The Librarian of Boone's Hollow Page 6

  Dust rose with every step. When had it last rained in these parts? Reddish-brown powder coated his shoes and the hem of his britches. Maw could smack the dust out, but she might have a time getting the sweat stains from the underarms of his suit coat. His roommate’s half of the closet had held three or four suits, plus stacks of button-up shirts, sweaters, vests, and trousers. Emmett had only the one suit, his present from Maw and Paw when he graduated from the local school. After four years of wear, it was getting some threadbare, but it was still the nicest set of clothes he owned. Had ever owned. And Maw’d been so proud to give it to him.

  A flash of orange in the sea of green to his left caught his attention, and Maw’s voice from ten years past spoke in his memory. “I’m lettin’ ya have that slingshot your paw made for ya, ’cause somebody’s gotta keep the crows out o’ my garden patch. But, Emmett, if I catch ya takin’ aim at one o’ my pretty orioles, I’ll use that slingshot for kindlin’, an’ you won’t never be given another.” He’d known back then that Maw meant what she said, and he only shot at the pesky black birds that tormented her beans and squash and tomatoes. To this day, when he saw the telltale orange belly of an oriole, he thought of Maw.

  Thoughts of Maw always led to thoughts of home, and eagerness made his feet speed up, even though the muscles in his calves and the backs of his thighs burned almost as hot as the sun. The quicker steps jarred him, and the arm bearing the bag’s weight felt like it could disconnect from his shoulder. He switched hands, not breaking stride. He set his lips in a grim line and ignored his aching muscles. He’d gotten soft walking only from building to building on mostly flat ground for the past four years.

  He heaved mighty breaths and swiped at sweat and pushed himself upward, upward, upward. Finally, legs quivering like the limb on a hemlock bush in the breeze, he entered a narrow clearing lined with wooden structures. He paused in the break between the trees and set his bag beside his feet. Hands on his hips, he took in the familiar setting. Not a thing had changed since his last visit home a year ago, except somebody’d painted the Blevins’ old smokehouse. White with blue trim, the same as his fraternity colors.

  His college buddies would probably scoff at the uneven dirt streets, weathered buildings with rock foundations, and grassless yards in front of the houses. But it was a welcome sight to him. He’d reached Boone’s Hollow. He was home.

  “Emmett! Emmett Tharp!” a female voice blasted, its tone so full of joy that Emmett automatically smiled.

  He turned in the direction of the call, expecting to see Maw running to greet him. Instead, Bettina Webber was coming at him. And she had her arms spread wide.

  Boone’s Hollow

  Emmett

  EMMETT RUBBED HIS EYES, NOT sure he was seeing right. But when he lowered his fists, the same image filled his vision—Bettina, coming so fast puffs of dust hung in the humid air behind her. Her blue-checked skirt flew up and exposed her dirty knees, and her freckled face wore the biggest smile he’d ever seen.

  He scratched his temple. Why’d she have her arms open like that? She was fixing to hug somebody. He glanced over his shoulder. No one else was there. So that meant—

  “Emmett! Oh, Emmett, you’re home!” Without even a pause, she leaped.

  He grunted, his arms closing around her in reflex, and staggered backward two steps. Good thing he’d put down his carpetbag or the two of them would probably be in a heap on the ground. He wouldn’t have been too pleased at getting his best clothes dusty from the suit collar to pant cuffs.

  Between her stranglehold on him and some kind of flowery scent rising from her sweat-damp hair and filling his nostrils, he couldn’t breathe. Weary from his long walk, damp head to toe with perspiration, and worried he’d faint dead away if he didn’t draw a good breath soon, he leaned forward until her bare feet met the ground. Then he unwound her arms from his neck. With one wide sideways step, he put himself behind his luggage. From the safety of his barrier, he pulled in a full breath and then let it out, eyeing her close in case she decided to take another lunge in his direction.

  She tilted her head, fluttering her eyelashes. “Hey, Emmett. I been watchin’ for you so I could welcome you home.”

