"I can do it."

"See this here's a southern pole, and I 'xpect you prob'ly used to them newfangled northern poles."

"You're right, that's all I use. Northern pole."

To his credit, Diamond never cracked a smile, but just took the pole, showed her how to hold it, and then threw a near perfect cast.

Lou watched his technique carefully, took a couple of practice tosses, and then sailed a pretty cast herself.

"Why, that was 'bout good as any I throwed," Diamond said with all due southern modesty.

"Give me a couple more minutes and I'll do better than you," she said slyly.

"You still got to catch the fish," Diamond gamely replied.

A half hour later Diamond had hooked his third small-mouth and worked it to sh.o.r.e with steady motions. Lou looked at him, properly in awe of his obvious skill, but her compet.i.tive streak ran long, and she redoubled her efforts to trump her fish-mate.

Finally, without warning, her line went tight and she was pulled toward the water. With a whiplike effort, she reared the pole back, and a thick catfish came halfway out of the stream.

"Holy Lord," said Diamond as he saw this creature rise and then fall back into the water. "Biggest catfish I ever seed." He reached for the pole.

Lou cried out, "I got it, Diamond." He stepped back and watched girl and fish fighting it out on roughly equal terms. Lou appeared to be winning at first, the line going taut and then slacking, while Diamond called out words of advice and encouragement. Lou slipped and slid all over the unsteady pier, once more almost going in the water, before Diamond yanked on her overalls and pulled her back.

Finally, though, Lou grew weary and gasped out, "I need some help here, Diamond."

With both pulling on pole and line, the fish quickly was dragged to sh.o.r.e. Diamond reached down, hauled it out of the water, and dropped it on the boards, where it flopped from side to side. Fat and diick, it would be good eating, he said. Lou squatted down and looked proudly at her conquest, aided though it had been. Right as she peered really closely, the fish shimmied once more, then jumped in the air, and spat water, the hook working free from its mouth at the same time. Lou screamed and jumped back, knocked into Diamond, and they both went tumbling into the water. They came up sputtering and watched as the catfish flopped itself over to the edge of the pier, fell in the water, and was gone in a blink. Diamond and Lou looked at each other for a tortured moment and then commenced a t.i.tanic splashing battle. Their peals of laughter could probably be heard on the next mountain.

Lou sat in front of the fireplace while Diamond built up the flames so they could dry off. He went and got an old blanket that smelled to Lou of either Jeb, mildew, or both, but she told Diamond thank you as he put it around her shoulders. The inside of Diamond's house surprised her because it was neat and clean, though the pieces of furniture were few and obviously handmade. On the wall was an old photo of Diamond and a man Lou a.s.sumed was his father. There were no photos Lou could see of his mother. While the fire picked up, Jeb lay down next to her and started attending to some fleas in his fur.

Diamond expertly scaled the ba.s.s, ran a hickory stick through each, mouth to tail, and cooked them over the fire. Next he cut up an apple and rubbed the juice into the meat. Diamond showed Lou how to feel the rib cage of the fish and pry thick white meat from tiny bones. They ate with their fingers, and it was good. "Your dad was real nice-looking," Lou said, pointing to the picture.

Diamond looked over at the photo. "Yep, he was." He caught a breath and glared at Lou.

"Louisa told me," she said.

Diamond rose and poked the fire with a crooked stick. "Ain't right playing no tricks on me."

"Why didn't you tell me on your own?"

"Why should I?"

"Because we're friends."

This took the sting out of Diamond and he sat back down.

"You miss your mom?" Lou asked.

"Naw, how could I? Never knowed the woman." He ran his hand along the crumpling brick, mud, and horsehair of the fireplace, and his features grew troubled. "See, she died when Fs born."

"That's okay, Diamond. You can still miss her, even if you didn't know her."

Diamond nodded, his thumb now idly scratching at a dirty cheek. "I do think 'bout what my momma were like. Ain't got no pitchers. My daddy told me course, but it ain't the same." He stopped, nudged a piece of firewood with a stick, and then said, "I think mostly 'bout what her voice was like. And how she smelled. The way her eyes and hair could'a catch the light just so. But I miss my daddy too, 'cause he were a good man. Schooled me all's I need to know. Hunting, fishing." He looked at her. "I bet you miss your daddy too."

Lou looked uncomfortable. She closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. "I miss him."

"Good thing you got your momma."

"No, I don't. I don't, Diamond."

"Looks bad now, but it be okay. Folks don't never leave out, less we fergit 'em. I ain't knowed much, but I knowed that."

Lou wanted to tell him that he didn't understand. His mother was gone from him, without question. Lou sat atop quicksand with her mother. And Lou had to be there for Oz.

