Wish You Well (21 page)

Lou did as Louisa had shown her, and Sue started moving. Lou glided the reins to the left and the horse actually went that way. She fast-tugged back on the reins and Sue came to a slow stop.

Lou broke into a big smile. “Hey, look at me. I’m riding.”

From Amanda’s bedroom window, Cotton leaned his head out and watched. Then he looked to the beautiful sky, and then over at Amanda in the bed.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and Cotton carried Amanda outside and put her in the rocking chair there, next to a screen of maypops that were in full bloom of leathery purple.

Oz, who was now up on Sue with his sister, looked over, saw his mother, and almost fell off the horse. “Hey, Mom, look at me. I’m a cowboy!” Louisa stood next to the horse, staring over at Amanda. Lou finally looked, but she didn’t seem very excited to see her mother outside. Cotton’s gaze went from daughter to mother, and even Cotton had to admit, the woman looked pitifully out of place in the sunshine, her eyes closed, the breeze not lifting her short hair, as though even the elements had abandoned her. He carried her back inside.

It was a bright summer’s morning a few days later, and Lou had just finished milking the cows and was coming out of the barn with full buckets in her arms. She stopped dead as she stared across at the fields. She ran so fast to the house that the milk splashed around her feet. She set the buckets on the porch and ran into the house, past Louisa and Eugene and down the hall yelling at the top of her lungs. She burst into her mother’s room, and there was Oz sitting next to her, brushing her hair.

Lou was breathless. “It’s working. It’s green. Everything. The crops are coming up. Oz, go see.” Oz raced out of the room so fast he forgot he only had on his underwear. Lou stood there in the middle of the room, her chest heaving, her smile wide. As her breathing calmed, Lou went over to her mother and sat down, took up a limp hand. “I just thought you’d like to know. See, we’ve been working really hard.” Lou sat there in silence for a minute more, and then put the hand down and left, her excitement spent.

In her bedroom that night, as on so many other evenings, Louisa worked the Singer pedal sewing machine she had bought for ten dollars on installment nine years back. She wouldn’t reveal to the children what she was making, and wouldn’t even let them guess. Yet Lou knew it must be something for her and Oz, which made her feel even guiltier about the fight with Billy Davis.

After supper the next evening, Oz went to see his mother, and Eugene went to work on some scythes in the corncrib. Lou washed the dishes, and then sat on the front porch next to Louisa. For a while, neither ventured to talk. Lou saw a pair of titmice fly out of the barn and land on the fence. Their gray plumage and pointed crests were glorious, but the girl wasn’t much interested.

“I’m sorry about the fighting,” Lou said quickly, and let out a relieved breath that her apology was finally done.

Louisa stared at the two mules in the pen. “Good to know,” she said, and then said no more. The sun was starting its fall and the sky was fairly clear, with not many clouds worth noting. A big crow was sky-surfing alone, catching one drift of wind and then another, like a lazily falling leaf.

Lou cupped some dirt and watched a battalion of ants trail across her hand. The honeysuckle vine was in full, scented morning glory, filling the air along with the fragrances of cinnamon rose and clove pinks, and the purple wall of maypops dutifully shaded the porch. Rambling rose had twisted itself around most of the fence posts and looked like bursts of still fire.

“George Davis is an awful man,” said Lou.

Louisa leaned her back against the porch railing. “Work his children like mules and treats his mules better’n his children.”

“Well, Billy didn’t have to be mean to me,” Lou said, and then grinned. “And it was funny to see him fall out of that tree when he saw the dead snake I put in his lunch pail.”

Louisa leaned forward and looked at her curiously. “You see anythin’ else in that pail?”

“Anything else? Like what?”

“Like food.”

Lou appeared confused. “No, the pail was empty.”

Louisa slowly nodded, settled back against the railing once more, and looked to the west, where the sun was commencing its creep behind the mountains, kindling the sky pink and red.

Louisa said, “You know what I find funny? That children believe they should be shamed ’cause their daddy don’t see fit to give them food. So shamed they’d haul an empty pail to school and pretend to eat, so’s nobody catch on they ain’t got nothing to eat. You find that funny?”

Lou shook her head, her gaze at her feet. “No.”

“I know I ain’t talked to you ’bout your daddy. But my heart goes out to you and Oz, and I love both of you even more, on ’count of I want to make up for that loss, even though I know I can’t.” She put a hand on Lou’s shoulder and turned the girl to her. “But you had a fine daddy. A man who loved you. And I know that makes it all the harder to get by, and that’s both a blessing and a curse that we all just got to bear in this life. But thing is, Billy Davis got to live with his daddy ever day. I’d ruther be in your shoes. And I know Billy Davis would. I pray for all them children ever day. And you should too.”

The grandmother clock had just struck midnight when the pebbles hit Lou’s window. The girl was in the middle of a dream that disintegrated under the sudden clatter. Lou stepped to the window and looked out, seeing nothing at first. Then she spotted her caller and opened the window.

“What do you think you’re doing, Diamond Skinner?”

“Come get you,” said the boy, standing there next to his faithful hound.

“For what?”

In answer he pointed at the moon. It glowed more brightly than Lou had ever seen before. So fine was her view, she could see dark smudges on its surface.

“I can see the moon all by myself, thank you very much,” she said.

Diamond smiled. “Naw, not just that. Fetch your brother. Come on, now, it be fun where we going. You see.”

Lou looked unsure. “How far is it?”

“Not fer. Ain’t scared of the dark, are ya?”

