Wish You Well (31 page)

Oz sat next to his mother, lifted a book off the nightstand, and opened it to a place marked by a slip of paper. “Okay, Mom,” said Oz, “this is the scary part, but just so you know, the witch doesn’t eat the children.” He inched close to her, draped one of her arms around his waist, and with big eyes started to read the scary part.

Lou went back to the kitchen, sat at the table in her Chop bag dress, which also well suited her, and read the brilliant words of Whitman by the glow of reliable kerosene. It became so late that Cotton stayed, and slept curled up in front of the coal fire. And another fine day had passed on the mountain.

Without either Louisa or Eugene knowing, Lou took a lantern and a match and she and Oz rode Sue down to the mine. Lou jumped down, but Oz sat on the horse and stared at the mouth of that cave as though it were the direct portal to hell. “I’m not going in there,” he declared.

“Then wait out here,” said his sister.

“Why do you want to go in there? After what happened to Diamond? The mountain might fall in on you. And I bet it’d hurt bad.”

“I want to know what the men Diamond saw were up to.”

Lou lit the lantern and went in. Oz waited near the entrance, pacing nervously, and then he ran in, quickly catching up to his sister.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Lou said.

“I thought you might get scared,” Oz answered, even as he clutched at her shirt.

They moved along, shivering from the cool air and their tender nerves. Lou looked around and saw what appeared to be new support beams along the walls and ceiling of the shaft. On the walls she also saw various markings in what looked to be white paint. A loud hissing sound reached out to them from up ahead.

“A snake?” asked Oz.

“If it is, it’s about the size of the Empire State Building. Come on.” They hurried ahead and the hissing sound grew louder with each step. They turned one corner, and the sound became even louder, like steam escaping. They cleared one more turn, ran forward, edged around a final bend in the rock, and stopped. The men wore hard hats and carried battery-powered lights, and their faces were covered with masks. In the floor of the mine was a hole, with a large metal pipe inserted in it. A machine that looked like a pump was attached by hoses to the pipe and was making the hissing sound they had heard. The masked men were standing around the hole, but didn’t see the children. Lou and Oz backed up slowly and then turned and ran. Right into Judd Wheeler. Then they dodged around him and kept right on running.

A minute later Lou and Oz burst out of the mine. Lou stopped next to Sue and scrambled on, but Oz, apparently unwilling to trust his survival to something as slow as a horse, flew by sister and mare like a rocket. Lou punched Sue in the ribs with her shoes and took off after her brother. She didn’t gain any ground on the boy, however, as Oz was suddenly faster than a car.

Cotton, Louisa, Lou, and Oz were having a powwow around the kitchen table.

“You crazy to go in that mine,” said Louisa angrily.

“Then we wouldn’t have seen those men,” replied Lou.

Louisa struggled with this and then said, “G’on now. Me and Cotton need to talk.”

After Lou and Oz left, she looked at Cotton.

“So what you think?” she asked.

“From how Lou described it, I think they were looking for natural gas instead of oil. And found it.”

“What should we do?”

“They’re on your property without your permission, and they know that we know. I think they’ll come to you.”

“I ain’t selling my land, Cotton.”

Cotton shook his head. “No, what you can do is sell the mineral rights. And keep the land. And gas isn’t like coal mining. They won’t have to destroy the land.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Had us a good harvest. Don’t need no help from nobody.”

Cotton looked down and spoke slowly. “Louisa, I hope you outlive all of us. But the fact is, if those children come into the farm while they’re still under age, it’d be right difficult for them to get along.” He paused and then added quietly, “And Amanda may need special care.”

Louisa nodded slightly at his words but said nothing.

Later, she watched Cotton drive off, while Oz and Lou playfully chased his convertible down the road, and Eugene diligently worked on some farm equipment. This was the sum total of Louisa’s world. Everything seemed to move along smoothly, yet it was all very fragile, she well knew. The woman leaned against the door with a most weary face.

The Southern Valley men came the very next afternoon.

Louisa opened the door and Judd Wheeler stood there, and beside him was a little man with snake eyes and a slick smile, dressed in a well-cut three-piece suit.

“Miss Cardinal, my name’s Judd Wheeler. I work for Southern Valley Coal and Gas. This is Hugh Miller, the vice president of Southern.”

“And you want my natural gas?” she said bluntly.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Wheeler.

“Well, it’s a right good thing my lawyer’s here,” she said, glancing at Cotton, who had come into the kitchen from Amanda’s bedroom.

