Way Down Deep

by Ruth White

  The porch was as long as the house, and wide, certainly roomy enough for seven children to bed down on a hot night. So this was where it had happened, Ruby thought. Then why did none of this look familiar to her? Why did she get no feeling, no sense of having been here before?

  Uncle Chris stepped up onto the porch and opened the door for Ruby. She went inside. The main room was a kitchen and living room—dark, lifeless, colorless, bare. Ruby set her suitcase down on the floor as her uncle went into a room that appeared to be a bedroom.

  “Did you bring the girl?” someone said.

  Uncle Chris motioned Ruby to come into the room. Lying in the bed, with a ratty sheet tucked under her chin, was a rather large-boned unkempt woman with wiry gray hair. A few wrinkles lined her eyes and mouth, but she did not seem as ancient as Ruby had imagined.

  Standing before her grandmother, Ruby was slightly ashamed that she felt no affection for the woman in the bed, and hoped she would not be asked to kiss her cheek. She was not.

  The pale blue eyes studied Ruby for a long moment before the old woman spoke.

  “You can thank your Grandpa Combs for the hair. You favor him, just like your mama did.”

  Ruby did not know what to say.

  “Can you cook?” the old woman asked.

  Ruby nodded, thinking what a strange question it was to be asking a grandchild you had not seen in ten years.

  “Who learned you to cook?”

  “I learned by helping Miss Arbutus,” Ruby said, not knowing whether she should explain who Miss Arbutus was. How much would Uncle Chris have told his mother?

  “The boardinghouse woman.” Uncle Chris spoke up.

  Grandma Combs didn’t even glance at him. She kept her attention on Ruby.

  “Jolene, you sound like your mama, and you look like her, too.”

  “I prefer to be called Ruby Jo,” Ruby said.

  The old lady glared at her.

  “I mean if it’s okay with you,” Ruby added.

  Uncle Chris cleared his throat nervously and said, “Well, I gotta be going. Y’all get acquainted, and I’ll come back tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

  Grandma Combs turned to him then and roared, “Liar! You won’t come back until delivery day!”

  Ruby was alarmed. When was delivery day? It sounded about as far off as Judgment Day.

  “Oh, n-no,” he stammered. “I’ll be b-back tomorrow to see if Rub—Jolene needs anything. Then I’ll bring up your groceries and mail as usual on Saturday.”

  “Huh!” Grandma Combs snorted.

  But Uncle Chris was gone.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, Jolene!” Ruby’s grandma barked at her. “Pull up a chair and tell me about yourself.”

  Ruby glanced around. There were two straight-back kitchen chairs against the wall. She pulled one of them to her grandma’s bedside and sat down.

  “Well, I—” Ruby began.

  “Did they tell you I’m a sick woman?” her grandma interrupted.

  “Yes. What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? I’m sick! That’s what’s wrong with me.”

  “I know, but I mean sick with what? Do you have a heart condition or a disease . . . or something?”

  “I’m sick of living, that’s what!” the old woman declared. “I’m old! I’m old and sick of living.”

  “You don’t look old. Your hair is gray, but your face is not wrinkled up too bad.”

  “Is that right? Well, I wouldn’t know. I ain’t seen a looking glass since your mama broke it the year she was fourteen!”

  “How old are you, anyhow?” Ruby asked.

  Her grandma glared at her again.

  Ruby stared at her hands and muttered, “Sorry.”

  “I don’t rightly know how old I am,” Grandma Combs said. “I’ve lost track of time. I know I was born in 1894. Can you cipher?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ruby did a quick mental calculation. “You’re only sixty years old, Grandma.”

  Her grandma seemed surprised. “Are you sure? You did that awful fast. What year is it?”

  “It’s 1954. Don’t you have a calendar?”

  “What for? One year’s like another up here on the mountain.”

  “Do you know when my birthday is?”

  “Yeah, it’s the same as mine, October 2.”

  Ruby felt a small thrill. She had a real birthday.

  “So what year was I born?” she asked.

