Chapter One

Jerry Donavan belly crawled through the mountain morning mist until he reached a large, uprooted hickory tree at the edge of a small clearing. Doffing his hat, he cautiously peeked around the tangled root ball. The black feral pig he had been tracking was in the clearing, its snout was busy furrowing up scallions. Jericho rolled onto his back, gently opened the bolt of his single shot Winchester 1900 and quietly loaded a .22 long rifle round. Bringing down a hundred-pound pig with a .22 was going to be tough but the chance to come home with something besides squirrels, quails or rabbits was too good to pass up.

Twenty long minutes later, the pig finally lifted his head and turned in just the right direction. Jerry lined up the iron fixed sights of his rifle and put a bullet through the pig’s left eye and into its brain. With an abbreviated squeal, the pig took one wobbly step and fell to its front knees. Jerry sprinted from behind the fallen tree and tackled the pig to the ground just as it was standing up to run.

Jerry quickly cut the porker’s throat and dragged the swine down to a small stream that cascaded down the mountain side. The stream spilled into Mulberry Creek near where County Road 53 crossed over the creek and the rail road tracks that serviced Pitchfork Mine. He stripped off his bib overalls and red plaid flannel shirt and washed the blood out of them. He then hung the wet clothes over a Mountain Laurel bush to dry. He field dressed the pig in the fast-flowing stream and wrapped the meat in a tarp he carried in his knapsack. He donned his still damp clothes and put on his pack. Then he slung his rifle over one shoulder, the pig over the other, and headed home.

Jerry grunted when he lifted the pig. He reckoned the porker dressed out at close to ninety pounds. It was a load, but it was enough meat to feed his family for a month, maybe more.

Jerry was rightfully proud of the hunting skills that he learned spending summers with his grandfather. He was an expert tracker, a superior marksman, and he could move through the woods as quietly as a gentle breeze.

The sun was well beyond noon when Jerry walked off the gravel county road and onto the coal clinker lane leading down into Chaney Hollow. Chaney Hollow was near the foot of the western slope of Pitchfork Mountain in Coker County, West Virginia.

There were four houses on Chaney Hollow Road. The first and nicest house belonged to Ben Chaney, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Alice. The Chaney family had been farming and raising cattle on their three hundred acres of bottom land for four generations. Alice Chaney and Jerry’s little sisters were best friends.

The second house belonged to Ben Chaney’s widowed younger sister Ida Flood. Ida taught English at Coker County High School.

Midway up the hollow was the Donavan place. The five-room frame house with the wrap-around porch was nestled into a twenty acre stand of old growth hardwood forest. Jerry’s father had built the house for his new bride after he mustered out of World War II. The house was freshly painted with a tidy yard and a thriving garden in the side lot. Jerry lived with his mother, Ester, and his younger sisters, Rachael and Ruth.

Near the top of the hollow sat the home of Hoke and Lottie Purnell. The Purnells were an older couple with grandchildren Jerry’s age. Hoke Purnell had the reputation of being able to fix dern near anything mechanical. Behind their dark stained cedar-sided house was a five acre field that was filled with the rusted remains of cars, trucks, tractors, farming equipment and even a couple of derelict airplanes.

Jerry hung the pig in the backyard on an iron tripod his father had built to butcher deer. Then he walked quietly onto the back porch. His mother was at the kitchen sink with her back to him washing dishes. She was wearing a blue calico dress, with her hair up in its usual braided bun. She was bare footed and her still slim body swayed side to side as she sang ‘Let’s Go Down to the River to Pray’. Ester had a pure and sweet voice that was perfect for the old spiritual. Jerry listened for a minute, then eased open the door. He slipped up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.

Ester screeched and spun around, the cast iron frying pan she had been washing held menacingly in her upraised right hand.

Jerry nimbly jumped backwards and held up his hands.

“Whoa, Mama!” he yelped.

Ester jabbed at him with the frying pan.

“Land sakes, Jericho Earl Donavan, you gave me a fright! You need to quit sneaking up on me like that, or next time I’ll dent your pumpkin with this skillet.”

Jerry wiped the grin off his face. When his mother used all his given name, he knew she was serious, and she wasn’t one to make idle threats.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said contritely.

Then the grin was back as he grabbed her arm and tugged her towards the door.

“Now come outside and see what I shot us for supper.”

Ester put the frying pan back in the sink and let her excited son drag her out onto the back porch. She saw the pig hanging on the tripod and cut her eyes to Jerry.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

Jerry knew what she was really wanted to know.

“It’s wild, Mama. I ran across it over behind the old Spencer place. No one lives within a mile of there,” he replied.

Ester nodded her head. She knew her son didn’t tell her all that he got up to, but he would never lie to her face.

“Then the Good Lord was looking out for us this day,” she said as she took charge.

“Drag that picnic table over here, then fetch me the cauldron. Build a fire under the cauldron and fill it half up with water. We’ll butcher the pig, and when the water boils, I’ll render the lard,” Ester directed.

Ester watched her son scurry away to do her bidding, her pride tinged with a touch of sadness. Since her husband’s death, Jericho had shouldered the burden of being the man in the family. He had done an admirable job of it, too; but at the sacrifice of his youth. Her husband’s death three years ago was a still painful memory for Ester, because she had been hopelessly in love with John Roy Donavan since she'd was sixteen.

Ester Hatchett met John Roy Donavan at the 1941 Swain County Fair in Cherokee, North Carolina. She was a sixteen-year-old waitress at a restaurant owned by her uncle that catered to tourists visiting the Qualla Boundary Cherokee Reservation at the southern end of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. He'd been an eighteen-year-old Civilian Conservation Corp enrollee from Murphy, North Carolina. John Roy was assigned to the Oconaluftee CCC Camp working in the Park. Ester was a tall slender Cherokee Indian. John Roy was a stocky, not very tall red head of Irish decent.

Within a month they were talking marriage.

Then Pearl Harbor happened, and marriage plans were put on hold while John Roy went off to kick Hirohito, Hitler, and Mussolini in their collective butts. He went on to help punish two of the three in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy as a member of an engineer battalion.

In late 1943 he returned to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri to train more engineers. Along with John Roy came his best friend since basic training, a fellow from West Virginia named Carl Blanchard.

One day on the rifle range John Roy was lamenting to Carl on the dearth of employment opportunities in western North Carolina.

“Dammit, Carl, when this war ends, I’m at a loss as to what to do. How can I go marry Ester if I don’t have a job already? I’m afraid that finding a good job to support a wife is going to take a while, and we’ve already been waiting nigh on to three years.”

Carl laughed and clapped John Roy on the back.

“Hell, John Roy, you musta’ read my mind cause I was gonna talk to you about that very thing today. See, I got me this idea that when we finally muster out, we go get a job with my uncle. He runs a coal mine up home, and I know he’d take us on.”

John Roy put on a dubious frown.

“I don’t know nothing ’bout coal mining,” John Roy complained. Carl’s perpetual smile got bigger.

“That’s the beauty of it partner, we won’t be miners, we’d be mine electricians. We need us some union cards, but we already know all about wiring, and generators, and such. I met the ole boy what bosses the union here on the post, and he said he’d fix us right up. Long as we pay our dues, our service counts against our apprenticeship. He even said if we pay back dues, we can count the time we served since we become engineers.”

John Roy laid it all out to Ester in a long letter that very night. In two weeks he had her very emphatic agreement.

A week after Ester’s reply, Carl and John Roy were members in good standing of Local 34, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). It cost them fifty-eight dollars apiece to become apprentice electricians, with eighteen months training and experience.

The newly trained 373rd Construction Engineering Battalion shipped out for England in May of 1944, just in time for D-Day. Carl and John Roy were both Staff Sergeants in charge of construction platoons.

Before they shipped out, John Roy was granted a one week leave. He took a bus to Ashville, North Carolina and hitchhiked to Cherokee. After a tearful reunion with Ester, John Roy nervously presented himself to Ester’s father, Jericho Hatchett, to ask for her hand in marriage. John Roy was a little leery of Mister Hatchett because in two years the man had only spoken a dozen words to John Roy and had never cracked even the smallest of smiles. But he pressed on and presented his case to the taciturn man.

Hatchett frowned but nodded his head.

“So be it,” he said menacingly, “but if you ever hurt my daughter I will hunt you down, cut off your balls, and feed them to you!”

Looking Hatchett in the eyes, John Roy firmly replied, “Mister Hatchett, that’s one promise you’ll never have to keep.”

The 373rd Construction Engineering Battalion followed behind the D-day invasion of Europe and, as part of Patton’s Third Army, built rear area hospitals across Europe. They came under fire a few times, once from an infiltrated sniper and then the occasional artillery barrage, but John Roy and Carl made it through the war unscathed.

The battalion returned to the states in September of 1945 and was disbanded at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Carl and John Roy mustered out at Devens and headed to Charleston, West Virginia, Carl’s hometown. Armed with letters attesting to their skills written by three master electricians with whom they served, the two friends took and passed their journeyman electrician’s test and became fully qualified members of Local 466 of the IBEW.

From Charleston, the pair made their way fifty-two miles northwest to Coker County. True to his word, Carl’s uncle, the general manager of the Pitchfork Mine, had jobs waiting for them. They would be apprentices again, until they learned the unique requirements of mine work, but the apprenticeship period was only six months. The best news was that they would start at fifty dollars a week and would move up to seventy-five when they earned their journeyman cards. They would be making in a week, what they made in a month in the Army!

The Pitchfork mine was a relatively new mine. The rich coal vein hadn’t been discovered until 1938. The Pitchfork was the most productive mine owned by the Eli Fleming Coal and Coke Company.

Pitchfork coal was perfect for coke production and supplied seventy-five percent of the product converted to coke in Fleming’s Pittsburgh beehive ovens.

