me. I know what color his eyes are. The summer after my eighteenth birthday, Aunt Lotty took me to Nevada to lounge at a beach on Lake Tahoe. As we drove toward the beach, I saw a small patch of white sand under shallow water.
In that spot the dark blue of the deep lake changed to a stunning aqua blue. That is the color of his eyes as I stand here. I had struggled to rationalize the melancholy that came over me that day. This must be why. I’d missed the color of Dillon’s eyes.
“I’m looking for some goldenseal for my momma. That’s what I’m doing on the trail.”
He shakes his head to acknowledge he’s listening but his eyes never leave mine, “Yellow root? That’s my specialty. Let me help,” he says enthusiastically as he rubs his palms together.
I say nothing, but start to walk and he follows. “Don’t you want to grab your bike?”
“Oh, yeah,” he chuckles and I wait as he picks up his bike and wheels it next to Monty and me on the trail. He hooks his helmet to the handlebars.
“I almost gave up hope I’d see you, Sadie,” he blurts again.
“Me too, Dillon.” Saying his name pains me for some reason.
“Since you didn’t come back for your dad’s, I just assumed, when your momma got sick...” he struggles to make his point. He still doesn’t want to hurt me or offend me.
“I had to see her one last time,” I explain. He nods approvingly.
“I’ve read your books,” he says, smiling at me.
“Really!”
“Yes, some a couple of times, now. And your blog. Anything you write or anything written about you,” he says. He’s so forthcoming. I realize I have a huge grin on my face that matches his.
“There you go,” he says, pointing to a patch of green, leafy plants with bright red, bulbous flowers in the middle.
“Goldenseal!” I say, relieved to find such a gold mine. I grab the thin sack from my ‘Sadie’ saddle and immerse myself in the act of scraping the dead leaves with Momma’s root digger claw. Dillon is beside me like a memory, moving leaves and grabbing hold of a nice sized plant so that I can dig under it. It’s like old times, me and Dillon working together as if no time has passed. With him near, I suddenly feel home.
As if by magic, the golden yellow roots are in my hand. “How many should I dig?” I ask him.
“Well, it looks like you’ve got three plants old enough. That’s all I’d take,” he explains. “Goldenseal is getting rare up in the Appalachians because of the mountaintop coal mining. We have to conserve what we can.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of mountaintop coal mining but it just never really hit home, I guess.”
“Well, right now, our own Gauley Mountain is the point of a bitter feud. The coal company wants to blow the top off it and, you know, some of the people here are for it. They know they’ll get hired to help for a time. Mostly everybody else wants to preserve the mountain. We’re a tourist town now and it’ll hurt business and mess up the water supply.”
“I had no idea,” I say, shocked.
“Most people don’t. Hey, there’s an EDA meeting tomorrow evening if you want to come and find out more. Having a famous eco-author there couldn’t hurt,” he winks at me.
“Oh, yeah, maybe. Where at?” I ask as I dig up the third root from the larger plant.
“The middle school. Six o’ clock.” I get a flash of the old brick building with the too large ‘AMS’ on the front. I had so many good times there. Back in a life that seems like a figment of my imagination.
“So, how do you know so much about this?” I ask, remembering that Missy was unsure of what Dillon’s job was here in town.
“I’m working here on a Federal Government grant. It’d be easier to show you, really. I’m not sure if I can explain it right,” he says, as he leans back on his heels. “You could come by anytime. See what I do,” he flashes his full I’m-yours smile sure to get me weak in the knees.
It works, even though I’m not actually standing up. My nervous system is going into fight or flight mode. All these feeling and thoughts confuse my body.
“I
don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, as I wrap the roots up in the cheesecloth.
“Why not?” he asks, stubbornly.
“I’m going to be so busy here helping Missy with momma. Then, I’ll be going back right after the wake.” I don’t want him to get his hopes up.
“But, you can’t,” he declares. “You’ve just gotten here.” He reminds me of when he was younger and didn’t get something he wanted. He didn’t often throw a fit—unless it really meant a lot to him.
I’m just going to cut to the chase.
“Do you really have a tattoo of my name on your arm, Dillon?” I ask, coldly.
He looks baffled and tilts his head to the side in thought.
“Yes,” he coughs, and rubs his left bicep and then over his heart.
Does he have two?
“I just don’t think that’s fair to your girlfriend,” I say, wincing.
“Of course, you think you know everything, don’t you?” he scowls.
“I know that she doesn’t like it and what’s the point of putting her through that when...” I can’t finish my sentence.
What should I say? I’m never going to be yours again. I guess that would work since I’m not her anymore. You should cherish what you have instead of waiting for this idea of what you thought you could have—in another parallel life that never came to fruition.
He stands up in one swift move and walks away from me, runs his hand through his messy hair and pinches that little V that forms between his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. I stand up, too, and decide to stand my ground.
“I mean, what do you want from me, Dillon?”
“What do I want!” he shouts. He never shouts! I hold my hands out and put my mouth in a crooked line like I’m saying ‘bring it on.’
“I want you, Sadie. I’ve always wanted you.”
“Dillon,” I interrupt.
“No, you should know, Sadie, I told you the truth the last time we spoke.” He clenches his teeth and his square jaw becomes more angular. “I’ve never stopped loving you, ever.” His fists tighten until his arms look like they’re about to pop.
Sadie's Mountain Page 5
