Her thoughts swirled. No, it wasn’t impossible. Lyman and
her father Minos Drummond were about the same age. Reeling,
she nearly fell from the bed.
She sat up straight and tried to absorb the full impact of
her mother’s letter. She did not want to believe what she’d
just read. The man who drove her beloved father to suicide
was none other than her husband—Lyman Graves!
Feeling suddenly nauseated, Salina curled into a fetal
position on the bed and began to cry.
She remembered how deeply she had loved her parents, and
she felt so alone now. Her tears moistened the pillowcase
and she rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hands. She
picked the letter back up, raised herself to a sitting
position, and read on:
Two days
ago I had a nurse mail to you, at that new address you left
with this nursing home, a journal of your fathers that will
prove how Lyman framed him, ruined his coal business, and
wrecked his life. I asked the nurse to alert you about
watching for the journal’s arrival, but she said you weren’t
home when she phoned. The journal reveals every crooked
shenanigan Lyman Graves perpetrated not only upon your
father, but also on other coal operators and his miners as
well. My mind is deteriorating so fast, I cannot try to
vindicate your dead father’s name. You must do it for me,
Salina. If it takes all of your life, vindicate his name.
Free Minos Drummond of the stain he carried to his grave. I
appeal to you because I don’t think your sister Ari Ann
could handle this. You have always been the stronger of my
two daughters. Absolve your father from his guilt so that he
might rest peacefully in the grave. Vindicate the family
name.
Your loving Mother, Patsy
Salina
stood and clutched the moist paper in her hand, then laid it
on the bed. Waves of nausea swept over her. She swayed on
her feet, then began pacing the floor. Damn Lyman! If she’d
only known this before, she would never have agreed to marry
him fourteen months ago. Never! She dug her nails into her
palms and gritted her teeth. To learn he had been the agent
of her father’s destruction was…devastating.
She
swallowed back a bitter taste that coated her tongue. Worse,
to know that Lyman had once been her own mother’s fiancé
made her blood boil.
Stopping at the antique dresser, Salina stared at her
reflection in the mirror. What have you done, you foolish
woman? How could you have been so stupid? You should
have seen Lyman’s deceit before now. You’re scarce
half Lyman’s sixty-six years and here you are faced with
this…
Clenching her hands at her sides, she whirled and paced
back across the room. Was the reason for Lyman’s
courtship and marriage proposal to me some perverse revenge
scheme to get back at my mother because she jilted him at
the altar?
Summer
rain splashed against the windowpanes as Salina fought the
rage and hurt welling inside her.
Through all of her anger and tears, a pleasant thought
suddenly emerged. She had not told her mother about her
marriage to Lyman. So Lyman did not get the chance to really
hurt her mother back. Her mother’s mind was soon lost to the
shadows of Alzheimer’s after she wrote the letter. So her
mother, Patsy Drummond, never knew about the marriage. The
news, Salina realized, would have crushed her.
Salina returned to the dresser and squinted at the mirror.
Pressing her hand to her forehead, she shoved back her
disheveled hair. Was it really possible, she asked her
reflection, that Lyman married her to get revenge on her own
mother? But revenge made no sense. After all, Lyman had
offered to foot all the bills for her mother’s expensive
care in a nursing home. And that, she reminded herself, was
the deciding factor in her acceptance of his marriage offer.
Plus, he seemed such a kind, caring man. Could he really
have put on that persuasive an act?
She turned and moved toward the bed.
A new realization hit her. She stopped dead still, moving
her fingers through the air as if performing a complex
mathematical task. By consenting to marry Lyman in return
for his paying for her mother’s health care, she had become
totally dependent on the man. She sold not only herself into
Lyman’s bondage, but her mother as well, God rest her soul.
Lyman, for a time, held both their fates in his hands. What
a sick satisfaction that must have given him. The bastard.
Her stomach knotted and burned.
She jerked her mother’s letter off the bed and reread it,
choking back the brackish taste in her mouth.
A disquieting notion crept across her mind like a fungus
around a pine branch. Lyman was not what she thought
he was. She’d been a fool to marry a man she’d known so
little about. A fool. She sank back onto the bed, curled her
body into a ball, and lost track of time.
When Salina recovered enough to gather her thoughts, she
could still hear the rain against the window. She sat bolt
upright as a new realization struck her. She’d never
received her father’s journal like her mother promised in
the letter! Her mind raced over the last time she’d seen her
mother—a week before she’d died eight months ago. She’d
visited her in the nursing home in one of her mother’s rare
but brief lucid moments. Her mother had asked Salina to
bring home a box containing old picture albums and special
mementos. The box where she’d found this letter, which was
addressed and stamped but never mailed.
Salina tried to re-trace where she’d been about the time
her mother wrote the letter. She’d been right here in
Whitestown, Kentucky. At this mausoleum of a house Lyman
called home. She’d... No! She was at her sister Ari’s house
for ten days. When Ari’s third baby was born, she’d gone to
Hazard to stay with her and help take care of the older
children.
Lyman! Lyman must have received the mailed journal and
opened it! She fingered the envelope, figuring it never got
mailed because her mother’s Alzheimer’s very likely closed
in again right after she wrote it.
Salina shot to her feet. If Lyman stole the journal out of
the mailbox, the journal must be at home somewhere. She
would find it! And as soon as she had it in her hands, she
was getting out. She would not spend one more night under
the same roof with that deceitful Lyman.
Where would Lyman have put it?
Remembering where he kept the key to the locked drawer of
his desk, she raced down the stairs.