Job in hand, John Roy Donavan bought a 1937 Ford Coupe for one hundred and fifty dollars and roared south towards North Carolina. Once reunited, Ester and John Roy filed for a marriage license and were wed by the Cherokee Tribal Chief. Ester’s father insisted on that, to ensure his grandchildren would be bona fide members of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation.

Ester’s mother had died when she was twelve, and her father never remarried, so she never received the ‘Talk’ about sex. Ester was a virgin on her wedding night, but she didn’t enter into her marriage with any preconceived expectations or hang ups. By the end of their short honeymoon, sex was Ester’s new 'favorite thing.'

After three days of enthusiastically consummating their marriage in a quaint little motel somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the happy young couple took up temporary residence in a rental trailer in the town of Cokerville, the county seat. John Roy used a GI Loan to buy twenty wooded acres from Ben Chaney and built his new wife a house.

John Roy, with help from Carl Blanchard and Ester, worked on the house evenings and weekends. It took fourteen months to build the house, because John Roy purchased the building materials as he went. The money he had saved during his time in the Army covered the foundation, walls, and roof. The rest came out of his salary and a loan from the Cokerville Savings Bank. John Roy carried Ester across the threshold of their new home just in time to celebrate Christmas there. It was by far the best Christmas gift Ester had ever received.

Jericho Earl Donavan was born the following year, in September. They named their son after his grandfathers, Jericho Hatchett and Earl Donavan. Their daughter Ruth was born two years later, followed by Rachael in another two years.

The Donavan family thrived during the fifties. John Roy earned a decent wage, and Ester knew how to squeeze a dollar. They weren’t wealthy by any stretch, but they always had enough. Since Ester

and John Roy were raised in the poorest part of Appalachia during the Great Depression ‘having enough,’ was wonderful.

Years later, at six-thirty on a beautiful early fall morning in the middle of September, Ester sent John Roy off to work with two ham and cheese sandwiches, a thermos of coffee and a kiss. John Roy patted her still shapely bottom, told her how much he loved her, and then jumped into his pickup truck. Ester stood on the porch waving as he drove away. It was a scenario that had played out in Chaney Hollow a thousand a times in the last sixteen years.

John Roy drove around the base of the mountain and met Carl Blanchard at the electrician’s shack that stood about a hundred yards from the entrance of the mine. He and Carl had a cup of coffee and discussed the upcoming deer season as they waited for the foreman and the rest of their crews to arrive. Carl and John Roy were master electricians, now. They each had a journeyman and a helper under their supervision.

When the last straggler showed up, the foreman passed out work assignments. They had a busy day ahead of them. John Roy’s crew was to complete a cable run and wire up a new side room. Carl and his men were doing the opposite in a coal room that was nearly played out.

At seven o’clock, the electrician crews along with fifty-six miners and roof bolters gathered around the entrance of the mine. They were waiting for the General Manager, Shift Foremen and Mine Engineer to complete their morning safety inspection. The Pitchfork Mine was automated to the point that it now only mined for one shift, but it used two shifts of roof bolters, to keep up with the fast pace of the operation. Roof bolters were responsible for installing the support structure that stabilized the ceilings of the mine. The Pitchfork’s management was safety conscious, and the mine had a good safety record.

The honchos came out of the mine at seven-ten, riding on the tail end of a four-car electric train-like conveyance called a mantrip. The mantrip ran on a set of tracks bolted to the left side of the mine floor and was used to shuttle men and equipment in and out of the mine. The main tunnel was over a mile long and ran at a slight decline. It took the mantrip about six minutes to reach the active section of the mine.

The right side of the tunnel was occupied by the main conveyor belt. The main conveyor terminated at the tipple house where the coal was crushed, washed, sorted and loaded onto railroad cars for the two-hundred-mile trip to Pittsburgh. Smaller secondary conveyor belts moved the coal out of the side rooms onto the main conveyor.

The General Manager gave the all clear, the shift loaded up, and the mantrip reversed into the mine.

Shortly after ten o’clock the helper from Carl Blanchard’s crew found John Roy outside of coal room nine, hard wiring an electric sub-panel.

“Mister Blanchard needs you over in seven. The side conveyor is down, and we can’t figure out why. The foreman is having a hissy fit ’cause coal is piling up in front of the feeder,” the helper stated.

John Roy nodded, grabbed his tool box, and followed the helper back up the main tunnel to coal room seven. Carl and his men were about half way down the length of the idle conveyor belt. They had the cover off the control panel and were diligently testing circuits.

It took John Roy and Carl an hour and a half to track the problem down to a faulty thermal reset, on the big fifteen horsepower motor that spun the drive belt for the conveyor. The conveyor was up and running at eleven-thirty. The shift foreman congratulated them.

“Never would of thought of that reset being bad,” he admitted, “but if you boys will pull the gas detector and alarm bar on pillar six-twenty-six, you can break for lunch fifteen minutes early.”

Carl nodded.

“I’ll get it boss,” Carl said. Then he turned to his crew.

“You fellers clean up here, and I’ll be right back.”

Carl grabbed a six-foot folding ladder from under the conveyor, and turned toward the back of the coal room to find pillar six-twenty-six. John Roy fell in beside him to lend a hand since they always ate lunch together anyway.

The Pitchfork was a 'room and pillar' mine. In room and pillar mining, coal is removed in a manner that left uniform solid pillars of coal to support the ceiling. At the Pitchfork the coal was removed in ten foot wide sections with twenty feet by twenty feet pillars in between the cuts. The mined area was ten feet wide because the cutting drum of the Joy model 3JCM continuous mining machine cut a swath ten feet wide and nine feet high. The end wall cuts were fifteen feet wide so that the continuous miner could turn down the perpendicular rows. At the Pitchfork, the coal rooms were ten cuts and nine pillars or about three hundred feet wide. The depth of the coal rooms depended on the coal seam. In coal room seven the seam was just over four thousand feet deep.

When the end of the seam was reached the miners started retreat mining. Retreat mining was the process of working from the back of the mine removing half of each support pillar as they moved to the front. Mining in this manner allowed for a room the size of number seven to produce a quarter of a million tons, or enough coal to fill forty-five hundred railroad coal cars.

Carl walked to the left until he reached the sixth column of pillars then started towards the rear of the mine. Pillars were identified with their number spray painted in fluorescent orange. The first two numbers identified the row and the last number the column. The larger the row number the further into the room the pillar was located. The secondary conveyor ran between pillar columns three and four to row forty-five.

Carl and John Roy easily found the gas monitor box and alarm bar. They had plenty of company as a continuous miner was chewing into pillar six-thirty-six, while two roof bolt crews worked behind them in cross row sixty-three. A shuttle car was being loaded under the discharge conveyor of the continuous miner while a second shuttle waited its turn. Off to the side a small front end loader was scooping up loose coal to keep the rows clear.

Carl set up the ladder, climbed up on it and started unbolting the alarm bar as John Roy held the ladder steady. As Carl started on the second bolt the ladder swayed under him. He thought John Roy was messing with him.

“Stop dicking around, buddy,” Carl grunted, glancing in annoyance down at his friend.

Before John Roy could answer, there was an ominous thunder-like crack, and then a low-pitched wave-like rumble. The two men shared a hopeless, panicked look as the roof of coal room seven started falling. In seconds, everything forward of pillar row six hundred, an area the size of twenty football fields, caved in.

The air displaced by the falling rock went rushing out of the coal room carrying a massive cloud of coal dust that filled the tunnels and coal rooms in a blinding fog. Alarms were blaring all over the mine by the time the dust cloud belched out of the mine entrance.

Miners began to straggle out of the mine within fifteen minutes of the collapse. In all, forty-five workers walked out under their own power, while a rescue was organized.

{1

Chapter Two

Ester received notification of the cave-in by telephone thirty minutes after it happened. At one-thirty in the afternoon she was standing outside the mine with Carl Blanchard’s young wife Faye and eight other wives, as the general manager of the mine briefed them on what he knew. He didn’t know much; and because methane levels were so dangerously high, no one could enter the mine to learn more.

“All I can tell you,” the GM said, “is that there was a roof collapse in the section of the mine your menfolk were working. Six men have come out of there so far, so we have hope.”

Ester called home at four; her son answered the phone. Drawing on her inner strength, she kept her voice calm and emotionless.

“I’m at the mine, Jericho. There was a cave-in, and your daddy is missing. You take care of your sisters and I’ll be home as soon as they find him.”

Jerry had questions but, like the mine’s GM, Ester had no answers.

The ventilator fans eventually dissipated the methane and dust enough for a rescue/survey team to enter the mine at a few minutes after six in the evening. The three men exited the mine an hour later with grim looks on their faces and huddled with the General Manager. After a ten minute conference, the mine manager walked over to the cluster of anxious wives.

“I wish I had better news, ladies,” he said, “but I don’t. The cave-in where your men were working is so large it has compromised the integrity of the entire section, and it is too dangerous right now to mount a rescue attempt.

“We will have more help from the state Department of Mines and the federal Bureau of Mines tomorrow. Since nothing is going to happen until then, I suggest you all go home, try to get some sleep, and come back in the morning.”

Ester explained everything to her children when she arrived home. The girls were especially scared and distraught. They cried and clung to their mother and brother. She could tell Jericho felt the same as his sisters, but he kept his emotions in check and stoically helped comfort the girls.

Ester was at the mine early the next morning. She and the other wives watched silently as cars full of strangers arrived from the state and federal government and disappeared into the mine manager’s office. At ten o’clock, two men clutching a handful of maps jumped into a forestry service four- wheel drive truck and drove up the steep logging road that wound to the top of the mountain. A few minutes later the mine manager, the union shop steward and three men she didn’t recognize entered the mine.

The group that went into the mine returned in an hour. The pair that went up the hill were gone an additional thirty minutes. By then, it was almost noon and the news media had arrived by the droves. To avoid the relentless questioning, one of the foremen moved the wives and family members to the mine’s office building and let them wait in a classroom. At one o’clock the mine manager and a few other grim faced men entered the classroom. The manager moved to the center of the room and cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry folks but I have bad news. The section of mine where your loved ones are is so compromised it is impossible to get to them. And even if we could we are certain that it wouldn’t be a rescue, we would just be recovering their remains.”

