The Path Was Steep

by Suzanne Pickett

“Will you take me to Bradford, buddy?”

  “Yes.” David gave me a stubborn look.

  Fury almost warmed my chilled body. “Mister,” I said with cold politeness, “we have two cold, hungry children. We don’t have much gas, and there are no service stations between here and home.” I paused for breath. “Across that hill is Bradford. You can walk it in five minutes. But it is five miles by car.”

  “Shut up, Sue.”

  “I won’t shut up! I know these roads, mister,” I addressed the stranger again. “We have traveled since yesterday. I am not going to Bradford.”

  “What about it, buddy?” The man came close. I smelled whiskey on his breath. “You have to mind her?”

  “I’ll take you,” David said.

  “David, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live!” I said and meant exactly what I said.

  “All right!” he took my arm. “We’ll go!”

  “What about me, buddy?”

  “Do the best that you can.”

  “But it is too cold to walk.”

  David used his whole vocabulary of swearwords, and it was not a small one. He did have cold, hungry children. A man who refused to walk half a mile to help himself . . .

  The man muttered a curse and reached into his pocket.

  “David! Look out!” I screamed.

  David wrested a knife from the man, threw it into the woods, and hit him on the chin. The man sprawled to the earth, cursing viciously.

  “Want some more?” David asked.

  “Don’t hit me again,” the man sniveled.

  We walked to the car. The girls waited for us. “Did you hit the man hard?” Davene asked.

  “Oh, Daddy, did he hurt you?” Sharon wept.

  “No, darling,” he kissed them both, then climbed into Thunderbolt. As we roared down the road, the man stood directly in the center. David kept a straight course.

  The man dodged, fell, and rolled to the side of the road. We missed him by at least an inch. I thought it best to keep any spare comments to myself. The girls huddled close together, and we jolted through Crosston, Haig, past the Morris road. Thunderbolt gurgled and steamed.

  The clock said five till nine as we turned into the muddy lane and rolled up to the farmhouse. In the pale moonlight it was the same: age-silvered, with hand-riven shingles. The porch was ragged with broken boards all along the edges. At the moment, it was the most beautiful place on earth.

  Bulger stood up and escorted us to the steps. We opened the unlocked door and stumbled inside. Firelight gleamed dully on full beds and the pallets that lined the floor.

  “David! Sue!” Papa sat up in bed and began to laugh. “You must be half-frozen.” He stepped from the bed into his pants.

  “Company?” David looked at the row of pallets.

  “Yes,” Papa admitted. A cousin and five children had dropped by. “But there is always room for one more.”

  “Where?” I wondered, and for an unholy moment, almost wished the cousins in a more uncomfortable spot.

  17

  Every River Leads to Piper

  Miss Mildred slipped into her dress under the covers. “There’s potatoes and milk,” she said and came to the fire to kiss us. We sat before the fire and ate. I nodded, totally exhausted.

  “Mildred, fix a bed,” Papa said, as if one would appear by magic.

  “All right.” She seemed to believe in the magic, too.

  Their faith sparked the one brain cell of mine that was working. “We’ll sleep in the cotton,” I said. (There was always cotton in the shed at this time of year.) “Can you put the girls anywhere?”

  “The boys are in the cotton,” Papa said. “But there is room for a dozen more.”

  “I’ll put Jerry at the foot,” Miss Mildred said. “Davene can sleep with us.” Davene peeled off shoes and stockings and fell into bed.

  The girls on the pallet moved. “Sue’s here!” Colleen said. “Oh, Sue!” She sat up and smiled at us, then held out her arms to Sharon. “Darling, come here,” she said.

  “Now, now, Sue,” Papa waved his hands, lighted a lantern, and started out the door. “I’ll sleep in the cotton. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  “No, Papa. I am sleeping in the cotton!” I stated.

  “Never saw anyone as stubborn as she is,” Papa went towards the cotton house*. Then he paused. “David, what is wrong with your foot?” he asked.

  “Broke it,” David told the happy story. “That is why we were able to come home.” Our shadows loomed before, around, and behind us as Papa swung the lantern. Ice spewed up from the ground. The air was cold, but it had the feel of a Southern night.

