High Lonesome Sound

by Jaye Wells

  The reminder of his glory days caused Jack's chest to tighten. A slideshow of his greatest victories on the field rushed behind his eyes. Then, slower, the first day at Virginia Tech. The classes that moved too fast for him to follow. Eating candy bars in his dorm room while those who could afford a food plan enjoyed hot meals in the dining hall. Getting cut from the team because he'd failed two classes. "Besides," coach had said, spitting a long stream of shit-brown tobacco at Jack’s feet, "your legs been weak lately." Then, the agonizing drive away from campus, watching his future slip further and further out of his reach in the rearview.

  The whistle cut through his recollections like a steam burn.

  "Time to go." Old Fred tugged on Jack's sleeve and walked toward the tram.

  For the first time, Jack wondered if it had been wise to sign up for deep mountain duty. Most rookie miners got the safer, and lower-paying, jobs—scraping coal into buckets in shafts closer to the surface. Dangerous deep mine work paid more, which meant the veterans got first dibs. But Jack had been given his pick of jobs. Some of the other miners had muttered under their breath. He heard them but pretended not to. They weren’t wrong to resent him. He resented him too. His daddy had toiled for years to earn his place in the deep mines. But one word from the mine foreman’s buddy, Deacon Fry, and Jack had been handed the plum job.

  The tram resembled a steel centipede. Each single-person car was no wider than a man's shoulders. Jack ducked into a car halfway down the line. All around him, the other miners chatted about sports or the weather. None of them seemed the least bit concerned about the prospect of plunging thousands of feet into the earth. He couldn't imagine ever getting to the point when he'd feel casual about something like that. All the dark and the cold down there, like a grave. The choking air that turned a man’s lungs to coal and buried him long before his time. Had his daddy promised himself the job was only temporary, too? Or had he simply resigned himself to spending his life digging his own grave?

  Jack settled his butt on the hard seat and placed his small cooler between his boots. After church, Sarah Jane had presented him with the red Igloo filled with sandwiches, chips, cookies, and sodas. "Daddy says all the miners need lots of calories down there."

  He’d accepted the gift with a smile, but he didn’t tell her that "Daddy" had lied. Miners took food with them for the same reason they stored emergency oxygen tanks down in the tunnels.

  Old Fred was in the car in front of Jack. He turned around and flipped his thumb up. Jack returned the gesture. He didn’t bother pretending to look excited.

  "Respirator," Old Fred called. He watched until Jack checked the gauges and gave him another thumbs up. Jack noticed Old Fred’s respirator hung from the back of his rig, instead of in a spot where he could easily reach it once they were down the shaft. The old man had been working the mines more than thirty years. He probably hadn't breathed oxygen that wasn’t tainted by coal powder or cigarette smoke since the Reagan era.

  The tram jerked into motion. He started but caught himself. A quick look around confirmed that none of his coworkers had seen him. Only the mountain, with its hole that gaped like an empty eye socket, had witnessed his fear. He wondered if that was worse.

  Closer to the entrance, the air was thick with coal dust. It coated the inside of Jack's nose and gritted against his teeth. He pushed the respirator over his mouth and pulled his goggles down over his eyes to protect them from the sting. The lenses of the eyewear distorted his vision until it appeared as if he were swimming through murky water.

  The tram's wheels squeaked against the metal track, and the rocking motion didn't do much to settle Jack's nerves. Inside his gloves, his hands sweated and rubbed against the nubby grain of the interior. The eye socket loomed ahead, like a sightless Cyclops. He closed his lids to block out the image and took a deep breath of filtered air. When he opened his eyes again, the entrance was closer, and the opening looked less like an empty eye and more like a hungry mouth.

  The tram reached the opening with both agonizing slowness and nerve-wracking speed. One moment, sunlight spilled into the tram from both sides, and the next, the hole swallowed all light, sucking him down into its cold, black throat.

  The watery shadows conjured a memory of the first time he dove into the old swim hole near Moon Hollow. His friend Dinkus had dared him—double-dog dared him—to jump first. When he’d hesitated on the edge of that deep chasm of cold dark, Dinkus called him a pussy. If there had been one thing that scared Jack more than that swimming hole, it was being a pussy.

