The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  “I’ll do that, Miss Geneva,” he asserted, wide awake and on his feet. “Yew git on back in the bed.” Hurriedly, he replenished the fire while she sank gratefully back into the bed. It was so cold up here, even in August, with the dampness seeping through the logs, the fog shrouding the cabin like a clammy hand. It was impossible to get warm, even after Howard brought her more tea and tucked the blankets up around her chin and rubbed her feet with hands he had warmed by the fire. When her teeth began to chatter, he ordered her to sit by the fire while he pulled the mattress off the bed and dragged it to the hearth. She lay on it, and he lay beside her, pulling all the blankets over them and wrapping his arms tightly around her shaking body. Gratefully, she snuggled against him and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  Toward morning she woke again, lifted so gently into consciousness that it was some time before she was aware she was awake. Opening her eyes, she saw Howard’s face above her, his eyes bright in the pale morning.

  “Yer fever’s gone,” he said quietly, touching her cheek.

  She stared at him a long time as if through a misty tunnel. She did not recognize him immediately, for seeing him made her forget the present and think of being very young and lying in a moonbeam. The pale morning light fell on his face, which was full of gentle goodness. “You’re beautiful,” she said drowsily.

  He was amused. “Likely that’s the first and last time I ever heard that. Yew reckon boneset’s got somethin’ in it I don’t know ‘bout?”

  “I mean it,” she said sadly. “This is twice you’ve rescued me, and you’ve spent all night taking care of me. I’ve treated you so badly. I really am sorry, Howard. I hate to think how foolish I’ve been.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Now, honey, yer sick and feelin’ helpless. Hit’s made ye blue. Yew never hurt me none. I’m pleased to spend time with ye. And hit’s the God’s truth, yer the beautiful one. I could look at ye all night.”

  “You really don’t think badly of me?”

  He chuckled. “Lord no. Matter of fact, ye remind me of my second wife.”

  Geneva felt worse. “Lenora said there wasn’t anything to her. She ran off with a musician.”

  “Mammaw didn’t know the whole story. Aster gave me a awful lot, and she was real good to me when I needed her. She got me through a rough time after my first wife died, and I just begged her to marry me, knowin’ she’d never stay.”

  “Why would she want to leave you?”

  He answered her thoughtfully. “She needed more than I, or anybody, could give her. Seems like she was always searchin’ for somethin’, and it seemed like she couldn’t love me but with jist a piece of herself.” He stopped, his eyes pained, then he smiled. “I’m kindly like Jimmy Lee’s old dog. I love somebody and that’s all there is. Cain’t help but love a woman with my whole self—heart, liver, brain, gut, all of it. There’s nothin’ else but to find ways to love her more. I wanted to have a passel of younguns just so there’d be more of her around.

  “My first wife, she understood that, and she felt the same way.” His face softened with happiness. “It was like she was me and I was her.” He fell silent and his eyes clouded as he seemed to look far away into some infinitely sad and desolate place. At last he continued, “When she died, the losin’ was so awful. Not just a piece of me was gone. All of me was gone.” His voice grew quiet again, more distant. “I was so lost I nearly went crazy.

  “Then I met Aster. She was different. Seemed like she loved everthing she saw, and more besides. Like she had to go out and find new things all the time ‘cause it wuz all so good.” He gazed into the fire and his voice floated to her from far away. “But that was one of the best things about her. She seemed so—,” he groped, then found the word he was looking for, “elusive. Elusive, but real. Bright. Fierce, the way she went after everthing. She was kinda like when yew see the reflection of the sun in the water when the actual sun is hid. It’s prettier than the sun, and brighter, but it’s not really there. Seemed like I spent all our time together jist watchin’ her and tryin’ ta figure out how to really touch her without disturbin’ the water. I didn’t have much time with her, but it was enough. She give me back the will to live.”

  “But she only stayed for a few months?”

  “She knew me. She knew the longer she stayed, the worse her leavin’ would hurt me, so she took off afore I could git too used to her. I don’t blame her. I coulda been the King of Siam, and she still woulda left to whatever called her. I knew the first day I met her I couldn’t hold her.” He smiled. “Didn’t stop me tryin’, though.”

  “You think I’m restless and searching like that?”