  “Nineteen forty-one,” her grandma said. “And that makes you how old?”

  “I’ll be thirteen,” Ruby said. “It’s nice that we have the same birthday.”

  “When your mama told me that you were my birthday present the year you were born, I told her not to give me no more presents, thank you very much. Last thing in the world she needed was a baby. And then I’m the one left holding the bag when . . . she . . .”

  Grandma Combs didn’t finish her sentence, but lay staring into one corner of the room, as if she saw ghostly memories lurking there in the shadows.

  “Jolene, how did you get to West Virginia?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  Ruby was insulted. “I don’t lie,” she said.

  “Huh!” her grandma snorted. “I never saw a Combs that didn’t lie.”

  “I don’t remember anything. If I did, I would tell you.”

  “It’s had me puzzled these ten years,” Grandma said. “We woke up that morning and found you gone, and all the young’uns said they didn’t hear or see a thing in the night. Folks on the other side of the mountain said they heard a panther screaming in the dark, but we didn’t hear it over here.”

  “I’m just as puzzled as you are,” Ruby said.

  “And then you turn up ten years later sixty miles away.”

  “Maybe the panther took me to West Virginia,” Ruby said, trying to get a smile out of her grandma.

  But Grandma turned her head away from Ruby and closed her eyes. Ruby sat perfectly still for what seemed like a long time. She didn’t dare breathe, because she hoped Grandma had gone to sleep. But no such luck. The woman opened her eyes.

  “Go on, fix us a bite to eat!”

  Ruby said, “Beg your pardon?” because Miss Arbutus had taught her not to say “Huh?”

  But Grandma mocked her attempt at politeness. “Beg your pardon! Beg your pardon!” she parroted.

  Ruby was stunned. Never before had a grownup person made fun of her like this.

  “I don’t like such proud talking!” Grandma hissed. “Now go fix me something to eat!”

  Without another word, Ruby got up and went into the main room. She pushed her suitcase against the wall, then peeped into one of the kitchen cabinets. The first shelf held cans of vegetables, and above it were macaroni, cornmeal, oatmeal, and brown sugar.

  She entered a small room behind the kitchen, which served as a combination pantry and laundry room. There she found a couple of salt-cured hams hanging from nails, also potatoes, onions, apples, and more.

  Ruby almost missed the door that apparently led to the outside from this small room. On finding it, she eased it open and looked out onto a back porch where the woods had encroached. Vines curled around the railing, and weeds pushed their way up through the cracks between the floor slats. She glanced into the darkness of the forest, closed the door quickly, and latched it.

  She would start with the cornmeal, mix it with eggs and milk, and have corn bread. Then she would slice some ham and fry it with potatoes and onions. Add to that spring lettuce and baby cucumbers, and her first meal for Grandma was soon in progress.

  23

  WHEN SUPPER WAS READY ALMOST AN HOUR LATER, RUBY tiptoed to the bedroom door and timidly called, “It’s on the table, Grandma.”

  “It’s not doing me any good on the table, now, is it? Bring it to me, child! Bring it in here.”

  Again Ruby was astonished. So s
he was expected to serve her grandma in bed? But Miss Arbutus had taught Ruby to obey her elders, so she filled up a plate and carried it to the bedroom.

  “Do you want a glass of water to drink?” she asked. “Or some milk?”

  “Ain’t there a bottle of pop somewhere?” Grandma said, sitting up on the side of the bed and pulling a small table close to her.

  Ruby set the plate down and returned to the kitchen for pop. When she brought it back, Grandma was eating heartily. It seemed her illness had not spoiled her appetite. She didn’t look up from her plate, or speak, so Ruby went into the kitchen to feed herself.

  The sun was going down as she sat at the small wooden table beside the kitchen window. She looked out at the mountaintop stretching away toward the sky. How peculiar it seemed to be here, high above the hollers and streams with the sky right on top of you. It was a pretty place, but so far away from everybody. So isolated it felt like the jumping-off place at the edge of the world.

