Дэвид Балдаччи - Wish You Well

“Good thing iron doesn’t burn,” remarked Cotton, as he watched Eugene working away on the anvil, which still stood in the middle of what used to be the barn.

All of Eugene’s hard work netted them enough nails to finish another third of the first wall, and that was all.

They had been at this for many cold days now, and all they had to show for it was one hole and a single finished corner post and no way to allow either to meet, and a wall without enough nails to hold it together.

They collected early one morning around the post and hole to mull this over, and all agreed the situation did not look good. A hard winter was creeping ever closer and they had no barn. And Sue, the cows, and even the mules were showing the ill effects of being out in the freezing air all night. They could not afford to lose any more livestock.

And as bad as this plight was, it was really the least of their problems, for while Louisa had regained consciousness from time to time, she had not spoken a word when awake, and her eyes appeared dead. Travis Barnes was very worried, and fretted that he should send her to Roanoke, but he was afraid she would still not survive the trip, and the fact was, there wasn’t much they could do for her there anyway. She had been able to drink and eat a bit, and while it wasn’t much, Lou took it as something to hold on to. It was as much as her mother was able to do. At least they were both still alive.

Lou looked around their small, depressed group, then gazed at the naked trees on the angled slopes and wished winter would magically dissolve to summer’s warmth, and Louisa would rise fine and healthy from her sickbed. The sounds of the wheels made them all turn and stare. The line of approaching wagons pulled by mule, horse, and oxen teams was a long one. They were filled with cut lumber, large padstones, kegs of nails, ropes, ladders, block and tackle, augers, and all manners of other tools, that Lou suspected came in part from McKenzie’s Mercantile. Lou counted thirty men in all, all from the mountain, all of them farmers. Strong, quiet, bearded, they wore coarse clothing and wide-brimmed hats against a winter’s sun, and all had large, thick hands severely battered by both the mountain elements and a lifetime of hard work. With them were a half dozen women. They unloaded their supplies. While the women laid out canvas and blankets and used Louisa’s cookstove and fireplace to start preparing the meals, the men began to build a barn.

Under Eugene’s direction, they constructed supports for the block and tackle. Forgoing the route of post and mortar in hole, they opted to use the large, flat padstones for the barn’s foundation. They dug shallow footers, laid the stones, leveled them, and then placed massive hewn timbers across the stones as the sill plates. These plates were secured together all around the foundation. Additional timbers were run down the middle of the barn floor and attached to the sill plates. Later, other posts would be placed here and braced to support the roof framework and hayloft. Using the block and tackle, the mule teams lifted the massive corner posts up and on top of the sill plates. Thick brace timbers were nailed into the corner posts on either side, and then the braces themselves were firmly attached to the plates.

With the barn’s foundation set, the wall frames were built on the ground, and Eugene measured and marked and called out instructions on placement. Ladders were put up against the corner posts and holes augured into them. They used the block and tackle to raise other timbers up to be used as the crossbeams. Holes had been hand-drilled through these timbers, and they were attached to the corner posts with long metal bolts.

There was a shout as the first wall was run up, and each time after that as the remaining walls were built and run up. They framed the roof, and then the hammering became relentless as stud walls were further built out. Saws sliced through the air, cold breaths crowded each other, sawdust swirled in the breeze, men held nails in their mouths, and hands moved hammers with practiced motions.

Two meals were rung for, and the men dropped to the ground and ate hard each time. Lou and Oz carried plates of warm food and pots filled with hot chicory coffee to the groups of tired men. Cotton sat with his back against the rail fence, sipping his coffee, resting his sore muscles, and watching with a broad smile as a barn began to emerge out of nothing but the sweat and charity of good neighbors.

As Lou placed a platter of hot bread slathered with butter in front of the men, she said, “I want to thank all of you for helping.”

Buford Rose picked up a piece of the bread and took a savage, if near toothless, bite. “Well, got to hep each other up here, ’cause ain’t nobody else gonna. Ask my woman, ain’t b’lieve me. And Lord knows Louisa’s done her share of hepping folks round here.” He looked over at Cotton, who tipped his cup of coffee to the man. “I knowed what I said to you ’bout being all worked out, Cotton, but lotta folk got it badder’n me. My brother be a dairy farmer down the Valley. Can’t barely walk no more with all that setting on the stool, fingers done curled like some crazy root. And folk say two things dairy farmer ain’t never gonna need they’s whole lives: suit’a nice clothes and a place to sleep.” He tore off another bread chunk.

A young man said, “Hell, Ms. Louisa done borned me. My ma say I aint’a coming to this world what she not there.” Other men nodded and grinned at this remark. One of them looked over to where Eugene was standing near the rising structure, chewing on a piece of chicken and figuring out the next tasks to be done.

“And he done help me raise new barn two spring ago. Man good with hammer ’n saw. Ain’t no lie.”

From under knotted plugs of eyebrows Buford Rose studied Lou’s features. “I ’member your daddy good, girl. You done take after him fine. That boy, all the time pestering folk with questions. I had to tell him I done ain’t got no more words in my head.” He gave a near toothless grin, and Lou smiled back.

The work continued. One group planked the roof and then laid out the roll of roofing paper on top. Another team, headed up by Eugene, fashioned the double doors for both ends, as well as the hayloft doors, while yet another group planked and daubed the outside walls. When it got too dark to see what they were hitting and cutting, kerosene lamps lit the night. The hammering and sawing got to be almost pleasing to hear. Almost. None complained, though, when the final board had been laid, the last nail driven. It was well into dark when the work was done and the wagons headed out.

Eugene, Cotton, and the children wearily herded the animals into their new home and laid the floor with hay gathered from the fields and the corncrib. The hayloft, stalls, storage bins, and such still needed to be built out, and the roll of roofing would eventually need to be covered with proper wood shingles, but the animals were inside and warm. With a very relieved smile, Eugene shut the barn doors tight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Cotton was driving the children down to visit Louisa. Though they were well into winter, heavy snow had not yet come, merely dustings of several inches, though it would only be a matter of time before it fell hard and deep. They passed the coal company town where Diamond had adorned the superintendent’s new Chrysler Crown Imperial with horse manure. The town was empty now, the housing abandoned, the store vacant, the tipple sagging, the entrance to the mine boarded up, and the mine superintendent’s fancy, horseshitted Chrysler long gone.

“What happened?” said Lou.

“Shut down,” answered Cotton grimly. “Fourth mine in as many months. Veins were already petering out, but then they found out the coke they make here is too soft for steel production, so America’s fighting machine went looking elsewhere for its raw material. Lot of folks here out of work. And the last lumber company moved on to Kentucky two months ago. A double blow. Farmers on the mountain had a good year, but the people in the towns are hurting bad. It’s usually one or the other. Prosperity only seems to come in halves up here.” Cotton shook his head. “Indeed, the fine mayor of Dickens resigned his post, sold out his stake at inflated prices before the crash, and headed to Pennsylvania to seek a new fortune. I’ve often found the ones who talk the best game are the first ones to run at the earliest sign of trouble.”