Gap Creek

by Robert Morgan

  Hank took the coconut shell off the stick by the spring and dipped out a drink. He offered it to me and I shook my head. He drunk the water slow, like he was savoring the flavor and the coldness. “This here water tastes like it comes out of rock,” Hank said, “like it’s been running through rubies and emeralds.”

  It was pretty the way he put it.

  “I wish I had a ruby; I would give it to you,” Hank said.

  “I don’t need no ruby,” I said.

  Hank dipped up another drink, and then replaced the coconut shell on the stick. “Now my mouth is sweet,” he said. He looked into my eyes and stepped closer. He took my hands and raised them, first one and then the other, to his lips and kissed them. Nobody had ever kissed my hands before. Then he put his hands on my elbows and pulled me closer to him.

  “You are an unusual person,” he said and looked right into my eyes. I couldn’t think of any way I had been unusual except to splash coffee on his britches, but I didn’t say that. He leaned closer and nudged my lips with his lips. It tickled, and made my lips tingle. He rubbed his lips sideways across mine, and I thought how gentle and careful he was, for such a big, strong man. I wondered if Mama or Rosie or one of my other sisters was watching us from the back porch. And then I remembered the laurel bushes was between us and the house. Hank pressed his lips to mine and the feeling was sweet, sweeter than the fresh water from the spring. Then he nibbled at the edge of my lip, at my upper lip and the corners of my mouth. He run the tip of his tongue along my upper lip. It was a feeling I’d never had before.

  When Hank put his lips full against mine and placed his arms around my shoulders, I felt I was being gathered up in a spin and cut off from the air and light around me. It was like his arms made a separate world around me. His arms and lips and the feel of him against me made us apart from the woods and spring and bushes. We was our own world just by being together.

  The feeling of the kiss went all over me. The kiss went through my arms and legs to the tips of my fingers and toes. That was the strangest part. Hank kissed my lips and run his tongue around my lips, and I felt the sweetness in the back of my head and down my back. So this is what kissing is, I thought. And I thought, This is not me. This is better than me. This is better than I deserve. And I thought, No, this is what I have been waiting for; this is what the future is going to be like.

  Hank kissed me and we turned around like we was dancing real slow. We stepped around, but I wasn’t hardly aware of stepping. I felt the trees and laurel bushes and the spots of sunlight was all circling. Everything was turning as Hank kissed me. My eyes was closed and I floated with the turning.

  When Hank took his lips away and breathed, I caught a breath too. I took a breath and opened my eyes. And looking over his shoulder at the woods I seen somebody standing among the bushes above the spring. It was the oddest feeling, to open my eyes after my first kiss, after an otherworldly kiss, and see somebody staring at us from among the oak trees. It was like waking up from a sweet dream and finding somebody studying you.

  I knowed it was one of the Willard boys. I think it was Clarence. He must have been watching us all that time. I couldn’t know how long he had been watching. But if he was watching us, the rest of them must be watching us too. There might be half a dozen Willards spying on us.

  “I want you to be careful,” I said to Hank. I didn’t mean to spoil everything by telling him we was being watched.

  “Careful about what?” he said.

  “You just be careful as you go down the mountain,” I said.

  And then I heard a squirrel bark. But it wasn’t a regular squirrel. The bark was too steady, and a little too loud. It was one of the Willards making the noise, teasing us. And then I heard a bobwhite call, and though it sounded like a bobwhite, the call was too loud. It was another one of the Willards answering the first.

  Hank must have seen the worry on my face, for he started to listen. Just then a turkey gobbled further up the ridge. “There’s a lot of varmints about,” he said and laughed.

  “Don’t you leave here by yourself,” I said.

  Hank pulled his coat back and showed me a pistol stuck in his belt.

  “They may have guns too,” I said. I knowed the Willard boys carried pistols with them, especially Webb. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons they would walk along the road with a .22 and shoot at rocks and cans.

  “Don’t you worry,” Hank said. “Worry never made anybody live a second longer.”