Moving through the big rambling house’s center hall toward
Lyman’s study, Salina heard the screen door on the back
porch slam shut. She whirled to face the tall figure of
Lyman who strode into the kitchen, his muddy boots clacking
on the black-and-white checkered tile floor.
“I want you to cook a fancy Kentucky Burgoo for supper
tonight, Salina. I’m bringing those federal mine inspectors
here to eat after they finish their tour of my mines.”
She planted her hands on her hips, her anger fueling her
courage to confront him about the journal. “No, I won’t,”
she snapped. “You can’t just march in here at eleven in the
morning and tell me to cook tonight for company.” She
watched as a look of shocked surprise grazed Lyman’s face.
“That’s your job, lady girl and don’t you forget it.”
Frowning, he smoothed back his mane of silver-white hair and
hooked his thumbs inside his belt.
“Not any more, it’s not. I’ve just found out my mother,
before she died, mailed a journal of my father’s to me here.
You’ve got it, haven’t you? You’ve got it hidden because it
implicates you, because it’s proof you destroyed my father’s
good name, his dignity, his life—”
Lyman erupted in harsh laughter.
He took a step toward her. “You mean all that garbage
about me yore daddy scribbled in his little black book? His
diary?” He sneered and leveled a gloating look at her.
“Let me have it.” All too aware of his explosive temper,
she backed away from him. If she provoked him too much, he
might—
“Good luck. You’ll never get it.”
“Damn you, Lyman, where is it?” she demanded, surprised at
the harshness of her words. She’d never before spoken to him
in this manner. But the knowledge that he’d brought about
her family’s ruin and ultimately drove her father to suicide
was reason enough now.
“Anything that comes to this house is my property,” he
barked. “Just like you are. What’s mine is mine.”
“I’ll turn this house upside down. If I don’t find it
here, I’ll get the police involved—”
“Lotta good that’ll do you. I own the Whitestown police
department. Besides, you got no proof the journal was even
mailed. All I have to say is I never saw no journal.”
“Then how do you know what he said in it? I have a letter
my mother wrote—” She stopped, clamping her mouth together.
If she said anymore, he might destroy the letter.
Lyman reared his head back and laughed again. “You surely
to God don’t think anyone would believe the rantings of a
crazy old woman like your mother, do you?”
Salina felt like an icicle had stabbed through her heart.
“Just let me have the journal. I know you’ve got it some
where.”
“And you think I would tell you! You’re crazier than your
Ma.”
“Where is it, Lyman? It’s mine.”
He took two steps, grabbed her arm and jerked her to his
side, wrenching her arm behind her back. “Forget it. Now,
I’m hungry, so get dinner cooked, why don’t cha?”
She felt his hot breath on her hair and shuddered. “I want
the journal,” she said, enunciating each word with
precision. “And then I want a divorce.”
“Ha! You just try that,” he snorted. “You’re talking awful
high and mighty. Just don’t you forget where you came from,
lady girl. Without me, you’d still be waitin’ tables in some
cheap roadside eatin’ place.”
Salina winced as his grip on her arm tightened so much she
feared her circulation was being cut off.
“I married you, gave you my name. Gave you this fine place
to live in. A fancy car to drive. How many women you know
live like this? You’re livin’ pretty high on the hog, gal.”
She saw his menacing glare as she tried to wrest away her
arm.
“Have you forgot how I remodeled that room upstairs for
your art studio? Footed all the bills for your mother’s care
in that ritzy nursing home? Is this how you express your
gratitude? Talking to me in that uppity little voice?” He
jerked her head up with his other hand. “How long do you
think you could make it out there in the world alone? Ain’t
nobody in these parts gonna hire you to teach school if they
know you was Minos Drummond’s kinfolk. They’d be afraid his
craziness was in you, too.” He sneered. “Maybe you’re
planning on selling your paintings here in eastern Kentucky
to them dumb, lazy bastards who work in my mines?”
“Turn loose of me, Lyman. You’re hurting me.” She pulled
away from him, fighting back the fear surging within her,
hearing his words that were forged in the iron-clad will of
one used to giving orders to his miners. She well knew the
violence he was capable of.
He released her arm and she felt his large hand circle her
left breast.
“Anyhow, you don’t need to be frettin’ that young head of
yours over such matters. Yore daddy’s been dead and gone a
long time. What difference does it make? Nobody would
believe what’s in the journal. Ever body knows Minos
Drummond was crazy when he wrote that garbage. He shot
hisself right after that.” He glared at her again and
stepped back, adding, “Only a crazy man would shoot hisself
in the head.”
Salina shrank away from Lyman. A sickening feeling clawed
at her memory. Her father’s depression. Her own guilt over
not being able to help him in his final days. His sudden and
rapid deterioration after—
Lyman bent his head toward her neck and she heard the
sound of his rushed breathing. Her stomach coiled in
revulsion at the thought of his hands sliding over her.
Groping hands she’d managed to tolerate now seemed like
rough animal paws, invading her.
She stiffened as she felt his hand move across the small
of her back. She rued the day she’d sold her soul to this
man. Though she’d had no choice at the time because her
family was financially destitute, she should have made an
effort to find out more about him before accepting his
favors. Before giving herself to him. But she could not
have let her mother go into a state facility. Not ever!
She’d wanted the best care for her. Plus, she’d initially
found him…worldly. She sure never knew he’d once been jilted
at the altar by her own mother—
The phone’s ring shrilled through the kitchen.
Lyman swore under his breath, moved away from her and
grabbed the phone.
Salina let out a long, slow breath of relief as she heard
his words bark.