  He could’ve asked how she’d known when to expect him, but he was half-afraid to start a conversation. She was acting as if she didn’t have good sense. Had she dipped into her pap’s jug of moonshine? The still high on the mountain in the pine trees behind the Webbers’ place was supposed to be a secret, but everybody in town knew why Burke Webber planted a patch of corn every year, and it wasn’t to feed his daughter.

  “That’s—” His dry throat croaked the word. He swallowed. “That’s nice of you, Bettina.” He grabbed his bag’s handle and lifted the case, then moved in the direction of town. “I’m gonna head on home now, see my folks and brother.”

  “Ooh, law, they’ll be so glad to see ya. Even gladder’n me, I reckon.” She matched him step for step, grinning big. “You’re all done with your schoolin’ now, ain’tcha? That’s what your maw told me.”

  Maw must’ve mentioned he’d be home today. Too bad Maw hadn’t warned him about Bettina’s welcome. He could’ve planned a response. He wasn’t sure what to do with Bettina now any more than he’d been when he was fourteen and she was ten, trailing him like a puppy dog. Mercy, the girl could be a pest. But he’d be kind to her, the way Maw expected. “Yes, I graduated. I’m all done.”

  “Gonna getcha a job in the city?” She linked her hands behind her back and swung her hips as she walked. Her skirt swayed east to west, brushing his pant leg on the east swing.

  He switched his carpetbag to the other hand so it hung between them and blocked her skirt’s swish. “I’m not real sure yet.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ ’round here that’ll let ya use a fancy degree.” Her hazel eyes stayed locked on him, and the smile never left her lips. “Seems to me you got no choice ’cept to leave Boone’s Holler for the city.”

  He’d already explored the city, but he didn’t want to have this conversation with Bettina Webber. “Reckon time’ll tell.” He gave a start. How quickly he’d slid into the uncultured hills talk of his neighbors. His first year at college, he got poked fun at plenty of times for his speech patterns. By listening close to the city kids and studying the textbooks for more than the information they could give, he’d lost much of his backwoods dialect. But here it was, creeping in, and he hadn’t even been in town half an hour yet.

  “I’ve always wanted to live in a big city. Betcha now that you had all them years in Lexington, this ol’ holler’s gonna seem like nothin’ more’n a mouse hole.” She wrinkled her nose, a few freckles disappearing in the creases. “What’s it like livin’ in a place where there’s fine restaurants an’ hotels an’ trolley cars?”

  Hunger glimmered in her muddy-green eyes, but Burke Webber would have his hide if he filled Bettina’s head with ideas about the city. Emmett cleared his throat. “Listen, Bettina, I’m kind of eager to see my folks. I do thank you for the welcome home. I didn’t figure anybody’d watch for me with it being Sunday, so that was”—how could he phrase it so he wouldn’t hurt her feelings?—“quite a surprise.”

  She beamed at him and swung her arms, making her skirt flare north and south. “Oh, you’re welcome as welcome can be, Emmett. You gonna come to the singin’ service at the low Baptist church tonight?”

  Funny how the folks around here differentiated between the Baptist church in Boone’s Hollow and the other in the little town a mile up the road, Tuckett’s Pass, as low and high, based on their locations on the mountain. The same preacher delivered sermons every Sunday in both buildings, but no one from Boone’s Hollow would go to the high, and no one from Tuckett’s Pass would come to the low. All because way back when a Tuckett did something that irked some folks in Boone’s Hollow and now they couldn’t even worship together. Why didn’t Preacher Darnell choose a buil
ding and make everybody come together?

  Emmett shrugged. “You know my maw. She never misses a service unless she’s ailing, and she’ll want me with her. I’ll be there.”

  “Glad o’ that.” Bettina gave him a look-see from his head to his toes, then up again. “You’re dressed fine enough for church, all right. Even good enough to go to a weddin’. Or be in one.” She batted her lashes again.

  Emmett gripped the carved wooden handle with both hands and hung the bag against his knees as a partial shield. She’d either sipped some moonshine or smoked some loco weed. She was acting, as Paw would say, like a blooming idiot. “Yes. Well. Good to see you, but I think I’ll mosey on now, see my folks.”

