The Road From Gap Creek: A Novel Hardcover

by Robert Morgan

  “The whole fleet is either sunk or burning,” he said. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of sailors have been killed. There has also been an attack on Schofield Barracks and the air base at Hickam Field. We’re still unsure of the extent of the damage. The Japanese are still attacking even as I speak.”

  “What is happening?” I said.

  “The Japanese are attacking us,” Papa said.

  “Where?”

  “At Pearl Harbor. That’s in Hawaii.”

  Muir come from the bedroom and listened. It sounded like the whole island and the whole navy had been destroyed. “They will pay for this,” Muir said.

  We listened to the report and Papa slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. I seen Mama standing by the stove, but she hadn’t said nothing. I knowed she was thinking about Troy.

  “Troy is safe,” I said. “He’s in Mississippi. That’s a long way from Hawaii.”

  But it was like she didn’t even hear me. She knowed then, as we all did, that the war was here and whoever was in the service would be in it.

  I stepped out on the porch to catch my breath and to get some fresh air. It was a cold gray day, and the mountains all around was dark. Old Pat set on the steps looking at a car stopped down the road halfway to the milk gap. I thought at first it must be having trouble and that was why it was stopped. I thought it was one of the Huggins boys from down at the cotton mill. I seen him bent over toward the dashboard and realized he was listening to the radio. He was so astonished by the news he’d stopped the car just to listen to what the announcer was saying. The day was so dark the taillights of the car looked especially bright.

  Muir had come out on the porch and stood behind me. “All over the country people must have stopped what they are doing to listen to this news,” he said. I shivered and he put his arms around me before we went back inside.

  “Maybe it’s not true,” I said to Papa when I got back to the living room. “Maybe it’s just a trick, like that story on the radio that Martians had landed in New Jersey.”

  “It’s on all the stations,” Papa said.

  There was nothing to do but help Mama with the dishes. I heated water on the stove and piled dirty dishes in the pan. I tried not to think of all those burning ships and burning buildings they described on the radio. I wasn’t sure where Hawaii was exactly, except it was out in the ocean, but the descriptions on the radio was as real as if it was happening right here.

  “Who is that?” Mama said, looking out the kitchen window. I opened the door and seen Sharon getting out of her daddy’s car. She run up the steps and grabbed me in her arms. “Oh, Annie, it’s just so awful,” she said.

  “It is,” I said. Old Pat come up to Sharon and whimpered. It was clear she remembered her.

  “All I can think about is that Troy will go to war,” Sharon said.

  “Troy is far away in Mississippi,” I said. But I knowed nothing I said would make her feel better.

  “It’s not fair,” Sharon said. “It’s just not fair.”

  Sharon reached out to pet Old Pat on the head, and that’s when I seen the ring on her finger. It had a little diamond that flashed.

  “You have an engagement ring,” I said.

  “Troy sent it from Biloxi,” she said, and held up her hand so I could see it better.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Oh, Annie, I’m so scared,” Sharon said.

  “Come in where it’s warm,” I said.

  WHEN TROY FINISHED the course at Biloxi he got to come home for Christmas for just a week. After that he’d go on to Sarasota, Florida, to study B-17 motors. The B-17 was called the Flying Fortress, but in his letters he referred to it as “the Fort.” I thought that sounded funny, calling an airplane a fort, like it was a big wall of logs or stone.

  By the time Troy got home there was Christmas decorations up everywhere as usual. Old Pat went with us to find a tree on the hill above the pasture and flushed a covey of quail out of the edge of the pine thicket. People had put lights in their houses, and stores in town had decorated windows with snowmen and Santa Claus. There was Christmas carols on the radio and people at the church was preparing the annual Christmas pageant.

  But after Pearl Harbor everything was different. I don’t think we felt much like celebrating Christmas. Boys was being drafted and them that wasn’t drafted had plans to join. Velmer tried to enlist, but was told his heart was too weak. I reckon the typhoid fever had damaged his heart. Wherever you went people talked about the Japs and the Germans. There was rumors about German spies and Japanese spies and a story in the paper said a man with a cousin in Germany had tried to pour poison into the Greenville reservoir.