“Yeah, yeah, tell ’em I’m on my way. I’ll meet ’em outside
the entrance to the Number 4 mine.” He slammed the phone
onto the receiver, grabbed a hat from a peg hanging inside
the back porch, and started out the door. “Mine inspectors
always was an impatient bunch.” Pausing at the screen door,
he ducked his head around the corner. “It ain’t natural for
a woman to get involved in business matters. You just forget
what you believe was in that diary. Yore daddy went broke on
account of his own investments. His suicide had nothing
whatsoever to do with me. Don’t think of stirring up no
trouble, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I want the journal, Lyman,” she said in a lowered voice.
She hated herself for backing off, but she knew deep down
inside there was no way Lyman would voluntarily turn it over
to her. He knew the journal would incriminate him.
With sudden clarity, she now realized how mean the man
actually was. She’d been living a lie.
Her life would never again be the same. Perhaps she was
once enticed by his money, but she would no longer be
blinded by Lyman’s lies—
“Forgot to tell you...” Lyman’s silhouette reappeared on
the porch. “I’ve got one of my contacts up in New York
working on a showing of your paintings. Says you’ll need to
send him some photographs of what you want hanging in an art
gallery.”
Salina bit her lower lip. The way he was always dangling
the gallery lure in front of her...it hadn’t happened yet.
And likely never would.
“You just go on and get that Burgoo cooked. Them men’ll be
back here with me at six tonight. I want the table set with
the good china and silver.”
He paused and she was conscious he was studying her.
“And do something with your hair. Braid it into them coils
you wind around your head, kinda like a crown. Never did
like it hanging down loose like it is now.”
Salina closed her eyes as she listened to the screen door
slam. She heard him gun his big white Cadillac out of the
driveway. Breathing deeply, she told herself to stay calm.
She would find that diary if it were the last thing she ever
did. She’d turn this house upside down looking for it. And
if she didn’t find it in this house, she’d search through
Lyman’s car tonight after he was asleep.
Then she was getting out.
But not before she had the proof of her mother’s words in
her possession.
The journal would vindicate her father’s name. It would
restore his reputation.
And it would ruin Lyman.
What if Lyman had destroyed the journal? That thought
brought her up short. For safekeeping, she’d better hide her
mother’s letter she’d left on the bed upstairs so he
wouldn’t rip it to shreds. Even the letter itself might
serve as evidence in helping vindicate her father’s name.
Carrying the letter, she moved into the room housing her
art studio. The studio was Lyman’s wedding gift to her, she
recalled. She needed solitude, she’d once told him, to
enhance her creativity.
A sense of deprecation swept through her as she cast her
eyes about the art studio, surveying it from a new
perspective. She thought of the high personal price she’d
paid for all this.
She groaned. What a fool she’d been to let herself be
lured by Lyman’s big talk…like getting her paintings shown
in a New York gallery. Hah!
She stashed her mother’s letter beneath a stack of blank
canvases.
Moving around the room, she studied her sketches. Many
were half-finished portraits in which she’d tried to capture
the suffering of the miners’ grimed faces, the abject
poverty and misery reflected in their gaunt eyes.
She picked up one of her oils and held the canvas in her
hands. Ari’s children, the twins and the baby. She intended
to send it to Ari for her birthday. How she wished her
sister Ari were still here in Kentucky. With both her
parents dead, she needed moral support for what she was
about to undertake. She needed a shoulder to lean on. But
Ari was in Florida—six hundred miles away.
Silently chiding her sister’s husband for taking the job
in Tampa, she wondered what Ari was doing now. Probably
about the same thing she’d done here in eastern Kentucky,
Salina reflected. Sewing for people. Weaving her threads.
Pulling at her strings she tatted for customers. Making
macramé slings for hanging plants.
She returned the oil to its easel.
Vindicate your father’s name.
The words rang in her ears with the resonance of a curse.
Her dear father so rankly abused—
She would ferret out the proof. Disclose all the evidence.
She had to start searching for the journal now.
Worrying her lip, she headed toward Lyman’s study.
* * * *
The light on the miner’s cap perched on Lyman’s head
flickered as the jitney lumbered over the rails through the
last few feet of darkness before nearing the mine entrance.
Lyman poked the motorman’s shoulder. “Can’t you hurry this
jitney up? I got a big dinner waitin’ at home for me and
these mine inspectors. Didn’t have no idea we’d be down in
the mines this long.”
The mine inspector sitting behind Lyman nudged his arm and
spoke in a gravelly voice. “We don’t have to eat with you,
tonight, Mr. Graves. It’s awful late and we need to get back
to Ashland.”
Lyman turned around and spoke to the inspector. “My wife’s
a fixin’ Kentucky burgoo. It’s worth waitin’ for. You liked
it last time you ate with us.” He tried jiggling the light
on his cap.
The
foreman seated next to the mine inspector grinned. “Yore
light’s been a flickering, boss. Better see to that purty
young wife when you get home. You know what these ol’ miners
say about a man’s light goin’ out.” The foreman guffawed.
“You making an observation, bud?” Lyman shouted in a
threatening voice. He smiled as he tried to imagine the
foreman’s squirm. No man, no matter what his position,
would insinuate something to Lyman Graves. No sirree.
Everybody in the mines knows that if a man’s light goes out,
it’s supposed to mean he’s being cuckolded. But I put the
fear of God in Salina. Plus, she knows she’s beholden to me.
So them old superstitions don’t mean nothing. Besides, my
light’s back on now. More ’en likely just a faulty battery
pack. He squared his shoulders and fingered the object
clamped to his belt. But I’m sure gonna have to squelch,
pronto, that rebellious little mouth of Salina’s I heard
this morning. Ordering me to give her that diary of her
daddy’s... Tonight I’ll—
“Lookout, boss!” Lyman heard the motorman yell. “She’s
gonna break!”
