Chapter 20
A week later, Clay Huff stood on the front porch yelling through the screen door.
"LaDaisy, you open this door before I break it down! I'm not leaving till we talk."
She'd seen him pull into the yard and decided to ignore his rants by feeding the kids their supper of cornbread and butterbeans. Bernadine had driven her to the welfare office yesterday to pick up the commodities: evaporated milk, flour, salt, lard, beans, sorghum, cornmeal. Thankfully, cod-liver oil came on a fairly regular basis, and sometimes she received tangerines or oranges. She found ways to make ends meet. A neighbor lady paid her a dozen brown eggs to wash and iron her husband's good shirts. She even managed to pay the water bill. What a relief to have running water again. Though she still heated tubs of water for laundry and baths, she wasn't breaking her back pumping and carrying it in.
She held Mary on her lap and fed her cornbread soaked in bean soup.
"Baby like beans?" Bobby said, waving his spoon at Mary.
"I like beans," Catherine said. "Mama, can I have some more?" She pushed her plate to her mother. LaDaisy broke up a chunk of cornbread and covered it with beans, dipping an extra spoonful of soup over it.
"Beans, beans the musical fruit," Earl sang. "The more I eat the more I tooooooooooot."
"Oh please, Earl." LaDaisy tried not to laugh. "Where did you learn that?"
"Friends."
Most likely his cousins.
"Why's Mr. Huff hitting the door?" Catherine asked.
"He'll go away if we ignore him." LaDaisy touched the tip of the spoon to Mary's mouth again, giving her just a taste. It would supplement her breast milk, which, despite all she did to save it, continued to dwindle. She hadn't been eating well, and her nerves were shredded.
Clay raved and banged on the front door through the whole meal. And when the banging stopped suddenly, she thought he had left. But no. A moment later, he went around back and started kicking that door. LaDaisy refused to look, though she knew he watched through the screen. She didn't think he'd try anything with the kids in the house, but she wasn't sure.
Hearing his voice now, she remembered Ida's stricken face when she finally figured out what her husband had done. Fortunately, LaDaisy hadn't been pregnant after all.
"C'mon, let me in. I just want to talk to you."
"He scares me!" Bobby said.
"Can I let him in?" Earl asked.
"No."
"Why?"
"I'm not going to hurt anybody," Clay yelled. "You're pissing me off!" He kicked the door again. "You can't keep me out of my own property."
Vera had come by the day after the quinine episode to tell her Ida Mae and Clay had such a spat over LaDaisy's affair, she was afraid the stress would bring on early labor.
"My affair? You're out of your mind!"
"Ida kicked him out. He's been sleeping at my house—mine and Rufus's—until she comes to her senses."
"How will he explain rape?"
"That's your story, LaDaisy. There's no way in God's green heaven Clay would cheat on his wife."
Something in Vera's voice had made LaDaisy wonder if she really believed what she said.
Now Mary grew fussy and pulled at her mother's clothes, and she turned her back to the door and exposed a breast.
"I can stand out here as long as it takes," he yelled. "Sooner or later, somebody's gotta take a shit, and I'll be right here blocking the path to the crapper. When someone opens that door, I'm coming in."
"I'll let him in." Earl jumped up from the table.
"No, you will not. Sit down and finish your supper."
LaDaisy covered her breast, rose and went to the door with Mary.
"You're not coming in," she said. "You're not going to come waltzing in here and blame everything on me. So you might as well leave." She stared straight into his evil eyes through the rusty screen. "A man with decency would do that."
"I just wanna talk. You owe me that much."
"I owe you nothing. When the rent comes due again, I'll pay cash."
"Well-well. Where you getting rent money? You whoring around again?"
She tried to muster up courage, but her knees were shaking. With only the screen between them, what stopped him from breaking it down?
"I have to go pee-pee, Mama."
LaDaisy turned and whispered, "You can't go outdoors now, Cath—use the potty in the bedroom."