  We walked around the edge of the yard and Hank held my hand. I think he wanted whoever was watching to see us together. I showed him the garden where the tomatoes was so ripe and many they had broke down the vines. And the summer squash had got so big they looked like yellow geese laying in the weeds. The tater vines was dead and the bean vines had turned yellow.

  We walked to the edge of the cornfield where Lou and me had already cut the tops and pulled the fodder. “Who did all that work?” Hank said.

  “I did some,” I said. “And Lou helped, and Mama did some.”

  Hank looked at me and run his finger along my cheek. “You will make somebody a good wife,” he said. I couldn’t look into his eyes. I couldn’t hardly bear for him to look at me. For I knowed that more than anything in the world I wanted to be married to Hank Richards. I wanted to live in a house with just him and me, and I wanted to help him work in the fields and raise chickens and pick apples to dry in the sun for winter. It seemed too much to hope for that I could be with him day after day, day and night. It was too perfect to think on. Nothing ever worked out that perfect in this world. And if I wanted it too bad it would never happen. The world was made so people never got what they wanted most. Or maybe they wanted most what they couldn’t never get.

  “You will make somebody a good husband,” I said. I hoped he didn’t think I had cut all the tops in the cornfield by myself. I was a little ashamed of all the hard work I had had to do.

  “Who is going to help you kill hogs?” Hank said. We had ambled close to the hogpen and the mud of the pen sent its stench over into the sweet smell of the garden.

  “I guess Lou and me and Mama will do it,” I said.

  “I could come up and give you a hand,” Hank said.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said.

  “You’ll need help lifting the hog,” Hank said.

  I didn’t protest, because I wanted him to come whenever he would. And I didn’t want him to think I was able to kill a hog and cut it up all by myself. We walked by the grape arbor where the bees was busy on the ripe Concords.

  “Did you ever make wine?” Hank said.

  “Papa used to make blackberry wine for his rheumatism,” I said. “But nobody else ever did drink any.”

  “Pokeberry wine is better for rheumatism,” Hank said. “It warms the joints and soothes them.”

  When we got to the front porch Mama come out and said she had made a fresh pot of coffee. She asked Hank did he want any.

  “That would be perfect,” he said. “I’ve got to leave soon, but a cup of coffee will set me up for the road.”

  Mama brought out two mugs on a tray and we set on the swing on the front porch. I never had coffee except in the morning, but I took the cup just to be sociable. Maybe it was because I was excited and in love, or maybe it was because I wasn’t used to drinking coffee in the afternoon, but after a few sips it felt like lights was going through my veins to the ends of my fingers. And the yard and front porch got even brighter and clearer. Everything was so clear it hurt my eyes to look at it. And Hank was so handsome with his black hair and downy mustache and brown eyes and high forehead, it sent a pain through me just to glance at him.

  I thought I heard Carolyn giggle inside. She must have been watching us through the window. She was nearly fourteen, and too big to giggle like that. But she was spoiled and I reckon she was jealous because Hank had come to see me and not her.

  “What if I was to ask you—,” Hank said. But just then there was a whip
poorwill call on the hill above the road. Since whippoorwills never call till after dark, it didn’t fool us. It was one of the Willard boys all right.

  “That bird has got its clock wrong,” Hank said.

  “If you was to ask me what?” I said.

  There was a dove call, slow and mournful, from the same place the whippoorwill had called from. “Those birds are singing up a regular chorus,” Hank said.

  “Those birds ought to be jailbirds,” I said.

  Next it was a mockingbird on the hill, sounding like the other birds, and a rain crow and a robin. And then a fox barked up there too. “The woods is full of noise,” Hank said.

  “If you was to ask me what?” I said again.

  There was another bobwhite call, and a fox bark, and then a wildcat scream. “What if I was to ask you to be my wife?” Hank said. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I had only walked home with Hank the first time that morning. Some girls had to wait months, even years to get engaged. I had first laid eyes on Hank less than a week before, and here he was asking me to get married. It felt like I was dreaming it all.

