Hid Wounded Reb

by J. L. Salter

  Mitch nodded. “It’s a good argument, counselor, but I’m not convinced. Running to something shouldn’t cause nearly as much fear as Ginny obviously feels.”

  “Okay, that aside for a second. The other thing, which I tried to tell you before but it came out all wrong.” Kelly briefly thought back to the afternoon when Ginny arrived. “Well, I’ve mentioned parts of this — some of the things I went through when I was younger.”

  Mitch turned away briefly. Kelly realized it caused him pain even to think of her numerous traumatic experiences.

  “I can remember times in my life when I needed a place to go, somewhere to stay, somebody to watch over me for a short while.” Kelly’s words came out slowly. “I even remember a time when I got turned away.” Her eyes became moist. “I just didn’t want it to happen to Ginny, or to anybody else if I could do anything about it. I guess I’m trying to say I couldn’t turn her away. It’s not that I didn’t want to, or had time to think it through. I couldn’t. I remember what it felt like and I couldn’t do that to Ginny.”

  Mitch scooted his chair closer and placed his large hand on her knee. Not a sensual touch, it imparted comfort. He gazed into her face, his own eyes moist. “Okay.”

  His single word conveyed a lot more to Kelly. It also said, I don’t completely agree, but I have no basis to object. It implied, I’ll back you up, regardless. It said, I love you so much, I won’t fight you about this even though I’m terrified that you’re in danger. His single word revealed all those things and more. It made Kelly love Mitch even more than she’d already acknowledged.

  She put her cup on the porch rail and stood next to his chair, so close her vertical legs touched his horizontal thighs.

  He slid forward and held her at the waist with both large hands. His long fingers were spread, allowing the tips of his thumbs to touch the sides of her lower bosom. Delicious goose bumps rose where he touched. Kelly anticipated many other spots where goose bumps would be relished. She saw the desire in his eyes. She wanted this as badly as he obviously did. But she couldn’t. Without breaking their locked eyes, Kelly’s head moved slowly side-to-side.

  Mitch surely wanted to ask why, but he certainly already knew her answer. He swallowed with apparent difficulty.

  Kelly grasped his hands at her sides, pulled them up toward her face, turned his palms up, and lightly kissed the insides of each wrist. Nearly imperceptibly, Mitch shuddered. Then he reached his long arms around her and hugged Kelly so closely she could barely breathe. She could hear his heart pounding.

  She despised her considered decision to wait. She detested having to restrain Mitch’s urges and her own. She resented all those warnings in her mind which instructed her to disregard heart and passion. Partly, she hated herself for becoming so screwed up by the awful marriage to that sicko Rob.

  Right now, Kelly wanted to lead Mitch slowly through his doorway, past his other rooms, and toward his rented bed. She wanted him and needed him and felt overwhelmingly weak to continue her determined front of discipline.

  Mitch must have known how close she was to giving in. He tipped her chin upwards and lightly kissed her lips. “You’d better go, Kelly, before…” His voice was husky.

  When she nodded, tears shook loose from her eyes. Kelly pulled away and turned. Her left hand still touched the fingertips of Mitch’s right hand as she took the first step off his porch.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Saturday, May 26

  Kelly was excited about the big day. Pop had finally gotten everything lined up for his massive sinkhole project to clear out the debris, search for old Jonathan Butler’s headstone, see if Aunt Belva hid anything down there, and fill it up with dirt and gravel. For early summer it was still relatively cool on many nights, but high seventies in the early mornings, low eighties by late mornings, and either side of ninety degrees on most afternoons. Pretty hot when you’re working hard.

  Ellie Graye had arrived with Pop and was quietly surveying what she characterized as a “Bless George Meh-uss.” Both Wade and Mitch had grumbled about Pop’s early start time, but neither backed out. Surprisingly, Ginny insisted on coming along — despite that, except for a few hours at the Sutton’s farm house, the girl had scarcely left the cabin since her Monday arrival.

