Uncle Ash pulled himself up through the small attic door and stood stooped under the rafter. He put his hand on it to steady himself. “You all right, Bone? Awful lot of memories up here.”
“I’m fine,” Bone grumbled. She pushed the trike away.
“Uh-huh.” Uncle Ash wiped the bead of sweat forming on his brow. “Did I ever tell you about when my Gift started coming on?”
Ash moved to the end of the attic where the big window was. He unbolted it and swung the two halves open like a barn door. A cool breeze rushed in. Bone felt instantly better as the crisp air hit her face. She could breathe again.
“Ever since I was little, it were always my job to feed and generally take care of the dogs, chickens, milk cows, and horses.” Uncle Ash stood in the breeze, fanning himself with his hat as he talked. “Daddy always said I was a natural stockman just like his daddy—who, as it turned out, had the same Gift as me. When I was your age, I started getting these flashes whenever I touched an animal. It could get mighty overwhelming in the barn or chicken coop.” He put the hat on his head, pushing it back at an angle. Then he reached into his pocket. “So Daddy bought me a pair of these.” He tossed some battered old work gloves to Bone.
She slipped them on gratefully. She could tell they were his, but the memories were mostly of him stringing barbed wire or clearing brush, contentedly with a dog or two by his side. She held up her fists to her uncle with a smile. His gloves about swallowed up her hands to her elbow.
He chuckled again. “We can order you some smaller ones from the Sears and Roebuck.” Uncle Ash reached out the window and pulled a rope inside. “There’s a block and tackle hanging out there.” He pointed to a beam mounted above the window. “We can drop the big things out this way.” Ash fanned himself with his hat as he looked around. “Lydia said there’s an old lawn mower up here we can scrap. And some bed frames.” He spotted the rusty reel mower nearby and rolled it over. Then he tied the rope around the lawn mower’s handle and lowered it carefully out the window.
“Got it,” Clay called up to Uncle Ash.
“I ran into some very eager helpers on the way over,” he told Bone.
She helped him wrestle the bed frames to the window. She could see his truck down below already half-full with stuff Jake and Clay had salvaged from their houses. Uncle Ash tied up the frames and lowered them down to the boys.
“Y’all load up the truck,” Ash yelled down as he was closing up the window.
“Yessir!” Jake answered.
“Only 251 more lawn mowers to make an antiaircraft gun,” Bone said as she boxed up her toys, including the bucket Mama had painted. She’d also found some broken skates, metal cups, and a bent lamp.
“Only nine hundred more tons for a destroyer.” Uncle Ash laughed as he wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
Bone kicked the tricycle toward the attic door. “Eight hundred and ninety-nine and a half.”
“You sure about this, Forever Girl?” Uncle Ash asked as he peered in her box. He called her that after a Cherokee tale they both loved. Forever Boy didn’t want to grow up, so he ran off to live with the Little People to be a child forever. The story was a lot like Peter Pan.
Bone nodded. She’d rather Daddy be safe than hang on to childish things.
Out in the yard, Bone handed her tricycle up to Clay. The truck was only two-thirds of the way full. Not quite enough for an antiaircraft gun yet. Maybe with the cemetery gates and fence they’d have enough—if they could get ahold of them. And maybe they should get other kids to bring in their scrap. Bone pulled off the now sweaty work gloves and tucked them into her belt.
“Why don’t y’all go see if the Linkouses or anybody else has got something to throw in?” Bone told the boys. They took off down the road. Pretty soon, Opal and Pearl came by with some old pots and pans. Ruby had a sack of flattened cans she’d already collected. And the boys came back carrying an old wheelbarrow that was missing a wheel.
When Bone reached down to make room for the wheelbarrow, her hand brushed against an old red wagon. She saw the older Whitaker boys, Cliff and Carmen, giving a younger Clay a giant push down the road in the wagon. He held on for dear life as the wagon bumped over the gravel, careening toward an oncoming truck. His big brothers raced after him, yelling at him to steer for the trees. He did and spilled out into grass, laughing, as the truck honked angrily at them all. “Let’s do that again,” he yelled to his panting brothers. Bone could feel the sheer delight radiating off Clay’s wagon.
