“I’ll go when I get ready.”
“I’m telling you: go now.”
I stood up and went over to him, where he’d sat down on the sofa. He got up and started backing away. I picked up his hat, which he’d put beside him, and handed it over to him. He took it and went, still backing, and not once looking at Jill. “Well!” she exclaimed. “Talk about unruly passengers! He was one for the pilot to deal with... And the pilot did!” She gave me a little admiring shake. “I love it, how you deal with them.”
“I never liked Uncle Sid much.”
We watched as Sid drove off down the lane to the highway. “Do they all dress like that in Flint?” she asked.
“You mean the black hat?”
“He looked like one of the bad guys on TV.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well? He did.”
“The black hat is pretty much a mountain thing. Yes, they dress like that — at least on Sunday for church. He was all dressed up in your honor.”
“The more I see of mountains, the more valleys appeal to me.”
“This is a valley, right here.”
“The Muskingum Valley — I love it.”
“And a mountain is looking at you.”
“You’re not mountain, at all.”
“But I am, as you ought to know.”
She put her arms around me, kissed me, then kissed me again. “You mean — it was mountain that sighted that Enfield?”
“Springfield,” I corrected.
“It was an Enfield. I know from my days in summer camp. Our camp mother believed in such things. The Enfield bolt-pull is curved. On the Springfield it’s straight.”
“You halfway sound mountain yourself.”
“David Howell, I’ve fallen for you — hard, harder than I want. But if you try to make me go mountain, I’ll unfall so fast you’ll get dizzy. Do I make myself clear?”
I think she expected a laugh, a hug, and a kiss, and they’re what I wanted to give her. But all of a sudden I felt a throb in my throat and heard myself ask her: “You want a straight answer to that?”
“I demand a straight answer to it.”
“Mountain saved your life.”
“All right, all right, all right. Mountain can up and do it, when something has to be done. But don’t ask me to take part.”
“Don’t ask me not to.”
We did kiss then, kind of an armistice kiss, but warm and loving at that.
“Tell me more about Sid. What does he do for a living in Flint? What does anyone do there?”
“Flint’s a dead coal camp of the Ajax Coal Corporation. Nobody lives there but Sid. He’s caretaker of the mine and is on the company payroll at five hundred dollars a month and a house, rent-free, that the super used to live in. But that’s just the beginning for Sid. His real business is booze which ties in with the mine, and does he make it pay!”
“You mean he mines it?”
“All but. But to understand about that, you must understand a coal mine, especially an abandoned coal mine.”
By that time we were on the sofa, with her snuggled tight in my arms. She whispered: “Go on, tell me.”
“In the first place, there’s the floor which pumpkins up, as they call it, so it’s one hump after another. Then there’s the top, which first blisters, then falls down on the pumpkins. You can get through, using a miner’s lamp, but you have to crawl. So, in through those old dead entries, the worked-out rooms are waiting, just perfect for moonshine stills. Everything’s perfect for liquor — the underground spring, running down and into the river, that the mash can be dumped into, so there’s no removal problem — the traps, to control the smell—”
“What are traps?”
“In a coal mine they control the air. A trapper boy sits alongside to open it when a train’s coming and close it when it goes through. But for Sid they control the smell, which is the main danger a moonshiner faces. Sid can valve it out through the old original drift, where nobody ever goes. On top of that, what deputy would look for a still in that mine? It would be all his life is worth. I mean he’d be terrified. They leave him strictly alone.”
“Well, I certainly would.”
“And on top of that, there’s his help — miners out of work, but before they mined coal, they moonshined. Dust to dust, mountain to mountain, shine to shine. They’re doing what comes naturally to them.”
“And he’s Mrs. Howell’s brother?”
“He’d visit her sometime. Like one time he stayed for a week, and I felt something went on, I didn’t know what. He came in a car, but going back she had to drive him.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“What went with his car?”
“Well? What did?”
“I don’t know. I never found out.”
“Why did the mine close down?”
“Seam feathered out. For 40 years they worked it at seven feet. It was a gold mine made of steam coal. Then it feathered down to four, so it couldn’t be worked. But then — how did you guess it? — it could be worked with a strip shovel. On the other side of the mountain, between the top and daylight, it’s only 20 feet, so it’s crying to be worked, and it is. They put a spur in from the railroad, seven miles up from Flint, called the station Boulder, and are shipping 10 cars a day.”
“They say strip mines are bad.”
“Not this one. They’re smoothing the dirt out again after taking the coal out, planting some in pasture with clover, and putting the rest in trees. To my eye, it looks still better.”
“Always the mountain boy.”
“OK, I’ll drive you over and you can have a look.”
“I can’t hardly wait.”
“Mouth.”
“OK.”
12
We sat for a long time holding close. Then, around 4:00, she pointed out the window. Another car was turning in from the highway to the lane. It was a Ford, one of the new compacts, and shiny black. It pulled up in front of the house, but when I saw who was getting out, I couldn’t help giving a yell. “Who is she?” Jill asked.
“Aunt Myra,” I told her.
“Dave, she’s beautiful!”
She was, all right, with her big black eyes, pale skin, and soft willowy figure. She had on a mink coat, one I’d never seen, over a dark red dress. Her straight, black hair was combed over her shoulders. She looked like the queen of England, and we stood there gaping at her. Then Jill gave me a push and I went piling out to greet her. I took her in my arms, kissed her, and held her close, and she clung to me. After she’d kissed me two or three times, I took her inside where Jill was waiting to be introduced. But Aunt Myra didn’t wait. “Oh I know who you are!” she burst out. “You’re the most famous girl in the whole United States. I’m so happy about it!”
At last Aunt Myra asked: “Dave, where’s your mother?”
Jill looked at me, and I closed my eyes to think what I wanted to say. Then I knew. “I think right here,” I told her.
I went over, knelt by her chair, and kissed her. She broke down and wept on my shoulder, then rubbed her face against mine, so her tears were smeared against me. Then I was crying with her.
“Then Little Myra told you?” she asked.
“Yes, she did.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
She kept looking at me, wanting more details, but what was I going to say? I hadn’t even told Jill all of what had happened, especially that visit to my bed, and I certainly didn’t intend to spill it now. “Actually, she didn’t mention why, if she had some particular reason. Just that there was something she’d wanted to tell me, something I ought to know.”