"You don't like the town people very much, do you, Luke?" I asked. He was silent for a moment and then he spoke through his teeth.
"We'll drive down ,Main Street and you'll see that's where all the winners live. Maybe that's why they call this place Winnerrow."
"Winners?"
"The owners of the coal mines built their big houses here on the backs of the losers: miners who still die from black lung and the like. You also have the owners of the cotton gins that make fabric for bed and table linenes and owners of cotton mills with their invisible airborne lint that so many workers breathe into their lungs. And no one ever sued an owner for damages," he added angrily.
"Did you or any of your family ever work in the mines or mills, Luke?" I asked.
"My brothers did for a while when they were younger, but they couldn't hold down any sort of work long and took off on their own. My pappy wouldn't do that work. He'd rather scrounge out a livin' from the earth, take odd jobs here and there, or sell moonshine. And I can't say as I blame him.
"One thing I should tell you right off, Angel: the townspeople don't like us Willies folk much. They make us sit in the back in church and keep their children away from our children."
"Oh, that's terrible, Luke. Why take things out on little children?" I cried, thinking how hurt they must feel. Now I, too, understood why Luke was so bitter about the townspeople. "No one should feel better than anyone else."
"Yeah, well, you tell that to the mayor of Winnerrow," he said smiling. "I bet you could. I can't wait to get dressed up and take you to church, Angel. Can't wait," he said shaking his head.
We arrived at a fork in the road and Luke made a right turn that took us away from the macadam road and onto a hard-packed dirt and gravel road. It went on and on through the woods and finally became only a dirt road with ridges and bumps that made the truck toss and turn so hard, I had to grab hold of the door handle. As we drove on, my nostrils were tickled with the scents of honeysuckle and wild strawberries, and raspberries on the vine. It was cool and fresh and crisp here in the mountains of West Virginia, and it made me feel more alive. It was as if the mountain air washed away all the polluted air I had been breathing in the stale, cold and dreary rooms of Farthy; for that was the way I remembered it right now.
"Almost there, Angel. Hold on. Wait until Ma gets a gander at you."
I held my breath. Where did his family live? How could they be so far back in the woods? How could they have a house with pipes leading to a sewer system or to a water system? And where were the electric wires and telephone wires? All I saw were trees and bushes.
Suddenly, I thought I heard the sound of a banjo being played. Luke smiled widely.
"Pa's on the porch, strummin' away," he said.
We turned around a clump of thick trees and stopped. There it was--Luke's home. I couldn't prevent my gasp of surprise. Two small hound dogs sprawled in a pool of sunlight sprang up and began barking excitedly.
"That's Kasey and Brutus," Luke said. "My dogs. And that's home sweet home."
Home sweet home! I thought. The cabin was built out of old wood full of knotholes. It looked like it had never known paint. The roof consisted of rusted tin that had wept a million tears to stain the old silvery wood. The cabin had drainpipes and rain barrels which I realized were meant to catch water.
Across the front of the cabin was a sagging, dilapidated front porch on which there were twin rockers. A man I easily recognized as Luke's father sat with a banjo in his lap. He had the same coal-black hair and dark complexion, and although he looked like he had traveled a rough road, he still possessed handsome facial qualities--a straight Roman nose, strong cheekbones and strong jawline. He looked rugged, but when he saw Luke, he smiled in a soft and gentle way.
The woman sitting beside him and crocheting looked much sterner. Her long hair was tied in a ponytail that reached halfway to her waist. When she stood up, she appeared to be about my mother's age, but after she came off the porch and closer to the truck, her face added years to my first estimate. I saw she was missing some teeth and she had weatherworn wrinkles around her eyes and temples. The lines in her forehead were cut deeper, harsher, than the lines in my mother's face.
But Luke's mother had once been a very pretty woman probably. She had Luke's dark eyes, and although her hair was stained with gray strands, it looked like washing it in rainwater kept it as healthy and rich as it ever was. She had a proud, firm look, Indian proud, with high cheekbones, and she was nearly as tall as Luke. I saw that her hands, which could have been as soft and as dainty as my mother's, were rough and manly looking because of the short fingernails and calluses.