Bone pulled on the much-too-big gloves again, even though Clay’s memory had cheered her up. Except, of course, that Cliff and Carmen were never coming home from the war. The wagon, though, would go toward making sure somebody else’s brothers came home. She hoped.
As the yellow truck rolled slowly down to the river road, Jake rapped on the cab window. Bone slid it open. She and Corolla were in the front with Uncle Ash while the boys rode in the back, making sure nothing fell out.
“We got room for more junk,” Jake said with a wink.
Bone nodded and slid the little window shut. She had promised the boys they could check out the wrought iron gates and fences. “Uncle Ash? How ’bout we stop over by the cemetery and check for junk?” Bone turned to her uncle. “Folks dump stuff over there all the time.”
“That’s an idea,” Uncle Ash said. He put out his cigarette on the side mirror.
Bone wasn’t sure if that meant he thought it was a good idea until he turned the truck up the little drive to the graveyard. Clay shot her a not-very-subtle thumbs-up.
Uncle Ash parked the truck at the bottom of the hill near the road. The boys leapt out and made a show of scouring the sides of the road. Bone combed the area near the drive for scrap. People really did throw stuff out here. She picked up a broken car mirror from the grass. She could collect more junk now and size up the cemetery gates later. She wondered if she touched the gates whether she could see how Cliff and Carmen pulled them off. Bone spied a beer can.
Clay yelled, “We’ll check up thissa way.” The boys sprinted up the gravel drive.
Uncle Ash shook his head as he lit another smoke. “I remember that Halloween the Whitaker boys pinched the front gates,” he said. Uncle Ash was no fool.
Corolla raced after the boys.
“Clay has big dreams,” Bone said. She picked up the smashed beer can.
They walked up the drive and found the boys standing slack-jawed—next to one of the mine trucks.
Several men were already dismantling the big iron gates and pulling up the picket fence.
One of them was Tiny Sherman. He wiped his brow and walked over to greet Uncle Ash. As always, Mr. Sherman was wearing the Memphis Red Sox cap he’d gotten when he played in the Negro Leagues. He tipped his hat to Bone. Then he explained how the church deacons had hired him and the others to take out the iron gates and fence for the scrap drive.
“It’s a bear of a job,” Tiny said, wiping his brow with his ball cap.
“I think young Whitaker there was hoping to do that himself,” Uncle Ash said. “For Halloween.”
The men laughed, and Clay turned on his heel and headed back to Uncle Ash’s truck.
“Ya’ll head back down, too,” Ash told Bone and Jake. “I’ll be there in a tick.”
“Guess we’re gonna have to egg the parsonage after all,” Jake whispered to Bone as they walked away.
Bone groaned. Maybe they would.
6
INSIDE THE CHURCH was as warm as a summer’s day, and the deacon droned on, reading chapter and verse. At least Uncle Henry’s sermons had kept Bone awake. Mostly. Her eyelids slid shut. She was floating in the river under a clear blue sky and a butter-yellow sun—until Mrs. Price’s elbow brought her back to the here and now. She nodded toward Mattie and Ruby, seated in their usual spot near the front of the church. Ruby was whispering angrily to her mother.
“… and Reverend Sullivan and his family will be arriving in January,” the
deacon spoke loudly to drown out Ruby.
A hymnal slammed against a pew. Ruby stormed down the aisle. Aunt Mattie quietly steamed after her, her head hung low but determined. The outer door slammed shut.
“What was that about?” Bone whispered to Mrs. Price.
“The new preacher.”
“Uh-oh.” Bone hadn’t thought about the church replacing Uncle Henry, at least so soon.
“How dare you act that way in church!” Aunt Mattie’s voice carried straight through the walls.
“You knew! It’s your fault!” Ruby screeched back. “It’s all your fault!”
The deacon called for hymn 145, but “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” didn’t quite drown out the fight raging outside.
When church let out, Ruby and Mattie were still going at it.