  “Sure thing.” Still smiling bright, she moved backward, bare toes drawing lines in the dirt. “Tell your maw howdy for me. I’ll save you a seat at the singin’. Me an’ Glory—you recall my best friend, Glory Ashcroft?—we always sit with Shay an’ some of the other young folks. Reckon you’ll wanna sit by Shay, since you ain’t seen him for a spell.”

  He’d probably sit with Maw and Dusty, but it’d be good to catch up with Shay after the service. If Shay wanted to catch up, that is. He hadn’t been overly friendly last summer during Emmett’s school break. “We’ll see. Bye now, Bettina.” Emmett waved and hurried through the narrow gap between Belcher’s General Store and the little building that served as both telephone office and post office for Boone’s Hollow and Tuckett’s Pass.

  A dirt path, packed as hard and smooth as marble from years of use, climbed a slight rise and ran along a row of three houses. He followed the path to the Belchers’ clapboard bungalow, the fanciest house in the whole town, even nicer than Doc Faulkner’s place. Ned and Swan Belcher sat on the front porch in matching rocking chairs, the runners squeaking against the tongue-in-groove floor.

  Mrs. Belcher nodded a greeting, and Mr. Belcher lifted his hand in a lazy wave. “Emmett Tharp, that you?”

  Emmett wanted to get on home, but he stopped and smiled politely at the general store’s owner. “Yes, sir.”

  “You home for good now?”

  Emmett chose a careful answer. “For a spell, at least.” No sense in starting rumors.

  Husband and wife nodded in unison and continued rocking.

  Emmett bobbed his head and moved on. Next was the Shearers’ cabin with its coating of dark-green moss climbing to the roof on its north side, then the Barrs’ tumbledown shack set well back from the path against the sloping ground. Emmett always thought it looked as if the Barrs’ house either grew out of or was trying to shrink into the hillside. All eight—or was it nine?—members of the family lived in the decrepit place. Paw didn’t know a lot of Scripture, but he recited Proverbs 21:25 anytime Jasper Barr’s name was mentioned. “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour” ran through Emmett’s mind as he slowed and took in the dwelling’s sagging roof, cracked windows, and yard littered with rusty cans, soggy cardboard, and animal droppings. Two scrawny chickens pecked and a speckled pink pig rooted in the mess.

  Emmett released a small huff, shaking his head. Nobody in Boone’s Hollow lived like a king, especially these days, but from the looks of the Barr place, Jasper didn’t even try to live as well as a pauper. The only thing Jasper Barr did well, according to Paw, was make new little Barrs. Noisy little Barrs, based on the shouts and wails escaping between the cracks in the shack’s walls.

  A battered boot with a hole where the toe used to be sat on the rock that served as a stoop below the warped front door. A cluster of drooping wildflowers spilled over the boot’s shank. Probably placed there by Jennie Barr, Jasper’s soft-spoken, long-suffering wife. Half the folks in town pitied Jennie. The other half scorned her for staying with someone so work shy and slovenly. Maw’d taught Emmett not to cast stones, and he did his best to honor her, but looking at the sorry house in need of repairs made him side with those who thought Jennie could do a lot better. But if a man with a college degree couldn’t find work, how would an uneducated woman provide for herself and her youngsters? Jennie was trapped. Emmett’s feelings swung to the pity side.

  He hurried beyond the ramshackle building and climbed the curving path leading to the little house Grandpaw Tharp built in 1882 for his new bride. Just a two-room cabin with a loft then, but Paw had built a shed-style addition on the west that held Maw’s prized cookstove and the handmade table and chairs she’d brought with her when she married Paw. Nothing fancy, not even by Boone’s Hollow standards. But when compared to the Barrs’ place, it seemed like a palace. He left his bag at the foot of the walkway and hop-skipped over the flat rocks Grandpaw had laid down for paving stones. He leaped up onto the narrow porch and reached for the door’s string latch. Before he gave it a pull, though, a familiar sound made him pause. He tilted his ear to the door, listening.

  A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. Sure enough, he heard Maw’s sweet voice and Dusty’s chortles. He caught snatches of words—Striped Chipmunk, Purple Hills, Grandfather Frog…Maw was reading from Old Mother West Wind, the storybook she’d read to Emmett on Sunday afternoons when he was Dusty’s age. Remembrances carried him backward in time, and longing for the simpler days of childhood struck hard. Sure, he was home now. But all grown up and armed with a college degree, he couldn’t live in his parents’ loft again. Not forever.

