Coldwater Revival: A Novel (8 page)

I must have swooned again. When I awoke, I was in bed; Mama by my side with a wet cloth aimed at my forehead. I opened my mouth to speak, concentration fierce and determined. But my words stayed locked inside. The only things escaping my throat were garbled sobs and pitiful moans that filled the room with echoes of condemnation for the poor attention I had shown my little brothers.

“Are you hurt, sweet-pea?”

Mama’s concern, after the way I let her down, slashed a deeper gash across my heart. I tried to speak, but salty tears flooded my throat, clogging it like a beaver dam. When I tried to tell Mama the fault was mine, all that exited my mouth was an explosion of incoherent babbling. The room blurred as I rose to a sitting position. Mama pushed my shoulders back, wilting me into the pillow. A galloping pulse pounded my eardrums, joining chorus with whispers and sobs from my sisters. I closed my eyes against the clamor, darkness carrying me away.

Twelve

My voice returned with Papa. He slipped into my bedroom and knelt on the floor, cradling me to his broad chest. His eyes were puffy and streaked with red, and his hands shook when he smoothed hair from my face. It didn’t matter that calloused fingers snagged my curls or that grimy overalls rubbed the stench of kerosene and smoke into my skin. Papa was there. That was all that mattered. He would free my brothers from their earthy prison.

“How’re you feeling, sweetheart?”

I nodded, clenching teeth together, staving off another crying siege.

“Papa, it’s my fault … my fault.” The dam burst open then, my tears flowing like a river out of its banks. Nothing could hold back the onslaught; that portion of penance I was able to slide past the broken pieces of my heart. Wanting to spill out the pain bottled within, I bawled, for what seemed like hours.

Papa planted kisses on my hair and stroked my back until the sobs subsided into hiccups.

“This here wasn’t anybody’s fault, Emma Grace. Mr. Peavy didn’t even know there was a well on his property. The only person to blame is the coldhearted cur who dug the well but was too stupid and lazy to cap it off.”

Fire sparked Papa’s eyes. Then he sighed, extinguishing the flames. He ran trembling fingers over his face, looking as tired—as beaten—as I’d ever seen him. “We need your help, Emma Grace. It’ll take no small amount of courage. But I believe you can do it.”

I knew it! Papa had a plan! My head bobbed and I felt my eyes widen with determination. I’d do anything to help my brothers. If it were possible, I’d switch places with them, even if it meant I’d never see my family again.

“Mama’s going to bring you some milk. I want you to drink all of it. You’re going to need your strength. Can you do that, little-bit?”

Holding my crutch aloft, Papa carried me papoose-style on his broad back. Out to the high-grass field where torches burned holes in the darkness and a horde of neighbors circled an area cleared of grass and stone. Men carried shovels and lanterns. Some wore rope loops over their shoulders. All stood in solemn quiet, wary glances darting from beneath the brims of their hats.

Papa sat me on a toolbox and squatted beside me. “The well’s deep, Emma Grace, and it’s narrow. We’ve done our best to reach the boys, but we’re too big to make it down the hole. You’re the only one small enough. Think you can go down and tie ropes to Micah and Caleb, so we can pull ’em out?” Tears glistened in Papa’s eyes, and his Adam’s apple wobbled when he swallowed.

I nodded my head.

Papa smiled.

In a flurry of motion, Elo tied a rope around my chest while another man strung a flashlight through the loops of my overalls. Someone placed an old miner’s cap on my head, a carbide lamp attached to the top. Hands stuffed handkerchiefs beneath my headband to take up slack, the cap too large even for my bushy head. The light beam pierced the darkness, bobbing over the frowning faces of Elo, Nathan, Mr. Peavy, Flynn Aarsgard, and others, unrecognizable in my shaken condition. I tried to steady my head, but the lamp’s heaviness made it awkward and unwieldy. I feared it would fall off and shatter into a thousand pieces. Nathan rested a hand on the doddering lamp, stabilizing it while another man prepared me for the ordeal ahead.

