Hardcastle (37 page)

“That’s us,” Music said.

“Wonderful,” the man said and shook Music’s hand and patted him on the back. “Marie,” he shouted over his shoulder, “come! Come! Well,” he said, “how goes the fight?”

“There wasn’t any fighting when we left this morning,” Music told him and realized at once he had mistaken the question. It made him feel foolish and stupid. “Well, I guess a good many miners have been evicted, and we’ve about run out of something to eat for sure,” he added.

“Marie,” the man shouted over his shoulder, “I want you to meet the brave miner who has come from Hardcastle Coal Company!”

Music wanted to explain that he was not a miner, but at that moment a young woman appeared, staring at him as though she wanted to fix his face forever in her memory, her eyes already a bit wet as though she might weep. “It’s an honor,” she said in a husky voice, and to his great surprise, stepped forward and hugged him fiercely for a good many seconds. He looked over her shoulder at the man, wondering if he was her husband or brother or what. He didn’t seem to mind, whoever he was. He merely stood nodding his handsome head as though Music were a present or some sort of pet he had bought her. Dressed in hound’s-tooth trousers and a soft sweater, his hair parted in the middle with a gentle wave over each temple, he reminded Music of an advertisement in a magazine.

“Uhhh,” Music said, “you don’t reckon you could tell me where the supplies we came to fetch are at?” He wondered what the hell Regus was thinking, watching all this from the truck. “Some folks are sorta anxious for us to get back,” he said apologetically. Abruptly Marie stepped away, held him at arm’s length, and looking at him with eyes as dark and dusky as wet plums, said, “Of course.”

“Our garage is packed from floor to ceiling with food and supplies,” the man said, “but your truck seems to be full already.”

Music waved Regus into the driveway. “Yes,” he admitted. “Goons stopped us twice this morning and asked us what we were up to. I thought if we went back looking like a couple of farmers with a big old load of hay, we might stay out of trouble.”

“Very clever indeed,” Marie said.

When Regus had driven around the house to the garage and stepped down from the truck, the man said, “Another brave miner from Hardcastle,” and took Regus’s arm as though to lead him into Marie’s embrace, but she gave him only a firm, brisk handshake.

They could have put a couple of pitchforks to good use, but there was nothing like a pitchfork anywhere about, so they had to haul the hay off the truck by hand. There was, however, a wealth of goods in the garage: tents and blankets and cases of tinned meat and canned goods, perhaps a ton of flour in ten-pound bags, dried beans, potatoes, coffee. They got the feeling they could take as much of anything as they desired. It was like robbing a bank while the bankers held the doors open and inquired after the health of their families. They wished for a bigger truck. They regretted the necessity for taking tents, which, though they were folded marvelously flat, took up considerable space. From time to time they glanced at each other and agreed with no more than a small shake of the head or a fish-eyed nod that tinned meat was more important than blankets or that dried beans had it over another sack of potatoes. And all the while, with what appeared to be something like joy, the man and woman asked endless questions about the conditions of the coal miner and life in a company-owned town. Music was happy to let Regus do the talking, since he himself wasn’t exactly an expert; but then too, Regus seemed to be taking pleasure in painting as grim a picture of coal mining as possible. And he had a talent for it, being able in the fewest words to give them a world far colder, hungrier, and more dangerous than they seemed to expect. After a while, Music sensed they’d spied more misery than they could quite get their minds around, more than they had a taste for. It seemed no longer to flatter them, and they grew quiet and began to be a bit more help in loading the truck.

“Hellfire,” Regus said at last, standing back as though to get a perspective on the tremendous load of goods, “I don’t think the truck will haul it.”

“Yes, it will,” Music said.

Regus jerked his chin to one side. “I don’t know,” he said, “but if we go up any higher, and we hit the first bump, the whole damned load will fall over.”

“We’ll tie her down,” Music said. “Think of the folks we can feed with just one or two more layers of them canned goods stacked on.”

“Sure,” Regus said, “but we can’t feed nobody if we don’t get there.”

