Читать книгу Bed Rock - Jack Bethea - Страница 14

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Alice heard a knock on the kitchen door and opened it to find a gaunt, middle-aged negro woman on the steps. Her face was so black it shone and a generous smile displayed shining teeth. For the first time, Alice heard the musical slurring tones of a Southern darky.

"Mawnin', Mis' Blackford. Dis is Martha."

She entered the kitchen as if she needed no further introduction. Alice was surprised at the easy way in which the colored woman made herself at home.

"Martha. Martha who? And what do you want?"

The woman straightened up with a wide grin. "Lawd! Ain' Mist' Stringfellow sont you word 'bout me? I'se gwine cook f'r you. Mist' Stringfellow said Mist' Blackford tol' him t' git you a cook an' he sont me. I cooks an' scrubs an' I washes an' cleans up. I works f'r all th' white folks in Cahaba, but Mist' Stringfellow said y' wan'ed me all th' time."

As she spoke she took off her coat, removed her hat, and substituted a spotless length of white cloth. This she wound turban-wise around her hair, which was neatly divided into a series of rectangles on her skull, tightly plaited, wrapped with a string, and pinned flat against her head. She took from the bundle she had placed on the chair a pair of shoes in a state of incredible disrepair. These she donned with a sigh of satisfaction and stood upright.

"Has you made th' beds dis mawnin', Mis' Blackford? I speck I better start in right there. 'At's what white folks most gen'ally don' like leas' t' do."

"That is always the first thing I do," Alice said. "I made those long ago. I have swept the dining-room, dusted the living-room, and done everything but wash the dishes. You may do them."

Martha grunted in admiration. "You no'th'n white folks sho' is lively. Me, I likes lively folks. 'At's what I tol' Jim dis mawnin'. Jim's my husban' an' I had t' tell him where I was gwine."

Martha was new to Alice. She had seen negroes before, of course, but they had been merely imitations of white people. Martha was all negro and proud of it.

"You say you work for white people here. Who are they? I haven't seen any one but the miners," Alice asked idly as she watched the woman's deft work.

"Ain' many, 'at's a fac'. I helps Mis' Joe Lawler some. An' I keeps Doctuh Rawls' office an' his rooms clean f'r him. Sometimes I goes over in Possum Valley an' works f'r Mis' Marg'ret Shack'lfo'd. An' I keeps Mist' Stringfellow's place f'r him. I has plenty t' do."

"Your husband works in the mine?"

"Yessum. Jim's boss drivuh."

Martha finished the dishes, seized a broom and began sweeping the kitchen. Alice decided she liked her and was glad even of the companionship of a servant. Alice was a little lonely after days of solitude. She had been glad at first when no one had come near the house and she had been left undisturbed except for the daily visit of the boy from the commissary.

Alice was not given to brooding. She did not look back. She allowed her mind to dwell on the future, but not the past. She interested herself in the house and in the yards where the flowers, while not blooming, gave promise of a riot of color when the buds should open. She thought of her husband or herself as little as possible.

She spent hours on the veranda, watching with never-tiring eyes the life that went on at her feet. There was much that excited her curiosity, but there was no one to explain, so that with understanding did not come loss of interest. Later, after she exhausted the possibilities of the house and settled down into a quiet routine, she wondered why nobody came. She did not know that no one calls on the Mrs. Superintendent until she indicates her pleasure by calling first and conferring the favor of notice.

Alice was a little puzzled at her own state of mind. She was lazily content, willing to drowse through the quiet days without question of the future or the past. Life for the moment was kindly.

She found she could not summon any great anger against her husband. True, she was no nearer forgiving him, but she secretly admired his attitude. There was no childish pretense of formality between them; he had accepted her own casual note. She noticed and approved that there was never now any hint of intimacy; her husband was attentive to her smallest wish, but he volunteered nothing. Alice would have been glad if Blackford had been less watchful of intruding and had told her more about the mine, but he did not and she made no attempt to rouse him from his reserve.

Slowly her heart healed under the spell of the mountains. She would be foolish to let bitterness spoil such a time. If she could think tolerantly of her husband—and it seemed she could—well, why not?

It was then she decided to visit Blackford's office and walked down the mountain to the commissary. The dim interior smelled invitingly of spices and fresh cloth. Interestedly she scanned the walls. Evidently the store sold everything. Clothes, dry goods, groceries, toys. Goodness! One could buy anything here. As she passed to the rear, a woman examining a bolt of calico at a counter looked up and spoke hesitantly. It was the first time since Alice had been in Cahaba that any one had spoken to her and she was pleased. She returned the greeting cordially and the woman's rather care-worn face lighted up.

