The Run for the Elbertas (3 page)

“Hit reads in a magazine where a feller kin sell garden seeds and make a profit. A hundred packages o' squash and dill and turnip sold, and I'd have me enough.”

We saw the man afar off on the road. He was heading our way, walking a hippety-hop on short legs.

“Bulger Hyden,” Fedder said.

Fedder hailed him as he reached the schoolhouse gate, and he stopped. He shed his coat, being warm from haste, and he wore a green-dotted shirt.

“Who whooped?” Fedder asked.

Bulger Hyden's face grew wrinkled as a doty mushroom; he swung his arms emptily, glancing at the sky's promise of weather. There was a hint of snow. Goldfinches blew over us like leaves, piping their dry winter song above the conveyor's ceaseless rattle.

“Steph Harben's Red Pyle rimwrecked my Duckwing,” Bulger grumbled. “Steph fotched that bird from West Virginia and scratches in all the money. I say it hain't fair pitting a furren cock.” He folded his coat, balancing it on an elbow crotch, making ready to go. “I thought a sight o' my little Duckwing.” His voice hoarsened. “I cherished that rooster.” And he went on, and I looked after him, thinking a green-speckled shirt was the choicest garment ever a fellow could wear.

Winter came before I could go to the Hack. Snow fell late in November and scarcely left the ground for two months. The rooster fights were halted until spring. I recollect the living river of wind pouring down Houndshell Hollow. For bird and varmint, and, I hear, for folk beyond the camps, it was a lean time. But miners fared well. I recollect the warm linsey coats, the red woolen gloves, the high-top boots; I recollect full pokes of food going into houses, and the smell of cooking victuals. Children wore store clothes. They bought spin-tops and pretties at the commissary. Boys' pockets clinked money. Only Fedder Mott and I had to wind our own balls and whittle our tops. I hoarded the nickels Mother gave me, telling Fedder I might buy a shirt when enough had been saved. Fedder never had a penny. He spoke bitterly of it. “My pap wouldn't plait me shucks if'n I was a chair bottom.” And he said, “I hear tell hit's might' nigh the same with yore pap. Hit's told the eagle squalls when he looses a dollar.”

Mother spent little. We hardly dared complain, having already more than we had known before. Once, in January, Father tried to figure the amount of money Mother had stored in the draw sack. He marked with a stub pencil, and Mother watched. At last he let the baby have the pencil. “My wage has riz three times,” he said hopelessly, “though I don't know how much. Why, fellers tell me they're getting twelve and fifteen dollars a day. Deat Sheldon claims he made twenty dollars, four days handrunning, but he works a fold in the gravy tunnel and can load standing up.”

“I've no idea o' the sum we've got,” Mother said. “I opened one pay pocket and we're living out of it. The rest I've kept sealed.”

“How's a body to know when a plenty's been saved? I hain't in a notion yet setting aside for tombstone and coffin box. Fellers in the mines 'gin to say the buffalo bellows when I spend a nickel.”

“If you long for a thing enough, you'll give up for it. You'll sacrifice. The coal famine is bound to end some day.
Come that time, we'll fit the house to the money.”

Father began to tease. “What say we count the greenbacks? My curiosity is being et raw.”

“Now, no. Hit would be a temptation to spend.”

The baby sat up, threshing the air, puckering his lips. We looked, and he had bitten the rubber tip off the pencil.

“Hain't he old enough to be saying words?” Father asked.

“He talked to a cat once,” Lark said. “I heared him.”

“Ah, now,” Mother chided. “Just a sound he made. Cats follow stealing in since we bought salt fish. Can't keep the cat hole plugged.”

“He said 'kigid.' ”

“That hain't a word,” Fern said.

Father poked a finger at the baby. “By gollyard, if he'd just speak one word!”

The baby lifted his arms, mouth wide, neck stretched. He crowed.

“Thar's your rooster,” Father chuckled, setting his eyes on me.

“I aim to own a real gamer,” I bragged, irked by Father's teasing. “I aim to.” I spoke without hope, not knowing that by spring it would come true.

“A good thing to have this double zero weather,” Father drawled. “Hit driv the poker players and fowl gamblers indoors. But fellers claim that when the weather mends they'll be rooster fights in the Hack three days a week. Hit's high-low-jack and them fools lose every button cent.”

