Bound by Blood and Brimstone (17 page)

Can’t she calm him down?

Wonnie didn’t budge from her chair. She sat, her frame rigid, challenging me with her

eyes. “Your mother will not soothe him,” she said calmly, as if reading my thoughts. “She will

not nurse him or hold him. She has given up. Your sister tries, but she is a child herself. Not like

you.”

“Momma can’t just give up like that,” I shot back, the irritation sharpening my voice.

“The baby has to eat and be changed and held.”

Wonnie smiled. “That is true,” she said. “Now go and get your brother. I have more to

tell you.”

I sighed and pushed back my chair, a heavy weariness settling into my bones. “Where on

earth is Lorrie Beth?” I murmured.

“Sheriff Bates took her to the undertaker.” I could feel my face go numb at this, but

somehow my knees managed to keep from collapsing beneath me. Wonnie stood and reached for

my empty mug. “I picked out William’s best suit for burial and somebody had to take it to the

funeral home. Who else could go?”

Somehow, I managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was as though

someone else stepped into my body and took over the controls, turning off my mind and heart

like the flip of a light switch. Most of my time was spent following Wonnie’s instructions,

mixing formula for the glass bottles and removing endless diapers from Sam’s wet bottom, so a

fresh one could be pinned in its place. I had no memory of anything Momma or Lorrie Beth did

during that time.

I knew Daddy’s funeral was the next evening, but only because Wonnie told me so. Little

of it stayed with me in detail, yet what did remain was seared into my brain forever. I

remembered standing in our front room beside the broken body of the best friend I’d ever

known. I would’ve given my soul to avoid seeing what lay there, but as mountain custom would

have it, coffins were opened during a wake or funeral.

Daddy’s face, so rugged and appealing in life, was hardly recognizable in that velvet-

lined box. The skin was ashen and splotched with black patches, like dirty clay, and one side of

his head was misshapen and flat, though an attempt had been made to camouflage it by

backcombing his hair. No undertaker’s putty or makeup could conceal the ravages wrought by

fallen earth and debris.

I would later learn that the cave-in was a mystery to the “powers that be” at Black

Diamond Mines. There had been no explosion, no obvious signs of structural weakness, no scent

of methane gas before the shaft collapsed. Stranger still was the fact that it took place during a

shift change, as Daddy was leaving for home. He’d been the last of his group to pack it in for the

night, the others already clear of the work area before the deadly rumbling had signaled disaster.

Realizing too late that the black hole he toiled in was to be his tomb, he’d stumbled and

twisted his ankle in the rush for safety, and those precious moments he lost in getting to his feet

had sealed his fate.

As I stood there, gazing down at him, the edges of my vision began to blur, and a dull

throbbing set up in my head. I had a sudden flashback of my dream the night the rain had started,

the one of a great weight pressing on my chest, crushing my lungs. My heart skipped and

stuttered within me as insight blindsided me.
That dream wasn’t about Janine at all. It was about

the cave-in at the mines! It was trying to tell me not to let Daddy go to work! It was a warning!

I felt my knees turn to water. I swooned, pitching and stumbling away from that room

with its stifling perfume of carnations and hot bodies. I had to find Baby Sam. I had to hold him

against my heart, had to feel the warm weight of his body in my arms, smell his sweet, powdery

scent. I craved the nearness of his life force to remind me of my own.

Had Wonnie not been waiting in the kitchen, ready to hand him over when I careened

through the doorway, desperate for relief, I would’ve been lost beyond all efforts to pull me

back.

Memories of the cemetery haunted me in nightmare flashes of detail: blistering wind and

sodden ground beneath my feet, heavy skies the color of dirty lead, the inevitable drone of “ashes

to ashes, dust to dust” from Preacher Watkins, the blur of grief-stricken faces, and lastly, the gut-

wrenching thump of those wet clods hitting the lid of the lowered coffin.

There was something so final, so forever about that sound. It destroyed part of me. That

was the moment my heart broke. I heard it. It wasn’t an explosive boom as one might think, but a

harsh tinkling, like the shattering of fine crystal.

Once again, it was Lorrie Beth who filled me in on all the blank spaces. She revealed that

Wonnie Dean had stood board-stiff and dry-eyed through all, cradling Baby Sam in thick

blankets, never speaking a word. Momma had screamed and flailed so violently it had taken two

grown men to keep her from flinging herself into the grave.

She’d cried brokenly over and over, “Will, Will, you can’t leave me now! No, Jesus, you

can’t have my Will! Take me instead! Please, take me!” When no strength was left for words,

she’d collapsed in a dead faint and had to be carried off the cemetery by Sheriff Bates.

“And, oh, Ember Mae, you wouldn’t believe all the people at the house!” Lorrie Beth

declared in awed tones. “All crying and leaving dishes and dishes of food! Why, the whole

county must’ve been there! And they were all saying how much they loved Daddy and how he

was such a good friend, helping them out whenever they needed it. One man told Momma that

Daddy saved his life one time! Can you believe it? I never knew Daddy did all of that, did you?”

She seemed stunned to learn that our daddy was so much more than our daddy. I could’ve

told her none of it surprised me. I’d known he was a whole person and was loved by many more

than those of us in our own little cocoon. The shock on her face made me want to hit her, but I

realized she looked at our daddy from the eyes of a child who can see no farther than her own

nose. It made me feel separate from my sister in a way I’d never experienced before. It made me

feel ancient.

By the time a month had passed, I’d still not shed a single tear. Lorrie Beth, who sobbed

almost nonstop, even snubbing in her sleep, marveled at how I could do that. There didn’t seem

to be any time to let the dam break, what with diapers, bottles, dirty dishes, dusting, and walking

the floor with a colicky baby.