As Alice entered the offices, Stringfellow rose to meet her. "Mr. Blackford is not here," he said before she spoke. Stringfellow knew where he was, but had no idea of telling. "I don't know where you could find him. Was there anything I could do? How are you and Martha getting along?"

"Just fine. Thank you so much for sending her. I have scarcely anything to do."

"Martha is all right. I have known her since I have been in Cahaba. She likes to look after her white folks."

"She has quite adopted me," Alice laughed. "I am terribly spoiled. Who is the woman at the counter?"

"That is Mrs. Joe Lawler. She is the wife of the mine foreman and one of the first ladies of Cahaba. Mining camp society, you know, is divided along very definite lines. Would you like to know her?"

Alice nodded and the introductions were soon made. Mrs. Lawler proved to be eagerly talkative and they left the commissary together. "I declare, when you live in a place like this, it is awful hard to get anything done," Mrs. Lawler sighed. "When you have four children and can't get any help, about all you do is cook and sew. I have been at Joe to leave and go back to Little Belle, where we came from, but he won't. That's near Birmingham. You can go in on the street-car, and it's fine to live there. I hate Cahaba, it is so far from everything; no trains or roads or nothin'. We've been here so many years, I guess we'll always be here now."

Alice nodded sympathetically. "I can imagine it is very dull for you. I have not found it so yet. It is all too new."

Alice learned many things about the camp from Mrs. Lawler, but the foreman's wife demanded information as well, once the initial strangeness was over. Mrs. Lawler pointed out the bachelor quarters where the unmarried men lived, known as "Saints' Rest"; the doctor's office with the small emergency hospital adjoining; the houses of the various foremen. And she commented pungently on each. Alice found her interesting, and before she left had invited Mrs. Lawler to the Residency and agreed to visit her in turn. The next day, when Martha had gone down the hill and all the work was done, she ran down to the cottage on the edge of the village.

When she entered, she found Mrs. Lawler with Dr. Henry Rawls. Irma Gene, one of the children, had cut her foot and the wound had become infected. Dr. Rawls was giving Mrs. Lawler careful directions and Alice listened, interested in the doctor and his earnestness. He would have been commonplace but for his hands, Alice decided. They were white and delicate, well-kept and graceful, with long slender fingers, broad palms and thick wrists. The hands of a surgeon, she thought.

The three began talking as Dr. Rawls wrote a prescription with a promise to send it down later from the dispensary. He asked the question Alice was beginning to regard as inevitable.

"Don't you find it rather lonely here?"

She replied by rote. "No, I haven't yet. I have been too busy adjusting myself to become lonely. I am just beginning to get acquainted."

"You could not have made a better start than with Mrs. Lawler," said the doctor. "And I may add myself. We two, I think, know pretty much the who's who of Cahaba and something more besides—the why. It isn't every one who knows that."

"Do you find much to do?" Alice asked. "It seems to me people should be healthy here."

"They would be if they was let alone," interrupted Mrs. Lawler harshly. "But they ain't."

Rawls answered Alice. "I manage to keep busy. I am here more as a precaution than anything else. Just in case something should happen. I have not confined myself to treating just the people on the reservation; I try to help everybody who needs it, whether they are in Possum Valley or Cahaba. In that way I keep busy."

"It is a big thing to cure people," Alice commented.

"It is when they want you," Rawls returned with sudden feeling. "It's a thankless task when they don't."

"But every one wants to be well!"

"Not in Cahaba," he answered, and Alice wondered.

Dr. Rawls talked delightfully. Books, writers, pictures, music, of them all Alice found he spoke interestingly. She had missed such companionship lately. When she rose she suggested that he walk up the hill with her and he assented.

"Won't you tell me something of your work in Cahaba?" Alice asked as they strolled slowly toward the Residency, pausing frequently, for the ascent was steep.

"What do you wish to know? You ask questions and I'll try to answer them."

"I want to know everything. You see, I've never been in a mining camp before and it is all strange. I don't even know how it is operated. You made a peculiar remark back there. You said people here did not want to be cured. What did you mean?"

"I suppose I was referring directly to whisky. I don't understand this camp. It is different from anything I ever saw. Usually, you know, camps like this are run pretty straight. They have to be or there is trouble with the men, but this is wide open. There has been no check at all."

"What do you mean by no check?"

