Light to the Hills: A Novel (14)

“I think Finn might like to be sweet on Miz Amanda Rye,” Fern offered.

Sass stopped walking. “The book woman? You’re crazier’n a starved squirrel. She’s too old for him anyhow. Got a young’un.”

“That don’t make her old,” Fern teased. “I heard her tell Mama she was only twenty-one. That’s just two years on Finn. Plus, didn’t you see the way he was stealing looks at her at dinner?”

Sass rolled her eyes. “Jus’ ’cause you want to act like a heifer in heat don’t mean everybody else sees things the same. Finn don’t even know her.”

Fern smirked at Sass and flounced down the hill. Their cabin was just ahead through the trees. “Don’t have to know her to fancy her. We can just ask him, I guess.”

They both stopped short and looked at each other when the cabin came into view. A wagon sat out front with a thin chestnut horse in its traces. Several men stood around it, their faces and arms still black from their shift in the coal mine. Even from this distance away, the whites of their eyes jumped out of their faces like they’d been painted on.

Sass and Fern ran, not caring if the thorns along the path tore at their arms and legs, leaving bloodied scratches. They felt none of the sting. Sass could hardly breathe. A great fist had a hold of her heart as she ran. Was it even still beating? Was it Finn? Or Daddy? Or no, Lord, no, both of them?

As they entered the clearing where the cabin stood, they slowed, taking in the grim faces of the miners. Digger and Tuck turned in circles near the steps, tails tucked and eyes wary, prophets of bad things to come. Sass’s heart sunk further and she gasped for breath, gripping Fern’s hand as they climbed the porch steps. It was too dim to see inside the cabin after they’d been outside in the sun. She looked around frantically, willing her wide eyes to adjust, tears streaking her sweaty, flushed cheeks. Their chests heaved beneath their cotton dresses.

Mama put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Girls,” she said, her voice steady and calm. “I’m gonna need you to mind Hiccup for a while. Seems there was a cave-in, and your brother’s gonna need some doctoring.”

Finn. Fern took Hiccup and sat with her by the hearth while Sass walked her leaden feet to the pallet in the corner. Harley crouched in a chair by the bedside, his arm in a sling and his face as smudged as the others’ outside. Finn lay on the bed. His eyes were closed, and his left leg was bandaged from the knee down. The dressing was thick, but blood still seeped through, darkening the bandages, which bore black smudges of fingerprints from the hands that had carried him into the house.

“He’ll be all right,” Harley said. His voice sounded scratched and hoarse from coal dust and, Sass imagined, plenty of hollering. “Doctor said he’s seen a lot worse, and Finn’s strong. He’s a tough ’un—you should have seen him in there. Doc done give him something to sleep.”

Sass nodded at her daddy, wanting to believe him. “Your arm?” she started. Harley waved her off.

“This ain’t nothing. Just a little banged up is all.”

Sass knelt beside the pallet and held Finn’s filthy hand, limp and cold in hers, though his hair was plastered to his head by the sweat beading on his brows. He labored to breathe, unaware of her or anyone else in the close room. Sass shook. She knew it, knew when they weren’t home by morning, that something bad had happened. She’d been so distracted by the book woman’s visit that she hadn’t held those sunflowers in her mind.

She got the water bucket from the kitchen and gathered a couple of clean rags. Rai saw her intention and lifted the bucket from her hands. Together they knelt beside the pallet where her brother lay, dipped the rags into the water, and little by little, scrubbed the coal from his neck, face, and arms while he lay still. It took four buckets of water to get the job done. No sooner had they dirtied one than Cricket had drawn another from the well. Once Finn was clean, his face looked starkly pale against the pillow.

Mama emptied the bucket and started heating more water on the stove.

“Harley, your turn next. I’m fixing to scrub the memory of this clean out of here. Go tell those men thank you very much for carrying y’all home. Now we’re just gonna sit tight and pray for healing.”

In the corner, Sass picked up Finn’s filthy shirt and the sack he used for toting their lunch pails. The men must have tossed it there when they’d carried him inside. She’d get some creek water and wash the shirt tomorrow, hang it on the line so that it smelled of the outside once it dried in the sun. Something remained in the bottom of the sack. Sass reached her arm in and pulled out a small parcel wrapped in wax paper. She let the sack drop at her feet as she unwrapped the square. Four sticks of red-and-white-striped peppermint candies. Sass’s throat tightened as she realized what she held. He’d traded her sang at the mercantile and remembered to bring back her birthday candy, enough for her, Fern, Cricket, and Hiccup.

Pa’s good hand rested on her shoulder. “He traded for that before the shift started. Wanted to be sure we got it in case the store was closed when we got through.”

“I don’t want it,” she said, hastily rewrapping the parcel and handing it to her father.

He frowned at her. “Now, then, if Finn here went to all the trouble to remember it and make the trade, I reckon he’d take offense if you just cast it aside.”