Country Dark by Chris Offutt

Author:Chris Offutt [Offutt, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802146168
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2018-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

A few days later, Tucker walked through the woods at dusk and climbed the hill. Lightning bugs flickered low. He’d heard the females were the ones that lit up in order to attract males, which made sense for a bug that only went out at night. Hills ran at a steep slant on either side of the creek, blocking starlight. Tucker didn’t mind. He’d walked here many times as a kid.

He shifted the ruck across his shoulders. The load wasn’t too heavy but he’d lost the habit of wearing it, and the calluses along his collarbones had softened. Discomfort turned to nagging pain that he ignored like a chigger bite. He was glad to be born and raised on a ridge where people got more daylight. Families who lived up narrow hollers only saw solid sun three or four hours per day. They were a pale bunch. If you were going to make a home in a holler, you may as well live in town, and if you did that, why not go whole hog and move to Lexington.

At the top of the hill Tucker found the entrance to Number Nine. The narrow gauge railway was gone, but a few rotted ties still protruded from the earth. He pulled a flashlight from his ruck and stepped into the mine. Old beer cans and cigarette butts littered the first fifteen feet. His boots were loud in the silence. The shaft narrowed at a slight turn and he measured the width to make sure his car would fit. Farther on, the shaft made a fork and the old rail line veered to the left. Tucker moved carefully along the right fork, sliding his boots a few inches at a time.

The air ahead became darker. He scooped a handful of rock and threw it past the flashlight’s beam. When it struck the earth, he moved a few feet more, and did it again. There was no sound. He knelt and crawled, moving his fingers along the surface. Finding the edge of the drop-off sent a jolt through him as if he’d grabbed a live electrical wire. He tossed a rock into the abyss and heard nothing. The miners had inadvertently found a pit cave, a natural vertical shaft that ended in a cavern far below. Tucker underwent a strange impulse to lean forward and fall, as if the deep cavity in the earth were beckoning.

He set the flashlight on the ground. From the ruck he withdrew a hammer, an old T-shirt, and a sharpened picket of oak. He pounded the picket into the dirt six inches from the edge of the hole. Satisfied that it was firmly in place, he draped the white T-shirt over the top. Tucker walked back out of the mine and descended the hill. The moon had risen. The woods had encroached upon the narrow road but rain kept it washed out. It was rough in places, more creek than road. The run-car would make it easily, the gears and suspension modified for traction.

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