  The water had punched him like a fist in the chest, forcing the air from his lungs. Water flavored with dirt and algae filled his mouth and choked him. A split second of complete fear passed—I'm drowning! Oh, God!—and then his legs had kicked and kicked, scissoring through the frigid water until—Thank God, thank you, sweet Lord!—his head had broken the surface into the light. He would never forget the benediction of warm sun on his face while his lower half shivered in the icy, dark water.

  But now, no matter how hard Jack kicked and prayed, he wouldn't see the sun again for a long time. His first shift lasted from noon until 10:00 p.m. He expected that by the time he emerged from the mine, he'd be just as relieved to see the moon as he'd been to see the sun that day twelve years earlier.

  Inside the main tunnel, support beams reinforced the rock walls and ceiling. Christ the Redeemer Church had a vaulted ceiling, too. But in the mines, instead of the Lord’s Supper, the worshippers took coal as communion. Like those tasteless wafers Reverend Peale handed out, each lump of coal promised future salvation in exchange for their sacrifices.

  The tram paused for the large metal door leading into the tunnels to open, and then it rocked forward through the gate into the underworld. Once the tram made it through, the massive door closed behind them, blocking out all natural light.

  They descended into the working tunnels, where halogen lights glared along a large conveyor belt that belched coal up to the surface. As his car passed, one of the men looked up. The respirator and goggles concealed the man’s identity. He realized that the man couldn’t identify him either. The mines made strangers of them all.

  We're drones. Drone ants, maintaining the hill. Only instead of working for a queen, we toil for kings of commerce.

  The man at the conveyer belt didn't wave or nod. He just lowered his head as if he'd not seen the tram grinding past.

  The lights disappeared as they pressed on farther into the earth.

  Jack realized he was trembling, and it had nothing to do with the tram’s vibrations.

  The wheels clicking and clacking and the loud drone of generators created a wall of sound. He retreated into himself, where the only noise was the beat of his heart echoing in his ears. How many times had he run onto a football field with that primal rhythm pounding against his eardrums? Back then he’d associated the sound with victory, but now he could only think of drowning.

  "Pussy!" Dinkus shouted in his memory.

  Something welled in his center. It was the place where he always found his resolve on the football field in the fourth quarter when the score was not in his favor. It was the birthplace of grit, and Jack called upon it now to steel his nerves.

  Dinkus hadn’t known shit about grit. That asshole had died in that damned watering hole three years later after he’d drunk too much of his daddy’s moonshine. He’d hit his head on an outcropping of rock and sunk to the bottom. Jack always wondered if Dinkus had died instantly or if he’d tried to swim for the surface. If there was one thing he’d learned in his life, it was that there were two kinds of people: sinkers and swimmers.

  Losing his ride had felt a lot like sinking. Moving back into his mama’s trailer had felt a lot like drowning, too. It was only after Sarah Jane threatened to break up with him that he realized it was time to start pushing for the surface again. She’d been the one to suggest a job at the mines. Her daddy could call in a favor. It wouldn’t be for too long, she’d promised. Onl
y until he could afford to buy her a ring and maybe buy a nice little plot of land for them to live on as husband and wife.

  Jack might be a dumb jock, but he wasn’t stupid. He took the job, but not for the reasons Sarah Jane wanted. He had his own plan. Once he had enough money saved, he’d convince her to run away with him. If she refused, he’d just go alone and transform himself into the kind of man she couldn’t refuse. But staying in Moon Hollow wasn’t an option.

  He sat up straighter in the tram. Whatever surprises those mines held couldn’t be worse than the prospect of spending the rest of his life under Deacon Fry’s thumb. He’d put his head down and do his duty, and he’d know that each lump of coal he stole from the earth was a down payment on his freedom.

  9

  Dark Moon Interlude

  When night falls in Moon Hollow, mists roll in and blanket the hills with quiet. If the moon is round and full, shadows dance on the edges of vision. But on moonless nights, all is shadow.

