Ghost on Black Mountain (7 page)

“You’re the one who brought him up.” She frowned at me.

“What does he have to do with Hobbs?” I drank my coffee.

Shelly took her time sipping the milk. “Don’t know.”

“Why do you hate Hobbs?”

“Lord be, ma’am, I don’t hate no one.” Shelly sat the half-full glass of milk on the table. “Mama thinks he killed my daddy, Clyde Parker.”

My head roared. Jack had mentioned him the day I stood outside the barn listening.

“Now don’t go fretting over what I think. Mama said Daddy was messing in things he knew better than to mess in.” Shelly was quiet for a minute. “Shoot, I wasn’t but five when it happened. I don’t even remember him.” She shrugged. “You can’t be all sad about somebody you never knew.” Her words were almost a whisper.

“That would have made Hobbs around seventeen. Mrs. Connor said he killed his stepmama.”

“Mama says some folks are just born bad. He’s one of them. Just be careful. You can’t figure him.”

“So what spirits come to visit you and what do they say?”

“This here needs a good cleaning.” Shelly rubbed on the stove. “He ain’t going to let me come much longer. Things are going to get bad.”

Fingers of dread walked over my scalp. “He don’t care if you’re here.”

She stopped rubbing the white enamel. “I’ll be close by if
you need me. You can go to Mrs. Connor too. She’s nice enough.”

This made me laugh out loud. What I needed was Mama but I was stuck. If I left and Hobbs came home, he’d throw a fit, chase me down, and punish Mama. How had I come to this knowing? No, I had to stay put to save Mama from getting hurt. And that wasn’t some ghost tale.

Ten

T
hat winter on Black Mountain turned out to be colder than any in my whole lifetime. My firewood was running low and still no sign of Hobbs. Christmas was almost on me and this very fact made me sick. Hobbs wasn’t coming home. The thought sat on the very bottom of my heart, right there in the quiet place that I hid from everyone else.

Jack would have split the wood for me, but I decided I could do it on my own. I had to learn to do things for myself. In the back of my mind, I believed I could please Hobbs. Eventually he would give in and let Mama come to me. I was young and didn’t have a lick of sense. I thought I could turn back time with just a desire. Anyway, splitting the wood showed I could be on my own. Mama taught me how to work for a living. Her laundry business for the fine ladies of Asheville gave me a taste of raw cracked knuckles; one year we even plowed a big field outside of town for a corn crop. We sold it to the farmers for feed. Neither one of us could be called lazy. I could chop wood.

The temperature was around twenty degrees in the middle of the day. Little sheets of ice formed over the still parts of the river. The snow was as deep as ever, no longer pretty, but dirty and gray in most places.

The sun showed through the trees, but it didn’t give any extra heat the afternoon I set out to cut wood. I rolled one of the logs upright. Thank goodness Hobbs had sense enough to have a tree chopped down and sectioned. The maul was heavier than I thought. I swung it over my shoulder, losing my footing but regaining my balance. In that moment, a anger for Hobbs boiled inside of me, giving me a start. The feeling was so strong I swung that maul hard and bounced it off the wood without making a dent. Hobbs should have been right there with me. The maul was lighter the next time I swung it over my shoulder. The weight was a burden, a promise. The third blow brought a split in the wood. The anger had turned to pure strength as it moved through me.

Would Hobbs ever come back? Husbands didn’t just walk away from their wives. But I knew that was a childish thought. A man could do anything he felt like to a woman. Nobody would stop him from telling his wife what to do. Hobbs was my husband. Our marriage was built on his wants and dislikes. He made the money and owned the land. He owned me. If he said I was stupid, then I was. But the more I stayed alone the more I knew that just wasn’t so. It was him who was stupid and mean.

The maul hit its mark and half the log fell away. Warmth spread through me like a spring day. I went at my task for a couple of hours and ended up with a decent pile of wood. My arms were numb and my back ached, but a new strength burned in my muscles. For the first time in my life, I thought I could do anything.

The bathwater turned to a boil just as I heard a truck. I ran to see: it was only Jack. How crazy was I when one minute I
hated Hobbs, and the next I was hanging in the window, pining away for love, praying he’d come home?

Jack jumped from the cab and looked directly at the new pile of wood and scratched his chin.

I met him at the door. “What brings you this way?” My thoughts were still cemented on Hobbs, so I almost missed the soft look Jack gave me. I couldn’t have him feeling sorry for me.

“I wanted to check in on you.” He nodded at the wood. “It seems you’ve done fine alone.”

“I can do anything myself,” I bragged. “Come on in.” I opened the kitchen door.

He took off his hat. “I could have chopped the wood. I will next time. No sense in not taking my help.”

“It’s not your place, Jack. If I’m going to live up here alone …” These words came to life outside my mind and stopped me in the middle of the sentence.

Jack’s face turned pink with the heat of the stove. “I’ll help. You’re family.” He warmed his hands. “You and Shelly have done a fine job with the place.”

“She’s a good worker.”

He looked at the bathtub between us on the kitchen floor. “I won’t stay.”

The thought of another lonely supper made me sick. “Why don’t you stay and eat?” I could see he was about to say no, so I rushed on. “You could stack the wood I chopped while I take a bath.”

He relaxed. “It’ll be a pleasure to stack the wood. You split wood with your mama?”

“Nah, this is my first time, but Mama and me worked hard.” A sharp pain worked behind my ribs.

“You’re something else, Nellie.” He laughed and went outside. I was smiling for the first time in weeks.

