The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd

by Bette Lee Crosby

  When he left the train yard Cyrus headed back to the streetcar stop, but instead of climbing aboard he followed the pathway of the tracks. He walked with his shoulders hunched and his eyes down, not bothering to look at the shops in town or the boarding houses with signs out front. It was a nine-mile walk, and Cyrus did not arrive back at Prudence Greenly’s house until after eight. Instead of using the key Prudence had given him, Cyrus walked up to the front door and rapped the brass knocker. Seconds later Ruth opened the door.

  “Thank goodness you’re back,” she said. “I was starting to worry.”

  “Worry about what?”

  “That the railroad wouldn’t be hiring. With this depression there are so many men out of work; I was afraid you might not get the job.”

  “Yeah, I got it. I start tomorrow as a trackman.”

  Ruth gave a happy squeal. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” She threw her arms around his neck and raised her mouth to his.

  She failed to notice that Cyrus didn’t seem anywhere near as happy as she was.

  Cyrus Dodd

  Maybe I should be thankful for a job coming to me as easy as this, but the truth is I don’t feel one bit good about it. I didn’t get the job because of what I had to offer. I got it because of Arnold, a dead guy I never even met.

  After Booger Jones told me about his brother, I looked forward to being a grader and working my way up to laying tracks. Working your way up is something to be proud of. Sliding in on a dead man’s coattails is the same as taking a handout. It’s stealing what rightfully belongs to somebody more deserving.

  Things were a lot different back in Elk Bend. I could stand on my front porch, look out at a field of corn that stretched as far as my eye could see and know I’d done it all myself. Maybe what happened is partly my fault because I prided myself in being right instead of leaving things be. I can’t change that now because what’s done is done.

  Anyway, I tried to make amends, but Virgil laughed in my face. It’s impossible to put an end to an argument if only one person’s willing to forgive and forget. If I just had myself to think about I’d have stayed and made the best of it, but I’ve got Ruth to consider.

  Losing that last baby nearly killed her. God knows how much I loved the farm, but the truth is I love Ruth more.

  Living in a house I can’t afford and getting a job I don’t deserve feels wrong to me, but being here makes Ruth happy so I’ll have to accept it. As soon as I can set some money aside, we’ll get a place of our own. It won’t be as fancy as this, but that doesn’t matter. It’ll be a place where we can raise a family and live without worrying how we’re gonna make it from one day to the next.

  I’ve got to keep reminding myself that it doesn’t matter what kind of work I do. Being a trackman is just as good as being a farmer. If I let myself think otherwise, it’s giving in to my hurt pride. I can’t afford to do that.

  When we left Elk Bend I told myself, Cyrus, you have got to keep looking ahead, because if you start looking back those thoughts are gonna kill you.

  I don’t know what’s ahead, but I know what’s in back. Virgil Jackson. He stole the life we once had, but that’s all he’s ever gonna get.

  Now it’s up to me to make sure of it.

  Back in Elk Bend

  Bethany Jackson gave birth to a baby girl two days after the Dodd family left Elk Bend. Her labor started during the night, and before dawn she knew the baby was coming.

  “Go get Sassy,” she told Virgil, but by the time he returned with the midwife the baby was already there.

  It happened shortly after the sun edged into the sky and colored it the soft pink of rose quartz. When the next pain came Bethany looked to the sky, saw the future and knew this baby was a girl. She gripped the iron railing of the bed and willed the child into the world. Before the sun cleared the horizon the baby was there, a round-faced little girl with pale blond hair.

  When Virgil returned and saw the child he said, “A girl?” The look of disappointment stretched across his face.

  Although Bethany said nothing at the time, she already knew what she was going to do. When the baby was placed in her arms, she cuddled it close and treasured the moment. For however long a time she had, this precious little girl was hers to have and hold.