  Pop had mentioned his nephew Roger would be there, though he didn’t say why. So far, six people were aware of Ginny’s presence in Somerset: Kelly, Mitch, Pop, Ellie, and the Suttons. At the sinkhole, Wade would be number seven and Roger would make eight.

  Kelly quietly asked Pop if Roger could be trusted with an important secret. Secrets… a familiar theme. Kelly had no complaints concerning her nearly four hours in Roger’s company, but those had been under very unusual circumstances. She just didn’t know him outside of the cave. Pop merely said he was a blood nephew, which was enough for him. If sufficient for Pop, it satisfied Kelly.

  Mitch arrived slightly late at the sinkhole site since he’d stopped for coffee from a nearby gas station. Wade frowned but didn’t say anything. Perra provided a nose-and-tongue welcome but then bounded off to investigate some other scent.

  Pop had started telling his family’s sinkhole story. “Some of ya hadn’t heard about the big limestone section that suddenly collapsed right under my brother when he was plowing — took him, the plow, and the mule.” Neither Ginny nor Diane had been told this tale. “I heard a loud noise, then looked where my brother had been plowing just a second before. No sign of him or the mule. I high-tailed it over there and nearly fell in the big old crater myself. Out of the blue, a sinkhole just collapsed. I ran back to the farm house, where you’re living.” He pointed to Diane. “And got Dad. He took off running toward the section we was plowing. He saw my brother was okay and able ta climb out pretty much on his own after he got his wits back. But the mule couldn’t get out of the hole — just stood down there bawling. Dad climbed down and unhitched the plow and told me ta run back home and ring the dinner bell real loud. Ya didn’t ask Dad ta explain things, even if it didn’t make sense ta me back then. So I hurried home and yanked on that bell rope ‘til I practically raised blisters.”

  “How’d they get the mule out of the sinkhole?” Diane was enthralled.

  “When the bell started ringing, the mule thought it was eating time and she took ta climbing. Dad said it took three tries before she staggered up and out of the sinkhole. That old mule wasn’t gonna miss her dinner.”

  “What happened to the plow?” Mitch hadn’t heard the end of the story before.

  Pop cleared his throat. “Me and my brother had ta go back with ropes and haul it out of the sinkhole.” He waved a wrinkled hand slowly. “Just about like we’re doing here today.” A slight smile played on his lips.

  Diane had enthusiastically volunteered to assist and had made Joe feel so guilty that he’d also tagged along.

  Mitch was even less enthusiastic than Joe. “Remind me again why we’re going to all this trouble?” he asked Kelly.

  Kelly studied him for a few seconds. “Pop wants it filled in and flattened, because of the little campfire clearing over there. Wade and all his equipment are available this weekend. He’s already got dirt and rock lined up from the highway bypass excavation.”

  Wade had arranged for three or four truckloads of fill dirt and rock to be delivered free from one of the contractors on the bypass. They were paid to haul it away, so if they brought it here instead of some dump site — who cared?

  Pop had argued, “Might take five trucks, maybe six.”

  “I can get seven if we need ‘em.”

  Mitch wondered how much a single truck held.

  Pop knew. “Ten-wheeler has two rear axles. Holds up ta thirteen tons… twelve cubic yards.”

  “The owner of those hauling trucks, is he one of Pop’s many cousins?” Diane whispered to Kelly.

  “Don’t know, but wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Roger pulled a half sheet of paper and reading glasses from his pocket. “I did some calculation
s, based on what I remembered as this sinkhole’s rough dimensions.” He peered over the top of his glasses at the large cavity. “Though I think it’s deeper than I allowed for. Anyway, for the formula to work easily, I just figured the hole was about fifteen feet deep and thirty feet across. Which gives it a radius of fifteen feet and you use the formula for volume of a sphere, divided in half.”

  Pop monitored the analysis with a mixture of awe and amusement.

  Roger continued. “V equals four pie R cubed over three. Divide the result by two — for half.”

  Wade whacked Mitch on the arm. “Why didn’t you think of that?”

  “So, my approximate calculations make it 7,065 cubic feet, or about 262 cubic yards,” Roger continued.

