The Well and the Mine (8 page)

It was awful hard to sit still, because even though there was a breeze outside, all the bodies heated up the one room like so many person-sized fireplaces. We all sweated except for Papa; most everybody’d picked up a fan from the stack by the door on the way in. Square with little folded pleats, they advertised Garrett as “sweet, mild snuff,” which made it sound like taffy or mints. During prayer, all you could hear was those paper fans whuh-whuhing through the air, and the old men hacking up phlegm. (I asked Papa about that one time and he said it was the mines that did it, made your spit hard and solid where it caught in your throat. Then Mama came in and he had to stop explaining because she didn’t care for us to discuss spit and the like.)

The Baptist church had a stained-glass window, but we had no color in ours. The steeple had been reattached with metal bolts after it got blown off once, but other than that little reminder of some sort of excitement a while back, it was a dull building. Just two columns of pews, small windows, plain wood floors. Nothing to look at but the people.

There were lots of hats and nice dresses and shiny shoes with ankle straps. Virgie wore a two-piece green dress that Mama said was starting to fit too tight. It was hard for anything to fit her too tight—she didn’t stick out anywhere. Mama’s corset, which Virgie helped cinch, made her seem softer and rounder under her navy blue dress and jacket. Papa just looked uncomfortable in his tie and white shirt that Mama ironed early in the morning along with the tablecloth. Mostly the other men looked as itchy as Papa in their suits, but the women looked scrubbed and pleased in their getups. We’d had plenty of time to look at everybody since most of the church had come up asking about the baby and wondering how we were doing, especially me. But most of them hardly looked at me when they asked how I was holding up, and nobody let me get more than a word out before they asked what it looked like and how we got it out and who we thought did it. Papa sat there not saying a word, and Mama answered mostly with shrugs and tight smiles and “Couldn’t say.”

The preacher was friendly looking with white hair puffed up like a cloud and a young face. He led singing, too, better than most of them, his big, deep voice settling in my belly like a swallow of hot soup. He’d come in town for a contracted meeting, so we’d be back at church most nights, probably. Maybe he’d be up at Winfield or Eldridge some of those nights, and we might stay home, depending.

The first song we sang was the bleeding sheep song.

Tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

Tho they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool…

We sang about washing a lot. Water and blood.

Lola Lowe wasn’t there. Other women were, with their babies in plain sight, and I checked them off the list in my head. We still had Pride Stanton and Mrs. Taylor—I thought LeAnne was her first name—to check for sure, along with Lola Lowe. Those three lived fairly close and we knew them a little bit, so it made sense to see about them first before we got to tracking down anybody else. I made a note in my head to say that to Virgie.

Ms. Genie had to pop her two-year-old on the hand during the prayer because he was making a fuss. It shocked him long enough that he was quiet a few seconds, then he started howling. But the man saying the prayer (he had a steady, bee-buzzing voice that made you nod off during his prayers) was saying “Amen” anyway, so she shoved the little boy’s face into her chest, her hand wrapped around the back of his head, and carted him outside, where she probably wore him out. Then came the Lord’s Supper, which Virgie took and me and Jack didn’t. She’d been baptized in the creek two summers ago, and ever since then, she got to have the sip of grape juice and bit of bread that looked so good as it passed by late in the morning with dinner still an hour or so away.

A better song came next, with a sweet soprano part that poured over you.

When peace like a river attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well with my soul.

I fidgeted, wishing the pews weren’t so hard, and Papa looked at me so quick I almost missed it. I settled down and just twitched my toes as a compromise.

The sermon wasn’t shouted, not even an occasional word, and the warm-soup voice made my eyelids heavy. I looked over at Maddie Reynolds, an apple-shaped woman with lots of yellow hair. She was holding her baby, who’d been asleep the whole service. She swayed side to side just a fraction, eyes flickering down at him every few seconds.

And we thought she might have killed him.

Finally we were out, Papa and Mama getting caught up talking, and me headed to the door, wanting some cool air. And, I swannee, that slick-haired boy Henry Harken was waiting for Virgie outside, asking if he could walk her home.