  “Ye got a brightness about ye, too. Jist the way ye look at the sky, and you ain’t content jist to look. You want it. The way ye looked at that car yer boyfriend brought ye. And that other man, John.” His face furrowed as he tried to explain. “It’s like ye got a greedy soul,” he said, then hastened to add, “but in a good way. It gives ye that brightness, that look of being real alive.”

  She felt like sobbing. “I don’t want to be restless and greedy. I want to just stop and be happy wherever I am. It’s like I’m afraid something wonderful is out there, and I might miss it. And sometimes I feel like I’m running away from something as much as I’m running toward something else.” She closed her eyes, but the tears squeezed out between her lids. “I don’t like the feeling. I want to be content. I want to rest.”

  He placed his fingertips on her lips. “Awright, honey, yew hush now, and jist rest right here. I didn’t mean ta hurt yer feelin’. I like ye the way ye are. And ye kin rest all ye want right here. I bet someday ye’ll find something that’ll make yew want to sit still.”

  She wanted to say more, to cry out that she did not know what made her this way. Could he take away whatever it was that made her want so much? That made her so cruel to good people? That thistle in her soul. The tears welled up hot in her eyes and she drew a ragged breath. She felt his arms go around her as she burrowed her face in the smooth hollow of his throat, and she sobbed until she fell asleep.

  When she woke again, he was gone. The sun streamed through the open door, and a fragrant morning, suffused with silver light, rose to greet her. Geneva, suddenly famished, lightheaded, and with an enormous pressure in her bladder, got up and stumbled out of the door.

  He was just outside, splitting logs. The sun warmed his hair to a deep chocolate brown, the copper skin glistened on his smooth arms as he raised an ax in the air to pause in a high arc before the muscles bunched and brought the ax down. Geneva stopped to appreciate the scene only for a moment before she murmured to him and hurried into the woods to relieve herself.

  She felt so weak she had to sit down before she could make it back to the cabin. Breathing hard, her hair hanging in her face, her mouth tasting like dry, moldy bread, she sat, shaking with cold and fatigue, wondering how long she would have to remain here, how long it would be before she would be able to rise and make her way back to the cabin. How much longer would it be before she could ride back down the mountain?

  Howard appeared through the spruce like a bright shadow, and without a word he strode toward her and lifted her as effortlessly as if he were lifting a child. There was silence all around; even her eyes and heart were mute and calm like a still, cloudless sky. Her arms went around his neck and she leaned her head into his shoulder, listening to the sweet silence. When he carried her into the cabin and laid her onto the bed, Geneva felt as if she were returning to a plush, much loved home. She rolled over and fell asleep almost immediately.

  The morning and early afternoon slipped in and out again occasionally, but never disturbing her rest. She passed the time as an invalid, waking only enough to eat, drink, and go outside to relieve herself. Howard kept the fire hot and endlessly pressed her with what seemed like gallons of water in which he had steeped a variety of herbs, both pleasant-tasting and foul. By the time the sun had crested, she had begun to feel considerably bet
ter; by the time the shadows had lengthened, she felt well enough to be bothered by a general feeling of grunginess. Her hair hung limply in strings, and her teeth felt like they were wearing sweaters.

  He brought her another cup of tea. Sighing, she took it, then rubbed her finger over her front teeth. “Howard, do you have a toothbrush? I’m just dying to brush my teeth.”

  “Yeah, I got a toothbrush,” he smiled. “Jist a minute.” He left and returned presently. “Here,” he said, handing her a stick and a few leaves. “Sweet gum. Chew on this. The wood fuzzes up and ye kin brush yer teeth jist as pretty as ye please. Chew on this mint, too. Yer mouth’ll be sweet in no time.”

  Taking this oral hygiene remedy, she walked down to the spring to give it a try. To her surprise, it worked rather nicely. It took longer than a real toothbrush, but that did not matter. Up here time lay languidly in the air; it did not hurry by, and there was no need to run after it. This place was sweet. Sweet and safe and good. She wandered back through the cool, dappled shade, chewing the mint leaves, breathing the spruce-scented air, and feeling the healing sun upon her face. It felt good to sit in the clear, thin air and feel her strength welling up in her limbs like an incoming tide rising higher and higher upon the parched sand.

