Chapter 3
That’s an Awful Small Hole
If there was ever a woman happier than Katie McGathery the day her brother rolled into Winze, nobody in town could remember her.
“My brother’s comin’ home!” she’d tell anybody that would stand still long enough to hear it. “And he ain’t comin’ alone. Junior’s with him.”
Katie had been born a Muller, one of a family so big folks joked you could holler “Muller!” in Atlanta and six people would answer.
Then Thomas McGathery came callin’.
He didn’t brag on money or fine houses. He talked about the mountains.
“The ridges turn purple come sundown,” he’d told her. “Streams so clear you can count the rocks. Air so fresh it’ll spoil you for city livin’.”
Well, that settled it.
Katie married Thomas and moved to Winze.
The rest of the Mullers packed up wagons and headed west to Kansas.
“I cried till I thought I’d float away,” Katie admitted. “But the Lord knew where I belonged.”
For a while, everyone wrote letters.
Then the letters stopped.
Cholera swept through Kansas like wildfire through dry broom straw.
When word finally reached Georgia, there were only two Mullers left alive.
Katie’s brother, Zacchaeus…
…and Zacchaeus’s boy, Junior.
Now, if ever there was a name that didn’t fit a man, it was Zacchaeus.
Katie laughed every time the story came up.
“Ma was too wore out after birthin’ him to argue with Pa.”
Smithy—though nobody called him that yet—would groan.
“Katie…”
“Oh hush. It’s true.”
She’d grin at whoever happened to be listening.
“Pa named him after little Zacchaeus in the Good Book. Only trouble was, my brother weren’t little. He come into this world near big enough to ask for biscuits.”
Everybody laughed.
“Pa figured the joke’d last a lifetime.”
“It has,” Zacchaeus muttered.
Today, nobody in Winze knows him by that name.
To the whole county he is simply…
Smithy.
Before he arrived, the old blacksmith had passed on to Glory. Winze had managed without one for the better part of two years, patching tools best they could and borrowing work from neighboring towns.
Katie looked at the empty forge.
Then she looked at her brother’s latest letter.
Then she smiled.
Katie wrote:
You’ve always had soot under your fingernails.
And…
The town’ll give you the whole smithy.
Shop, tools, bellows…the whole works.
It has a livery Junior could run.
They’ll what? Zacchaeus thought as he reread the sentence.
He looked around at what was left in Kansas for him.
Then he looked at Junior.
Junior was on his last year before twenty, which most folks counted as grown. He was small beside his father, though most men were small beside Zacchaeus Muller.
Junior could talk.
He just didn’t waste words when a nod, a point, a drawing, or a hand on somebody’s sleeve would do the same work quicker.
“What do you think, son?”
Junior leaned closer and pointed to the letter.
Not the smithy.
The livery.
Zacchaeus smiled.
“I thought that part might catch your eye.”
Junior grinned.
“Well then.” Zacchaeus slapped one hand down on his son’s knee. “I reckon we’re headed to Georgia.”
“Yahoo,” Junior said.
It weren’t loud.
But it was enough.
Winze welcomed them like long-lost kin.
The forge rang again.
Horses got new shoes.
Broken plows got mended.
Axes found their edge.
It felt like the town could breathe again.
Junior took to the livery.
Moving back to Georgia didn’t change who Junior was. He never had said much to folks. He still didn’t.
The trouble with being quiet is folks don’t always talk much to people who aren’t talkers.
They’d nod at Junior.
Ask Smithy how Junior was settling in.
Tell Smithy the boy seemed handy.
Then they’d go right on talking as if Junior weren’t standing close enough to hear every word.
Junior didn’t appear to mind.
He heard plenty.
And animals, far as Junior was concerned, had always made more sense than people.
They didn’t chatter to fill up silence. They shifted weight. Flicked ears. Rolled eyes. Snorted. Trembled. Turned away. Came closer.
A body only had to pay attention.
Then one afternoon, a frightened horse lashed out and caught Junior square in the forehead.
