by Pamela Morsi
Aunt Will sighed, feigning disapproval. “DuJess is trying to take care of me,” she said. “She’s new to nursing, but she’s got the bossy business down cold.”
Mary Lynn brought laughter from down deep in her throat that was as soothing to the ear as her pie turned out to be to the palate.
Early Friday morning, the strange cousin named Sneezer showed up with two other men. Armon, the long-faced guy with the missing front tooth that had flirted with Jesse at the basketball game, and a tall, lean man they called Shorty, which Jesse assumed was a joke. They arrived early in the morning, but luckily Aunt Will was already up, dressed and ready for company.
The little cabin was very close and Jesse tried, with chores outside, to make herself scarce, but Aunt Will set her to the task of coffee for everyone. Surprisingly, for a woman who supposedly was getting fog on the brain, Aunt Will not only remembered each of them on sight, but made direct inquiries about their wives, children, parents, even their jobs and their land.
“Are you still trying to truck garden that patch of south valley off Squaw’s Trunk?”
“I put it back to pasture,” Armon answered. “Ava and I decided we couldn’t afford to farm. I’m loading down at the Walmart warehouse in Searcy. And she’s working dispatch for the County Sheriff.”
Aunt Will nodded and then added a wry chuckle. “That’s handy, her working for the law. If that boy of yours takes after you, she’ll be the first one to know.”
Rather than take offense, Armon roared with laughter. “Darren? He’s only eleven,” the man pointed out. “And so far, if he didn’t have my same horse-face, I’d be wondering if she’d been stepping around. The boy is kind natured and smart. Now, his little sister, I’m probably going to have to do some killing when she gets a girlish figure. Sassy and afraid of nothing, that one. You know she must get that from the Westons.”
Aunt Will nodded sympathetically. “They do have a strong streak of larceny in the family. But I’ve never thought high spirits to be a bad thing in a young girl. If you think that she’s going to wilding, they say chewing a bit of hickory root will sweeten her up. I don’t set much store by it. I must have chewed a wagonload of the stuff in my lifetime and I don’t see myself as one bit more tolerable for the effort.”
Armon smiled, but his words were genuine. “If it could make any of my children as good to friends and family as you have been, Aunt Will, I’d make them chew down a whole tree.”
She laughed at that and waved away the compliment. But Jesse could see that it pleased her to hear it.
Jesse interrupted their discussion as she handed out steaming cups of coffee and then passed around a tray of accoutrements.
“Is that real cream?” Shorty asked eagerly.
“Came right out of my old cow yesterday morning,” Aunt Will said.
“I can’t believe you’re still keeping livestock up here,” Sneezer said.
“DuJess is milking for me,” she answered. “Dairy is about the only protein Piney will let me have. I thought I’d give the pigs to the FFA boys at the high school. And the chickens…well, Armon maybe you should take those. If Johnny Q. Law should show up at your door, it’ll look better if all of your chickens aren’t roosters.”
Armon laughed. “Don’t push any layers off on me,” he said. “I won’t have ’em messing up my breeding stock.”
“So, Shorty,” she said, turning her attention to the more quiet fellow. “I wish there was still cane growing on your daddy’s farm. He made the best sorghum on the mountain.”
The man smiled. “I still remember how good it tasted,” he said. “But nothing growing there now. The family leased it to drill a gas well. They say we’ll all be rich. Lisa and I are still waiting, still working.”
Aunt Will nodded approvingly.
“How is the dozer business coming along?”
“Scraping by,” he answered and chuckled at his own joke, even though it was obviously a practiced reply. “Our dozers may be scraping by a road near you any time.”
Everyone politely laughed.
Sneezer took it up from that. “Fact is, Aunt Will, that’s kind of what we came up here to talk to you about.”
Aunt Will nodded, unsurprised.
“That approach of yours is plum grown over,” he said. “I thought I’d take this weekend, get a few of the guys around here to volunteer. We can surface it with the dozer and maybe cut in a couple of asides along it, so nobody has to back all the way down. All we need is your permission to work on your land.”