"No! I don't want to use the stinky potty."
"Told you so." Clay stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped. He hadn't combed his hair. His eyes were bloodshot. He'd apparently soaked himself in whiskey. "You gonna let her go to the toilet?" He stumbled sideways and caught his balance. "What kinda mother are you, anyway?"
LaDaisy swung around, acutely aware her children were watching, taking in every word.
"You shut your mouth, Clayton."
He chuckled. "I can wait out here all night, LaDaisy. Wait till you have to go. You can't sit on that baby pot with your big ass."
"Get the hell out of here!" she hissed. "Leave us be."
"Mama, I have to go bad."
"I said use the potty, Cath, and I mean it. Now get in there, and don't you pee your pants, either."
As Catherine ran from the room, LaDaisy felt her own bladder grow heavy. Oh Lord, not now.
"Come on," Clay whined. "Be a good girl and open the door. I just want—"
"I—I don't care what you want."
Mary dozed in her mother's arms as LaDaisy fought the urgent need to urinate. Wait. Oh please wait. She'd had too much to drink and now the fullness hurt. Tightening her muscles, she gave Clay one last look and returned to the table. Tears of frustration formed in her eyes as she sat with Mary in her lap and squeezed her legs together.
Clay banged on the door again, swore loudly, then stumbled down the back step. She heard him grumbling and cursing, and after a few minutes, he became quiet. LaDaisy dared to glance toward the back door in time to see him shuffling around the side of the house to his car. She held her breath and waited for the coupe to screech down the road before taking Mary to the cradle and making a beeline down the path to the outhouse, holding her crotch through her skirt. Relief was not long coming.
Leaving the privy afterward, she sensed movement and glanced toward Saul's garden. How long had he been there? Maybe it was the reason Clay hadn't forced his way in.
But she expected him to return, and decided to send the kids to Bernie's. People would begin to wonder why Mrs. Tomelin always rushed her youngsters out of the house. Seeing them play now, their stomachs full for another day, she was glad they were too young to understand the situation. Circumstances had changed a lot since their dad disappeared. Now there was a nasty man who disrespected their mother, not to mention he might also be a threat to them.
She didn't know what to tell the kids about their daddy. They still asked about him, and thought every man coming down the street might be him. They'd sit on the front porch brooding, or twirl slowly on the tire swing, watching the road with big sad eyes. As days and weeks passed, they'd begun to accept their daddy might never come home.
One day she'd overhead Catherine tell a neighbor girl, "My daddy went away."
"Oh, that's too bad. Where did he go? Did he stop loving you?"
Catherine shook her head and shrugged her small shoulders. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe he died."
"That's a shame," said the other child.
Mere babies discussing a serious subject like adult women. LaDaisy had turned away with a lump in her throat.
He may as well be dead, for all the good he is now.
She put Mary down for a nap then walked up to the garden to speak with Saul. How much he suspected, she didn't know.
He looked up as she approached, whipped off his hat and wiped his head, face, and neck with a big red handkerchief before putting it back on. He leaned on the hoe handle and motioned to the ground.
"Dry as a desert. Not a drop of water since the bi
g storm."
A stiff breeze stirred the dust at their feet. LaDaisy scooped up a clod of soil. "Hard as a rock." She tossed it away. "You ever seen a desert, Saul?"
"Nope. But I always planned to go out west and see Death Valley."
She smiled. "What's stopping you?"
"Free as a bird, ain't I?"
"Well?"
"Well what?"
He picked up the hoe again and loosened the soil around a tomato plant, then plucked the only ripe fruit and handed it to her. Except for a few clusters of marble-size green tomatoes, the plant had seen better days. Even rain wouldn't revive the spindly plant this late in the summer.
"If I didn't have responsibilities," LaDaisy said, "I'd go west myself. If you've been thinking about it all these years, you should make your dream come true." She dropped the tomato in her apron pocket. "I had a dream once—before Daniel left."
"You miss him, don'tcha?"