"Ma!" Luke exclaimed and hopped out of the truck. She embraced him eagerly, a mother's pride and pleasure lighting her eyes and softening her suspicious look. Luke's father set his banjo down on the rocking chair and bounced down the porch steps quickly to greet and hug his son.
"Howdy, Luke," his father said. "Didn't expect ya back so soon this time. What changed ya mind?" he asked, still holding on to Luke's shoulders.
"Angel did," Luke said.
"Angel?"
Luke's mother and father turned my way.
"Angel, come out here and meet Ma and Pa. Ma," Luke continued as I got out of the truck, "I want ya to meet my wife, Angel."
"Yer wife!" his mother exclaimed. She looked me over from head to foot as I approached, her expression of disbelief turning to an expression of disappointment. "Ain't she a bit young and fragile lookin' fer a Willies wife?" she asked herself aloud. I stood in front of her and Luke's father, waiting for a proper introduction.
"Angel, I want ya to meet my ma, Annie, and my pa, Toby Casteel. Ma, this is my Angel. Her real name's Leigh, but she's more an angel than a Leigh."
"Is that so?" his mother said, still eying me with disbelief. "Welcome to our home," his father said and hugged me. "When ya go an' do this, Luke?" his mother asked, still staring at me.
"Just yesterday in Atlanta. We met and fell in love in three days' time and were married by a justice of the peace, all right and proper, and we had the biggest and best crowd of wedding guests you ever did see--all my circus friends. Right, Angel?"
"Yes," I said. I felt so self-conscious under Luke's mother's intense gaze. Any mother would be suspicious and would look critically upon the woman her son brought home, I thought, but Luke's mother looked shocked and disappointed.
"How old are ya?" she asked me.
"I'm nearly fourteen," I said. I felt my eyes begin to tear. Even here, in the poorest part of the world, people found fault with me.
"Well yer age ain't no problem," Luke's mother said, "but it takes a lot a grit ta live in the Willies, child. Let me see ya hands," she demanded and reached out, seizing my fingers and turning my hands over. She ran her callused fingers over my soft palm and shook her head. "Ya never seen a real day's work ya whole life, didja, girl?"
I pulled my hands back sharply.
"I can work as hard as anyone," I replied. "I'm sure your hands were as soft as mine once."
There was a moment of heavy silence and then she smiled.
"Well now, ya got pride like a Casteel. Knew there had ta be some reason my son chose ya." She turned back to Luke, who stood beaming with pleasure. "Welcome home, son. What are ya plans now?"
"Angel and me are goin' to live on with you and Pa for a while, Ma. I'm goin' to get a job with Mr. Morrison in Winnerrow and learn carpentry. He was always after me to work for him. Then I'm goin' to build us a fine house, maybe in the valley where I'll work the land, raise cows, pigs, and horses, and make us a clean and decent life. I'll build a house big enough for all of us and you and Pa can come down off this mountain and live like people should live," he added.
His mother hoisted back her shoulders, whatever smile there was in her face evaporating.
"We ain't no lower or worse than those people in the valley, Luke. Ya never talked down about the Willies life before. It was where ya was born and raised
and ya ain't no worse off fer it."
"Didn't say I was, Ma. I just wanna do big things now," he said taking my hand. "I got
responsibilities."
His mother continued to eye me with suspicion.
"Well now," Pa Casteel said, "this calls fer a celebration, right, Ma? Let's cook up those rabbits."
"The rabbits is fer Sunday," she replied.
"I'll go huntin' fer more."
"Took ya long enough ta go huntin' far these," she snapped, but he remained undaunted.
"I'm back now, Ma," Luke said. "There'll be plenty a meat on the table again."
"Um," she said skeptically. "All right, better bring in yer things, Angel," she told me.
"All she got is one suitcase," Luke said.
"One suitcase?" Annie Casteel's eyes widened with new interest. "She looks like she should have a truckload a things. Well now, ya come on inside and watch me put up a rabbit stew and tell me all about yerself."
"I'll break out the apple cider, Luke," Pa said behind us.