"By the company. There's no attempt to enforce discipline. Take gambling, for instance. Ordinarily it is not tolerated in a camp, but there is a crap game and a poker table going here every night. And there is the whisky. It pours in, and I suspect this is a shipping point for Birmingham. It is none of my business, though, and I have never said anything."

"Why don't the officers stop it?"

Rawls glanced at her to see if she was sincere. "There are none here but company officers and they don't care so long as the company is satisfied. That is bad enough, but there are other things that complicate conditions here. They fight and every now and then there is a killing. With it all, I have my hands full."

"It must be hard on the women," she observed.

Rawls was suddenly vehement. "It is hard on the women! And the children, too! For that reason I have fought against it, but I can do nothing: I have no authority. I thought when they sent a new superintendent down, it would be different, but—pardon me, I did not mean to say that. It slipped out before I thought."

"You need not have stopped," Alice said. "Finish the sentence. You thought that when the new superintendent—" Rawls still hesitated, but Alice was firm. "I want to know everything. Please go on."

Rawls spoke reluctantly. "What I started to say was that I thought most of the trouble here was in the superintendent's office. We had not had one for some time and the last one paid no attention. I thought it would be different when some one else was sent here."

"What has that to do with it?"

"If it is to be stopped, only the superintendent can really do it."

"Why?"

"Because his word is law and from him there is no appeal. This is a little principality tucked away in the hills and the superintendent is judge, jury, and executioner. If he wants to go far enough and fight hard enough, there is nothing he cannot do. The Cahaba superintendent could stop this whisky to-morrow and the gambling and other things too."

Alice was still laconic. "How?"

"He could deport the men who run the gambling tables or refuse to allow them use of a company house if they would not go. He could even refuse to sell them food or allow them to get water. He could starve them if he chose." He paused consideringly. "As for the whisky, that might be a little difficult. That would bring him into conflict with Big Shackleford. He would have trouble there."

"Shackleford? You have the queerest names here," Alice commented. "Who is he?"

"He was once a level boss in this mine, but he made a windy shot one day and lost his right hand. When he could not work any more——"

"Wait a moment," Alice interrupted. "I am terribly stupid, but you will have to explain a 'windy shot.' I haven't the faintest idea what you mean."

"When the miners do their blasting to break the coal down, they bore a hole deep into the face." Rawls was very patient. This opportunity was heaven-sent and he must make the most of the picture he was drawing. "They put the cartridge at the bottom of the hole and tamp it full of muck. Any explosive goes along the line of least resistance, and if they do not seal the hole carefully, the explosive blows out the plug and shoots a stream of flame into the mine room. That is what is called a windy shot and explains many mine accidents. The flame ignites the gas that is nearly always present in a mine, the gas sets off the dust, and you have a disaster."

"I understand. And Shackleford lost his hand like that and lived?"

"Yes, but he couldn't work in the mine any longer so he went over the mountain to Possum Valley and bought a place. He has been making whisky there since. The valley has more stills in it than any other in the State and their owners all look to Shackleford."

"Is that why they call him Big Shackleford?"

"N-o-o, not exactly. I don't know him very well, only his reputation. He is not a particularly big man physically, but there is something about him ... that ... I don't know. You'll understand, if you ever see him."

"You say he would fight. What could he do?"

"Nothing in the open, but there is no telling what he might try. It would not be hard, though, for the superintendent to stop his whisky being brought on company property. Then Shackleford could not ship it out over the Mineral and that is the only way to get it out."

Alice was almost wistful. "The superintendent could stop all this. Are you sure?"

Rawls's manner was impatient. He remembered what he saw daily. If he could reach the superintendent through her ... But he must not go too far. He softened his voice. "If he wanted to stop it, I see nothing that could prevent him. Lord, what an amount of misery it would save! The moral side of the thing does not interest me. It's just the human angle."

Alice asked an impulsive question. "How do you come to be at Cahaba? You don't belong here."

Rawls nodded. "That's true, I don't, but there is a good reason for my presence. I was in practice a number of years. I wanted to write a book on surgery, but I knew I should never have the time in Birmingham. When I had the chance, I took this place and I have been working on the book. It is practically finished, and I am going back soon."

Alice turned to the personal. "It is a heavy responsibility on the superintendent—not to stop these things," she mused. They were sitting on the Residency steps. "He has done nothing?" she questioned again.

"You should know better than I." Rawls chose his words carefully. "It has not seemed to me that he is interested in the mine at all. Certainly not in the people. The men tell me he has not been underground since he came and I see no change in conditions. I ... I regret that a slip of the tongue should have forced me to say all this."