  She couldn’t help thinking it was the first time in her life that she had eaten a meal all by herself. What were they eating for supper at The Roost? What was the topic of conversation? Probably poor Ruby June. She had no appetite for the food, but she sighed and forced herself to eat. It was for sure she was going to need her strength.

  After cleaning up the kitchen, she went back into her grandma’s bedroom. “Where should I sleep?”

  “Anywhere you want. There’s two doors in there off the living room. One’s the bathroom, and one’s a bedroom. You can move in there—that is, if it’s good enough for you after living in that highfalutin boardinghouse!”

  Ruby didn’t respond. She was relieved to know there was a bathroom. She had heard stories of people living in the hills who had nothing but outdoor toilets.

  “There’s two more bedrooms upstairs,” Grandma added. “But it’s hot up there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize there were two floors,” Ruby said. “You can’t tell from the outside.”

  “It’s just the attic,” Grandma explained. “When your mama was born, your grandpa made two bedrooms out of it. The eaves are low, but I reckon it’ll do for a short person.”

  “How do you get up there?” Ruby asked.

  “A trapdoor in the ceiling of the pantry.”

  Ruby pulled her suitcase into the downstairs bedroom, and turned on the lamp beside the bed. It was a small room, but cozy. The bedspread was ruffled and pink, with curtains to match.

  Though all the other walls in the house were bare, somebody had used wallpaper samples to decorate this room, and the effect was strangely sweet. There were flowers here and ribbons there, horses and dogs in open fields, and willow trees beside still waters, also brightly colored parasols flying into an endless blue sky.

  Ruby was unpacking and placing her belongings in a bureau beside the window when she was startled by urgent yelling from her grandma.

  “Jolene! Jolene! Come here!”

  Ruby rushed to her grandma’s side.

  “What is it?” she inquired breathlessly as she entered the room.

  “Open that window for me!” Grandma commanded.

  Ruby felt a twinge of irritation. “I thought something was wrong,” she said.

  “There is something wrong! I’m hot. It’s stuffy in here. It’s the first night of summer, you know!”

  Of course she knew it was the first night of summer. “How do you know that without a calendar?” she asked her grandma as she opened the window.

  “By the moon! That’s how! I may not keep up with the years, but I can read the moon’s phases and count days. I’m not stupid!”

  Ruby hesitated before going back to her room. Did her grandma remember that it had happened on the first night of summer? But no, she decided, she would not bring up the subject again.

  She went to her room and sat down on the bed. How strange it was to be returning to this place ten years to the day after disappearing from it! She thought of the dark woods taking over the back porch, and shivered. Suppose . . . just suppose that whatever occurred on that fateful night repeated itself tonight?

  The bathroom was much smaller than the one she had shared with Miss Arbutus at The Roost. And it did not have those special touches, like candles and sweet-smelling soap. It was, in fact, dirty, and Ruby wondered how long her grandma had been sick to let the place go like this.

  She took a hasty bath and returned to her room, put on her thin summer nightgown, and turned down the sheets. They did not smell fresh like the ones at The Roost. Probably nobody had used this room for a long time. But never mind, she would wash the sheets tomorrow.

  She placed her stationery on the nightstand and climbed into the small bed. She wrote a letter to Miss Arbutus before turning out her lamp.

  Deep in the night she was dreaming of being a little girl again and playing May I? in the school yard.

  “Take a giant step off the mountaintop!”

  “May I?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  As Ruby was stepping off the edge of the world, she woke up with a start. She could not see a speck of light anywhere. She could hear Grandma Combs snoring and the cries of various night creatures, but nothing more.

  She settled back into her pillow and thought of the moment she had said goodbye to Miss Arbutus.

  “See you soon!” Ruby had called with more cheeriness than she felt.

  Then she had climbed into Uncle Chris’s car to begin her journey, and Miss Arbutus had gone quickly into the house.

  She had been aware of Peter, Cedar, Bird, and Rita standing on the sidewalk watching her leave, but she pretended not to see them. Then Peter had walked up to the open car window, and she could not avoid him.

  “Bird is awful glad you were not eaten by a panther,” he said. “And so am I.”