  “That’d be more than twenty of your hijacked dump trucks, Wade.” Mitch whacked him back.

  “Actually, nearly twenty-two dump truck loads, using a standard ten-wheeler.” Roger folded his glasses and paper and put both back in his pocket.

  “How much of this hole can we fill up with the seven trucks Wade thinks he has?” Kelly leaned over the pit and made her own calculations.

  “Well, by volume, that would be only about one-third. But by the general bowl shape of the sinkhole, we might fill it up to what looks like half way or so.”

  “So it would still be nearly seven feet deep?” Now Diane had entered the arithmetic competition.

  “Yeah. But seven feet down to relatively smooth and level surface is still a lot safer than fifteen-to-eighteen feet with a rocky, irregular bottom.” Roger had done his homework.

  Joe nodded in agreement as he surveyed the crater.

  “Talking ain’t going ta get the junk up out of there, and we got ta get that done before Wade’s trucks start showing up.” Pop preferred labor over math.

  Wade shrugged and moved over to the fleet of equipment he, Pop, and Roger had earlier convoyed over from his place across the ninety-nine acres. He had assembled more apparatus than anyone imagined one person could possibly own. Besides the souped-up golf cart — his primary conveyance in Somerset — a small trailer, and two cooler chests, Wade also had two old tractors with long trailers. The large and ancient tractor had the trailer with low sides; the smaller and slightly newer tractor had a flat-bed trailer. He also had a ladder, chainsaw, axe, two shovels, other manual brush cutting tools, and additional things not even visible. Rounding it out were assorted winches, chains, pulleys, ropes, and a gizmo made with chicken wire.

  To Kelly, Wade seemed like a one-man rescue squad responding to earthquake victims.

  Wade whacked several square feet of briars with an old-fashioned sling blade, which he handed to Pop, who leaned it against the larger trailer parked a few feet away. Then Wade kind of tumbled into the sink hole. One couldn’t say he climbed down, because it was more of a controlled skid. He hit the bottom pretty hard, with a loud thud and several choice words.

  “Crud! It’s deeper than it looks. Sharp rocks down here too.” Wade poked around with a small branch he’d picked up. “Roger, get that extension ladder off the trailer. You’re going to need it to get down here.”

  “And you might need it to get back up,” added Mitch.

  Joe smiled from his vantage point in the shade.

  Ellie, a former nurse, likely was estimating the casualty count for the day’s work.

  Roger and Pop dutifully lowered the twenty-four-foot ladder. They’d neglected to first secure the two pieces, however, so the bottom half slid off and away… and nearly caught Wade on the back of his head.

  “Hey! You guys be careful. If you kill me, you’ll never get me back out’ve here.”

  “Wouldn’t need to. We’ll just back up a couple of those dump trucks you’ve hijacked and place a stone marker.” Mitch was in a playful mood.

  No one else seemed as jovial, and none offered comment.

  Ellie gave Mitch a look.

  Roger carefully handed down the second section of ladder.

  Wade assembled the ladder pieces with considerable difficulty, not having a level spot to lay them out. Once they were back together, he extended the ladder to its maximum — which was, effectively, about twenty-one feet. A safe climbing angle of about sixty degrees subtracted several more feet of coverage.

  “Looks like you’ll have to cover the first few feet on your own,” Wade called up to them. “Ladder only reaches part way. Another thing, this hole ain’t no fifteen feet deep. Got to be closer to twenty.”

  Kelly experimented reaching the ladder with her feet. She tried it with the ladder at her back and then facing the opposite way. It seemed better to slide over the edge while facing the ladder. When her foot found the top rung, she exhaled. Now she could let go of the flat thorny ground she’d been clinging to. As it was, she cut her arms on the briars and scraped her chest over the edge.

  “Looks good. Careful with the next step.” Wade acted as her eyes from the bottom of the pit.

  Once Kelly got a few rungs lower, it was easy going. Being able to grasp the sides of the ladder made her feel considerably more secure. “Coming down, clear my landing zone.”

