by Pamela Morsi
"You'd do better to bring her meat."
The words came from the doorway. Eben pulled back immediately and Althea, with a little cry of horror, jumped up off the bed.
Jesse was standing in the doorway, a plump rabbit, skinned and ready for the stew pot, held in one hand.
Althea, who'd felt nothing startling or scandalous about Eben's unwanted advance, felt her cheeks turn bright red with embarrassment. His embrace had been no more enticing than a brother's, yet now, with Jesse watching, she nervously straightened her already straight clothes and clutched tightly together the already buttoned collar of her dress.
"What are you doing here?"
Momentarily he stood in silence, his eyes sharp and his nostrils flaring slightly. Then it was as if he relaxed and he looked at Althea as he always did—in that open, honest fashion.
"He told me to bring the rabbit," Jesse said, indicating Eben. "He said you'd be asking him to supper."
Althea glanced over at Baxley, still sitting on the edge of the bed. He was like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But clearly he had somehow enjoyed being caught by Jesse in such an improper embrace. He was not humiliated. He was smiling as if something had happened between them. And he was acting as if he were proud of it.
"You are letting me stay for supper, aren't you, honey?"
His lazy grin and the way he let the sweet name roll off his tongue infuriated her. It was all Althea could do not to reach over and slap his face. But she was certain that would make things look even worse.
"Most certainly not!" She was flushed and confused, but she was adamant. "Jesse, I . . . we . . . Jesse, nothing happened, I mean . . ."
The simple young man continued to look at her curiously, waiting. She was at a loss. She turned her attention back to Eben. He had leaned back to lounge indolently upon the bed, just as if he thought he had a right to be there.
"Get out!" she hollered, startling even herself with the vehemence of her words. "Get out of here right now! You, too, Jesse. The both of you just leave me be. I've got work to do."
Chapter Seven
The dinner of rabbit stew had been wonderful. Jesse's appetite hadn't been the best, however, He was still confused about the events of the afternoon.
Miss Althea was going to marry Eben Baxley.
Eben Baxley was getting the dogs.
Eben Baxley was getting the gun.
Eben Baxley was getting the farm.
Eben Baxley was getting Miss Althea.
He tried not to think about that. Especially not that. He tried not to remember what it looked like. What they looked like. Eben Baxley had been lying on the bed with Miss Althea. Jesse tried not to think about it. Thinking about it hurt. Not a hurt like hammering a thumb, but a different hurt, deeper somehow.
Usually thinking was more of a problem for Jesse than not thinking. Tonight was different. Tonight Jesse couldn't seem to stop thinking, much as he tried. He would gladly have liked not to think about Eben Baxley ever again at all. But that was impossible. At least it was impossible at Miss Althea's dinner table. Baxley was all that Baby-Paisley talked about.
"Is he really my daddy's cuzzin?" The little boy's eyes were wide and excited. "Did they really go huntin' together?" he asked. "Were he and my daddy best, best friends? Does he have any little boys of his own?"
Jesse listened as Miss Althea answered every question as patiently as possible. Baby-Paisley had been totally enthralled by his brief introduction to Baxley. By the end of the meal it was clear that she was as tired of the subject as he was himself.
"Go on up to bed, Baby-Paisley," she said as she washed the remains of dinner from the boy's hands and mouth. "The morning comes as early as regular tomorrow."
Jesse rose hastily from his chair. He was not at all eager to leave. Truthfully, he could gladly have sat by the warmth of Miss Althea's hearth and enjoyed the welcome aroma of her home until kingdom come, but he reminded himself that Pa said a man didn't overstay his welcome. Jesse was a man and did what men did.
"Good night, Miss Althea," he said.
"Wait, Jesse."
He stopped. So did Baby-Paisley, who had his foot on the first rung of the loft ladder.
"Go on up to your bed, Baby-Paisley," she said. "I need to talk to Jesse about something."