He pointed to the men with him.

“This is Mister Bristol; he is from the West Virginia Department of Mines and Mister Isaksson is from the United States Bureau of Mines. You know John Finney our shop steward and this gentleman is Mister Chezowicz; he is a geologist from the US Geological Survey. The collapse in the mine was big enough that equipment thirty miles away on Buck Mountain, recorded it as a major seismic event.

“It was Mister Chezowicz who discovered how big the fall was when he scouted around up on the mountain for a possible site to drill down to Coal Room Seven. He found that it wasn’t a ceiling fall, it was a half-mile square section of the mountain that collapsed onto that room.

“Given the facts, we all reluctantly agreed that we would not put any more lives in jeopardy and Mister Isaksson ordered that section of the mine to be abandoned and sealed…”

Ester was jerked out of her reminiscing by the persistent voice of her son.

“… Mama … HEY, MAMA … you okay?” Ester gave him a small, embarrassed smile.

“Sorry, Jericho, I was just wool gathering. Hand me that hatchet, please. I bet Ben Chaney will give us three or four dollars for these ribs. You know how he likes to barbecue.”

Both Ester and Jericho were reserved and quiet people so there was no extraneous conversation as they worked. Butchering the pig by rote they were both lost in their thoughts, thoughts that were very similar as they reflected on their current situation.

Ten men were lost in the Pitchfork Mine disaster. Three of them, including John Roy and Carl Blanchard, were members of Antioch Baptist Church. The church held a memorial service for the miners the Saturday after the accident. It was a sad and solemn service made even more poignant when Oliver Trundle, a miner that worked at the Pitchfork, sang Merle Travis’ ‘Dark as a Dungeon.’ Travis, the son of coal miner himself, was hugely popular amongst the coal mining community.

The lament was eerily appropriate to the grim circumstance of the tragedy the congregation was mourning. Two stanzas, the first rarely performed by Merle, were especially relevant:

The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day, Is the same to the miner who labors away.

Where the demons of death often come by surprise, One fall of the slate and you're buried alive.

And the last verse:

I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll, My body will blacken and turn into coal.

Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home, And pity the miner a-diggin' my bones.

Reality set in the Monday after the memorial. Ester was home with her children and her sadness, when a man knocked on the door. He was from the United Mine Workers of America with a check for three thousand dollars, a one-time death benefit that the union paid to the widows of miners. The man also told her what was available to her from Social Security. When he left, Ester dug out the family’s bank book and bills. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and for the first time thought about the financial implications of John Roy’s death. She and John Roy were savers and had a little over twenty-eight hundred dollars in the bank. She did some figuring and came up with a plan.

The next day she went to town and deposited the check from the union in the bank. Then she used the money from the death benefit and some of their savings to pay off the house and her car. When she left she still had nine hundred in saving and owed not a penny to anyone. She had agonized over

keeping the car but in the end she couldn’t part with her little baby blue 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon. The car was John Roy’s gift for her thirty-seventh birthday. It was the only new car they had ever owned.

Wednesday, Ester drove down to the Social Security office in Charleston. The good folks there helped her file the paperwork for her widow’s pension and the two-hundred-fifty-five dollar burial benefit. Her pension figured out to one-hundred-eighty dollars a month: sixty dollars for each of her three children. The monthly pension was twenty dollars less than John Roy had brought home every two weeks, but Ester reckoned it might be enough for them to get by.

Ester was partially right in that with a little help from the government surplus commodities program, she could feed her brood and pay the utility bills. It was the unexpected expenses that slowly eroded their savings. In September it was school clothes for her children. Then in October her car needed tires; in November it was a tank of fuel oil and property taxes; and even a lean Christmas further ate into their reserves. January was okay but February made up for it when the well pump burned out and Sears charged them a hundred and fourteen dollars to replace it.

Ester broached the subject of finances at the dinner table on a Sunday evening in early May.

“We are down to only a few hundred dollars in the bank, so I am going to get a job.” After a minute of silence, Ruth asked the obvious question.

“Doing what, Mama?”

“Well,” Ester replied, “I was a waitress before I married your Daddy, so I guess that’s what I’ll look for.”

Finding a job was easier said than done for a woman in rural West Virginia. She tried every restaurant and diner in town without any luck. As a last resort she stopped by the Wagon Wheel Restaurant and Supper Club out on highway 19 right at the county line. The Wagon Wheel sat in the middle of a cluster of businesses with a Texaco service station on one side, and the Hide-a-Way Motel on the other. The Wagon Wheel was a restaurant with a bar attached from Monday through Thursday. But on Friday and Saturday nights, it was a notorious honky-tonk supper club with a bad reputation. The Wagon Wheel did a brisk business because Manfred County, less than a quarter of a mile away, was dry.

It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the dimly lit interior of the restaurant. The place was deserted at ten on a Thursday morning except for a man in a white apron standing behind the bar lethargically polishing a cocktail glass. The man looked up as Ester approached.

“Hello,” she said, “I was wondering if there was a waitress job available.”

The man shrugged and put the glass he had been polishing into an overhead rack.

“Mister Cabrini does the hiring, ma’am. Have a seat, and I’ll let him know you're here.”

Ester perched on the edge of a tall bar stool and looked around curiously. The last time she had been in a bar was before she married John Roy. The place was huge. It was easily ten times the size of her uncle’s restaurant back in Cherokee. The bartender returned in only a couple of minutes and ushered her into the club manager’s office.

Mister Cabrini came out from around his desk when she walked in. Cabrini was a tall, handsome man wearing a sharp dark blue suit. Ester thought he looked a lot like Dean Martin.

“Good morning,” the man said, “I’m Jack Cabrini.”

His voice, she notice, was rich and deep without a trace of accent. Ester held out her hand and he grasped it lightly in his. His after shave smelled manly and expensive. The handsome man made

Ester feel as if she were a naïve young girl.

“Umm, Ester…Ester Donavan,” she finally managed to say.

Cabrini released her hand that she didn’t remember him holding, led her to an arm chair in front of his desk and gave her a warm smile.

“Nice to meet you, Ester,” he said. “Have a seat and tell me what I can do for you.”

“I came to apply for a job as a waitress Mister Cabrini. I am a hard worker and I have experience working at my uncle’s restaurant.”

Cabrini frowned.

“I’m sorry but we don’t have any open positions in the restaurant,” he said. Ester nodded dejectedly.

“No one else does either, it seems…well thank you for your time anyway, Mister Cabrini.”

When she rose to leave Cabrini looked her over again. Ester was a handsome woman with a very nice figure.

“Hold on a minute, Ester. I might have a cocktail waitress position available, but you better talk it over with your husband first.”

“My husband died in a mine accident last year, Mister Cabrini, and left me with three children to raise. That’s why I need a job.”

Cabrini wiped the smile off his face.

“My condolences for your loss, Ester, but your situation might make this job perfect for you. See, you would only work on Friday and Saturday nights when we have live entertainment. You could be home with your children the rest of the time. In just those two nights a good waitress, one who is personable and efficient, can earn as much as a regular waitress makes all week.”

“How can that be?” she asked suspiciously. Cabrini shrugged.

“It’s simple. Personable waitresses earn bigger tips, surely you remember that. Since you will usually get tipped every time you service a table, you can see working efficiently is to your advantage. In addition, if your orders are high enough, we pay you a bonus. You keep our customers happy and they spend more; the more money you make us, the more you make.”

Ester nodded. The money sounded awfully good. She made her decision.

“When can I start?” she asked.

Cabrini held up his hands in a stop gesture.

“Whoa there, Ester. This is still an interview. Yes, the job is available and yes, it appears perfect for you but now I must decide if you are a good fit for the position.”

Ester blushed in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry for being so presumptuous,” she said contritely.

Cabrini smiled reassuringly. He got up, walked around his desk, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“That’s okay, Ester. Like I said, you have to keep the customers happy and drinking. The best way to

do that is by being pretty and friendly. Let’s work on the pretty first. I want a cocktail waitress not a school teacher, so stand up and take your hair down,” he said.

Cabrini’s voice had an edge of command to it that made Ester’s stomach flutter. Ester nodded while trying to ignore how close he was standing to her and how good his hand on her shoulder had felt.

Ester Donavan was a sensuous woman, and she hadn’t been touched by a man in any way for almost a year. She was shy and modest in public; but in private, she enthusiastically gave John Roy anything he wanted, any time he wanted it. As she grew older, she even figured out ways to persuade John Roy there was no time like the present to want 'something.'

Mister Cabrini was a handsome man; and, more importantly for Ester, he had a strong, commanding presence. Ester liked the confident, ‘take charge’ type of man. That’s one thing that had drawn her to John Roy. She stood and reached up for the pins that held the coil of braids on top of her head.

Ester finger combed the braids out of her hair until her tresses fell mid-way down her back in a wavy cascade. She kept her hair up as a matter of convenience; but, truth be known, she was proud of her tresses. Her hair was long and thick, and as glossy black as a Raven’s wing.

Cabrini flashed one of his dazzling smiles and took a step toward her.

“Much better,” he said as her walked around her, “your hair is very nice and with it down your nose is less prominent. You don’t have much up top but even in that frumpy dress I can see you have a deluxe caboose to make up for it.”

Before Ester could decide if she had been complimented or insulted by his admittedly honest appraisal, Cabrini put his hand on the afore mentioned 'caboose’ and leaned his head down close to her right ear.

“There is something about you, Ester, that gets my motor running. I am going to enjoy taking you to bed,” he whispered.

His rude forwardness woke Ester from her fog, she slapped his hand away and angrily glared at him.