They compromised at a half dozen more cases of canned goods, but even that put the load a bit higher than the stake body and cab of the truck. Still they unfolded a tent and covered the load with it and tied it all down with tent rope, and then set about disguising the whole business with hay. They’d left a few inches of space between the sideboards and tailgate and the stacked supplies, and that space was easy enough to fill and pack tight with hay, but rounding off the top was more difficult, and they had to use a great deal of rope to secure it, tying the spare tire, at last, on the very top like a bottle cap on a pumpkin.

When they had finished, Regus stood gazing at the truck and shaking his head.

“That’s just the way it ought to look!” Music told him. “It looks like too big a load to be anything in the world except just hay.”

Regus scratched the back of his neck doubtfully. “Lord God help us if we have a flat,” he said.

When the awkward moment for parting came, the man, dressed so fine in his hound’s-tooth trousers and handsome sweater, began to blush. “A word of caution,” he said. “If you should happen to get caught, it’s very important that you do not mention us or this address.” He laughed a panting sort of laughter. “It’s possible we could get in serious trouble if you did.”

“Don’t bother yer head about that,” Regus said. “Won’t nobody get one word from us.”

“It’s just that we want the supplies to be here for others,” the woman said.

“Absolutely,” Music said.

There was a great deal of solemn, earnest handshaking all around, but no more hugging, and Music and Regus climbed into the truck and pulled out into the street.

“Sweet Jesus,” Regus said, “feels like I’m drivin a mountain. I’d hate to try to outrun anybody loaded like this.”

“Hell,” Music said, “we couldn’t outrun anybody in this truck if it was empty unless they were afoot. If you want to worry about something, worry about how far it will take you to stop it after you tell it whoa.”

Regus got out his plug of tobacco and his pocketknife. “Hot damn!” he said. “What a haul! Ain’t we got a load of tucker on here though?”

“Yeah,” Music said. He shook his head soberly. “How come I still feel we went to the wrong address?”

“Ha,” Regus said. “I don’t know, but I don’t reckon the joke’s on us.”

Music put on his straw hat and rolled himself a cigarette while Regus drove, spat out the window, and, every few minutes, chuckled to himself. But he turned serious when the truck had to climb the first long, steep grade, for the Model T was beginning to steam when it growled slowly over the crest in low gear. Going down the far pitch was sobering too, for the load wasn’t merely heavy; it was top-heavy. Twenty or twenty-five miles an hour was all they dared on level road, and on a grade, far less.

At Big Stone Gap they stopped to get chili for Regus and water for the Model T. They had filled the radiator and bought some gas, and Regus had opened the cock to check the oil, when the service station man said, “Yawl must be a-carrin a load of hay over to the stock barn in Francis.”

“Sure,” Music said.

“I reckon they’ll learn, hereafter, about fillin their damned barns with wet hay,” the man said and laughed.

“Fire?” Music asked.

“Well, hell, you know they wuz a fire or ye wouldn’t be a-haulin hay to em,” he said and made a funny face.

“No, well, I mean I didn’t know it was wet hay that started it,” Music said.

“That’s what I hear,” the man said.

“Oil’s up to the top cock,” Regus said. “I got my fanger in her. Where’s the best place around here for a man to git a good bowl of chili?”

“They’s an eatery down by the depot,” the man said. “I don’t know much about the fare, but it’s the onliest place it is around here, for sure.”

“Would you have a jug or somethin to carry water in we could buy off ye?” Regus asked.

“Sholy,” the man said. He got them a jug and filled it with water for the radiator, but would take no money for it; and they went off to find the depot and the eatery, where Regus had two bowls of chili and declared them: “Wonderful tasty, nearly as good as I’ve ever et.” Although later, when they were back on the road again, he confessed the chili that morning had been better because it had more kick and was a little runnier, so a man could crumble lots of crackers in it.

They talked for a long while then about the National Miners Union and whether or not the strike would work, and Regus grew very thoughtful and serious. The little Italian was right, Regus said; the operators had stolen out of the miner’s pocket to underbid each other until there was nothing left to steal, except from themselves. Coal mining was eating itself up. Who could tell? he said; maybe the National Miners Union could stick it out and win. There was no figuring the fool operators and how hard they would fight when their backs were against the wall. Still, the time seemed right. The miner didn’t have much of anything to lose by striking, and the National Miners Union was a new bunch, not one of the others that had already failed. Yet, Regus said, it didn’t feel right someway; he didn’t know just how. Maybe it was that both sides seemed worn out with the struggle and desperate, which might cause them to fight crazy or just throw up their hands. Who could tell? And those folks in that fancy house with their garage heaped full of supplies for the goddamned ragged-assed coal miners—now that was like the sun coming up on the west side of the hill. He couldn’t figure them into the situation at all, but it put a funny taste in his mouth someway.

