Stormy Weather

by Paulette Jiles

  “I did say three hundred, but that was a year ago and I wasn’t tied to it.”

  Jeanine felt another wave of anxiety come over her and so she cleared her throat and pretended to be firm. She stepped back and forth as far as the telephone cord would allow.

  “Mr. Everett, you don’t really have me over a barrel like you think you do. I have another offer for him, and rather than go to the trouble of hauling him all the way over to you I’d just as soon sell him to somebody closer to here. I wouldn’t have to pay so much for gas.”

  “Who made you an offer?”

  “Charles Findlay told me he was interested. I just called him.” She didn’t know what made her tell such an outrageous lie. It was panic. He could easily call old man Findlay and find out for himself.

  “He is?”

  “Yes, sir. You know he has those Buck Thomas mares there and he is real partial to the Hancock line.”

  “When did you race him last?”

  Jeanine lifted her head and breathed out through her nostrils slowly so he could not hear how nervous she was.

  “He did three hundred and fifty yards in eighteen seconds at Kingsville last year. Me and Daddy took him there. He was matched against Chimney Sweep and beat him by a long head. You can call Bill Solwell and ask him yourself.”

  She said nothing during the long silence as Ross Everett considered things. Finally he said, “All right. But I have to ask you to haul him here to my place.”

  “What about gas and everything?”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “All right, Mr. Everett. All right.”

  “I once told you to call me Ross. For all the good it does.”

  “All right, Ross.”

  “I got my gray stud matched against a fellow on the fifth, maybe he’ll show up and maybe he won’t. There at the sale barn in Stillwater. Here’s how you get to it. Do you have a pencil and paper?”

  She felt around in her purse with the receiver caught up between her shoulder and her ear. She wrote down the directions.

  “All right. How will I know if you’re there?”

  “Ask people, sweetheart.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The nurses helped them load Bea in the back of the truck on the stretcher as if she were a pallet of grain sacks and gave them an entire list of rules they had to mind very carefully if they were not to injure her leg any further, and let them take the stretcher with them, and stroked Bea’s hair and said Good-bye now, honey, we’ll see you in a week or so. Another nurse said she wanted Bea to get well soon so she could sit up at a desk and write all her stories and sell them to magazines.

  “Oh Bea,” said Elizabeth, and smiled at her fondly and stroked her cheek.

  They were given the name of a home visiting nurse. She was employed by the county health department, and it wouldn’t cost them anything. Her name was Winifred Beasley, she was very efficient and had a degree in nutrition as well as nursing and was just the most concerned person in the world. She would be out there in a few days to give them a hand.

  Jeanine drove so her mother could cry all she wanted on the way home, in the truck cab, where Bea couldn’t hear her. When they arrived at the house Elizabeth blew her nose and Jeanine and Mayme carried Bea in on the stretcher, and lifted her onto the bed they had prepared for her in the parlor. She would have the fire in the fireplace and a view out to the front yard.

  Abel and Alice came over in their old Model T roadster. Abel volunteered to fill in the well, but Bea heard him and called out, Please don’t. Please just fix the curb. She loved the well. It was the most important terrible thing that had ever happened to her.

  Abel and Alice walked into the parlor and took Bea’s hand; Alice touched the temporary cast and then Bea’s head bandage. They shook their heads.

  “By golly, girl, we about lost you,” Abel said. “You’ve put about ten years on your sisters’ and mother’s life.”

  “But don’t fill it in,” said Bea. Her voice was weak and she shifted back and forth as much as she could. She had begun to look like a little old woman, with the pain lines in her face deepening, it seemed, every hour.

  Abel said he wouldn’t. Instead he and Jeanine mixed mortar and reset the stones, and then tore down the tipped and twisted well roof. Then they covered the opening with hog wire and cemented another row of stones on top. When they were done she and the old man stood with their hands caked with cement watching Smoky gallop across the lower field with his tail in the air, calling out to Sheba. He had worn a path along the fence line as if it were his own private racetrack, he had pounded it smooth with his unshod hooves and raced along it because someday it would lead him somewhere and something important would happen to him. Dust rose up in a cold cloud behind him.