The little boy looked at Jesse with narrowed eyes, but reluctantly followed his mother's orders. She waited until he was completely out of sight, although there was no question in Jesse's mind that the little fellow had his ear to the edge of the loft scurry and was listening to every word.
Jesse cleared his throat, a little bit uncomfortably, and looked at Miss Althea with curiosity. She seemed ill at ease. He wanted very much to take away the little worry line that furrowed up between her eyebrows.
"It was a fine rabbit stew, Miss Althea," he said. "Best I think I ever eat."
She acknowledged the compliment with an expression of pleasure, but the effect of it didn't reach as high as her eyes.
"Sit down, Jesse," she said quietly. "Here, move your chair close to the fire. There's a chill in this autumn air tonight."
He did as he was bid and she pulled her own chair up to sit across from him. She seated herself and smiled. It was nice, Jesse thought. It was nice just sitting here with her. She was pretty and sweet-smelling and pleasant and it was just simply kind of wonderful sitting with her.
Their eyes met and inexplicably she flushed. The color in her cheeks heightening to a shade nearly as bright as dogwood berries.
Hastily she glanced away. She stared into the fire. Jesse followed her gaze. For several minutes the two of them merely watched the brilliant orange glow of the dying flame.
"It's so quiet," she said at last.
Jesse looked over at her, waiting for her to say more.
"After supper when Baby-Paisley goes to bed, it's always so quiet, too quiet. Sometimes I think the whole world, God included, goes to bed when he does."
Her smile was so warm, so welcoming, and it was for him, Jesse Best. Jesse felt as if some hard hurt thing inside of him began to melt.
"That's why God made music," he told her.
She raised a curious eyebrow. "Music?"
"When it's too quiet and you get to thinking that you're all alone and God's busy elsewhere," Jesse explained, "you just got to sing or play a tune or such and the music fills up the space."
"It does, does it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jesse assured her. "If I were to start sawing on my fiddle, it wouldn't be quiet around here at all."
She chuckled lightly in agreement. "I guess that's true. And I do admire the way you play the fiddle, Jesse."
She said the last with such emphasis that Jesse felt he was almost glowing from the inside out. She admired the way he played the fiddle. Jesse wasn't sure if he'd ever been admired before.
"I could bring it here, Miss Althea, the fiddle," he told her. "I could play for you after supper and you wouldn't be lonely no more."
"Oh, I'm not lonely," Althea said, too quickly. "I am not lonely at all. I have my son and . . . and well, mothers never get lonely when they have their children."
Jesse nodded at her as if he understood, but he didn't. She'd said things were too quiet. Quiet was quiet, but too quiet was lonely, or so it seemed to him.
"Still, I could play for you," he said. "It wouldn't be no trouble at all."
"That's sweet, Jesse. You are very sweet."
It wasn't sweet at all. He really wanted to play for her. He wanted her to listen to his music.
"I played for you before," he said more quietly. "I played at your wedding. Do you remember that?"
"Of course I remember," she said. "You played nearly all night long and it was wonderful. Your music made it seem like a real wedding."
Jesse's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "A real wedding?" He vividly remembered the celebration. The biggest wedding ever held on the mountain. His sister and brother-in-law had only jumped the Marrying Stone, but P
aisley Winsloe had invited everyone from here to yonder. The preacher had spoke words from the Bible and the ladies were all dressed in their best and smelling fine and itching to dance and sing all night. There had been food and drinks and frolicking like never before. He couldn't imagine a wedding more real.
Althea was blushing again. "Of course, it was a real wedding," she said. "It's just that it all happened so fast and . . . and . . ." She looked away from him, back into the flames of the fire and then down at her hands. Her words came slowly and Jesse could feel the pain in them as she spoke. "Paisley was drunk as a lord. I'm sure you remember that. And . . . and my ... my father didn't come." Her chin came up again and she spoke more crisply. "I'd always thought that my father would come to my wedding."
She picked nervously at the hem of her apron and once more gazed sightlessly into the fire. Jesse knew she felt bad, but he didn't know why. More than that, he didn't know how to make her feel better.
