Page 36 - WTP Vol. IX #8

The dream felt blissful. It was a cold winter morn- ing, and snow blanketed the entire Appalachian Valley. Mom hurried around the kitchen, making breakfast over the old cookstove. Warmth em- braced the room, and delicious scents soaked the
air and pressed against our faces. My brother and I played checkers at the kitchen table. Pa laughed at something Mom said as he sat at the counter, eat-
ing biscuits and honey, enjoying his second cup of coffee. The sense of peace and love permeated my subconscious. Slowly, like a flame gently burning out, the dream faded. There was no Mom, there was little peace, and love became elusive.
I awoke around seven-thirty to the chill of a coal fire that had not been tended since late yesterday eve- ning. The sun was beginning to break through the gloom, and dismal light pecked at the burlap window coverings in the bedroom that my brother Pete and I shared. It was a weekend day in early March near my eleventh birthday. Pete was three years older than me and never missed an opportunity to remind me.
I pushed back the patchwork blanket my grandmoth- er made from old squares of worn-out jeans, and quickly dressed. I walked silently to my sock drawer with the cold hardwood nipping at my bare feet. Wearing my mismatched wool socks, I slipped out of the bedroom to tend to the dying coal stove and try to kill the icy air embracing the clapboard house.
Pa was not yet up, and waking him this early was
never wise. His weekend drinking usually kept him
out cold until at least ten. Previous injuries had taught me that waking him was to be avoided like the devil. I placed my hand over the top of the old Resolute stove in the living room and felt the slight radiant warmth of the still glowing embers. I opened the draft door and shook down the ashes, letting air flow into the belly of the main chamber, stirring the fire back to life. Open- ing the upper door, I added a couple of softball-size pieces of coal and closed it. These three pieces were
all that remained in the four buckets, so putting on my old boots, my jacket, and my oversized gloves, I headed out to the pile to replenish our supply.
The harsh morning air stung my lungs like sweat bees, and my eyes watered, making my way to the pile in the frost-covered rear yard. My footsteps made loud snapping sounds as the frozen grass crunched
underfoot. The sounds echoed off the house in a fading percussion as I rounded the corner. Entering the backyard, I expected Waldo to be standing on top of his doghouse, wagging his tail in greeting. The reception always caused a burst of joy in my heart. Sometimes on cold mornings, he would huddle up
in the straw inside his doghouse to stay warm until the sun was fully awake. This morning, I assumed he was doing just that. Either way, the buckets were not going to fill themselves.
Bulk coal, in massive chunks, is cheap. The draw- back is we have to bust it up with a sledgehammer into smaller usable pieces. As such, my brother and I were well versed in the ways of busting coal, and I had the buckets full in minutes. I dropped the sledge back at the edge of the coal pile, nearest the corner of the dilapidated old storage shed, and set out for the outhouse. After my morning consti- tutional, I scooped up the heavy load and trodded back towards the house.
As I arrived at the front porch, a scream pierced the icy air. It came from the neighboring farm. The Jen- kins family owned two hundred acres of prime Ken- tucky dirt across the road from our small homestead. The houses faced each other, but a gravel road and a line of tall oaks separated the two homes’ sightline. Dread filled my body, and the buckets thumped to the ground as I raced toward the sound. Several dogs were locked in a brutal fight, and I could hear long anguished wailing sounds mixed with short, loud barks and sharp growls. Barely audible above the fighting, a woman was screaming, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
I burst through the treeline along our side of the road. The Johnson Dairy truck nearly flattened me as
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Waldo
Jason leaDinghaM