Lord of the Mountain

by Ronald Kidd

  Sara laughed. “He’s a guest, not a monkey in the zoo.”

  Gladys sat down across from me. Joe climbed up on Sue Dean’s lap, alongside the little, dark-haired girl.

  “I’m Janette,” said the girl. “I wish Mama had let me come to Bristol. I want to see how they make records.”

  “It’s like magic,” Gladys told her.

  “It’s science,” I said. The word sounded good, like an old companion. “There’s a microphone, an amplifier, and a lathe. The lathe cuts a groove. That’s where the music is.”

  I heard the screen door slam in the front room, and a man’s voice called out, “Where’s my dinner?”

  Sara, stirring a pot on the stove, chuckled and glanced over at me. “I should have warned you, you’re not the only guest.”

  The kitchen door swung open, and a man in uniform strode in. He had a funny way of walking, with his hands held out by his hips. He wore blue pants, a neatly pressed shirt and tie, and a matching coat with a double row of buttons. On his head was a hat with a shiny black visor, and a badge was pinned to his lapel. For a minute, I wondered if he was the sheriff, come to arrest me.

  He took off the hat, revealing hair that sat in waves above a strong, handsome face. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place what it was. When he saw me, he stopped short.

  “Who’s this?” he asked Sara.

  “Nate Owens. He helped us in Bristol.”

  With the word Bristol, I figured it out.

  “Virgie Hobbs,” I told Sara, “that relative you stayed with in town. He looks just like her.”

  “Correction,” said the man. “She looks just like me.”

  Sara grinned. “This is A.P.’s younger brother Ezra. We call him Eck. He and Virgie are twins. She’s older by a few minutes.”

  “Yeah,” said Eck, “she popped out first to tell everyone I was coming.”

  I stood up and offered my hand. He hesitated for the barest minute, and I thought of his fine uniform next to my tattered clothes. Then he smiled and shook my hand.

  “Glad to meet you. Thanks for helping my brother. Lord knows he can use it.”

  I thought of the gangly, awkward man who had sung with Sara and Maybelle and seemed like he was filled with music.

  “Is he going to be here?” I asked.

  Eck looked out the window at the autumn colors. “A.P.? He’s like those leaves. Will they fall? Yes. Do we know where or when? Not likely.”

  He sat down in a chair next to me, and I studied his uniform. “Are you in the army?”

  “Sure,” he said with a wink. “The postal army.”

  He took the badge from his lapel and plopped it into my hand. It was polished silver, with an eagle perched on top. In the middle was a big US, and around the edges were the words Post Office Department—Railway Mail Service.

  Gladys piped up. “Uncle Eck rides the trains. He sorts mail for the whole area.”

  “I’ve been blessed,” said Eck. “I’m lucky to have work in tough times. We all are.” He glanced in my direction and caught himself. “You’d be happy to work too. I know you would.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Uncle Eck’s an important man,” Gladys said.

  “In his mind,” said Sara.

  Eck shook his head and smirked. “No respect.”

  I thought of the odd way he moved, with his hands held out by his hips, and figured it must have been from walking on the train, steadying himself on the seat backs.

  Watching him, I searched my memory. “They told us about you. It was your car they were driving. You’re Maybelle’s husband.”

  “I like this kid,” Eck said. “He knows all the important stuff.”

  The kitchen door swung open again and Maybelle entered carrying a basket full of shucked corn in one arm and a baby in the other. The last time I’d seen Maybelle, she’d had a big belly and no children. Obviously the baby had been born after they got home from Bristol.

  “I guess you know Maybelle,” Eck told me. “And that’s little Helen.”

  He took Helen from Maybelle and leaned down close to her. “Come on, sweetheart. Give your daddy some sugar.”

  Helen kissed him, and he handed her to Sue Dean. Maybelle gave the basket to Sara, who put the corn into a big pot of boiling water.

  Maybelle turned to me. “Nate, isn’t it? Good to see you again. What are you doing here?”

