Were it possible, I would have left Elroy there with Margaret. It’s unfair that he should have to live with such fear, but I knew Virgil would never permit Elroy to stay in Richmond. He shouted and stomped because I allowed Margaret to stay; had it been both children he most certainly would have gone to Richmond and brought them back.
Although I would kill to save Elroy, I would also give my own life to save his brother. I guess only God can explain the love a mama carries in her heart. I know the things Jeremy has done and I see the anger that flashes in his eyes, but I still love the boy.
He is, after all, my son.
Murder in Elk Bend
The summer after Bethany left Margaret in Richmond, she and Elroy returned for a visit. Just as she’d done the previous year, she asked Virgil if he’d like to accompany them but prayed he would give the same answer. Fortunately, he did.
“I told you before, I got no use for your sister,” he said. “So unless hell starts freezing over, don’t bother asking again.”
“Fine,” Bethany replied. She put on an air of being miffed, but in truth it was a burden lifted from her shoulders.
And so it was that each summer she and Elroy rode the train to Richmond, stayed for twelve days, then returned home. For those twelve days they were once again a family, but when the time for departure came there were tears.
After that second summer, Margaret stopped asking to go home with Bethany. Instead she talked about her school and friends, about how Aunt Roslyn had taught her to tat a doily and bake a mincemeat pie. Bethany would listen and delight in the child’s happiness, even at the cost of her own.
The summer Margaret turned ten, she was telling of the fair they’d gone to and in the midst of her story she stopped, looked at Elroy then asked, “Mama, can Elroy stay here and live with Aunt Roslyn too?”
“N-n-no,” Elroy stuttered. “I c-c-can’t l-l-leave M-M-Mama.”
Bethany gave a lighthearted laugh, saying, “Aunt Roslyn has her hands full with one child; I doubt she’d want another one.”
“But—”
“Hush now,” Bethany said and hugged the children to her chest. “Let’s have no more talk about being apart. Just be thankful for this time together.”
“Y-y-yeah,” Elroy stammered.
* * *
The following year there was a murder on the Jackson farm, and of course Jeremy was at the heart of it.
The whole fiasco began because Virgil planted more tobacco than he could possibly handle with just him and Cooper. The men from Blackburn Valley were no longer willing to work for what Virgil wanted to pay, and he’d tried getting Jeremy who was big enough and certainly strong enough to do his share.
The previous summer he’d started Jeremy working in the field, but the boy was not given to farming and had no love of the land.
Thinking he’d inspire the lad, Virgil said, “Soon as you find yourself a wife, you can have that house on the old Dodd place and call the land your own.”
Jeremy gave a facetious sneer.
“Well, now, if that ain’t something to look forward to,” he said then turned and walked off.
Such an attitude enraged Virgil, but there was little he could do about it.
“Turn your back all you want,” he yelled. “But come morning you’re still gonna haul your ass out there and do your share if you wanna keep eating!”
It went on like this day after day. Seldom a suppertime came and went without angry words being tossed back and forth across the table. Such tension caused Elroy’s stuttering to grow worse. Evenings when he heard Virgil and Jeremy come in from the field already screaming at one another, he’d duck out the back door and be missing at supper. For Elroy going hungry was far easier than getting caught up in the battle.
Although Virgil was willing to go toe-to-toe with Jeremy he virtually ignored Elroy, saying the boy should’ve been born a girl.
“If there’s one thing I can’t abide,” he told Bethany, “it’s a sissy pants!”
Elroy was small, half the size of Jeremy, and, truth be told, he was a mama’s boy. But that had come about out of necessity. If Jeremy cornered Elroy without Bethany somewhere close by, he’d find a way to torture him. Sometimes it was a beating; other times just the threat of one spiked Elroy’s fear.
And the more fearful Elroy became, the more Jeremy enjoyed it.