  WINIFRED BEASLEY CAME driving into their driveway at five in the afternoon two days later in a dark blue Chevrolet. It was a good car, only two years old. She stepped out in a careful way. She opened the double doors to the house as if the doors were disjointed and she was fearful of them coming apart. She walked into the hallway without a word and then into the kitchen; she gave them a brief, curt bob of her head and asked where Bea was.

  “I’m Elizabeth Stoddard.” Their mother turned away from her small desk, and laid down a seed catalog. She stood and faced Winifred.

  “Good to meet you, Mrs. Stoddard.” Winifred put her purse on the table. “And you are Bea’s sister?” She regarded Jeanine with a cool stare but didn’t wait for an answer. “My concern is with the child. Where is she?”

  Jeanine laid down the load of wood she had just brought in and said, “In here.”

  Winifred walked into the parlor, and as she did she turned one way and then another to see what they had in the house, and what sort of furniture they sat on and the dishes they ate on, whether there were pictures on the wall or a cloth on the table and proper washing facilities. She glanced down at the braided rug made of flesh-colored hosiery and up at the dancing orange pigs of the feed-sack curtains and sideways to the back window with the outhouse beyond.

  She stood by Bea’s bed and smiled. Her smile was drawn and it made her mouth look square.

  “Well, Miss Bea,” she said. “We’re here to make you well and healthy.”

  “Good,” said Bea. “I’m happy to meet you.” Bea went back to staring at the wall and counting the willow leaves on the stained wallpaper. She moved her mouth as she counted in a whisper. She counted between pain pills.

  “I am sure you are. I am the county health nurse and I visit lots and lots of families.” She reached down and pulled the blankets up around Bea’s throat. “You must stay warm. How do you use the facilities?”

  “The facilities?”

  Elizabeth was standing at the door. “She is lifted onto a chamber pot,” she said.

  “It must be cleansed after every use,” said Winifred. “And disinfected with bleach or Lysol.” She leaned down and patted Bea’s head and parted a lock of hair above the bandage. Bea shrank away and lifted a hand to her head bandage. Winifred grasped her hand and laid it firmly down on the blanket. “Do not touch that bandage,” she said. “An infection would be disastrous.” She straightened up. “Now I must speak with your mother and sister. Is this all you are?” She turned to Elizabeth. “Just the three of you?”

  “No, I have another daughter. My oldest.”

  “Are any of you employed?”

  “Yes, my oldest is employed.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together and clasped both hands together in front of her, as if she had Winifred Beasley’s neck between them. “Are we to pay you? Is that why you’re asking?” She turned her head. Mayme came in the door in a blooming shaft of cold air with a jug of skim milk in one hand and called out to Bea.

  “No, you are not to pay me. The government provides this service.” She turned and walked past Elizabeth and into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “We need to lay out some ground rules here,” she said. Mayme stood and stared at her. “You’re the o
ldest daughter? Stop staring at me. I am the county health nurse. Sit down.”

  Elizabeth and her two daughters glanced at one another but they sat down.

  Winifred looked around the kitchen. “Do you have pencil and paper? I want you to take notes.” Elizabeth got up and stalked into the parlor and came back with Bea’s Big Chief tablet and pencil. She sharpened the pencil with the kitchen knife and bent her head to the task so Winifred would not see how furious she was, and would not go away and leave them without help.

  “I have in my car relief rations,” said Winifred. “They are to be used by the injured child. No one else. I will bring in canned milk, beef, beef stock, malted milk tablets, cod liver oil, powdered eggs, and calcium tablets. She needs a nutritious diet in order for the bones to knit. These are strictly, I repeat, for the injured child.”

  “We heard you the first time,” said Jeanine. She held up a forefinger. “The first time.”

  “Jeanine, hush up,” said her mother.

