Дэвид Балдаччи - Wish You Well

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Cotton showed up with Diamond a week later and handed out small American flags to Lou, Oz, and Eugene. He had also brought a five-gallon can of gas, which he put in the Hudson’s fuel tank. “We all can’t fit in the Olds,” he explained. “And I handled an estate problem for Leroy Meekins who runs the Esso station. Leroy doesn’t like to pay in cash, though, so one could say I’m flush with oil products right now.”

With Eugene driving, the five went down to Dickens to watch the parade. Louisa stayed behind to keep watch over Amanda, but they promised to bring her back something.

They ate hot dogs with great splotches of mustard and ketchup, swirls of cotton candy, and enough soda pop to make the children run to the public toilet with great frequency. There were contests of skill at booths set up wherever space was available, and Oz cleaned up on all those that involved throwing something in order to knock something else down. Lou bought a pretty bonnet for Louisa, which she let Oz carry in a paper bag.

The town was done up in red, white, and blue, and both townfolk and those from the mountain lined both sides of the street as the floats came down. These barges on land were pulled by horse, mule, or truck and displayed the most important moments in America’s history, which, to most native Virginians, had naturally all occurred in the Commonwealth. There was a group of children on one such float representing the original thirteen colonies, with one boy carrying the Virginia colors, which were far bigger than the flags the other children carried, and he wore the showiest costume as well. A regiment of decorated war veterans from the area trooped by, including several men with long beards and shriveled bodies who claimed to have served with both the honorable Bobby Lee and the fanatically pious Stonewall Jackson.

One float, sponsored by Southern Valley, was devoted to the mining of coal and was pulled by a customized Chevrolet truck painted gold. There wasn’t a black-faced, wrecked-back miner in sight, but instead, smack in the center of the float, on a raised platform simulating a coal tipple, stood a pretty young woman with blond hair, a perfect complexion, and brilliant white teeth, wearing a sash that read “Miss Bituminous Coal 1940” and waving her hand as mechanically as a windup doll. Even the most dense in the crowd could probably grasp the implied connection between lumps of black rock and the pot of gold pulling it. And the men and boys gave the expected reaction of cheers and some catcalls to the passing beauty. There was one old and humpbacked woman standing next to Lou who told her that her husband and three sons all labored in the mines. The old woman watched the beauty queen with scornful eyes and then commented that that young gal had obviously never been near a coal mine in her entire life. And she wouldn’t know a lump of coal if it jumped up and grabbed her in the bituminous.

High-ranking representatives of the town made important speeches, motivating the citizens into bursts of enthusiastic applause. The mayor held forth from a temporary stage, with smiling, expensively dressed men next to him, who, Cotton told Lou, were Southern Valley officials. The mayor was young and energetic, with slicked hair, wearing a nice suit and fashionable watch and chain, and carrying boundless enthusiasm in his beaming smile and hands reaching to the sky, as though ready to snag on any rainbows trying to slip by.

“Coal is king,” the mayor announced into a clunky microphone almost as big as his head. “And what with the war heating up across the Atlantic and the mighty United States of America building ships and guns and tanks for our friends fighting Hitler, the steel mill’s demands for coke, our good, patriotic Virginia coke, will skyrocket. And some say it won’t be long before we join the fighting. Yes, prosperity is here in fine abundance and here it will stay,” said the mayor. “Not only will our children live the glorious American dream, but their children will as well. And it will be all due to the good work of folks like Southern Valley and their unrelenting drive to bring out the black rock that is driving this town to greatness. Rest assured, folks, we will become the New York City of the south. One day some will look back and say, ‘Who knew the outstanding things that destiny held for the likes of Dickens, Virginia?’ But y’all already know, because I’m telling you right now. Hip-hip hooray for Southern Valley and Dickens, Virginia.” And the exuberant mayor threw his straw boater hat high into the air. And the crowd joined him in the cheer, and more hats were catapulted into the swirling breeze. And though Diamond, Lou, Oz, Eugene, and Cotton all applauded too, and the children grinned happily at each other, Lou noticed that Cotton’s expression wasn’t one of unbridled optimism.

As night fell, they watched a display of fireworks color the sky, and then the group climbed in the Hudson and headed out of town. They had just passed the courthouse when Lou asked Cotton about the mayor’s speech and his muted reaction to it.

“Well, I’ve seen this town go boom and bust before,” he said. “And it usually happens when the politicians and the business types are cheering the loudest. So I just don’t know. Maybe it’ll be different this time, but I just don’t know.”

Lou was left to ponder this while the cheers of the fine celebration receded and then those sounds were gone entirely, replaced with wind whistling through rock and tree, as they headed back up the mountain.

There had not been much rain, but Louisa wasn’t worried yet, though she prayed every night for the skies to open up and bellow hard and long. They were weeding the cornfield, and it was a hot day and the flies and gnats were particularly bothersome. Lou scraped at the dirt, something just not seeming right. “We already planted the seeds. Can’t they grow by themselves?”

“Lot of things go wrong in farming and one or two most always do,” Louisa answered. “And the work don’t never stop, Lou. Just the way it is here.”

Lou swung the hoe over her shoulder. “All I can say is, this corn better taste good.”

“This here’s field corn,” Louisa told her. “For the animals.”

Lou almost dropped her hoe. “We’re doing all this work to feed the animals?”

“They work hard for us, we got to do the same for them. They got to eat too.”

“Yeah, Lou,” said Oz as he attacked the weeds with vigorous strokes. “How can hogs get fat if they don’t eat? Tell me that.”

They worked the hills of corn, side by side under the fierce sun, which was so close it almost seemed to Lou that she could reach up and pocket it. The katydids and crickets scraped tunes at them from all corners. Lou stopped hoeing and watched Cotton drive up to the house and get out.

“Cotton coming every day and reading to Mom is making Oz believe that she’s going to get better,” said Lou to Louisa, taking care that her brother did not hear her.

Louisa wielded the hoe blade with the energy of a young person and the skill of an old. “You right, it’s so terrible bad having Cotton helping your momma.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I like Cotton.”

Louisa stopped and leaned on her hoe. “You should, because Cotton Longfellow’s a good man, none better. He’s helped me through many a hard time since he come here. Not just with his lawyering, but with his strong back. When Eugene hurt his leg bad, he was here ever day for a month doing field work when he could’ve been in Dickens making himself good money. He’s helping your ma ’cause he wants her to get better. He wants her to be able to hold you and Oz agin.”

Lou said nothing to this, but was having trouble getting the hoeing down, chopping instead of slicing. Louisa took a minute to show her again, and Lou picked up the proper technique quickly.