Lou dressed quickly and went downstairs. Louisa had food on the table, though Oz had not yet appeared.

"That was fun last night," Lou said, sitting at the table.

"You prob'ly laugh now, but when Fs younger, I could do me some stompin'," remarked Louisa, as she put a biscuit covered with gravy and a gla.s.s of milk on the table for Lou.

"Diamond must have slept in the barn," said Lou as she bit into her biscuit. "Don't his parents worry about him?" She gave Louisa a sideways glance and added, "Or I guess I should be asking if he has any parents."

Louisa sighed and then stared at Lou. "His mother pa.s.sed when he was born. Happen right often up here. Too often. His daddy joined her four year ago."

Lou put down her biscuit. "How did his father die?"

"No business of ours, Lou."

"Does this have anything to do with what Diamond did to that man's car?"

Louisa sat and tapped her fingers against the table.

"Please, Louisa, please. I really want to know. I care about Diamond. He's my friend."

"Blasting at one of the mines," Louisa said bluntly. 'Took down a hillside. A hillside Donovan Skinner was farming."

"Who does Diamond live with then?"

"He a wild bird. Put him in a cage, he just shrivel up and die. He need anythin', he know to come to me."

"Did the coal company have to pay for what happened?"

Louisa shook her head. "Played legal tricks. Cotton tried to help but weren't much he could do. Southern Valley's a powerful force hereabouts."

"Poor Diamond."

"Boy sure didn't take it lying down," Louisa said. "One time the v/heels of a motorman's car fell off when it come out the mine. And then a coal tipple wouldn't open and they had to send for some people from Roanoke. Found a rock stuck in the gears. That same coal mine boss, he was in an outhouse one time got tipped over. Durn door wouldn't open, and he spent a sorry hour in there. To this day n.o.body ever figgered out who tipped it over or how that rope got round it."

"Did Diamond ever get in trouble?"

"Henry Atkins the judge. He a good man, know what was what, so's nothing ever come of it. But Cotton kept talking to Diamond, and the mischief finally quit." She paused. "Least it did till the horse manure got in that man's car."

Louisa turned away, but Lou had already seen the woman's broad smile.

Lou and Oz rode Sue every day and had gotten to the point where Louisa had proclaimed them good, competent riders. Lou loved riding Sue. She could see forever, it seemed, from that high perch, the mare's body wide enough that falling off seemed impossible.

After morning ch.o.r.es, they would go swimming with Diamond at Scott's Hole, a patch of water Diamond had introduced them to, and which he claimed had no bottom. As the summer went along Lou and Oz became dark brown, while Diamond simply grew larger freckles.

Eugene came with them as often as he could, and Lou was surprised to learn he was only twenty-one. He did not know how to swim, but the children remedied that, and Eugene was soon performing different strokes, and even flips, in the cool water, his bad leg not holding him back any in that environment.

They played baseball in a field of bluegra.s.s they had scythed. Eugene had fashioned a bat from an oak plank shaved narrow at one end. They used Diamond's cover-less ball and another made from a bit of rubber wound round with sheep's wool and knitted twine. The bases were pieces of shale set in a straight line, this being the proper way according to Diamond, who termed it straight-town baseball. New York Yankees' fan Lou said nothing about this, and let the boy have his fun. It got so that none of them, not even Eugene, could hit a ball that Oz threw, so fast and tricky did it come.

They spent many afternoons running through the adventures of the Wizard of Oz, making up parts they had forgotten, or which they thought, with youthful confidence, could be improved upon. Diamond was quite partial to the Scarecrow; Oz, of course, had to be the cowardly Hon; and, by default, Lou was the heartless tin man. They unanimously proclaimed Eugene the Great and Mighty Wizard, and he would come out from behind a rock and bellow out lines they had taught him so loud and with such a depth of feigned anger that Oz, the Cowardly Lion, asked Eugene, the Mighty Wizard, if he could please tone it down a bit. They fought many pitched battles against flying monkeys and melting witches, and with a little ingenuity and some luck at just the right moments, good always triumphed over evil on the glorious Virginia mountain.

Diamond told them of how in the winter he would skate on the top of Scott's Hole. And how using a short-handled ax he would cleave off a strip of bark from an oak and use that as his sled to go sailing down the iced slopes of the mountains at speeds never before achieved by a human being. He said he would be glad to show them how he did it, but would have to swear them to secrecy, lest the wrong sort of folks found out and maybe took over the world with such valuable knowledge.