  * * *

  Three years after Cyrus left Elk Bend, Virgil Jackson put in a claim for his land. The county clerk turned down the first request, but Virgil kept coming back with one story after another. The second time he said Dodd owed him money for five years of water rights, but knowing the background of all that happened the clerk raised an eyebrow and stamped “Rejected” across the face of the claim.

  The third time Virgil bypassed the county clerk and took his petition to Judge Porter, arguing that without water the land was of no use to anyone. Although the judge believed Virgil Jackson to be a liar and a cheat, he had to agree the land was worthless without a source of irrigation. He approved the claim up to but not including the creek that ran across the eastern edge of the property. The creek and the plateau overlooking it were deemed public domain and would remain so forever.

  The year Virgil finally acquired Dodd’s land, Jeremy was eleven and had already taken on the characteristics of his daddy. He had the same squared-off chin and close-set eyes, but what worried Bethany was the streak of meanness he was showing.

  With little or no provocation, the boy would haul off and whack one of his siblings then laugh like a hyena as they sat there squalling. It was the worst with Elroy. He was two years younger than Jeremy but small boned like Bethany and no match for his brother. Hardly a week went by without the child having an ugly purple bruise in one spot or another.

  “Did Jeremy do this?” Bethany would ask, but Elroy, who’d taken to stuttering, simply shook his head and claimed he’d fallen or b-b-bumped into one thing or another.

  Margaret, now a three-year-old toddler, was already learning to stay clear of Jeremy. Twice he’d pushed her into a stall and wedged a board in the latch so she couldn’t get free. The first time Bethany spent hours searching before she finally heard the sobs coming from the barn. When she found Margaret, the child was huddled in the corner of the stall with Thunder whinnying and pawing the dirt just inches away. Terrified as she was, it took over an hour to settle her down. No amount of words could calm her, but after a long while she remembered her thumb and stuck it in her mouth.

  Later that afternoon Bethany took Jeremy aside and said, “You should be ashamed, picking on children half your size!” She tried explaining that he was the oldest and should feel a sense of responsibility toward his little sister and brother.

  “You want them to love you and look up to you, don’t you?” she asked.

  Jeremy didn’t even bother to answer. He just sat there looking bored and picking at a thistle stuck to the side of his boot.

  “Answer me!” Bethany said and smacked his face.

  He lifted his eyes and gave her a narrow-eyed that made him look just like his daddy.

  “Ain’t I kinda big for you to be smacking around?” he said then got up and walked off.

  Bethany sat there dumbfounded. He already stood several inches taller than her, but he was still only eleven years old.

  That evening she served Virgil chicken and dumplings, a dish he was particularly fond of. He was in a better than usual mood, so she told him about the problem with Jeremy.

  “Today he locked Margaret in the stall with Thunder, and last week he hit Elroy and blackened his eye,” she said. “I tried talking to Jeremy, but he pays no attention. Maybe if you…”

  For a few minutes Bethany thought she had gotten through to him, but in the end the best Virgil had to offer was to speak to the boy.

  “You wouldn’t have this problem if Elroy was more like Jeremy,” he said. “Jeremy’s a son a man can be proud of.”

  “He’s a bully!” Bethany replied. “A bully who picks on kids half his size.”

  Virgil laughed. “Jeremy ain’t picking o
n Elroy, he’s trying to teach him how to be tough.”

  * * *

  The truth was Virgil had little or no interest in the children. That, he said, was Bethany’s responsibility. With ownership of the land that once belonged to Dodd, Virgil had more important things to think about. He opened up the dam and hired Cooper Mathews.

  “I’m planning to make this farm into something really big,” he told Cooper, “and I’m gonna make you my foreman.”

  “You won’t regret it,” Cooper said with a grin. “You pay me a fair wage, and I’ll give you all I got.”

  That first year Cooper more than paid for himself by suggesting Virgil plant tobacco in the meadow where Cyrus had grown corn. The harvest brought in a profit higher than expected, and the two men celebrated by sharing a bottle of whiskey.

  “This is just the start of things,” Virgil said. “Just the start.”