She nodded. "Of course I do. But I'm almost to the end of my rope. There's a big hole in our lives, Saul." She pitied the old man, who was more a part of her life than her own father had been. But there was no way to soften her words. She tried, but they came out harsh. "I know Daniel's your son, but he's got no right to come home after what he did."
Saul started working the soil around another plant, and the breeze blew dust up their noses.
"Daniel had his reasons. I don't know what they were, but I know he loves his family."
"Humph. Fine way of showing it." She paused. "Part of me wants him back and another part thinks he should go to hell."
LaDaisy gazed out across the yard, at the treetops swaying in the wind.
"Saul—"
"Hey?"
She turned. "Can you do me a favor? I know it's hot and it's a lot to ask, but I need you to take the kids to Bernie's. Maybe you can pull Bobby in the wagon. He'd like that."
He started to speak, but she held up her hand.
"Something's going on. I can't explain."
"I'll take 'em. Will you be all right?"
I don't know.
"Yes, yes I'll be fine. There's something I have to do."
Saul hitched up his overalls.
"Ain't none of my business, but I seen Clay hanging around."
"Oh, Saul! Don't think bad of me. Please. Clay, he—" She began to cry. "I know what you must think. Me being without a—a man for so long, but it's not ... "
He lay a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you afraid of him?"
"Yes."
"I thought so." He shook his head. "That fool ain't half the man Daniel is. If you're afraid, you'd better tell the sheriff to keep him away, landlord or not."
"I think he's coming back after you leave," she said. "I don't want the kids in the way. He's drunk and raving mad. I don't know what he might do."
"They'll be safe at Bernie's. But I'm worried about you. What'll you do if he comes back and starts something?"
"I don't know. I just hope he has sense enough not to."
She went back to the house and told the kids to go with Grandpa Saul to Bernie's, and after they left, she locked both front and back doors, checked on Mary, then opened Daniel's closet and stared at the shotgun. She took it out, along with the box of shells. I have no idea how to load this damn thing.
She removed a cartridge from the box and carefully laid it on top of the dresser before returning the rest to the closet, locking the door. She picked up the gun and examined it, noting how the barrel was made. In her mind, she saw Daniel taking the gun apart for cleaning, then putting it back together again.
Think, LaDaisy.
A mental picture formed in her mind of her husband bending the shotgun. No, not bending, for it had seemed to crack right in half. What? The shells fire through the barrel. But how do I get them in there? She found the hinged opening where the barrel met the chamber, and taking a section in each hand, she broke the gun open.
She held the weapon to the light and looked down the empty barrel. After a minute, she figured out how to insert the shell then closed the gun with a loud click.
Handling it carefully, she carried it to the front room, leaned it in plain sight in a corner near Daniel's mandolin shelf, then sat down to wait. What kind of damage could it do? She had no idea, except that it could kill animals. Of course, she had no intention of shooting anyone, but she was prepared if it came to self-defense.
Chapter 21
Traveling by foot and not eating right for long periods of time had sapped the strength from Daniel's body. He'd had a decent living at Petrie's farm, but the damage was already done. Now his heart raced and he gasped for breath as he sat in a corner of the boxcar, and after a few minutes his overworked body settled down. He cradled George's banjo lovingly, thinking of the time not so long ago when the two had shared a boxcar, before the banjo man departed at St. Louis and Daniel headed south.
The rocking car lulled him to a half-awake existence, his restless mind slipping again and again from the present to the past. Night flew by the open door, occasionally broken by lights in the distance. Dark shadows on darker backgrounds. The stuff of nightmares that scares kids, and grown men.
... Gunfire broke out and mortars blasted in the distance. Tracers lit up the sky and whistled overhead. Light rain fell, and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder as Shine crouched in a trench with an inch of water at the bottom. Rain and fear soaked his shirt. His hands trembled trying to steady the gun. He listened, not daring to move.