  I think Sharon expected Troy to marry her before he went on to Sarasota. After all, he’d sent her a ring. Maybe he had planned to while he was still at Biloxi. If that was so, something changed his mind once he got home and seen Sharon. I don’t know what it was that changed him, but she sulked and sometimes cried all through the holiday. I never seen a girl so disappointed. One time I heard them talking and Troy said, “It just wouldn’t be fair to you, to marry and then leave you for who knows how long.”

  “You mean it wouldn’t be fair to you, to be tied down in case you met somebody better?” Sharon said.

  “You know that’s not what I mean,” Troy said.

  Again Troy made sure I was with them everywhere they went. Muir was still working at Holly Ridge and wouldn’t be home until the day before Christmas. We drove to Asheville to look for presents and see all the Christmas lights in the square. Troy bought Sharon a fine necklace with amber jewels like drops of honey. We walked down in the pasture to break limbs of holly off the big tree there.

  “What we need is some mistletoe,” Troy said. He looked at Sharon and laughed. “Some kissing mistletoe.” He was trying his best to cheer her up and have a normal Christmas. He got Papa’s shotgun and we climbed up on the ridge of Meetinghouse Mountain. Muir couldn’t go with us because he was fixing a window in the Powell house that had been broke in a storm. There was some old oak trees at the far end, away from the ruins of Muir’s rock church, that was just full of mistletoe. Troy said he wanted to shoot down enough to put a sprig over every door.

  It was refreshing to get up on the ridge above the valley. With the trees bare you could see all the way up the river valley to Chimney Top and Pinnacle. “My feet hurt,” Sharon said.

  “I can carry you down,” Troy said. “But you’ll have to hold the mistletoe.”

  When we got to the far end of the ridge we come to an old field that was full of briars and weeds. The oaks with the mistletoe stood right at the edge of the field. Troy got out in the field so he could see better and raised the gun. But before he pulled the trigger we heard this droning sound and then something like a cough way off to the south. Troy lowered the gun and looked through the trees. He backed farther out into the field where he could see better.

  “That airplane’s in trouble,” he called.

  “How do you know?” I said.

  “Listen.”

  The sky had been full of airplanes in recent weeks. I reckon they come from the Air Corps base south of Greenville. They had stars on their wings like war planes.

  “He’s not going to make it,” Troy said. Sharon and me run out into the field to see what he was looking at. Far to the south we seen an airplane, with things dropping out of it. It looked like the airplane was blowing bubbles from its belly. “They’re parachutes,” Troy said. “They’re bailing out.”

  “What’s going to happen?” I said.

  “It’s going to crash,” Troy said. Sharon screamed and Old Pat whined and yelped. I froze where I stood in the briars.

  “Is there something you can do?” Sharon said.

  The airplane coughed and then was quiet. Two more parachutes opened below it. The airplane rocked a little like it was hit by wind, but come on straight toward us. It got bigger and bigger and I could see the numbers painted on it.

 
; “Is it a bomber?” I said.

  “No, a transport, the kind that carries paratroopers,” Troy said.

  It was awful to watch the plane come on toward the mountain and know there was nothing we could do. It was like a nightmare where you’re paralyzed and can’t even speak. The plane rocked and dipped a little, but it glided right in our direction. The motors was quiet. “He must have dumped the fuel,” Troy said.

  I wanted to run but didn’t know which way to run. The plane would tip to the right and then to the left. A breeze could tip it either way. I backed away toward the left since it seemed to be leaning toward the right.

  “Lord help us,” Sharon said. Old Pat yelped and run to the edge of the woods and then back to Troy. As the plane got bigger you could see the wheels folded up under it, and the open door on the left side. The windows in front reflected the sun and you couldn’t see nothing behind them.

  “Is it a Japanese plane?” Sharon said.

