A Sky for Us Alone Read online

  Dedication

  For Finn

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Kristin Russell

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Author’s Note

  This story started with a song.

  Tennessee

  By Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae

  Just swing across the southern sky

  And lift a match to my morning eye

  Well we’ll all die young if we’re lucky babe

  You’d hate the dark to prove the dawn

  Need me no more and I’ll be gone

  I’m dying to love somebody like you love him

  And you look just like my darling Tennessee

  Do you think she’ll know or see me now like the broken man I am

  Doing a little bit more than the best I can

  Still she’s gonna need a little more

  So cast your light into my room

  Kiss me deep or I’m leaving soon

  We’re far too young to be dying now

  Just draw me down with every word

  Till we find what we deserve

  I know I cannot pay my debtor’s fee

  But you look just like darling Tennessee

  Do you think she’ll know me or see me now like the broken man I am

  Doing a little bit more than the best I can

  Still she’s gonna need a little more

  I would stand in disgrace

  I would spit in my savior’s face

  My coat tattered and torn

  Just to know that my love will be reborn

  And our days pass like autumn wind

  And the world spins around me again

  And you look just like darling Tennessee

  Well we’ll all die young if we’re lucky babe

  Chapter 1

  HEAT MAKES PEOPLE DO crazy things—hate does too. The summer I turned eighteen was the hottest we’d ever known in Strickland County, least in the years I’d been alive. Those scorched months felt like God threw us all in a greased-up skillet and cranked the gas on high just to see what might happen. And everything that had been simmering low finally exploded into plain sight.

  That year, Mama set my birthday party at Mohosh Pond because it was too hot to be anywhere inside. The window unit in our trailer had given out and we were still waiting for Daddy to replace it. From Mohosh that day, we saw the mountains that hover over our valley on all sides and the creeks dividing our hollers instead of streets. Mama invited the Draughns, and my best friends, Jacob and Red. Nathaniel and Daddy were there too, off from the mines since it was a Sunday.

  “Here, I got a little something for ya.” Nate handed me a rectangular box he’d wrapped in a cut-up brown paper bag and masking tape.

  I tore the paper open and felt everyone’s eyes land on me. “Wow.” I was confused when I saw the label on the box but didn’t want to make Nate feel strange about the gift in front of everyone. They were blades for a jigsaw, but I didn’t have the saw that I needed to use them.

  Nathaniel laughed when he read the look on my face. “It’s waiting for ya at home,” he said. “I didn’t want to lug that thing over here. It’s heavy.”

  “What? That’s way too big,” I said. “The price, I mean, not the size.”

  “Nothing’s too good for my little brother on his eighteenth,” Nathaniel said.

  “Are you sure?” I watched his eyes for a flinch.

  “I’m sure.” His gaze was direct and his smile steady. He set his hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t take all of the fun out of this for me. Jacob showed me the one you wanted. You boys been using that worn-out handsaw in the backyard for your projects for too long. Hurts my neck watching you haw away out there. Everyone else pitched in some too,” Nathaniel said.

  I knew that last part wasn’t true, because no one there had any cash to spare, but I also knew he wanted me to take the attention away from him before everyone else could start in making a fuss. “Thank you,” I said, and gave him a big hug.

  “Just make me a chair soon and we’ll call it even.” He patted my back. At six foot five, Nate had a hard time finding things that fit him. Clothes, car seats, beds—everything was always too small. I was pretty sure that Strickland was starting to feel that way to him too, with the amount of time he’d been gone from the house.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. “Gotta finish the table first, and then I’ll get to the chairs.”

  “Deal,” he said. “Feel any different now that you’re a man?”

  “Not yet. Should I?”

  “Probably not today,” he laughed. “It’ll creep up soon enough.”

  “If it’s the mines you’re talking about, it can stand to wait,” I said.

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “I told you I’m working out a plan, but this isn’t the time or place. Later.” He took his phone out of his pocket and checked his texts.

  “All right, I’ll hold you to that,” I said.

  “Harlowe, I think you know what’s coming next,” Mama Draughn said to me, and bent down to reach inside the picnic basket on the ground beside Mr. Draughn. Mama Draughn wasn’t blood, but she was family all the same, and there was a time she’d taken care of me when my own mama couldn’t.

  “Happy birthday to you.” Mama D started the song after she lit a candle on her famous caramel cake that she’d been keeping as cool as possible inside the basket. Everyone else followed her lead and sang too.

  Mama helped Mama Draughn carry the heavy cake toward me. Staring at the flame of the candle, I remembered Jacob saying he was gonna talk to his rich uncle in Lexington about some money for us to start our furniture business. We still had a lot to learn, but were hoping to get a start during our senior year. Before I blew the flame, I hoped for that money to come through.