Silence—an ominous sign of danger on a battlefield. The gunfire ceased for a few minutes then started up again.
Hearing a scuffling sound, he jerked his Winchester up just as an enemy soldier surprised him with a fixed bayonet at the edge of the trench.
No! Stop!
The young soldier yelled something in German and screamed as Shine fired at his chest, then fell into the muddy hole.
"It's like killing a fox with rabies," his battery commander had said. "When your life's in danger, you don't think, you shoot."
It wasn't true. Daniel knew better than anyone about the binding tie between humans that prevented most from taking a life, even in self-defense.
He retched repeatedly, racking his body as a dark stain spread through the front of the soldier's uniform. Wave after wave of dizziness washed over him until he thought he'd pass out. The soldier raised a hand, but Shine shrank away as life flowed from the body.
He's just a kid!
The soldier's hand fell limply on Shine's knee. His lips parted, but no words came. He stopped trying to breathe. His jaw dropped, his eyes fixed on his enemy as life deserted him.
The sounds of artillery increased in the distance. Voices shouted. Someone screamed. Rain fell.
"Daniel!"
Someone touched his shoulder and shined a light in his face. His hands thrashed at the intruder and he rolled away as screams filled the boxcar.
"Come on, wake up. You're scaring me. What's wrong? What happened?"
The voice—young, familiar. He couldn't place it as he struggled to bring his mind back.
"Who—?"
Sweat broke over his brow as he tried to sit up and focus his eyes in the darkness.
"Wake up, Daniel, please. It's me, Chris."
Daniel reached for the small hand as it touched his shoulder again, and suddenly all hell broke loose and hot tears spurted from his eyes.
Chris pulled his hand away.
"I'm afraid! You were screaming. Screaming that you shot a man."
"Yes, oh yes." Daniel tried to control his weeping, but found he could not. "I killed a man. Many men."
"What are you talking about? What men?"
Daniel took a deep breath to steady himself, ashamed for a grown man to be caught crying like a baby.
"Where did you come from?" he asked Chris. "I couldn't find you and had to leave without you."
He sat up, now fully aware of his surroundings, his face wet, still weeping silently. Grotesque mental
images crawled away to the bottom of his mind. He was on a fast-moving train to Kansas City. It was good to hear the boy's voice. But he was puzzled that Chris seemed to have materialized from nowhere. Where had he stolen the flashlight?
"Where were you?" he asked again. "How did you get here?"
"I didn't think you'd let me come. So I followed you and sneaked in this boxcar with you."
Daniel tried to smile, but it made his face hurt. "So that's it. I thought I sensed someone lurking around. Where'd you go last night, you sneaky little rascal?"
"Uh, what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." He wiped his eyes. "Dadgummit, Chris, I left you to watch my stuff and you cut out on me."
"Aw, I just walked around by the depot."
"Somebody could've come along and stole my things. That's what I get for trusting a kid with a head full of bright ideas."
"Wasn't nobody there to steal anything except cows."
"So you decided not to come back at all, right? Just strike out bumming on your own without a care in the world."
Chris thought for a minute. "I was coming back, then I got the idea to follow you. Are you mad?"
"I'm mad as hell you didn't tell me where you were going," Daniel said. "But I'm not mad you hopped aboard this train." There was no answer from the boy. "Life's too short to stay mad at anyone. You can come to my house with me, Christopher Davis."
"You know my name."
"Yep, the man you accused of picking my pocket told me."
"Gee whiz, Daniel, why'd you ask him?"
"I asked because kidnapping ain't legal, and if you go with me, that's what a judge would call it."
"Then I can still go?"
"Looks like you already decided." He wiped his wet cheeks with the back of his hand.
"Can I?"
"Yep. But only till I get in touch with your family."
"I'm not going back there."
"Maybe not. But I'm obligated to let them know where you are. If they don't care, maybe I can get custody and you can live with my family." He paused. "But I can't picture them not caring about their own son."
Face the Winter Naked Page 21