  “It’s an army plane,” Troy said.

  As the airplane got closer you could hear a kind of whistle in the air. I guess that was the sound of the wind on the wings. As it got bigger and bigger I started to run one way and then I run the other. And then I dropped to the ground as it went right over us. I could smell gasoline as the shadow passed just overhead. And then I heard a bang and thud and screech. When I raised my head I seen the plane turn sideways as it skidded across the briars and brush of the old field. There was a terrible grinding and rattling and swish like metal rubbed with steel wool, and then a squeal and bang as the plane slammed into a tree at the far end of the field.

  Troy and Sharon and me stood up and Old Pat yelped. We looked at the airplane and waited for it to explode, the way crashed planes was supposed to do. But there wasn’t even any smoke from the motors. We waited a long time and then started walking across the field, picking our way through blackberry briars and brush while Old Pat run on ahead.

  “Let’s be careful,” Troy said. “There could still be a spark to set off an explosion.” When we got pretty close we stopped to see if there was any sign of fire.

  “They must have all jumped out,” Troy said.

  Just then Old Pat started yelping and whining. She was near the front of the plane, and then she run around to the side.

  “What is it, Old Pat?” Troy called. She yelped and whined and stopped at the door in the side where the men had jumped out.

  “What do you see?” Troy called. He moved closer and Sharon and me stayed behind him.

  “I’m afraid to look,” Sharon said.

  Old Pat kept whining and Troy stepped to the door and looked inside. There was a strong smell of oil and gasoline but still no sign of a fire. Old Pat jumped through the side door and Troy followed her. “Oh my God,” I heard Troy say.

  “What is it?” I called. There was no answer, but then I seen Troy backing into the door pulling a body. The man was covered in blood. He wore a leather jacket with patches on the shoulders. His face was all bloody and mashed up. At the doorway old Pat grabbed the leather jacket in her teeth and helped Troy pull the body out onto the ground. Troy drug the man through the briars until he was well away from the airplane.

  “He must have stayed with the plane and tried to land it,” Troy said. “But all his men got out.” He laid the pilot in the weeds between two clumps of briars. Blood was everywhere, covering his face and neck and seeping out from under the leather jacket.

  “He’ll bleed to death if we can’t stop the wound,” Troy said. He got his hands bloody trying to unzip the leather jacket. When he opened the jacket we seen the man’s chest was covered with blood. More blood was coming through the shirt.

  “I think his lungs have been punctured,” Troy said. He was trying to think of something he could do. He looked around at the field and at me and Sharon.

  “You could run to the store and call the ambulance,” he said. I stood up and wondered how you call an ambulance to come way up on the mountain where there was no road.

  “No, call the government, call the army,” Troy said. He looked down at the pilot and told me not to go. He would go hisself since he could run faster. Sharon and me could stay with the man. And then he looked at the pilot and said it was no use, he was already dead. The bleeding had stopped and the blood was starting to dry. Just then we seen men in uniforms coming out of the woods.

  “You get away from there!” one called. “Tampering with a crash is a federal offense.” We backed away from the man on the ground as the company of soldiers advanced across the field.

  THE CRASH OF the airplane on the mountain seemed so awful I wondered if I’d imagined it. Seeing it happen and trying to help the pilot and then being ordered away by the soldiers like we was criminals left me confused and more worried about Troy working on airplanes. We read in the paper the next day it was a training plane from the air base down below Greenville. When it got in trouble the pilot radioed for help, and all the men on board jumped out except him. It just happened that an army unit on a training patrol was nearby and got to the crash in less than half an hour. That was who had ordered us away. I had bad dreams about the awful cough of the engines we heard, and the blood on the pilot’s chest, and the sound of the airplane crashing into the trees. It seemed the war had been brought right to the ridge behind our house, and there was no safe place anywhere.

