Wish You Well

CHAPTER TEN

The kitchen shelves were worn, knotholed pine, floors the same. The floorboards creaked slightly as Oz swept with a shorthandled broom, while Lou loaded lengths of cut wood into the iron belly of the Sears catalogue cookstove that took up one wall of the small room. Fading sunlight came through the window and also peered through each wall crevice, and there were many. An old coal-oil lamp hung from a peg. Fat black iron kettles hung from the wall. In another corner was a food safe with hammered metal doors; a string of dried onions lay atop it and a glass jug of kerosene next to that.

As Lou examined each piece of hickory or oak, it was as though she was revisiting each facet of her prior life, before throwing it in the fire, saying good-bye as the flames ate it away. The room was dark and the smells of damp and burnt wood equally pungent. Lou stared over at the fireplace. The opening was large, and she guessed that the cooking had been done there before the Sears cookstove had come. The brick ran to the ceiling, and iron nails were driven through the mortar all over; tools and kettles, and odd pieces of other things Lou couldn’t identify but that looked well-used, hung from them. In the center of the brick wall was a long rifle resting on twin braces angled into the mortar.

The knock on the door startled them both. Who would expect visitors so far above sea level? Lou opened the door and Diamond Skinner stared back at her with a vast smile. He held up a mess of smallmouth bass, as though he was offering her the crowns of dead kings. Loyal Jeb was beside him, his snout wrinkling as he drew in the fine fishy aroma.

Louisa came striding in from outside, her brow glistening with sweat, her gloved hands coated with rich dirt, as were her brogans. She slipped off her gloves and dabbed at her face with a sweat rag pulled from her pocket. Her long hair was pulled up under a cloth scarf, wisps of silver peeking out in spots.

“Well, Diamond, I believe that’s the nicest mess of smallmouth I ever seen, son.” She gave Jeb a pat. “How you doing, Mr. Jeb? You help Diamond catch all them fish?”

Diamond’s grin was so wide Lou could almost count all his teeth. “Yes’m. Did Hell No—”

Louisa held up a finger and politely but firmly corrected, “Eugene.”

Diamond looked down, collecting himself after this blunder. “Yes’m, sorry. Did Eugene tell you—”

“That you’d be bringing supper? Yes. And you’ll be staying for it seeing you caught it. And get to know Lou and Oz here. Sure y’all be good friends.”

“We’ve already met,” Lou said stiffly.

Louisa looked between her and Diamond. “Well, that’s right good. Diamond and you close in years. And be good for Oz to have another boy round.”

“He’s got me,” Lou said bluntly.

“Yes, he does,” Louisa agreed. “Well, Diamond, you gonna stay for meal?”

He considered the matter. “I ain’t got me no more ’pointments today, so yep, I set myself down.” Diamond glanced at Lou, and then he wiped at his dirty face and attempted to tug down one of a dozen cowlicks. Lou had turned away, however, completely unaware of his effort.

The table was set with Depression glass plates and cups, collected over the years by Louisa, she told them, from Crystal Winter oatmeal boxes. The dishes were green, pink, blue, amber, and rose. However pretty they might be, no one was really focusing on the dishes. Instead, tin fork and knife clashed as they all dug into the meal. When Louisa had said the meal prayer, Lou and Oz crossed themselves, while Diamond and Eugene looked on curiously but said nothing. Jeb lay in the corner, surprisingly patient with his portion. Eugene sat at one end of the table, methodically chewing his food. Oz absorbed his entire meal so fast Lou seriously considered checking to make sure his fork had not disappeared down his throat. Louisa dished Oz the last piece of lard-fried fish, the rest of the cooked vegetables, and another piece of cooked-in-grease cornbread, which, to Lou, tasted better than ice cream.

Louisa had not filled her plate.

“You didn’t have any fish, Louisa,” Oz said, as he stared guiltily at his second helping. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Meal by itself seeing a boy eating his way up to a growed man. Et while I cooked, honey. Always do.”

Eugene glanced questioningly at Louisa when she said this and then went back to his meal.

Diamond’s gaze kept sliding between Lou and Oz. He seemed eager to make friends again, yet seemed unsure how to accomplish it.

“Can you show me some of the places my dad would go around here?” Lou asked Louisa. “The things he liked to do? See, I’m a writer too.”