The scar stayed.
His words got fewer.
But if anything changed, his love for animals only grew stronger.
The horse had warned him.
Junior knew that.
He’d seen the fear before the hoof ever came.
Most folks would’ve put the animal down for it.
Junior talked to his father.
Then to the owner.
He used more words than usual that day.
Not many.
Just enough.
The horse lived.
And after that, folks noticed Junior had a way with creatures that didn’t much trust anybody else.
A lame mule.
An old milk cow.
A hound with a thorn in its paw.
And then came the billy goat.
“Baaah…”
The sound drifted faintly toward the livery.
Junior stopped.
The horse beside him lifted its head too.
“Baaah… baaah… bah.”
Junior set down the brush in his hand and followed the cry past the livery, past the back of the smithy, and out toward an old stone water catch near the edge of town.
The sound came from the ground.
Junior dropped to his knees and put one ear near the opening.
“Maaaaaa!”
He sat back on his heels.
Then he looked down into that narrow black hole.
And for most folks, this is where the story the county came to call “The Great Not-Fire” truly begins.
Junior burst into the smithy and waved both arms.
Smithy looked up from a glowing horseshoe.
“Junior? What’s got into you?”
Junior grabbed his father’s sleeve.
Pointed.
Pulled.
Pointed again.
“Slow down, son.”
Junior tugged harder.
“I got to bank this fire first.”
Smithy laid the horseshoe back across the anvil.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Junior stomped one foot.
“I know, I know.”
Smithy shoveled ash across the coals and hurried outside.
Junior was already halfway across the field.
Every few steps he stopped, looked back, waved both arms, then ran again.
“What in the world…?”
They stopped beside the water catch.
Junior pointed into the narrow stone shaft.
Smithy leaned over.
Faint…
Way down below…
“Maaaaaa!”
Smithy blinked.
“That’s a goat.”
He straightened and hollered, “Need a hand over here!”
Folks wandered over one by one.
“What’s down there?”
“Goat.”
“Whole goat?”
“Sounds like it.”
“How’d a whole goat get down that little bitty hole?”
Nobody had an answer for that.
But everybody had an idea for getting him out.
“Drop a rope.”
“And loop what? His neck?”
“You’ll hang him before you save him.”
“Then send a boy down.”
“That hole ain’t wide enough for a flour sack.”
“Dig him out from the side.”
“You start digging and that whole thing might cave in.”
“Blast it wider.”
“And send that goat straight to Glory?”
Junior listened.
Watched.
Counted.
Then he turned and ran.
“Where you headed, boy?” someone called.
Junior didn’t answer.
He ran straight for the church.
Big Jim Turner was sweeping the front steps.
Junior pointed up at the bell.
Big Jim frowned.
Then he looked toward the water catch.
Then back at Junior.
Smithy came up behind him, breathing hard.
“Pastor,” he said, “Junior’s got an idea. I reckon it’ll work.”
A slow grin spread across Big Jim’s face.
“Oh…”
Junior grabbed the bell rope.
“Well don’t just stand there,” Big Jim said.
The bell exploded across the valley.
Dong!
Dong!
Dong!
It was the bucket-brigade signal.
Within moments, people came running from every direction carrying buckets.
Smithy burst out laughing.
“He’s callin’ for water…”
“…and people!”
Men and women crowded around the water catch.
Buckets filled.
Water poured in.
Steady and quick, the water level rose.
Before long, a soaking-wet goat scrambled over the stone edge and bolted straight through the crowd.
For one heartbeat…
Everybody just stared.
Then Junior said, clear as anything, “Goats float.”
The whole town erupted.
Cheers echoed off the mountains.
Women laughed till tears rolled down their cheeks.
Children chased after the dripping goat and took turns carrying it to the livery.
They all knew who would nurse it back to health.
Smithy scooped Junior into the biggest bear hug anybody had ever seen.
“You done it, son!”
Junior ducked his head and smiled.