"You got a pa?" he said. "I didn't know that."
Althea glanced over at him and shook her head slightly. "Everybody has a pa, Jesse. Some are dead and some are gone but everybody's got one."
He nodded. He kind of knew that, but he hadn't thought about it before.
"My pa might as well be dead for all that I see him," she said. "But he's not dead, he lives over at the White River."
Jesse accepted this piece of knowledge and silently committed it to memory. Miss Althea had a pa and he lived over at the White River.
"Maybe your pa will come for the next wedding," he said.
Her chin came up quickly and her expression quickly turned from surprise to anger. "You, too!" she accused.
Jesse was startled. "What?"
"You've got me remarried again just like everybody else."
Nervously, Jesse swallowed. Miss Althea was mad. She'd been mad that afternoon and she was mad now. Folks got mad. Folks got mad at him a lot. But he didn't want Miss Althea mad at him. He'd made another mistake. Somehow he'd made her mad. And for the life of him, he didn't know what it was.
"Eben told me," he said.
"Eben told you what?" she asked.
"He told me you were bespoke."
Althea's mouth opened. Then she closed it. "When did he say that?" she asked. "After . . . after you saw us . . . you saw us this afternoon?"
Jesse shook his head. "No, when he first walked up. He said you was bespoke and that I could only have one of the dogs."
"He said what?" She was even more angry than before.
"He said I could only have one of the dogs." Jesse was deliberately conciliatory. "And I don't mind, Miss Althea. I thought it over and one dog is plenty for me. I don't mind at all. If that's what you want, then that's what I want."
"That's not what I want at all!"
Jesse was momentarily taken aback by the vehemence in her tone. "You want me to have all the dogs?"
Althea rose to her feet and began to pace the room. Jesse watched her.
"This is more important than the dogs!" she said.
She stopped then and shook her head before giving to him the very vaguest of smiles. She amended her words. "Well, at least it is to me."
As if having a sudden desire to share a confidence, Althea scooted her chair closer to Jesse's. She sat down facing him. Her knees were only an ax's width from his own.
"Jesse, I know you don't understand what you saw here this afternoon," she began.
He gazed at her curiously. "I didn't see nothing except you and Eben Baxley on the bed."
Althea's cheeks flamed and she covered her face. "That's what you don't understand. We ... we were on the bed, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. Truly."
Jesse nodded. He knew it was true. When he'd walked in he'd been immediately on alert. The two of them there on the bed. Unmarried folks didn't loll around in beds together. They had been where they shouldn't be. And like a good hunter when the birds go still, Jesse'd been cautiously wary.
Trusting his best sense to guide him, he'd narrowed his eyes and sniffed the air. The scent of the place was unthreatening. There was nothing, no danger, no anger, not even the smell of lust, male or female. It had been only Althea's home and herself and Baxley. He'd relaxed then, knowing that she was safe and didn't need his protection.
"Nothing happened," she said again.
"I know that. Miss Althea."
She sighed with momentary relief and then leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her voice took on the cadence of entreaty. "But, Jesse, if you tell people about what you saw, they might think something happened."
He nodded again.
Her brow furrowed and her expression took on a look of impatience. "You don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jesse assured her, his tone matter-of-fact. "You and Eben Baxley was in the bed and if folks hear it they'll think you was in the bed to make a baby, but you was not."
Althea sat up, apparently startled at his grasp of the obvious. "Yes, that is ... ah . . . yes, that is what people might think, but it's worse than that."
Jesse listened curiously.
"You see, Jesse, a lot of people want me to get married. I don't want to. Eben Baxley wants to marry me. But I don't want to. Unfortunately, if anyone hears that I've been . . . well, if they thought that something improper had happened they might force me to actually marry him."
"You don't want to marry him?"
"No. Oh, no, Jesse. I don't want to marry anyone."
"Why?"
"Why?"
Jesse nodded.
"Because I . . . well, I just don't."
