by Carolyn Wall
42
My mind is not on quilting, but on hunters. I was never one to sit still for anything, so I might as well give this a push and see what lands on its feet. Once more, I hike up the hill with Saul’s rifle. The snow has crusted over, and my legs ache something fierce. This steep-angled land has sometimes not been a blessing at all—or maybe I’m just getting old.
I keep climbing. The afternoon has warmed some, but not enough to make the icicles melt—which reminds me of when I was a kid, and how I used to break one from Ruse’s overhang and suck it down on my way to school. That was a long time ago, and I sure as the devil wouldn’t go back. I’ve heard folks talk about the fountain of youth, but if I had a tubful of its water, I wouldn’t drink. Whatever’s ahead is going to come.
I pull one foot out of the snow and put the other in—until the crack of a rifle shot near snaps my neck. I look up toward the Ridge, but can’t see anything from here. I wonder if Will’m’s sitting in the kitchen with the cubs in his arms, listening.
There are sharp-edged tracks on the Ridge, recent ones. Looks like two or three men. I follow them around gorsebush thickets and jack pines through which I cannot see the sky. They run off into the dark woods, and among the stunted evergreens, which seems fitting, I come upon Alton Phelps down on one knee. In front of him is a she wolf, a neat round hole in her side. She’s barely breathing.
With one hand he lifts her right ear, and in his other is a fishing knife that he uses to make a quick downstroke, as if he is slicing butter. Another slices the ear away clean. I raise the rifle and pull the trigger. Smoke erupts, and the wolf jerks as the bullet enters between her eyes. The boom is so loud I wonder if I’m in danger of starting a slide. Phelps falls over backward. I have purposely not hit him. I could have, though, with an ease that amazes me. I’m so close I can smell the blood on his gloves.
“Jesus Christ, Miz Cross!” he says, slapping his ear with his hand like the ringing might fall out. “I thought you’d shot me.”
“You’re not takin’ me serious, Alton,” I tell him. “These wolves are my kin. Now you leave that ear lay and stand your sorry ass up.”
He rises slow, palms turned out. “Hold on, now—”
“I’ve got every right to shoot you. Signs been posted here for twenty years. That’s fair enough warning. You can shoot all the game you want, a quarter mile either side. But you’ve taken a liking to our hill. You tell me why on God’s earth that is.”
“You know perfectly well why,” he says, pulling his lips back so I can see his teeth. “It’s an eye for an eye, the Good Book says that.”
I take a breath so deep the cold hurts my lungs. “I’m sorry about your brother, if that’s it—the way James Arnold died. It was an accident. It was dark, the road was icy.”
His small eyes narrow. “I’m not talkin’ about that night, Miz Cross. Now you got things in your head that I assumed you’d forget. But as long as you’re goin’ on doggedly, askin’ questions and digging up things, I’ve no choice but to close in on you and yours.”
Things in my head?
Because I can’t fathom his meaning, I say, “I oughta cut off your ear. Or at least put a hole in your kneecap.”
At that, he pales a little.
“Or I could plug you in the foot with your own gun, and we’ll call it even.”
“You can’t—”
In truth, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I won’t know till it comes down to it. I wonder if I’ve seen or heard something regarding the Phelpses, and clean forgotten. Clearly, he thinks I remember.
I say: “Oh, yes I can. Nobody likes you much, Phelps. You and your brothers caused hurt around here as long as I can remember. I can find twelve people before dark who’ll swear I was with them when you were shot.”
His grin widens. “You make me laugh, Miz Cross. Olivia—” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip like he’s testing a fever blister.
But then hands come around me and lift the gun, my grip still so tight that it goes off in the branches. The shot brings down snow on our heads, and Phelps hollers, “Well, shit, Buford!”
The man called Buford, and another in a red stocking cap, give me a shove, and I go down on my hip bone. I struggle to get on my feet, and I lunge, but they step out of reach, sorry bastards.