Bone ran up the back steps of the boardinghouse and changed into her dungarees and sweater. It wanted to show her something, but she brushed the memory aside. She was getting better at ignoring the stories some objects held—familiar ones, at least, like her mama’s sweater. As Bone clomped back down the steps, a voice called from the kitchen. “Whoa there, Forever Girl!” Uncle Ash, Junior, and Mamaw were drinking coffee over a plate of ham biscuits and greens. A bouquet of wildflowers lay between them. “Where’s the fire?” Uncle Ash asked.
“Meeting Will.” Bone paused to scoop up a couple of biscuits from Mamaw’s outstretched plate. They smelled warm and buttery, and Bone’s stomach grumbled. She bit into one. The ham was salty and bursting with flavor. She chewed for a moment before she remembered the fight. “Well, the fire was at church. You should’ve seen Ruby and Aunt Mattie go at it.”
Mamaw let out a long sigh and then gulped down her coffee. “I better get over there before they scratch each other’s eyes out.”
Bone started to leave. “Hold your horses, missy,” Mamaw said as she stood and rinsed out her coffee cup. Then she tore off some wax paper, wrapped up two more ham biscuits along with the one Bone hadn’t yet bitten into, and handed them to Bone. “Will’s gonna want more than one biscuit.” She kissed Bone on the forehead and vanished out the door before Bone could even thank her. Acacia Reed did not dillydally.
“What were they fighting about?” Ash asked as he passed his brother another biscuit.
Bone shrugged. “They were outside for most of it, but whatever it was, they were loud.” Bone thought for a second. “Ruby ran out of the service. She yelled something about it all being Mattie’s fault.”
“What was her fault?” Ash asked, sipping his coffee.
Bone chewed the last bite of the salty, buttery goodness before she answered.
“The new preacher, I guess. The deacon announced that a reverend somebody would be coming in January.”
Bone’s uncles exchanged a look. “I was afraid of that,” Junior finally said. “The church can’t go on without a minister for too long.”
And the new preacher would live at the parsonage, Bone realized. “Where will they go?” she asked. Aunt Mattie didn’t work for the church or the mines. In fact, she didn’t work. Paid work, at least. Could they stay in Big Vein? Bone didn’t want Ruby to leave. No wonder she’s mad!
“We’ll figure out something—if she’ll let us help.” Uncle Junior poured himself another cup of coffee.
“You go meet Will.” Uncle Ash lit a Lucky Strike. He tossed a piece of ham to Corolla.
Will was waiting for her by the entrance to Flat Woods—with that jar in his hands. “You are carrying that thing,” she told him as she marched right by.
The trees were alight with burnt oranges and reds, and leaves fluttered to the ground around them as they walked. The woods were quiet except for the distant barking of dogs. On a Sunday, Mr. Childress liked to run his dogs in the hills up by the mines. She and Will stayed to the flats, down by the river. Tracks wound along either side of the river, and a train was due through any time now.
They walked along the well-worn path to Picnic Rock. At least that’s what Bone called it. It was just a flat, half-buried boulder on the edge of the woods. You could sit and watch the river and the trains go by. Will spread out his jacket on top of the rock, and Bone unwrapped the ham biscuits.
As they ate, Bone told Will about the carnival being canceled and what the boys and Ruby wanted to do.
Will shook his head over that. Wiping his fingers on his trousers, he got out his pad and pencil. That won’t end well.
Bone nodded. “But Ruby is so angry with her mother. You should’ve heard them going at it in church!”
What was the fight about?
“The new preacher.” She told Will what she’d told her uncles.
Will held up his first note again. That won’t end well.
Bone laughed, but it was probably too true.
Dogs barked as they bounded through the upper woods. A train rattled by on the opposite side of the river. But Will didn’t move. Bone figured he was waiting for the 1:15 to come along this side. The baying of the hounds got closer and closer.
“Mr. Childress must be working his dogs this afternoon,” Bone finally said. He liked to say he was a whole lot nearer to the Almighty out in the mountains than he was in church. The dogs sounded like they were chasing something this way. “You don’t hear that down in the mines.” Bone cocked her head toward the dogs. Will nodded but kept the lid on the jar.
