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Lineage
By MBH
I was having a nice dream when Chatters woke me up. Some of the other kids in my class had noticed and were snickering; behind me Russ and Big Russ both were trying to muffle their stupid snorts. I rubbed my eyes and whispered to Chatters, “was I snoring?”
Chatters stared straight ahead at the board and silently nodded his head. Mrs. Baker continued to recite her dumb history lesson to the board as she wrote the notes we are expected to copy every single day. I turned around in my seat, “Shut your mouth, Russies. You guys wish you were sly enough to take a nap in class.”
Russ and his brother Big Russell did not like to be called Russies. With his thumb around his suspenders, Big Russ leaned back and pointed at me, “you need to learn some respect for your seniors.”
“You need to learn to keep your sister locked up. Some of my older friends said all you had to do was give her some dandelions. Not even flowers, just weeds.” I winked at Big Russ.
Russell’s face quickly filled to the brim with red. I figured taking a shot at Susan, who was once found naked as the dawn skipping through Tuttle’s south field the last time one of the Russies forgot to lock up the house, would piss him off enough for him to slip up and look stupid in front of the class. It’s too bad I beat him to it. “Luther! Turn around and pay attention!” Mrs. Baker hollered. I snapped back in my seat.
The shorter and more annoying of the Russies, leaned forward and whispered, “you better run home after school today, Little Luther. We’re both going to be looking for you.”
I guess I shouldn’t have mouthed off to the biggest and dumbest pair of half-wits ever to be held back twice in the state. My blood ran cold as I felt the bruises already whelping up. I wasn’t exactly the biggest kid my age; and my mouth usually outran my fist.
Chatters leaned over and whispered in his low drawl, “They got only half a brain among the two of ‘em. We’ll be alright.” Chatters had been held back once and so was the best protection any fifteen-year-old kid in my class had against the tyranny of the two Russells. “They’ll be gone next year anyways.” Chatters added. “After three years of failure, they pass you on up to the next level anyways, all the way to Citizen.”
The big bell outside chimed; and before the other end of the bell could be struck, Chatters and I were out the door, kicking up a trail of dust all the way into the woods, where we caught our breath a bit and then hurried on through the shortcut to the tracks. The tracks meant that home was close by; and since we hadn’t seen any sign of the Russies both Chatters and I strolled down the rusty railway breathing easy. “Didn’t your granduncle used to say that people used to ride on these things on cars?” Chatters asked.
“Still does.”
Chatters spat, “hogshit. Cars didn’t run on rails, my pop told me they ran on gas. ‘Course then mom said that some used to run on the same stuff that pop drinks every night after supper, so that didn’t make much sense.”
“I reckon.”
“speaking of not making much sense, did you hear anything Mrs. Baker said today?” Chatters kicked a black rock down the tracks.
“What kind of a thick headed question is that? Some friend you are.”
As usual, Chatters blew right past it, “she said that the Central Territories became a state by being voted in.”
Grandpaw had told me a little about those days; “Ms. Baker was lying.”
“She’s not lying, Luther. She’s just reading out of the book.” He paused, “not that I’m sticking my neck out for Baker.”
What Mrs. Baker had really said left my head the second my feet hit the gravel that lay along the track. I almost laid into Chatters for defending Baker, if even for a minute, but the woods had fallen silent, and seeing Chatters lumbering in that stern silence of his made me decide against it. I think his habit of only saying much to me made him immediately liked by Grandpaw, who asked me to never again bring Larry Jonston or Sam Waters over to his cabin because they were too “needy.” We made the rest of our way towards the bridge in the silence Grandpaw always says comes about “when the trees think.”
Finally, I asked Chatters for his history book. “Where is yours’ and Sam’s?” he asked.
“Sam lost it,” I said as I hopped onto the raised side beam that bordered the bridge. The rickety lumber that stretched, at some points, extremely high over the gorge cut out by Wyman’s River creaked under Chatters’ heavy weight while arguing with me as I held my arms out to steady my balance on the beam.
“Hogshit. You probably used it for kindling.”
“I didn’t hear you complain about the fire. If it weren’t for that paper, our camping trip up on Charr Ridge would have been a cold, dark, and wet one.” At that, Chatters grabbed my arm and pulled me off the beam. After I stopped cussing at him, he grinned and handed me the bloomin’ book.
“Didn’t think you could read anyways,” Chatters snorted.
“Mom taught me, Grandpaw taught her. And just to show you how dumb you are, I’ll read it out loud.” I stopped, “what chapter are we on?”
“Two.” I was looking in the book at the time, but I bet Chatters thought that was funny. He probably grinned just enough not to show his mouth of broken teeth.
I flipped around in the chapter until I found something vaguely familiar and began to speak it into the sweet crisp air that hangs high over Wyman’s River.
Nearly one hundred years had passed since the Big Drop; and much of the Americas had reunited and had begun to rebuild the world as those that went into the shelters remembered it. However, more than five decades of isolation and a…ano
“Anomalies, Lu. It means weird stuff.”
“I know what it means.”
…anomalies caused by radioactive wind currents had taken its toll. The Central Territories of Appalachia were an exceptional case in the days of Global Reconstruction. Because of its terrain, some areas were completely spared of the currents while others suffered heavy death tolls and experienced mutations within the food chain…
“See? Every now and then we hit on the good stuff,” Chatters piped in.
“Whoa. Mutations! Grandpaw told me about some of them. You know that on the other side of Charr Ridge my granduncle Konrad killed a disfigured man who used to live in the valley? He said the guy’s whole family was like that. He said they were too weak for the poison wind and changed. ”
“Your granduncle Konrad is crazy. There weren’t any mutated people around here.”
“Were so! He said there was no mistaken it.” I put my arm in my shirtsleeve to demonstrate, “the guy’s right arm was all shrunken and mangled. Like this.” Chatters did nothing but shake his head as I continued to belt him as best I could with my shriveled arm, “what are you going to do about it Konrad? Huh? You going to shoot me up on Charr Ridge?”
“No, because you didn’t happen,” Chatters had absolutely no imagination sometimes. I pulled out my arm, shut the book, and handed it to him. We were about halfway across the bridge at this point, and the moaning of the old wood was making me anxious to finish crossing the thing. Chatters kept flipping through the book and lagged behind a bit as I picked up the pace towards the other side. Suddenly I heard Chatters reading aloud, mocking my voice “The only influential groups that opposed the Central Territories obtaining statehood were two very widespread families- The Kingstons and The Edenfields, both known to be akin to some of the most well known and in one case infamous frontiersmen since the Big Drop. Among them were Samuel Edenfield, Konrad William Kingston, his brother Luther Ray Kingston III, and their father Hans Kingston.” At the mention of my two family names, I had stopped, letting Chatters catch up. “If you hadn’t noticed, Luther Ray Edenfield,” he handed me the book, “you’re famous.”
Chatters and I both knew in that moment that we weren’t going home right away anymore. We knew the shack where the most infamous frontiersman since the Big Drop was rocking away his golden years, nearly blind and still tough as leather. Though Chatters might have thought we were going to see Grandpaw for the sole purpose of proving to me his point about the mutations or just to hear another story from the journeyman days, I knew different. I wanted to hear the stories, to take in as much of it as I could but most importantly I wanted to claim the heritage my folks would not want me to follow. We crossed the bridge, and picked up speed as the constantly nagging commands of my mother to waste my time in that damn schoolhouse were pushed out to make room for what I needed to know to be the last of the great frontiersmen.