Fleetie's Crossing Read online

  FLEETIE’S

  CROSSING

  K. BRUCE FLORENCE

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY K. BRUCE FLORENCE.

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY BUD BLANTON.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2017910240

  ISBN: HARDCOVER 978-1-5434-3368-5

  SOFTCOVER 978-1-5434-3367-8

  EBOOK 978-1-5434-3366-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Rev. date: 08/01/2017

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  CONTENTS

  Part 1

  Allegro

  Part 2

  Scherzo

  Part 3

  Sonata

  Part 4

  Adagio

  Change is a measure of time, and in the autumn,

  Time seems speeded up. What was is not and

  Never again will be, what is, is change.

  — Edwin Teale

  To George Ella Lyon,

  Each hint of an early morning mist, an errant feather, and the rock-ribbed determination of her mountain people has given her the gift of words she so generously shares with me.

  Acknowledgments

  Encouragers, family, and colleagues who cared and believed I could write this story include Laura Todd Simpson, Rachel Lane Poe, Virgil Florence, Pam Duncan, Gurney Norman, Linda DeRosier, Debbie Cooper, Ann Pancake, Ruth Bailey, granddaughter, Grace, and Bud Blanton—artist, manuscript editor, and consultant—without whose help and patience, this story would have been forever burdened with too many words and too little life.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. While there are events in the novel that describe some parts of life in that time period as it might have been lived in the eastern coal fields of Kentucky, these stories are fictional accounts. No comparisons should be drawn with anyone now or in the past. All the characters spring from the imagination of the author.

  Part 1

  ALLEGRO

  Prologue

  BECOMING AWARE

  Granddaddy thumbed his nose at anybody in the family who thought I had to behave to suit them. He taught me to drink coffee, cuss without sounding dumb, drink a tonic made with good whiskey for a deep cough, and leave my shoes in the crotch of a big tree on a hot day when dust running through your toes had its own special comfort.

  But today, he was gone—and not just on a fishing trip to a good trout stream. He was never coming back. Sitting here on Mummy’s Rock on his mountain, I tried hard to make some sense out of the hurt kicking itself through me. He loved me and gave me the space I needed to learn all about myself. With Pappy gone forever, I was left with a brand new way of being alone.

  When he gave me his huge bear hug, I could rest my head on his wide, solid chest and know nothing could reach me there. As a baby, I was prone to screaming colic fits. He was the only one who could pick me up and soothe away the bubbles. I would fall asleep in his arms, and if needed, he would hold me for hours. Mother plied him with every delicious dish she could concoct to entice him to come often and stay long. Without him, she might have been sorely tempted to smother me in my crib. The tales of what a miserable baby I had been were legend in our family history. I wasn’t much better as a toddler, and when I was five, everything and everybody but Pappy made me mad. I stormed and stomped and developed a rotten reputation for being impossible. He brought me around because he refused to be intimated by a little kid’s bad humor, and finally, I realized that the defenses I had put up against the world were not that important after all.

  Just thinking these words started my sobs all over again. They seemed to be coming from somewhere not even connected to me, and no matter how much I cried, there was no relief from this black hole carved into my life. With nothing but my own misery shrieking in my ears, I didn’t hear Daddy making his way up the mountain path carved by generations of skittering critters. To everybody else, he was Ed Ramsey—mountain boy, lawyer, and Pap Ramsey’s baby boy. To me, he was the closest thing I had ever thought of as my hero. Pappy was my buddy, and Daddy was the man who got things done and put up with no nonsense. He was a tall, strong man with a shock of curly blond hair that probably, by nature, made him look a lot more approachable than he really was.

  He startled me, even using his best whisper. “Rachel, your mother sent me to find you.”

  I couldn’t answer, and he walked toward me and passed through the broken-down fence just on the other side of a patch of scattered boulders. In some ancient time, those boulders might have broken off Mummy’s Rock when all of them were thrown here by the tremendous force that formed the mountain, scratched out the river, and blew the valley flat. He hoisted himself up the side of the rock and sat down beside me. He didn’t say a word at first, just put his arm around my shoulders and held on. He didn’t really pull me close, just rested his arm there in case I didn’t know that someone else also knew how awful this was.

  “I brought you a jar of water, Rach. Look here what else I stuck in my pocket.”

  I managed to squeak out, “What, Daddy?”

  “One of Pappy’s bandanas. Let’s pour some of the water on it and wipe your pretty face.”

  He wet the red handkerchief and handed me the open jar to hold. He pushed back my long braids and put the cool cloth first on my forehead and then on each cheek. He was as gentle as Mother might have been with my baby brother, Logan.

  “You’ve got to stop crying. It only helps a little at first, and then it begins to make you feel even worse.”

  I kept sniffling, but this time, I was making an effort to stop the tears. “What are they all doing down there, Daddy?”