“That’s a pleasure you’ll never experience, Mister Cabrini,” she snapped. Cabrini shrugged his shoulders.

“I will if you want the job. I’m doing you a favor, Ester, because there are plenty of younger, prettier and better built women who want the job and will do what it takes to get it,” he smirked.

It was Ester’s turn to shrug.

“Call one of them then, because they are welcome to it,” she tossed over her shoulder as she stalked out the door.

Ester had regained her composure by the time her son Jerry arrived home from school. The high school started an hour earlier than the grade school Jerry’s sisters attended so Ester sat her son down one-on-one at the kitchen table and laid out all the money woes their family faced. Then she shared with him her futile job search including today’s debacle.

Jerry bristled at her description of the treatment she had received from Cabrini but remained silent. When she finished her narrative, he spoke.

“I’ll start looking for a job, tomorrow. Maybe I will be luckier than you,” he reasoned.

Ester gave him a small grateful smile. Ester was enormously proud of her son, he reminded her so much of the two most important men in her life, her husband and her father.

“You are the man in our family now, Jericho. I know this is a lot for you to take on, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

Jerry returned his mother’s smile and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, Mama, everything will be fine.”

The next day Jerry left school at three and drove his father’s old pickup truck to the one place he figured he could find employment. Twenty minutes later he was sitting in the office of Ezra Blanchard, the General Manager of the Pitchfork Mine, inquiring about a job. Ezra Blanchard had been the GM of the mine for twenty-five years and had been close to John-Roy and his nephew Carl, so he was quick to offer Jerry a position.

“You are not eighteen yet son, so you can’t get a union card to work in the mine proper; but I had to let Junior Mayfield go Monday for drinking on the job. So, I'm a man short on the night maintenance crew. The job starts at minimum wage, but it’s full-time steady work. After a ninety day probation period, if we keep you, it pays a dollar forty an hour.”

Jerry failed miserably at trying to act unexcited.

“When can I start?” he quickly asked.

Ezra smiled and pulled a packet of papers out of his desk.

“How about as soon as you fill out this paperwork,” Blanchard replied.

Jerry filled out the employment packet, and with orders to return at eight that night to start his shift, drove home to give his mother the happy news.

Ester was less than thrilled that Jericho took a job at the mine, but she was somewhat mollified that at least he wouldn’t be a miner. Jerry shined the best possible light on the job by stressing that he would seldom actually be in the mine.

“Mister Blanchard told me I’ll be cleaning up offices and the tipple house mostly, Mama,” he earnestly told her. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipple}

The job turned out to be harder than Jerry thought it would be, but the guys he worked with were a hoot. He was also excited about the prospects of learning how to operate and maintain all the mine’s heavy equipment. Of course, before he touched a single piece of heavy equipment, Jerry became well versed in every scut work job with which his crew was saddled. The only negative associated with his new job, was having to drop out of school to keep it. He already had enough credits to finish the eleventh grade, but he knew he wouldn’t be returning for his senior year.

The summer that followed Jerry’s hiring was radically different than the last six. Different because, for the first time since he turned ten, Jerry was not spending the summer with his Grandfather Hatchett on the Eastern Band of Cherokee’s Reservation known as the Qualla Boundary.

Even among the Eastern Band of Cherokee, Jericho Hatchett was a legendary hunter, tracker, and woodsman. The elder Jericho bragged to anyone who would listen that his grandson was the best student he'd ever trained.

Hatchett was also legendary for his disregard of federal laws that forbade hunting within the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Hatchett’s position was that regardless of some edict from Washington, the park had always been Cherokee land, and would be forever. The Forest Service took exception to his proclamation. Shortly after Jerry’s last visit they finally nabbed Hatchett with a large buck elk. He was tried and convicted in federal court, on charges of illegal hunting on federal land, felony trespass, and poaching. Consequently, Papa Hatchett was currently serving three years in a federal prison.

Jerry’s work hours were from six in the evening to two-thirty in the morning Monday through Friday. He would depart for the mine at five-thirty, and, since he showered at work, was usually home and in bed by three. Jerry didn’t mind working at night because that left most of the day free so

he could hunt and fish. He quickly settled into a comfortable routine.

His pay was just enough to assuage the family’s money woes and provided Jerry with six dollars a week for gas. So when Jerry wasn’t hunting, fishing or doing chores, he visited his neighbors, offering his services doing odd jobs to earn more money.

Hoke Purnell hired Jerry for five hours a week at a dollar an hour. Jerry mostly pulled parts from Purnell’s large assortment of junked vehicles. Lottie Purnell treated Jerry as if he was her grandson, and Hoke helped Jerry keep his father’s old pick-up truck in running condition.

Jerry worked for Ben Chaney a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. Chaney’s farm was thriving; because, at the turn of the decade (on the advice of an Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service agent), he had started planting and cropping five acres of burley tobacco. Chaney had an exclusive contract with the Lorillard Tobacco Company and was making a tidy profit, so hiring Jerry to do his weekend chores was a luxury he could well afford.

Jerry also helped out Ben Chaney’s widowed sister, Ida Flood, a couple of days a week. He enjoyed working for Miss Ida, because the jobs she had for him were mostly easy household repairs and maintenance, and she treated him as if he was an adult. At first, Jerry had been leery about approaching her for work, because as his teacher she had been a stern disciplinarian. He was pleasantly surprised that she was a completely different person away from school.

Ester returned half of what he earned to Jerry, and put the rest on bills, and into savings. Jerry held on to most of his share of the money and in mid-July bought his mother a fancy new Singer sewing machine for her fortieth birthday. Ester, who had been making her and her daughters’ clothes for years on an old treadle machine given to her by John Roy’s mother, was ecstatic. With the new machine she could turn out a finely stitched frock in two hours instead of the six to eight hours it had been taking her.

Ester immediately sat down with her daughters and the big Sears & Roebuck catalog. Then the three of them excitedly picked out patterns and materials for a new school wardrobe for each of the girls and even a couple of new Sunday dresses for Ester. It was the happiest occasion the three had shared since John Roy’s passing.

{1

Chapter Three

On a Tuesday night towards the end of July, Lester Givens - the night maintenance foreman at Pitchfork Coal Mine - announced to the crew that Jerry was no longer a probationary member of their team. After some good natured congratulatory ribbing, Jerry donned his rain suit, and headed off to steam clean the coal sorter. The job didn’t get any easier, but the pay raise made the work more palatable.

The pay raise also gave Ester some breathing room with the family’s finances. Ester was thrilled that she could finally start replenishing their depleted savings account.

The summer continued to be good for the Donavans. In August, Ben Chaney hired the entire Donavan family for a week, to help him bring in his tobacco crop. Ben grew burley tobacco because it could be air-dried, and he could harvest the whole plant at once. The golden type of tobacco grown in North Carolina and Virginia was more labor intensive, because it had to be cropped a few leaves at a time, and the leaves dried in heated barns.

The plan was to harvest one acre a day. It was an ambitious plan, because one acre produced about twenty-two hundred plants. To make sure he could meet his acre a day goal, Ben Chaney also enlisted the help of his wife’s niece, Lisa Bass, and her twin brother Lloyd. Jerry knew the Bass twins because they were his age and had been his classmates in high school. Lisa and Lloyd were as different as two related people could possibly be. Lloyd was tall and slender with curly brown hair, while Lisa was of medium height with a curvy body and straight blond hair. The Bass family lived in Cokerville, where Mister Bass worked at the savings and loan.

Jerry, Ben and Lloyd went down the rows felling the plants with hatchets, and the teen girls loaded the cut plants onto a wagon pulled by a tractor. When the wagon was full Alice drove the tractor to the barn. Ester Donavan, niece Lisa, and Ben’s sister Ida Flood helped Alice unload the wagon. The women cut a notch in the base of the plant stem, hooked the notched plants on five foot long sticks, and hung the sticks on ten foot long rolling metal racks. Each stick was loaded with fifteen tobacco stalks and weighed about fifty pounds.

When the acre of plants was cut, the men went to the barn and hung the full sticks so the tobacco could air dry. Ben had temporarily installed two-by-six wood runners from side to side in the big open barn, where he normally stored farming equipment. The runners were just less than five feet apart and formed ten rows that were thirty feet long. There were three tiers of runners, starting a foot below the barn’s rafters. The tiers were about five feet apart.

They started hanging the sticks from the top row first, so Chaney had laid wide boards across the first two tiers. Two people stood on the ground at each end of the barn, and passed the sticks up to a couple of people standing on the first tier. Those folks passed the sticks up to Jerry and Lloyd who stood on the second tier. The two taller young men then hung the sticks on the third tier.

It was hard and dirty work, but the Donavans were happy with the money they made.

And so, life moved on. Summer tuned to autumn then winter arrived. The Donavans finally had something for which to be thankful on the fourth Thursday in November, and Christmas was a joyous holiday.

The good times lasted until the first Friday in February. The good mood Jerry brought to work quickly evaporated, when his supervisor made an announcement as he handed out paychecks.

“Gents,” he said, “I have some bad news. Today was the last day for this here old hole in the ground. After their shift today, all the miners and bolters were paid off and let go. We'll get an extra week, working with the salvage crew, and then we are history, too.”

The news of the mine closing wasn’t entirely unexpected. Rumors had been bouncing around since the first of the year. The rumors were based on the woes of the United States steel industry. US steel makers were in serious difficulty because of foreign competition, mostly from Japan and Germany. Ironically, the Germans and Japanese had a competitive edge, because the United States helped them build modern efficient mills to replace ones destroyed by Allied Forces during World War Two.

The timing of the mine closure was unfortunate for Jericho Donavan, because he was not a member of the United Mine Workers Union. The union would eventually find jobs for its members. In addition, the Union doubled the sixteen weeks of unemployment compensation paid by the state.

Jerry worked the extra week with the maintenance crew, and drew his final paycheck that Friday. Ironically it was his eighteenth birthday, the day he became eligible for union membership.