* * *
In the early days of February, Virgil planted a seedbed bigger than any he’d done before. His plan was to plant tobacco on all seventeen acres, make a killing at market and then buy the place that bordered his on the south side. That would give him twenty-six acres, almost three times what he’d started with. If Andersen balked at selling, Virgil would dam the brook running north to south and wait him out. Sooner or later he’d give up, just as Dodd had done.
In the early stages when they were setting up the seedbed, Virgil kept a close eye on Jeremy and made sure he didn’t wander off. Even with his daddy watching, the boy would still plop down to have a smoke or pull a flask from his pocket, gulp a swig then stand staring at the sky. When Virgil caught him doing that he’d holler, “Get back to work!”
After a few choice words of his own Jeremy generally did get back to work, but he did it with the enthusiasm of a dim-witted turtle.
Cooper was exactly the opposite. He was twenty years older but did three times the work with never a word of complaint. Virgil didn’t have to tell Cooper what to do; he already knew and he could be trusted to make sure the job was done right.
Once they started covering the seedbed, Cooper was working one end of the row and Jeremy the other. That’s when he took to hollering down the row, saying Jeremy needed to set the stake closer or tie down the cover with a tighter knot. At the end of the week, Virgil and Jeremy came home with tempers flaring.
“I had enough of your lazy-ass ways!” Virgil yelled.
“Yeah, well, I’m tired of having a hired hand tell me how I gotta do this and that—”
“Get used to it,” Virgil said, “’cause when we start transplanting you’re gonna be working for Coop.”
“Like hell I will!” Jeremy shot back. “It’s bad enough I gotta listen to your shit. I sure ain’t taking orders from—”
Virgil grabbed Jeremy by the front of his shirt and yanked him so close they were nose to nose.
“You’ll do as I say, or you can haul ass outta here with nothing but the clothes on your back! I ain’t giving you one dime you ain’t earned!” He glared at Bethany and added, “Neither is your mama!”
When Virgil let go of the shirt Jeremy stormed out, slamming the door so hard the windows rattled.
The following week they began plowing the fields. Virgil bought a second mule and hired three men: a tall skinny kid from Elk Bend named Hank Adams and two farm boys who were passing through.
Transplanting a big field was a three-man job. One dug the hole, the second set the seedling in place, the third watered and fertilized. The men had to work as a team, moving fast, one following at the heels of the other and all three keeping the same speed. None of these jobs were easy. They all meant spending the day with back bent and nose pointed to the ground.
The two farm boys had arms like tree trunks and had done beans and corn but knew nothing about planting tobacco.
“I’ll take these two,” Virgil told Cooper. “You take Hank and Jeremy.”
“Yessir,” Cooper answered. Then he motioned for Hank and the sullen Jeremy to follow along.
If Virgil hadn’t been so intent on making Jeremy do as he said, he might have noticed the look on the boy’s face. The hooded eyes and knotted brows were a sure sign of trouble.
“Coop, y’all can start on the south field, and we’ll take the old Dodd place,” Virgil said.
Cooper nodded and turned toward the south field, Hank walking beside him and Jeremy following a good twenty paces back.
They managed to get through the first two days of plowing without a problem. Several times Jeremy qu
it working and stopped for a smoke, but plowing wasn’t a teamwork task so Cooper doubled up on his efforts and got the job done. On day three they started transplanting the seedlings. Cooper assigned Jeremy the job of watering and fertilizing, figuring it was probably the easiest to keep up with.
They were barely three hours into the day when Jeremy pulled out his flask and took a swig. He was already a half-row behind at that point.
Cooper saw this and called back, “Those seedlings need to get water on them quick as possible.”
“You figure I don’t know that?”
Hank nervously shifted his gaze from Cooper to Jeremy then back to Cooper.
“Coop, you wanna slow down, and I’ll run back to lend a hand with the watering?” he asked.
Cooper shook his head. “Let’s keep going for now.” He moved on but kept his eye on Jeremy.