  Wind whistled through the logs of the cotton house. Starlight gleamed through chinks in the shingles. An owl hooted softly behind the cow lot; roosters crowed in the barn lot and on neighboring farms. A distant train sent its wail across the fields.

  We were home!

  Cotton spewed behind David like snow as he dug a bed. “Pile in, Sue,” he said. I fell into the fragrant cotton. David heaped mounds on me. Papa hung the lantern on a nail and helped.

  Through blurred eyes I saw them make a bed for David. “We made it home for Christmas,” I marveled. Then I fell into a well of dark slumber.

  “Breakfast,” someone called and woke me. I sat up and blew cotton from my face. Grayson, Lee, Royce, and little J. D. stood in the door. They began to heap cotton on David, who was still asleep. He erupted from his mound. We brushed cotton from our clothes, pulled cotton from hair and eyebrows, and looking like fresh bales of lint we were windblown across the yard. The scent of woodsmoke, coffee, and sausage pulled us straight to the kitchen.

  People were crowded around fireplace and kitchen stove. Clarence was living at home now; he, with the kinfolk, was up and ready to do justice to the food. We washed faces and hands; Papa motioned to the table. His face was bright; there was food enough for everyone. The table was heaped with biscuits, sorghum*, butter, and fresh country sausage. Mary, one of the cousins, was rolling out more biscuits. Miss Mildred turned the sausage and looked in the oven. Colleen and Daphne had washed the girls’ faces and hands and spread newspaper on a flat-top trunk; the four of them were eating on it. Butter and sorghum dripped from Davene’s mouth. Sharon was cramming biscuit and sausage into her face.

  All that day we skimmed from house to house, visiting kinfolk. The next day we left for Pea Ridge. Granny was so happy to see us that she sacrificed one of her best Rhode Island Red hens. Chicken and dumplings. Dressing, too. Baked sweet potatoes, green tomato pickles, and canned blackberry pie. We talked, laughed, and cried a little.

  Then Papa told astonishing news. “Piper is working five days a week,” he said. “Why don’t you get a job and move back home?”

  David rolled a cigarette, lighted it, opened the door to look at the hills, then slammed the door. “I mean to do just that,” he said. Skyrockets began to explode inside my head.

  Early the next morning, we drove across the beloved hills and at last saw the faded red and green houses of Piper. “Is this home, Mother?” Sharon asked.

  “Yes, darling. This is home.”

  “I don’t like it,” Davene announced.

  We jolted around a curve and took a left turn. Then we stopped, sliding gravel under the tires, less than a foot from the steps of the green building that housed the post office and company offices. Friends looked and ran to greet us. David’s big plastered foot seemed very conspicuous. He covered it with his hat.

  Mr. Randle, the superintendent, came out of the office, saw us, and hurried down the steps. “Looking for work?” he laughed.

  “Anything for me?” David asked.

  “You wouldn’t stay six months,” he said and started away. My heart plunged a thousand feet and landed at the bottom of the Cahaba River. Then Mr. Randle tur
ned. “Rosalyn is getting married tonight,” he grinned. “See me Saturday.” Rosalyn was his very beautiful, oldest daughter.

  David picked up his hat, started Thunderbolt, and we headed back to Pea Ridge.

  “Aren’t we going to visit anyone?” I gasped.

  “Not with this foot,” he said.

  “Oh, David! You can’t take a job!”

  He drove a little faster.

  “Did you find work?” Papa asked, as we came in the door.

  “I’ll know tomorrow.” David said.

  “But David, your foot—” I whispered.

  “My foot is well!” He sat before the fire, took out his knife, and began to cut away at the plaster cast.

  “Dave,” Granny said. “Sue is right.”

  “I know what I’m doing!” He unwrapped his white, shriveled foot and stood on it. No bones crunched.

  “Please take it easy,” I begged.

  “All right,” he sat down and held out his foot, stretching his toes. I ran for a pan of hot water and bathed the foot. Having no other medication, I rubbed the foot with Vaseline. David held it closer to the fire, then drew back. The foot was not used to exposure.

