imagining Wild Rose grazing in a mountaintop meadow, or maybe just being stubborn. We had no choice but to go on behind her.
I mustered what little strength I had left and pushed myself upward, arms heavy and tongue dry and the rancid taste of moonshine still thick in the back of my throat. The incline was almost vertical and it was a struggle to keep my balance on the rocks. I bit my lip, shaking with exhaustion, trying to see through the sweat in my eyes. When I glanced up, I realized that Myra was out of sight. She had disappeared into the fog and Mark wasn’t far behind. There was nothing between the leaning trees but blank sky and the mist that had risen up to claim her. I went cold with dread and scrambled to catch up with them. That’s when I began to lose my hold, fingernails clawing for purchase in the crumbling dirt. In those slow seconds before dropping, heavy and helpless like in a dream of falling, I turned my head to the side and saw another outcropping. Some of the pines there were broken off with their tops bowing down. Between the rise I clung to and the mountain’s other jagged face a buzzard was circling. Then my arms and legs gave out and I was flailing backward, handssearching in vain for something to grab. The tumble down was fast, a blur of ground and sky, before my head cracked on a stone.
Mark said later I wasn’t out for long because my eyes were open when they got to me. The first thing I remember is Myra bending close and I was glad to see that she was sorry. She never said so but she didn’t have to, the guilt was all over her face. Mark helped me up and my head hurt so bad that I almost passed out again. It felt like a bowling ball on the end of my neck. They dusted me off and examined my scrapes and cuts before we started down. I’ll never forget how Myra looked back over her shoulder into the fog. That night I was so dizzy and sick that I stumbled out of bed and threw up twice. Afterward I lay in my room, head pounding and backside raw from Daddy’s belt, thinking about what Tina Cutshaw had said in fifth grade, that bad things would happen to me if I kept on loving Myra. I guess I knew even back then how things would turn out.
BYRDIE
The summer after we got married, Macon took me home to Blood-root Mountain and I been here ever since. Them was good years when I first came here to live. I’d set on the back steps looking off through the trees, breaking beans or shucking corn, or weaving me a rug for the floors. Sometimes a wind would come along smelling so sweet, like creek bank mud and pine needles and rainy weather. It’d lift my hair off of my shoulders and kiss my forehead the same way Macon did at night, and I’d know for sure I belonged here. But I did get homesick sometimes. I missed Mammy and Pap and our cabin in Piney Grove. They was less than five miles from the foot of the mountain and we still seen each other at church, but it was hard to be away from them during the week. Sunday afternoons Mammy would cook dinner for me and Macon and as much as I loved our house on the mountain, I’d wish sometimes to crawl in my feather bed up in the loft and sleep the day away. I was jealous of my time with Mammy and Pap and it was irksome when our Sunday dinners got interrupted. Word had got around about Pap’s gift for healing and many Sundays there’d be a knock on the kitchen door. He’d get up from dinner and somebody would be standing at the back steps with a baby on theirhip. Pap would take the baby around the cabin, I guess for some privacy, and cure its thresh like he done mine. Then he’d come back in and set down at the table like nothing ever happened. Just being around Pap for a little while would set everything right with me and I’d head back up the mountain with Macon, happy as a lark again.
I helped Macon take care of his own pap, Paul Lamb, until he had another stroke and died. Then I took Becky and Jane to raise, until they growed up and married some boys
I mustered what little strength I had left and pushed myself upward, arms heavy and tongue dry and the rancid taste of moonshine still thick in the back of my throat. The incline was almost vertical and it was a struggle to keep my balance on the rocks. I bit my lip, shaking with exhaustion, trying to see through the sweat in my eyes. When I glanced up, I realized that Myra was out of sight. She had disappeared into the fog and Mark wasn’t far behind. There was nothing between the leaning trees but blank sky and the mist that had risen up to claim her. I went cold with dread and scrambled to catch up with them. That’s when I began to lose my hold, fingernails clawing for purchase in the crumbling dirt. In those slow seconds before dropping, heavy and helpless like in a dream of falling, I turned my head to the side and saw another outcropping. Some of the pines there were broken off with their tops bowing down. Between the rise I clung to and the mountain’s other jagged face a buzzard was circling. Then my arms and legs gave out and I was flailing backward, handssearching in vain for something to grab. The tumble down was fast, a blur of ground and sky, before my head cracked on a stone.
Mark said later I wasn’t out for long because my eyes were open when they got to me. The first thing I remember is Myra bending close and I was glad to see that she was sorry. She never said so but she didn’t have to, the guilt was all over her face. Mark helped me up and my head hurt so bad that I almost passed out again. It felt like a bowling ball on the end of my neck. They dusted me off and examined my scrapes and cuts before we started down. I’ll never forget how Myra looked back over her shoulder into the fog. That night I was so dizzy and sick that I stumbled out of bed and threw up twice. Afterward I lay in my room, head pounding and backside raw from Daddy’s belt, thinking about what Tina Cutshaw had said in fifth grade, that bad things would happen to me if I kept on loving Myra. I guess I knew even back then how things would turn out.
BYRDIE
The summer after we got married, Macon took me home to Blood-root Mountain and I been here ever since. Them was good years when I first came here to live. I’d set on the back steps looking off through the trees, breaking beans or shucking corn, or weaving me a rug for the floors. Sometimes a wind would come along smelling so sweet, like creek bank mud and pine needles and rainy weather. It’d lift my hair off of my shoulders and kiss my forehead the same way Macon did at night, and I’d know for sure I belonged here. But I did get homesick sometimes. I missed Mammy and Pap and our cabin in Piney Grove. They was less than five miles from the foot of the mountain and we still seen each other at church, but it was hard to be away from them during the week. Sunday afternoons Mammy would cook dinner for me and Macon and as much as I loved our house on the mountain, I’d wish sometimes to crawl in my feather bed up in the loft and sleep the day away. I was jealous of my time with Mammy and Pap and it was irksome when our Sunday dinners got interrupted. Word had got around about Pap’s gift for healing and many Sundays there’d be a knock on the kitchen door. He’d get up from dinner and somebody would be standing at the back steps with a baby on theirhip. Pap would take the baby around the cabin, I guess for some privacy, and cure its thresh like he done mine. Then he’d come back in and set down at the table like nothing ever happened. Just being around Pap for a little while would set everything right with me and I’d head back up the mountain with Macon, happy as a lark again.
I helped Macon take care of his own pap, Paul Lamb, until he had another stroke and died. Then I took Becky and Jane to raise, until they growed up and married some boys
Similar Books