  She stayed out too long, and no doubt concerned about her absence, Howard came looking for her. She saw him striding through the branches, searching, and he seemed so much in control, so comfortable in his own forest, at one with the trees, the sky, the very rock upon which he stood that she wished she could be like him. Real. Connected. Certain in time and place and circumstance. A sudden tingling pricked her flesh, and she regretted that she had ever left these hills, that she had polluted her mountain spirit with the tawdry glitter of the past few years.

  Although she was sitting low amid some rocks in a sheltered place, Howard’s scanning eyes found her. He strode to her, concern on his face, but when he saw her smiling, he relaxed and dropped down beside her. Together they gazed into the deep blue spruce and the sparkling, new-washed sky. Geneva wanted to stretch out on the rocks and lie there all day, so content did she feel. They sat quietly, side by side for a long time.

  At length, he spoke. “Geneva, I reckon I owe yew an apology. I told ye I had me a hemp patch up here. I don’t blame ye fer thinkin’ I wuz a outlaw.”

  He was tense, and his face seemed drawn. “To tell ye the truth, I do have somethin’ like a cash crop up here, and I know ye’ve been wonderin’ how I got me all this land, and a nice house down in the holler.”

  She had already forgiven him his hemp patch. “You don’t have to tell me, Howard,” she said. “I was just sick and irritable yesterday. It’s none of my business.”

  He took a deep breath, “No. I owe this to ye, cause I lied to ye before. And now, I’m gonna tell ye the truth, and I’m gonna trust ye to not tell nobody, nobody atall, not yer sister, or yer mama or daddy. People find out about this, and all hell will break loose.”

  “What is it, Howard? What could be worse than a marijuana patch?”

  “Not worse. Better. A lot better. Come here. Let me show ye somethin’. Kin ye walk?” She nodded, and he helped her to her feet. Holding her hand, he led her a hundred paces to the creek, then they turned upstream to walk another several hundred yards to a wild, deep canyon where the stream roared through a gash in towering, streaked rock. Huge boulders lay around; large veins of quartz ran through most of them, and just before them lay piles and piles of quartz rocks and gravel gleaming white and fresh in the afternoon sun. Near the rocks, in the stream, lay a contraption just like those she had seen in the cabin. She realized it was a sluice box. A shovel leaned in a grotto nearby.

  Without a word he thrust the shovel into the gravel and sprinkled the white stones into the box. The water boiled around the gravel as it rolled downward. He watched the stones bounce, then easily, almost casually, he leaned forward and plucked out one, then two, then three lumps of brilliant gold, the smallest of which was the size of a pea. Taking Geneva’s hand, he placed them in her palm.

  “This here’s my cash crop,” he said. “I’ve hauled out nearly eighteen million in the last two years, but all that’s left now is placer gold. Enough, I reckon, to live on and take care of my family, but I won’t be buyin’ much more land.” He shrugged. “Reckon I got enough, anyway.”

  The sun, glinting on the gold in her hand, swarmed up to her eyes and made her dizzy. Had he just told her he was a millionaire? Eighteen million? The fact would not register. She gazed at the irregular lumps, weighty in her palm, trying to compute their value. “You mean to tell me you’ve kept this a secret, pulling eighteen million dollars worth of gold out of here?”

  He shook his head. “Hit ain’t been easy. Only the family knows about it, and they been helpin’ me work it. We pulled the last of the big stuff out o’ the mine last spring,” he said, indicating a dark opening in the face of the cliff to his left. “It warn’t a very big pocket, but you’d be surprised how far a little gold will go.” He thrust the shovel into the pile of gravel again and sprinkled the stones into the sluice box. “I go down to Harrisonburg ever few weeks to the assayer’s, and I set me up a few corporations to turn it into land. Won’t nobody know who’s bought all of it till I stop, when all this gold’s played out.” He pulled out two more shiny yellow pebbles.

  Geneva was astonished. “But why do you live like this? I mean, you’re rich, and you just stay up here, driving a beat up old truck, when you could be traveling the world, living it up.”