  “Every river leads to the sea” is a familiar saying. But I just didn’t believe it. I had been too homesick for too long. David went to Piper alone the next day; two hours later, he was back. “Got a job,” he swaggered. “Night wall boss.” Part of the job included running a machine and cutting coal. “Three eighty-five a shift,” he said. “We are used to lots more than that.”

  “Three eighty-five will buy a week’s groceries here,” Granny said. “Sweet potatoes are fifty cents a bushel, eggs ten cents a dozen, pork chops ten cents a pound.”

  Granny had a very short lower lip which gave a natural downturn to her mouth. “You could all stay with us,” she said the next morning as we packed to return to Morris.

  “I haven’t seen Maurine and Lucile and Thelma,” I explained. “We’ll be close to you when we move and can drive over any time.”

  David left the car with me. “You’ll need it,” he said. “Clarence can drive you wherever you wish to go.” As Clarence drove us to the bus station the next morning, David explained Thunderbolt’s idiosyncracies. The car had been stubborn of late, but David knew how to tinker with the motor and speak a few magic words; the engine would rattle into life.

  “Never saw a car I couldn’t start,” Clarence laughed.

  “Remember,” David repeated his instructions until the bus roared up and stopped. He kissed me, slipped into the bus, and it swooped out of the station.

  The motor was still running, and Clarence had no trouble driving us home.

  “Want to go to Haig?” I asked Miss Mildred the next morning. Any trip was a rare event to her, and both of us needed to do a little Christmas shopping. Papa agreed to watch the children. We hurried with dishes and beds; then we worked on my black dress again, this time getting most of the lint brushed off. She put on her one good dress, a blue wool crepe. This was an event!

  Clarence had shaved and even wore a tie. It wasn’t every day he had the chance to drive a car. We all sat in the front seat, and he mashed the starter. Nothing happened.

  Clarence tried again. And again. “Needs hot water,” he said, and hurried to the kitchen and came back with the black kettle, steam spouting from its throat. That didn’t work.

  Clarence lifted the hood, jiggled wires, walked around the car, kicked a tire. But Thunderbolt remained silent. “Nobody can start that car!” he snorted, and stalked to the house.

  “If it weren’t so far, I’d walk,” Miss Mildred said.

  “Why not ride the mules?” I asked.

  “Nobody can ride Jack.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “You haven’t got sense enough to be afraid,” Papa frowned. “Jack is mean. He’ll kill you.” I looked at Papa in surprise. Jack was his favorite of the two mules. Big Johnny was gentle and slow, but Jack, Papa vowed, “would kill himself if I didn’t make him rest.”

  “Sue can ride Jack,” Lee boasted. “She is not afraid.”

  That did it. I had to ride him now. We dressed again, in the boys’ overalls this time. Lee and Grayson harnessed the mules and tied blankets on their backs. No saddles on this farm. Papa’s hands waved frantically. I’d kill myself; nobody could ride Jack.

  But Sue, unafraid, smiled in her stupidity. Lee brought Jack to the edge of the porch. “Now, now, Sue,” Papa waved. But Sue was off the porch and safely mounted.

  Jack looked at me, stretched his neck, and galloped down the lane. “Hurry!” I threw the word at Mildred.

  She hurried until Johnny was close behind. Jack was unhappy with another mule that close to his tail. Like a freight train, he shot ahead. We won the race by half a mile. “Whoah!” I sawed at the reins. Jack swerved and galloped back towards the house. We passed Miss Mildred and Johnny. Papa and the boys raced to assist me, but Jack turned again. This was fun!

  Johnny had slowed to a walk. We overtook him like a Pony Express rider. Johnny, fired by Jack’s example, entered the race, but Jack wouldn’t let any mule that close to his tail. He increased his speed. “Can’t you hold him?” Miss Mildred called.

  “Just keep farther behind.” I pressed my legs to Jack’s sides. This infuriated him. Jack did not like close contact. He bounced and galloped madly. Getting the message, I held my legs wide. Jack slowed to a brisk walk. Once, he even walked beside Johnny a few paces. But when my legs tired and I let them rest against his side, he tried to break the all-time speed record.