About the time they crossed the Kentucky line, Regus said, “Why do you figure that fancy woman grabbed on to you like that? She scooped you up like a sugar daddy; I seen it from the truck!”

“I’ve been thinking about that myself,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe she thought I was good-lookin.”

“Ha,” Regus said, “maybe so, maybe so. I’ve hear it said that rich folks are kindly queer. Maybe that’s all it is to it.”

But Music was thinking of the summer he was twelve and had been baptized at the Shulls Mills Lutheran Church. Two or three women he hardly knew had hugged him just as fiercely. Yes, and they had looked at him in just the same way, their eyes dark and moist. Somehow they had felt it necessary to welcome him into the fellowship of Christ with their bodies, rather than the way a man would, with words or a handshake. He was wondering whether or not it was too personal or foolish to talk about when he saw the long narrow bridge ahead of them and, at the other end, parked cars and men with badges and guns. “Hellfire,” he said, “look yonder.”

“I done already seen em,” Regus said, pulling the throttle lever back and testing the brakes.

Music settled the farmer’s hat more firmly on his head and threw up his hand to greet the sheriff, who, with four other men standing behind him, was blocking the center of the road. “Howdy,” Music said.

“I see you boys got one hell of a load of hay,” the sheriff said, coming up on Regus’s side of the truck. “Where you headed with it?”

“Francis,” Music said, leaning forward to talk across Regus, “over to the stockyard.”

The sheriff pursed his lips. “Ain’t that peculiar?” he said, “Francis bein behind you, like it is.”

“Ha,” Regus said, “my brother can’t half hear. We
come
from Francis. Hay barn burned down over yonder, and we thought we had this load sold, but I reckon everbody else beat us to it. We live over in Leslie County, and we just goin home.”

Jesus Christ, Music thought to himself; he could feel his face heating up, feel his ears warming the sides of his head.

“Is that right?” the sheriff said, looking from one of them to the other in a way that made Music suspect he saw right through them.

“Wouldn’t have any need for a load of alfalfa, would ye, sheriff?” Music asked. “We’d let the whole truckload go fer three dollar and a half. Save us a-haulin it all the way back home.”

Another man had come up by Music’s side of the truck. “Alfalfa hell,” he said, looking up at the load, “looks like broomstraw to me.”

“Hit’s alfalfa and as good a crop as we ever made,” Music said.

The man pulled a great handful of it from between the sideboards of the truck bed, ragged it between his hands, and smelled it. “I’ll give a dollar for it,” he said.

“I guess we could let it go for three, just to save us a-makin a long haul fer nuthin,” Music said.

“What do you say to a dollar and a half?” the man said.

“Why don’t you shut up, Cal?” the sheriff said.

“Well, I didn’t get all my hay in and I’m a little short,” the man said in a peeved and querulous voice. “I’ll give two dollars, and that’s my final offer.”

The sheriff looked to be losing his patience, and Music allowed himself to hope that they were going to get away with it after all.

“I’ll eat the goddamned hay myself before I’ll sell it fer two dollars,” Regus blurted before Music could do any more bargaining.

“All right, two and a quarter,” Cal said, “but I won’t give more.”

“I told you once to shut up!” the sheriff said. He looked from Regus to Music and back to Regus, turning the whole thing over in his head, Music could tell.

“What’s all this about anyhow?” Regus said. “Hit ain’t against the law to transport hay across the county line, is it, Sheriff?”

“Well, now, it ain’t,” the sheriff said, “but we’ve got us a bunch of red agitators stirrin up the miners here in Harlan County, and, ever little bit, them communist bastards try to truck in stuff to help em make more trouble. That keeps us on the lookout and a little suspicious, don’tcha see?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Regus said and hit such a false note that fear seemed to blow around Music’s heart. He saw the sheriff’s eyes narrow at once.