  Once he learned tobacco could bring twice the money of corn, Virgil decided to plant it in all three backfields as well as the Dodd cornfield. Coop, as everyone had come to call him, scrunched his nose and scratched his thinning scalp.

  “That ain’t such a good idea,” he said. “Tobacco’s a money-maker alright, but there ain’t no way the two of us can handle that size crop.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Virgil said with a laugh. “I’m figuring we’ll get the seedbed done, then when we’re ready for planting I can take a ride over to Blackburn Valley and get a few of them big boys to help.”

  Once Virgil got the idea in his head, there was no way anyone could talk him out of it. By mid-January he already had Coop burning away the undergrowth and tilling the land. Before the month was out they’d plowed a small corner of the west field and created a seedbed. Virgil set the rows close together, and Coop followed along covering the ground with strips of burlap. In early March when the seedlings were sturdy enough to be transplanted, he was ready to plant the full five acres.

  Virgil hired two extra men from Blackburn Valley and began plowing.

  That year Virgil was so focused on growing tobacco he had no time for anything else. On three different occasions Bethany tried to talk to him about Jeremy’s behavior, but he said he was too busy to even think about it.

  “Stop pestering me,” he told her. “Just handle the boy as best you can.”

  “But that’s the problem,” she argued. “How can I handle him if he won’t listen to a word I say?”

  Virgil was gone from the room before she finished asking the question.

  Left with no other alternative, Bethany tried to keep a closer eye on the two younger ones, but it seemed when she thought they were in one place they’d turn up in another.

  One afternoon near the end of summer Elroy came running into the house with tears overflowing and his arm dangling at an odd angle. Bethany looked at the broken arm and asked, “Did Jeremy do this?”

  Elroy shook his head. “I f-f-fell out of the hayloft.”

  Margaret was almost six at the time, but unlike Elroy she refused to cover up the things Jeremy did.

  “You did not!” she argued. “Jeremy twisted your arm ’cause you didn’t give him those marbles.”

  Elroy shot her a wide-eyed look of fear and again shook his head.

  “That ain’t what h-h-happened,” he said, wincing in pain.

  Standing there with her tiny arms folded across her chest Margaret stubbornly refused to back down.

  “Jeremy did it, Mama,” she said. “I cross my heart and swear to God!”

  Finding her story the more believable version, Bethany looked square into Elroy’s face and said, “One of you is lying. Is it you or your sister?”

  Elroy looked down at his feet and stammered, “M-m-me.”

  Without a minute’s hesitation Bethany went to the barn, grabbed a horsewhip and lit out in search of Jeremy. She found him starting across the backfield. He had a shotgun in his hand.

  “Drop it!” she yelled.

  She moved closer, but he stood there with the stock of the gun in his hand and a defiant grin on his face. He was thirteen but way bigger than most his age. His stance and voice could easily have passed for that of a man.

  “So, Mama,” he drawled, “you thinking you’re gonna whip me?”

  Instead of answering she raised the whip and snapped it around the back of his legs.

  “I’ve had enough of you, Jeremy,” she said. “If you ever touch your brother again, I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life!”

  He didn’t say a word. No smart-mouth answer. No retaliatory threat. He just stood there looking like he wished her dead.

  The next day Margaret had an ugly black eye, and Jeremy was nowhere to be found. That’s when Bethany made her decision.

  At the supper table that evening she told Virgil she was long overdue for a visit with her sister in Richmond.

  “I’ll take Margaret and Elroy with me and have Missus Beale come in to do the cooking.”

  Virgil shoved a chunk of pork chop in his mouth and asked if this was something she absolutely had to do.

  “I ain’t too fond of Ida Beale’s cooking,” he said.

  “Well, if you’d rather we could wait until after planting. Then you could come with us and…”

  “Forget about me going to visit your uppity sister!” he snapped. “Just take the kids and go.” He chewed the bite of pork chop in his mouth and swallowed it. “Just make sure you ain’t no longer than two weeks.”

