BEAST (42 page)

She blushed and bit into her delicious pastry. “This is good Mom. Did you bake it?”

“No Barbara Annette did.” Barbara Annette inclined her head in Ashleigh’s direction. “Barbara Annette has her own bakery shop and is a real pastry chef.”

Another woman scowled playfully. “I still make the best berry cobbler.”

Barbara Annette bristled. “That is not an authentic cobbler.” The women bickered back and forth while Ashleigh watched and ate her pastry. She drank a glass of milk and then helped to crack about a hundred eggs.

Christopher woke a while later, his hair an unruly mess of curls. His eyes searched the room until they rested on Ashleigh and then he visibly relaxed. He came over and kissed her neck before giving his Mom a kiss on the cheek. Edith shooed him away and told him to return in an hour.

Uncle Ray rang the breakfast bell and everyone came running to the outdoor picnic area. There was biscuits, toast, fresh butter, homemade jam, thick cuts of bacon, homemade sausage and
goetta
, eggs and home fried potatoes.

She whispered to Christopher that you couldn’t pay for a breakfast more perfect. Mr. Jameson concentrated on buttering a biscuit with shaky hands.

“Damned wildcats kept me up half the night with all that loud screaming. They sound like women, I tell you!”

Ashleigh’s eyes got big and she felt her cheeks redden. She glanced at Christopher who pretended that he hadn’t heard him.

“Wildcats are around humans too much. Almost sound like they’re screaming oh my god…” Ashleigh damn near choked on her eggs. She noted that the ladies were grinning and Edith nudged her husband.

“You hush now Pawpaw, you were young once, too.” Ashleigh was alarmed when she saw Mr. Jameson chuckling. This time when she looked at Christopher his face was flaming, but he kept eating his eggs without once looking up. When she looked around the table there were several couples with embarrassed, red faces.

Mr. Jameson was a hoot. She decided that she more than liked him.

“When are we going to the furnace?” He asked once breakfast was finished.

Ahh
the furnace.
She had forgotten to ask about that.

“It’s too hot to go to the furnace until later in the evening.” Butch replied to his father.

Ashleigh turned to Christopher. “What is the furnace?” And are there goats in it? And are they cooked goats. And more importantly…is there a reason to want to get into one?

Christopher gave her hand a brief squeeze. “It’s…something you should just see.”

“O…
kay
.”
Now she was excited to see this damned furnace.

They made a beer run a while later and Ashleigh finally had a chance to see the beauty of Cobb Hill. She decided that it was not technically a mountain but it was steep but beautiful. Butch had come along to help load the liquor and it was he that pointed out the blind bend in the road where Walt had met his death.

Christopher drove them around to where their old house was located. Someone else lived there now and it seemed such a small place to try to raise five kids. Next they pointed out an old shack where their grandmother lived up until the day she died. It looked like a slave cabin and she wasn’t surprised to find that it had been handmade.

Once they got back the men unloaded the truck and Ashleigh saw Uncle Ray sitting on the porch with some of the kids so she made her way over there. She saw Alma’s daughter Rachel who climbed into her lap happily.

“I hope you’re having a good time. I know you don’t know the people here but we’re enjoying your company.”

“I am having a good time.” She said honestly. “You have a beautiful home and a friendly family.” She talked with him for a while and then saw Christopher searching for her so she went to meet him.

“Hey, I was going to ask you if you wanted to walk down to the spring.” He said. “It’s a pretty good hike but the payoff is some of the sweetest, coldest water you’ve ever had.

“Sure,” She said while nibbling on a wedge of apple.

He frowned. “Were you just talking to Uncle Ray?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he…cut that apple with his pocket knife?”

Ashleigh stopped chewing.
“Yeah…why?”

He grabbed the apple piece from her and threw it to the ground. “Baby, spit that apple out!”

She did quickly and even
wiped
her tongue.
“What?!”

He was grimacing. “Baby, don’t EVER eat anything that Uncle Ray has cut with that knife. That’s the same damned knife that he uses for everything, from cleaning his nails to scraping dog shit off the bottom of his boots.”

Ashleigh began to gag. “Oh, I’m going to be sick…”

~***~

The trip to the furnace happened after Ashleigh lay down to get rid of her nausea. They loaded up in
Butch’s
van and included all of the Jameson siblings and their kids.

Christopher wouldn’t tell her exactly what the furnace was until they got there. “Is it a real furnace?”

“It’s a real furnace.” He replied.

“And there are goats in it?”

“Sometimes.”
Christopher answered vaguely.

After parking, Christopher took his father’s arm and led him up to a strange large building with a crumbling, whitewashed stone front. There was a signpost and Ashleigh took a moment to read it.
The Fitchburg Furnace.
Well hells bells, it was a real furnace.

Built in 1868 it was the only double steam-stack coal burning furnace in the entire world. Christopher returned to her and they read the signposts together.