Aunt Will smiled at him and then glanced around, including all of them in her appreciation.
“You’ve got the men and the machines,” she said. “And I’ve got the money.” From the pocket of her cardigan she pulled out a checkbook, its cover worn with age. “I am not a poor widow, merely an old one. I can sure pay my way. And you’d better get your money now. I’m might not be here next time you come.”
“We don’t expect you to pay,” Shorty said.
“No, Aunt Will, we’re not wanting money for this.”
“You might as well get it,” she said. “I won’t be needing a lot of cash where I’m headed.”
She found her own comment amusing and laughed. The men did not.
“I can’t take your money,” Shorty said. “It wouldn’t feel right.”
“It’s a gift,” Armon added. “We can’t let you pony up for it.”
Sneezer expressed it more eloquently. “Aunt Will, there are too many in this town that feel like we owe you. We don’t have any way of ever squaring that off. But while we’ve still got a chance, you’ve got to let us try. Otherwise, we’ll feel guilty about your passing for the rest of our lives.”
“I’ve always paid my own way, boys,” she said. “I kept my own money aside through two marriages. I’m not accustomed to letting men do for me.”
“Let this be the exception,” Sneezer said.
“Besides, the road’s for us,” Armon piped in. “You probably haven’t driven a car for ten years.”
She nodded. “Fifteen more likely.”
“So give folks a chance to get up and down here without ripping out the oil pan.”
In the end she agreed. And after another cup of coffee and a few more stories they went on their way.
Afterward, while Aunt Will napped in her rocker, Jesse finished the chores. She looked around, knowing she was only doing the minimum to keep the place going, but lacking any clue of what more she should be doing to help. She decided that the chore of choice should be raking leaves. There certainly were enough of them. She decided to make a start after lunch.
She went inside to see Aunt Will awake.
“I thought I’d put on some bake potatoes,” she told her. “You think you might want to eat that?”
The old woman was skeptical. “A tater ain’t much without salt,” she said.
“Now, Aunt Will, don’t ever try to tell me that with a hundred kinds of herbs in this room and the root of every plant on earth down in the cellar, you don’t have something that tastes salty.”
The old woman giggled. “Nothing in this world tastes as good as salt,” she said. “But I can probably muddle through with a bit of winter savory, if you think I really have to.”
“Piney says you have to.”
“And are you going to be the kind of woman who jumps when he says ‘frog’?”
Jesse hesitated, not exactly sure what she was asking.
“Don’t even answer that,” Aunt Will continued quickly. “He’s not the kind of man that goes around saying ‘frog’ for no reason. Here, put this away for me.”
She held out the checkbook to Jesse.
“Where does it go?”
Aunt Will made a gesture with her head. “All my valuables go in that pretty box on my dresser. It was my Granny Meg’s wedding present brought from back east.”
Jesse located the box immediately. She put the checkbook inside, atop a stack of yellowing papers. When she returned to th
e main room she asked, “Are you sure you want to leave it in plain sight?”
Aunt Will shrugged. “I never bothered with a hidey-hole. The folks that might think to steal from me were always afraid I could read into their minds. I let ’em think that. Fear kept me safe on my own for many years.”
“Really?”
Aunt Will nodded. “When I was about your age, maybe a few years more, I was out yarbing near Itchy Creek and that awful Rupent Favor stumbled onto me. He was a nasty piece of work cold sober. But he was drunk in the middle of the afternoon. And I’m pretty sure he got it in his mind to rape me.”
“Oh, my God!” Jesse said.
“I looked straight at him, harsh as I could,” she said. “I did my best imitation of the evil-eye and I told him I could see his death. It was going to be the most painful passing ever seen or heard of. I must have been mighty convincing because he took off running like a scared rabbit.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jesse said.
“The weird thing was,” Aunt Will said, “I had the right of it. He was passed out drunk in a barn that caught fire. They got him out, but he was burnt to a crisp. Screamed for fifteen hours before he died. The whole time saying I’d put a curse on him. Wouldn’t even let me near him to ease the pain.”