  The road had puddles of ice. Jack slipped once and knelt on his forelegs as if in prayer. I clung to his neck, my legs tight against his ribs. This indignity he remedied by galloping almost before he regained his feet. But now Johnny was ahead. We sailed past with flying colors.

  In record time, we reached Maurine’s house. Lucile was in the yard, pruning shrubbery. She ran to meet us. Jack took an instant aversion to her person and headed back the way he had come. I sawed at his right lip, and he turned. Tommy and Ray, Maurine’s boys, almost grown now, stopped us, held Jack until I could dismount, then tied him to a small tree. I staggered to earth for the usual crying and kissing. Maurine, Cora, Malone, and Verna ran to join us. By the time we had kissed a round or two, Miss Mildred arrived and was helped to the earth.

  We babbled away as we selected things from Ezra’s store and tied the packages to the mules. Then it was time to go. Jack and Johnny drowsed peacefully under their trees. “How can we mount them?” Miss Mildred asked. Maurine’s porch was too low to be of any help. She was short, and Johnny was very tall.

  “That’s easy,” I said and walked up to Jack. “Hold him, Tommy.” I grabbed a limb and swung high.

  At the last second, Jack stepped expertly aside, and I jolted to the earth. A crowd of men from the store stood on the porch to watch. This didn’t increase my poise, but I tried again.

  And again, and again.

  Jack had never had so much fun. He timed his moves to the split-second. I made feints, then didn’t grab the limb. Just as he was off-balance, I jumped, but he outmaneuvered me and glanced around. His eyes (I solemnly affirm) were twinkling. A chorus of laughter from the watchers made Jack raise his head and give a close imitation of a smirk. Papa could have hired this mule out in Hollywood.

  Lucile grew angry at the laughter. “Somebody could help!” she said and ran to grab me by the seat of the pants. She heaved as I swung high again. Jack, interested in this new development, forgot to step aside. I was mounted and ready to go.

  So was Jack.

  Off we started at a canter. “Whoah!” I shouted. The only language Jack understood was the cut of the bit on his lip. He turned, never lessening his speed, and galloped past the house and store.

  Mildred was trying to mount Johnny. Jack turned again at the one
signal he understood. We made about six runs back and forth, to the total enjoyment of the onlookers. Dignity forgotten, I held my legs wide to lessen Jack’s speed. Ray finally thought to lead Johnny to a stone wall. Jack and I were making a turn beyond the store when he saw Johnny ahead. He remedied this in a few seconds, and we would have broken our own record on the way home, but adventure was ahead.

  A giant road machine came towards us. Johnny, a true Southern gentleman, pulled to the right. But Jack was no gentleman. He had filed claim to the center of the road, and no machine was going to take it from him. He charged straight ahead. But the machine was a giant. At the last minute, Jack turned and started back the way he had come. A driveway circled a house at the side of the road. Jack, obedient to the suggestion of my reins, entered the driveway. We circled the house and were on the road, headed home again. A pair of eyes appeared at the window as we passed.

  Then a second machine appeared on the horizon. The first stopped to watch. Jack held his resolution until we were a few feet from the machine. Then he turned and bolted Haig-ward again. I managed to start him into the driveway. We circled the house a second time, and again were homeward bound. Two pairs of eyes were now at the window.

  Machine number three now appeared. Jack had begun to enjoy the game. So had the drivers who had passed. Their laughter was loud and appreciative. Jack now fully entered into the spirit of this new game. He came almost nose to nose to the next machine, whirled, circled the house, and was headed towards home and fodder.

  A tall woman, wearing a pink sunbonnet on this cold day, now stood on the porch. She carried an enormous fat stomach before her with evident pride. Above the stomach was a waistline that seemed stuffed with pillows. Three abundant chins nestled under the bonnet. Dwarfing a miniature man who stood beside her, the woman clung to his arm and began to chuckle—the most musical yet most infuriating chuckle I had ever heard. The man, short and thin, stood with the pride of a bantam rooster, and his pointed, snowy beard followed every move that Jack made.

  I nodded, said “How do you do?” and we entered the main road again. Feet held wide, I sat with as much dignity as possible until this ordeal was over. My business was to get home to my children, if not in good shape, at least alive.