  “Eating, if we ever give him a chance,” said Sara.

  It turned out that Eck had a midday break between mail runs. He said he had stopped by to get reacquainted with his family, but it seemed to me he might have come for the corn. When Sara boiled it and brought it to the table, along with the rest of the food, he finished off three ears before saying another word. Then he said lots of them.

  Eck filled me in on family history, which with the Carters seemed as important as the food on the table. Eck, A.P., Virgie, and their five brothers and sisters had grown up in a little cabin in Poor Valley, raising tobacco and hogs. Sara and her cousin Maybelle came from the other side of Clinch Mountain, the high ridge behind Neal’s, in a place called Copper Creek. Cousins married brothers, making a tangled-up family where a girl like Gladys turned out to be her own cousin.

  “Now, I’ll tell you about A.P.,” Eck said. “He’s not here, so it’s a perfect chance. Besides, I’m his brother, so I’m allowed. His name’s Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter, but we call him Pleasant or Doc. He’s odd, you know—but in a good way. They say when Mama was pregnant with him, she stood under an apple tree in a thunderstorm and the tree was struck by lightning. Yessir, zap! When he popped out a few months later, he shook.”

  “Shook?” I asked.

  “You know, trembled. His hands, his voice—kids used to tease him something awful. He didn’t care though. Doc was in his own world, dreaming about music. He used to walk the railroad tracks, hands behind his back, just thinking and humming. Still does. Craziest thing. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been squashed like a bug.

  “Doc, well, he’s what folks around here call ‘wifty’—you know, strung a little tight. Besides being odd, he’s stubborn and has a temper. He picked up a fiddle when he was little, and first thing you know, he played a song, ‘Johnny Get Your Hair Cut Short.’ Pretty soon he was singing—at church, in the parlor, on the railroad tracks. Beautiful voice, everybody knows it. Now the world knows it. They’ve sold thousands of records. Ain’t that something?”

  After dinner, the kids scrambled down from the table and played games on the floor with Sue Dean. Maybelle got her guitar, Sara set out some blackberry cobbler, and we had the finest time eating and listening to music.

  Around about the second piece of cobbler and the third tune, I heard the sound of a car engine. Gladys jumped up and ran to the window.

  “It’s Daddy!” she said.

  I came up beside her and looked out. A red Chevrolet was parked in front, and the unmistakable form of A. P. Carter stood beside it. Next to him, just as cool as could be, was a young Negro man.

  CHAPTER 33

  Gladys ran out the door with Janette and Joe behind her. Sara and Sue Dean went with them, and so did I. When Joe got to the car, he threw himself at A.P.’s leg and hugged it.

  “Hello, sweet boy,” said A.P. in that deep, quivery voice. He looked over at me and cocked his head, like he was thinking.

  Sara said, “Doc, you remember Nate Owens? You met him in Bristol.”

  “Well, ain’t that something,” said A.P., smiling vaguely.

  The young Negro man reached into the car and picked up a crutch. When he turned around, I saw why. His right leg was missing from the knee down.

  He smiled at me. “Lost that leg in a cement factory. Been looking for it ever since.”

  His face was the color of Mama’s coffee when she put cream in it. He had a thin mustache and the hint of a beard on his chin. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he looked friendly.

  “I’m Lesley Riddle,” he said. “Folks
call me Esley.”

  Little Joe tugged on A.P.’s trousers. Gladys said, “Daddy, there’s food.”

  A.P. took Joe’s hand, and they headed for the house. Sara, Sue Dean, and the girls went along, telling him the latest news. Esley and I followed.

  Inside, Sara dished up some dinner for A.P. and Esley. The girls gathered around A.P., talking excitedly. Esley took his plate and joined me on the couch. In between bites, he looked up at me.

  “You were in Bristol? Did you see Doc and them make the records?”

  I nodded. “I even learned how the recording machines worked.”

  Esley said, “You like machines?”

  “Sure do.”

  “We got a machine,” said Esley, breaking off a piece of cornbread. He nodded toward the window. “That car of A.P.’s.”

