4

the moving

The mines shut down. The operators pulled out the machinery and dismantled the tipple. Thieves stripped the copper wiring. The iron rails threading the tunnels to the coal face were removed, and all else which could be taken apart or pried loose. The scrap metal was salvaged: rusted piles of spikes, augers, discarded mine car wheels, tangles of cable. Low Glory was picked clean. Even the road into the Houndshell hollow vanished. A spring tide turned it into a gully.

Families with a place to go sledded their plunder to the highway where a truck could reach it. Some went without certainty where they would wind up, Hebron Dunford exhorting them to remain and tough it out, recalling that Low Glory had a history of resurrections. A childless man and wife walked away, leaving their household goods, taking with them only a budget,* and were not seen more.

Among the first to move were some who had endured the panic years in Houndshell. Sim Brannon left, as did the men who matched game fowls in the Hack, and Tavis Mott and his glass eye. Three unoccupied houses burned. An empty dwelling had its windows shattered the moment of abandonment. The county closed the school, and the schoolhouse burned the next night. The law arrived, pondered, and departed. No longer did the doctor appear on his appointed Thursdays.

Carpenters tore down four houses and stacked the lumber against the day the road might be repaired. Word flew the whole camp was under the crowbar* and thenceforth moving was accounted desertion. An occupied house would not be touched. Several families set forth at night to avoid sullen onlookers and Hebron Dunford’s sermon. The operators’ watchdog† hung out in the empty commissary and did not show his face save to accept house keys of departers through a grating.

We stayed on for six weeks. Pap played for time on the off chance Cass Logan might beckon him and we could move to Plank Town instead of Sporty. “Someday when I get my ducks in a row,” Pap promised, “we’ll settle at the Old Place for all hereafter. Ay, not just now.” Yet a quick trip by Pap to see Cass proved there was nothing else to do but to turn farmer forthwith.

In my mind’s eye I was already swinging the rafters of the water mill on the stream below our house. Many a secret and dark corner the mill had for hiding and imaginings. Built before the Silver War** for grinding wheat, it had fallen into neglect. Nobody raised wheat anymore. The grindrock was in place, but who knew how to sharpen the burrs? A lost skill.

Pap bought a wagon and a hillsider† in Thacker, a plow horse and a rig at a stock sale in Letcher County, and a milk cow from Crate Thompson. Crate was a penhooker** who had driven herds past Old Place in other years. Pap purchased the cow naked,‡ and Mother chided him for not also buying a heifer to come fresh when the animal went dry. As for the horse, Pap said there might be a colt coming along some fine pretty day, and it would be mine.

There happened no high-top boots for Pap, no better shoes for me. The pretties were passed over. As Houndshell had gone from ease to poverty within the batting of an eye, my shirt with candy stripes was too loud for the times.

The day came when the wagon was loaded with our plunder,* and there only remained the nailing down of the doors and windows and delivery of the key to the watchdog. Pap had spent two days patching the road out of the hollow, with no offers of help. Only Sula Basham had been told where we were headed. Holly and I would take turns driving the cow, and she was bound to be first. Holly’s nature.

Holly started, the cow on a leash, Dan at her heels. The nanny cat followed, of her own free will. Nobody in their senses would move a cat.

Mother and I stood by the wagon while Pap hammered on the windowframes and spat into the keyholes to make the locks turn. He did what he believed was his duty, useless as he knew it to be. The baby nestled in a wad of quilts in the wagon bed. We waited, restless as the harnessed mare, anxious to hasten beyond staring eyes. Idle miners stood in the yard and scowled; boys tramped the black dust before our gate.

The boys kept glancing at the windows, pockets bulging with rocks. I knew them all, although they had not been playfellows. Five sat in the schoolroom with me under Mama Bear. Two I had known from early days in the camp. I looked into their faces and they were as strangers. Rejection swelled in me like a gorge, for only Tood Magoffin, the man with a child’s mind, was heavyhearted at my going. One boy leaned and jerked loose the strings of Tood’s shoes.

Though women regarded us from their porches, only Sula Basham came to say a good-bye to Mother. She came walking, tall as a butterweed, her gold locket swinging from her neck like a clock weight. She was higher than anybody.