  AFTER WE KISSED and held hands and looked into each other’s eyes for what must have been an hour, ignoring the birdcalls from the hill, and Carolyn’s giggles behind the window, Hank said he had to go, if he was to get off the mountain before dark. He didn’t want to be caught on the mountain after nightfall. “Might step on a snake,” he said.

  “I’m afraid for you,” I said.

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Just do what I tell you to do,” he said.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  “I want you to hold my hat,” he said. He took off his widebrimmed black hat, and he went to the front door and thanked Mama for the dinner.

  “I hope your pants ain’t ruined,” Mama said.

  “A spot of coffee won’t ruin good cloth,” Hank said.

  “You come back and see us soon,” Mama said.

  “I’ll do that,” Hank said.

  Out in the yard Hank handed me his hat and told me to stand by the front gate and hold it for him.

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and winked. And taking off his coat and tucking it under his arm he headed down the trail to the outhouse. The outhouse was hid behind the arborvitae, and it was right at the edge of the pine woods. I heard the door of the outhouse slam. I smiled, thinking how delicate Hank had been about mentioning where he was going.

  I held the hat and stood there beside the boxwood by the gate. Mama had swept the yard and sprinkled sand on it, but chickens had already tracked the sand and stained it. I would have to carry more sand from the branch for next Saturday. Shadows was getting longer across the yard, and I felt the coolness of evening in the air. A crow cawed in the pines on the hill. A dog barked down the mountain.

  After a few minutes I started to wonder what Hank was doing in the outhouse. Was he sick? Had a spider bit him? It was embarrassing that he had gone there and was staying so long while I held his hat by the road. I looked at the soft felt hat. It must have been a seven and three-quarters size, for Hank had a large head. Mama come out on the porch and said, “Is he gone?”

  I shook my head and pointed toward the outhouse. Rosie and Carolyn come out on the porch behind Mama and looked toward the arborvitae. I hoped Hank wouldn’t step out and see them all looking at him.

  I held the hat and looked down the road, but didn’t see anybody. And then I looked up the road and saw the road that way was empty too. There was a dove call on the hill, and then another bobwhite call. I looked at the hat in my hand, and I looked toward the arborvitae. And then I smiled, because I knowed Hank had already slipped away into the trees and was far down the mountain. I was even more thrilled than I had been, to think he was safe, and that he had been so clever.

  “Well, what happened to him?” Mama said.

  “He’s done gone,” I said.

  “He’ll have to come back for his hat,” Carolyn said. “A gentleman don’t go anywhere without his hat.”

  Shadows was already reaching across the yard. There was crow calls from the trees on the hill. I tossed the hat up in the air and caught it. It was the happiest day of my life.

  MARRIAGE WAS DIFFERENT from what I ever expected. Like all girls I imagined something wonderful, and it was wonderful, in most ways, but in different ways from what I had thought. Mama had always said that marriage is like everything else: it is work, hard work.

  As I expected, Mama was angry when I told her I was engaged.

  “You don’t hardly know that boy,” she said.

  “How well am I supposed to know him?” I said.

  “Well enough to know his mama’s name,” Mama said.

  I didn’t say nothing. I never was good with talk when somebody was upset. Besides, there was nothing I could say to convince Mama.

  “When are you getting married?” Lou said.

  “Next month,” I said.

  “Where are you going on your honeymoon?” Carolyn said. She was always reading stories in magazines about courtship and honeymoons.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “He has only just asked me.”

  “I’ll say,” Mama said. “You only met him last week.”

  “I’ll bake you a coconut cake,” Rosie said.

  “Who is going to do the work around here?” Mama said.

  “The crops is already in this year,” I said. “It’s not like Rosie and Lou and Carolyn is helpless.”