Virgie
OH, I JUST ABOUT DIED WHEN I SAW HENRY HARKEN
standing there in his Sunday suit. But I was already at the top of the stairs before I noticed him, and he’d seen me for sure. So I walked on down the steps, sure everybody was watching and thinking how I’d never before had some boy waiting for me. He didn’t even go to church with us—he was a Methodist. His church was only a few blocks away, but I knew it couldn’t have gotten out at the same time we did. I wondered how long he’d waited.

I watched my feet going down the steps, proud that I’d shined my lace-up shoes and that I’d gone to the trouble of putting on garters. My green two-piece dress, belted at the waist, was the nicest I had and my favorite length, tea-length, halfway down my calf. It’s the most flattering to your legs. I smoothed my white gloves as I stepped, trying to make it look natural. Soon enough, though, I was at the bottom step, and Henry’s black shoes and gray pants were in front of me.

“Hi, Henry,” I said. “Nice to see you.”

“Hello, Virgie.” He smiled and nodded like a grown man. “I thought I might walk you home if you wouldn’t mind.”

I’d never been walked home, and I was sure Papa wouldn’t allow it. But Henry was marching up the steps toward Papa before I said another word. I guess I’d looked like I wouldn’t mind. Papa was halfway down the steps himself, with his hat tipped back to get a better look at Henry. Tess was nearly stepping on his heels.

“Mr. Moore, sir, good afternoon. My name’s Henry Harken, Jr., and I’d like to walk Virgie home if you’d allow me.”

Papa didn’t answer right away, standing there in the middle of the steps with the whole church filing out around him. “I know your father,” he said, people streaming around him like this conversation wasn’t even happening, sometimes slapping his shoulder. “You gone walk through town, bring her straight home? Don’t want to be holdin’ dinner for her.”

“Yessir.”

Then Mama was there, her hand light on Papa’s arm, watching Henry with her dark, warm eyes.

“’Afternoon, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you…” he started, but Papa cut him off.

“Henry Harken’s boy,” he said. “Wantin’ to walk Virgie home.”

Mama smiled at that and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Henry.”

Papa tipped his hat back down to where it shaded his eyes. “You’ll have her back shortly? We’ll be drivin’ home, so we’ll beat you by a good bit.”

“Yessir. We’ll go straight to the house.” He turned toward me, then looked over his shoulder. “You have a good afternoon, sir. Ma’am.”

He almost got a smile from Papa, but it turned into a nod. Mama and Papa both looked straight at me when Henry’s back was turned to them, Mama looking like she’d love to tell me something, and Papa looking—well, I couldn’t guess then, but it was probably uncertain. I didn’t recognize the expression on him.

So we started toward Front Street, and I knew my shoes would lose their shine. Only Front Street had sidewalks and paving; everywhere else was covered in red rock—some sort of leftover dust from the mines. It didn’t muddy easily, but it settled from nose to toes. Even with all the red rock, I liked the walk down the hill. Carbon Hill proper was ugly, all brick, standing as plain as a set of blocks lined up. But no churches were on the main street—you had to turn left and head up the hill to get to our church, and just a few blocks over was First Methodist and a few blocks over from that was First Baptist. The shiny white marble and the stained-glass windows of the Methodist church seemed like they suited Henry Harken to a T. And really I liked it myself—not as much as Tess did, though. The Holy Spirit really called to her from those stained-glass windows. Myself, I liked best of all to walk past the neat rows of houses, yards swept clean and little fences sometimes separating neighbors.

But at the bottom of the hill, the happy houses stopped and stores started. All the same brick, no trees, no grass, no color. Just that red dust everywhere. You could taste it on your tongue.

Home was just a mile or so from town, but the house shone white, repainted by Papa and his men every few years. The front yard had great dollops of red and pink from the roses, and out the kitchen window you saw nothing but oaks and pines, dogwoods, and two massive sweet gum trees. We had soil, not dust. Downtown made me thirsty.