  He smiled his quick smile, which she was beginning to recognize as an integral part of him. “I been in the world, ma’am, and I ain’t got much truck with it. Hit’s land I want, land that I know I kin leave to my children and their children, all down the line, and they kin live on it, knowin’ what the world’s supposed to look like. I reckon I’ll spend ever dime I kin scratch out o’ here on it, or till I buy up ever tree and ever creek left wild.” He looked at her, his eyes liquid. “Kin I trust ye, Geneva? I reckon they ain’t but a few hunnert thousand dollars worth left, maybe five or six, eight at the outside, but if word gits out, they’ll be people crawlin’ all over here, for miles, settin’ up machines, skeerin’ off the game, trashin’ the place up. I’ll have ta put up a fence, maybe git some guards. Somebody’ll likely git shot. Who knows how much more gold this old mountain is hidin’ in her womb? And they’s still a lot of gold left in the rocks. Folks’ll be wantin’ it.” He indicated the quartz piled high at intervals along the creek bank. “But to git all of it takes a process that’ll poison the creek and the ground, and I don’t aim to try for it. Maybe someday I’ll haul it outta here to a factory where they kin do it safe, but not here, not now. Kin I trust ye not to tell a soul, not a livin’, breathin’ soul? Not even yer sister? Not yer boyfriend?” His eyes gleamed desperately.

  Geneva gazed at the place around her. A hundred feet away stood a high bank of quartz rock, shining white in the late sun. Beyond that was the mine, which violated the pristine cliff. To her, the piles of gravel and rock, the deep gash in the cliff, already looked obscene here in the verdant hillside, fragrant with the smell of spruce and humus. She imagined people running around wildly, dragging wheelbarrows full of rock and gravel into the stream of sweet water, throwing garbage into the chipmunk burrows, pouring chemicals upon the ferns. She vowed reverently that she would never tell a soul, even hint to anyone about the treasure that lay scattered upon the surface of this mountain.

  “Howard, I swear. No one will ever even suspect there might be something here. Not from me.”

  He nodded once, then dropped his serious façade. “Yew ever pan fer gold?”

  “I’ve never seen it done.”

  “Here, let me pour some more gravel through this here sluice box, so ye’ll have enough to pan for. If ye’ll help me, we kin go through a lot o’ gravel in a little while.”

  He instructed Geneva to watch the gravel bouncing and rolling down the waffle ridges in the sluice box as he
dumped shovelful after shovelful of gravel upon it. “I bust up the rocks, and that kindly separates out the gold, then we sluice it fer the big pieces. Yew watch fer gold as it runs down. It’s heavier, so the small stuff gets caught in these here little pockets, but the bigger stuff rolls on down. Yew gotta catch ‘em as they slide by.”

  He demonstrated, and Geneva caught on quickly. Soon she was snatching gold out of the boiling water as quickly as she used to gather daisies as a child. Before long she had collected a handsome pile of heavy nuggets.

  “Now we kin pan us some, go for what’s trapped in the box,” explained Howard as he dismantled the box over a bucket and separated a piece of carpeting, which he rinsed in the bucket.

  Retrieving a gold pan from the creek bank, he scooped up the fine dirt and gravel from the bucket and placed it in the pan. Holding it under water, he shook it, swirled the ore, then poured off the rocks, dirt, and water. Three times he repeated the process until the pan was empty save for black sand, and Geneva could see, small chunks of brilliant yellow gold. He washed the gold again, finally eliminating all the sand. What was left was a quarter of a cup of nuggets and fine grains of gold that he poured in a quart mason jar, like so much honey to set on his cabin shelf for winter feasting. Geneva thought of how it would look sitting there, the firelight dancing upon it and turning the grains from the color of the sun to the color of roses. The thought thrilled all of her senses.

  He allowed her to pan for half an hour, until they had emptied the bucket of all its ore and had filled the jar half full of treasure. Then he straightened. “Ye look a little tired. We’d better stop,” he said. “Here,” he added, handing the jar to her. “I reckon I ought to pay ye yer wages fer yer work.”

  She took it, marveling at its weight and the beauty of its contents. She would put the gold in a special crystal container and set it upon her fireplace mantel, or she might wear some of it in a vial around her neck, or she could have it molded into a special piece of jewelry… She felt the blood rise hot in her face as she contemplated the value of it.