The jitney lurched and derailed. Lyman heard his own
scream mingle with the other screams that pierced the heavy
darkness.
* * * *
Frustrated by her fruitless search in Lyman’s study for
the journal, Salina tapped her nails on the harvest-gold
Formica countertop. The clock above the sink said
eight-thirty. Lyman told her to have the dinner ready by
six. Despite her resolve not to, she’d gone ahead and cooked
the Burgoo. Now she wished she hadn’t. But it was her last
time. No more entertaining Lyman’s business associates.
Tomorrow she’d be out of here.
She tapped her nails again.
She hated waiting like this. It’d be just like Lyman to
take those mine inspectors by a bar across the county line.
She wanted to get this dinner party over with, shoo the
guests out the door, and lay down the law to Lyman about
telling her where he’d hidden the journal.
She looked out the dining room window to see a flashing
blue light turning into the driveway. Moments later, a knock
sounded on the front door.
A uniformed man stood on the porch, his hat clutched in
his hands. “I’m Sheriff Mason, Miz Graves. There’s been an
accident at Neptune Number Four mine. I’m afraid Mr. Graves
has been hurt. If you’ll get in the car, ma’am, I’ll take
you out there.”
Woodenly, Salina followed the sheriff and slid into his
car’s passenger seat. His words flitted in and out of her
ears as he sped over the rutted county road. “They think a
support beam jolted loose and fell on the rail car,” he said
as the squad car rounded a curve. “Mr. Graves and the other
men riding in that jitney was almost back at the entrance
when it fell.”
“How bad is he hurt?” she heard herself ask as she tried
to still her trembling hands.
“He’s alive, at least. He was unconscious when they pulled
him out, though. He must’uv been sitting in the rear. Lucky
for him, he didn’t take the full force of the beam like them
others. They’s four or five dead.”
The sheriff jerked the steering wheel to the left as the
car bumped on a gravel road. When the car stopped near a
large crowd, he helped her out and led her toward a
stretcher. Ambulances were everywhere.
Salina stood rigid as she stared at Lyman who lay
motionless on the stretcher. Pieces of bone protruded
through his torn, grimed slacks. His steel-toed boots, blood
smeared now, were smashed. Her gaze jerked to his face where
a paramedic was checking an oxygen mask. Beside Lyman, an IV
hung from a stand. Salina saw a line running from the IV
into Lyman’s arm.
The July heat was heavy and humid, and she wiped sweat
from her face. She lifted her eyes to the canopy of clouds
that hung low in the sky, enveloping the mountain peaks in a
haze that obscured the growing darkness. The smell of dank
sulfur filled her nostrils.
Lights from the tipple looming above the mine, silent now
as if in respect for the wasted lives, cast a yellowish
glow. Salina glanced around at the string of worried-looking
women, miners’ wives and mothers who’d gathered when the
siren’s wail pierced the air, the siren signaling a mine
accident. The women had come, she knew, to learn the fate of
their men, their sons, hoping not this time, praying their
kin were not among the dead. Salina moved away from Lyman
and looked at the carnage of men who had been in the rail
car with him, wondering if these were the mine inspectors
whose dinner still simmered in her kitchen. Were they the
guests she was to have entertained—these broken, lifeless
bodies?
News reporters milled about. Salina heard one ask a
sooty-faced man wearing a hard hat if he was the foreman.
The man’s nervous answer ricocheted through the air. “No,
he’s there on the ground. Dead. But I told Boss Graves last
week we needed to shore up that beam afore somebody gits
hurt.”
Salina felt sick and she looked away. A thought swirled in
the back of her mind—if Lyman didn’t come around and she
hadn’t found where he hid her father’s journal, what would
she do?
Shame over her selfishness swept through her and she
fought back a vinegary taste in her mouth.
Off to the side, she saw what was left of the rail car
that had ferried the men from deep inside the mountain back
to the mine’s entrance. The Chariots, Lyman had called those
cars.
The man wearing a hard hat faced a reporter who held up a
microphone.
Salina listened as the man spoke. “...the best we can
piece together is that the jitney Boss Graves rode in was
thrown over against the side of the joists holding up the
mine’s ceiling. And then he must’ve been drug for several
feet behind the car. When the rescue party got to ’em, they
said his ankles wuz all tangled up in the wheels.”
Turning, she watched as two attendants slowly moved the
stretcher holding Lyman’s body toward the back of an
ambulance. Near the ambulance, Salina spotted a sign, its
lettering weathered and dim. She moved closer and saw the
name, Poseidon Coal Company: Neptune #4 Mine, Lyman
Graves, Owner and Operator. Beneath that was a trident
imposed over a massive sea wave. She studied the
crudely-drawn face below the trident—Lyman’s face peering
out over the scarred landscape like a maimed fisher king
surveying his dying land. She remembered the day Lyman had
first shown her this sign, the week they’d come back from
their honeymoon in Gatlinburg. She’d thought at the time
Lyman looked better than the sign depicted him, despite his
advanced years.
As she walked back toward Sheriff Mason’s car, she tried
to avoid looking at Lyman’s grotesque leg fractures. She was
relieved when his body was hoisted inside the ambulance, out
of her sight.
She placed her hands over her ears to block out bellowing
sounds—a cacophony from the crowd, blaring sirens, and the
hiss and whine of machines inside the mine. She remembered
how her mother used to say she hated the noise around the
mines. Her mother had even forbidden her little girls to
ever go near the mines.