Lou did not once let on that she knew about Diamond's parents. After hours of fun, they would say their goodbyes and Lou and Oz would ride home on Sue or take turns with Eugene when he came with them. Diamond would stay behind and swim some more or hit the ball, doing, as he often said, just as he pleased.

On the ride back home after one of these outings, Lou decided to take a different way. A fine mist hung over the mountains as she and Oz approached the farmhouse from the rear. They cleared a rise, and on top of a little knoll about a half-mile from the house, Lou reined Sue to a halt. Oz squirmed behind her.

"Come on, Lou, we need to get back. We've got ch.o.r.es."

Instead, the girl clambered off Sue, leaving Oz to grab at the reins, which almost made him fall off the animal. He called crossly after her, but she seemed not to hear.

Lou went over to the little cleared s.p.a.ce under the dense shade of an evergreen and knelt down. The grave markers were simple pieces of wood grayed by the weather. And clearly much time had pa.s.sed. Lou read the names of the dead and the bracket dates of their existence, which were carved deeply into the wood and were probably about as distinct as the day they were chiseled.

The first name was Joshua Cardinal. The date of his birth and death made Lou believe that he must have been Louisa's husband, Lou and Oz's great-grandfather. He had pa.s.sed in his fifty-second year-not that long of a life, Lou thought. The second grave marker was a name that Lou knew from her father. Jacob Cardinal was her father's father, her and Oz's grandfather. As she recited the name, Oz joined her and knelt down in the gra.s.s. He pulled off his straw hat and said nothing. Their grandfather had died far younger than even his father. Was there something about this place? Lou wondered. But then she thought of how old Louisa was, and the wondering stopped there.

The third grave marker looked to be the oldest. It only had a name on it, no dates of birth or death.

"Annie Cardinal," Lou said out loud. For a time the two just knelt there and stared at the pieces of board marking the remains of family they had never known. Then Lou rose, went over to Sue, gripped the horse's bushy mane, climbed up, and then helped Oz on board. Neither spoke all the way back.

At supper that night, more than once Lou was about to venture a question to Louisa about what they had seen, but then something made her not. Oz was obviously just as curious, yet, like always, he was inclined to follow his sister's lead. They had time, Lou figured, for all of their questions to be answered. Before she went to sleep that night, Lou went out on the back porch and looked up to that knoll. Even with a nice slice of moon she could not see the graveyard from here, yet now she knew where it was. She had never much been interested in the dead, particularly since losing her father. Now she knew that she would go back soon to that burying ground and look once more at those bits of plain board set in dirt and engraved with the names of her flesh and blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

COTTON SHOWED UP WTTH DIAMOND A WEEK LATER and handed out small American flags to Lou, Oz, and Eugene. He had also brought a five-gallon can of gas, which he put in the Hudson's fuel tank. "We all can't fit in the Olds," he explained. "And I handled an estate problem for Leroy Meekins who runs the Esso station. Leroy doesn't like to pay in cash, though, so one could say I'm flush with oil products right now." and handed out small American flags to Lou, Oz, and Eugene. He had also brought a five-gallon can of gas, which he put in the Hudson's fuel tank. "We all can't fit in the Olds," he explained. "And I handled an estate problem for Leroy Meekins who runs the Esso station. Leroy doesn't like to pay in cash, though, so one could say I'm flush with oil products right now."

With Eugene driving, the five went down to d.i.c.kens to watch the parade. Louisa stayed behind to keep watch over Amanda, but they promised to bring her back something.

They ate hot dogs with great splotches of mustard and ketchup, swirls of cotton candy, and enough soda pop to make the children run to the public toilet with great frequency. There were contests of skill at booths set up wherever s.p.a.ce was available, and Oz cleaned up on all those that involved throwing something in order to knock something else down. Lou bought a pretty bonnet for Louisa, which she let Oz carry in a paper bag.

