The Coal Tattoo Page 3

  “Remember this,” Vine said, looking up at the sky. “You’ll never see anything else like it in your life.”

  But now Anneth was bearing witness once again. Tonight it was only the lone bird, but somehow this seemed even better. She pushed her hair back under her beret, arched her body close to the ground, and brought her hands out very slowly, cupping them together so she could scoop up the little redbird or at least touch its feathers, the way Vine had. It didn’t move as she drew near. She was so close to it that she thought her hands could feel its tiny heat. And then she stepped into the moonlight, casting a shadow over the redbird. At that, it flew away on wings that sounded like soft crinolines.

  Anneth stood in the middle of the path and looked at the treetops stupidly. No matter the amount of moonlight, she was never going to be able to see that little redbird again. She eyed the moon and thanked it for the chance to see this sight. She knew that she had been given this moment. It was magic—she was sure of that—and magic was the thing that Anneth looked for every day. She did not wonder what this meant or why it had happened, but accepted it as something she was blessed to see.

  Anneth had sneaked out of the house. Only a week before, Easter had forbidden her to be running wild, but it was Christmas break and there was a party at the pine patch tonight. She wasn’t about to miss it. As she went farther up the path, the sound of the creek behind her became quieter and she could hear people’s voices as they drank and talked by the bonfire. Somebody had brought along a transistor radio, and Anneth could hear its music. But then she heard the strum of a guitar and she began to walk a little faster at the thought of a song actually being created right there on the ridge.

  Anneth drew a cigarette out of her coat pocket and fired her Zippo. She was almost up the ridge and wanted to make sure she had a Lucky hanging from her lips when she came into the clearing. She tried to blow out her smoke the way Natalie Wood had in Rebel Without a Cause. She wanted to be Natalie Wood, the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, all hugged up with James Dean. Really she wanted to be James Dean. She still got choked up when she thought about that movie; it had nearly killed her to see the longing in his eyes, the yearning he carried around so plain for everyone to witness.

  She shoved her hands into the pockets of her long coat and walked a little faster, glancing back once to where the spot of moonlight had lain on the path. There was nothing but darkness down there now.

  Everybody was up there at the pine patch—Lonzo Morgan and Lolie and Israel and several cousins and all her friends. People she had known all her life. The flames of the bonfire caught in the glass of the jars and bottles that were being passed around. Everyone sat on felled trees, laughing and carrying on so loudly that it took her a moment to hear the music again. There was a boy sitting on a stump, strumming on his guitar; he was playing a song she had never heard before. It was such a soft, light sound, like slow-moving waves washing up onto rocks. He was tall and long fingered and had thick black hair. He wasn’t much to look at, really. But there was something about him, something about the way he held his eyes shut as he ran his thumb over the guitar strings. She liked the way he leaned into the guitar, cradling it against his chest. The way he seemed to be swept away by the song, as if he could feel every mournful note running through his body. She wanted to be like that. She wanted to get up on a stage and let everyone see her passion playing out on her face.

  She stood there frozen for a moment, tuning out all the voices and laughter so she could focus on his music. It was as if he had been playing music that everyone loved, then had lapsed into his own composition and lost the interest of the others. But he had Anneth’s attention. When the song was over and he opened his eyes, she saw that they filled out his whole face. They made what was once a plain, regular face into something altogether different, and she could see that they were outlined in black, like all of the coal miners’. Anneth loved the way the coal got into a miner’s eyelashes like mascara and stayed there permanently. His eyes were so blue they nearly glowed, the way Serena’s iridescent candy dish shone when sunlight fell on it through the window.

  Lolie was suddenly beside her, holding a bottle in front of Anneth’s face. She had known Lolie so long that she thought of her as family. Lolie wore too much eye makeup and too much perfume—so much that it settled on Anneth’s clothes when she stood near—but she was the wildest girl that Anneth knew, and Anneth appreciated that about her.

  “Easter will kill you for sneaking out,” Lolie said, and forced the bottle into Anneth’s hand. “You might as well be drunk when you face her.”