“Miss Cardinal,” said Hugh Miller as they sat down, “I don’t believe in beating around the bush. I understand that you’ve inherited some additional family responsibilities, and I know how trying that can be. So I am most happy to offer you . . . a hundred thousand dollars for your property. And I’ve got the check, and the paperwork for you to sign, right here.”

Louisa had never held more than five dollars cash money in her whole life, so “My goodness!” was all she could manage.

“Just so we all understand,” Cotton said, “Louisa would just be selling the underlying mineral rights.”

Miller smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid for that kind of money, we expect to get the land too.”

“I ain’t gonna do that,” said Louisa.

Cotton said, “Why can’t she just convey the mineral rights? It’s a common practice up here.”

“We have big plans for her property. Gonna level the mountain, put in a good road system, and build an extraction, production, and shipping facility. And the longest durn pipeline anybody’s seen outside of Texas. We’ve spent a while looking. This property is perfect. Don’t see one negative.”

Louisa scowled at him. “ ’Cept I ain’t selling it to you. You ain’t scalping this land like you done everywhere else.”

Miller leaned forward. “This area is dying, Miss Cardinal. Lumber gone. Mines closing. Folks losing their jobs. What good are the mountains unless you use them to help people? It’s just rock and trees.”

“I got me a deed to this land says I own it, but nobody really own the mountains. I just watching over ’em while I here. And they give me all I need.”

Miller looked around. “All you need? Why, you don’t even have electricity or phones up here. As a God-fearing woman I’m sure you realize that our creator gave us brains so that we can take advantage of our surroundings. What’s a mountain compared to people making a good living? Why, what you’re doing is going against the Scriptures, I do believe.”

Louisa stared at the little man and looked as though she might laugh. “God made these mountains so’s they last forever. Yet he put us people here for just a little-bitty time. Now, what does that tell you?”

Miller looked exasperated. “Look here now, my company is looking to make a substantial investment in bringing this place back to life. How can you stand in the way of all that?”

Louisa stood. “Just like I always done. On my own two feet.”

Cotton followed Miller and Wheeler to their car.

“Mr. Longfellow,” said Miller, “you ought to talk your client into accepting our proposal.”

Cotton shook his head. “Once Louisa Mae Cardinal makes up her mind, changing it is akin to trying to stop the sun from rising.”

“Well, the sun goes
down
every night too,” said Miller.

Cotton watched as the Southern Valley men drove off.

The small church was in a meadow a few miles from the Cardinal farm. It was built of rough-hewn timbers and had a small steeple, one modest window of ordinary glass, and an abundance of charm. It was time for a down-on-the-ground church service and supper, and Cotton had driven Lou, Oz, and Eugene. They called it down-on-the-ground, Cotton explained, because there were no tables or chairs, but only blankets, sheets, and canvas; one large picnic under the guise of churchgoing.

Lou had offered to stay home with her mother so Louisa could go, but the woman wouldn’t hear of it. “I read me my Bible, I pray to my Lord, but I ain’t needing to be sitting and singing with folks to prove my faith.”

“Why should I go then?” Lou had asked.

“ ’Cause after church is supper, and that food ain’t to be beat, girl,” Louisa answered with a smile.

Oz had on his suit, and Lou wore her Chop bag dress and thick brown stockings held up by rubber bands, while Eugene wore the hat Lou had given him and a clean shirt. There were a few other Negroes there, including one petite young woman with remarkable eyes and beautifully smooth skin with whom Eugene spent considerable time talking. Cotton explained that there were so few Negroes up this way, they didn’t have a separate church. “And I’m right glad of that,” he said. “Not usually that way down south, and in the towns the prejudice is surely there.”

“We saw the ‘Whites Only’ sign in Dickens,” said Lou.

“I’m sure you did,” said Cotton. “But mountains are different. I’m not saying everybody up here is a saint, because they’re surely not, but life is hard and folks just trying to get by. Doesn’t leave much time to dwell on things they shouldn’t dwell on in the first place.” He pointed to the first row and said, “George Davis and a few others excepted, that is.”

Lou looked on in shock at George Davis sitting in the front pew. He had on a suit of clean clothes, his hair was combed, and he had shaved. Lou had to grudgingly admit that he looked respectable. None of his family was with him, though. His head was bowed in prayer. Before the service started, Lou asked Cotton about this spectacle.