Light to the Hills: A Novel (11)

Amanda laughed bitterly to herself and turned over in the bed. She fell asleep finally, bone-tired. She dreamed of the MacInteers paging through The Velveteen Rabbit and, in a confluence of her subconscious, of Hiccup and Miles chasing chickens through the yard.





Chapter 4


Riding the rails made for an easy transfer if a feller wanted a quick jump on an opportunity. Gripp Jessup had availed himself of the L&N boxcars more than once when opportunity came knocking. Usually, after he’d milked a place dry, he didn’t bother stopping by a second time, but something about the mining town at the base of Pickins drew him like a bee to honeysuckle. Mainly, he knew for a fact prime spots for stills lay untapped up the mountain, and he was itching to get there and get to work.

Gripp’s looks had changed since he’d been there last. He’d chipped a front tooth (never mind how), grown his beard out, and gained a scar over one eye. He was like an old tomcat who took his beatings and kept on the prowl. Then there was the matter of his hand, which had taken some time but he’d finally gotten used to. All he had to do was keep an eye out, and sooner or later, the right feller would come along to set up an enterprise. If he was lucky, he might find a willing woman somewhere in the mountains who’d lend him a bed, although mostly he’d found they were more trouble than they warranted. All except his mama, who was only a ghost and hardly counted.

Gripp Jessup did know his mama, they told him, at least that first year after he was born, though he had no memory of it and certainly no picture. He imagined he’d heard her sing and felt her cool hand smooth the cowlick on the crown of his head like a reflex. She’d probably bent down to hold his raised hands as he teetered his first wobbly steps across the cabin floor. He’d walked early, his pa had told him, because the world knew he was meant to make his own way sooner than most.

When Gripp’s mama took ill, his daddy started beating the bushes for some help. Nola was the first woman who’d shown up on the doorstep before the pine box had had time to settle in the earth. She carried over poke sallet and a stewed rabbit, and that was possum on the stump as far as Jay Jessup was concerned. It wasn’t long before Gripp shared a bed, head to toe, with two other littl’uns, who kicked and shoved him to where the quilt didn’t quite reach.

Folks jawed about Nola being a good woman and how his daddy was lucky to have chanced on her. She was certainly good to her boys, but apparently, Nola didn’t consider Gripp a bud on her particular family tree. He was the oldest, she preached, so he should learn to share, shoulder more of the work, and give his brothers a break. If any of these things had earned him favor, that might have been one thing, but all Gripp ever garnered was scorn and sharp words. Children were women’s concern, and Gripp reckoned his daddy’d rather have curves and warmth in bed with him on a cold night than a coddled son who couldn’t take some briars.

Gripp kept out of Nola’s way. As he saw it, she was colder than a witch’s tit and twice as sour. The only things she loved were her two boys and a flea-bitten hound dog that lived under the porch and followed her everywhere. Many a time he’d be fixing fences or chopping wood and glance at the house to see her kicked back in a chair, cooing and petting on that hound.

Gripp learned two things from his time in that house: that jealousy could cling like ivy and that he had a knack for storytelling. When his brothers were small and left in his care, the only way to stop their constant torment was to tell tales. Gripp could weave a web. He could make those boys sit stiller than a church mouse while he concocted stories, and he had no idea where they came from, just bubbling up from some word factory that pumped them out on demand. A gift, maybe, from his long-dead mama, trying to send him some comfort in the world.

Gripp’s fairy tales turned to exaggerations, untruths, and straight-out whoppers just because he could. And why not? A lie was a gamble that could land him a gain, and Gripp had about as strong a taste for gambling as for biscuits and gravy. It was all in how you told it, just enough truth to sink the hook and reel them in. But he couldn’t fool Nola; she had his number.

“Boy, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining,” she’d scold, clamping her fingers on his shoulder till he thought his bones might break.

Gripp sat back from the edge of the boxcar as the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the wheels against iron track lulled him into a half doze. The landscape had changed since Memphis, flat fields finally rising into hills. Gripp had been restless to get a move on. He’d taken up with a young blonde thing, who’d put him in mind of a girl he’d been sweet on once. He scratched his beard as he thought about it.

Gripp had wheedled his way into the Sutton family and started courting Rebecca. He was this close to asking Rebecca’s daddy for permission to get married when he’d run up on Jay and Nola Jessup talking to Mr. Sutton and his daughter near the schoolhouse. Gripp had watched as Rebecca blinked hard, her long, dark lashes trying their darndest to hold back tears, the tip of her lightly freckled nose turning pink. Jay and Nola seemed not to notice. They’d been too focused on Rebecca’s daddy, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets. His mouth was clamped tight beneath his bushy mustache, cheeks blotched with spots of red.

Nola laughed gaily as she lobbed stone after stone, her hand resting lightly on Gripp’s daddy’s arm. “Gripp? My Gripp?” His stomach had twisted at the hint of ownership. When had she ever treated him as hers? “Why, he’s so poor he can hardly pay attention!”