Wish You Well(83)

of what the farmer needed in it. 'Some people are not cut out for a life of such rich

rewards,' he said. 'It is your wife you are speaking of now,' the preacher stated. 'Perhaps

it is me,' the farmer said. 'God will lead you to the truth, my son,' the preacher said. Can

a man be afraid of the truth? the farmer wanted to know. A man can be afraid of

anything, the preacher told him. They rested there a bit, for the farmer had run clear out

of words. Then he watched as the clouds came, the heavens opened, and the water rushed

to touch them. He rose, for there was work to be done now. 'You see,' said the holy man,

'my words have come true. God has shown you the way.' 'We will see,' the farmer said.

'For it is late in the season now.' As he moved off to return to his land, the preacher

called after him. 'Son of the soil,' he said, 'if the crops come fine, remember thy church in

thy bounty.' The farmer looked back and touched his hand to the brim of his hat. 'The

Lord does work in mysterious ways,' he told the other man. And then he turned and left

the eyes and ears of God behind."

Lou folded the letter and looked at Louisa, hoping she had done the right thing by reading

the words to her. Lou wondered if the young Jack Cardinal had noticed that the story had

become far more personal when it addressed the issue of a crumbling marriage.

Louisa stared into the fire. She was silent for a few minutes and then said, "It be a hard

life up here, 'specially for a child. And it hard on husband and wife, though I ain't never

suffered that. If my momma and daddy ever said a cross word to the other, I ain't never

heard it. And me and my man Joshua get along to the minute he took his last breath. But I

know it not that way for your daddy _ here. Jake and his wife, they had their words."

Lou took a quick breath and said, "Dad wanted you to come and live with us. Would you

have?"

She looked at Lou. "You ask me why I don't never leave this place? I love this land, Lou,

'cause it won't never let me down. If the crops don't come, I eat the apples or wild

strawberries that always do, or the roots that's there right under the soil, if'n you know

where to look. If it snow ten-foot deep, I can get along. Rain or hail, or summer heat that

melt tar, I get by. I find water where there ain't supposed to be none, I get on. Me and the

land. Me and this mountain. That ain't prob'ly mean nothing to folks what can have light

by pushing a little knob, or talk to people they can't even see." She paused and drew a

breath. "But it means everything to me." She looked into the fire once more. "All your

daddy say is true. High rock be beautiful. High rock be cruel." She gazed at Lou and

added quietly, "And the mountain is my home."

Lou leaned her head against Louisa's chest. The woman stroked Lou's hair very gently

with her hand as they sat there by the fire's warmth.

And then Lou said something she thought she never would. "And now it's my home too."



CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

FLAKES OF SNOW WERE DROPPING FROM THE BELLIES of bloated clouds. Near the barn

there came a whooshing sound and then a spark of harsh light that kept right on growing.

Inside the farmhouse Lou groaned in the throes of a nightmare. Her and Oz's beds had

been moved to the front room, by the coal fire, and they were bundled under crazy quilts

Louisa had sewn over the years. In Lou's tortured sleep she heard a noise, but couldn't tell

what it was. She opened her eyes, sat up. There came a scratching at the door. In an

instant Lou was alert. She opened the door and Jeb burst in, yipping and jumping.

"Jeb, what is it? What's wrong?"

Then she heard the screams of the farm animals.

Lou ran out in her nightshirt. Jeb followed her, barking, and Lou saw what had spooked

him: The barn was fully ablaze. She ran back to the house, screamed out what was

happening, and then raced to the barn.

Eugene appeared at the front door of the farmhouse, saw the fire, and hurried out, Oz at

his heels.

When Lou threw open the big barn door, smoke and flames leapt out at her.

"Sue! Bran!" she screamed as the smoke hit her lungs; she could feel the hairs on her

arms rise from the heat.

Eugene fast-limped past her, plunged into the barn, and then came right back out,

gagging. Lou looked at the trough of water by the corral and a blanket hanging over the

fence. She grabbed the blanket and plunged it into the cold water.

"Eugene, put this over you."

Eugene covered himself with the wet blanket and then lunged back into the barn.

Inside a beam dropped down and barely missed Eugene. Smoke and fire were

everywhere. Eugene was as familiar with the insides of this barn as he was with anything

on the farm, yet it was as though he had been struck blind. He finally got to Sue, who was