“Best I can figure,” Nathan said, “the well’s about twenty-five to thirty feet deep. Looks like whoever dug the well hollowed out a wider hole, then lined it with limestone. You’ll need to take care, Emma Grace. Calcium carbonate in the rock may have softened over the years. It could crumble on you.”

The tremors in my body were so mighty, they shook even the tips of my curls. Elo knelt down, wrapping his strength around me.

“You’ll do fine,” he said.

He lifted me before the gaping dent of earth, and there I stood, as wobbly and frightened as a sacrifice about to be offered to the gods. Without my crutch, I listed to the right—like a broken ship … or a broken heart.

My heart thudded while I waited for the men to hasten me into the hole. Didn’t they understand I needed to hurry and rescue my brothers?

Papa’s voice rose in prayer, catching me by surprise. He had two children in the ground. I supposed he didn’t want another slipping away without first petitioning his Father. During the prayer, I held the dark clouds of fear at bay.

“Father, God … take Emma Grace safely to my boys. Return them to us in your loving care. Amen.”

Unanchored and dangling now, the taut rope gouged my chest as Papa lowered me into the hole. My head remained above ground while he plied me with last-minute instructions.

“Slip this loop under the boys’ arms—whoever you come to first—and cinch it tight. We’ll pull both of you to the top. Then you’ll have to go down again for the other one. Tilt your head down and the lamp will light your way. You’ve got a flashlight, too, if you need it. Thank you, sweetheart, for being so brave. Do you know how much I love you?”

I wagged my head, flinching at the persistence of my muted condition.

My descent was slow, torturous. The well narrowed as I wiggled past jagged rocks into a veil of darkness. My heart picked up speed, Elo’s words fainter now, echoing with the sound of good-bye. Dank earth smells curled my stomach, threatening an upheaval of milk. I dipped my head, the spotlight beaming on my pinioned arms, now nicked and bleeding. Something moved across a blood trail on my arm. I swiveled my head, spotlighting hundreds of spiders that skulked from crevices and soft pockets of stone. Spiders crept onto my body, beneath my pant legs, below my shirt collar. Screams tore from my throat, prompting an immediate halt to my descent. The rope tugged me upward, but I wedged my feet against the wall and hollered for Papa to sink me lower. As I shouted, I kicked at spiders and tossed my head to knock them from my face. The miner’s cap toppled forward. When the rope finally slackened, I pushed the lamp against stone and straightened it. I moved downward, hastening the descent by nudging my fingers to walk down the wall. Aware that spiders crawled inside my clothes, under the cap, and across my face, I forced back screams and braced for a fatal sting. I was certain the spiders were deadly black widows.

I descended deeper into the black hole; arms scraping chalky stone, feet dangling like a broken marionette. The smell of decay surrounded me, clogging my pores and filling my head with the putrefying reality of how deeply I was embedded in the ground. When the light tumbled over rocks that marked the well’s foundation, I knew I was near the bottom. With infinite care, I steadied the beam on a small, still form.
Whisper.
I gasped aloud when I recognized his bloody body. Inching past the last jagged stones and chinking, I veered my light beam to the right. There, in a pile, lay the ghostly bodies of my brothers.

Caleb lay crumpled against the wall, Whisper beneath him. One hand clutched fur; the other hand fisted the hem of Micah’s shirt. Micah lay atop Caleb, his head bent at a sharp angle. God blurred my vision then, tears sparing me the grief of viewing my brothers’ broken bodies.

I fought dark shadows, the same darkness I had yielded to earlier in the day. I half-squatted, which freed my arms to slip a rope over Micah’s head. I cinched it as instructed and cradled his head to my chest. Then I yanked the rope, my heart drumming toward rupture as I rode to the top in blind fear for Micah. I gave no thought to spider nests, praying only that I’d not pass out and cause Micah further harm.

When we cleared the entry hole, shouts of rejoicing filled the air, the ground rumbling as excited feet drew near. But there was no rejoicing in my heart.

“Get that tarp over here!” Papa’s words were sharp, raspy, as his arms waved wide circles in the night.

