Unto These Hills Read Free Page A

desperately let fly, this is a new beginning.
    At the Company Store entrance, Mama turned and blew us a big ol’ kiss, gazing at us for a long, long moment before disappearing through the double glass doors.
    I’m gonna get y’all each a surprise! Even Daddy gets one. I recall , in that heartbeat of time, I thought how Mama, despite her faults, possessed, when she had anything, a generous, giving spirit, fairly shoveling it all out to others.
    We kids and Daddy waited patiently in our old 1947 mud-brown Ford, lustily singing I’m Looking Over A Four-leaf Clover while Mama shopped. Honeysuckle breezes wafted in through lowered car windows. We tried harmony with Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree , but, what with Daddy’s tone-deafness, ended up sounding like a Chinese laundry quartet. Francine and I laughed till we cried while Daddy remained oblivious.
    Then Francine, who utterly idolized Hank Williams, did her nasal rendition of Your Cheatin’ Heart , as earnest and reverent as I’d ever seen her.
    I didn’t take undue notice of Mama’s lengthy absence till Francine cranked up Hey, Good Looking , and Daddy’s brow furrowed when he hiked up his wrist to peer at his watch. Sensing the change in him, Francine fell silent, a phenomenon within itself because Francine’s focus usually opaqued anything beyond her immediate whim. Daddy kept checking the time, his brow corrugating deeper by the moment.
    My stomach butterflies ceased their flapping, pushed aside by the dread that oozed inside me and settled like cold concrete.
    Francine shot me a “ here we go again ” look, rolled her tiger-tawny eyes, almost the exact shade of her hair, folded her slender arms, and shifted to stare stone-faced — yet appraisingly — out the back window at the men perched like sentry hawks on the rock wall curb facing Tucapau Cotton Mill. While disparaging Mama’s whimsical nature, Francine was blind to her own like-quirks, remaining blissfully unencumbered by any big-sister responsibility.
    That was left entirely to me. Timmy, at eleven, a small, dark carbon of Daddy, already harbored cynicism in his whiskey golden gaze, one much too somber and vigilant. I had my work cut out just keeping our heads above dank, murky waters that threatened to obliterate our family unit.
    “I’ll be back in a minute,” Daddy sprang from the car and dashed into the store, his movements jerky and desperate.
    “Where’s Mama?” asked my little nine-year-old sister, Sheila. The picture of Mama, Sheila was perfection with big jade eyes and elegant oval features framed softly by russet and wheat streaked hair. She would someday, I suspected, be the family beauty.
    “She’s inside the store,” I said, a bit more cheerfully than I felt. A vague premonition froze the smile that struggled to reach my lips. Instead, I patted her plump little fingers that laced loosely in her lap, their wiggly dance belying her calm demeanor.
    Her resignation smote me. Then shot terror through me. I blinked and surreptitiously breathed deeply to allay anxiety, like Nana, in her stoical monotone, always instructed me. I groped for an inside button to turn off my roiling emotions. Finding none, I simply rode the bucking tumult.
    Moments later, Daddy reappeared alone, pale as burnt out ashes. His hands trembled as he climbed into the front seat and gripped the steering wheel, anchoring himself as he stared off at some obscured horror, a stunned expression erasing all but ghostly laughter crinkles from his handsome features.
    Long tense moments passed. Packed together like little sardines in the car’s back seat, neither of us four kids spoke. Were afraid to. Being accustomed to disappointment didn’t exactly inspire us to reach out and seize it.
    I garnered courage. “Where’s Mama?” My voice rasped, quivered.
    Daddy’s head swiveled and our gazes collided. The pain in his caused my breath to hitch. “Is she coming?” I ventured tremulously, weak from the inquiry’s