  If the Coal & Coke Company hired him, they’d probably let him rent one of the company houses in Lynch, which had been built for the coal workers. If they did, he probably wouldn’t make the trek to Boone’s Hollow for Sunday services. He wouldn’t eat suppers around the table with his folks and brother or clean Paw-caught catfish before dawn. He was home…but he wasn’t home.

  Sadness hit as hard as a tree trunk landing on his shoulders, and his hand fell away from the string. He’d gone to college to better himself, believing his schoolteacher’s insistence that the degree would make his life richer and happier. But would it really?

  Bettina

  BETTINA HELD HER breath and tapped on Glory’s bedroom window, praying Glory’s nosy maw wouldn’t poke her head out the front door of the cabin and ask who was disturbing their Sunday naps. She should’ve gone straight home. After lunch, Pap gave her permission to go for a walk while he took his usual Sunday afternoon snooze, but she’d waited under the tree by the church for almost two hours until Emmett finally showed up. By now Pap was probably awake again, shuffling around the cabin, wondering what’d happened to her and building up his temper. But she had to talk to somebody or she’d bust. And she sure couldn’t tell Pap what was bubbling inside her.

  Oh, where was that Glory, anyway? She gritted her teeth and tapped again.

  The muslin curtains swished to the side, and Glory looked out the window. Her mouth fell open. Bettina gestured, and Glory nodded. Bettina scurried around to the back of the cabin. The Ashcrofts’ back door always gave Bettina the shivers. Pap would not tolerate a back door. If a person had two doors, he might accidentally go out one and come in another, and everybody knew bad luck would come to that fool person and everybody who lived in the house. She bounced on the balls of her feet until Glory stepped out and closed the door real careful behind her. Bettina darted over, grabbed Glory’s arm, and dragged her to the Ashcrofts’ animal lean-to.

  Inside the shadowy space that smelled strong of earth, animals, and manure, Bettina took hold of Glory’s hands. “Guess what.”

  “He’s home.”

  Bettina held in the squeal she wanted to let out and squeezed Glory’s hands hard. “Yep. An’ guess what he done when he seen me?”

  Glory’s eyes blazed. “Can’t guess.”

  Of course she couldn’t. Glory didn’t have so much as an ounce of imagination. Bettina sucked in a big breath, counted to three, then let the air whoosh out with her words. “Scooped me off the ground an’ hugged me, that’s what.” She thought sure Glory’s eyes would pop
right out of her head. She laughed, then sashayed to the center post and leaned against the weathered wood. “Oh, Glory, you shoulda seen it. It was so romantic. Just like bein’ in a movie.”

  Glory gaped at Bettina. Glory’s fuzzy brown hair stood out like a lion’s mane around her moon-shaped face. Glory wouldn’t never keep a beau if she didn’t learn how to tame that frizzy hair of hers. The picture-show heroes never went after girls who looked like they didn’t know what a comb was for. “Tell me what all he done. Did he kiss you?”

  “Well…” Bettina ground her toe into the soft dirt, giving Glory a sly sideways look. “He couldn’t kiss me. Not right there in the middle o’ the street.”

  “Was someone lookin’?”

  “No, nobody was lookin’. Nobody was around ’cept for him an’ me. That’s what made it so romantic.” She closed her eyes and filled her mind with the image of Emmett, his fine suit hugging his solid frame, the sound of a bird singing from a nearby bush, the warmth of sunshine pouring down on the two of them…and the heart-fluttering remembrance of Emmett’s blue eyes aimed at her, as if he couldn’t get enough of seeing her. Oh, what a pretty picture.

  “What’s so romantic if he didn’t even kiss you?”

  Bettina popped her eyes open. She stomped over and smacked Glory on the arm. “Ain’t only kissin’ that’s romantic, Glory Ashcroft. You think he’d snatch me up an’ kiss me out in the middle o’ town? He was bein’ a gentleman, treatin’ me like a lady. That’s romantic, too.”