They sat listening to the sounds of the woods, as trees, bugs, animals, and birds went about their lives. "How come you don't go to school?" Lou asked. "I's fourteen year old, and doing just fine." "You said you had read the Bible." "Well, some folks read parts of it to me." "Do you even know how to sign your name?" "Why, everybody up here knowed who I is." He stood and pulled out the pocketknife and carved an "X" in a bare wall stud. "That's how my daddy done it all his life, and it be good enough fer him, it be good enough fer me."

Lou wrapped the blanket around her and watched the dance of flames, a wicked chill eating into her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

ONE ESPECIALLY WARM NIGHT THERE CAME A POUND-ing on the door about the time Lou was thinking of going upstairs to bed. Billy Davis almost fell into the room when Louisa opened the door.

Louisa gripped the shaking boy. "What's wrong, Billy?"

"Ma's baby coming."

"I knew she were getting on. Midwife got there?"

The boy was wild-eyed, his limbs twitching like he was heatstroked. "Ain't none. Pa won't let 'em."

"Lord, why not?"

"Say they charge a dollar. And he ain't paying it."

"That a He. No midwife up here ever charge a dime."

"Pa said no. But Ma say baby ain't feel right. Rode the mule come get you."

"Eugene, get Hit and Sam doubletreed to the wagon. Quick now," she said.

Before Eugene went out, he took the rifle off the rack and held it out to Louisa. "Better be taking this, you got to deal with that man."

Louisa, though, shook her head as she looked at a nervous Billy, finally smiling at the boy. "I'll be watched over, Eugene. I feel it. It be fine."

Eugene held on to the gun. "I go with you, then. That man crazy."

"No, you stay with the children. Go on now, get the wagon ready." Eugene hesitated for a moment, and then did as she told him.

Louisa grabbed some things and put them in a lard bucket, slipped a small packet of cloths in her pocket, bundled together a number of clean sheets, and started for the door.

"Louisa, I'm coming with you," said Lou.

"No, ain't a good place for you."

"I'm coming, Louisa. Whether in the wagon or on Sue, but I'm coming. I want to help you." She glanced at Billy. "And them."

Louisa thought for a minute and then said, "Prob'ly could use another set of hands. Billy, your pa there?"

"Gotta mare gonna drop its foal. Pa said he ain't coming out the barn till it born."

Louisa stared at the boy. Then, shaking her head, she headed for the door.

They followed Billy in the wagon. He rode an old mule, its muzzle white, part of its right ear torn away. The boy swung a kerosene lamp in one hand to help guide them. It was so dark, Louisa said, a hand right in front of your face could still get the drop on you.

"Don't whip up the mules none, Lou. Ain't do no good for Sally Davis we end up in a ditch." "That's Billy's mother?"

Louisa nodded, as the wagon swayed along, the woods close oji either side of them, their only light that arcing lamp- To Lou it appeared either as a beacon, true and reliable, or as a Siren of sorts, leading them to shipwreck. "First wife die in childbirth. His children by that poor woman got away from George fast as they could, afore he could work or beat or starve 'em to death." "Why did Sally marry him if he was so bad?" " 'Cause he got his own land, livestock, and he were a widower with a strong back. Up here, 'bout all it takes. And weren't nothing else for Sally. She were only fifteen."

"Fifteen! That's only three years older than me." "People get married quick up here. Start birthing, raising a family to help work the land. How it goes. I was in front of the preacher at fo'teen." "She could have left the mountain." "All she ever know. Scary thing leave that." "Did you ever think of leaving the mountain?" Louisa thought about this for a number of turns of the wagon wheel. "I could'a if'n I wanted. But I ain't believe in my heart I be happier anywhere else. Went down the Valley one time. Wind blow strange over flat land. Ain't liked it too much. Me and this mountain get along right fine for the most part." She fell silent, her eyes watching the rise and fall of the light up ahead. Lou said, "I saw the graves up behind the house." Louisa stiffened a bit. "Did you?" "Who was Annie?"

Louisa stared at her feet. "Annie were my daughter."

"I thought you only had Jacob."

"No. I had me my little Annie."

"Did she die young?"

"She lived but a minute."

Lou could sense her distress. "I'm sorry. I was just curious about my family."

Louisa settled back against the hard wood of the wagon seat and stared at the black sky as though it was the first time she'd ever gazed upon it.

"I always had me a hard time carrying the babies. Wanted me a big family, but I kept on losing 'em long afore they ready to be born. Longest time I thought Jake be it. But then Annie were born on a cool spring evening with a full mane'a black hair. She come quick, no time for midwife. It were a terrible hard birth. But oh, Lou, she were so purty. So warm. Her little fingers wrapped tight round mine, tips not even touching." Here Louisa stopped. The sounds of the mules trotting along and the turn of wagon wheel were the only noises. Louisa finally continued in a low voice, as she eyed the depthless sky. "And her Utile chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and then it just forgit to rise agin. It t'were amazing how quick she took cold, but then she were so tiny." Louisa took a number of quick breaths, as though still trying to breathe for her child. "It were like a bit of ice on your tongue on a hot day. Feel so good, and then it gone so fast you ain't sure it was ever there."

