Wish You Well (23 page)

She took his hands. “Best offer I had me in years.”

As they joined Lou and Cotton, Eugene stood Oz on the tops of his shoes, and they clomped around with the others.

The music and laughter drifted down the hall and into Amanda’s room. Since they had been here, winter had turned to spring and spring had given way to summer. And during all that time, Amanda’s condition had not changed. Lou interpreted that as positive proof that her mother would never rejoin them, while Oz, ever the optimist, saw it as a good thing, because his mother’s condition had not become any worse. Despite her bleak opinion of her mother’s future, Lou helped Louisa sponge-bathe Amanda every day and also wash her hair once a week. And both Lou and Oz changed their mother’s resting positions frequently and exercised her arms and legs daily. Yet there was never any reaction from their mother; she was just there, eyes closed, limbs motionless. She was not “dead,” but what her mother was could surely not be called “living” either, Lou had often thought. However, something was a little odd now with the music and laughter filtering into her room. Perhaps if it was possible to smile without moving one facial muscle, Amanda Cardinal had just accomplished it.

Back in the front room a few records later, the music had changed to tunes designed to make one kick up his heels. The partners had also changed: Lou and Diamond jumped and spun with youthful energy; Cotton twirled Oz; and Eugene—bad leg and all—and Louisa were doing a modest jitterbug.

Cotton left the dance floor after a while and went to Amanda’s bedroom and sat next to her. He spoke to her very quietly, relaying news of the day, how the children were doing, the next book he intended to read to her. All just normal conversation, really, and Cotton hoping that she could hear him and be encouraged by it. “I have enjoyed the letters you wrote to Louisa immensely. Your words show a beautiful spirit. However, I look forward to getting to know you personally, Amanda.” He took her hands very gently and moved them slowly to the music.

The sounds drifted outside, and the light spilled into the darkness. For one stolen moment, all in the house seemed happy and secure.

The small coal mine on Louisa’s land was about two miles from the house. There was a matted-down path leading to it, and that connected with a dirt road that snaked back to the farm. The opening of the mine was broad and tall enough for sled and mule to enter easily, which they did each year to bring out coal for the winter’s heat. With the moon now shielded by high clouds, the entrance to the mine was invisible to the naked eye.

Off in the distance there was a wink of light, like a firefly. Then came another flash and then another. Slowly the group of men emerged from the darkness and came toward the mine, the blinks of light now revealed as lit kerosene lamps. The men wore hard hats with carbide lamps strapped to them. In preparation for entering the mine, each man took off his hat, filled the lamp pouch with moistened carbide pellets, turned the handle, which adjusted the wick, struck a match, and a dozen lamps together ignited.

A man bigger than all the others called the workers around, and they formed a tight huddle. His name was Judd Wheeler, and he had been exploring dirt and rock looking for things of value most of his adult life. In one big hand he held a long roll of paper which he spread open, and one of the men shone a lantern upon it. The paper held detailed markings, writing and drawings. The caption on the paper was printed boldly across the top: “Southern Valley Coal and Gas Geological Survey.”

As Wheeler instructed his men on tonight’s duties, from out of the darkness another man joined them. He wore the same felt hat and old clothes. George Davis also held a kerosene lamp and appeared quite excited at all the activity. Davis spoke animatedly with Wheeler for a few minutes, and then they all headed inside the mine.

Lou woke early the next morning. The sounds of music had stayed with her through the night, and her dreams had been pleasant ones. She stretched, gingerly touched the floor, and went to look out the window. The sun had already begun its rise and she knew she had to get to the barn to milk, a task she had rapidly taken as her own, for she had grown to like the coolness of the barn in the morning, and also the smell of the cows and the hay. She would sometimes climb to the loft, push open the hay doors, and sit on the edge there, gazing out at the land from her high perch, listening to the sounds of birds and small animals darting through trees, crop field, and high grass and catching the breeze that always seemed to be there.

This was just such another morning of flaming skies, brooding mountains, the playful lift of birds, the efficient business of animals, trees, and flowers. However, Lou was not prepared for the sight of Diamond and Jeb slipping out of the barn and heading off down the road.

Lou dressed quickly and went downstairs. Louisa had food on the table, though Oz had not yet appeared.

“That was fun last night,” Lou said, sitting at the table.

“You prob’ly laugh now, but when I’s younger, I could do me some stompin’,” remarked Louisa, as she put a biscuit covered with gravy and a glass of milk on the table for Lou.

“Diamond must have slept in the barn,” said Lou as she bit into her biscuit. “Don’t his parents worry about him?” She gave Louisa a sideways glance and added, “Or I guess I should be asking if he has any parents.”

Louisa sighed and then stared at Lou. “His mother passed when he was born. Happen right often up here. Too often. His daddy joined her four year ago.”

Lou put down her biscuit. “How did his father die?”