  “I used to work on cars,” I told him.

  Esley studied me, surprised. “You did? You think you could fix ours? Doc and me, we do better with music than cars.”

  I looked out the window at the Chevrolet. It might be dirty, but it was the latest model. “What’s the problem?”

  “Doc bought it with some of their record money. I swear, something’s always going wrong.” Esley shook his head. “Maybe it was that boiler.”

  “What boiler?”

  “Well, you see, Doc was hunting songs in North Carolina when he found a sawmill boiler for sale. Rock-bottom price. Couldn’t pass it up. So he bought the boiler, chained it to the bumper, and dragged it home. Two hundred miles, across mountains and dirt roads.”

  “With the Chevrolet?”

  Esley nodded. “Brand-new, or at least it was. Then there was the hog.”

  “Hog?”

  “Doc’s sow had a date with a stud hog—you know, to make pigs. Problem was, he didn’t have a way to get her there. So he pulled up the Chevrolet, took out the back seat, and shoved in the sow.”

  I tried to imagine A.P. wrestling the sow, but I just couldn’t do it. I asked Esley, “You said the car needs to be fixed. What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll show you,” he said.

  Esley finished eating, then set the plate by the sink and took me out to the car. Using the crutch like part of his body, he hobbled to the driver’s side, sat behind the wheel, and started the engine.

  “Sounds smooth, right?” he said. “But when you move, it bucks like a bronco. Get in—you’ll see.”

  I climbed in front, and he took me for a ride. It was amazing to watch him drive. He did everything with his left foot—gas, clutch, brake. There was something graceful about it, like a dance. But there was nothing graceful in how the car drove. As we sped up, there was a pinging sound, then a vibration. Then, sure enough, it started bucking.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “That’s not the engine,” I told him. “It’s the drive train. I’ll take a look at it.”

  Esley headed back inside, while I found the owner’s manual under the front seat and started reading. A.P.’s Chevrolet was different from the Packard, but not that much.

  As I finished reading, Eck came out the front door of the house, putting on his postman’s hat. “Got a mail run,” he told me. “My train’s coming through pretty soon.”

  “You know where I can find some tools?” I asked.

  “Are you going to fix the car?”

  “I’ll try.”

  He nodded toward a shed behind the house. “There’s a few in there,” he said. “I use them myself sometimes. Lord knows they can’t be Doc’s. Maybe the last folks left them behind.”

  He took me to the shed, where I found a jack and some wrenches.

  “Can I help?” he asked. “I have a few minutes yet.”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to working by myself. Besides, you don’t want to get your uniform dirty.”

  Eck watched while I jacked up the car and crawled underneath. After poking around a while, I found the problem.

  “A bad U-joint,” I told him. “It’s simple to fix, but I’ll need a part.”

  “I’m in Roanoke this afternoon. Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it. Then, when I come back tomorrow, you can do the repair.”

  He gave me a pen. I took the owner’s manual from the car, circled the part, then handed him the pen and manual.

  “Much obliged,” I said.

  “How old did you say you were?”

  I managed a smile. It felt funny, like I was out of practice.

  “I didn’t,” I said, “but I’m fourteen.”

  “How did you learn this stuff?”

  I shrugged. “I like science. And I worked for a while as a mechanic.”

  Eck nodded, then folded up the owner’s manual and stuck it in his coat pocket. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  CHAPTER 34

  Maybelle and Helen went home after dinner. Sue Dean put Joe down for a nap, then she and Sara took the girls off to do some chores. A.P. and Esley stayed behind, so they could work on the blackberry cobbler.

  Gladys looked back at me as she left the room. She told Sue Dean, “We have a guest. Shouldn’t we stay and visit?”

  “We have two guests,” said Sue Dean, glancing at Lesley Riddle.

  Gladys giggled. “That’s not a guest. That’s Esley.”

  After they left, I moved to the table for cobbler and another glass of buttermilk, which Esley got for me. The buttermilk was cold and thick, so good it seemed sinful.