  Anneth took a long pull on the bourbon and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her coat. She didn’t take her eyes from the guitar player. He was looking at her as if he was memorizing her face.

  “Who’s that?” she said, pointing the mouth of the bottle his way before handing it back to Lolie. She wanted him to know they were talking about him.

  “Matthew Morgan,” Lolie said. “I don’t know who invited him up here. He’s sort of quiet, but he sure can sing.”

  “He’s pretty,” Anneth said.

  Lolie arched her eyebrow and studied him for a moment. “If you say so,” she said, then tapped Anneth’s arm with her knuckles. “You going to party with me or not?”

  Anneth looked up at the sky. There were so many stars that she thought she could feel their heat. She scanned the tops of the trees, looking for the redbird. Perhaps it had followed her here.

  “Might as well,” she said, and took another drink. The warmth of the liquor spread out through her arms and into the tips of her fingers.

  They tuned in a good AM station on the transistor radio and they all sang along when “Sixteen Tons” came on, their arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders. Anneth was so drunk that she felt as if she could simply put her arms out like wings and float away from the whole crowd. She wished she were the redbird. She wanted to drift up, up where she could look down and see them standing there together, all of them a little in love with one another.

  But then the song was over and everyone started to scatter. She noticed the fire was getting lower and lower. She picked up a small log and poked at the flames for a time. She took a deep breath of the woodsmoke and stood close to the fire so the scent would soak into her coat. The smell of the pines pushed at her from all sides, too, as soothing as menthol. She could feel the cold seeping through the back of her coat and thought about moving away from the fire so she could keep that sensation, but instead she took out a cigarette and held it against the embers. She sucked in the hickory flavor when she drew on the Lucky Strike.

  She tried to shake away thoughts of Easter, lying asleep back at home. She hated that she was betraying her sister. She looked up at the sky for some comfort. The moon was nearing in on being full, and millions of stars spilled out on the blue blackness. The sky was always changing, but most people didn’t notice this. Every night there was something different about it, whether it was the size of the moon or the number of stars or the texture of the blackness. Looking at the sky, Anneth thought, was like seeing God. When it was at its most beautiful, she sometimes had to turn away because it seemed too intimate.

  All at once the guitar player was standing very near. She saw him only out of the corner of her eye, but she had memorized his shape by now. She could even make out his stance—hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, feet set apart as if he were firming himself against a strong wind. “Hey,” he said.

  She turned her head and met his gaze. “Hey, yourself.”

  “I been watching you this night,” he said. He stood very close to her and she thought she could feel the heat of his body moving off him in waves. She looked again at his eyes. They made her feel as if she were peering over a high cliff that she couldn’t resist jumping off.

  “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said, and took a hard draw on her cigarette. She let the smoke curl from her lips.

  He smiled. “I believe you’re the best
-looking girl I’ve ever seen.”

  She tried not to grin and looked back up at the sky. It seemed lit from behind now, a sign of snow. She could feel the bourbon rise in her throat and catch there, hot and acrid, before going back down.

  “Have you quit talking to me?” he asked.

  “Do you believe in magic?” she said. “Do you think there really is magic in this world?”

  “Yeah,” he said without a pause. He stepped closer and put his big hand on her arm. “I do.”

  “Me, too.”

  She had a sudden image of Easter waking up and looking about her dark bedroom. She could almost hear her hollering out, “Anneth?” to the emptiness of the house and only the creaks of the wood answering her.

  “I have to get going,” Anneth said. “It was nice to meet you, Matthew Morgan. I like the way your name sounds. Like it’s a made-up name, the two Ms.”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “I asked,” she said, and slipped into the woods, finding the path easily. Even though the moon wasn’t completely full, it gave off light that touched the limbs with silver. She ran through the woods, aware of everything on either side of her. She could hear the creek, its sound intensifying as the water gained momentum on its way down the mountain. The trees seemed abnormally large; she expected their limbs to reach out and grab her. She smelled the coal smoke of the houses down below and the metal scent of cold. By the time she had made her way back down to the creek, she could hear Lolie up there calling for her. She liked the idea of their not knowing where she had run off to.