“Oh, wow. That is very weird.”
“That’s the kind of thing that gives a woman a reputation she can live with,” Aunt Will told her.
Jesse nodded.
“I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of things about me, DuJess,” she said. “And the next bit of time, well, you’re certain to hear a lot more. But I don’t ever want you to think that there is any cause to be afraid of me or to imagine demons knocking at my door or none of that nonsense. I’m an ordinary ham and eggs woman, making my way through life as best I can. I’ve got no special powers. No direct line to the Almighty. I’ve done some good things in my life. I’ve done some things that I’m ashamed of, and a bunch of things that could go either way, depending on who’s judging. I’ve loved you from the minute you took your first breath. I loved your daddy every day of his life. That’s solid. And nothing in the world that’s ever said or done, no truth revealed or lies told will ever change that.”
“Oh, Aunt Will.” Jesse hurried over to kneel in front of the rocker. She hugged the frail woman as tightly as she dared. “I love you, too, and I always will.”
“I’m counting on that,” she answered.
31
On Friday afternoon Piney got an unexpected call at the clinic from Coach Poule. Like parents everywhere, his first instinct was a choking knot of fear. But the almost giddy tone in the coach’s voice quickly allayed that.
“I don’t want you to get too excited,” he said. “But we’ve got a scout from Missouri coming to the game tonight to look at Tree.”
“Where in Missouri?”
“The University of Missouri,” Coach clarified.
That raised Piney’s eyebrows.
“He came down to Springfield to look at a prospect and someone mentioned Tree to him. So he’s coming here tonight to take a look.”
Tree, of course, had fantasies of playing for University of Arkansas. But both father and son understood that the likelihood of a big Division 1 powerhouse school offering a scholarship to him was slim. If he got an offer at all, Piney was expecting it to be a small private college with a moderately successful program. Tree was big, but he wasn’t that big. And he was fast, but he wasn’t that fast. Still, if word got out that Mizzou was looking, the Razorback scouts would, too.
“I haven’t told Tree. I want him to keep focused on the game, but I knew you’d want a heads-up,” the coach told him.
“Thanks.”
By ten after five, the clinic was closed up. Still Piney lingered in his office. If Coach Poule didn’t want Tree to know about the scout, then he wouldn’t go home until his son had left. Seeing him and not telling him would be the same as lying. He spent his time clicking through patient charts and making notes for himself.
Finally Colby Plum’s pickup pulled into the lot. He blasted the horn for a couple of seconds. A minute later he watched his son, duffel bag over his shoulder, walk out to the truck and get inside. Piney was already turning out the lights before they’d made it out of the parking lot.
Upstairs in his home, he showered off the antiseptic smell of the job and put on a starched and pressed gingham oxford with his jeans. He wasn’t going to have any outsider mistake his family for hillbilly hayseeds. It wasn’t going to be about how much Tree needed their university. It was going to be about how much their university needed Tree.
Piney arrived at the gym in time to watch the girls’ game. He recognized the scout immediately. For one, he was an unfamiliar face seated in the home team section. And he was the only person in the building with a computer bag. At a distance, Piney couldn’t quite make it out, but he thought the front flap of the bag had a yellow cat’s paw, emblem of the Missouri Tigers.
Piney forced the jitters in his stomach to relax and seated himself in his usual place. The girls were having a good night, even without Camryn, who couldn’t apparently get herself back to school. The teams were well matched and the play exciting.
The scout, he noticed, barely looked up. He was totally focused on his phone, staring into it and making notes. It took a while to realize that the man was watching another game. He was sitting in one gym taking notes on the action in another.
The girls won in a nail-biting overtime. They were giddy with excitement, but hardly had time to congratulate each other. Coach rushed them off the court so the boys could warm up. Piney figured he was worried that the scout might leave if the game didn’t start on time. Piney had no fear of that. He was beginning to think the scout’s presence was a feint. The scout had come down to see the boy in Springfield, but instead of staying to see the boy play, he was down the road looking at somebody else.