  “About to push me over the edge. If one more person asks me what I am going to do without Pappy, I might hit them.”

  In spite of my misery, I smiled at him. The idea of him hitting one of the relatives or neighbors struck me funny.

  “I have no idea what I am going to do without him, and being reminded every two minutes doesn’t make the answer come any faster either. And, little girl, everyone keeps asking where you got off to, and I’m running out of answers.”

  “You could tell them to mind their own business.”

  Daddy chuckled. “Oh well, honey, it’s just something to say. All our folks are pretty hurt about Pappy too. Aunt Sook has cooked dinner for all of us, and she could use your help to get it on the table. Come on now. Will you go with me?”

  I struggled to choke down rolling sobs without making much headway. He pulled me up like a rag doll and wrapped his arms around me and squeezed so tight, I could barely breathe. But it worked, and slowly, I gained control as the sobs subsided to snubs and gulps. Around here, when somebody died, everybody hugged one another. Somehow, it made it hurt a little less. So I guess Daddy just held on because he didn’t know what else to do with a hysterical fourteen-year-old. It took a little while for me to appreciate that Daddy was having his own sorrow to deal with
, and yet here he was on the mountain with his arms around me. Right at that moment, he was probably hoping that my crying wouldn’t make his eyes spill tears too, but some of my pain did begin to melt away.

  “Feeling better? Want a drink?”

  I shook my head.

  “You know, Rachel, Pappy Ramsey is not all the way gone.”

  “He is all the way gone, Daddy, and the world is empty.” My voice broke, and he pulled me closer.

  “Can you remember him laughing at you when you fell in the creek going after that big bass?”

  “He had to build a fire to dry me off.”

  “Sweetheart, anytime you can remember him doing something like that, he is somewhere around. You will feel him walking along the creek, sitting by the fire, or heading up the mountain. Anybody as much a part of this place as old Pappy can’t be all that gone.”

  “But I can’t talk to him or see him, and he can’t tell me what to do when I need to know.”

  “Don’t push against what will help, Rachel. You just have to settle for what you can get. He is around and will always be, but you have to open up to see it. Don’t fight it off because you are so mad, you won’t take what’s there.”

  I was beginning to feel rankled and shot back at him. “How do you know?” Pappy was gone and not coming back, and now Daddy seemed to know stuff about him that I should know and didn’t.

  “Storm Cloud, if you would listen instead of all the time stomping around, bossing people, you could feel what this mountain has to say. When my Papaw died, Granny told me all this, and she was right. Don’t be so stubborn. You can’t be helped.”

  I stood perfectly still, torn between wanting to stay on the mountain, away from the sadness down below, and doing what Daddy asked.

  “You ready now to go back down? The men are already in the barn, planing the boards for Pappy’s casket. It won’t be long before you and the other women will line it good and soft for his skinny bones.”

  I still didn’t move, and he took my hand in his and leaned forward to jump down off the rock. I jumped with him. Still holding hands, we started down the mountain path but not before I turned around to take another long look at Mummy’s Rock. It was where I had always brought my frustrations and loneliness. The water jar was still sitting on top of the boulder, and I reached for it, but my arm wasn’t quite long enough. Daddy lifted his arm over mine and picked up the jar. He took a long drink and offered it to me. This time, I did take a drink and found out how thirsty I was. As I was gulping down the water, it occurred to me that today, the rock gave something back; Pappy’s spirit was still here on the mountain, and if I but will, I could hear him and feel him near.

  I turned and walked with Daddy past the boulders. He took my hand and sort of acted like it was because the path was rough, but of course, I had skipped up and down this hill for so long, every rock and dip was permanently etched in my brain. He knew I didn’t need help, and I knew I didn’t, but his hand was strong and warm, and I felt safer with my hand in his.

  Map of Ross’s Point

  Chapter 1

  THE POINT

  Appalachia makes up a vast slice of the American continent, reaching from Georgia to Maine, but the part of it I knew the most about was a tiny Eastern Kentucky valley surrounded, fort-like, by imposing tree-covered mountains, a place where the sun rose late and set early and the blue sky and white clouds hovered like a watchful mother.

  Above my valley, a point of land stood high over the Cumberland River, and anyone standing on that point was offered a sweeping vista of the river bend, a wide valley floor, and beyond the valley, the ever-present, brooding mountains that dared us to leave or others to enter the valley.

  The point was a perfect lookout for river traffic, and the number of arrowheads and pottery shards found there told a story of ancient eyes on guard against bears, mountain lions, and marauding young Indian bucks paddling the enemy canoes that could slip down the river just below them.

