The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,86

time, he returned refreshed and ready for work.

One Sunday, after church and dinner, the girls and I were still at Momma’s. Daddy, Momma’s brother, Otis, and another old guy from the mill sat on her back porch, smoking and spitting. I leaned on the porch rail nearby, watching the kids playing in the mill yard. I paid little attention to what the men said until Otis raised his voice to be heard over the girls. “ . . . Just like a woman keening, the most gawd-awful thing a man would want to hear.” I turned at the strange comment.

Otis’s buddy shook his head and spat off the edge of the porch. “No, weren’t no wolf. Besides, it sounded pretty sometimes. Like singing, but no words. That old hill farmer said it was a haint.”

Otis nodded in agreement. “A queer sound. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to lie down and sleep to it or go out and shoot it. We didn’t see sign one of deer, fowl, or squirrel out there. And it peak season.”

“Not the first time you’ve come home empty-handed,” Daddy said and they all laughed.

Cigarette smoke wafted out the back door. Frank’s voice muttered behind me, “How ’bout your Adam? He hear anything up there?”

I remembered Frank’s smell in the farmhouse years before and his disturbing photos. I pulled my sweater up closer around my shoulders. I herded the girls onto the porch, past Frank, and down the hall to Momma’s warm kitchen, leaving the old men to their tobacco and gossip.

That night, I asked Adam what he did in the mountains. “Molt,” he said simply, but with a grin. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more, but he continued. “I go up the mountain as far as I can and just listen to whatever there is to hear—the mountain, the air, the ginseng growing.”

“You don’t just listen.”

“Well, sometimes I talk back, too. It’s like any other conversation, Evelyn. No one does all the listening. Why are you asking now?”

“Uncle Otis and one of his buddies heard you. Some people think you’re a ‘haint.’ ”

He laughed the sweet, big laugh I always found irresistible. “The deer—some of them let me touch them. They’re strong as a horse but it’s a different strength. Lighter, with more spring. And there are places where the mountain answers. Like an echo, but there’s always something in it that didn’t come from me.” He pressed his fist to his chest.

“You pet deer and sing to the mountain?”

“Not to. With.”

Through the Winter and Spring that followed, the image of Adam’s solitary howl in the mountains stayed with me. I imagined his voice filling the hollows and slopes, the deer docile and the mountain dwellers puzzled. But when the heat of summer settled over the farm, taking up residence in our un-air-conditioned house, and Adam suggested we take the girls up into the mountains, I thought only of the blessed cool relief.

The seven of us drove up out of the clotted summer heat until Adam found the special spot he wanted to show us on Mount Mitchell. We hiked down a short distance from the narrow dirt road to a creek. The girls scattered like pups as soon as they heard water. At the creek, the forest opened. An outcropping of boulders sent the water in a sharp turn and created a short waterfall. The girls stripped to their panties and plunged, screaming, into the water. They splashed and swam until they began to shiver, then leapt out of the water to make water angels on the flat, warm rocks. Once the sun warmed them, they plunged back into the water.

While I prepared our lunch, Adam found a patch of ginseng and cut us each a piece for dessert. The girls, their lips still tinted blue from the cold water, wrapped themselves in towels. Their panties and hair dripped onto the rocks as we ate our sandwiches.

When we finished eating, Adam pointed up the mountain. “There is a beautiful waterfall east of us. Not as good a swimming spot as this one, but the view is amazing.”

I rolled my pedal-pushers up a little higher and waded into the icy water. Adam stripped to his boxers and the girls dragged him into the water. Gracie held back a little, shy to see her father almost naked.

She had shot up that summer. Change would come soon, but for now, she shouted and dodged with the other girls as Adam splashed them with icy