Before an hour had gone by, Jeremy stopped four more times to tip the flask to his mouth and once for a smoke. When he was backed up a full two rows, he quit watering each plant and started skipping to every second or third one. He’d been doing this for almost half a row when he spotted Cooper looking at him. He gave a big horselaugh.
“What? You got something to complain about?”
Cooper knew without being watered and fertilized the seedlings would be dead in a day, and he would be held responsible. He passed the hand-peg he was using to Hank and said to continue pegging the holes.
“I’ll be along in just a minute,” he said, then turned and walked back down the row.
This time Cooper didn’t yell anything. He waited until he was standing right next to Jeremy, then said, “I ain’t gonna stand by and watch you kill these plants ’cause of some gripe you’ve got with me. If you don’t wanna work, then I gotta get me somebody who will.”
There was no appeasement in his words; they simply were what they were. He turned and started walking toward Hank.
Before Cooper was halfway to the row where he’d been working, he heard the shot and felt the bullet tear through his back. He fell forward and didn’t get up.
When Hank saw it happen he dropped face down in the dirt and started praying. He didn’t see which way Jeremy went because he knew looking up was like asking to be killed. After a long while he lifted his forehead enough to catch a glimpse of where Jeremy had been. Not seeing him, Hank mustered up enough courage to belly crawl over to where Cooper was lying.
“Coop,” he whispered, “you okay?”
There was no answer.
* * *
In West Virginia it is said that a single shot can be heard twenty miles away because the echo rolls across the mountains and doubles back on itself. Virgil heard the shot but thought nothing of it. There wasn’t a farmer within a hundred miles who didn’t go hunting. It was meat for the table. Sometimes a squirrel or a wild turkey could make the difference in whether or not your family made it through the winter.
He first suspected something was wrong when he and the two farm boys returned to the barn at the end of the day. He’d given Cooper’s team the smaller field, so it seemed strange they weren’t in yet. Virgil started walking toward the south field, and halfway there he found the mule still hitched to a wagonload of nearly dead plants.
“What the hell?” he grumbled. He moved forward cautiously. “Coop? You around here?”
There was no answer.
Virgil kept moving forward, headed in the direction of where Cooper should have been.
“Coop? Coop, you here?”
At the far edge of the field Virgil saw a bunch of buzzards circling the sky and took off running. He didn’t see the body lying on the ground until he spotted the large black bird pecking at it. He knew by the plaid shirt it was Cooper and ran toward the body with his arms flailing.
“No, no!” he screamed, but by then the birds had flown off anyway.
No one else was there. Just Cooper, with a bullet hole in the back of his shirt.
* * *
With Cooper’s body lying on the wagon alongside the wilted plants, Virgil led the mule back to the barn. Once he’d unhitched the animal, he roared into the house calling for Jeremy. Bethany and Elroy were alone in the kitchen.
“Stop yelling,” she said. “He hasn’t come in from the field yet.”
“Was he here earlier?” Virgil asked angrily.
“This morning at breakfast. Not since.”
For a moment Virgil said nothing; he just stood there drumming his fingers against the top of the table.
“What’s wrong?” Bethany asked.
“Somebody shot Cooper.”
She gasped. “Good Lord! You don’t think—”
“Yeah, I do! Jeremy’s the one who had it in for him. Now he’s missing, so what am I supposed to think?”
Bethany was at a loss for words. She exchanged a long glance with Elroy and thanked God that he’d been inside the house with her all afternoon.
Later that evening Virgil rode into town and told Sheriff Bradley what he’d found.
“I know you’re gonna blame it on Jeremy,” he said, “but him and Hank are both missing, so it could’ve been either one.”
“It was Jeremy,” the sheriff replied. “Hank Adams came in an hour ago and told me what happened. He said Jeremy shot Coop for no good reason.”
“There had to be something—”
Sheriff Bradley shook his head. “Nope. Hank claims Jeremy fell behind with watering the plants, and Coop said he’d have to catch up. That was it.”
“Could be the kid is lying to save his own skin.” Virgil made it sound like a possibility, but even he didn’t believe it.