"Now don't ya go and get yerself and Luke all soggy and plastered with that rotgut linker, Toby Casteel," she warned. Luke's father laughed. Luke and he followed Annie and myself up the rickety steps and into the cabin. My expectations had been lowered considerably the moment I had set eyes on the cabin, but I was still not prepared for what I found inside.
The cabin consisted of two small rooms, with a tattered, faded curtain to form a kind of flimsy door for what I imagined was to be a bedroom. There was a cast-iron stove in the center of the big room. Next to it sat what looked to be an ancient kitchen cabinet outfitted with metal bins for flour, sugar, coffee, and tea.
"As ya kin see," Annie began, "we ain't got a castle, but we got a roof over our heads. We got fresh milk from our cow and fresh eggs when our chickens have a mind ta lay 'em. The hogs and pigs roam at will and snuggle down under the porch at night. You'll hear 'em snortin', along with the dogs and cats and whatever else decides ta make its bed under there," she said nodding toward the floor.
I believed she wasn't exaggerating. The cabin floor had at least a half-inch space between each crookedly laid floorboard. As I gazed around, I realized there was no bathroom.
Where did they go to the bathroom? How did they take a shower or a bath? I wondered. Luke's mother read my thoughts. She smiled at my look of curiosity.
"If ya wonderin' about the toilet, it's outside."
"Outside?"
"Don't tell me ya never hear of an outhouse, child?"
"Outhouse?" I looked back at Luke.
"Don't you worry, Angel. First thing I'm going to do is build you your own outhouse. I'll be startin' on it as soon as I get back from town tomorrow."
"What's an outhouse?" I asked softly.
Luke's mother laughed.
"Ya sure got yerself a city girl, didn't ya, Luke? An outhouse is a bathroom, Angel. Yer go out ta the little buildin' when nature calls and ya sit on a board with two holes."
I might have turned a little pale. I don't know. But Luke's mother stopped smiling and looked reproachfully at him. He dropped my suitcase and embraced me.
"I'm going to build you a real nice one, Angel. You'll see. And it won't be for all that long anyway. Why in no time, I'm going to have enough money to start a home in the valley."
"You know anything about makin' a rabbit stew?" Annie Casteel asked. I looked up and saw her lift two dead rabbits by the ears out of a small ice box. I gasped and swallowed hard. "Well, after I skin 'em, I'll show ya my ma's recipe."
"Ma makes the best rabbit you ever tasted," Luke said.
"I never ate rabbit, Luke," I said swallowing back my gasps.
"Then you're in for a treat," he replied. I nodded hopefully, took a deep breath and looked around me. Luke's mother and father were about the poorest people I had ever seen, yet when I looked at Toby Casteel, I saw a bright, happy smile on his face, and when I looked at Luke's mother, I saw pride and strength. I was confused, tired, and frightened. Life had thrown down another challenge just when I thought I was beginning a magical life of happiness. But I saw there was no time nor place for tears here. There was only work, the battle to survive. Maybe there was some good to be had. Maybe I would grow stronger, leaner, tougher, so I could face down the evil in the world we had just left.
"Someone's got ta peel those taters," Annie Casteel said and pointed at a bushel of potatoes on the floor.
"I'll do it," I volunteered, even though I had never done it before. She looked at me skeptically, which only made me more determined. "Where's the potato peeler?" I demanded. Luke's mother smiled. "We ain't got no fancy tools, Angel. Just use that pocket knife there and don't cut too deep.
"Luke, ya go an' put Angel's things behind the curtain."
"Behind the curtain? But where are you and Pa goin' to sleep?" Luke asked with a look of concern.
"We'll do fine on the floor pallets. We've slept on 'em before, right Pa?"
"That ain't no lie," Pa said.
"But . . ."
"Now don't go arguin' about it, Luke. If I know ya, ya'll be startin' fer a baby right away. Suspect ya might have already," she said gazing at me as if she had the power to see my pregnancy in my face. "All Casteels are made in beds," she added. "I'm hopin' and prayin' that's always gonna be true."
"All right, Ma." Luke pulled back the curtain to reveal a big brass bed with a saggy old stained mattress over coiled springs. What a difference between that and even the bed in the cheap motel we had slept in last night, I thought; but it was to be our first marriage bed. It would have to do.