Phelps pockets the ear and retrieves his rifle from the rock where he’s laid it. “I can play that game, too, Miz Cross. Let Buford shoot you, and we’ll swear we thought you was a bear. Or a crazed bobcat, that’s nearer the truth. Or we could just bury you deep and let ’em look.”
I knot my fists. “You sonofabitch.”
“Well now, that don’t help things at all. You realize, do you, which one of us is holdin’ the gun?”
Buford laughs, a long windy sound, and spits tobacco on the snow.
“You have to admit,” Phelps says, “I got double reason to hang you.”
Hang me?
“For what?” I’ve turned cold in my bones, and wish someone would come. But nobody will.
“You Harkers caused me more misery than one man ought to have—”
The man in the red cap nods and says, “You got a fine way with words, Alton.”
Phelps ignores him.
I say, “I told you, my pap would never hurt a living thing on purpose.”
Phelps’ face darkens, and he comes toward me with his lips pulled back and his teeth together, yellow-stained and reminding me of a rabid dog. Even Buford steps away. Phelps has gone over the edge like Ida, only quicker and with a Winchester in his hands.
“First Tate Harker, and now his kin,” he says. “Looks like I got to do somethin’ about you and that boy, Olivia.”
His words clutch at my heart. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t play the fool, woman. You tell me what you know, or I’m comin’ after the boy. I got no worries with that crazy bitch Ida—she don’t make sense twice in one day.” And he laughs.
Snow drifts down from the evergreens. Soon it’s going to be too dark to see.
If Phelps kills me now, at least Pauline is here to take Will’m. The state can have Ida.
I say through my teeth, “James Arnold died, and you shot my wolves. I call that even.”
He shakes his head and puts out a hand for my rifle. Buford gives it to him. “I’ll tell you this—one word to anybody about our little talk here, and not only will I kill him, I’ll do it slow.” He empties the chamber, puts the shell in his pocket, and throws the gun down the hill. He gives the wolf one last kick. Then the three of them move off into the trees.
I stand there for a bit. Then I take up the gun and stumble toward home. Because I’ve been holding my breath, I suck wind till I think my ribs will crack.
By the time I can see the house, and Will’m on his stool, milking the goats late and blowing on his hands, I know one thing for sure. I must get him clear of Phelps, clear of here, till I can figure this out. And the only way I know to do that is to pack him off with Pauline when she goes.
Ida’s in the kitchen, when I come through the door, and she and Pauline are going at each other over bread slices that Pauline’s toasting in the oven.
“I’m trying to make us a celebration, Mama!” Pauline waves a sheet of paper at me. “A boy brought this telegram. I got an audition next week.”
“An audition,” I say.
“Yes. Aren’t you excited for me?”
“I been telling her,” says Ida, “that I can’t eat cinnamon, so don’t put any on my toast. It upsets my digestion.”
Pauline throws up her hands, while smoke curls out from around the oven door. With a cup towel I yank open the door and pull out the pan, open the back door, and fling the toast in the yard.
“I got to leave tomorrow, Mama,” says Pauline. “This could be my big break. Be happy for me, please.”
Happy? The wolves are done for, Will’m and I are on Phelps’ list, the house smells like a fire sale. And my boy is leaving. Worse, W
ill’m stands in the doorway of the alcove, looking like we’ve taken turns whipping him. I can see the veins pulsing in his temples. His hair’s gone every which way, and his eyes look like he’s moved out of his head.
“You-all?” he says, tripping over his voice. “One of the cubs is dead.”
43
There aren’t enough ways to comfort Will’m. I’m so sorry for the state of things that I can’t bear to look at him. I bring paper from the store and wrap the pup.
“While I have my boots on, I’ll take the shovel and bury it out past Ida’s,” I tell them. “You-all sit in your chairs like civilized people. When I come back, I’ll put supper on. Till then, nobody moves.”
Will’m puts on his coat and follows me. He’s still sniffling, but I can’t tell if it’s sadness or smoke from the toast. I must remember to tell Pauline he has a cold. We cross the property and find a spot.
“I’ll do it,” he says, taking the shovel.