“You know Hank didn’t do it,” the sheriff said. “That kid wouldn’t kill a hen if he was starving.”
They went back and forth with Virgil claiming there was no real proof and it was just one man’s word over another’s. But in the end Sheriff Bradley said he was going after Jeremy and would be arresting him for murder.
“Do what you will,” Virgil said then turned and walked out the door. He was fed up with a family that didn’t do a damn thing but bring misery down on his head.
“Some luck I have,” he muttered. “One kid a murderer, one who can’t talk right and a girl I wouldn’t recognize if she was standing in front of me.”
All of it he blamed on Bethany.
The next morning Virgil sat at the breakfast table, gulped down a cup of coffee and waited for his eggs.
“Hurry it up,” he told Bethany. “I got work to do.”
“Work?” she replied. “How can you think of work? You’ve got to bury Cooper and try to find Jeremy.”
“Coop will wait, and I ain’t interested in finding Jeremy. I got work to do. Them seedlings is all dug up. If we don’t get them in the ground today, they’re good as dead.”
Bethany set the plate of eggs in front of him.
“Right or wrong,” she said, “Jeremy’s your son and you’ve got to—”
Virgil swiped his hand across the table and sent the plate of eggs flying across the room.
“Don’t tell me what I’ve got to do!” he screamed. “If you want to find the boy, go look for him yourself!” With that he stood and stormed out the door.
Bethany sat at the table and cried for a while. Then she got up, went into the bedroom and took out the gun she’d brought home from Richmond. She tucked it into the waistband of her skirt and pulled her blouse over it. She didn’t think Jeremy would be back, but she couldn’t afford to take chances.
Virgil went to the barn expecting the two farm boys and Hank to show up for work, but when the sun crossed the high ridge of the mountain he knew nobody was coming. He couldn’t plant those seedlings alone and rode into town looking for the farm boys. By then word of what happened had spread far and wide, and the farm boys were long gone. They’d left town without even stopping to pick up their day’s wages.
* * *
Almost all of Virgil’s seedlings died that year. He had one puny little crop from the fir
st field he’d planted with the two farm boys, but even a part of that was lost to hornworms. The following summer he went back to planting corn in his own field and let Dodd’s field lie fallow.
For almost two years Bethany kept that gun in the waistband of her skirt, but Jeremy never did return and Sheriff Bradley never did find him. Cooper was buried on the high ridge that never flooded, and his grave was marked by a handful of stones. On the first anniversary of his death Bethany picked a bouquet of wildflowers, climbed to where the stones were and left the flowers.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Birth of Joy
Once Cyrus had a job working for the railroad company, he left the Greenly house in the morning before the sun rose and returned in the evening after darkness had settled in the sky. His days were long, and the work was hard but in it he found a strange sense of satisfaction. It was as if each blow that drove a spike into the ground also tamped down a small bit of the anger in his soul. At the end of the day when he returned home with his back bent and muscles aching, he could set aside thoughts of Virgil Jackson and allow himself the pleasure of seeing Ruth happy.
And Ruth was indeed happy. Her face grew full again, and her laugh became as round and joyful as it was in their first year of marriage. Mornings she and Prudence Greenly would linger in the breakfast nook having a second and sometimes third cup of coffee and talking of what they would do that day. Some days it was the ordinary duties of housekeeping: mopping the floor, dusting the shelves, tidying up and tucking away things that had been left lying about. Other days would be set aside for some new adventure: learning to make a shepherd’s pie or tatting a lacy trim along the edge of a linen handkerchief.
When Cyrus returned home in the evening Ruth was filled with stories of her day, and as the three of them sat around the supper table conversation was passed from person to person like a tasty bowl of pudding.
The first week of December Prudence declared they should attend the Christmas Day Mass at Saint Agatha’s Church. She eyed the simple cotton frock Ruth wore and said, “You’ll need a more festive outfit.”
The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd Page 8