  Bethany gave a sigh and put forth a look of disappointment, but inside what she felt was relief. She’d counted on him having precisely this response.

  The following Sunday she climbed aboard the train with two kids and one oversized trunk. Everything Margaret owned was in that trunk, including her rag doll and the picture of her and Elroy at the county fair.

  * * *

  Bethany waited almost four days before she told Roslyn the reason for her visit to Richmond. On Thursday evening after everyone else had gone to bed, the two sisters sat across from one another at the kitchen table.

  “This isn’t easy,” she said tearfully, “but I know it’s for the best.”

  Roslyn nodded. “I understand.” She stretched her arm across the table and took Bethany’s hand in hers. “You know John and I love Margaret. We’ll care for her as if she were our own.”

  “If there were any other way…”

  “There is,” Roslyn replied. “You and Elroy could stay here with us too. We’ve plenty of room and…”

  Bethany blinked back a tear and shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not because I don’t want to, but because Virgil would never stand for it. He’ll hardly take notice if Margaret is gone, but if Elroy and I stayed he’d come after us.”

  “Look at Elroy’s arm!” Roslyn said. “What if that’s not enough? What if Jeremy does something more to the child?”

  “I’ll be there to see that he doesn’t.”

  “You?” Roslyn said. “If Jeremy is this defiant now, what makes you think you’ll be able to stop him?”

  “I’m his mother,” Bethany replied. “He might get angry with me, he might even hate me at times, but Jeremy wouldn’t…”

  A haunted look settled on her face, and there was a long pause before she spoke again.

  “Anyway, I don’t think he’d do anything as long as Virgil is there.” The uncertainty of that thought was left hanging in the air.

  “I don’t like it,” Roslyn said. “You’ve got to have a way to protect yourself.”

  That night Roslyn found sleep impossible to come by. John felt her restlessness and snapped on the lamp.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Roslyn told him of the conversation.

  “I’m afraid for my sister,” she said. “Bethany thinks Jeremy won’t harm her because she’s his mama, but I’m not at all certain that’s true.”

  John’s jaw stiffened. “I think you’re right. Tomorrow morning I’ll get something Bethany can take back with her.�
��

  “Thank you,” Roslyn said, and with a sigh of relief she dropped back onto her pillow. As John snapped off the lamp she added, “Will you teach her how to use it before she leaves?”

  “Of course,” he answered.

  Two weeks after their arrival Bethany pressed Margaret to her chest and tearfully said that leaving her behind was the most difficult thing she’d ever done.

  “Always remember I did this because I love you so very, very much,” she whispered into the child’s ear.

  She took Elroy by the hand, and they boarded the train. They were returning to Elk Bend—Bethany, Elroy and the Colt 1900 she carried in her purse.

  Bethany Jackson

  Sometimes I wake up at night thinking I can still hear Margaret’s cries when I climbed aboard that train. I tried not to look back because I figured seeing me cry would only make it worse for her. Maybe when she’s grown up with little ones of her own, she’ll be able to understand why I did this. God knows this is not the life I’d planned for my children or myself.

  I wonder how it can be possible that my firstborn, a child I carried for nine months and nursed at my breast, has become someone to be feared. Jeremy has the stance and swagger of a man, but when I look at him I see the face of a boy. I think back on those long wintery nights just after he was born and picture myself standing beside his cradle looking down at the tiny fingers curled into a fist. Oh, how I marveled at the perfection of him.

  When I sit in the rocking chair pushing myself back and forth as I did then, I can still feel his tiny hand on my breast. It’s as if it happened just yesterday. He suckled until his tummy was full, then his eyelashes would begin to flutter and he’d fall fast asleep with his little mouth still latched onto my breast.

  How foolish that I should remember these things and yet keep a gun hidden away to protect myself from this child. Roslyn insisted I take it and I did, not to protect myself but to protect Elroy if Jeremy comes at him.