“Lord, Will’m, there’s been too much burying lately.”
He lays the cub in the hole and covers it over. We walk back to the house, neither of us giving up another word.
“It was just cinnamon toast,” Pauline says to no one.
I pull off my boots, hang up my cape and my hat. “I thank you for trying, but there’s no use making Ida something special.”
“Well, honestly,” Pauline says, still miffed. Her hair is pin-curled flat against her head with a hairnet pulled over.
“Indecent way to come to the table,” Ida says. “You can tell she ain’t kin of ours.”
“She is, Ida.” I bang the skillet on the burner. “She’s your granddaughter.”
Any other night, I’d have put them to helping, or Will’m at least would’ve offered, but tonight I need quiet because that, at least, is some kind of order. In no time, I’ve set on the table a stack of corn cakes and slices of fried mush. I’ve warmed butter beans from another night’s meal, and a cupful of bitter greens, though I’m the only one who will eat them.
Ida forks a corn cake on her plate and slathers it up. I wish there were signs that might tell me when Ida’s really gone off somewhere in her head, and when it’s only put on. I might try pretending to be crazy, sometime, just to see if it’s a comfort.
Pauline pats her hairpins. “I thought I’d go on down to the juke joint tonight, Mama, and don’t look at me like that. It’s just for an hour.”
Will’m stares at his plate.
I hold my coffee cup so tight it’s in danger of shattering. “There’s no good comes of the juke joint,” I tell her. “You know that.”
“Don’t be silly,” she says. “In the morning we’ll pack Will’m up, and he and I’ll head out.”
“Will’m,” I say, “you sure can’t haul that cub to California with you. Not on a bus, day and night. It’ll be all right here. I can look after it.”
I don’t think he’s eaten a thing. Pauline can hardly sit still; I’ve just given her permission to take the boy.
I must keep moving, too. I clear the table before Ida’s done and when I send Will’m to take her home, he folds the last corn cake and tucks it in his pocket. He’ll slip it under Ida’s pillow, for when she wakes hungry in the night. I wash up the dishes while Pauline combs out her yellow hair, and rouges her cheeks and lips.
“Don’t I look pretty in this dress, Mama?” she says, twirling. “Isn’t this a lovely shade of lipstick? I bought it at a drugstore on Hollywood Boulevard.”
I’m reminded of the night Ida and I wrestled around on the bedroom floor. “Looks like your rouge could be softened some.”
Pauline’s hands flutter like sparrows with no place to land. “Oh, you don’t know anything, being stuck back here in these hills. You ought to get out more.”
I can’t think why on earth I’d want to get out more. What could there possibly be for me anywhere else? But then, of course, there’s Will’m, and it would behoove me to visit them in California. The thought of life without him is more than I can stand.
Pauline fishes her high-heeled shoes out from under the table and wiggles her feet into them. Then she puts on her cotton coat. “I reckon Pete’s place is still there and open on a Sunday night?” she says, referring to the smoky little beer joint around the corner and up the hill from Ruse’s Cafe. It is indeed. I won’t let Will’m anywhere near the place with its insides as dark as a whale’s behind and smelling of week-old ale. Silty’s, where I used to go before Pauline was born, was torn down a long time ago.
She pats her hair and goes out the door.
After that, it’s just me and the boy and the beating of our hearts, while he sits at the table cradling the pup. Will’m loved the other one so much, I wonder if he didn’t flat stroke it to death. It gets late, but neither of us goes to bed. I’m in danger of dying right here in my kitchen—Love Alice would say that’s a truth. But more than anything I need Will’m to be safe.
44
At midnight, Pauline still isn’t home. I should have known it would be so. Will’m will grow up loosening his ma’am’s fingers from the neck of a bottle. But dead is far worse.
It is nearly two o’clock when Will’m, in his longhandles, wakes me. Pauline’s snoring in the bed beside me, although I never heard her come in.