  “There’s a dairy just down the road. I used to work at there,” said Mayme. Her eyes were sparkling with malice. “I bring home lots of milk every evening. We have milk.”

  “Skim?” said Winifred.

  “Well, what of it?” Mayme said. Albert slipped in through the window and hurried to sit beside the stove. He stared at Winifred and then walked into the parlor.

  “Won’t do.” Winifred had little expression on her face. Her repertoire of emotions was clearly very limited, she seemed to vary between contempt and disapproval. Maybe she went to a Charlie Chaplin movie once in a while and laughed but Mayme doubted it. “Whole milk. Contains butterfat. Our patient in there is below normal weight. But who isn’t these days? At any rate, I see you have a cat. The cat is to be kept away from the patient. Also, I congratulate you that she does not have head lice. Do any of you?”

  “No!” said Elizabeth. Her pencil point broke. “Really!”

  Winifred stared at her calmly. “It’s very prevalent. Now. I know the cost of the surgery and the specialist will be very expensive. So you are going to be in financial straits.”

  “We are not,” said Jeanine. “We have a horse we can sell, and that’s going to pay for it.”

  “A horse?” Winifred’s eyes widened and she smiled slightly. “A horse?”

  “He’s a racehorse,” said Jeanine.

  “I see.” Winifred for the first time seemed somewhat interested. “Why do you have a racehorse?”

  Elizabeth said, “My late husband liked to match race. And when he died we were left with the horse.”

  “What happened to your husband?” Winifred said. “I am used to being nosy. I have no reluctance about being intrusive. My concern is with the patient and the entire emotional and social environment that affects the patient. Was it a communicable disease?”

  “No, sour gas,” said Elizabeth.

  “And he gambled. On horses.”

  “Yes.”

  Winifred pressed her thin lips together. She was taking mental notes. “Why did Bea fall down the well?”

  “Well, she was leaning over the well curb and it gave way.”

  “Is that your water source?”

  “No, we’re using the windmill water.”

  Winifred stood up. “You two.” She pointed to Jeanine and Mayme. “Come and help me bring in the supplies.” She pulled on her gloves. “I must tell you that you are three women and a seriously injured child with little income on an isolated farm. I want you to keep in mind that there is a very good home established for dependent and neglected children who are not orphans but whose parents are unable to care for them. Buckner’s Home for Children in Dallas is known worldwide. If and when you find yourselves out of money and out of food supplies, and in need of yet another operation for Bea, you will keep that in mind. Were they to take her in, the operations would be paid for.”

  They went out to Winifred’s blue Chevrolet and packed in the relief supplies, cans and sacks and a gallon tin of Lysol. Jeanine felt obligated to place it in a stack beneath the window away from the Hamilton safe. She hated herself for being submissive, for not grasping Winifred by her jacket lapels and flinging her out of the house.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next morning very early Mayme opened the cookstove door to check on the corn bread and then took it out and left it on the sink to cool. It sent up steam against the window and the winter stars. Jeanine carried a lamp downstairs, the light bobbing down the steps. Her clothes hung on the back of a chair in front of the stove to warm. She pulled on a shirt and her Levi’s and then her tweed jacket. She scraped a bit of her lipstick from the tube with a hairpin. It was almost gone. She sat the dark green fedora on her head as if it were armor, a miner’s helmet. In the kitchen she took a wedge of hot corn bread and spread butter on it, wrapped it in a piece of newspaper, and gave her sister a hug for good-bye. Then she went out to back the truck up to the trailer, and then to catch Smoky.

  He seemed to know he was leaving. He read her intentions in her hands and her nervous walk, the strain in her voice. She could not catch him for an hour, he bolted from the graveyard fence through the peach orchard, he roared through the little grove of live oaks and darted into one end of the barn and out the other. Finally he stood beside the gate, trembling and breathing hard, watching her come for him with the halter.

  Then it took her another thirty minutes to get him loaded. He balked and fought the lead rope. He didn’t want the hubcap full of oats that sat inside the trailer. It was only after she sat down on the trailer fender in despair to think what to do that he became quiet. Jeanine rubbed her rough hands together and asked why he had to make it so hard for her. She didn’t know who she was asking. After a moment he cocked his ears and stretched out his nose toward her.

