Broken Bonds. Karen Harper

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       1

      Even the look of the place scared her, but she was determined to go in. Three hunt hounds on the rickety porch came to attention, barking and growling, so she stayed in the truck until the front door opened and a thin woman came out. Charlene Lockwood rolled down her window and waved as if they were best of friends and she was just here for what the mountain folk called a “set down.” The ramshackle house was a far cry from the Navajo hogans she was used to and yet somehow it was the same situation—hungry, maybe abused kids, in impoverished and often rocky family situations.

      With a gruff word, the woman Char assumed was Mrs. Elinor Hanson quieted the beagles. They sat, flicking their tails. Did the dogs mean she’d find Mr. Hanson here, too? It was wild turkey and squirrel hunting season, and she’d heard the bangs of shotguns echo off the rocks when she’d left the other cabin she’d called on today.

      Hoping the dogs would stay put, she slowly opened the truck door and climbed down. She slung her big purse over her shoulder and started uphill from the narrow pull-off on the road. She had to bite back a smile. She’d misheard on the phone when she’d been asked to see this family in Hanson Holler. Char had thought the visit on behalf of the Childhood Education in Appalachia Project was to Handsome Hollow, but this place was a far cry from that.

      The old house with its tilted and patched roof sat back in a played-out coal seam under the hunched shoulders of the mountain. No old sofa on the porch this time, but a stovepipe stuck out a window, and there was an outhouse. The cold weather and her nerves made her want to use it, but that would be no way to start here. How was she ever going to make a dent in the real mountain here—the mountain of kids who seldom got to school where they would be given “breakfast, lunch and learnin’,” as her last client had called it.

      “How do!” Mrs. Hanson called out. “Welcome to the holler.”

      “How do! Mrs. Hanson. I’m Charlene Lockwood, the county agent visiting the homes of children who would be helped by good attendance in school. Is your daughter, Penny, here today?”

      “Right sure is. Need her for chores with the new baby and all. She’s afixin’ dinner. Make yourself to home, come in and set a spell, get you some squirrel stew.”

      Char knew not to turn that down, though she’d had her fill of the same with her previous client. It was a chewy, gamey meat that not only stuck to your ribs, but seemed to gnaw at them. But out West near the Navajo reservation, if you were offered mutton and fry bread, you ate it. Here it was squirrel and biscuits. If only things hadn’t gone so bad out West. Despite the fact she’d been born in Cold Creek, had two sisters who had welcomed her and given her shelter, even the fact she had found some employment in the four months she’d been back, she still didn’t feel at home.

      Despite the wood-burning stove, it was chilly in the house, but Char knew it would be rude to keep her coat on. The place looked to be a main room with two small bedrooms out the back. Elinor Hanson bounced her one-year-old son, Franklin, on her lap while Simon, a toddler, played with pots and pans on a blanket spread on the floor. Elinor said Crayton, age four, was out with his pa. Penny, a mere wisp of a blonde girl, aged ten, who looked to be about six, served them at a table while they made small talk.

      “My husband Henry’s out with his brother Braxton from down the way,” Elinor explained. “Brax is eighteen, gonna be a marine if’n he gets his test lettin’ him pass high school, whatever test that is.”

      “Yes, it’s called a GED.”

      “Anyhow, Henry’s learnin’ him huntin’ with bow and arrow, so wants to learn Crayton about huntin’, too. Bow huntin’ cheaper than buyin’ bullets. Dogs don’t like it none ’cause he leaves them to home. They spook game when it’s with a bow, ’cause you got to get closer than with a gun. Henry, he’s between jobs right now. Worked at the gas station, got let go.”

      Char realized the woman was trying to talk about everything except her truant daughter, so she tried to steer the conversation away from Henry and hunting. “I’m sorry to hear that. But we’d sure like to see Penny in school this winter.”

      Penny’s blue eyes seemed to fill her thin, freckled face, but she kept looking at her mother for answers when Char tried to question her. Even letting Penny take a small gift from her array of them hadn’t made the child more talkative. With a shy “Thank you,” the girl chose crayons, though Char wasn’t sure there was any paper to be had. So far, no one had picked the jump ropes. Char realized one thing they had in the hills was rope of their own. She watched Penny fingering the colorful crayons through the cutout in the front of the box, but she didn’t open it.

      “Mrs. Hanson, you know a school bus comes up as far as Coyote Rock.” Char tried again. “So if someone could get Penny down the road that far, she’d be taken right to school and brought back to the same spot, safe and sound.”

      Penny looked hopeful. Elinor sighed. “I’ll have to ask her pa, but beholden to you for the offer. He don’t trust no one works for the gov’ment. Don’t like handouts, not our way, don’t care what outsiders say.”

      “I understand that, Mrs. Hanson. And I don’t work for the federal government but the State of Ohio. I’m living in Cold Creek now, was born there, too.”

      “So you din’t leave like so many want out?”

      “Yes, for a while. I grew up in Michigan, then left there to go to school and lived out West near an Indian reservation.”

      “Now that will be somethin’ to tell your pa, won’t it, Penny? He says the real ones used to live in these parts ’fore the coal mines played out.”

      It was at least an hour before they rose from the table and headed toward the door with Elinor leading the way and Penny trailing. Char felt she’d built a bridge, but Henry Hanson could be a barrier big as this mountain. Out West, she’d learned the hard way not to buck “the menfolk,” though she’d love to challenge them for not valuing their children and wives.

      Before they followed Elinor outside, Penny tugged on Char’s jacket. “I’d like to go down to school,” she whispered. “Wish’t you could fetch me.”

      “I wish I could, too, Penny. I’ll be sure to tell the school you’d like to go.”

      “But if Pa says no...”

      Elinor’s voice was loud as they joined her on the plank porch. “This view beats all, though, don’t it?”