MISS BEULAH SAT IN the holler dark, rocking in her chair. The pale canvas tents of the colony glowed faintly beneath her, lantern-lit from within—so much prettier than they looked in the daytime. And quiet. A barking dog, a banged cookpot, a woman hissing at her children. No menfolk, not hardly. Most of them were either locked up in jail or gone off to the march, and the troopers and Baldwins and vigilantes with them—everyone gone to fight.
A lonesomeness had come to sit with her. Her feet had swelled and nobody to drain them, no Doctor Moo, and she knew her grandboy might not come back. Not ever. Not after what he’d done. Throwing down on those troopers the day of the raid. She didn’t fault him for it—not after how those police had done him in McDowell. He’d be crazy to let them take him again. But the law wasn’t like to forget what he’d done. No, sir. He was a marked man now, an outlaw. He’d have to live on the run, ever listening for the cry of bloodhounds on his trail, like those last old bears and wolves and panthers they chased out of these hills, running them to ground. A fugitive. A man with no earthly home.
The thought tore at her chest. He might come back to visit her now and again under cover of darkness, coming like a shadow out of the woods and vanishing before daybreak. A ghost, same as rest of her family.
She touched the heels of her hands to her eyes, breathed.
Yes, the lonesomeness had found her tonight, curled up like a cannonball on her bony chest. She’d learned long ago that turmoils of the heart did pass, and no matter whether it took hours or days or weeks or years or decades, there was comfort in knowing they would. There was another side of the mountain, a sunnier side, and the long dark tunnel of pain and unknowing would lead to light. But she was so old now she might not have time enough for the pain to pass, not here in this world, and there was only the hope of the Kingdom to come, the eternal reward. Sweet Jesus who could tend any wound, kissing it full of sweet and healing blood, and the dancing ancestors, welcoming her home.
She closed her eyes and thought of her spirit slipping the ancient birdcage of her breast, wriggling between her ribs and spreading wings of pale fire, rising like a sweet bird out of this coal-dark holler and wheeling high above the land, turning circles with delight, and sweeping still higher, past the clouds and climbing up there with the stars, any one of which might be the bright Kingdom itself, sparkling up there among the lesser heavens. There she would go.
Home.
She heard a skitter of stones and opened her eyes, her heart skipping at the thought of Frank returning home, slipping out of the darkness. Instead, a pair of eyes stared at her over the rocky edge of the creek, round and wide and full of molasses. A pair of tufty black ears.
A dog.
Most of the camp strays had no manners, none. They came nosing into any business they could, acting sweet one second and snatching scraps the next. She’d hollered them off enough they no longer messed around her porch. Knew better. But this one seemed different. A gentler spirit about him.
“Hidy, stranger,” she said, holding out a hand. “Ain’t seen you round these parts before.”
The black dog looked one way, another. Unsure. He had a wild, slightly bewildered look, wispy hair curling from his eyebrows and chin.
Miss Beulah leaned forward in her rocker. “You fretting them other camp hounds? Fuck ’em, baby. Don’t none of them mess with Miss B.”
The dog rose up slowly out of the creek. His body was arched like a racing hound’s but with dark, sheeplike hair. Most dogs would come and sniff her fingers, try to lick off whatever they could of her last meal. This one didn’t. This dog lowered his head, moved past her outstretched hand, and pressed his head to her chest, as if to comfort or be comforted. His hair seemed too fine for these hills, more smoke than fur. Miss Beulah gently scratched him behind the ears.
“Hello, sweet boy,” she said.