Mother searched the baby's mouth for the pencil tip. “I call this boom a gamble,” she said. “It's bound to end.” She didn't find the rubber tip, for the baby had swallowed it down.

I told Fedder of Mother's prophecy as we sat by a fire on the creek bank. We had fish-hooks in an ice hole.

“Be-hopes the boom lasts till I git me a glass eye,” he said. “My mind's set on it. I'd better have a batch o' garden seeds ordered and start selling.”

“You couldn't stick a pickax in the ground, it's so froze,” I told him. “Folks haven't a notion to buy seeds now.”

Fedder rubbed his hands over the blaze, blowing a foggy breath. “I say winter hain't going to last forever neither.”

I recollect thinking the long cold spell would never end. January diddled, and February crawled. March warmed a bit, thawing. The breasts of goldfinches turned yellow as rubbed gold again. Fedder got his seeds, though when he should have been peddling them he'd climb the ridge to the rooster fights. Oft when a rooster was killed they'd let him bring the dead fowl home. Father forbade my going to the Hack; he put his foot down. But next to seeing was Fedder's telling. I came to know the names of the bravest cocks. I knew their markings, and the way they fought.

Fedder whistled for me one Thursday evening at the edge of dark. I heard and went outside, knowing his Kentucky redbird call. He stood beyond the fence with a coffee sack bundled in his arms; and he seemed fearful and anxious, and yet proud. His blue eye was wide, and the black patch had a living look. Packages of seeds rattled in his pockets.

“How much money have you mized?” he asked. “How much?” His voice was a husky whisper.

I guessed what the bundle held, scarcely daring to believe. I grew feverish with wonder.

“Eleven nickels,” I said. “I couldn't save all.”

The coffee sack moved; something threshed inside. A fowl's wings struck its thighs.

“I'm a-mind to sell you half ownership in my rooster,” he said. “I will for yore eleven nickels, and if you'll keep him till I find a place. My pap would wring hits neck if I tuck him home.”

I touched the bundle. My hand trembled. I shook with joy. “I been saving to buy a shirt,” I said. “I want me a boughten shirt.”

“You couldn't save enough by Kingdom Come. Eleven nickels, and jist you pen him. We'll halvers.”

“Who'd he belong to?”

“Fotch the money. All's got to be helt a secret.”

I brought my tobacco-sack bank and Father's mine lamp. We stole under the house, penning the rooster in a hen-coop. Father's voice droned over us in the kitchen. Fedder lit the lamp to count the money. The rooster stood blinking, redeyed, alert. His shoulders were white, redding at the wing bows. Blood beads tipped his hackle feathers. His spurs were trimmed to fit gaffs. It was Steph Harben's Red Pyle.

“How'd you come by him?” I insisted.

“He fit Ebo, the black Cuban, and got stumped. He keeled down. They was a cut on his throat and you'd a-thought him knob dead. Steph give him to me, and ere I reached the camp, he come alive. That thar cut was jist a scratch.”

We crawled from beneath the house. Fedder smothered the light. “Don't breathe this to a soul,” he warned. “Steph would auger to git him back, and my pap would throw duck fits. Now, you bring him to the schoolhouse ag'in' two o'clock tomorrow.”

He moved toward the gate, the nickels ringing in his pocket. I went into the house and sat quietly behind the stove, feeling lost without my money, though recompensed by the rooster.

Father spoke, trotting the baby to Burnham Bright on a foot. “Warm weather's come,” he mused. “Seems to me the Houndshell company ought to pare down on mining. Two days ago they hired four new miners, fellers from away yander.”

“I know a boy come from Alabamy,” Lark said. “I bet he's from yon side the waters.”

“It's United States, America,” Fern said.

“Sim Brannon believes something's bound to crack before long,” Father went on. “Says hit's liable to come sudden. I'm in hopes my job don't split off.”

“Come that time,” Mother said, “maybe we'll have plenty saved for a house.”

Father reached the baby to Mother. “I'm going to bed early,” he yawned. “Last night I never got sixty winkles o' sleep. I reckon every tomcat in this camp was miaowing on the back porch.”

“The fish draws 'um.”

“A tinker man tapped on the door yesterday,” Fern said, “and a big nanny cat ran in betwixt his legs.”

“Hit's the one baby talked a word to,” Lark said.