Jerry immediately filed for unemployment compensation, and began searching for another job. Unfortunately, all of Appalachia was suffering through an economic down-turn, because of the soft demand for coal. There was not a job to be found within fifty miles of Coker County. There was some good news, though, because Jerry was still doing odd jobs for his neighbors. The part-time work, combined with his unemployment, netted him about the same amount he had earned working full time.

One small bit of good fortune that came from the mine’s closing, was the effect that it had on the personal life Jerry had put on hold with the death of his father. Now he was no longer working evenings and nights, so he actually had the time for a social life.

Jerry was a complete novice when it came to dating, but he screwed up his nerve and the first girl he asked out was Missus Chaney’s niece, Lisa Bass. Lisa was the top student at Coker County High School, and seemed to be a shy, quiet young woman. Given all that, Jerry was amazed that for the last six months she had flirted with him whenever she and her brother visited their uncle’s farm.

Lisa said 'yes', so on the third Friday in February, Jerry got ready. He washed his truck, put on his best chinos and a blue plaid shirt, and drove into town to pick up his date. Jerry was nervous when he presented himself at the front door of the Bass’s nice gingerbread Victorian house on Vine Street. He was relieved that Lisa’s twin brother opened the door when Jerry knocked. His relief was short lived, however, when Lloyd shook his hand and led him into the parlor.

“Lisa is still upstairs getting ready. I’ll go tell her you’re here, but my Dad wants to talk to you first,” Lloyd said.

Henry Bass was a big man with crew cut brown hair and black horn rimmed glasses. He had served in the Pacific in World War Two and still carried himself like a Marine. Henry told Jerry to have a seat and went right to the point.

“I knew your father. We were both members of the VFW and he did business at our bank. He was a good man and I hear you are following in his footsteps. I respect what you have done for your family.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Jerry replied.

Bass flipped his hand up in a dismissive wave.

“I don’t need your thanks, Jerry. What I need is for you to show that same respect to my daughter. Lisa is a special young lady with big plans for the future. You are the first young man she has ever dated and I would be most unhappy if you derailed those plans.”

Jerry nodded earnestly.

“My Mama taught me how to respect women, Mister Bass, and Lisa is the first one I ever asked for a date. I figure we don’t know enough, between us, to get into too much trouble.”

Henry Bass barked out a loud laugh.

“Famous last words,” he snorted.

Just then Lisa and her mother walked into the room. Jerry and Mister Bass stood up as they arrived. Lisa was wearing a dark green cable knit sweater, and a green and black tartan plaid wrap skirt held together with a big brass safety pin. Her hair was parted in the middle so it cascaded over her shoulder and down the front of her sweater. Jerry thought she looked beautiful. Lisa smiled sweetly when he told her so.

Then they were at the front door and Jerry was helping her into her navy blue peacoat. Lisa shrugged into her coat and turned to face her parents.

“We are going to the A&W, and then the movies. I’ll be home by midnight,” she said.

Mister Bass frowned and looked at his watch. Midnight was almost six hours away. Missus Bass saw his frown and patted his arm.

“That will be fine, dear, but not a minute later. We’ll be waiting up to hear all about your evening,” she said.

Once they were in his truck and on the road, Lisa slid across the seat right up against Jerry’s side.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Jerry Donavan. I’ve liked you since the eighth grade. I was so jealous when Bev Holman said you kissed her during the freshman class hayride. Now here we are on a real date,” she said excitedly.

Jerry blushed but didn’t say anything. Truth be told, he had almost fainted when Beverly grabbed him and shoved her tongue into his mouth.

They enjoyed a root beer float in a booth in the A&W, before seeing a Christopher Lee vampire movie at Cokerville Theater. The movie was only so-so, but Jerry loved the way Lisa pushed herself tight under his arm during the scary scenes. After the movie Jerry was set to return Lisa home when she took their evening in another direction.

“I don’t want to go to home yet, Jerry. Instead, do you think we can go someplace and talk?” she asked.

Jerry found a place to park out by Hemlock Creek. They snuggled up under a thick quilt he kept behind the seat for emergencies and Lisa shared her plans for the future.

“After graduation I’m going to leave this place, Jerry. For twelve years all my focus has been on getting into a good college and then going to medical school. Well, now I have a full scholarship to the University of Maryland, and when I get there, I don’t want to be some naive country girl. It’s going to be your job to help me with that.”

Jerry grimaced and shook his head.

“I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know any more about that stuff than you do,” he said. Lisa looked at him and grinned.

“Then I guess we’ll learn, together,” she said.

They didn’t move past second base on that first date, but that was mostly because of the cold weather and cramped front seat of Jerry’s pickup. It was the first make out session for either of them, but when they finally came up for air an hour later both of them couldn’t wait for the next one. They scheduled it for the following Sunday after church.

Jerry woke up early the Saturday morning after his first date with Lisa. He felt great as he trotted

down to the Chaney farm to do his usual weekend chores. Even the weather was agreeable as the day broke sunny and the temperature climbed into the high forties. It took almost four hours to complete the list of chores Ben Chaney left for him. Then he hustled home for lunch.

Jerry took a quick shower and ate lunch, before checking in with Miss Ida, to see what help she needed. Ida Flood lived in a red brick, two bedroom, ranch style house that she'd had built when she move back to Coker County after her husband died.

Ida answered his knock on her door wearing a knee-length white sundress, with large red hibiscus floral print, and a pair of oxblood penny loafers. Her dark blond hair was in a ponytail. Ida was attractive more than beautiful, but without her usual cat-eyed black glasses and make-up, she looked like a teenager. Jerry was astonished by her appearance, and stood rooted in the doorway, his mouth agape.

Ida grabbed his arm and tugged him through the door.

“Get in here, you big oaf, and close your mouth before something flies into it,” she said with a decidedly feminine laugh.

Jerry blushed from the embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Miss Flood,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t know it was you at first, and when I realized it was you, I just stared on account of you looking so pretty.”

Ida patted his arm that she was still holding and said, “It is quite all right, Jericho. It has been a long time since anyone told me I was pretty. And another thing, you are an adult now and I am no longer your teacher, so it would be appropriate for you to call me Ida.”

Ida led Jerry through the living room and out onto her glassed in sun porch. He took a seat on a comfortable wicker sofa. He couldn’t help watching her as she poured him a glass of sweet tea from an icy pitcher that was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. He was still trying to reconcile the prim and dowdy spinster in drab clothes, with this attractive young women. He blushed again when he caught himself staring at her shapely legs and trim figure. Ida was a small woman, probably no more than five foot-two, and a hundred pounds at most, but she was certainly well constructed.

Ida didn’t help his confusion when she sat down beside him, crossed her legs, and didn’t bother to pull her dress down to cover her knees. The three or four inches of thigh she displayed was sexier to Jerry than all the pinups in the girlie magazines the fellers at the mine passed around. Jerry realized he was staring and jerked his eyes up to her face.

Ida noticed where he was struggling not to look and gave him a Mona Lisa smile.

“Relax, Jerry,” she said. “I’m flattered you think I am attractive enough to look at me like that. We’ll speak of that in a minute, but now that I have your attention, let’s discuss what you need to do to earn your high school diploma.”

Jerry was happy that she wasn’t upset over his disrespectful ogling, but he was confused anew about the out of the blue mention of his education.

“I need to support my family. I can’t go back to school,” he explained.

“You don’t need to go back to school. Instead, you can take the high school equivalency exam after this year’s senior class graduates. You’ll have to brush up on your Math, English and Science, but I can help you with that.”

She turned and picked up two large paperback books off the end table next to her.

“You were a good student, Jerry, so by the time we work through these study guides, you should have no trouble with the tests.”

“That sounds great Mi … I mean, Ida, but it will take up a lot of time you could be doing something else.”

“Let me worry about that, Jerry. Let’s try for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday, to start. If we need more time, we can use Saturday after you help me around here.”

Jerry nodded and grinned.

“Yes, Ma’am, Miss Teacher,” he said.

Ida laughed and dug her elbow into his side.

“And don’t you forget it, Mister Wisenheimer,” she threatened good-naturedly. Then her demeanor changed, and she turned to look into his eyes.

“I wore this outfit because I knew you were coming by today, and I wanted to look nice for you. You are the first man I have dressed up for since my husband died.”

Jerry nodded but kept silent, he could tell she had more to say.

“This is embarrassing but it is important that you understand what I want. I’ve been the widowed spinster schoolmarm for four years now, and in less than a month I’ll be thirty-years old. I need to get on with my life. You can understand that, can’t you?”

Jerry nodded again.

“Sure, Ida, my family has been struggling with that since my father died; but what does all that have to do with me?” he replied in confusion.

Ida blushed and looked down at her hands which were folded in her lap.

“This the embarrassing part, Jerry, because I want a man in my life and I want you to be that man.”

Ida voice trailed off to barely a whisper as she looked up at him hopefully. Jerry rocked back in shock.

“WHAT!” he blurted.

Ida patted his arm and gave him a gentle, reassuring smile.

“Relax, okay? I am not proposing marriage or anything like that. I need a man around, sometimes, but nothing full time. I enjoy my privacy too much to give it up. We can have a part time relationship; and, if we are careful, no one would be the wiser,” she said.

The thought of what she seemed to be suggesting left Jerry gobsmacked.

“Why me, Ida? I don’t know anything about how to be with a woman, heck I’ve only had one date, and that was just last night.”

Ida gave him another smile. It dawned on him that she had smiled more today than all the time he’d known her. He was really beginning to like that smile and the cute dimples it produced.

“Why you is easy, Honey. First off, you are tall and handsome. But, more importantly, you are respectful, responsible and intelligent. As for you not knowing anything about relationships between men and women, I don’t see that as a problem. In fact, it is a positive thing as far as I’m concerned.”

She actually giggled at the confused look on his face.