My prettiest dress hung over one of the kitchen chairs. I
soaked in the copper tub while the water worked hard at turning ice-cold. Mama would say I was messing with fire having this handsome man for supper, but I wasn’t with Mama. There was no harm in having a meal with my brother-in-law and nothing wrong with being pretty. Jack was a gentleman. And for all I knew he had him a girl down in Asheville somewhere. I closed my eyes and imagined him answering all the questions I needed answered.

Eleven

I
cooked the pork chops good and crunchy. The black-eyed peas bubbled on the stove, and the whole kitchen smelled of sweet cornbread. Jack ate so much I thought he’d pop open. Him sitting at the table laughing and talking seemed so natural. I poured us another cup of coffee and brought the apple cobbler to the table. I used apples I canned right after I came to the mountain.

“Lord, Nellie, you’re a good cook.” Jack sat back and patted his stomach.

“Thank you.”

“There are some things about Hobbs’s business that can’t be denied.” He sniffed the coffee. “Folks up here can’t buy coffee. They can’t buy nothing.”

My cheeks burned, thinking about Hobbs and his ways.

“I got to get back home.” The dusky gray had settled in the yard. It was this time each evening when I took my coffee to the porch and watched the valley get blanketed by mist.

“Oh, come sit on the porch with me. Talk.”

He laughed. “It’s too cold to sit on the porch, but you do have a fine view. What is it you want to talk about?”

“Do you have a girl down in Asheville?”

His look became playful. “Ten of them. Why is it that every woman on this mountain wants to fix me up with a girl? Do I look that helpless?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re such good husband material.”

He hooted with laughter. “I don’t think you’re right about that.” A wind rattled a tree branch against the kitchen window. “I’m happy just like I am.”

“That’s probably good, being happy like you are.” Warm feelings were settling in my chest, making it easier to ask my next question. “Did Hobbs kill Clyde Parker?”

A shadow crossed his face. “You change subjects fast.” He half smiled. “Did Shelly talk about him?”

“I asked her why she didn’t like Hobbs.”

He nodded. “There’s some things I can’t talk about, Nellie. Clyde Parker is one of them. That answer will have to come from Hobbs.” He sipped his coffee. “But I wouldn’t bring it up.”

So I had to think Hobbs killed Shelly’s daddy. “Tell me about Hobbs’s sister.”

A lighthearted smile settled on his face. “What do you want to know?”

“Does she look like him?” I moved around my real question with careful steps.

“She looked just like pictures of her mama. She has her mama’s name, AzLeigh.”

“Why’d she leave?”

He shrugged and looked out the window. “It was time. She had nothing left up here.”

“Aunt Ida said her and Hobbs fell out about her liking your mama. She said he had every right to hate his stepmama since she came into the family too fast.”

“Aunt Ida’s been making excuses for Hobbs since I came to this mountain and probably way before. She’s always had a soft spot for him. Seems he does this to a lot of women. Can’t figure it.”

I looked away.

“My mama loved AzLeigh like her own. What wasn’t there to love? She was everything Hobbs had missing.” Jack grew quiet. “When my mama died, AzLeigh hurt just like I did. She loved her that much.”

“Did Hobbs have anything to do with your mama dying?” This question had been burning inside since my visit to the Connor farm.

He studied me. “Who you been talking to?”

“Mrs. Connor.”

He frowned and shook his head. “That must have been a hard visit for you.”

I shrugged off his words. “Did he kill her?”

“She died one night while everyone was asleep. AzLeigh found her the next morning. The doctor said it was her heart.” He frowned. “I would have killed Hobbs myself if I thought he put a hand on my mama.” He said this so quiet a chill went over my scalp. “Folks give him way too much credit. It adds to his legend as the bad man on Black Mountain.”

“So you don’t think he’s killed anybody?” The relief I felt was in my words.

“I didn’t say that. I’m sure he’s killed someone. Folks say he killed his first man the day before his mama died.”

“Who was that?”

“Merlin Hocket.”

The name sent cold through my chest.

“Merlin was a government man sent up here to measure the mountain for taxes. But his problem was meeting Hobbs. They bumped heads because Merlin found Hobbs’s still and
threatened to bring revenue men up here. He came up missing. Nobody would tell on Hobbs because we deal with our own up here. Problem is we’re not doing too good of a job because he’s running the show.” He slapped his knee. “I got to go. My dear stepbrother would raise Cain if he knew I was here talking with you.” He looked deep into my eyes. “Never think you know him cause you won’t, ever.”

And there was the truth staring me in the face.

I looked away. “I seen your mama here.”

“Don’t surprise me none. She’s probably looking out for you. She knew Hobbs well enough. That’s one of the reasons he hated her so bad.” Jack opened the kitchen door.

“She walked down the front stairs.”

He nodded like we were talking about something as simple as spring coming. “Don’t talk to Hobbs about her. He’ll ship you off to the state hospital.”

“If he even comes back.” I cursed the sinking feeling in my chest.

“Oh, don’t you worry. He’ll come rolling in here when you least expect him. You can’t get rid of him that easy. Enjoy your time. Ain’t no telling what he’ll be like when he comes back.” He laughed.

I touched his arm without thinking. It was just a natural kind of gesture. His stare locked with mine for only a few seconds, and then he slid his arm away. “More snow tomorrow.” He put his hat on and stepped out the door.

“Don’t say that, Jack.”

He grinned. “Aunt Ida’s knee has been aching up a storm, always does when a big snow is coming.”