Father stretched sleepily. “I'm afeared the baby's a mute,” he said. He set his chair aside. “The only thing that'd keep me awake this night would be counting the money we've got stacked away.”

I waited at the schoolhouse gate, holding the rooster by the shanks. He snuggled against my jump jacket, pecking at the buttons. He stuck his head in my jacket pocket to see what was there. After a spell Fedder came, his eye patch trembling and the garden seeds as noisy upon him as grass crickets.

“Why'n't you kiver him?” he asked crossly. “He might a-been seen.”

“He flopped the coffee sack off,” I said. “Anyhow, he's been seen already. Crowed this morning before blue daylight and woke my pap. If I hadn't cried like gall, he'd been killed. Now it's your turn to keep.”

Fedder bit a chew of tobacco, bit it with long front teeth as a squirrel bites. He spat into the road and looked up and down. “If I tuck him to my house, he'd be in the skillet by dinner.” He closed his eye to think, and there was only the black patch staring. “I figure Steph Harben will buy him back. He's yon side the commissary, playing draughts. Air you of a notion?”

The cock lifted his head, poising it left and right. I loosed my hold about his legs and stroked his bright saddle. He sat on my arm.

“This rooster's a pet,” I said. “When I tuck him out o' the
coop, he jumped square onto my shoulder and crowed. I'm taking a liking to him.”

“I jist lack selling fourteen seed papers gitting my eyeball. Never could I sell dills and rutabagas. If Steph will buy the rest, I'll rid my part. We got nowheres earthy to store a chicken.”

“I hain't a-mind to sell.”

Fedder packed the ground where he stood. The seeds rattled. The rooster pricked his head.

“You stay here till I git Steph,” Fedder said. He swung around. “You stay.”

He went in haste, and suddenly a great silence fell in the camp. The coal conveyor at the mines had stopped. Men stood at the drift mouth and looked down upon the rooftops. It was so still I could hear the far
per-chic-o-ree
of finches. I held the rooster at arm's length, wishing him free as a bird. I half hoped he would fly away. I set him on the fence, but he hopped to my shoulder and shook his wattles.

Back along the road came Fedder. Steph Harben hastened with him, wearing a shirt like striped candy, and never a man wore a finer one. The shirt was thinny—so thin that when he stood before me I could see the paddles of his collarbones.

Fedder said, “I've sold my part. Hit's you two trading.”

Steph said, “Name yore price. Name.”

I gathered the fowl in my arms. “I hain't a-mind to sell,” I said.

We turned to stare at miners passing, going home long before quitting time, their cap lamps burning in broad day.

Steph was anxious. “Why hain't you willing?” he asked. “Name.”

I dug my toe into the ground, scuffing dirt. “I love my rooster,” I said. But I looked at Steph's shirt. It was very beautiful.

“If'n you'll sell,” Fedder promised, “I'll let you spy at my eye pocket. Now, while it's thar, you kin look. Afore long I'll have a glass 'un.”

I kicked a clod into the road. “I'll swap my part o' the rooster for that striped shirt. It can be cut down to fit.”

“Shuck it off,” Fedder told Steph.

Steph unbuttoned the shirt, slipped it over the blades of his shoulders, and handed it to me in a wad. He snatched the rooster, lighting out for home, and miners along the road glared at his bare back.

Fedder brushed his hat aside, catching the eye patch between forefinger and thumb. I was suddenly afraid, suddenly having no wish to see.

The patch was lifted. I looked, stepping back, squeezing the shirt into a ball. I turned, running, running with this sight burnt upon my mind.

I ran all the way home, going into the kitchen door as Father went, not staying the sow cat that stole in between my legs. Mother sat at the table, a pile of greenbacks before her, the empty pay pockets crumpled.

“Hell's bangers!” Father gasped, dropping heavily upon a chair and lifting the baby to his knee; and when he could speak above his wonder, “The boom's busted. I've got no job.” But he laughed, and Mother smiled.

“I've heard already,” Mother said. She laid a hand upon the money bills, flicking them under a thumb like a deck of gamble cards. “There's enough here to build a house, a house with windows looking out o' every room. And a grain left for a pair o' costy boots, a boughten shirt, a fact'ry dress, a few pretties.”

The baby opened his mouth, curling his lips, pointing a stub finger. He pointed at the old nanny smelling the fish kit.