  There was no moon on Peter’s first night in town, and the quiet mists surrounding the cabin porch seemed to have eyes. As he rocked in the metal glider, the porch’s uneven boards creaked, and the trees responded with groans and whispers.

  When he’d come to Moon Hollow, he’d yearned for silence as a sailor longs for the sound of the sea. But now, sitting alone with the aggressive shadows and the seeing mist and the audible lack of human white noise, he realized he didn’t like it at all.

  He considered playing music while he read, but he resisted the urge. Something in his gut told him the racket might invite attention he didn’t want. There were no neighbors within sight of the cabin, but there was that palpable sense he was not alone.

  He picked up the book of folklore he’d brought with him. Since he’d bought it on that day with Renee, he’d read every story—some more than once, but he felt no closer to knowing what story he aimed to tell. He hoped that soaking in the scenery and talking to the locals would inspire him.

  Sitting alone in the dark with stories about demons and malevolent faeries made his restless imagination shift into overdrive, but he felt no particular urge to write. Instead, he had an overwhelming desire to gather his things, throw them in his shitty car, and leave Moon Hollow far behind in the rear view.

  It was only the nauseating promise of shame that kept him rooted. How could he face his life if Renee won because he was too scared of the dark to write his own story?

  So on he sat, rocking and listening to the night sing its dark songs.

  High above town, on a lonely ridge reached by a solitary logging road, Granny Maypearl stepped out the back door of her cottage. Her old coon dog, Billy, brushed past her ankles and lumbered down the steps to look for chickens to vex in the yard. But the chickens were all dreaming in their coop, so he plopped down in the dirt to wait for his mistress to finish her business.

  Maypearl looked up at the sky, which had plenty of stars but no moon. She took a deep breath and waited for the night to share its secrets.

  She bent down and set a basket on the top step. A dark moon always made the mountain spirits go looking for trouble. To stay on their good side, she’d prepared an offering to leave on the back steps. The cookies and small crock of wild cat should do the trick. With Decoration Day coming soon, it was important to stay on the spirits’ good sides.

  She stepped off the porch and walked across the chicken yard toward the tree line. She didn’t bother with a flashlight to guide her way. The path had been forged by her own two feet over the decades, and she could step over each root and log with her eyes closed. Billy followed along more slowly, his sensitive nose easily distracted by the scent of mushrooms and a lichen-covered log that served as multi-family housing for woodland creatures.

  Mist tickled her ankles all the way to the small bridge that spanned the narrow stream. She stepped onto the rough-hewn boards and turned her face to the west.

  Her eyes closed and her hands rose into the cool night air. The wind kicked up and swirled around her, making her thick gray hair dance around her head like the mountain mist. The air smelled of green water, brown earth, and the steely tang of ozone that always accompanied the mountain’s song. The wind whispered confidences in her ears. The water babbled below, eager to share its secrets, too. Maypearl listened to them all.

  When she opened her eyes, she smiled and ruffled Billy’s shaggy coat. “Company’s comin’.” She blew out a breath to still the quickening in her belly. “Someone’s leaving us, too.”

  Billy chuffed out a low bark. She looked out toward the inky darkness. Given what she’d learned, she half-expected to see a specter moving among the black trunks, but the mountain was too old to worry about mortal time. It could be hours or a few days until the portents came to pass. Either way, she’d best start preparing.

  “Tomorrow, we’ve got to make some pie,” she said to Billy, “and prepare for another funeral.”

  In the big house on the main rise above Moon Hollow, Deacon Fry looked out over his town. With no moon to reflect off the rooftops and all the businesses closed, the buildings seemed to disappear into the shadows and the mist. He wondered if this was the same view Jeremiah Moon enjoyed as he looked out over the town two hundred years earlier. Either way, he had faith his ancestor used the same word to describe the buildings and all the souls in them: Mine.

  On his desk, a stack of papers waited for his attention. That author fellow, Peter West, grinned up from the top page. In the headshot, he wore a tweed blazer with a black turtleneck and smiled at the camera like he was having impure thoughts.

  He looked like a man used to female readers hanging on his every word. Lots of men, too, hoping some of his cool would rub off on them.