  “This is a fine come off,” Mama said, “after your Papa died in the spring. And you not much more than a youngun.” But I don’t think Mama was as mad as she acted. Or if she was she got over it. Maybe she seen the advantage of getting one of her girls married off. Or maybe she seen there was nothing she could do to stop it. “I just hope he’s a good man,” Mama said, “though he’s really just a boy.”

  “He’s eighteen years old,” I said.

  “That’s what I mean,” Mama said. “You’re both just younguns.”

  Four

  Now the week before we was married Hank rented a house over the line in South Carolina. It was way down a little valley called Gap Creek, and it was the farthest I had ever been from home. Hank said he wanted to live there because it was a pretty place, and because it was cheap, and he had work where they was building a cotton mill at Lyman. He had worked before as a carpenter and mason’s helper and he already had a job lined up at the site in Lyman, helping to make brick. I thought later he moved to South Carolina to get away from his ma, because when I got to know her I could see why he would want to.

  We got married on a Saturday, nearly a month after we first met, and we stayed that night at Mama’s house. I felt embarrassed to be spending my first night as a married woman in my own house, but Mama knowed what to do. Since there wasn’t no extra bedroom she told Hank to sleep on the couch in the living room, and I stayed in the bedroom with Lou and Rosie and Carolyn like I always had. I didn’t get hardly any sleep that night, and Lou giggled and teased me.

  “Do you reckon Hank is lonesome out on the couch?” she said.

  “Shhhhh,” I said and pretended to be sleepy.

  The next day we walked down to Gap Creek.

  Like any bride, I thought my husband was wise and on his way to riches. And when I seen the valley of Gap Creek I thought it was one of the prettiest places in the world. The house wasn’t so fancy, but the narrow valley with steep mountains on either side looked like a picture out of a magazine. The valley floor was flat, winding peaceful back into the steep mountains. It was still green in the slender cove, though it was already fall on the higher slopes.

  The worst thing about the house was that Mr. Pendergast, who rented it to us, lived there hisself. He lived in the bedroom at the front of the house, and our rent was the meals I fixed for him and the washing I did for him. He was a crusty old widower and I seen I was going to have to humor him. I was just a young bride and Hank took me dow
n there to start housekeeping in that little place, and to cook for old man Pendergast.

  Mr. Pendergast was a short man with a huge head of gray hair and hair growing out of his ears. He always looked at you with a squint when he talked. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said the night we arrived, when I come in with all my clothes tied up in a pasteboard box and a pillowcase, after walking all the way from Mount Olivet, “I don’t eat hardly nothing, and I’m so quiet you’ll never know I’m around.”

  He showed me where the kitchen was and where all the pots and pans was. His wife had died three or four years before, and he had let the house go the way most men would. Every inch of the floor needed to be scoured and scrubbed. You never seen such filth as was built up around and behind the cookstove. I seen it would take me a week to get the place cleaned up so it didn’t turn your stomach.

  “What do you like for breakfast?” I said.

  “Just fix me some biscuits and gravy,” Mr. Pendergast said, “and maybe a poached egg.”

  I had heard of poached eggs, but I had never made a poached egg. I’d have to ask Hank what a poached egg was.

  “We won’t have no bacon until we kill the hog,” Mr. Pendergast said. “But it’s almost time for hog killing.”

  LATER WHEN WE went to bed that first night I was almost afraid to move in the attic bedroom, for the floorboards creaked and the bedsprings creaked. And I was afraid Mr. Pendergast was right below us listening to every sound we made. The floorboards groaned and the bedsprings moaned when we got in. “Shhhh,” I said to Hank.

  “Pendergast is deaf as a fencepost,” Hank said, not even lowering his voice.

  “Even a fencepost can hear this bed creak,” I said.

  After Hank blowed out the lamp we laid in the bumpy bed in the room smelling of old wood and smoke. Hank turned over to face me and the springs banged on the slats of the bed. I giggled cause I was a little nervous. But I wasn’t scared or worried like so many brides are supposed to be. I had thought all my life about this first night in our own house, and now that it was here I was more worried about waking up Mr. Pendergast than anything else.