Zizi the baby slept like she never had. Clarence Dickason shook his head. Ill be damned, he said. Chicky Gold the harmonica man.
He came back the following Saturday. Hands were shaken and bellies were filled. Then, Rose was afforded evening-time sleep. Zizi went quiet the moment she was put in the arm crook of Chicky Gold the baby man. She slept under a beard blanket and did not stir. Not even when the little front yard on a mountain bald became a two-man show. Clarence Dickason and Chicky Gold the harmonica man, an impromptu mess of harmonica and beat-up guitar. Vocals in the style of gospel and blues and shouting mountain jug bands. Holy hell blues, folks would later call it.
On a break, Chicky Gold looked down at the baby girl in his arms and then up at the stars in the sky. He didnt say much in the company of his new neighbors. Clarence pulled the slag glass cover off of the small lantern in the grass between them and lit two cigarettes. After they were smoked, Chicky leaned to one side and pulled the derringer flask from his backpocket. The time was right.
Uh-oh, Clarence said.
Chicky would not tell his new neighbor about the magical quality of the flask, that it refilled itself endlessly. He simply handed it over. Clarence looked to the house, his tee-totaling saint of a commonlaw wife inside. Then he spun the cap off the strangely heavy thing and put it to his lips. He tilted. Then he tilted back some more. Nothing came. Clarence shut one eye and peered down the hole with the other.
Itll fix you up just right, Chicky told him.
Clarence looked at him and nodded, confused. He decided not to say anything about the flask being empty. But it was. It was dry as cremated bone and smelled like it had been for twenty years. Clarence wondered about the faculties of the man who held his youngest then. For a short time, as he had been before and would be again, he was scared as hell of the man.
Chicky took it back when offered. He swigged its non-existing contents and said, Ahhh. Re-screwed the cap. Then Clarence sang and fingerpicked a version of John Henry called Gonna Die with a Hammer in My Hand. His sidekick picked it up halfway through. He accompanied with a mouth harp wail so high and so lonesome that if anyone had been in earshot, theyd swear the player held that Hohner with two hands, not one. Theyd swear it was a hillbilly Sonny Boy Williamson blowing that air.
It was in August that Clarences band was coming, and hed told Chicky all about it. Told him he should come. It was to be a week-long event, one for which Rose and the children were departing. Her father was meeting her halfway down the mountain. He had friends lined up to carry supplies back a week later. Such friends were hard to come by, for they had to be willing to trek a steep incline with a heavy pack. And they had to be willing to deliver a white woman and her groceries back to a black man living in exile. But the plan came off, and on the day Rose, Albert, and Zizi left, Nelson, Willie, and Johnnie showed up.
For two nights and two days, Chicky Gold hid on the ridge. He watched the all-black band play, off and on, in the front yard. They slept on the grass after playing past four a.m. They smoked and drank whiskey. Nelson Bird was the oldest of them at sixty-two. A gray-headed restaurant owner from Princeton who always wore a white flower in his lapel. He played a five string banjo clawhammer style. Willie Carpenter was a Bluefield baseball star turned coal miner turned railroad grader. He slapped a stand-up bass like he meant it. And then there was Willies nephew, Johnnie. Johnnie Johnston was only twenty-one years old. He played the hell out of a piano, had started when he was four. When no piano was available, as up on the mountain, he blew a little harp. Cupped his hands on it like hed been raised up in the Mississippi Delta, though hed never left Fairmont, West Virginia, until he joined the Marine Corps. The War had hardened the young man, got him to drinking heavy. He came home wild, and after short-timing jail back in Fairmont for stabbing a man in the thigh, Johnnie had moved to his Uncle Willies in Bluefield for work. Lifting and laying down track for the Norfolk & Western had outlined his muscles in shadow, and, much like a younger Chicky Gold, he was never without a hip flask, knife, and pistol in his pants.
The older men found themselves wishing Johnnie hadnt come. God-fearing and church-going, they found themselves scared, guilty by association. But when they got to playing, all that rode off. For the young man brought to the music a feeling that this could be something. This could go somewhere.
Chicky came down on a Tuesday morning while the men slept off the night prior. The firepit in the yard still smoldered. They laid next to their instruments on burlap and bedrolls, the morning air just right for sleeping. Chicky cleared his throat to awaken them, and when he did, Johnnie Johnston pulled his piece before he opened his lids. From his back, one hand still behind his head, he trained the pistol on Chicky.
Willie got to his knees and said, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it now Johnnie.