“Listen to me, Honey. It is better that you don’t know much, because you won’t have any bad habits to unlearn. You were a good student, Jerry; and I am a good teacher, so trust me, everything will be

fine.”

Jerry decided that she was right, it was useless driving himself crazy trying to figure things out if she knew the answers already.

“All right, Miss Flood, I’m ready for my first lesson”, he said with a grin.

“Okay, Mister Donavan, For your first lesson, put your arm around me and hold me, I want to tell you a few things.”

‘Well’, Jerry thought, ‘at least she started with something I'm good at.’

Having two little sisters, he was at expert cuddler. Even though his sisters were in their teens, since their father’s death, Jerry couldn’t sit on the couch without one or both of them snuggling up to him.

Jerry draped his arm across her small shoulders and gently pulled her against his side. Ida burrowed tighter under his arm and rubbed her face against the soft fabric of his faded, red plaid, flannel shirt.

“I think,” she sighed, “that I sometimes miss this the most of all.”

Jerry wrapped his other arm around her and gave her a little squeeze instead of answering her with words. She let out another pleased sigh and continued her narrative.

Ida told Jerry about attending the University of West Virginia on a merit scholarship for math and science. It was even more rare back then for a woman to excel in hard science, so she had the ambition of becoming a teacher to encourage more girls into those areas. She did well at the university, both academically and socially, and even joined a sorority.

Ida dated some, but it was all casual. She was too serious about her studies for any type of more permanent relationship. That all changed junior year when Charles Flood swept her off her feet. Flood was a former Air Force fighter pilot in his early thirties. He taught history, and was an assistant coach for the UWV Mountaineer football team.

She met Charles at a Friday night mixer her sorority was hosting. He had dropped by to make sure his football players weren’t breaking curfew before Saturday’s big game against their arch rivals, the Virginia Tech Hokies. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and electric. Flood brought out all the sexual feelings Ida never knew she had.

“Within twenty-four hours of meeting him, I gave Charlie what I had been guarding for twenty years,” she said with a chuckle, “and it would have happened sooner if he hadn’t had that darned football game the next day.”

Ida went on to tell him about their short engagement, and how they were married during the summer before her senior year. She also told him about the adventuresome love life she had enjoyed with her Charlie.

Jerry was amazed, confused and aroused by the things she told him. He had never even imagined a woman sharing such information, let alone having one pick him to tell. Finally his curiosity got the best of him.

“Why are you telling me all this?” he asked.

Ida squirmed around in his arms until she was facing him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and looked into his eyes.

“I know all about you, Jerry. For us to be the kind of friends I envision, I wanted you to know about me, too,” she explained.

Then the serious look on her face morphed into an impish grin.

“I’ll tell you one more thing you didn’t know. Lisa Bass is as if she's my niece, too. I also believe she is one of those special girls whose accomplishments will change the perception of women. Lisa called me when you asked her out, and she phoned me this morning to tell me about your date, last night. I want you to know I approve of you two dating. Having her for a girlfriend will certainly make it easier for us to hide our friendship.”

Jerry started to say something, but Ida pressed her index finger to his lips.

“Why don’t you stop thinking so much, and kiss me? Lisa said you were really good at that.” That sounded like a swell idea to Jericho Donavan.

Jerry was lost the second Ida fused her lips to his. Comparing Ida’s kiss to Lisa’s, was to compare a fire cracker to a stick of dynamite. Lisa and he had started slow and tentative; but with Ida, they went from zero to ninety, in about ten seconds. Ida moved to climb up into his lap but Jerry flipped her onto her back, instead. She squealed in surprised delight.

Jerry had listened closely when she talked about her marriage and one thing he deduced from her monologue, was that Charles had been demanding and forceful in the bedroom. Intuitively, he figured she would enjoy it if he was the same way. He grabbed her hands, tugged them above her head and pinned them with his right hand. Then he slowly began unfastening her dress with his left. He unbuttoned the dress and unclasped the leather belt wrapped around her narrow waist.

Taking a page out of one of the Victorian erotic novels the coal miners passed around, Jerry jerked the sides of her dress apart at the collar. Then he snatched her strapless bra up and over her breasts. Her breasts stood proudly on her chest, like twin McIntosh apples. They were a sharp contrast to Lisa’s larger, softer mounds, but they were just as appealing to Jerry. Jerry cupped her right breast in his left hand and dragged his eyes up to look at her face.

“These are nice,” he said casually as he tweaked her nipple, “but they are missing something.”

She looked back at him in wide-eyed wonder, this was orders of magnitude better than she had expected.

“Missing something?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. He nodded.

“Yeah, they are missing this,” he said.

He swooped his head down and sucked a hickey onto the inside lower slope of her right breast. When he was finished he popped his head up and looked her in the eyes.

“Now when you look in the mirror, you’ll know who those belong to,” Jerry said, his voice deep and firm.

Ida’s nostrils flared and she shivered. She felt like a teenager, all hot and bothered from making out on the couch.

“Take me to bed, Honey, before I go crazy,” she moaned.

Jerry, out of ideas on what to do next, thought that was a great idea. He released her hands, stood up the scooped her up in his arms. Ida cooed at his strength, as he lifted her as if she were a feather. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and directed him towards her bedroom.

{1

Chapter Four

Jerry Donavan was in a good mood Saturday morning. As he walked home after his visit to Ida’s house, he was on top of the world. He was afraid that the grin on his face was plastered there permanently.

Back down Chaney Hollow Road, Ida Flood was all smiles as well as she lay naked in her bed under a chenille bedspread. She sighed contentedly, stretched like a cat and rolled onto her side to snuggle against the pillow that still smelled like her new young lover. Next to marrying Charlie, seducing Jericho Donavan was the best decision she had ever made.

Life tottered along for the Donavans. March came, and an early spring descended upon them. Ester took advantage of Jerry being around more by having him expand the size of her vegetable garden. It took a hard ten days of work for the pair of them to turn and till by hand the ambitious plot Ester laid out. They fertilized the plot with four pickup truck loads of cow manure Jerry mucked out of Ben Chaney’s barns. Ester had a knack for gardening and now she had over an acre of cultivated land on which to work her magic.

After the garden was prepared, Ester set Jerry to work on expanding their chicken coop. Ester had always had a dozen or so chickens for eggs and the occasional chicken dinner. Now however, she wanted enough layers so that she could have eggs to sell and enough pullets for at least one meal a week.

Ester took twenty dollars out of the emergency money she kept in a coffee can in the kitchen to pay for three pounds of ten-penny nails and a couple of six by one-hundred foot rolls of chicken wire.

Jerry salvaged the wood from an old falling-down barn Mister Purnell paid him to tear down and haul off.

Getting chickens was the easiest part of the activity, because every spring Coker Feed and Seed threw in a dozen chicks for every fifty-pound bag of cracked corn anyone bought. For fewer than eleven dollars, Ester picked up five dozen Rhode Island Red chicks and two-hundred and fifty pounds of feed for them. The chick give away was sponsored by the Purina Feed Company, with the knowledge that the recipient of the chicks would need more feed for them in the future.

Ester was expanding her garden and chicken coop because March was the last month she would receive money for Jerry in her Widow’s Pension. In just three months, they would lose sixty percent of Jerry’s income (Jerry's unemployment would run out in May) plus a third of her pension. Once again the Donavans tightened their belts.

Jerry worked for Ben Chaney, and some of the neighboring farmers during April as spring planting happened. Hoke Purnell also starting using him two half days a week. Jerry only made a dollar an hour working for Purnell, but the older man was helping him restore his father’s old truck and he never charged Jerry for parts.

Hoke Purnell was a tall gaunt man, with shaggy gray hair and a long tangled beard the same color. He had the reputation for being a mean-spirited and irascible old coot, but that was mostly an act to keep nosy people out of his business.

It was a glorious spring for Jerry. He was finding just enough work to support his family and his love life was impossibly full and satisfying. He was dating Lisa Bass most weekends, and he was seeing Ida at least three times a week.

Lisa became the recipient of all he was learning from Ida. Lisa was a willing student … up to a point. She wasn’t ready to go all the way, but she was eager to try anything else at least once. It seemed as if Lisa’s entire body was an erogenous zone. She was a pretty, soft and cuddly orgasm machine.

By contrast, Ida was petite with a firm body. She kept in shape with a daily hour of yoga. Because of the yoga, Ida’s supple body was as flexible as an Olympic gymnast’s. Once Jerry became the assertive lover she needed, she unleashed on him the passionate nature she had repressed for four years. Ida wasn’t as young, pretty or curvy as Lisa; yet Jerry preferred her company, anyway. He got along with Lisa just fine, but he and Ida seemed to fit together like mated puzzle pieces.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jerry and Ida managed to keep their hands off each other long enough to fit in an hour preparing Jerry for the GED test. In addition, Ida was bringing him books from the library to read at home. The books were an eclectic mix of biographies, history, popular novels and self-help manuals. The common themes of the books were leadership and influence.

She explained it to Jerry with the first book.

“As I told you before, Charles Flood was an officer in the Army and then a football coach. Anyone who ever met Charlie, knew he was a leader. He believed that some men are born leaders, but really good leaders apply skills they learn from studying great leaders. You, Jericho Donavan, are a natural leader and I want you to learn how to be a good or great leader.”

Jerry didn’t know if Ida’s assessment was true or not, but he found most of the books enjoyable reading anyway.

Saturday was Jerry’s favorite day of the week. He was up bright and early Saturday mornings and hard at work at Ben Chaney’s farm by the crack of dawn. By starting early, he usually finished Chaney’s chores by mid-morning. He would then hustle over to Ida’s and do whatever was on her task list. Ida usually worked at his side which made the chores quicker and much more fun. Ida loved to laugh and Jerry had the knack for tickling her funny-bone.

