“Lookee here!” cried Isom. He pried open Rondal’s fist and grabbed the lightning bug. Holding it careful by the head, he cut its body in half with his fingernail and stuck the luminous tail on the back of his middle finger.

“Lookee here! I got on a ring!”

Rondal flew at Isom and knocked him down. Isom kicked, and punched Rondal hard in the belly. Rondal yelled.

Clabe and Ermel hauled them up like sacks of meal.

“What the hell?” said Clabe.

Rondal sobbed. “He kilt my lightnin bug.”

“I’s just showin him how to make a ring,” Isom said. “He lit into me.”

“You should have asked Rondal first,” said Ermel. “Now you beg his pardon.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Isom, his anger already spent.

Clabe shook his son. “Cryin over a damn bug! Now you tell him you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Rondal said, not meaning a word of it.

I picked him up and held him in the light of the lantern hanging on the porch post. He looked ornery, his lips pressed together, his eyes long slits. I grinned.

“Danged ifn this boy dont put me in mind of Dillon.”

“Law, I hope not,” Vernie said fretfully. “Dillon’s my kin by marriage, but he never was right in the head.”

Two

RONDAL LLOYD

EARLIEST THING I RECALL FROM WHEN I WAS A BOY IS DADDY coming in from the mines and taking his bath. It always scared me when he came in. It would be way after dark, and I’d be asleep with Talcott and Kerwin in the bed in the front room. Most nights he’d come in quiet, just lay himself down, coal dust and all, on a mat behind the cookstove in the kitchen, so as not to track dirt into the rest of the house. He would be back out before dawn anyway, so there was no need to bathe. But on Saturday, Mommy boiled water, rattled coal in the buckets to throw on the fire, pulled out the Number Three wash tub. I could never sleep through the noise. I always lay on the side of the bed next to the door, so I could hang my head over the edge and watch her. Daddy would stomp onto the back porch, peel off his boots, and bang them against the steps to knock off the crusts of mud and coal dust. He stripped off his clothes and left them in a heap for Mommy to wash the next day. She never washed his mine clothes with the rest of our things. Then Daddy came inside. His face and hands were black and shiny; the rest of him was pale and waxy like lard. The whites of his eyes were vivid. He tossed his pay envelope on the kitchen table.