Sula towered over Mother, and the locket dropped like a plumb to the end of its chain. Mother, barely five and a half feet, tilted her head and gazed upon the locket. Never had she owned a grain of gold, neither broach nor ring nor pin. Cutting scornful eyes at the men, Sula declared loudly to Mother, “You’re in luck to have a husband not satisfied to rot in Houndshell, a man who’ll knuckle to facts.”

The men stirred. Hebron Dunford raised his arms, spreading them as might a preacher. “These people are moving to nowhere,” he said. “Why make gypsies of a family? I say as long as folks have a roof overhead, let them roost beneath it. Stay put until things rally.”

Men grunted in agreement, and the boys lifted their rock-heavy pockets and sidled toward the wagon. The boys placed hands on the wagon wheels. They fingered the mare’s harness. They hoisted the lid of the toolbox to see what was in it. Fonzo Asher crawled under the wagon, rear axle to front axle, and I watched out of the tail of my eye, thinking a caper might be pulled.

Father came into the yard with the key, and now the house was shut against our turning back. I looked at the empty hull of our dwelling. I looked at the lost town, and I hungered for it. Pap held up the key. “If somebody would drop this off at the commissary, I’d be obliged.”

Tood Magoffin lumbered in Pap’s direction, shirttail flagging. His shirt had been snatched free of his breeches. “I’ll bring it,” Tood cried, both hands reaching. “I will, I will.”

“I’m not wanting it brought,” Pap said. He wouldn’t trust a lackbrain. “You’ve got it twisted, Tood. I’m wanting it taken.”

Although he wasn’t offering to accept the key, Hebron Dunford stepped forward. “Stay, or you’ll wish to your Maker you had.”

Pap replied testily, “I’d rather perish hunting for work than to dry up in a ghost town.” He relished the secret that we owned a house seat and were heading for it.

Cephus Dehart nodded toward Sula Basham and said, “I’ll deliver the key if you’ll take this beanpole widow woman along and locate her a husband. She’s worn the black bonnet* long enough. “

Laughter rattled about us. Sula whirled, her face lit with anger. “Was I of a mind to marry again,” she spat, “I’d choose nobody the nature of you.”

Calming Sula, Mother said, “The devil reward them.” She was admiring the locket. Mother was peering at the locket, not covetously, but in wonder, and as if she had not seen it before.

“I’ll take the key,” Sula told Pap. “Nobody else appears anxious to neighbor you. And when you get gone from Houndshell, you’ll find it blessed riddance. You’ll praise the day.”

Mother climbed into the wagon seat. Sula and Mother were now at eye level. “You were a help in my husband’s sickness,” Sula said. “You were a comfort when he lay in his box. I hain’t forgetting. Wish I had a keepsake to give you, showing I’ll alius remember.”

“I’ll keep you in my head,” Mother assured.

“Proud to know it.”

“Wherever you set down, let me hear. I’ll come visit.” Sula was keeping our secret. We were ready to go. “Climb on, son,” Pap bade. I swung up from the hind gate to the top of the load. Over the heads of the men I could see the whole of the camp, the gray houses, the smoke cloaking the gob heap. The stripped skeleton of the tipple lifted above us. The pain of leaving welled in me.

Pap clucked his tongue, and the mare started off. She walked clear of her hitchings. Loose trace chains swung free, and the ends of the wagon shafts bounded to the ground.

“Whoa ho!” Pap shouted, jumping down. A burst of merriment sounded behind us. Fonzo Asher had pulled a rusty.* He’d done the unfastening. Pap smiled while adjusting the harness. He didn’t mind a foxy trick. He sprang back onto the wagon.

We drove away, the wheels taking the groove of the ruts, the load swaying. Then it was I saw the gold locket about Mother’s neck, beating her bosom like a heart.

I looked back, seeing the first rocks thrown, hearing our windows shatter. I looked back upon the camp as upon the face of the dead. Only Tood Magoffin was watching us go. He stood holding up his breeches, for someone had cut his belt with a knife. He thrust an arm into the air, crying, “Hello, hello!”

 

*budget: bag of personal belongings

*under the crowbar: slated for dismantlement

†watchdog: company agent

**Silver War: American Civil War, 1861-65

†hillsider: plow adapted for steep ground

**penhooker: cattle buyer

‡naked cow: without a calf

*plunder: household goods

*black bonnet: in mourning

*rusty: prank