“This is where they produced iron ore? Did your Dad work here?”

Christopher put an arm around her and led her into the strangely shaped building. The walkway crumbled in places and he was afraid that she might lose her footing.

“No,” He chuckled. Fitchburg was only operation
al
for 4 years.” He explained. They couldn’t get the iron ore back down for distribution. And it was a pain bringing up the coal. As magnificent as this place is, it only operated four years.”

“Damn.” She looked around. “It’s impressive. Why does your Dad like it so much?”

He thought about it for a while. “I guess because here in Estill County we didn’t have that much. This place is a part of the National Historical Registry and it’s the only one of its kind in the world. I guess it’s just something for us to be proud of.
”

Mr. Jameson was sitting on a big boulder while the young kids checked out all of the nooks and crannies for a stray piece of coal or iron. Ashleigh sat down next to him.

“Where are the goats?” He asked.

She looked around. It looked to her as if they had been refurbishing the place. They may have run the goats and stray animals away.

“It must be too hot.” She decided to answer.

He nodded.
“Yeah.”
He sighed in contentment. “This is home. Covington was never home. I remember my
pappi
bringing us here to picnic. Back then it was a mess of broken stones and stray bits of coal. We used to hunt for pieces and come up with some ore. Once we even found some machinery but it was too rusted and big to do anything with. The goats had set up inside away from the heat. They tolerated us in their home and we were respectful that we were just visitors. I
never seen
anything like it.
Daddy goats, mommy goats, baby goats just relaxing in the same area that humans came traipsing through.”

Ashleigh listened to him intently. It was the longest that she’d ever heard him talk. This trip was really doing him good. “I always thought…I kinda thought I’d live here and die here.”

“Do you want to move back?”

“It’d be hard. Make more work for Edith.” He said softly. “I didn’t think it would be like this.” He watched the kids running about with a forlorn look on his face. “I thought I’d be bringing my grandkids here…” Ashleigh gave him a serious look.

“You just did.”

He turned to her and smiled. “I guess I did.”

When they returned they had dinner of roast pig and then Christopher pulled out his guitar along with his brother Butch and several other people and they sat around an open fire and had a mini jam session. They were amazingly talented!

“Play that song, Christopher.” Mr. Jameson said in a tired voice. He had forced himself to stay up just to listen to the jam session.

Christopher sat on the stairs at his father’s feet. Most seemed to know which song Christopher was going to sing or else they were curious. Even the kids grew quiet.

As he began to sing the familiar song, Mr. Jameson looked out into the night with a peaceful expression on his face.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
.
All your life
You
were only waiting for this moment to arise…”

~EPILOGUE~

“Black bird singing in the dead of night
.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free-“

“Daddy daddy
daddy
!”
Yelled the little girl as she dashed on tiny legs through the cemetery.
Christopher Jameson looked up from where he was playing his guitar. A smile fell across his face, replacing the look of sadness that had been there a moment before. He carefully moved the guitar behind his back just in time to catch his little girl as she flung herself into his arms.

“Hey Princess.
Where’s Mommy?”

The three year old pointed behind her. “Mommy’s there!” She said in the highest pitched voice imaginable. Christopher grinned wider. One day his little girl might be an opera singer and break wine glasses with that voice.

Ashleigh waddled toward them. Her stomach was swollen and so were her ankles. She was ready to pop. The baby was due in less than two weeks but if she managed two more days it would be a miracle. Still, she had the biggest grin on her face as she ambled towards them.

Christopher stood and sat the little girl on her feet. “Go say hi to everybody and then we
gotta
go
,” h
e said gently.

“Okay Daddy.
Hi P
apaw.”
She said to Mr. Butch Jameson’s gravestone. She blew it a wet kiss and went scampering from gravestone to gravestone. “Hi Uncle Ray.
Hi Aunt Lonnie.
Hi Uncle Wayne.”

He met Ashleigh half way and pulled her into his arms, kissing the tip of her nose. “Why did you walk all the way up here? You should have called me-” She held up her hand containing his cell phone.

“Oh.” He said sheepishly.

“Besides, I took your Mom’s car.” She and Butch Sr. had moved back on Cobb Hill two years ago. He’d spent the last year of his life here and for that Christopher was thankful. “If you want to beat the traffic we should leave now…unless you want to skip the birthday party and stay another night.” Ashleigh said hopefully. She enjoyed their monthly weekend stay on Cobb Hill.

Christopher wouldn’t mind staying one more night, either. A birthday party with a bunch of three, four and a five year old would surely be tiresome. But he knew his baby girl was looking forward to it. “No, Lance and Kendra will be disappointed if we don’t come.” He yelled for his daughter. “Brianna, baby, it’s time to go.” She came running towards them holding a bundle of flowers. Ashleigh’s eyes got big.