Dazed, she slid into the sheriff’s car and with a jerky
movement, pulled the door closed. Her fists clenched in her
lap as Mason pulled out behind the screaming sirens and the
car hurled into the dropping darkness.
Her mother’s letter she’d read that morning now seemed
like a strange, distant memory. But she would not let the
memory fade. Lyman would be okay when they got him to the
hospital.
She’d
make him wake up. Make him tell her...
Excerpt Part II...
Perching on an orange vinyl chair in the lobby outside the
hospital’s emergency room, Salina watched as her neighbor,
Ona Neely, sat kneading her palms.
“Have you called Lyman’s son out in Colorado yet, Salina
Faye?” Ona bore a fixed worry across her lined, ruddy face.
“Not yet. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even thought that
far.” Salina massaged her brow, trying to force off what
felt like a hammer pounding in her head.
“If you’d like me to call him, I’d be happy to. I know
this has to be hard on you...”
Blotting out Ona’s attempts to soothe, Salina picked up a
magazine and flipped through its pages, blinking back bitter
tears.
Moments later she was conscious of a voice speaking to
Ona.
“Excuse me, are you Mrs. Graves?”
Ona shook her head and nodded toward Salina.
“I’m Mrs. Graves.” Salina looked blankly at the
white-coated man. A stethoscope jostled above his front
pocket.
“I’m sorry. I guess I was expecting some one older.”
Salina closed the magazine and fingered the pleats in her
skirt.
“Mrs. Graves, I’m Dr. Khorram. We’ve stabilized your
husband’s condition. We’re preparing him right now for
emergency surgery. If you would like, you can go in and see
him before he’s moved up to the operating room. But he is
still comatose.”
Salina flinched and balled her hands in her lap. “Why is
he having surgery?”
“To repair the compound fractures in his legs. There were
several fractures in both legs.” He looked gravely at
Salina. “Apparently your husband sustained a severe head
injury, also. It will be touch and go for the next few days.
He’ll have to be closely monitored. I would suggest you go
home after you’ve seen him and get some rest. There’s no
telling how long this surgery will take. Come back, perhaps
in the morning. I’ll phone you if there’s any change.”
She swallowed back a lump in her throat and started toward
the emergency room.
“I’ll wait here in the lobby for you, Salina Faye. When
you’re ready to go, I’ll drive you home. And then I’m a
gonna call Lyman’s son for you and tell him he needs to come
home and see his daddy.” Ona stood imposingly in the
yellowing light.
“No, I’ll call him, Ona.” She paused, rubbed her cheek,
then continued in an uneven voice, “You know, in the
fourteen months since we married, Lyman’s only mentioned to
me one time that he has a son? I’ve never seen a picture of
him. And I don’t even know his name or how to get in touch
with him, for that matter.”
Ona’s brow furrowed. “Your stepson...he’s a knockout—just
like his daddy used to be. Thick, curly hair as black as
coal and eyes too pretty to be on a man.” Ona’s lips curled
downward. “Skin’s a lot more olive-toned than his daddy’s,
though—” She stopped abruptly as if she’d said more than she
intended. “His name’s Paul Titus Graves. I know where to
contact him,” she added in a rush. “I’ll give you his number
when we get back home. For a long time, he’s been workin’
out in Colorado—ever since he graduated from Colorado School
of Mines. Him and Lyman haven’t been on the best of terms.
They’s bad blood between them two. It’s a shame, really.”
She started away, turned back toward Salina and said in a
lowered voice, “I’ll tell you more about it later. I need
some coffee. Can I bring you a cup?”
Salina raised her palm, held it in the air, and gestured
toward the ER. “No thanks, Ona. I’m going on in now to see
Lyman.”
Sighing, she slumped back into the chair and watched as
Ona waddled away. She really did not want to think about
Lyman right now. That letter—what Lyman had done to her
father—it was all too fresh, like a ragged, open tear in
her…
She closed her eyes and tried to remember her father. He
was a kind man. She recalled the many times he had helped
her with her paintings and drawings as a child. A tall, thin
man who nearly always wore a brown, leather-brimmed hat and
blue jeans, her father enjoyed teaching her about painting.
He especially enjoyed drawings of landscapes and animals. On
several occasions, he took her hiking up in the mountains to
find some new peak to draw or paint.
Each summer, her father drove the family to the outer
banks of North Carolina where they stayed for weeks at a
time. Easily sunburned, her father always wore his hat, blue
jeans, and long-sleeved shirt on the beach. How she missed
him now. Yet, as she’d grown older, her father seemed to
grow more strangely distant. The hikes became less frequent,
the summer trips to the beach ended, the sketches less
detailed, the joy less shared.
She recalled how her mother’s fading happiness paralleled
that of her father’s. Her head reaching only to Minos’
shoulder, her mother developed a shuffle step in her later
years. As the years advanced, both their faces were etched
with lines and creases. Her mother’s hair grayed, her father
grew bald. Dark circles under their eyes signaled some sort
of hidden grief and a silent burden. Yet at Minos Drummond’s
funeral, Salina’s mother did not cry, but instead sat
stoically beside her two daughters. Years after her father’s
death, Salina often found her mother lost in thought. Now,
she knew why.
Fighting off her melancholy, Salina rose and padded toward
the emergency room.
* * * *
Paul Titus Graves adjusted the radio dial as he sped the
Hertz rental car across the winding mountain road. The beam
of his headlights illuminated broken down pick up trucks,
grime covered, that dotted the sides of the road.
His stomach growled. He’d not even taken the time to catch
a bite to eat at the Lexington airport. The woman on the
phone who’d called herself Salina Faye Graves had said his
father was in the hospital in critical condition. Hell, he
didn’t even know his old man was married.