"You've got to have a reason, I guess," he told her.
Althea sighed and looked at him closely. "You want to know the truth, Jesse?"
He gave her a puzzled frown. "I wouldn't want to know a lie."
She laughed then. It was the first time he'd heard her laugh in a very long time.
“The truth is, Jesse, that I don't want another husband because of Baby-Paisley."
Jesse nodded with sage wisdom. "The boy don't like sharing you," he said.
Althea looked surprised. "Don't be silly. It's not that. It's that a new husband would want his own children and I'm afraid Baby-Paisley would just get sort of left out. He would never be the real son again and he would always know it."
"Why would he be left out?"
"I don't know, but that sometimes happens with stepmothers and stepfathers. My own father got a new wife and then didn't have any place in his home for me. I couldn't let it happen to my sweet Baby-Paisley."
"He's a good little boy," Jesse said. "Any man would be proud to call him his son."
"Oh, Jesse, you're so sweet." She grasped his hand in her own.
Her hand was warm and soft. It was a woman's hand.
Jesse looked down to see it. So small compared to his own and so firmly clasped around his big rough fingers. His heart began to beat faster.
"So you ain't marrying Eben Baxley," he said.
"No, no, Jesse," she said. "Not if I can help it. But folks might . . . folks might make me if they thought I'd done something with Eben Baxley."
"But you didn't do nothing," Jesse said. "And I can tell them so."
"I think it would just be better if you not tell anyone anything at all."
He nodded in agreement. "But I can tell Eben Baxley that you said I could have the dogs."
"Yes, of course you can have the dogs."
"And the gun," he continued. "Eben said I was not to borrow Paisley's gun, that I might foul it."
"He said that?"
Jesse nodded.
Althea stood up and pulled the long Winchester down from its housing above the fireplace.
“Take it," she said.
He didn't hesitate. He held the gun in his hand, the weight of it welcome to his arms and the scent of gun oil and powder like ambrosia.
"You want me to go hunting tomorrow?"
"You hunt whenever you want, Jesse," she said. "Th
e gun is yours."
"Mine?"
"It's a gift. I give it to you. It's yours."
Jesse stared at her in disbelief.
"Even if I have to marry, no husband will ever have it. It will already be yours."
Jesse looked down at the gun, pride of ownership swelling inside him. A gun. His own gun. Jesse Best owned a gun and the best pack of hounds on the mountain. It was everything, well almost everything, he had ever wanted.
He glanced over at Althea and his brow furrowed. Thoughtfully he replaced the Winchester on its hooks above the fireplace.
"I said the gun was yours, Jesse," Althea told him.
He nodded. "It's mine, Miss Althea. I accept it. But I think I'll leave it here." He smiled teasingly at her. "It's good for keeping strangers off your porch."
* * *
The Phillips family lived over the General Store. However, there was no narrow stairway to maneuver, no real feeling of being upstairs. The building was perched on the side of the mountain in such a way that the winding path up the incline led to the back porch of the building, where one walked straight into the second floor. It was called the family porch. It was a private place away from the customers. Much needed by the Phillips family since every tinker, drummer, or resident of the mountain considered the front porch of the store building to be public property.
The family porch was overgrown in honeysuckle, creeping phlox, and trumpet vines deliberately encouraged by the Phillips females. It was a quiet sanctuary, a haven of peacefulness, an entirely different place from the hustle and bustle downstairs.
It was upon this quiet porch that Mavis Phillips found her brother Oather. He was young and strong and good looking. With legs and arms lanky long and the sprinkling of freckles across his nose he appeared younger than twenty-four years. His hair was not the bright flame red of her own, but a deep copper color. He sat sprawled on the slat back swing holding a slab of raw meat against the side of his face. With a grimace, he looked up her with the one eye that wasn't swollen shut.
"How are you feeling?" she asked him.
Oather moaned slightly. "I feel like some no-good rollix-chaser has beaten the stuffings out of me," he said. "I'm just hoping that he feels half as bad."