After chores they showered together, and then tumbled into Ida’s queen size bed. Making love on Saturday afternoons was much less hurried so Ida could be much more creative. Jericho never knew what or who (Ida loved to dress up in different disguises) to expect. One Saturday the Genie from I Dream of Jeannie belly danced into the room ready to be tied to the bed and ravished. On another Saturday, a sexy Nurse Chapel from Star Trek treated him for an abnormally large growth on his groin.

When she was not trying to wear him out in the bedroom, Ida treated Jerry as if he was the King of England returning from the Crusades. How could you not love a woman like that?

At the end of April, The Donavans received a windfall when Jerry’s income tax refund check of one hundred and twenty dollars arrived. Lisa’s father, Henry Bass, had helped him prepare and file the form 1040 in February. Jerry was amazed to discover that he could claim his sisters as dependents. The money was especially welcomed since much of the work Jerry had been getting dried up when spring planting was completed. It became a good week if he could bring home twenty-five dollars.

The family’s finances became even bleaker when Jerry’s unemployment benefits expired in the middle of May. The poverty line was two hundred seventy five dollars a month, and the Donavan family of four was now living on fewer than two-fifty. Jerry was embarrassed that they were poor enough to qualify for government food assistance. Jerry also fretted about his sisters. Rachel and Ruth would both be in high school that fall, and Jerry wanted them to at least graduate and have a chance for going on to college. He did not want them marrying the first boy who might be able to support them.

Jerry was thinking about his family’s plight when he went to work his half day at Purnell’s junkyard. Hoke noticed his distracted frown.

“What’s got you a frownin’ like that, Jericho? Got woman trouble?” Purnell asked. Jerry gave the old man a wan smile.

“Nope, that’s the only problem I don’t seem to have, Mister Purnell. What I got is money problems.

My unemployment ran out and there isn’t a job for me within fifty miles of here.”

Purnell nodded in understanding and looked thoughtfully off into space. Jerry returned his attention to the carburetor he was removing from a newly crashed Buick. Purnell came to a decision after a couple of minutes.

“Could be as how I might have something for you, boy,” Purnell said. “It ain’t full time, but I figure you could make near as much as you did over at the mine.”

Jerry looked up quickly, a hopeful smile on his face.

“That would be great Mister Purnell!” Jerry exclaimed. “What would I be doing?” Purnell stroked his gnarled and dirty fingers through his beard and replied.

“Well, boy, that’s gonna take some explainin’. See, my eyes are going dim on me, especially at night. I cain’t hardly drive to make deliveries no more. So I figure you can make my deliveries for me. I’ll pay you extra for using your truck.”

Jerry’s smile faltered as Purnell spoke.

“Mister Purnell, you only make a couple of deliveries a week. How am I going to earn enough just on that?”

Purnell peered all around as if he was expecting to catch someone eavesdropping there in the middle of five acres of junk. Then he leaned in close to Jerry.

“I got me another bidness asides salvage, boy-o. It’s not exactly legal, but it ain’t immoral either,” Purnell whispered.

Jerry looked at Purnell blankly and shook his head. Sometimes the old man’s convoluted ramblings were beyond Jerry’s deciphering ability.

“What in the world are you talking about, Mister Purnell?” Jerry asked.

Purnell looked around once more then spoke again just above a whisper, “Me and Miz Lottie are right partial to you. Heck, you're the closest thing to a grandson we're as like to ever have, so I’m trusting you to keep this to yerself. See, I make me a little ‘shine onest and a while. It’s the best in the state, so there’s a lots of folks what wants a little taste.”

Jerry finally grasped at least part of what Purnell was saying so he nodded his head. The grandson part was easiest to understand because the Purnell’s two sons had seven daughters between them but no sons.

“Well,” Purnell continued, “ain’t nothing in the good book says a man cain’t make himself a dab of corn squeezins.” Hoke Purnell paused, looked reverently skyward for a second, and then shifted his gaze back to Jerry. “And didn’t our Lord and Savior hisself, turn water into wine?”

Jerry nodded in agreement, fascinated with Purnell’s reasoning.

“Danged right he did,” Purnell snorted emphatically, “and the good Lord didn’t render anything to Caesar when he did it, neither. Now whose example is a man supposed to follow? Some Yankee lawyer over in Washington or the Most High Creator of the Universe? ”

Jerry was agog that a man who hadn’t even driven by a church in decades, could propound such a seamless theological argument.

“When do I start?” Jerry asked.

He started the next day, and of course his truck blew a head gasket on his first trip. Luckily, all he

was delivering was the transfer case for a Farmall 560 tractor. Jerry was embarrassed when Mister Purnell pulled up with his tow truck. Purnell, however, laughed it off.

“Better it happened now, than later, lad. It's time to replace that tired old Pontiac V8 with something better, anyway. I have a 327 Chevy motor out of a sixty-three Impala that we can put in, real quick like.”

Jerry pointed out that he didn’t have the money to buy a new motor, but Purnell waved away his protests.

“I need you to be driving something reliable, so it’s for my benefit more than yours, I reckon,” Purnell stated.

John Roy Donavan had purchased the 1955 GMC pickup truck in 1960 at an auction barn in Webster County. The truck was originally bright red, and had been the official vehicle of the Webster Fire Chief. One of John Roy’s Masonic brothers was the shop teacher at Cokerville High School and one of his classes painted the truck dark blue. John Roy loved that truck and treated it gently so the body, varnished oak plank bed, and tan interior were all in excellent condition. Jerry was as proud of the truck as his father had been.

The two men delivered the transfer case, then towed Jerry’s truck to the two-bay garage that sat to the side of the front of Purnell’s salvage yard. Purnell expertly backed the truck into the empty left- hand bay and unhooked it from the tow truck's boom arm. They put jack stands under the front of the truck, slipped on cover-alls and started the process of pulling the spent motor.

They finished removing the motor late in the afternoon of the first day. Since it was Tuesday, Jerry ran down to his house to shower and eat supper, before his tutoring session with Ida. These was his last few weeks of preparation for the GED. He would take the actual test in Charleston, on the second Friday in June. Ida told him that they would finish the workbooks this week and start taking practice tests the following week.

Jerry and Hoke Purnell pulled the engine out of the wrecked Chevy Wednesday morning, and dropped it in Jerry’s truck right after lunch. Jerry was most pleasantly surprised that the donor engine came from an Impala Super Sport. It had a four barrel carburetor, and three hundred horsepower.

Purnell even adapted the Impala’s factory dual exhaust system to the truck. The end result was a truck that was deceptively fast and whisper quiet.

Jerry was curious when Purnell asked him to leave his truck a day so he could check the suspension and steering linkage.

“Come back for it tomorrow afternoon, boy, and it will be right as rain,” Purnell promised.

Jerry quickly agreed. If Mister Purnell wanted to play with his truck for a day it was a small price to pay for all his help.

The next morning Jerry helped his mother weed her garden. In the center of the garden, green shoots of carrots, turnips, cabbage, and onions were already peeking out of the ground down the neatly laid out rows. Around the edge of the plot, large hills were planted with flint corn in the traditional Indian manner. His mother planted summer squash and pole beans on the same hills as the corn in the custom of the Cherokee, which was as soon as the leaves of the dogwood trees started to unfurl. The corn stalks would support the climbing bean plants; while the squash vines, whose odor repelled varmints, would grow around the hill. Nearer to the house, carefully prepared hills were waiting to receive the tomato plants that were growing in boxes on the back porch.

Jerry dashed up the hollow to the Purnell’s place at two in the afternoon, to get his truck. When he arrived, Hoke Purnell proudly pointed out the improvements he’d made to the truck. The only really noticeable difference from the day before, was the addition of shiny chrome Baby Moon hubcaps and beauty rings. Inside, his dash now sported a Chevrolet push button radio. The changes Hoke was proudest of, were underneath. Jerry was on the ground looking at the undercarriage as Purnell

explained.

“I swapped your rear springs, for a set from a three quarter ton Chevy, and added this here sway bar off a scrapped highway patrol unit. And I welded up these here sheet metal compartments to hide your night time deliveries.”

The compartments were on either side of the drive shaft. They were accessed by removing four of the long oak plank boards that made up the bottom of the truck’s cargo box. Twelve wide mouth, half gallon mason jars fit snuggly in each of the truck bed's eight compartments. With most of the load in front of the rear axle, the characteristic low-riding rear end of the 'bootlegger's sag' was absent, as Hoke told Jerry the new springs would carry the 500 pounds of 'shine and glass jars with ease.

Jerry was as excited as a small child on Christmas morning as he drove his refurbished truck down Chaney Hollow road, and out onto County Road 642. He floored the gas pedal as soon as he turned onto the county road and whooped as the truck leaped forward. The three speed manual transmission, and the clumsy column shift kept the truck from being a drag racer, but it was still faster than most vehicles in Coker County.

Jerry didn’t have his usual date with Lisa Friday night because she was at a weekend outing with her church. That turned out to be a good thing though as Mister Purnell called that night, with a delivery for him to make.

When Jerry drove up to the Purnell place at seven in the evening to load up, Hoke Purnell was standing with a very pretty young woman with a long ponytail of 'Maureen O’Hara' red hair. She was wearing snug cream-colored pedal pushers, and a short-sleeved, front buttoned, baby blue sweater that was stretched tautly across a more than adequate bosom. She had a large purse slung across her shoulder and she was wearing brown leather sandals. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, in person.

Purnell and the young woman were standing next to an olive drab Army surplus Jeep, attached to a trailer loaded with hay. Purnell waved Jerry over to park next to the Jeep. When Jerry stepped out of the cab, Purnell introduced him to the woman.

“Jericho, you remember my boy Vernon’s daughter, Wanda Jean, doncha? Miz Lottie thought it’d look a might less suspicious like if you was with a girl, instead of out alone late at night.”

Jerry nodded in Mister Purnell direction, and held his hand out towards Wanda. Jerry remembered Wanda, all right, they had been best friends when they were younger. Vernon Purnell, his wife, and three daughters had moved to Roane County, about fifty miles away, when Jerry and Wanda were eleven. Vernon owned a Union 76 gas station and garage in the town of Spencer. He hadn’t seen her since, and his memories were of a skinny raucous tomboy.