  Ruby forced herself to smile. “See you on Kids’ Day, Peter, if not before. Bye for now!” And she had deliberately turned away from him to speak to Uncle Chris. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “That’s the Reeder family, right?” Uncle Chris inquired.

  Ruby nodded.

  “The old man used to come around to plow for us. I think I know Bob, too, but I’ve not seen the kids before. Good-looking young’uns, ain’t they?”

  Ruby had not responded.

  “They lived on the other side of the mountain from us, so we didn’t see much of them.”

  Now, all alone in her little room on the mountain, Ruby recalled the way Peter had spoken so sweetly to her, how nice his hair had looked after a good cut at Mr. Bevins’s barbershop, how Cedar had scowled at her.

  She smiled to herself, thinking he was probably doing some classic cussing in his head.

  And poor little Rita had simply stood there twisting her dirty dress tail into a wad.

  Ruby drifted into troubled dreams again. Beyond the back porch she was struggling through the woods. Dark and deep and tangled woods, with gnarled trees. And full of eyes. Green eyes. But she could not hesitate, for she was following a sound. She had to find it. Had to. It was far and then near. Loud and then faint. It was a small child weeping as if her heart would break.

  “Mommie! Mommie!”

  24

  JOLENE! JOLENE! GET UP!”

  It was Goldie Combs pounding on Ruby’s door, wrenching her from a deep sleep very early next morning. She leapt from bed and flung open the door.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  The large woman stood there in a nightgown, pushing uncombed hair from her face.

  “I’m hungry,” she said peevishly. “I want biscuits for breakfast.”

  Ruby was afraid she could not hide her irritation, so she stumbled past the woman quickly and went to the bathroom to wash the sleep from her face.

  Thus began her second day on the mountain. While Ruby was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast, her grandma came in with a towel and said she felt well enough to take a bath this morning. Ruby was glad to hear it.

  Ruby waited until her grandma was fi
nished bathing before she gathered all the dirty laundry. The washing machine was the wringer type very much like the one Miss Arbutus used. Ruby started a load of linens, then went out to feed the chickens from a bag of dried corn. She was scrubbing the crud from the bathroom when the old woman yelled again.

  “Jolene! Come here! Jolene!”

  Ruby groaned and bit her lip, but this time she walked calmly to her grandma’s room.

  At that very moment in Way Down Deep, old Mrs. Rife was walking into the laundry room at The Roost. Miss Arbutus was deep in thought as she pushed her own linens through the wringer, and was startled to hear a voice behind her.

  “I called her a mangy stray one time.”

  Miss Arbutus turned to face Mrs. Rife. She nodded at her and stood waiting for her to say more.

  “The girl,” Mrs. Rife explained. “Ruby June. I called her a mangy stray and I threw rocks at her.”

  Still Miss Arbutus said nothing.

  “So I came by to say I’m sorry.”

  Miss Arbutus gave her a slight smile.

  “I’m sorry and I won’t do it again. I promised God. I made a deal with him. I promised him I would not throw rocks at anybody ever again, if he would let Ruby June come back to us.”

  At that, Miss Arbutus walked to the old woman and placed a hand on her arm. Then they had a cup of tea together.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been a bad girl, but I can’t seem to help myself.” Mrs. Rife tried to explain her behavior as she sipped her tea. “I throw rocks at all the boys and girls—tall ones and short ones, black and white, skinny and fat, clever and stupid . . .” She paused and took a breath. “So you’ll have to admit I haven’t been a bit prejudiced. I hate them all equally.”

  Together she and Miss Arbutus had a good laugh, following the philosophy that laughter is the best medicine.

  Later in the afternoon, Miss Arbutus did an unusual thing—not as unusual as traveling all the way to another state to appear before a judge—but unusual enough to cause curious neighbors to pull aside their curtains and watch her.

  She walked to the house where the Reeders lived, and knocked on the frame of the screen door. Peter answered the knock.

  “Oh, hey, Miss Arbutus. Come in!” he said, obviously surprised to see her.