The town was done up in red, white, and blue, and both townfolk and those from the mountain lined both sides of the street as the floats came down. These barges 0 0n land were pulled by horse, mule, or track and displayed the most important moments in America's history, which, to most native Virginians, had naturally all occurred in the Commonwealth. There was a group of children on one such float representing the original thirteen colonies, with one boy carrying the Virginia colors, which were far bigger than the flags the other children carried, and he wore the showiest costume as well. A regiment of decorated war veterans from the area trooped by, including several men with long beards and shriveled bodies who claimed to have served with both the honorable Bobby Lee and the fanatically pious Stonewall Jackson. One float, sponsored by Southern Valley, was devoted to the mining of coal and was pulled by a customized Chevrolet track painted gold. There wasn't a black-faced, wrecked-back miner in sight, but instead, smack in the center of the float, on a raised platform simulating a coal tipple, stood a pretty young woman with blond hair, a perfect complexion, and brilliant white teeth, wearing a sash that read "Miss Bituminous Coal 1940" and waving her hand as mechanically as a windup doll. Even the most dense in the crowd could probably grasp the implied connection between lumps of black rock and the pot of gold pulling it. And the men and boys gave the expected reaction of cheers and some catcalls to the pa.s.sing beauty. There was one old and humpbacked woman standing next to Lou who told her that her husband and three sons all labored in the mines. The old woman watched the beauty queen with scornful eyes and then commented that that young gal had obviously never been near a coal mine in her entire life. And she wouldn't know a lump of coal if it jumped up and grabbed her in the bituminous.

High-ranking representatives of the town made important speeches, motivating the citizens into bursts of enthusiastic applause. The mayor held forth from a temporary stage, with smiling, expensively dressed men next to him, who, Cotton told Lou, were Southern Valley officials. The mayor was young and energetic, with slicked hair, wearing a nice suit and fashionable watch and chain, and carrying boundless enthusiasm in his beaming smile and hands reaching to the sky, as though ready to snag on any rainbows trying to slip by.

"Coal is king," the mayor announced into a clunky microphone almost as big as his head. "And what with the war heating up across the Atlantic and the mighty United States of America building ships and guns and tanks for our friends fighting Hitier, the steel mill's demands for c.o.ke, our good, patriotic Virginia c.o.ke, will skyrocket. And some say it won't be long before we join the fighting. Yes, prosperity is here in fine abundance and here it will stay," said the mayor. "Not only will our children live the glorious American dream, but their children will as well. And it will be all due to the good work of folks like Southern Valley and their unrelenting drive to bring out the black rock that is driving this town to greatness. Rest a.s.sured, folks, we will become the New York City of the south. One day some will look back and say, 'Who knew the outstanding things that destiny held for the likes of d.i.c.kens, Virginia?' But y'all already know, because I'm telling you right now. Hip-hip hooray for Southern Valley and d.i.c.kens, Virginia." And the exuberant mayor threw his straw boater hat high into the air. And the crowd joined him in the cheer, and more hats were catapulted into the swirling breeze. And though Diamond, Lou, Oz, Eugene, and Cotton all applauded too, and the children grinned happily at each other, Lou noticed that Cotton's expression wasn't one of unbridled optimism.

As night fell, they watched a display of fireworks color the sky, and then the group climbed in the Hudson and headed out of town. They had just pa.s.sed the courthouse when Lou asked Cotton about the mayor's speech and his muted reaction to it.

"Well, I've seen this town go boom and bust before," he said. "And it usually happens when the politicians and the business types are cheering the loudest. So I just don't know. Maybe it'll be different this time, but I just don't know."

Lou was left to ponder this while the cheers of the fine celebration receded and then those sounds were gone entirely, replaced with wind whistling through rock and tree, as they headed back up the mountain.

There had not been much rain, but Louisa wasn't worried yet, though she prayed every night for the skies to open up and bellow hard and long. They were weeding the cornfield, and it was a hot day and the flies and gnats were particularly bothersome. Lou sc.r.a.ped at the dirt, something just not seeming right. "We already planted the seeds. Can't they grow by themselves?"

"Lot of things go wrong in farming and one or two most always do," Louisa answered. "And the work don't never stop, Lou. Just the way it is here."

Lou swung the hoe over her shoulder. "All I can say is, this corn better taste good."

"This here's field corn," Louisa told her. "For the animals."

Lou almost dropped her hoe. "We're doing all this work to feed the animals?"

"They work hard for us, we got to do the same for them. They got to eat too."