  “Did you wish for a bigger shed to go with that saw?” Daddy asked.

  “Not too far off,” I answered.

  “He can keep the saw in our room if there’s not enough space out there,” Nate said. “I need to clean some stuff out of the shed anyway.”

  “Y’all hush about all that now,” Mama said. “Let Harlowe enjoy his day. Can’t believe my baby’s grown.�
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  I felt a little sick when she said that. Most everyone I knew was ready to get the hell out of school, but all of a sudden less than a year seemed like it might be too short a time to come up with work other than the mines. No one talked about what would happen to all of us when they were finally shut down, but I guessed at least 90 percent of Strickland would be out of work.

  “Hate to run, but I told Clarice I’d give her a break from the baby,” Jacob said. He patted my shoulder then whispered in my ear, “We’ll celebrate proper, the three of us, later. I’m just trying to do the right thing by her these days.”

  Red overheard him and rolled his eyes, then opened his mouth to say something—probably along the lines of should’ve done the right thing first and worn a condom, which we’d all said plenty, Jacob more than anyone. Red seemed to think better of it and kept his mouth shut.

  “Wait, take some cake with you,” Mama Draughn said. She shot a look to Mr. Draughn that he clearly understood. He reached into the basket for the paper plates and napkins that she wanted.

  Mama Draughn passed Jacob a big piece of cake so he could get over to little Suzy.

  “See ya later, man,” Nate said to Jacob.

  “Yeah, good job on that saw. Can’t wait to use it.” Jacob smiled at me.

  “Hey, you goin’ to Ryan’s party this week?” Red asked Jacob before he walked away.

  “Course. Isn’t everyone?”

  “Didn’t know if you had the baby or something.”

  “No way. Clarice knows I won’t miss it,” Jacob said.

  The summer before, there’d been no baby, and we’d all tore it up pretty good at Ryan’s. He had the party at the end of every July, and every year it was bigger, and louder. People from Griggin County and even farther drove in for it.

  I finished saying goodbye to Jacob and then turned to take the piece of cake from Mama Draughn, more out of the desire to make her happy than any amount of appetite. Everyone else had lined up in front of her with hungry eyes, though. Everyone except Nathaniel, who I didn’t see anywhere.

  “Did Nate leave?” I asked Daddy.

  Daddy looked at everyone in our group, and then scanned the surface of Mohosh Pond and the mountain on the other side, up to where their boss, Amos Prater, lived in a huge brick house.

  “Suppose so. He must have slipped away without saying anything. Probably had some work to catch up on.”

  “Seems like he’s always working these days,” I said. I was a little mad that Nate had taken off in the middle of my party, but reminded myself I’d need to work just as hard if I ever wanted to give him a present like he’d given me.

  Chapter 2

  “HARLOWE, THROW ME THAT oven mitt, would you?”

  I grabbed it from the edge of the sink and tossed it to where Mama stood. She leaned over the open oven and took out a casserole dish, her damp red curls sticking to the sweat on her face. “Shit,” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist. “I knew I was forgetting something. Left the peas out this time.”

  I was going to say “don’t worry about it” but jumped before the words could leave my mouth. A loud thud banged against the planks of our front porch. I looked at Mama, wondering what made the sound, then rushed to the door. It felt heavier than usual when I pushed it open, like someone was leaning against the other side, and part of me didn’t want to know what I would see.

  In front of me, Nate’s body lay bloody, crumpled in a heap on his side. I fell to the planks beside him, and my eyes swept up to the truck in our driveway where Amos Prater’s son, Tommy, looked straight at me from the window. “Hey!” I yelled, and started down the porch stairs toward his truck, but he pulled out and drove away, dust clouding his wheels and our driveway.

  Mama screamed from behind me and then dropped to her knees, wailing. She rolled Nate’s body over to see his face and cried, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” tears pouring onto him, her voice sounding like it had dropped and shattered in pieces we’d never find. “Call the sheriff,” she stuttered through her crying.

  Only when I tried to answer her did I notice that I couldn’t speak because I’d forgotten to breathe. My hands shook like I was palsied, but I reached into my pocket for my phone. Before I could take it out, Daddy walked out onto the porch and yelled, “What? Who? No!” standing over Mama and Nate before he too fell beside them because none of us could stay upright under the weight of it all.

  “Please,” Mama said. “Please somebody call the sheriff.” She cradled Nate’s head in her lap and rocked back and forth. It seemed to calm her down a little with him closer to her, but it split me in two to watch her hands run over his hair like he was a young child with a fever. I wanted to both forget and remember the sight of them together like that. Nate’s chest was soaked in blood from a gunshot, but his face told no story of the way he died. If I just stared at his face, I could imagine that he was still okay. His face looked the same as it had only a few hours ago at my birthday party.