“I know that,” she said, and Lou gave her a surprised look. Louisa put her cup of water down and studied Lou’s face. “Your daddy he like to tell ’bout the land. But afore he done that he done something real smart.” She paused as Lou considered this.

“Like what?” the girl finally asked.

“He come to unnerstand the land.”

“Understand . . . dirt?”

“It got lots of secrets, and not all good ones. Things up here hurt you bad if you ain’t careful. Weather so fickle, like it break your heart ’bout the time it do your back. Land don’t help none who don’t never bother to learn it.” On this she glanced at Eugene. “Lord knows Eugene could use help. This farm ain’t going one minute more without his strong back.”

Eugene swallowed a piece of fish and washed it down with a gulp of water he had poured directly into his glass from a bucket. As Lou watched him, Eugene’s mouth trembled. She interpreted that as a big smile.

“Fact is,” Louisa continued, “you and Oz coming here is a blessing. Some folk might say I helping you out, but that ain’t the truth. You helping me a lot more’n I can you. For that I thank you.”

“Sure,” said Oz gallantly. “Glad to do it.”

“You mentioned there were chores,” Lou said.

Louisa looked over at Eugene. “Better to show, not tell. Come morning, I commence showing.”

Diamond could contain himself no longer.

“Johnny Booker’s pa said some fellers been looking round his place.”

“What fellers?” asked Louisa sharply.

“Ain’t know. But they’s asking questions ’bout the coal mines.”

“Get your ears on the ground, Diamond.” Louisa looked at Lou and Oz. “And you too. God put us on this earth and he take us away when he good and ready. Meantime, family got to look out for each other.”

Oz smiled and said he’d keep his ears so low to the ground, they’d be regularly filled with dirt. Everyone except Lou laughed at that. She simply stared at Louisa and said nothing.

The table was cleared, and while Louisa scraped dishes, Lou worked the sink hand pump hard, the way Louisa had shown her, to make only a very thin stream of water come out. No indoor plumbing, she had been told. Louisa had also explained to them the outhouse arrangement and shown them the small rolls of toilet paper stacked in the pantry. She had said a lantern would be needed after dark if the facilities were required, and she had shown Lou how to light one. There was also a chamberpot under each of their beds if the call of nature was of such urgency that they couldn’t make it to the outhouse in time. However, Louisa informed them that the cleaning of the chamberpot was strictly the responsibility of the one using it. Lou wondered how timid Oz, a champion user of the bathroom in the middle of the night, would get along with this accommodation. She imagined she would be standing outside this outhouse many an evening while he did his business, and that was a weary thought.

Right after supper Oz and Diamond had gone outside with Jeb. Lou now watched as Eugene lifted the rifle off its rack above the fireplace. He loaded the gun and went outside.

Lou said to Louisa, “Where’s he going with that gun?”

Louisa scrubbed plates vigorously with a hardened corncob. “See to the livestock. Now we done turned out the cows and hogs, Old Mo’s coming round.”

“Old Mo?”

“Mountain lion. Old Mo, he ’bout as old as me, but that durn cat still be a bother. Not to people. Lets the mare and the mules be too, ’specially the mules, Hit and Sam. Don’t never cross no mule, Lou. They’s the toughest things God ever made, and them durn critters keep grudges till kingdom come. Don’t never forget one smack of the whip, or slip of a shoeing nail. Some folks say mules ’bout as smart as a man. Mebbe that why they get so mean.” She smiled. “But Mo does go after the sheep, hogs, and cows. So we got to protect ’em. Eugene gonna fire the gun, scare Old Mo off.”

“Diamond told me about Eugene’s father leaving him.”

Louisa glanced at her sternly. “A lie! Tom Randall were a good man.”

“What happened to him then?” Lou prompted when it appeared Louisa was not inclined to go on.

Louisa finished with a plate first and set it down to dry. “Eugene’s mother die young. Tom left the baby with his sister here and went on over to Bristol, Tennessee, for work. He a coal miner here, but lot of folks started coming round to do that too, and they always let the Negroes go first. He got kilt in an accident afore he could send for Eugene. When Eugene’s aunt passed on, I took him in. The other’s just lies by folks who have hate in their hearts.”

“Does Eugene know?”

“Course he does! I told him when he were old enough.”

“So why don’t you tell people the truth?”

“People don’t want’a listen, ain’t no good what you try tell ’em.” She shot Lou a glance. “Unnerstand me?”

Lou nodded, but in truth she wasn’t convinced she did.