  The houses were all dark. She hurried up the road and ran around to the back of their house and eased the back door open, but it creaked anyway. She stepped into Easter’s room and saw her lying there, so still. She leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

  “I love you, Sister,” she whispered. Easter’s skin was warm. She had feared it might not be. She worried all the time about discovering Easter dead. Any day, she might find herself completely alone in the world.

  EASTER AWOKE TO the smell of woodsmoke. It overtook her bedroom—a rich, hearty smell, the scent of warmth and light. She lay there without moving, staring out her window at the ghostly image of a gibbous moon that hung just above the mountain. Behind the old glass its shape was distorted and seemed to shimmer on the December sky, lit with the strange blue black of approaching daylight.

  The scent of woodsmoke was one of knowledge. Anneth, she knew, had sneaked out the night before, and when she’d returned, she had come into Easter’s bedroom to see if she was awake. Easter could picture her sister stepping carefully to avoid the planks in the floor that screeched the loudest, easing the door closed. But still Anneth had chanced getting caught just to come in and check on her. She wondered how long Anneth had stood there watching her sleep.

  Four

  Midnight and Lonesome

  ANNETH TOOK THE SHOTGUN out of Easter’s bedroom closet, balanced it on her shoulder, and set out for the mountain. She whistled a tune she couldn’t name and thought of what Serena had always said: A whistling woman is pure of spirit. Anneth eyed the gray, moving sky that gathered low and threatened snow, her feet finding their own way on the familiar path up the mountain. She wrapped her bare hand around the metal of the gun and savored the coldness that lived there.

  She spied a clump of mistletoe and planted her feet firmly. She brought the gun up to her shoulder, set her sights, and pulled the trigger. The mistletoe broke away and dropped down, clattering against limbs. She left it lying on the ground as she shot out another clump in the high branches of a gum tree.

  Anneth shoved the mistletoe into the pockets of her coat and went on up to the top of the mountain. She stood on the outcropping of rock with her fists on her hips and looked out over the valley. The sky moved low and gray over the curls of smoke that rose up. Far across on the opposite ridge she saw a new mine. The company had cleared off a whole shelf of land to make a parking lot for the miners and it was a raw place on the earth. She looked away, remembering how that land had belonged to some of Lolie’s people before it had been taken away from them. Coal companies could do that. It made Anneth too mad to think about. She closed her eyes and drew in the winter air, then turned without looking anymore.

  She drew the butcher knife out of her pocket and hacked off the limb of a young cedar, then went back down the ridge, gathering boughs of holly and pine and laurel. She had so much Christmas greenery she could barely carry it all. Easter would die over Anneth’s getting the shotgun out—it had been their father’s and Anneth knew it was not to be touched—but she didn’t care. That was the best way to get mistletoe out of the trees, and it was time to decorate the house. Easter was always getting upset over something these days, anyway.

  They had fought the last two weeks without end, but now it was almost Christmas, and Anneth had no intention of squabbling through the holiday. Easter still refused to let her go out, even though school was not in session and everyone else was at the pine patch every night. A few days ago, Anneth had lain down in her clothes, waited until past midnight, and then carefully crept from her room, planning on joining the others for another party. But when she got to the kitchen, there sat Easter, drinking a cup of cocoa and waiting for her. She had found out about Anneth’s last trip to the pine patch. “You carried the smoke home with you from the bonfire,” she said.

  Anneth whistled while she hung the greenery from the door-frames. She placed the cuttings all over the house, got out the red candles that they only burned at Christmastime, and popped corn to put on the tree they would go get later in the evening. She didn’t want to fetch it without Easter. That would have been far too lonesome, to go cut a tree by oneself. Anneth was standing on a chair, nailing the mistletoe over the door between the kitchen and the living room, when Easter returned from town with Sophie.

  The gun was still lying there on the kitchen table, but Easter didn’t say a word about it. “Well, the house sure does look Christmassy,” she said.