Alice was thoughtful. "I'm glad you told me of it. Perhaps I can do something. At any rate, I will see. Come up some evening when my husband is here, won't you? I would like you to talk with him about this."

With a word of assent, Rawls turned away, leaving Alice still on the steps struggling with a new doubt of Blackford. She was puzzled by his indifference: it was not like the man she thought she knew. Alice had never believed Blackford selfish: she had argued with her father when he warned her.

It seemed to her that Blackford really wanted to work, to shake off the routine of the office and gain an opportunity to prove himself. There had been something big in his determination to do that, no matter the cost, and Alice could understand in a way, although she had suffered by it. But this was different. If it had been money, after all! That made it so cheap. If he had merely used her for selfish gratification of his own desire for ease and comfort! That ... that was contemptible!

Her father's words came back to her. He had warned her that this moment would come and she had not believed. Could she admit to him that, after all, he had been right in his judgment of the man? Her pride forbade that. If Blackford would not act of his own choice, the spur must be applied. She could do it, for he loved her. He had used her; she would use him—and for a worthier object.

Alice was quite cool about her plan and she thought out the details carefully that night. She must know more about Cahaba and its people: she must see for herself. She spoke to Mrs. Lawler of it the following day.

"Mrs. Lawler, how ... how do you get acquainted with people here?" she asked diffidently. "I've been so interested in them, but I've seen so little."

"Honey, you don't want to bother with these poor white trash," Mrs. Lawler objected. "They ain't your kind."

"But they are people and I'm interested. Perhaps they aren't the kind I've always known, but that makes me all the more curious. I want to know them and I don't know how to go about it."

"Well, s' far as knowin' 'em is concerned, that ain't goin' to be hard. But these mountain folks is kind of touchous. I been livin' here a right smart time and I learned that long ago."

"I don't want them to feel that I am intruding and that's why I came to you. Tell me how."

Mrs. Lawler looked at her curiously. "'Bout the best way I know is to go to preachin'. They has a preacher that comes over the mountain ev'ry other Sunday. And most o' the women-folks go there. I do myself. 'S a funny thing. Don't matter how rough a place is, the women-folks always wants preachin'. An' if you really want to help, I guess that'll be the best way to start. The church could do with considerable helpin'. It don't git overly much support here. 'Tain't goin' to take you long to see that."

That was Alice's introduction to Cahaba and she could not have chosen better. She did not ask her husband to go with her when she left the Residency the following Sunday for the little square white building near the depot. As usual, he left immediately after breakfast and Alice was glad. It relieved her of questions.

There was a rustle in the church when she entered with Mrs. Lawler and glanced around her curiously. The congregation was mostly women, with here and there an occasional elderly man. Alice presently forgot the people about her in the simple appeal of the preacher, a lean circuit rider.

Brother Sanford was a tall man and his voice was strident, but he spoke with an earnestness that shook him. Of the mountains, he spoke a language the mountain people understood. To Alice there was a strange appeal in the women's faces lifted to the grizzled figure in the pulpit. She sensed their groping toward something better. If she could only help! She could bring something new into their lives, perhaps. She forgot herself in the thought.

Alice's ideas were not coherent, but she determined to know them and she did. Mrs. Lawler introduced her to Brother Sanford and afterward there were the women who crowded forward to speak to the minister. They responded shyly at first, but she chatted cheerfully and went home with the promise to attend the Ladies' Aid at Mrs. Glisson's.

After that first meeting it was easy. They were reserved for a time, but Alice was so unaffected, so eagerly interested in their lives and so sympathetic that they forgot her dainty clothes, her correct speech, her evident refinement, and remembered only that she was a woman.

Slowly Alice won their confidence; they invited her to their homes and she began to see that Dr. Rawls had not exaggerated. The camp was poverty-stricken when it should have been comfortable; the houses were poorly furnished, the women's clothes shoddy, and they went in daily fear of their men.

"'Tain't them, it's the whisky," Mrs. Glisson explained one afternoon in a burst of confidence. "My man, now, he's a good man. He's real considerate when he ain't got likker in him."

Many were like that. As Alice saw more of the home life of the camp, she understood more of what was wrong. The men were squandering their money on whisky and at the gambling tables of the club.

She waited hopefully for some sign that her husband saw and understood, but there was none. He did not mention the camp and Alice did not tell him of her thoughts. The time was not yet.