  The devil never appeared in a homely costume, did he?

  The cup in the deacon’s hand held coffee. He normally didn’t like to indulge in caffeine after sundown, but that night was an exception. From the moment that writer walked into his church, a weight had settled in his chest. The mass wasn’t large, but, like a tumor, it didn’t need to be large to be dangerous. No, he realized, it wasn’t like a tumor at all, but a small black seed. If he wanted to prevent that seed from blooming into a predatory vine, he’d have to expunge Peter West from the garden altogether.

  He took a sip and savored the bitterness. He’d have to be careful about how he handled Mr. West. Yes, very careful. A man who made his living off manipulating people with words could cause a lot of trouble for a town of God-fearing people.

  Up on Cemetery Hill, a shadow moved among the tombstones. This specter didn’t glide or float over the ground; he staggered and cursed, and the fumes emanating from his clothes were quite flammable.

  Cotton Barrett tripped and skidded to his knees in front of a weathered headstone. “Shit.”

  He leaned in to look at the inscription. The words blurred and doubled. Cursing, he fished in his pocket for the lighter, a Zippo given to him by his pappy. The steel wheel snicked once, twice before catching. The flame coated the headstone in an orange glow that reminded him of Halloween. The stone was so old the engraving had been eroded away by rain, wind, and age. He squinted and held the lighter closer, but only could make out an image of a cherub and the dates 1812-1813. He slapped the metal lid closed to tamp the flame and burned his fingers in the process. “Fuckin’ thing.”

  Standing was no longer an option, so he crawled. His progress over the graves was hampered by frequent pauses to drink from the bottle in his hand. Pine needles and twigs dug into his knees, but he didn’t care. The firewater had numbed his skin, but physical pain didn’t compare to the ache in his heart. Some agony even alcohol couldn’t numb.

  “Rose,” he cried. “Rose!” The words scraped his throat, leaving it raw. Tears blinded his vision, making the cemetery a kaleidoscope of grays and blacks. There was no light here. No color. No hope.

  “Rose.”

  Exhausted, he collapsed on a mound of earth and rolled over on his back. The pebbles covering the grav
e dug into his spine. He ignored them and pulled the bottle to his dry lips. The alcohol burned his skin as it spilled onto his face. His tongue darted out to catch every drop.

  He opened his eyes. Through the blurry shapes of trees rising over him, a single bright spot glowed. Not the moon. Damn the moon, anyway. No, that light was special. That light was his beautiful Rose.

  He looked up from the grave of his life and yearned toward the Rose light shining her love down on his body. “Rose,” he whispered.

  His left hand lifted toward the light, but he couldn't touch it. The light and Rose were beyond his reach. Tears spilled freely from his eyes to mix with the whiskey on his cheeks.

  He rolled over on his side, like a child, and cried his grief on the grave of his dead love, Rose.

  Ruby curled up on the bench created by the attic dormer and didn’t miss the moon at all. There were plenty of stars to keep her company as she pondered the arrival of the stranger into her small life.

  The first time she’d seen him he stormed out of the church like a dark star simmering against the daylight.

  The midmorning sun had caught his dark hair and lit up his face like old paintings she’d seen in some of her picture books. He’d been frowning, but that only made him more mysterious, like a man who thought serious thoughts. Edna, who owned the Wooden Spoon and served as Moon Hollow’s official gossip, told Ruby that his name was Peter West, and he was a genuine writer. But she didn’t know all that at first. In the first moment, in the first glimpse of that man, all she knew was that her world, normally dull and muted, snapped into sharp focus and became saturated with color.

  She was old enough to recognize that her awareness of him was at least partly sexual. She’d never done it before, but she’d known pleasure by her own hand. Those breathy moments in the dark of her attic, the gasp like a tiny death rattle, the way she seemed to float up from the mattress. Afterward, anchored by the damp quilts, the dull thump of shame arrived, but it never could quite erase the curious thrum of power under her skin. Yes, she knew pleasure, but she also understood there was more to be understood. If it felt that good alone, what sort of magic could be conjured with twice the energy?