"Yeah, Lou," said Oz as he attacked the weeds with vigorous strokes. "How can hogs get fat if they don't eat? Tell me that."

They worked the hills of corn, side by side under the fierce sun, which was so close it almost seemed to Lou that she could reach up and pocket it. The katydids and crickets sc.r.a.ped tunes at them from all corners. Lou stopped hoeing and watched Cotton drive up to the house and get out.

"Cotton coming every day and reading to Mom is making Oz believe that she's going to get better," said Lou to Louisa, taking care that her brother did not hear her.

Louisa wielded the hoe blade with the energy of a young person and the skill of an old. "You right, it's so terrible bad having Cotton helping your momma."

"I didn't mean it like that. I like Cotton."

Louisa stopped and leaned on her hoe. "You should, because Cotton Longfellow's a good man, none better. He's helped me through many a hard time since he come here. Not just with his lawyering, but with his strong back. When Eugene hurt his leg bad, he was here ever day for a month doing field work when he could've been in d.i.c.kens making himself good money. He's helping your ma 'cause he wants her to get better. He wants her to be able to hold you and Oz agin."

Lou said nothing to this, but was having trouble getting the hoeing down, chopping instead of slicing. Louisa took a minute to show her again, and Lou picked up the proper technique quickly.

They worked for a while longer in silence, until Louisa straightened up and rubbed at her back. "Body's telling me to slow down a bit. But my body wants to eat come winter."

Lou stared out at the countryside. The sky looked painted in oils today, and the trees seemed to fill every spare inch with alluring green.

"How come Dad never came back?" Lou asked quietly.

Louisa followed Lou's gaze. "No law say a person got to come back to his home," she said.

"But he wrote about it in all his books. I know he loved it here."

Louisa stared at the girl and then said, "Let's go get us a cool drink." She told Oz to rest some, and they would bring him back some water. He immediately dropped his hoe, picked up some rocks, and started heaving and whooping at each toss, in a manner it seemed only Utile boys could successfully accomplish. He had taken to placing a tin can on top of a fence post and then throwing rocks at it until he knocked it off. He had become so good that one hard toss would now send the can flying.

They left him to his fun and went to the springhouse, which clung to one side of a steep slope below the house and was shaded by leaning oak and ash trees and a wall of giant rhododendrons. Next to this shack was a split poplar stump, the tip of a large honeycomb protruding from it, a swell of bees above that.

They took metal cups from nails on the wall and dipped them in the water, and then sat outside and drank. Louisa picked up the green leaves of a mountain spurge growing next to the springhouse, which revealed beautiful purple blossoms completely hidden underneath. "One of G.o.d's little secrets," she explained. Lou sat there, cup cradled between her dimpled knees, watching and listening to her great-grandmother in the pleasant shade as Louisa pointed out other things of interest. "Right there's an oriole. Don't see them much no more. Don't know why not." She pointed to another bird on a maple branch. "That's a chuck's-will-widder. Don't ask me how the durn thing got its name, 'cause I don't know." Finally, her face and tone grew serious.

"Your daddy's momma was never happy here. She from down the Shenandoah Valley. My son Jake met her at a cakewalk she come up for. They got married, way too fast, put up a little cabin near here. But I know she was all set for the city, though. The Valley was backward for her. Lord, these mountains must've seemed like the birth of the world to the poor girl. But she had your daddy, and for the next few years we had us the worst drought I ever seen. The less rain there was, the harder we worked. My boy soon lost his stake, and they moved in with us. Still no rain. Went through our animals. Went through durn near everything we had." Louisa clenched her hands and then released them. "But we still got by. And then the rains come and we fine after that. But when your daddy was seven, his momma had had enough of this life and she left. She ain't never bothered to learn the farm, and even the way round a frying pan, so's she weren't much help to Jake a'tall."

"But didn't Jake want to go with her?"

"Oh, I 'xpect he did, for she was a real purty little thing, and a young man is a young man. They ain't 'xactly made'a wood. But she didn't want him along, if you un-nerstand me right, him being from the mountains and all. And she didn't want her own child neither." Louisa shook her head at this painful remembrance.