Chicky smiled his golden smile and said, Been a while since I looked down the hole of a pea-shooter. Tickles a little.
Johnnie recognized whatever it is that lets a man know he should think before he acts. I can make that stop for you, he said.
Hold it Johnnie, Clarence said. This heres Chicky Gold I was tellin you all about. The harmonica man. Hed mentioned on the first night that a mountain man might stop in, a crazy one to be sure, but harmless. A baby soother. And he could play that harp.
Old man Nelson sat up and rubbed at his eyesockets.
This woodhick? Johnnie said.
Yes.
Johnnie took in the man before him. Tall, thin. More hair than a sheep dog. A picture of the worst the world imagined when they heard the words West Virginia. He lowered his weapon.
By noon, they were all full on eggs over easy and bacon and coffee black as coal sludge. With the passing of hours, they talked to the white man with less hesitation. Except Johnnie. He mostly sipped from his flask and rolled cigarettes. He smoked without the use of his hands. He also rolled up reefer. Willie would have none of it, but old Nelson partook, and so did Clarence. When it came his way, Chicky did as they had, inhaling and coughing. He began to stare at Johnnie Johnston. On Johnnies left shoulder, visible when he stripped to his no-sleeve undershirt, was a snake tattoo. Chickys skin started to crawl from the reefer, like hed taken up serpents again himself. He thought that any minute, hed stand up, tear his clothes off, and scream bloody hell. Somehow, he managed to sit tight and ride it out.
He didnt sip their drink at first, even when the sun went down and music got made. The joint had brought some feeling on him he couldnt place. A feeling like the other men were watching him close, like hed known them from somewhere else.
Once, after it had grown dark out, Johnnie Johnston stood up to relieve his bladder, and Chicky saw in his gait a young Arly Jr.
He didnt talk much, didnt laugh much at their jokes and memories, mostly of their time lifting and lining track to song. This was how theyd met. They laughed on how they used to introduce themselves to folks at saloons and parties. Willie would say of Nelson, This is N. Nelson of Willie: And this is W. N&W. A man named Otis would introduce Clarence: This is C. Then Clarence on Otis: And this is O. C&O. The railroad and the jobs it brought were as ingrained in these Mercer County men as the mines were in Mingo men. Theyd taken to naming themselves after company initials, like they owned it. Most days, the company owned them.
Old Nelson smiled while he ate and while he talked. And in between sips of his coffee. He fingered the frets on his banjo and told stories from his childhood. Used to be they wasnt no frets on a banjer, he said. Used to be youd make one from a groundhog.
Johnnie laughed, the scoffing kind. Nobody else said a word.
The old man continued. Trap him, take his hide, put that hide down in the ashes and leave it set there awhile. Couple days, get you a knife, slice away the hair. Carpet tack that hide on a cheese hoop, fix a oak wood neck on there, and you got a fretless banjo.
Old Nelson smiled while he ate and while he talked. And in between sips of his coffee. He fingered the frets on his banjo and told stories from his childhood. Used to be they wasnt no frets on a banjer, he said. Used to be youd make one from a groundhog.
Johnnie laughed, the scoffing kind. Nobody else said a word.
The old man continued. Trap him, take his hide, put that hide down in the ashes and leave it set there awhile. Couple days, get you a knife, slice away the hair. Carpet tack that hide on a cheese hoop, fix a oak wood neck on there, and you got a fretless banjo.
Whatd you use for strings? Willie asked. He turned foil-wrapped potatoes down in the red cinders with his bare hands.
Horse hair. Stretched.
Sheee-it, Johnnie said. Alright, country.
Nelson looked over at Chicky, whose beard and hair and sunken eyes were exaggerated by the fires dance. Where you from, Chicky? Nelson asked.
Chicky sat still on his stone seat. He turned to the mountain behind them and pointed up. Nobody said a word. Then, as if on cue, they laughed together. Chicky joined them.
Johnnie stopped laughing first. Yeah, you a funny woodhick, he said. He turned to the old man. Mr Bird, let me ask you. Why you keep puttin your eyes to the white man here? Keep askin him the questions, like he the one with answers. You aint noticed he dont take your whiskey when you offer? He turned to Chicky. The whites of Johnnies eyes had gone rusty. You fraid to sip what a colored man done sipped on?
Chicky stared back at him. The other men swallowed, shifted. In their time, in their places, black men didnt speak to white men this way. The fires pops got louder. I brung my own whiskey, Chicky said. He shifted against the log he sat on, pulled the derringer flask from his pocket.