His stomach knotted. Guess he shouldn’t be surprised the
ol’ lecher had finally gotten hitched. Ever since his mom
left them, his father had always latched onto a different
woman every week. Never did think he’d actually marry one
though. Wonder if this one was as sleazy looking as the
others.
An overloaded coal truck slowed in front of him. He’d have
to pass it somehow if he could dodge all these potholes.
Static obliterated the music coming over his car radio.
In critical care? For how many days? Good thing summer
school graduate classes hadn’t been under way too long.
Turning
up the radio, he chuckled, remembering how his father had
scoffed over the phone back when he’d told him his plans for
a graduate degree in archeology. “Archeology! Hell, that’s
for pussies. What good’s archeology gonna do ya in the
mines? I need ya here, boy. To help me run these mines. One
degree’s enough. Now git yore butt on back.” But he’d
dismissed the cantankerous old goat’s demands and stayed in
Colorado anyway. Besides he and Lyman never could agree on
anything and trying to do business together would have meant
certain doom.
Still...there was that sense of loyalty...inbred for ages.
He maneuvered the car around the sharp hairpin curves,
keeping his eyes fixed on the road that snaked around the
mountain. As he inched around another coal truck creeping up
the hill, he saw the mountaintop across the ridge where his
old home place nestled in the side of a clearing.
His rental car climbed the steep grade. Then he spotted
the familiar opening carved into the kudzu jungle. At
least the coal dust doesn’t filter through the windowsills
and beneath the doors up here.
His left hand pulled down the turn signal as his right arm
swerved the steering wheel toward the wide gravel path. The
path wound through sagging crab apple trees up to a
seen-better-days circle drive. Placing the car in park, he
sat for a long moment, letting his eyes rest on the massive
old house that loomed before him.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs and expelling the
air slowly, trying to gather his courage before stepping
onto the concrete. Sliding out, he stood on the driveway,
noticed the chickweed springing through spidery cracks.
Flies droned in the close air.
Forcing himself away from the car, he lumbered toward the
covered porch. Ole King Graves was a mighty old soul and
a mean old soul was he. He reached for his jug and he
reached for his gold and he reached for his women
three. Once in junior high school he’d written his
version of the Mother Goose rhyme. He remembered how shocked
his teacher was and how she’d scolded him.
He spit onto the wide planks of the porch.
A board groaned beneath his feet. He placed one hand on
the doorknob while his other tugged at his shirt collar to
loosen it.
The door opened.
He stared. His lower jaw dropped in surprise and shock.
“You must be Paul, Lyman’s son.”
He thought the woman’s response sounded like more of a
question than a statement. “Yes, I am,” he muttered.
“Come in. I wasn’t expecting you until late tonight.”
Waving her fingers in the air, she stood aside as he
wandered into the front entrance hall.
He continued to stare at the woman who stood next to him
holding out her hand. His arms hung uselessly at his sides.
“I’m Salina Faye. Your father’s wife.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He sucked in his breath and eyed
her with a searing fascination. “I caught a red-eye flight
out of Denver. That’s what put me here so early.” His gaze
ranged over her shoulders, up the smooth neck to her face
where green feline eyes, deep and life-giving, peered out
from thick black lashes. He found himself studying her eyes.
They were bordered on the sides by barely visible squint
lines in the alabaster skin. He noticed she wore no makeup.
The full lips bore their natural color.
He tried to open his mouth to speak again, but no words
came. Then he saw she was motioning him into the kitchen.
“You have to be exhausted after such a long trip—leaving
so early. I’m sure the worry about your father must be very
stressful.”
Her lilting voice sounded hollow as he followed her across
the dimly lit hall. “Has his condition changed any?” he
asked as he watched her rounded hips undulate beneath the
purple slacks. The motion of her legs seemed effortless as
she glided across the planked floor, a scent of jasmine
trailing in her wake. He lifted his gaze to her purple silk
blouse tied up above her narrow waist, exposing her midriff.
“No. No change,” she replied, facing him and gesturing
with her hand.
Something about her struck a chord deep inside him. He
stared at the ropes of braided dark brown hair coiled around
her head like a crown. Flecks of black in her hair shimmered
under the overhead light. Shaking his head, he tried to pull
himself together, wondering what it was about the way she
moved, the scent of her that created this odd impact on him.
When she took a kettle of boiling water off the gas stove,
he drew a ladder-back chair up to the kitchen table.
Slinging his leg across the rush seat, he seated himself
before a place setting for one. “So how long you been
married to my dad?” He rubbed his chin between his thumb and
forefinger.
“A little over a year.”
She kept her back toward him as she puttered around the
stove and he rummaged in his head for some appropriate
conversation. When he was unable to settle on any small
talk, he rolled the fork into a napkin, wondering how in the
world his father, who was well into his sixties, could be
married to this gorgeous piece of a young woman.
“I fried catfish for dinner,” she offered after several
moments of silence. “It’s fresh from the lake here. Would
you like some?” She pulled a plate from a cabinet and faced
him.
As she arched her head to the side, the button holding her
blouse together above the full breasts gave way and her hand
reached quickly to hold it together.
He pretended not to notice and looked up into her
questioning eyes, eyes like an ocean in which a man would
like to drown. Swallowing thickly, he blurted, “Yes. I
haven’t had catfish in a long time.”
“Good. You look like you need to eat.” She lifted a heavy
iron skillet toward the counter beside the stove and
retrieved a spatula from a drawer.
With his left hand propped over the back of the chair, he
sat in the disconcerting silence. When she started toward
him, he studied the rebellious wisps of hair that slid over
her forehead and inched down the sides of her neck.