  MAMA GOT LETTERS from Troy in Sarasota and Sharon got letters from him also. He talked about working all day on the big B-17 motors, memorizing all the parts so he could take one apart and put it all back together in the dark. He talked about going to the beach and swimming in the ocean, and he asked about Old Pat. He said he was going to be posted overseas, but before that he was going to be sent to the factory in Massachusetts where they made the engines he was working on. And before he went to Massachusetts he’d come home on a furlough for a week. He’d be home for the Fourth of July. He didn’t mention anything about marrying Sharon before he went overseas.

  When Troy come home me and Papa met him at the bus station in town. Papa and Muir had come home from Holly Ridge for the holiday. Troy looked leaner than before, like he’d been working awful hard. And he looked older too. He told us that when he went overseas he’d be sent to England with the Eighth Air Force. He said the Air Corps was now called the Army Air Force.

  “What will you do in England?” I said.

  “Work on airplanes,” he said, and laughed.

  We’d read in the paper about bombing planes lost in Europe. But, like Troy said, he’d not be flying in them, only working on them. Sharon was already at the house when we got there. Her daddy had brought her and left her for the weekend. She’d brought her overnight bag. The engagement ring flashed on her finger. When Troy hugged her I seen there was tears on her cheeks.

  Old Pat come running from up in the orchard and Troy noticed at once the right front paw was a little crooked. “What happened to her foot?” he said.

  “She got caught in a fox trap over on the Squirrel Hill,” I said. “But it’s all healed up long ago.” Velmer had seen a red fox on the hill and set a trap in the trail to catch it. When Old Pat stepped in it it broke some of the bones in her right front paw, but they’d healed up pretty quick.

  Now we usually didn’t do much to celebrate the Fourth of July, maybe because we was too busy working in the fields then. They celebrated in town with speeches and band music and fireworks, a parade down Main Street, and flags and banners all over the place. But out in the country there was never much notice, unless you heard somebody fire off a shotgun. But this year it was different, maybe because we was at war. All up and down the valley people had hung flags from their porches and second-story windows and even from their barns. You never seen such an outpouring of patriotic feeling. And there was supposed to be a parade at the cotton mill, with speeches and a picnic.

  For some reason firecrackers was always something that local boys had shot off at Christmas. From midnight on Christmas Eve until late Christmas Day, the ri
ver valley would shake and boom and crackle with all kinds of firecrackers. Shotguns would be fired on Christmas morning and sometimes somebody would even light a stick of dynamite.

  Just after the war had started before last Christmas, Velmer had bought up all the firecrackers he could find. He said that because of the war, gunpowder wouldn’t be available until the war was over. All the gunpowder would go to the armed services. So he’d bought boxes of cherry bombs and six-inch firecrackers and big silver firecrackers called TNTs, and saved them in the attic where they would stay dry.

  “Because Troy is home, we’ll shoot them all on the Fourth,” Velmer said.

  “You better save some for Christmas,” Muir said. “You won’t be able to get any more.”

  “We’ll celebrate the Fourth while Troy’s at home,” Velmer said. Velmer had his barber license and would be cutting hair at the army base in Columbia, South Carolina.

  Velmer said the time to start fireworks was just at dark. Then you could see the flash of the explosion best. He’d wait until after supper and then light all the big firecrackers in the field across the road.

  Troy said we’d go for a canoe ride after dinner, so me and Sharon and Muir helped him carry the canoe down to the river. It was a hot day and we took our bathing suits to go swimming. Old Pat was excited to see us get our suits. She run along beside us on the road, kicking up little puffs of dust with her paws. By the time we reached the sandbar and put the canoe down we was all covered with sweat.

  “Let’s go swimming and cool off,” Muir said.

  Old Pat jumped into the water ahead of us and splashed Troy, and he splashed her back. And then he splashed water on Sharon and me. Muir joined in and soon we was splashing water on each other. The air was filled with spray that made rainbows in the sunlight. We got to laughing with our hair soaked and our faces wet.

  “Oh my God,” Sharon screamed.

  “What is it?” Troy said.

  “It’s gone,” she said, and held up her left hand. “My ring is gone.”

  “That can’t be,” I said.