  When Daddy walked inside to make the phone call to the sheriff, I wondered how much time had passed between Mama asking and him getting up to go. I had already forgotten her words, or maybe I only ever imagined her asking him to call, I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t certain of anything except that Nate was lying dead on our porch and I wanted to make it untrue.

  Suddenly I felt like Mama and Daddy were strangers and Nate had left me alone with them. How could he leave me without telling me what I was supposed to do next? He said he had a plan for us, but I was sure this wasn’t what he meant. I was mad at him for deserting me and then even more mad at myself for feeling that way, because I knew it wasn’t his fault. All the feelings mashed together until they became one huge dark shadow that I knew would stay with me for a very long time to come.

  Then Sheriff Powell’s car was in our driveway and he walked toward us, mumbling questions that made so little sense, it sounded like he was speaking in tongues, like at the tent revivals Mama used to drag us to when we were kids. I stood up from the porch.

  “It was Tommy Prater,” I interrupted whatever he was spouting. “I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re sure of what?” Powell asked.

  “I’m sure Tommy did it. He’s the one that killed Nate.”

  “Did you see him do it?”

  “No. But I heard Nate’s body land on the porch, and then saw Tommy pull out of our driveway.”

  “That doesn’t mean much.”

  “How?” I asked, feeling again like neither of us understood the other. “Because he’s a fucking Prater? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “No. But isn’t that why you assume that he did it? Because Tommy is a Prater? Maybe it was a hunting accident. Maybe he found Nate somewhere and did the right thing in bringing him back to his family,” Powell said. “As anyone with a sense of right and wrong would do.”

  “They got nothing of that sense, and you know it,” I said, the words coming from me without any thought.

  “Shouldn’t you be rushing off to arrest that boy?” Mama yelled from where she sat holding Nate.

  “That’s a decent question,” Daddy said. “If Harlowe said he saw him, I’m sure he’s telling the truth.”

  “Look,” Powell said. “Y’all know there’s a system we have to follow here, even if it’s different than most. I understand your concern when it comes to the law and the Praters. I promise we’ll look into everything. Do you want me to call the morgue for you?”

  “No,” Daddy said. “We’ll bury him here with us.” A while back, home burials were banned in a bunch of neighboring counties, but it was still the way we did things in Strickland. Almost all of Mama’s family was buried out front. As far as we knew, the land where our trailer sat had always belonged to them, and she intended to keep it that way, and all of us on it.

  Powell nodded. “Did Nathaniel mention any trouble with Tommy or Amos at the mines?” he asked Daddy.

  “Nothing that stands out.” Daddy rubbed the back of
his neck. “But I know he’s been worried lately. Think anyone would be with the amount of paperwork and pressure he’s been under, though.” He was talking like it was still Nate’s job, like this was going to blow over and the two of them would go back to the same routine they’d had every day before this one. Nate had worked his way up from being underground to operations on the strips and then into the office. It was a job most Strickland men only dreamed of, one that paid well and posed little risk of getting hurt. Until this.

  “Hmm,” Powell said. “I’ll look into everything. Let me know if any of you remember or hear anything else. I’m real sorry for your loss.” He said that last part like it was a Bible verse he’d learned but no longer believed.

  Mama looked up at Powell with a mixture of anger and despair. The color drained from her face almost as fast as it did from Nate’s. Dizzy, I felt my own doing the same. I steadied myself against the arm of an old chair covered in soft-edged boxes. I couldn’t make sense of Nate lying there in Mama’s lap. He’d always been the one to take care of everyone else. My throat was closing, and I coughed to push my breath through the tight space.

  “Help me get him inside,” Mama said to me and Daddy once Sheriff Powell had left.

  Together, the three of us carried Nate into our bathroom.

  “Unless you need me in here, I’ll go call about his casket and stone,” Daddy said. His face was white, and he backed out of the bathroom into the hallway, seeming anxious to get some air. I understood. The tiles were tight around us and Nate barely fit in the tub. I wanted to run out of there too, but Mama couldn’t do this part by herself. So I helped her undress him, and together we washed the blood from Nate’s body.

  I kept adjusting the temperature during his bath, until I realized that he couldn’t feel it anymore. The sobs took over and I had to sit back on my heels beside the tub until I could breathe steady again.

  “It’s all right,” Mama said, her voice pulled thin with tears. “I remember Granny saying after Pop died that the strongest love ever shown a person is at their birth and then again at their death. It’s God’s way of reminding us still living to do better during the in-between part. I should have done better for him,” she said quietly over Nate, rinsing the soapsuds from his hair.