  A white settler, Alexander Ross, traveling with his and three other families from Virginia, looked for a safe place to build cabins, staked off the point, and gave it his family name, Ross’s Point. After camping there for a few weeks, the party, especially the women and girls, realized that the lack of water on the point and the difficulty of digging a well by hand in the rocky mountain soil would cause more hardship in a land already harsh enough. Quick access to water was needed for both the humans and their animals. So Ross took his family and the others to the green valley below. They built sturdy cabins on a gentle rise near one of the clear streams that formed the headwaters of the Cumberland River. He still defended the point and would not sell or allow anyone to squat there. Eventually, the entire valley took up the name, and the tiny settlement became known as Ross’s Point.

  Years later, after the development of the coal fields, there were those who had other names for the area. Poor Fork was one, named because very early, it was thought there was no coal under these particular mountains. The coal was there, but the name stuck, and it was convincing enough to discourage early attempts to start a mining operation. Back then, the thick seams of coal in that section of Southeastern Kentucky were so plentiful that no one needed to take a chance on a valley known universally as the Poor Fork. So we became Ross’s Point up Poor Fork. Daddy called our mountain place Steep Acres. I never thought much about the name Poor Fork. The fact that Daddy’s land included the original Ross’s Point also failed to make much of an impression on me.

  Besides, the point itself was long ago blasted away to provide a nice straight stretch for the railroad to chug through our valley. Gone was the overlook, and left in its place was a raw cliff of crumbling orange dirt that was so poor, it would not grow weeds or vines. But gone or not, we still called the top of that cliff the Point, and what was left still provided a good overlook to the valley and the river.

  During this time, not too long after World War II, mine wars in Eastern Kentucky were raging between owners and union organizers. The bitter conflict pitted friends, neighbors, family, and strangers against one another in deadly skirmishes along the creeks and ridges of all of George’s County. It raged even into Poor Fork and Ross’s Point. There were no mines, but there were miners who refused to move into the coal camps and instead kept their small homesteads. The mining jobs and steady pay were too tempting to resist, but the land was too precious, too much their inheritance and heritage, to sacrifice for the hardscrabble existence in the camps, and so they held fast.

  Burl Sargeant owned one of these homesteads, and when I could escape my duties at home, this was where I spent most of my time. Leatha Sargeant, daughter of a miner, and me, Rachel Grace Ramsey, daughter of a mountain-born lawyer, were inseparable. On the morning of the trouble, we were at Leatha’s kitchen sink, washing dishes after the six of us had gobbled down our breakfast of gravy and biscuits. All four of Fleetie Sargeant’s kids had chores to tend to. No child older than four was given a free pass. Everyone worked, and surprisingly, there was very little complaining. At my house, perched high near the point, right above the Sargeant house, my sister and I often pushed back against work orders, but the Sargeant kids never did.

  Even if they didn’t want to mind Fleetie, the kids were not dummies. They could tell there was trouble brewing around them, not a little trouble but the kind that had grown-ups talking loud in the night after the kids were supposed to be asleep. Mothers and aunts were apt to break into tears after a neighbor brought news of more shooting and blasting. It was time for the kids to stay out of sight and hearing as much as possible. You never knew when out of the blue, you might get yelled at just for being near when some adult wanted privacy.

  The whole county was in the turmoil of a general miners’ strike. There had been shootings, ambushes, explosions, and cold-blooded murders brought about by the conflict between miners and the owners and operators. The miners wanted to join a union for bet
ter pay and working conditions, and the owners and operators wanted to keep union interference out of the coal fields. The strike trouble had all of us plenty scared. It wasn’t a good time for any of us to be kicking up a fuss about anything. This was real and real scary. On one side, the scabs and goons hired by the mine owners were pretty quick with their pistols, and on the other, the miners had lots of dynamite, and they did not hesitate to blow up the tipples and bridges used to move coal to the railroad gondolas. Both sides were always spoiling for a fight, and many men died or were so badly injured, they would never work again. The threat of death and knowing what grown men could do to one another brought us up short. We all knew it was time to behave and stay out of sight as much as we could.

  Burl Sargeant had been walking the picket line all night, and before he got home, Leatha and I were planning to be long gone. After his shift, he was always gruff, and our getting in his way usually meant a head-knocking or worse, but our timing was off that morning, and just as we finished with the last of the cleanup, Burl rolled out of his derelict truck, took one leap up the back steps, slammed the screen door, jerked his rifle off the kitchen wall, and yelled for Fleetie.

  I scrambled under the table with Leatha right behind me, and we watched him balance the rifle on the bend of his crippled left arm. He broke open the barrel, checked the magazine, and yelled again for Fleetie. Then as he turned to leave, he ran smack into all five feet of her blocking the door. You might think that his six-foot frame, broad shoulders, and muscled arms could wipe up the floor with her, but not today. Most of the time, Fleetie could handle him pretty well, except when he was drinking. Today, she was worried about protecting her kids and stood up to his bluster.