"Course, Jake never got over that. Then his daddy died soon after, which didn't help matters none for any of us." Louisa smiled. "But your father were the shiny star in our days. Even with that, though, we watched a man we loved die a little more each day, and there weren't nothing we could do. Two days after your daddy was ten years old, Jake died. Some say heart attack. I say heartbreak. And then it was just me and your daddy up here. We had us good times, Lou, lot of love twixt us. But your daddy suffered a lotta pain too." She stopped and took a drink of the cool water. "But I still wonder why he never come back not once."

"Do I remind you of him?" Lou asked quietly.

Louisa smiled. "Same fire, same bullheadedness. Big heart too. Like how you are with your brother. Your daddy always made me laugh twice a day. When I got up and right afore I went to bed. He say he want me begin and end my day with a smile."

"I wish Mom had let us write you. She said she would one day, but it never happened."

"Like to knock me over with a stick when the first letter come. I wrote her back some, but my eyes ain't that good no more. And paper and stamp scarce."

Lou looked very uncomfortable. "Mom asked Dad to move back to Virginia."

Louisa looked surprised. "And what'd your daddy say?"

Lou could not tell her the truth. "I don't know." "Oh" was all Louisa offered in response. Lou found herself growing upset with her father, something she could never remember doing before. "I can't believe he just left you here by yourself." "I made made him go. Mountain no place for somebody like him. Got to share that boy with the world. And your daddy wrote to me all these years. And he give me money he ain't got. He done right by me. Don't you never think badly of him for that." him go. Mountain no place for somebody like him. Got to share that boy with the world. And your daddy wrote to me all these years. And he give me money he ain't got. He done right by me. Don't you never think badly of him for that."

"But didn't it hurt, that he never came back?" Louisa put an arm around the girl. "He did did come back. I got me the three people he loved most in the whole world." come back. I got me the three people he loved most in the whole world."

It had been a hard trek along a narrow trail that often petered out to harsh tangles, forcing Lou to dismount and walk the mare. It was a nice ride, though, for the birds were in full warbling splendor, and flowering horsemint poked up from piles of slate. She had pa.s.sed secret coves overhung with willow and corralled by rock. Many of the coves were graced with cups of frothing springwater. There were neglected fields of long-vanished homesteads the broomsedge flourishing there around the rock bones of chimneys without houses.

Finally, following the directions Louisa had given her, Lou found herself at the small house in the clearing. She looked over the property. It appeared likely that in another couple of years this homestead would also surrender to the wild that pressed against it on all sides. Trees stretched over the roof that had almost as many holes as shingles. Window gla.s.s was missing at various spots; a sapling was growing up through an opening in the front porch, and wild sumac clung to the splintered porch rails. The front door was hanging by a single nail; in fact it had been tied back so that the door always stood open. A horseshoe was nailed over the doorway, for luck, Lou a.s.sumed, and the place looked like it could use some. The surrounding fields, too, were all overgrown. And yet the dirt yard was neatly swept, there was no trash about, and a bed of peonies sat next to the house, with a lilac behind that, and a large s...o...b..ll bush flourished by a small hand-crank well. A rosebush ran up a trellis on one side of the house. Lou had heard that roses thrived on neglect. If true, this was the most ignored rosebush Lou had ever seen, since it was bent over with the weight of its deep red blooms. Jeb came around the corner and barked at rider and horse. When Diamond came out of the house, he stopped dead and looked around, seemingly for a place to hide quick, but coming up empty.

"What you doing here?" he finally said.

Lou slid off the horse and knelt to play with Jeb. "Just came to pay a visit. Where are your folks?"

"Pa working. Ma went down to McKenzie's."

'Tell 'em I said h.e.l.lo."

Diamond thrust his hands in his pockets, bent one bare toe over the other. "Look, I got things to do."

"Like what?" asked Lou, rising.

"Like fishing. I got to go fishing."

"Well, I'll go with you."

He c.o.c.ked his head at her. "You know how to fish?"

"They have lots of fishing holes in Brooklyn."

They stood on a makeshift pier built from a few planks of rough-hewn oak not even nailed together but merely wedged into the rocks that stuck out from the bank of the wide stream. Diamond strung the line with a squirmy pink worm while Lou looked on in disgust. A tomboy was a tomboy, but apparently a worm was a worm. He handed the extra pole to her.

"G'on cast your line out there."

Lou took the pole and hesitated.

"You want hep?"