Wonnie stayed with us, lightening our load as much as she could with her calloused

hands and serene will. She took care of the livestock, outside chores, and Momma, who had shed

her very essence like a second skin. Her blue eyes lost their light and hollowed out in her face.

Her skin, so luminous and fair before the birth of Baby Sam, grew chalky and shrunken, until it

appeared to be stretched like a drumhead over the delicate bones underneath. She rarely spoke,

never even acknowledged the squirming, squealing creature who was her son.

I feared for Baby Sam. What chance did he have without his mother or father? Actually, I

feared for all of us. I didn’t see any possible way for us to go on without Daddy’s broad

shoulders to carry us.

It enraged me to think the world could continue without him, that other lives would keep

their paces as though nothing had happened. How could that be? I protested vehemently about

returning to school, arguing that Baby Sam needed me, but as usual, my great grandmother stood

her ground.

“No one should outlive her own grandchildren,” she told me. “It is not the natural order

of things. But our Father has made the choice for us to live and we must take it. Now, you will

go to school, just as before.” Wonnie Dean had spoken, and her words were law, though I

would’ve preferred a jury trial.

Day bled into endless day, week into week, and still nothing could pierce the armor I had

sheathed around my heart. I spent my time without thinking or feeling, only doing, always doing

what had to be done. Most nights, by the time my head hit the pillow, I was out so fast I wouldn’t

even remember closing my eyes before unconsciousness dragged me under.

It was exactly eight weeks after Daddy died when I’d had enough of Momma and Lorrie

Beth and decided to head out to the woods. I told no one I was leaving on that clear morning. I

took only a lunch of cold chicken and biscuits and my collection of figurines Daddy had carved

for me as a Christmas present.

It was cool on my way through the trees. There were few signs left of the floods that had

torn up Silver Rock Creek, devastating our townspeople just two months earlier. I was told that

our collision with Mother Nature had been in all the papers and even on television, where Walter

Cronkite had declared it to be the worst flood in West Virginia’s recorded history.

I found my way to my favorite spot and sat cross-legged on a rock for the longest time,

all the while keeping the gate to my thoughts tightly latched. Untying the string on my leather

pouch, I let the five figurines tumble out on the rock, and just sat staring at them. I picked up the

one of Daddy in the miner’s hat and ran my finger lightly over the face and quartz stone.

Suddenly, Daddy’s words swirled in my head.
And the light? To help you find your way back

home if you’re ever lost.

I drew in a long, shuddering breath and, letting it out, cautiously flipped the latch on my

mind gate. Before I could halt them, the memories gushed out.

With tsunami-like force, they rose, swelled, and crashed over me, drowning me in a tide

of grief. Daddy’s face, voice and laughter were everywhere, in the treetops, the rocks, the moss,

and tumbling creek water. Something inside me ripped, and without knowing how I got there, I

was lying with my face in the dirt.

Beating my fists upon the ground, I rent the air with screams. My tears mixed with the

dirt and became mud on my face, and still, I ranted and raged at God. “WHY? WHY? WHY MY

DADDY? WHY DID YOU TAKE HIM? HOW COULD YOU DO IT? HOW? HE WAS

EVERYTHING TO ME, THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER TRULY LOVED ME FOR ME!

YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE MERCIFUL! WHAT KIND OF MERCY IS THIS? JUST TELL

ME, WHAT KIND OF GOD ARE YOU?”

On and on I went, until my vocal cords were nearly stripped and I could no longer raise

my fist. I realized I didn’t have the strength to swat a fly if it had blown me where I lay. My

breath wheezed in and out of my lungs, ragged and raw from sobbing.

My thoughts were a whirlwind. Well, I’ve gone and done it: blasphemed. Just two

months ago, I would’ve been terrified of questioning the Almighty, and here I am, screaming

into His face. Well, so what? Maybe He isn’t there after all. Maybe I don’t even believe in Him

anymore. Any God who could take a good man like my daddy away from his family is not a God

I care to follow. So, there it is. Ember Mae Roberts doesn’t believe in God anymore. I wasn’t

sure how long I lay there after that, but at some point, I fell asleep.

The sound of whistling woke me. I struggled to raise myself, wondering who could be

whistling out in the middle of nowhere. Figuring I would follow the sound to its source, I

trudged off in what seemed to be the right direction.

I told myself it couldn’t be far. I knew those woods as well as my own back yard, and

still it took nearly an hour to find the whistler. At the time I was desperate for a distraction, no

matter how far I had to go to get it.

He was sitting on a rotting log with his back to me. I got a glimpse of red and black

flannel and dark hair before my footsteps alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone. He

turned to face me and stood. He was tall, at least six feet, with broad shoulders and muscled

forearms sticking out beneath his rolled up sleeves. At the end of those forearms, his hands were

thick and sturdy, the fingers tapered. They looked like they could’ve easily choked the life out of

most men, but I didn’t feel a hint of fear at being close to him. One hand held a small knife, the

other, a slender piece of wood. He was carving.

“I, uh, I heard the whistling,” I stammered.

He smiled. “Oh, that,” he said with a shrug. “Just a habit I have, I guess. I hope I didn’t

disturb you.” I was struck by his voice. It was deep and strangely melodic, with an accent that

was definitely not from the hills. Just hearing it somehow made me feel better.

He saw me looking at his hands and laid the knife and wood on the ground at his feet, as

though embarrassed at being caught. “I’m no good at all; it’s something I do to keep my hands

busy and my mind blank.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I know, knew someone who used to carve, and

he was pretty good at it.”

He nodded and motioned for me to sit on the other side of his log. “Yeah, I knew

someone like that too--my dad. He was good with his hands, could make anything out of

practically nothing. He made a cabinet once out of what he thought was scrap wood--turns out,