“No business of ours, Lou.”

“Does this have anything to do with what Diamond did to that man’s car?”

Louisa sat and tapped her fingers against the table.

“Please, Louisa, please. I really want to know. I care about Diamond. He’s my friend.”

“Blasting at one of the mines,” Louisa said bluntly. “Took down a hillside. A hillside Donovan Skinner was farming.”

“Who does Diamond live with then?”

“He a wild bird. Put him in a cage, he just shrivel up and die. He need anythin’, he know to come to me.”

“Did the coal company have to pay for what happened?”

Louisa shook her head. “Played legal tricks. Cotton tried to help but weren’t much he could do. Southern Valley’s a powerful force hereabouts.”

“Poor Diamond.”

“Boy sure didn’t take it lying down,” Louisa said. “One time the wheels of a motorman’s car fell off when it come out the mine. And then a coal tipple wouldn’t open and they had to send for some people from Roanoke. Found a rock stuck in the gears. That same coal mine boss, he was in an outhouse one time got tipped over. Durn door wouldn’t open, and he spent a sorry hour in there. To this day nobody ever figgered out who tipped it over or how that rope got round it.”

“Did Diamond ever get in trouble?”

“Henry Atkins the judge. He a good man, know what was what, so’s nothing ever come of it. But Cotton kept talking to Diamond, and the mischief finally quit.” She paused. “Least it did till the horse manure got in that man’s car.”

Louisa turned away, but Lou had already seen the woman’s broad smile.

Lou and Oz rode Sue every day and had gotten to the point where Louisa had proclaimed them good, competent riders. Lou loved riding Sue. She could see forever, it seemed, from that high perch, the mare’s body wide enough that falling off seemed impossible.

After morning chores, they would go swimming with Diamond at Scott’s Hole, a patch of water Diamond had introduced them to, and which he claimed had no bottom. As the summer went along Lou and Oz became dark brown, while Diamond simply grew larger freckles.

Eugene came with them as often as he could, and Lou was surprised to learn he was only twenty-one. He did not know how to swim, but the children remedied that, and Eugene was soon performing different strokes, and even flips, in the cool water, his bad leg not holding him back any in that environment.

They played baseball in a field of bluegrass they had scythed. Eugene had fashioned a bat from an oak plank shaved narrow at one end. They used Diamond’s coverless ball and another made from a bit of rubber wound round with sheep’s wool and knitted twine. The bases were pieces of shale set in a straight line, this being the proper way according to Diamond, who termed it straight-town baseball. New York Yankees’ fan Lou said nothing about this, and let the boy have his fun. It got so that none of them, not even Eugene, could hit a ball that Oz threw, so fast and tricky did it come.

They spent many afternoons running through the adventures of the Wizard of Oz, making up parts they had forgotten, or which they thought, with youthful confidence, could be improved upon. Diamond was quite partial to the Scarecrow; Oz, of course, had to be the cowardly lion; and, by default, Lou was the heartless tin man. They unanimously proclaimed Eugene the Great and Mighty Wizard, and he would come out from behind a rock and bellow out lines they had taught him so loud and with such a depth of feigned anger that Oz, the Cowardly Lion, asked Eugene, the Mighty Wizard, if he could please tone it down a bit. They fought many pitched battles against flying monkeys and melting witches, and with a little ingenuity and some luck at just the right moments, good always triumphed over evil on the glorious Virginia mountain.

Diamond told them of how in the winter he would skate on the top of Scott’s Hole. And how using a short-handled ax he would cleave off a strip of bark from an oak and use that as his sled to go sailing down the iced slopes of the mountains at speeds never before achieved by a human being. He said he would be glad to show them how he did it, but would have to swear them to secrecy, lest the wrong sort of folks found out and maybe took over the world with such valuable knowledge.

Lou did not once let on that she knew about Diamond’s parents. After hours of fun, they would say their good-byes and Lou and Oz would ride home on Sue or take turns with Eugene when he came with them. Diamond would stay behind and swim some more or hit the ball, doing, as he often said, just as he pleased.

On the ride back home after one of these outings, Lou decided to take a different way. A fine mist hung over the mountains as she and Oz approached the farmhouse from the rear. They cleared a rise, and on top of a little knoll about a half-mile from the house, Lou reined Sue to a halt. Oz squirmed behind her.

“Come on, Lou, we need to get back. We’ve got chores.”

Instead, the girl clambered off Sue, leaving Oz to grab at the reins, which almost made him fall off the animal. He called crossly after her, but she seemed not to hear.

Lou went over to the little cleared space under the dense shade of an evergreen and knelt down. The grave markers were simple pieces of wood grayed by the weather. And clearly much time had passed. Lou read the names of the dead and the bracket dates of their existence, which were carved deeply into the wood and were probably about as distinct as the day they were chiseled.