Lou put her hand over Louisa's. "I'm sorry."

"Long time ago, though it don't never seem it." Louisa slid a hand across her eyes. "Her daddy made her coffin, no more'n a little box. And I stayed up all night and sewed her the finest dress I ever st.i.tched in my whole life. Come morning I laid her out in it. I would'a give all I had to see her eyes looking at me just one time. It ain't seem right that a momma don't get to see her baby's eyes just one time. And then her daddy put her in that little box, we carried her on up to that knoll, and laid her to rest and prayed over her. And then we planted an evergreen on the south end so she'd have her shade all year round." Louisa closed her eyes.

"Did you ever go up there?"

Louisa nodded. "Ever day. But I ain't been back since I buried my other child. It just got to be too long a walk."

She took the reins from Lou and, despite her own earlier warning, Louisa whipped up the mules. "We best get on. We got a child to help into the world this night."

Lou could not make out much of the Davis farmyard or the buildings because of the darkness, and she prayed that George Davis would stay in the barn until the baby was born and they were gone.

The house was surprisingly small. The room they entered was obviously the kitchen, because the stove was there, but there were also cots with bare mattresses lined up here. In three of the beds were a like number of children, two of them, who looked to be twin girls about five, lying naked and asleep. The third, a boy Oz's age, had on a man's undershirt, dirty and sweat-stained, and he watched Lou and Louisa with frightened eyes. Lou recognized him as the other boy from the tractor coming down the mountain. In an apple crate by the stove a baby barely a year old lay under a stained blanket. Louisa went to the sink, pumped water, and used the bar of lye soap she had brought to thoroughly clean her hands and forearms. Then Billy led them down a narrow hallway and opened a door.

Sally Davis lay in the bed, her knees drawn up, low moans shooting from her. A thin girl of ten, dressed in what looked like a seed sack, her chestnut hair hacked short, stood barefoot next to the bed. Lou recognized her too from the wild tractor encounter. She looked just as scared now as she had then.

Louisa nodded at her. "Jesse, you heat me up some water, two pots, honey. Billy, all the sheets you got, son. And they's got to be real clean."

Louisa put the sheets she had brought on a wobbly oak slat chair, sat next to Sally, and took her hand. "Sally, it's Louisa. You be just fine, honey."

Lou looked at Sally. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her few teeth and her gums stained dark. She couldn't be thirty yet, but the woman looked twice that old, hair gray, skin drawn and wrinkled, blue veins throbbing through malnourished flesh, face sunken like a winter potato.

Louisa lifted the covers and saw the soaked sheet underneath. "How long since your water bag broke?"

Sally gasped, "After Billy gone fer you."

"How far apart your pains?" Louisa asked.

"Seem like just one big one," the woman groaned.

Louisa felt around the swollen belly. "Baby feel like it want'a come?"

Sally gripped Louisa's hand. "Lord I hope so, afore it kill me."

Billy came in with a couple of sheets, dropped them on the chair, looked once at his ma, and then fled.

"Lou, help me move Sally over so we can lay clean sheets." They did so, maneuvering the suffering woman as gently as they could. "Now go help Jesse with the water. And take these." She handed Lou a number of cloth pads that were layered one over the top of the other, along with some narrow bobbin string. "Wrap the string in the middle of the cloths, and put it all in the oven and cook it till the outside part be scorched brown."

Lou went into the kitchen and a.s.sisted Jesse. Lou had never seen her at school, nor the seven-year-old boy who watched them with fearful eyes. Jesse had a wide scar that looped around her left eye, and Lou didn't even want to venture to guess how the girl had come by it.

The stove was already hot, and the kettle water came to a boil in a few minutes. Lou kept checking the outside of the cloth that she placed in the oven drawer, and soon it was sufficiently brown. Using rags, they carried the pots and the ball of cloths into the bedroom and set them next to the bed.

Louisa washed Sally with soap and warm water where the baby would be coming and then drew the sheet over her.

She whispered to Lou, "Baby taking its last rest now, and so can Sally. Ain't tell 'xactly how it lies yet, but it ain't a cross birth." Lou looked at her curiously. "Where the baby he crossways along the belly. I call you when I need you."

"How many babies have you delivered?"

'Thirty-two over fifty-seven years," she said. " 'Member ever one of 'em."

"Did they all live?"

"No," Louisa answered quietly, and then told Lou to go on out, that she would call her.

Jesse was in the kitchen, standing against a wall, hands clasped in front of her, face down, a side of her hacked hair positioned over the scar and part of her eye.

Lou glanced at the boy in the bed.