“There’s been no change in your father’s condition since I
called you two days ago. He’s still unconscious. After you
eat, I’ll go with you to the hospital.”
He saw her point in some vague direction. Heard her add,
“That is, if you’d like.”
“Sure.” He unrolled the fork and stuck it into the fish
she’d set in front of him, picking at the corn meal batter,
wishing she’d sit down across from him instead of hovering
near his side. His eyes stole a glance toward her, regal now
in her stance, and for the first time he saw the delicate,
thin flowered wreath around her forehead, like a diadem of
some sort. Just for a moment, he allowed himself to stare
into her sea-green eyes, but quickly forced his own away.
His throat tightened and he took a gulp of the hot coffee
she’d given him.
“Ona Neely told me which bedroom used to be yours. She
said so far as she knew, the room has been untouched since
you left.”
He listened to her words as they filled the air about
them, lingering in the room and in his ears. Her voice was
rich and layered and throaty now, piercing the silence in an
earthy way.
“Of course,” she continued, “I’ve no way of knowing how
long it’s been since you slept in that room, but I’ve
cleaned the room for you and made up the bed—”
His cup clattered down on the bare table. He tried to
force a look of nonchalance on his face as a slow bile rose
in his throat. Wiping up the spill, he stalled, trying to
think how to reply to her. “I haven’t been back here since I
turned twenty-one and that was six years ago. So I don’t
have any hankering to sleep in what used to be my room. I’ll
just sleep in the parlor on the sofa. My old room was right
next to my dad’s...to yours—”
He stopped, fumbled with his napkin, and noticed a faint
blush steal across her cheeks as she met his gaze, then
looked away. He saw her thumb twirl her wedding ring around
so the sprawling diamond faced down.
Salina busied herself at the sink as he finished his plate
and scraped back his chair. Standing, he stretched his arms,
strode to the door, and turning back to her with a nod,
muttered, “Give me ten minutes before we go to the hospital.
I want to get my suitcase out of the car, then look for
something in the garage.” He was surprised at how strained
and still his own voice sounded.
“Sure, Paul.”
He moved toward the front hall, hesitated, turned back and
faced her. “Could I ask a favor of you?” He watched as she
dried her hands. “Would you mind not calling me Paul? I know
most people around here think of me as Paul Titus Graves,
but I prefer to go by the name of Mick. My father always
hated that name, but it’s what I like to be called. When I
was real little, my—” He stopped abruptly.
“Mick? If that’s what you prefer.” A smile broke across
her face as her mouth formed the name.
Outside, Mick expelled his breath, freer now in the open
air. It was too close inside that house. The sexy woman who
claimed to be his stepmother...her sultry voice—
God, how could ol’ Lyman pull that one off! She must have
really been hard up to latch onto an old geezer like my dad.
He pulled the car keys from his pocket and scratched his
head in puzzlement. Funny, the way she talked, though.
Didn’t sound like she was from around here. And there was a
bearing in her stance that reminded him of...of what?
he asked himself. He ground his jaw. She was nothing like
the others he remembered his dad dragging in all hours of
the night.
Opening the rental car’s trunk, he retrieved his suitcase.
What’s that Salina woman’s angle anyway? She sure as hell
doesn’t seem too grief-stricken over her husband’s
condition. He slammed the trunk shut. Maybe she knows
more about her husband’s prognosis than she’s letting on.
He sat
the suitcase on the concrete, jammed his hands into the rear
pockets of his jeans and stood staring up at the
second-floor windows. Heaviness engulfed him and something
inside him shouted go back now, leave before it starts
again. He squelched back the ache in his chest, the sense of
deafening defeat he’d fought all the times he’d looked out
from those high arched windows of his old room.
Forcing his gaze away from the high windows, he hunched
his shoulders and walked up the front porch steps, deposited
his suitcase near a rocking chair. Then he headed around the
house toward the sagging garage, filling his lungs with the
mountain air. Inside, he flipped a light switch and stared
about him in the bare bulb’s harsh glare. Hanging neatly
over a long wooden table was his bow. He lifted the bow down
gently from the metal hook and ran his hand over the sleek,
arching wood, fingering it reverently as a musician would an
ancient mandolin or a Stradivarius violin. Brushing away a
cobweb, he let his fingers pluck at the taut string.
He spotted the dusty sheath holding the arrows. As he
reached for them, peace washed over him. His mind flooded
with memories of the gangly adolescent he’d been. Then the
young man escaping his personal demons in the pristine
forests as he climbed a jagged path and pulled the bow,
aiming in the preternatural silence at the brown, still
animal whose ears pricked in watchful vigil. Mick remembered
the quivering of the string in his heart and deep within his
subconscious it reverberated with a deferential hallowed
echo, an almost worshipful aura about it. Then the ping and
hiss as the arrow shot through the air and found its mark,
its sound following its flight into Mick’s oblivion.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d try it—the hunt, he promised
himself, feeling the tension in his body ease and flow away
from him.
Mick steeled himself as he walked back toward the house,
almost dreading the thought of going to the hospital. At
least I won’t have to talk to the old codger if he’s still
unconscious.
He shuddered, bracing himself for the hospital visit.
* * * *
Visibly
shaken, Mick walked out of the critical care unit. Spotting
Salina on a chair in the corridor, he nodded his head. “You
can go in to see him now. I stayed my limit. I don’t
understand why family members are limited to ten minutes at
a time to see a patient in this CCU.”
“Hospital rules.” Salina shrugged her shoulders and stood.
