A Bird On Water Street (4 page)

“Yes, ma'am.” I blushed and hoped she was only kidding about the bike. She'd been grinnin' when she said it, so I still had hope.

The Randy Travis song Mom had been humming along to was replaced by a deep voice that sounded strangely familiar.

“Is that Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard?” I asked and scrunched up my face.

“You don't like it?”

“He shoulda stuck with TV,” I said and tried to block out the sappy love song.

The Dukes of Hazzard
was my favorite TV show. I watched the reruns all the time. It was about two former moonshine runners who were staying on the right side of the law now but still got in trouble with the sheriff all the time anyhow.

Moonshine used to be a big thing up in these hills. Back during the Prohibition era when alcohol was illegal, folks would make moonshine and then outrun the cops trying to get it to the big cities to sell. It's how a lot of mountain folks made a living during hard times. When alcohol became legal again, it put a lot of families out of business.

The show took place in what was supposed to be today's time in the Appalachian mountains, but the accents were too thick and it was sort of cheesy. Bo and Luke Duke's clashes with the sheriff led to lots of car chases, though, which is why I liked it. Before my old bike fell apart, Piran and I used to pretend we were Bo and Luke Duke, racing around the erosion ditches like we were driving the General Lee, their 1969 Dodge Charger. That was my dream car.

I looked out the window, but the bright sun hit the glass just so and I ended up staring at my own reflection. Shadows stood out under my nose and eyebrows, and I squished up my face to turn them into odd shapes. It would have worked better if I had strong, sharp edges like my dad, but I had my mom's roundness along with her olive skin, brown hair that would never lie down straight, and dark eyes. Mom said my coloring came from a Cherokee ancestor, but the family didn't talk about that much. Nobody let on about having Indian ancestors, although you couldn't swing a dead cat without hittin' Indian blood in Coppertown.

As we drove past the Company, I squinted past my reflection at the red-and-white-striped smokestack that marked its location from miles away. Without trees, it was the tallest thing in these parts. Heck, it'd probably be the tallest thing even
with
trees. You could never get lost in Coppertown as long as you could see the smokestack.

Coote Epworth walked alongside the road near the entrance to the mine, mumbling to himself as he always did. Crazy Coote, as folks called him, was bent and skinny with a stubbly beard. He always wore either a blue, green, or red hooded sweat-shirt with worn blue jeans and kept his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

“Coote's wearing red today”—or “green” or “blue”—we'd say when we saw him. He was kind of our town mascot, even though he was nuts.

“Mom, why's he just walk around all the time?” I turned in my seat to watch him out the back window.
And what's he saying?

“You remember hearing about that big mine collapse way back when, before you was born?”

“The one Grandfather Hicks died in?”

“No, the other one, from when they got too close to another mine shaft robbing the drifts for ore. Your grandfather warned they shouldn't have done it, but management told 'em to anyway. They said it was insured, so they should try. Well, the explosion made the mine unstable,” Mom said. “Coote's mama was pregnant when his daddy was killed in it. She took to drinking and Coote came out a little funny. The insurance money didn't matter then.”

I frowned and promised myself I wouldn't make fun of Coote anymore.

We stopped at the gas station on the way home. Mom was just pulling up to the full service side as usual when none other than Eli Munroe came rushin' out in greasy overalls with Mr. Habersham right on his heels snapping a gray towel like a whip. “And don't you ever come back, you stupid kid!”

Eli jumped into his worn-out Jeep and peeled out of the lot, glancing at me with a scowl as he veered into traffic. Several cars swerved to avoid being hit.

“Sorry you had to see that, Mrs. Hicks. Kid was smoking a cigarette right next to an oil drum. 'Bout blew us up. He's as sharp as a butter knife, that one.” Mr. Habersham rubbed the dirty rag over his red face, which didn't help matters. “Fill you up?”

“Regular, please,” Mom said and handed him her Exxon card.

“Why isn't he in school?” I wondered out loud.

“Didn't he graduate last year?” Mom asked.

“No, he's supposed to be a senior,” I said.

She shook her head. “Shame.”

At home, I placed the cast next to my baseball trophies on the shelf under my bedroom window. In a way, it was a trophy too. I smiled at all the signatures. They were so different. Some were loopy, some were scratchy. Sonny Rust, the Company manager's son, had drawn a smiley face like John Hancock's big signature on the Declaration of Independence. He was always trying too hard to fit in. At least the smiley face was on the underside where it wasn't starin' at me.

I changed my clothes, putting on a fresh pair of jeans and a plaid flannel shirt from the bureau, since the ones I'd had on were covered with plaster dust. It was so nice to pull my shirt on without a cast. I wiggled my fingers as they poked out the end of my sleeve. Then I leaned over and tied up my new sneakers.

Piran will be jealous.
I frowned. I wished I could buy him a pair too.

Piran didn't get new things very often and when he did it was usually something “practical.” His family wasn't poor or anything, but the postmaster's job didn't pay nearly as good as mining, so money had to stretch in their house.

“Jack, dinner,” Mom called from the kitchen. “I made your favorite, macaroni and cheese.”

“Let's see that arm,” Dad said as I ran into the kitchen.

I held it out for him to inspect. “It looks kinda puny.”

“Don't worry. You'll build it back up in no time.”

“We saw that Munroe boy at the gas station today,” Mom said as she set a large dish of yellow globby goodness on the table. “Mr. Habersham fired him for smokin' near an oil drum.”

“I'm not surprised,” Dad said. “He applied for a job at the mine last week, but that boy is about as bright as a coon oil lantern on a foggy day. He wouldn't last a week underground.”