After someone plucked Micah from my arms, I sat on the ground, feeling witless and dazed, as though I’d been slathered with a coat of numbing ointment. Had poisonous bites paralyzed me so quickly? I wondered. I discarded the thought, seeing that my hands roved freely in the riddance of spiders.

No one needed to explain the deep, wailing heaves that broke from Papa’s chest. Elo and Nathan joined the mourning; inconsolable howls hoisting the night air like a pack of sorrowing wolves. My own howling found no such release. It swelled within—broken and keening: the cries of a protector who had failed to protect.

Papa laid my brother on the tarp, his body covering Micah like a quilt. “My boy … my boy,” Papa cried, his fractured voice sobbing into Micah’s tiny body. “Oh, God in heaven, have mercy …”

“His neck’s broken,” someone whispered.

Unable to fight it any longer, I succumbed to the darkness.

“Emma Grace … Emma Grace, wake up!”

Never before had I seen Elo cry. Not even the time Mama threaded eleven stitches into the underbelly of his seven-year-old foot. Tears streamed from his eyes now, and his hands trembled as he shook my shoulder. “You’ve got to go down again. You’ve got to get Caleb out. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The chronic nod of my head resumed its twitching jerk. “Yes, Elo.”

“That’a girl.”

A broken heart guided me down the shaft a second time. I feared nothing—darkness, the well caving in, silent spider legs converging on my body. In a trancelike state, I slipped the rope beneath Caleb’s arms, my gaze focusing on a gash that lay bare his skull from forehead to ear. I ruffled his curls, now dry with blood, half-expecting him to brush my hand away as was his habit. A picture formed in my mind as I swiped at the blood with my shirttail: a higher world where my brothers ran hand in hand, faster than the wild stallions they so admired. With fervency heretofore unknown to me, I pleaded with God to let me join my brothers on the other side. I lifted Whisper with my left hand and postured myself defensively around Caleb’s lifeless body, then yanked the rope.

No shouts of joy welcomed us above ground this time. Nathan gathered Whisper from my arm as Papa released my deathlike grip on Caleb. I slipped the rope over my head and turned away. I cared not to witness Papa fight another round with grief.

“Roan, this one’s alive!” Mr. Peavy’s shout thundered the air.

I spun around, losing balance, falling to my knees. “Papa … what?” I implored, furious tears streaming down my face. How could Mr. Peavy play such a cruel joke on our family? Hadn’t we suffered enough?

“Yes! Yes!” Papa shouted, his fingers outstretched as they punctuated the night sky. “Caleb’s alive! Thank you, Lord … thank you.”

I clasped my crutch, staggered to my feet, and hurled myself on the tarp. I fell in a heap at Caleb’s feet, disbelief filling my soul. It must have filled my eyes as well.

“Put your finger right here, girl,” Mr. Peavy said, shoving my hand against Caleb’s blood-soaked collar. “There ain’t a whole lot of punch to it, but it’s a pulse, all right.”

Commotion followed. Papa shouted at Mr. Peavy, charging him to get that fancy new Buick of his and hightail it to town.

“Get Doc Landers out here on the double.”

No one, especially Mr. Peavy, seemed concerned that the hired man had ordered the boss around like an admiral commanding his fleet. “We’re not moving Caleb an inch until the doctor says to. Nathan, go fetch your mama and sisters.”

“We’re here, Roan.”

Four shadowy figures stepped into the circle of light; The Ollys girding Mama like battle armor.

“We couldn’t stay home, Roan … not without knowing. I heard shouting … what …?” Mama’s voice strangled as Papa snagged her in his arms.

“It’s all right, sweetheart. Just wait here a minute … before you see our boys.”

“I can’t bear it, Roan … tell me they’re alive … please, dear God …”

Mama’s pain-wracked voice twisted my heart into a knot, squeezing the last drop of hope from it. I layered her sorrow atop my own, compounding my own soul’s wretchedness. It seemed a rightful torture, and deservedly befitting the wickedness I had done.

But Mama’s sorrow—heaped upon my own—proved an impossible burden to carry. Easing from the light, I stumbled away, into a night far removed from the family I had betrayed.