Piney’s immediate reaction was relief. That was closely followed by resentment. His son was being used to snare another player. Now he was very glad that Tree didn’t know. That he hadn’t had time to get his hopes up. The disappointment would be bad enough for Coach Poule. Still, it might raise his son’s profile, get other schools to notice him.
And it was apparent early in the first quarter that this was a game to get noticed. Tree was, in the vernacular of basketball play, “feeling it.” There was no sense of teenage-too-tall awkwardness. He was in control, athletic and clear-headed. His shots couldn’t miss. His moves confounded the guards. His passes were on target and his vision on the court was three hundred and sixty degrees. By halftime he’d already scored twenty-six points, had five assists, two blocks and enough rebounds for Piney to lose count. It was only long-shots from a pretty decent point guard that kept their opponent in the game.
Piney spared the scout only one quick look. The man’s phone was in his pocket. He was watching Tree.
In the second half, they really took over and were in danger of running up the score. Coach Poule put in reserves, except for Tree. He kept Tree on the court, risking injury in a game that was already won. Piney didn’t like that. But playing with the freshmen and sophomores, Tree managed to show a different side of his game. He took a lot fewer shots and focused on blocking and setting up baskets for the younger players. They shined in a way they wouldn’t have been capable without Tree getting the best from them.
At the final buzzer it was eighty-nine to fifty-two. The guys all shook hands with each other. Several people stepped up to talk to Tree. Even from across the building, Piney could see him behaving politely and modestly, as befitted a winner. Before he headed for the showers, he glanced toward the bleachers and caught his dad’s eye. He gave a thumbs-up and Piney answered it with one of his own.
“You must be Erwin’s father?”
He was caught off guard enough that he almost replied. No, I’m Erwin’s son. Instead, he nodded and offered his hand. “We call him Tree. I’m his dad.”
�
��Tree? Okay, nicknames are good. I’m Ted Jakowski with the Missouri Tigers athletic program. I’m impressed with your son.”
Piney nodded. “He had a good game tonight.”
“He did,” the scout agreed. “Do you think the team looks good enough to go to state? It would help your boy to be seen in a bigger venue.”
“Maybe,” Piney answered. “We’ll see how the invitational goes. Tournament play really melds a team. Shows you their strengths and weaknesses.”
“True,” the scout agreed.
“Who won the game?” Piney asked.
“Huh?”
“The game you were watching on your phone,” he clarified. “Who won?”
“Kickapoo. They beat Glendale by twelve.” The two schools he mentioned were cross-town rivals in Springfield.
“Have you two discussed what kind of basketball program you want for college?”
Piney wasn’t about to be pinned down. “He definitely wants to play. But we’ve been looking more into the academic offerings. It’s hard to get into medical school from a podunk junior college.”
That raised the scout’s eyebrows, exactly as Piney intended. He had no idea if Tree was interested in medicine. That had been Piney’s personal choice, but his son only talked basketball. Still, he didn’t want the scout to think that Tree had eyes on the NBA. The chances for that were so slim, even whispering a prayer for it seemed naive.
“He’s still very young. And there is a big world outside of here. I want him to have the opportunity to pursue whatever he wants.”
The scout looked skeptical. “Medical school is a pretty lofty ambition for him, I’d think.”
“He’s near the top of his class and his SAT’s were great for a kid from a small, rural school,” Piney said, unequivocally.
The scout shrugged. “I’ve seen his numbers. And I don’t mean just the ones on the court. He’s in the middle band of students bound for college. Mostly A’s, good test scores, that’s the most competitive group. Academic overachievers with top play, we always want those. And basketball heroes who don’t have much in the way of scholastics, we make a way for them. Most kids I see fall in the middle group. For them, there are many more students chasing many fewer scholarship dollars. It’s not what most parents want to hear, but that’s the truth as I see it on the ground.”