“You’re quiet,” said Henry, which made every word I knew fly out of my head.

“I was thinking,” I finally said. We crossed one of the small wooden bridges over a ditch at an intersection, our last block until Front Street. All the ditches were filled with weeds and water, and I could hear the hum of mosquitoes and flies and whole clouds of winged things.

“You mind me walking you home?”

“No,” I said quickly, knowing how rude he must think I was being. He wasn’t bad looking, and he was awfully clean. Even his fingernails were clean. His shirt looked stiff and smooth, not like cloth at all. His skin was blotchy, though, like all the boys, and that made me feel a little better.

The sidewalk was crowded with after-church traffic, and we had to dodge people. And nod “hello” as we were weaving. And I was trying not to look embarrassed, wanting to seem like, no, Henry Harken was not walking me home and really we’d just bumped into each other accidentally and happened to be moving along the same patch of sidewalk.

But I tried to make it easier for him. “It was real nice of you. Real nice.”

I ran out of words again just as a car rolled by, hiccupping over a rut. Henry, walking next to the street, put a hand on my arm and nudged me a little closer to the storefronts.

“Wouldn’t want you to get mud on your Sunday dress,” he said, even though the street was dry. Still, it was thoughtful.

We passed the Elite Store, with its fancy hats straight from New York, all the latest fashions, and I barely glanced in the window. I didn’t know a soul who could actually afford one of those hats. I moved toward the storefront when a little boy in checked short pants barreled between Henry and me. His mother, not much older than me, followed close behind him, snatching at his waistband to slow him down.

“I am so sorry,” she said to us. “He’s like tryin’ to hold hands with a tornado. Theodore, say you’re sorry for nearly running into this lady and gentleman.”

As she clamped her hand around his wrist—not even bothering with his wiggling fingers—and he forced out a “sorry,” I got a better look at her face. She’d been a few years ahead of me in school. Christy something. She had a run in her stocking and her shoes were scuffed at the toes.

“Say ‘Sorry, ma’am’ and ‘Sorry, sir,’” she corrected the tornado.

Still hunched over the boy, she smiled up at us. I tried to look behind her eyes. What was there besides politeness? Was she miserable or something worse? She had dark circles under her eyes and not much color. Definitely tired, but would she rather get rid of this boy altogether than deal with him for another day? Had there been another little one at home that she had decided to get rid of?

She was gone then, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw her smile at Theodore even as she dragged him so that his feet left the ground every few steps.

“Handful,” Henry said, looking back at them. He was only making conversation, but it irritated me that he thought he could sum them up in one word. I tried to shake the feeling.

“So what time did y’all get out of church?” I asked.

“We usually get out about a quarter ’til twelve.”

We did, too, but with the visiting preacher, we’d run late. Papa’s pocket watch had said 12:30. “Thank you for waiting.” I thought of another question pretty quick, even though I knew the answer. “You don’t live in town, do you?”

He shook his head. “Our place is east of town, opposite end of yours.”

Across the street I saw Annie Laurie Tyler, who always looked like she was on the verge of some nervous collapse. Mama always seemed tired after Annie Laurie came to visit. The woman had too much emotion. She didn’t see me, and I angled myself so Henry was between me and her. Now, Annie Laurie—that was the kind of woman I thought might up and lose her mind completely and drown her baby. But her youngest was around Jack’s age.

We covered a couple more blocks, coming up to Dr. Strickland’s Drug Store. Henry stopped suddenly, looking pleased with himself. “Would you like some candy?”

I didn’t have any money, and I didn’t feel it was right that he should buy me anything. “Oh, we’ll be eating dinner soon as I get home.” I started down the street again.

“I’ll buy you a piece of whatever you want,” he said. “Just to eat on the way.”

There was a wheedling in his voice that irked me. “No, thank you.”

“I can get free candies from the commissary anytime,” he said. The Galloway commissary had big barrels of penny candies—caramels, licorices, gum drops. Sometimes Papa gave us each two pennies and we’d spend an hour deciding. I didn’t think it would taste as good if it was free.