There couldn't have been two more different worlds than the world of Farthinggale Manor and the world of the Willies. I had set out to run away from Farthy and I had come so far it seemed that my mother and Tony and all that I had left behind were on a distant planet in another solar system. I was shocked and afraid, but I was determined not to go back.
Despite her rough manner of speaking and critical eyes, I found Annie Casteel easy to talk to. She really listened when I spoke, absorbing the story of my life with interest and amazement on her face. Of course, I didn't tell about Tony's raping me. Luke wanted me to keep the secret of my pregnancy even from his parents. Annie wanted to know why I had run away and I explained that my mother's new husband had been making advances and my mother blamed it all on me.
"Without a Daddy who cared and a Mother who believed me, I felt lost and alone and decided to leave. I was on my way to my grandmother's when I met Luke and fell in love," I explained. She nodded and passed me the carrots to scrape and wash clean. But when I told her about the portrait dolls and Angel, she insisted I stop working and take Angel out of the suitcase so she could see something that fine and expensive. Her eyes lit up with pleasure.
"When I was a little girl, my pa had to whittle me a doll out of a thick branch. I never had anythin' dainty and sweet, and I never seen nothin' like this, even in the store windas down in Winnerrow. And then, after I got married, I had no cause ta buy one fer I had six boys and no girls. After a while, I gave up tryin' ta have a girl.
"I hope when Luke and ya have a baby, it's a girl," she said and I saw that this tough, hard woman of the Willies could be as soft and gentle as any woman I had met. I felt sorry for her, sorry that her life was so hard and there were so few opportunities for her to be a woman, to dress up and be pretty, to keep her skin soft and let her fingernails grow.
"I hope so, too, Annie," I said. She stared at me a moment and then replied.
"Ya call me Ma," she said, and I smiled. "Now let's get this stew cookin'. If I know them two, they'll be brayin' like mules fer somethin' ta eat sooner than ya think."
"Yes, Ma."
I used an outhouse for the first time in my life and sat down at the small plank dinner table and ate something I had never dreamed of eating. But it was delicious. After dinner, Pa played his banjo and Luke and he sang old mountain songs and drank
moonshine. I saw they were both starting to get ti
psy. Pa got Luke up to do a jig and then he did one himself. After a while Ma bawled them out for acting stupid. Luke looked at me quickly and I shook my head. it was enough to sober him up quickly.
Just before we went to bed, Luke and I sat out on the porch and listened to the sounds of the forest-- the owls hooting, the coyotes howling and the peepers croaking in the swamps. 1 did feel a sense of peace and security sitting with Luke, holding his hand and looking up at the stars, even though I was miles from civilization as I had known it and living in a shack.
When we crawled under the quilt together, I hugged and kissed Luke lovingly. He was stirred, but he didn't take me the way a husband should take his wife.
"No, Angel," he whispered. "We'll wait until after you have the baby and I've given you a proper home and we can sleep and make love away from anyone else's ears."
I knew what he meant. The old springs squeaked even when we just turned toward and away from each other. On the other side of the curtain, Pa snored, and under the floorboards, just as Ma promised, the hogs snorted and the dogs whimpered. Something scratched at the wooden piers. I heard a cat hiss and then, all was as still as it could get with the wind whistling through the trees and the cracks in the floor and walls of the small cabin. Pa's moonshine put Luke to sleep very quickly. It took me a while longer, but I finally closed my eyes and slept my first night in the Willies.
In the morning Luke got up bright and early and drove down to Winnerrow to get that carpentry job. Pa was working with some farmer named Burl, building a new barn with him and earning some money. After breakfast, Ma sat down to continue her crocheting. I decided to take a washcloth, pail and detergent and do what I could to clean up the cabin. Ma seemed amused by my efforts, but when she came back in and saw how I had cleaned the windows and shined up whatever appliances she had, she nodded with approval.
Afterward, she took me out to her small garden and I helped her weed while she talked about her past, what life was like for her growing up in the Willies. She told me about her other sons, Luke's brothers, and I saw how upset she was about two of them being in prison.