  At least they could put the arguments aside to celebrate Christmas properly. Later, when they went to cut down their tree, Anneth had to bite her tongue to keep from mentioning the New Year’s Eve party again. Easter had said that Anneth could not go, that she had to be punished for sneaking out to the honky-tonk. Anneth didn’t mention it as she watched her sister walking in front of her, made big and round by her double layer of coats, carrying the big end of the tree.

  On Christmas Eve they walked to Sophie and Paul’s with their arms interlocked. Sophie met them at the door with her Christmas apron on. She was small and kind faced, her hair pulled up into a neat bun on the back of her head. What remained of their family was there. There was Paul, of course, sitting in his usual chair and entertaining everyone with his stories. Lolie brought her fiancé, Israel, but never hushed long enough for him to talk. She was still going on about how her cousin had lost his whole mountain to the coal company. They had a broad form deed and Lolie explained what this was, over and over, as if all of them didn’t already know. Gabe came over from Pushback Gap with his new wife, Jimmie, who wore a tight skirt and drank liquor from a red aluminum cup that Gabe kept going outside to refill, as if every one of them didn’t know any difference. No one said a word about it, even though Sophie set her mouth firmly and kept giving knowing looks to Easter. Jimmie watched them all with wet eyes. Her people had moved to Detroit to find work, and she kept saying, “I miss them terrible bad.” Then she’d hand Gabe the red cup again and say, “Fix me another one, baby.”

  When the men went out to set off fireworks, Anneth went with them, although the rest of the women stayed inside. She begged Gabe for a drink of bourbon and he finally let her have a sip from the fifth he had hidden beneath the driver’s seat in his car.

  “That’s enough,” he said, snatching the bottle out of her hands. “Wild-ass.”

  AT MIDNIGHT, ANNETH and Easter walked back up the road to their own little house. The heat of the coal stove hit
them when they got inside.

  “Let’s open our presents tonight,” Easter said.

  “Can we?” Anneth said, and clapped her hands.

  Anneth had done enough babysitting to buy Easter a bottle of Heaven Sent perfume. Sophie had helped her make a bookmark for Easter’s Bible out of quilt scraps. Actually, Anneth hadn’t done anything except choose the colors—which Sophie had thought were too loud and bright for a Bible marker—but it was beautiful and Easter claimed to love it.

  Anneth sat on the floor like a little child and opened her presents, carelessly ripping away the wrapping paper. When Anneth spread everything out before her, she knew that Easter had spent too much on her. There was a lipstick, a sweater set, a pair of galoshes, and a stack of movie magazines tied up with a length of twine. Easter sat on the floor beside her, watching her face.

  “Why are you so good to me, Easter,” Anneth said, “after all I put you through?”

  “I’ve got something else for you, too.”

  “What is it?” Anneth said, and looked around the tree for another box.

  “I’m going to go to that New Year’s Eve party with you,” Easter said. “You know I don’t like to go to things like that, but I know how bad you want this.”

  Anneth wrapped her arms around Easter and held her close. She thought she could feel the blood running through both of their veins. She promised herself to never, ever betray Easter’s trust again.

  She would try, at least.

  ANNETH INSISTED THAT they walk. It wasn’t far to the old schoolhouse, anyway. The wind came up the valley in great gusts, blowing their skirts flat against their knees and smoothing back their hair. Easter had let Anneth fix her hair tonight. Anneth had fashioned Easter’s hair into a fancy bun, although she usually just wore it pulled up in a knot on the back of her head. Her hair was too long—all the way down to the small of her back—and she sometimes thought of cutting it, but the Bible said a woman’s hair was her glory, so she let it keep growing. Anneth had put little sprigs of holly all over the bun, and Easter actually thought it was pretty when she held the hand mirror up to look at herself in the chifforobe mirror. She had wrapped a gauze scarf around her head, but Anneth let her own hair fly. She never spent much time getting fixed up or fooling with her hair, and Easter loved this lack of vanity in her sister.