“We’ll be building houses, using timbers inside the mine. A coal company always needs trees. Daddy, it will be more money than you’ve ever seen. You can even build a new house for Ben and Flora and their children. You get some of the boys from Scary next winter and cut the trees, float them down to the sawmill at Catlettsburg. We’ll pay you cash right there. I can draw up the contract first thing when I start work.”

Daddy spoke so low I couldn’t hear what he said. But he came out on the porch after a while to smoke his pipe and take a breath of air.

“You going to do it?” I asked.

“Aint much to do that time of year no way,” he said.

“I dont think you should. The trees is too pretty.”

He looked at me. “Where’s the women?”

“Gone to the Aunt Jane Place.”

“Why aint you with them?”

“I wanted to hear yall talking.”

“Aint nothing for a girl to hear. Go on down there with them.”

I ignored him, as I did more and more in those days. He was usually scornful of me as well. It had started not long after Albion left, when Daddy learned I was doing most of the hunting. He led me way up on the mountain, pretending we were going to hunt together, then he took my gun and left me without a word. I sat and cried for a long time and listened to the report of his gun on a distant ridge. Then I stumbled down the mountain alone.

He told me he didn’t expect me to find a husband. I was not “deferrin” enough, my tongue was too sharp and I was too forward in my ways. I didn’t believe him. Aunt Jane was not “deferrin” and she had been married. Most of the women I knew on the creeks were strong and fiesty and they all had men. Still he hurt my feelings. I held myself distant from him and from other men who might treat me the same.

The boys I knew didn’t interest me. I still waited for Heathcliff and felt nothing for Arley Whitt or Billy Good. None of them paid attention to me either. Aunt Jane said I had my nose up in the air. Flora said I was too shy to flirt properly. Only Aunt Becka said nothing, and her silence frightened me. Did she think us kindred spirits?

I rocked back and forth after Daddy went inside. Rain hammered the roof and drowned out the voices of the men. Spray from the bannisters left tiny wet spots on my cheeks. I closed my eyes and pretended they were the kisses of a man. I couldn’t see his face, but he would be brave and charming, and I would marry him. I put my finger to my lips and pretended he had touched me.