  She got to her feet slowly and threw the lead rope over his neck and said, Load. And he gave up and walked into the trailer. It took her another fifteen minutes to start the truck. She didn’t get away until noon.

  She left Highway 80 at Rising Star and drove into Comanche County. It was the time of year when deer came into rut, and a large stag bearing his antlers like a troublesome crown stood staring at her truck before he sprang over the roadside fence. She drove with the cracked window rolled down. People were burning cedar and the smoke stung her eyes.

  She stopped at a gas station and asked for directions and then went on toward the sale barn. It was nearing sundown. The sale barn was empty; outside a crowd of men in the unlit grounds, their faces shadowed by hats, their horses tied to trailer slats.

  Jeanine got out of the truck. She brushed out her short hair and stood before the side mirror to tie on her silk scarf, with the point down in front, clipped on the round gold-colored earrings. In the mirror she saw a man standing behind her, his hat down and his coat collar standing up. She turned around.

  “Mr. Everett?” she said. She walked toward him.

  He lifted his hat. “You’re talking to him.” His chore coat was made of a heavy, wooden canvas. “Do you have that horse?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s right here. In the trailer.”

  “Let’s get him into a pen.”

  The bulked shadow of the auction barn flooded outward over the gravel, reaching out to the stock pens. He walked up to the horse in the trailer. He regarded Smoky’s blunt, prehistoric head and the wired stand of mane, his thick neck.

  “This is Smoky Joe Hancock?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smoky lifted his blunt nose to take in the news that the wind brought to him. Jeanine slipped the halter on him.

  She said, “How are your wife and little boy?”

  “She’s dead.” Ross Everett pushed his hat back by the brim. “He’s alive. He’s over there with the men.”

  “Oh, Mr. Everett.” Her mouth opened and she put her hand to her lips. Her heart seemed to stop for a moment and she tried to think of something to say, but he seemed to be made of a kind of private granite. Jeanine finally said, “She’s dead?”<
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  “She died of pneumonia during that dust storm in ’35. They called it dust pneumonia.” Everett turned to watch a horse being unloaded from a long stock trailer. “And she had asthma.”

  Jeanine was silent for a space of time. He searched his coat pocket for his truck keys. “Well, that’s terrible, Mr. Everett. I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded. “Let’s see about your horse.” She shrugged up her jacket around her shoulders. The wind slapped the silk scarf against her collar with small rippling sounds. “Get him unloaded and let him buck it out.”

  Ross Everett and two other men stood watching her swing up onto the trailer fender. She untied the horse where he stood, riding backward. One of the men came forward to offer to help but Ross Everett motioned to him to leave her alone. He watched as she shoved the gate open, and Jeanine and the horse both jumped down from the trailer at the same time, side by side. She took firm hold of his halter rope as the dark horse charged around against it.

  Everett said, “All right,” and then walked straight on past her toward the livestock pens. She hurried to catch up.

  Smoky Joe galloped around the small pen in short rushes. He stopped for a moment and stood stiff-legged and called to the mares in a violent shivering whinny. He bucked himself into the air with all four hooves off the ground and landed and hurled himself into the air again, shaking off all the hard miles.

  Jeanine shook out the leather halter to straighten it. “I guess you still want him?”

  Everett stood with his hands in his pockets and watched the horse.

  “We got a match race going here, Miss Stoddard. Let’s see how he does.” His voice was hoarse from smoking.

  “You said three hundred.” She reached out and grasped the canvas sleeve of his chore coat.

  He glanced down at her hand. “I know I did. I also said I wasn’t tied to it.”

  “Mr. Everett, you didn’t tell me I would have to race him.” Jeanine began to roll up the lead rope in loops.

  “Well, girl, I didn’t tell you to come or not come.” He seemed preoccupied. “Have you got a flat saddle?”