  Wade backed away, but held out a hand to steady her in case she needed it. She didn’t.

  Kelly called up, “Next.”

  Diane was not as limber as Kelly, or as young, or as tall. But she was still game, and headed toward the edge of the sinkhole. Pop cleared his throat loudly and motioned her back. She seemed disappointed, but didn’t argue.

  Roger got into position, stretched down to the top of the ladder, and began his descent.

  “You’re good.” Kelly thought it unnecessary, but it seemed to be an expected commentary.

  From above, Ginny watched silently and intently.

  Mitch started to slither toward the ladder, but Wade halted him from below. “We got too many folks down here already.” Wade was likely thinking only of the spatial geometry, not the identities. “We need somebody on top to hand stuff up.”

  Mitch shrugged. It was obviously fine with him. He probably didn’t care for ladders anyway. Plus, with his sore hip, it would be easier for Mitch to be a top guy in the project.

  Wade called for a long rope, which Ellie located and Pop tossed in, holding one end. Wade swiftly tied it around an old stove. “If you can’t haul this up, I got a pulley you can tie off to some tree back there.”

  Mitch and Joe eyed the stove, and both obviously figured the pulley would be their initial effort. Joe rigged it to a sturdy tree, and Mitch surveyed the smoothest route along the steep sides of the sinkhole.

  “Over here’s a nice spot.” Mitch pointed and Wade nodded agreement from below.

  Wade whipped the rope up over the ladder and got it lined up with the place Mitch indicated. Wade checked his knot again and then signaled. Mitch and Joe made fairly easy work of it, thanks to the pulley, until it hung up on a protruding rock embedded along the side of the pit. Wade climbed up the ladder about half way and kicked the stove over with his foot, very nearly falling off the ladder in the process.

  Diane shrieked and Kelly closed her eyes.

  “Bless George,” exclaimed Ellie.

  “Let’s figure out another way to knock stuff off the snag.” Kelly cautioned him with more volume than was needed. “You land on me, and I’m the one who gets buried in this hole.”

  Wade’s face had whitened considerably in those few seconds. Sometimes his enthusiasm got ahead of his good sense. “Yeah. Good idea.” He climbed back down the ladder and thought for a minute. “Hand me down one of them two-by-fours… maybe a ten-footer. I can push stuff over with it.”

  Mitch located a suitable piece and passed it down carefully. Kelly climbed up part way to intercept it.

  In like fashion, the team extracted a banged-up washing machine, some ancient rusty bed springs, and unidentifiable rusted parts of other appliances. With a mesh basket — rather crudely made with chicken wire on a two-by-two frame — they hauled up miscellaneous paint cans, beer bottles, and other articles wh
ich would’ve been discarded from a kitchen. Plus small and medium-sized scraps of tin, insulation, wood, and metal.

  When he wasn’t participating in a hoist, Joe quietly sorted through the variety of articles already loaded onto the big trailers. He didn’t appear to be checking for anything in particular, just seemed to want to know what was there.

  “Lotta junk down here.” Wade knew debris when he saw it.

  Plants and vines covered part of it, especially near the bottom. Some of the material was soggy from small puddles of water in various places.

  “Why bring all this trash up out of there?” Mitch scanned the array on the trailers. “Why not just cover it over?”

  Pop cleared his throat, ragged and loud. “I let one of my other nephew’s boys stay here for a while.” His thumb indicated the farm house. “Guess he figured this for a landfill.” He looked at Mitch as though he should understand. “Don’t want all that junk left on my land.”

  The final part made things somewhat clearer, but Mitch obviously would have been tempted to just cover it with the dump truck loads and let it go.

  “Plus, he’s hunting for those grave stones of Jonathan and William Butler,” Diane muttered. “But it seems like they’re not in this particular sinkhole after all.”

  Two among those many headstones unceremoniously yanked up and discarded by the person who wanted to pave another 900 square feet of his parking lot. Grave desecration used to be against the law.

  “Any sign of anything else?” Pop called down.