Dad got quiet and cleared his throat. It seemed that everything reminded him of Amon, which turned his mood to dark clouds as quick as spit. He reached for the serving spoon and plopped two huge helpings of macaroni and cheese onto his plate like he was angry at it.

Save some for me
, I worried.

“Jack, do you know you'll be a seventh generation copper miner?” he said.

Of course I knew. Like most of our neighbors, we even hung the flag of Cornwall, England, below our American flag—black with a white cross representing the tin that ran through the ground there.

“And there's no telling how long our family was mining tin in England before we came to America,” he continued.

“Ray, stop,” Mom whispered. “Not during dinner.”

“What about Uncle Amon?” I gulped.

“He weren't a miner,” he mumbled and the muscles in his face sank like melting snow. “He never should have been down there to begin with. Mama didn't want him to… It's why I wouldn't hire Eli. It's a team down there. Those men gotta be able to trust you. One man not paying attention to what the rock is sayin' puts everybody in danger.” He pointed his fork at me. “But don't you worry, Jack. You're my son. You're made of the right stuff and you'll make a damned fine miner.”

“Ray, will you just stop?” Mom glared at him until he sighed and went back to his dinner.

I knew I should have been flattered by what he said. He'd dropped out of high school to take care of his family when Grandfather Hicks died in the collapse and had moved up quickly, despite never getting his high school diploma.

“Hard work will get you anywhere,” he'd say.

But he never bothered to ask me what I wanted to do, which was pretty much anything other than mining.
“Do you even care what I think?”
I wanted to yell. Did it matter to him? But how could I tell my dad that I didn't want his life?

I couldn't move my fork. Who knew you could get a stomachache from macaroni and cheese?

Mom looked at me with her forehead all wrinkled. “Eat up, Jack. We've got to get goin' to the park.”

I couldn't hold onto my bad mood for Music Night—and Hannah would be there!

r

Chapter 4

Music Night

Friday night was music night. Being the last one of the season, nearly everybody in town would be gathered at the river park in Georgia for bluegrass.

Coppertown sat right at the intersection of Polk County in Tennessee and Fannin County in Georgia. Cherokee County in North Carolina was just a stone's throw away too. In fact, the Tennessee-Georgia state line ran right through the parking lot of the Company store.

Piran and I had stood with a foot in each state many a time. It made me feel like I'd been around, which I hadn't.

We caught up with Grandpa Chase as we walked down to the park with our folding chairs. Dad and I helped him unload some coolers from his truck. Since Grandpa owned the local Bait 'n Beer, he sold RC Colas and MoonPies for fifty cents during music nights. Course, he couldn't sell beer over the state line because Fannin was a dry county. And with Sheriff Elder right there, nobody was sneakin' in anything they shouldn't.

Grandpa gave me my cola and MoonPies for free. Sometimes I could wrangle one for Piran too.

I was just grabbing one for the both of us when his sister swooped by with her pack of girlfriends in a cloud of paisley and pink. I stuttered out a weak, “H-h-hi, Hannah.”

“Oh, hey Jack,” she said and flowed on by. I focused on setting out a folding chair so nobody would notice my grin. Nothing could keep me down on music night.

The river kept the air cool as the water flowed by the park in a wide curve. People came down out of the hills, some so wrinkled and bent, you'd swear they were at least 200 years old. And they all brought their instruments with 'em—everywhere you looked there were guitars, banjos, fiddles, basses, mandolins, and dulcimers. Sometimes there were more people making music than listening. For everybody else, it was a good time to catch up on gossip.

When Grandpa Chase wasn't sellin', he was sawing away on his fiddle. Mr. Quinn, Piran's dad, plucked like wildfire on his claw hammer banjo. A few kids stumbled over their fingering, trying to keep up. Mom sang along to “I'll Fly Away” and “Rosewood Casket”—I caught Dad looking at her with a goofy expression on his face. If anybody could get his mind off the mine, it was her.

Old Counce Taylor harmonized with her in his Celtic mountain drawl. When he sang “Angel Band,” he blended all the words together until it was nearly impossible to tell what the words were. Grandpa said he sounded like a bagpipe—that it was the old mountain way of singin'.

Aunt Livvy and Uncle Bubba danced a few reels. They were so good people said they could win awards. Buster just grumbled, “God, they're at it again,” and tried not to stand too close.

Practically the whole town was there—the miners and the folks whose businesses existed because of the miners. The store owners, the doctors, the service folks, and even Miss Post, who looked pretty in a green dress with her hair down. A man was standing beside her who I didn't recognize. Was he her boyfriend? Did teachers have boyfriends?

At any rate, all the folks from Coppertown were there. We were one big family.

Except for the Rusts, that is. Not only were they from some big city, Nashville or somewhere, but Mr. Rust was the Company manager. He held the fate of most of our fathers' jobs in his hands.

Since my dad was a supervisor, we'd been invited up to their big Victorian house once. It was over a hundred years old, built by the original owner of the copper mines—I'd never seen anything so fancy. Sonny's bedroom was nearly as big as our kitchen and den combined. And they had a
parlor
—I never could figure out what for—and chandeliers, which were lights with crystals hangin' from the ceiling. I couldn't imagine living in a house like that.

The Rusts were nice enough, I suppose, and tried hard to be a part of our community, but there weren't no way they ever would. They sat at the edge of the gathering where folks smiled politely to them but didn't ask them to join in.

So other than going to different churches and some folks not getting along with others so well, we were one big family—except for the Rusts. It was kinda like my baseball team, just bigger. I couldn't wait to be playing again, considering I hadn't been able to practice with my cast on. We Miners were as tough as our fathers, undefeated in our region the year before. We planned to do it again the following spring and beat out our biggest rivals, the Rockets.