“The last one’s dying, Gran. I think it’s lonesome for its brothers—”
I get out of bed, my toes curling on the cold wooden floor, and wrap a thick shawl around me. He’s right, the cub’s breath is a death rattle. I am amazed that anything that small can make a sound so enormous when it’s leaving this world. I have always believed when the soul makes up its mind to go home, there’s not much a body can do, and I’m fairly certain these cubs have souls, same as every living thing and some things that aren’t.
But this is my boy, my Will’m, who shouldn’t have to take on more pain, and in my kitchen the stove has gone out. The bulb burning over the box is not enough, and the cub’s shivering miserably. Will’m lifts it out while I bring kindling and wood from the porch, and make a fire. I leave the oven door open.
I pull out a chair. “Bring him here.”
He sits in the chair, and I unfasten the top three buttons of his long johns.
“What are you doing?”
I slap away his hand and put the pup’s belly to his chest. “Hold him—so.” Then I button the long johns around them both. I hitch up my own chair and wrap the shawl around the three of us. Will’m’s eyes are wide, as if we’re waiting for some miracle.
Before long I hear the pup sigh, and Will’m says, “Gran?”
“Well,” I tell him, “I believe he’s gone to sleep.”
Not for anything would he let go of the cub, nor I of him, and inside my shawl I hold us together, as if one of the three might fly away. “He can hear your heartbeat, Will’m, your breathing. He hears your tummy rumble. He remembers those things—they remind him of his ma.”
Will’m leans into me. I reach up and turn off the light. A lovely orange glow spills from the oven and warms the floor and our bare feet.
“When I was little,” he says, “did you hold me like this?”
I stroke his hair. “Well, you were never this little, but I rocked you, yes.”
“Even though I wasn’t your boy.”
I wonder how much it cost him to say that. How blunt he is, and how brave!
“You are my boy. You have my bones, and my blood. It took your ma to put us together. We ought to be grateful. You and I, Will’m, are peas in a pod.”
“Peas in a pod.”
“Yes.”
“But why did Pauline leave me here?”
So he’s going to call her by her first name. I admire this child, the way he figures out what he can take on and what he can’t. He’s going to be one of those purely good men.
“Women hand things down,” I tell him. “Generation to generation. When I was born, Ida was out of her head. She wasn’t any ma’am at all. So, when I had Pauline, I didn’t know how t
o take care of her. Then, without me to show her, she didn’t know what to do with you.”
“But you took care of me.”
“A body learns over the years.”
“If you could go back and do things again, Gran, would you do them different?”
I put my cheek to his ear. “Well, that’s the thing. We can’t back up. Even if we could, I imagine we’d make the same mistakes.”
“But …” He rubs his chin on the pup’s soft head. “If you could change one thing, what would it be?”
That’s almost too much to think about. There’s Pap, of course—I’d not have run my mouth so much that night when we went into the ditch. Or Wing. Maybe I’d have been more understanding when he lost his ma’am and pap. Then there’s Pauline, and Ida—or any one of a million other things.
“If I could do it over,” I tell him, “I’d have us sit like this, together, every night of our lives.”
“Then why,” he says, in a voice I can barely hear, “do you want me to go?”
One question shouldn’t carry so much weight. The only sound is the wind howling around the eaves. “Because it’s best.”
After a moment he asks, “Why is it best?”
“Will’m—”
He pulls away from me. “I do for you. I help out all the time.”
“You do, yes.”
“I don’t give you trouble. I finish my schoolwork. Bring home A’s.”
“It has nothing to do with—”
Pauline stands in the doorway, in her nightgown. Even with sleep in her eyes, she’s pouting. “I heard you-all talking.”
“Go back to bed,” I tell her. “Or at least put something on your feet. There’s a pair of old house shoes under the bed.”
“You-all were talkin’ about me, weren’t you? Mama, you can’t tell me what to do with my boy.”
I want so to smack her, I can hardly stand it. Or maybe it’s that she’s interrupted this moment.
Will’m talks like she’s not there. “I want to know why I got to go.”
He’s stubborn, and I don’t blame him.
“You’re trying to get him over to your side,” Pauline says.
