The Run for the Elbertas Read online

  “I need me a shirt,” I said. “A store-bought shirt.” More than a game rooster, more than anything, I wanted a shirt made like a man’s. Being eight years old, I was ashamed to wear the ones Mother sewed without tails to stuff inside my breeches.

  “No use living barebones in the midst o’ plenty,” Father said. “Half is too much.”

  Mother rose from the table and leaned over the stove. She looked inside to see if anything had been left to burn. She tilted the coffeepot, making sure it hadn’t boiled dry. “Where there’s a boom one place,” she said, “there’s bound to be a famine in another. Coal gone high, and folks not able to pay.” Her lips trembled. “Fires gone out. Chaps chill and sick the world over withouten a roof above their heads.” She picked up the poker, lifted a stove cap, and shook the embers. Drops of water began to fry on the stove. She was crying.

  “Be-grabbies!” Father said. “Stop poking that fire! This room’s already hot as a ginger mill.”

  On a Saturday afternoon Father brought his two-week pay pocket home, the first since the boom. He came into the kitchen, holding it aloft, unopened. Mother was cooking a skillet of meal mush and the air was heavy with the good smell. I was in haste to eat and go, having promised Fedder Mott to meet him at the schoolhouse gate. Fedder and I planned to climb the mine tipple.

  “Corn in the hopper and meal in the sack,” Father said, rattling the pocket.

  He let Fern and Lark push fingers against it, feeling the greenbacks inside; and he gave it to the baby to play with upon the floor, watching out of the tail of his eye. Mother was uneasy with Father’s carelessness. The baby opened his mouth, clucking, churring. He made a sound like a wren setting a nest of eggs.

  “Money, money,” Fern said, trying to teach him.

  He twisted his lips, his tongue straining. But he could not speak a word.

  “I’d give every red cent to hear him say one thing,” Father said.

  The pay pocket was opened, the greenbacks spread upon the table. We had never seen such a bounty. Father began to figure slowly with fingers and lips. Fern counted swiftly. She could count nearly as fast as the Houndshell schoolteacher.

  Father paused, watching Fern. “This chap can out-count a check-weigh-man,” he bragged.

  “Sixty-two dollars and thirty cents,” Fern announced, and it was right, for Mother had counted too. “Wisht I had me a fact’ry dress,” Fern said.

  “I want a shirt hain’t allus a-gaping at the top o’ my breeches,” I said.

  Father wrinkled his forehead. “These chaps need clothes, I reckon. And I’ve got my fancy set on a pair o’ boots. They’s no use going about like raggle-taggle gypsies with money in hand. We’re able to live decent.”

  “Socks and stockings I’ve knit,” Mother said, “and shirts and dress garments I’ve sewed a-plenty for winter. They hain’t made by store pattern, but they’ll wear and keep a body warm. Now, I’m willing to do without and live hard to build a homeplace.”

  “Oh, I’m willing, too,” Father complained, “but a man likes to get his grunt and groan in.” He gathered the greenbacks, handing them to Mother. He stacked the three dimes. “Now, if I wasn’t allus seeing the money, I could save without hurt. Once hit touches my sight and pocket, I’m afire. I burn to spend.”

  Mother rolled the bills. She thrust them into an empty draw sack, stowing all in her bosom. “One thing you could do,” she told Father, “but it’s not for me to say do, or not do. If you was a-mind, you could bring the pay pockets home unopened. We’d not think to save just half. I’d save all we could bear, spend what was needed. You’d not see the spark of a dime till we got enough for a house. I say this boom can’t last eternal.”

  Father pulled his eyebrows, deciding. The baby watched. How like a bird he cocked his head. “Oh, I’m a-mind,” Father said at last, “but the children ought to have a few coins to pleasure themselves with. A nickel a week.”

  “I want mine broke in pennies,” Lark called.

  Fern counted swiftly, speaking in dismay, “It would take me nigh a year to save enough for an ordered dress.”

  “We’ll not lack comfort nor pleasure,” Mother promised. “Nor will we waste. The chaps can have the nickel. You get a pair o’ boots—a pair not too costy. And we’ll buy a kit o’ fish.”

  She stirred butter into the meal mush, and it was done. Fern hurried dishes upon the table.

  “The pair my head was set on cost eighteen dollars. Got toes so sharp you could kick a blacksnake’s eye out. Reckon I’ll just make these clodbusters I got on do.”

  “Them boots must o’ been sprigged with gold tacks.”

  A buttery steam rose from our plates. We dipped up spoonfuls of mush; we scraped our dishes, pushing them back for more.

  “Hit’s good to see no biled leather breeches on the table for once,” Father said. He blew on a spoon of mush to cool it for the baby. “Right today I’ll buy that kit o’ fish.”

  “They’re liable to draw every cat in Houndshell Holler. Better you plug the cat hole in the back door first.”

  I slid from the table bench, pulling my hat off a peg.

  “Where are you traipsing to?” Father asked.

  “Going to play with Fedder Mott. He’s yonder in the schoolyard.”

  “I know Fedder Mott,” Lark spoke, gulping much. “He’s a boy jist got one eyeball.”

  I ran the Houndshell road. A banjo twanged among the houses. A hundred smokes stirred in chimney pots, rising, threading chilly air. I reached the schoolhouse, breathing hard, and Fedder Mott was swinging on the gate. He jumped down.

  “I’d nigh give you out,” he said, his blue eye wide.

  I said, “If my pap knowed about the tipple, I’d not got to come.”

  Fedder leaned against the fence. He was a full head taller than I, a year older. He drew a whack of tobacco from a hind pocket, bit a squirrely bite, and offered the cut to me.

  I shook my head.

  He puckered his lips, speaking around the wad in his jaw. “They hain’t nothing worth seeing in that tipple tower. I done climbed thar.” He waited, champing teeth into the wad, making juice to spit. “I’d figured we’d go to the rooster fight. Now you’ve come too late.”

  “Was I to go,” I said, “my pap would tear up stakes.”

  Two children ran by, playing tag-o. A man came walking the road. Fedder spat into a rut. The black patch trembled on his face. It was like a great dark eye, dwarfing the blue one. I looked at it curiously.

  “Afore long, fellers will be coming down from the Hack,” Fedder said. “We’ll larn which roosters whooped.”

  I studied the eye patch. It was the size of a silver dollar, hanging by a string looped around his head. What lay behind it? Was there a hole square into his skull? I was almost ashamed to ask, almost afraid. I drew a circle on the ground with my shoe toe, measuring the words: “I’ll go to the rooster fight sometime, if one thing—”

  “If’n what?”

  “If you’ll let me see your eye pocket.”

  Fedder blew the tobacco cud across the road. He pushed the long tails of his shirt inside his breeches. “You’ll spy and won’t go.”

  “’F’ad die.”

  We saw a man walking the path off the ridge, coming toward us from the Hack. He came fast, though he was still too distant to be named. We watched him wind the crooked path and be lost among the houses.

  “Ag’in’ we go to the cockpit,” Fedder said, “I’ll let you look.”

  “I choose now.”

  Fedder stood firm. “Ag’in’ that time, I will.” He hushed a moment, listening for the man who came from the ridge. “Afore long I’ll not be wearing this patch,” he said. “I’ve heared o’ glass eyeballs. Hit’s truth. They say even a hound dog wears one in Anvers camp. Five round dollars they cost, and could I grab a holt on that much, I’d git the schoolteacher to mail an order.”

  “Won’t your pap buy you a glass ’un?”

  “If’n I was a flycatcher, he would
n’t feed me gnats.”

  “I’m going to save money, come every week. I’ve got me something in my head to buy.”

  “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.”