Wanda ignored his proffered hand, stood on her tiptoes and wrapped him in a tight, full body hug.

“Damn, Tonto, you went and turned into a big handsome man on me,” she whispered in his ear.

Wanda’s voice had a Lauren Bacall huskiness to it that made him shiver. Not to mention her breasts felt as if someone was pressing grapefruits against his chest. Jerry returned her hug and whispered back.

“You didn’t turn out so bad yourself, Kimosabe.”

Wanda gave a throaty laugh, kissed him on the cheek and then backed out of his embrace.

“We were a much better Lone Ranger and Tonto than those guys on TV,” she said. Then she pointed to his truck.

“Now … what say we load up old Scout, here, and hit the trail?”

The three of them transferred the eight cases of wide mouth half gallon mason jars that were nestled in the Jeep's trailer of hay, into the hidden compartments under the cargo box of Jerry’s truck. Purnell gave Jerry a strip map, admonished him to drive safely, and sent the young couple on their way.

As soon as she hopped into the cab of his truck Wanda Jean tuned the radio to WWVA. She squealed when Conway Twitty came on the radio to emote It's Only Make Believe. When the volume was to her liking, she scooted over next to Jerry and pulled his arm over her shoulder. Jerry inwardly smiled as she slid under his arm. Girls seemed to love the center portion of his truck's big bench seat.

It took Jerry a few minutes to get used to the outgoing young woman who was the polar opposite of shy and quiet Lisa Bass. Wanda sure talked a lot, but he had to admit she didn’t just prattle on.

Instead, she made sure he was engaged in the conversation. She accomplished that by talking about hunting, fishing and sports. When those topics were exhausted, she switched to something dearer to her heart.

“So, Grammy tells me you are dating some girl from town,” she said.

Jerry nodded affirmatively, “Yeah, Lisa Bass. She's Missus Chaney’s niece. We aren’t going steady or anything, because she is leaving for college in Maryland soon. How about you? I can’t imagine as pretty as you are, that you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Wanda shrugged and said, “I date, but nothing serious. I like men a lot, but I don’t want to be tied down to one, yet. But enough about me, tell me more about this Lisa. Are the two of you getting it on or what?”

Jerry laughed at her bluntness. Wanda never had a problem with reticence.

“Or what, right now. Lisa had never dated until we started going out. She doesn’t want to get to college not knowing anything about sex, so she is experimenting with me.”

Wanda nodded her agreement.

“Smart girl, but that must be hard on you,” she said with a giggle and a pat on the thigh. Jerry replied with a chuckle, “Lisa takes the problem in hand when it comes up.”

The young couple continued their easy banter as Jerry drove northwest into Nicholas County then across into Webster County. Wanda Jean navigated, sticking to the back roads on her grandfather’s strip map. It took them an hour and a few minutes to reach their destination in the town of Cowen but the time flew as they chatted. Jerry was nervous when they pulled up to a nondescript little house on the outskirts of the town. Wanda, however, was as cool as a cucumber.

“Papa said to blow the horn when we got here. The man we’re supposed to see is named Lester Weeks. Let me do the talking, okay?”

Jerry nodded, as it was fine by him. His mouth was as dry as the Sahara, and he didn’t think he could work up enough spit to talk, anyway. He blew the horn once, to announce their presence, although it didn’t seem necessary as three big hound dogs were excitedly running around the truck barking and baying.

A long fifteen seconds later, the porch light came on, and the screen door banged open. Then a man with an Elvis Presley pompadour stepped out onto the porch. He was wearing bib overalls without a shirt and a double barrel shotgun was cradled in his arms. The dogs immediately stopped barking, ran up on the porch and sat down by his feet. The man spat a wad of Redman amongst the dogs, and loosely pointed the shotgun towards Jerry’s truck.

“You lost?” he growled, and he didn’t look or sound the least bit friendly.

{1

Chapter Five

Jerry froze behind the wheel of his truck as Lester casually pointed his shotgun towards him. He took a breath and tried to calm his voice. He glanced over at Wanda Jean, but she was too busy rummaging in her big purse to talk. He shrugged: he would never understand women. All evening she had jabbered away but now, when he needed her to talk, she was quiet as a church mouse.

“Mister Purnell sent me, I have a delivery for you,” he said, and his voice only quavered a little.

Luther jerked the shotgun barrel to his left and said, “I’ll take twelve gallons, back up to that there barn and unload it.”

Jerry backed up to the barn, got out and dropped the tail gate of his truck. Jerry twisted the lever that released the floor planks and pulled 12 half gallon mason pickle jars out of the driver’s side compartment. He moved around to the passenger side to take 12 from that side to keep his truck level, just like Mr. Purnell taught him. As he reached across the side of the truck bed, he heard Wanda Jean open the passenger door. Curious, he glanced over the truck bed to see what she was doing. He did a double take when he saw her casually leaning against the truck fender, a long barreled black revolver held down by her side. She saw him looking and shot him a wink.

Jerry composed himself and continued pulling jars and setting them in the doorway of the dilapidated barn. He counted the empty jars Weeks was returning. Hoke Purnell sold his shine for eight dollars a gallon plus a dollar per jar. If the customer returned a jar, they kept the dollar. Weeks had fifteen empty jars. As he figured in his head how much Weeks owed, he sent a silent thank you to Ida for the math tutoring.

“That’ll be a hundred and five dollars, Mister Weeks.” Weeks ignored Jerry as he turned and leered at Wanda Jean.

“You can go on home, boy. I’ll give the little lady here the money and we can go honky-tonking when I make a delivery to a juke joint over by Fletcherville.”

Wanda laughed and swung the pistol up in a two-handed grip onto the hood of Jerry’s truck with a

thunk.

“I don’t think so, Luther. My papa told me to watch out for you, and he taught me how to shoot this here pistol, so I’m pretty sure I can take your balls off from here. I reckon you should put down the shotgun and give Jerry the money.”

Jerry looked back and forth between Wanda and Weeks. He felt like the townsfolk in a cowboy movie, when two gunslingers met on Main Street, at noon! Finally, Weeks spit out a wad of Redman onto the ground and lowered his shotgun.

“Tell your pappy I was just foolin’, Miss, ’cause that’s all it was,” Weeks said with an ingratiating gap-toothed smile as he dug the money out of the pocket of his dirty overalls.

Jerry didn’t say anything as he took the money; but Wanda, voice dripping with sarcasm, said, “Suure, Luther, I’ll tell him.”

Jerry kept his composure as he pulled away from Luther Weeks’ shack, but Wanda Jean let out a whoop as she stowed the pistol back into her cavernous purse.

“I knew we’d have fun tonight!” she gushed. Jerry looked at her as if she were crazy.

“I sure didn’t! Ol’ Luther scared the crap out of me!” he blurted.

Wanda laughed and slid over next to him, she draped his arm over her shoulder and pulled his hand down onto her firm and substantial bosom.

“You are such a Boy Scout, you poor baby,” she said. “if you take me somewhere private, I’ll show you something else that’s fun.”

Jerry motored over to the spot he and Lisa used, and parked next to a huge poplar tree. It was on an overgrown logging road behind the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. It was a warm spring night lit by a three-quarter moon. Bush Crickets and Whippoorwills serenaded the young couple, and Confederate Jasmine sweetened the air. A billion stars and a thousand lightning bugs darted and winked above them as they made love on a quilt spread on the soft grass under the tree.

Jerry used on Wanda everything he’d learned from Ida. He took the time to slowly strip her so he could admire the results. Her body was spectacular, her skin flawless and silky smooth with firm underlying muscle. Wanda wasn’t used to a take charge man, but Jerry had only learned Ida’s way of doing things. In the end it didn’t matter, as Wanda writhed on the quilt. She moaned and cried out in passion as Jerry wrung orgasms from her with his hands and lips. Wanda Jean Parnell was a highly sexed young woman. After her fourth strong orgasm, she pushed Jerry’s face away from her center.

“In me,” she grunted.

Jerry jumped up and retrieved a condom from the glove box of his truck. He shucked his clothes as Wanda impatiently grabbed the foil wrapped prophylactic and ripped it open with her teeth. Jerry stepped forward and she rolled the condom onto his shaft. The whole procedure took less than a minute.

Wanda Jean was surprisingly snug for her level of wetness, but he knew right away he wouldn’t last very long. Wanda knew it, too. She pulled him down for a kiss.

“Let it go, Jerry, I’m guessing you are good for more than one,” she whined in his ear.

Jerry was more than a little relieved that she had been right as he stayed hard. He didn’t miss a beat after filling her. Instead, he hooked her legs behind his arms, rolled her back on her shoulders and shifted into a higher gear.

Later, Wanda Jean was sitting on the tailgate of Jerry’s truck, her amazing naked body lightly wrapped in the same quilt upon which they had just made spectacular love. She was in no hurry to get dressed. Jerry, on the other hand, was struggling into his jeans, embarrassed by how he looked naked, compared to her. Wanda languidly stuck out her perfectly formed leg and poked him with her toe.

“Damn, Tonto, that was good. We are going to be doing that again. But you didn’t learn that from some high school virgin, did you?” she said.

Jerry shrugged and said, “I don’t talk about stuff like that. It’s disrespectful.” She flashed him a smile and her teeth were perfect, just like the rest of her. “Good answer,” she said.

Wanda was again there to make deliveries with him the next Friday evening. Wanda was a vision in a dark green, knee length, pleated skirt and a white button up blouse. She looked as if she was dressed for a church social. Her long red hair was held behind her shell-like ears with tortoise shell barrettes and some lip gloss was all the makeup she wore or needed. As soon as they were on the road Jerry complimented her appearance.

That was a preview of Jericho Donavan. To read the rest purchase the book.

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