“Wait right there,” she said and shut the window.

In five minutes’ time Lou and Oz were fully dressed and had crept out of the farmhouse and joined Diamond and Jeb.

Lou yawned. “This better be good, Diamond, or
you
should be scared for waking us up.”

They set out at a good pace to the south. Diamond kept up an animated chatter the whole way, yet absolutely refused to divulge where they were going. Lou finally quit trying and looked at the boy’s bare feet as he stepped easily over some sharp-edged rocks. She and Oz were wearing their shoes.

“Diamond, don’t your feet ever get sore or cold?” she asked as they paused on a small knoll to catch their breath.

“Snow comes, then mebbe y’all see something on my feet, but only if it drifts to more’n ten foot or so. Come on now.”

They set off again, and twenty minutes later, Lou and Oz could hear the quickened rush of water. A minute later Diamond put up his hand and they all stopped. “Got to go real slow here,” he said. They followed him closely as they moved over rocks that were becoming more slippery with each step; and the sound of the rushing water seemed to be coming at them from all quarters, as though they were about to be confronted by a tidal wave. Lou gripped Oz’s hand for it was all a little unnerving to her, and thus she assumed her brother must be suffering stark terror. They cleared a stand of towering birch and weeping willow heavy with water, and Lou and Oz looked up in awe.

The waterfall was almost one hundred feet high. It poured out from a crop of worn limestone and plummeted straight down into a pool of foamy water, which then snaked off into the darkness. And then Lou suddenly realized what Diamond had meant about the moon. It glowed so brightly, and the waterfall and pool were placed so perfectly, that the trio were surrounded by a sea of illumination. The reflected light was so strong, in fact, that night seemed to have been turned into day.

They moved back farther, to a place where they could still see everything but the noise of the falls wasn’t as intense and they could speak without having to shout over the thunder of the water.

“Feeder line for the McCloud River is all,” said Diamond. “Right higher’n most though.”

“It looks like it’s snowing upwards,” said Lou, as she sat, amazed, upon a moss-covered rock. And with the frothing water kicking high and then seized by the powerful light, it did look like snow was somehow returning to the sky. At one corner of the pool the water was especially brilliant. They gathered at this place.

Diamond said very solemnly, “Right there’s where God done touched the earth.”

Lou leaned forward and examined the spot closely. She turned to Diamond and said, “Phosphorus.”

“What?” he said.

“I think it’s phosphorus rock. I’ve studied it in school.”

“Say that word agin,” said Diamond.

And she did, and Diamond said it over and over until it slipped quite easily out of his mouth. He proclaimed it a grand and pleasing word to say, yet still defined it as a thing God had touched, and Lou did not have the heart to say otherwise.

Oz leaned forward and dipped his hand into the pool, then pulled it back immediately and shivered.

“Always that way,” said Diamond, “even on the hottest durn day.” He looked around, a smile on his lips. “But it sure purty.”

“Thanks for bringing us,” said Lou.

“Tote all my friends here,” he said amiably and then looked to the sky. “Hey, y’all knowed your stars good?”

“Some of them,” Lou said. “The Big Dipper, and Pegasus.”

“Ain’t never heard’a none of them.” Diamond pointed to the northern sky. “Turn your head a little and right there’s what I call the bear what missing one leg. And over to there’s the stone chimbly. And right there”—he stabbed his finger more to the south—“now right there is Jesus a’sitting next to God. Only God ain’t there, ’cause he off doing good. ’Cause he God. But you see the chair.” He looked back at them. “Ain’tcha’ now? See it?”

Oz said that he could see them all, clear as day though it was night. Lou hesitated, wondering whether it was better to instruct Diamond on proper constellations or not. She finally smiled. “You know a lot more about stars than we do, Diamond. Now that you pointed them out, I can see them all too.”

Diamond grinned big. “Well, up here on the mountain, we a lot closer to ’em than down to the city. Don’t worry, I teach you good.”

They spent a pleasant hour there and then Lou thought it would be best if they got back.

They were about halfway home when Jeb started growling and making slow circles in the tall grass, his snout wrinkled and his teeth bared.

“What’s wrong with him, Diamond?” asked Lou.

“Just smells something. Lotta critters round. Don’t pay him no mind.”

Suddenly Jeb took off running hard and howling so loud it hurt their ears.

“Jeb!” Diamond called after him. “You come back here now.” The dog never slowed, though, and they finally saw why. The black bear was moving in long strides across the far fringe of the meadow.

“Dang it, Jeb, leave that bear be.” Diamond raced after the dog, and Lou and Oz ran after Diamond. But dog and bear soon left the two-legs in the dust. Diamond finally stopped, gasping for air, and Lou and Oz ran up to him and fell on the ground, their lungs near bursting.

Diamond smacked his fist into his palm. “Dang that dog.”

“Will that bear hurt him?” asked Oz anxiously.

“Shoot, naw. Jeb pro’bly tree the durn thing and then get tired and go on home.” Diamond didn’t look convinced though. “Come on now.”

They walked briskly for some minutes, until Diamond slowed, looked around, and held up his hand for them to stop. He turned, put a finger to his lips, and motioned for them to follow, but to keep low. They scooted along for about thirty feet, and then Diamond went down on his belly and Lou and Oz did too. They crawled forward and were soon on the rim of a little hollow. It was surrounded by trees and underbrush, the limbs and vines overhanging the place and forming a natural roof, but the shafts of moonlight had broken through in places, leaving the space well illuminated.