Mick
watched as she walked toward the door, carrying her head
high, and knocked. Within moments a nurse opened the door to
admit her into the room whooshing with the sound of
respirators. The room that had sent chills down Mick’s
spine. Watching his dad lie there in an orthopedic bed with
his legs in traction and all those tubes running into his
body had been quite a jolt.
He sat on the empty chair, picked up a two-day-old
newspaper from the floor, and tried to focus on a front-page
article. But he kept hearing the sounds of those monitors
bleeping and humming above his dad’s head.
He stared at the headline and his eyes blurred. Too much
traveling, he tried to convince himself. He’d gotten up
before the crack of dawn to catch a red-eye flight and now
his lack of sleep, coupled with the strain of seeing his dad
in such a condition, was proving a bit too much. He folded
the newspaper and laid it in his lap.
When he saw Salina come out, he tried to force a smile.
She was taking all this pretty well, for a woman who’d only
been married fourteen months. Has to be hard on her, even
though she doesn’t show it.
She walked toward him. God, she is a looker, he thought.
Those eyes, those fluid movements—
What was he thinking? Here in this hospital where his dad
lay comatose...
Mick waited for her to say something. He tapped his shoe
against the gray-green linoleum, dropped the newspaper on
the floor, and stood.
Finally she spoke. “He doesn’t even know we’re here, you
know? I’ve been coming here three and four times a day since
the accident, thinking he’d wake up and at least know I’m
here to see him.”
“What have the doctors said about when he should wake up?”
“They just tell me ‘his prognosis is not good’. They seem
like they’re afraid to say any more, other than that the
surgeon says he’ll have to remain in traction for several
weeks. But they did tell me when Lyman’s legs eventually
heal, which won’t be for a long time, he may be able to have
rehabilitation and physical therapy and may even be able to
walk again, someday. First, though, he’ll be in a wheel
chair. If he ever wakes up.”
“So the head injury could be there forever?”
Mick felt Salina put her hand on his arm. “That’s
possible, Mick. He might have permanent brain damage for all
we know. I guess we should take steps to keep the coal
business running.” She squeezed his arm. “The miners have to
eat, you know. Somebody has to write the payroll checks.”
Mick stepped back. “Don’t look at me! I’ve got to get back
to Colorado to my graduate classes as soon as I can.”
“You’re not going to do that before your father comes out
of this coma, are you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t stay away too long. Summer school
graduate classes are pretty intense.” He looked at his
watch. “I’m going on home. I’ve got to get some sleep. I
don’t see any sense in hanging around here. If he doesn’t
know we’re here—he looks like a corpse lying in there.” Mick
passed a hand across the stubble of beard on his chin. “Do
you want to stay?”
“No. I’m going back with you.”
As he drove away from the hospital, Mick watched Salina
from the corner of his eye. What is her angle, anyway, he
wondered. So quiet. So reserved. So...unemotional about...
When he sighted the house, its windows dark now, its
orange-tiled roof bouncing the moonlight off the
heavy-limbed maple tree near the porch, he slowed the car.
“So what do you do with your spare time?”
“I read a lot. Paint occasionally. Dabble in oils. How
about you?”
“I ride horses. Been training them out in Colorado. I
think I’ve still got a stallion boarded at a stable near
here. If my father hasn’t sold the horse.” He turned the
rental car into the circular drive, cut the engine, and sat
with his hands on the steering wheel.
Salina got out and walked toward the front porch.
Mick locked the door and followed her. Her movements were
as graceful as a doe’s. He looked at her hair gleaming in
the moonlight. She must have loosened the braids before
they’d left for the hospital, he reflected. Her hair hung
long and loose about her shoulders now. He wanted to run to
her, lift that hair in his fingers—
Salina opened the door and held it while he gazed at her.
She seemed to have an expectant look on her face he didn’t
know how to interpret.
“You go on in,” he said. “I’m going to sit out here on
this porch swing for a while.”
When she turned on the entrance hall light, he noticed her
full lips curl down.
“Do as you wish. I’ll get out sheets and a pillow and put
them on the parlor sofa. There’s an afghan already there if
you want a cover.” She placed her hand on the door handle,
adding, “Let me know if you need anything.” She closed the
door behind her.
Mick sat on the swing and studied his feet.
Moments later he heard the front door open. Surprised, he
turned his head toward Salina.
“Mick, after you’ve had a chance to get caught up on your
sleep, would you please consider helping me take care of
some business matters? Despite Lyman’s condition, the
Poseidon Coal Company has to go on operating. I could use
your help.”
His shoulders tensed. “I’m not interested in being a party
to my father’s sucking the lifeblood from these miners.” He
feigned a shrug. “So there’s no need asking me to assume any
managerial tasks.”
“Lyman always claimed he treated his miners well.”
“Maybe you’re a little naïve. Or you just haven’t been
around long enough to know the truth.”
She shot him an odd look, turned, and disappeared inside
the house.
Mick yawned, leaned back in the swing, and closed his
eyes.
At the sound of a dog howling in the distance, he opened
his eyes, looked around, and noticed he’d left a light on
inside the rental car. Mumbling over his forgetfulness, he
meandered out to the front drive, turned off the light, and
leaned against the car. Staring up at a second story window,
he felt his toes curl under as he thought of the nights he’d
sat by that window as a boy, listening to his father’s
liquored rages. The nights he’d run outside and scampered
into the darkness of the yard trying to hide from the
ever-shifting panoply of slit-skirted, painted-faced women.
Sluts his dad dragged home. He’d always wanted to hide from
those sleazy women. They were nothing like his real mother,
surely.
He
remembered crying in the darkened yard after his mother
left. He was not yet five years old when she just up and
left one day. She never came back and he’d not seen her
since.