  “I’ve heard your records,” I told A.P. “You sell lots of them.”

  A smile played across his face, but it wasn’t aimed at me. It was his, from some private place inside of him.

  “Yes, sir,” he warbled.

  “Must be great,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Life’s not so different from before. But now we have some nice things, like the house.”

  “And the car, if you can fix it,” added Esley.

  A.P. went on, “Main thing is, now I don’t have to work at the sawmill or sell fruit trees. I can do my music.”

  “You mean concerts? Records?”

  “More than that,” said A.P. “That’s the giving. I’m talking about the getting.”

  Sometimes A.P. spoke in code. He’d done it a few times in Bristol. It was like he had a language of his own inside his head.

  “What’s the getting?” I asked.

  Esley grinned. “That’s where I come in.”

  “He helps me remember,” said A.P.

  I looked at Esley, confused.

  Esley laughed. “You don’t know what he’s talking about, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  Esley said, “You were in Bristol. You know why the Carters went there.”

  “To make records?”

  “Well, sure,” he said. “But why?”

  I tried to figure it out. Finally I shrugged.

  “Mr. Peer pays fifty dollars a song,” said Esley. “It’s why all those people came. A.P. wants more songs and knows where to get them.”

  “In the hollers,” A.P. grunted.

  The hollers were what local people called the hidden valleys or hollow places between mountain ridges.

  A.P. leaned forward over the cobbler. His shirt brushed the blackberries and got a smudge, but he didn’t care. His eyes were bright, and the vague expression was gone.

  “The people hold on to their songs—the old songs, the ones they brought across the ocean years ago,” he said with feeling. “They keep them and sing them and pass them down, generation to generation.”

  I recalled the jungle in Gate City, where hoboes sat around the fire, singing the one thing they still had.

  “If you ask people, they’ll play their songs for you,” A.P. said.

  “You collect them?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the people don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” he said. “They’re thrilled to death. The Carter family wants their songs!”

  “Anyway, he doesn’t just take the songs,” said Esley. “He changes ’
em. He tucks ’em in here, let’s ’em out there, adds a chorus or verse. He makes harmonies. By the time he’s done, the songs are the same but different. They’ve been Carterized.”

  “Where do you come in?” I asked.

  Esley smiled. “Like he said, I help him remember. You know how parrots repeat whatever you say? Well, I do that with songs.”

  “It’s a fact,” said A.P. “He remembers tunes. Knows hundreds of them, maybe thousands. See, when I started in the hollers, I wrote down the words but forgot the notes. Then I met Esley here. Notes were his specialty. Now I write down the words and he learns the melodies.”

  A.P. lurched to his feet, knocking the table back and tipping over the chair. He reached into his pockets, pulled out handfuls of paper scraps, and spilled them onto the table like confetti.

  “See those?” he said. “Every one is a song. I tear off paper from notepads, envelopes, telephone books. I write down the words, but the music is in here.” He reached out and tapped the side of Esley’s head.

  Esley didn’t seem to mind. He just smiled.

  Esley carried songs around in his head. I knew what that felt like. I thought of my song, the one I’d heard in the night, the one Mama had sung. I wondered if Esley knew it.

  ***

  I stayed for supper, and when it got dark, A.P. headed for bed. Sue Dean went to tuck in the girls.

  Sara cleaned up the kitchen, then turned to me. “You’ll spend the night?”

  “You’ve been so nice,” I said. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Course we do. Anyway, you need to be here tomorrow when the part comes in. You help us; we help you. That’s the way it works.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  After she left, Esley took his guitar from its beat-up case and started strumming. At first, I thought he might wake up the family. Then I realized that at the Carters’ house, the sound of a guitar must be as natural as the breeze.

  The tunes poured out of him—happy, sad, angry, lonesome. I closed my eyes and listened. In the darkness behind my eyes, a melody formed, as it always did. The words followed, and when Esley stopped, I sang them. He listened intently, then played along on his guitar. It was Mama’s song.