A few minutes later, the Virginian blew its whistle as it came around the bend. Will unscrewed the metal lid, stood up on the rock, and held the jelly jar toward the sound, like he was waiting for it to fly in. Bone pictured him catching that lightning bug for her at the end of summer. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
As the whistle died out and the train’s brakes squealed along the rails, Will screwed the lid back on tight. The silence in the woods was almost deafening. Then Bone heard the trampling of leaves behind them as three hounds bounded toward them. They headed straight for Will. He hopped down from the rock to greet them.
“Heel,” a voice called. The pack broke off and returned to their owner.
“Hey, Mr. Childress,” Bone said as the older gentleman looked over his dogs. “How’s the hunting?”
“Terrible,” he said, straightening up. “Only caught me a pair of skinny sweethearts.” Mr. Childress grinned.
Will blushed. Bone might have done so if anybody else had called them that. Mr. Childress liked to tease everybody. It was just his way.
“Come on, girls.” He motioned the dogs forward, and they bounded silently toward the river road.
Moments later, Mr. Childress’s voice echoed through the woods as he talked to someone up by the road.
“Maybe we should test your theory somewhere quieter,” Bone said.
Will motioned for Bone to follow him, and he took off at a brisk pace up the hill past the mines and back down again. Though it was just past midday, the woods were darker here. At night, some folks had seen ghost lights bobbing through the trees. Mamaw said it was probably just the eyes of animals or foxfire, a fungus that glowed. But Bone couldn’t help thinking of Jack wandering the world with his lantern—and of the nightmare she kept having about Daddy. He was lost in a dark, strange forest, feeling his way from tree to tree. Sometimes the trees were bodies.
All of a sudden, she and Will emerged out of the woods. And there was the cemetery. It was on a slope like just about everything in Big Vein.
“Maybe this is a bit too quiet,” Bone mumbled as she followed Will into the graveyard. And full of bodies. Bone could see where Tiny and his crew had pulled up the fence that had surrounded the cemetery. A stone path wound through its middle. The path led down to the gates, or where they had once stood. Will stopped at a little stone bench in the center of the path. He opened the jar just a crack, and they both leaned in. The blast of the train whistle pushed them back as it exploded out of the jar. Dogs barked after it—followed by crickets, Charlie McCarthy’s voice, and the tinkle of laughter. Will clapped the lid on tight before anything else could get
out.
He leapt up, holding the jar tight. See! his face said. He held the jar out to her.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Bone said. All the sounds were there.
A thousand things raced through her mind. How could this object get the power to do that? It caught sounds and kept them. Charlie McCarthy was still there. The sounds could fly out, but something pulled them back in, like moths to a porch light.
Bone heard a crunch of boots on the path. Will turned quickly to the grave nearest the bench and put the jar by the headstone. Then Corolla was at Bone’s feet.
“Forever Girl, Will, what are y’all doing up here?” Uncle Ash shifted the bouquet of wildflowers from one hand to the other so he could shake Will’s hand just like he always did.
Will nodded his head toward the gravestone. “Ah,” Uncle Ash replied. “Say hey to your daddy for me. He was a good man. Fought in the Ardennes, I think.”
Bone peered past Will and read the gravestone for the first time.
WILLIAM A. KINCAID SR.
B. MAY 5, 1900 D. NOVEMBER 1, 1932
Will had brought her to his daddy’s grave to listen to the jelly jar. He turned back to the headstone.
Uncle Ash laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s let Will have a minute alone with his father.” He motioned for her to follow him and Corolla. Picking his way carefully through two rows of folks, Alberts and Scotts mostly, he paused at a grave where the dirt was not yet covered with grass.
HENRY FRANCIS ALBERT
B. JANUARY 7, 1905 D. OCTOBER 7, 1942
Ruby’s father.
Uncle Ash dug something out of his pocket and placed it on the base of the grave marker. The thing was a small reddish-brown cross-shaped rock. A fairy stone. Bone had heard about these but never seen one. They were supposed to ward off evil.
“We took Henry over to Fairy Stone Lake for his stag do,” Ash said with a grin. “Before him and Mattie got hitched.” The area around the lake was one of the only places in the world where fairy stones could be found. The Cherokee legend was that the Little People wept when they heard Christ died. Their tears formed tiny crosses when they hit the ground.
Lingering Echoes Page 4
