by Pamela Morsi
Initially she'd thought she could butcher the hog with only Jesse to help her. Now, seeing how much just pure physical strength was involved, she wondered how they ever would have managed. But, she thought, they would have. If Jesse had needed to hoist that hog up and down by himself, he would have done it. Anything she ever asked him to do, somehow he did.
Her eyes followed her thoughts and she watched him then, up on the platform. Turning and moving the hog as he was bid, he was the youngest and the strongest of the men there. And they depended upon him to do the heavy work. She wondered if they realized that. When they went home this evening, would they be aware that without the strength, willingness, and bid ability of Jesse Best, their work would have been much harder? Althea was pretty certain that they rarely gave him a thought at all. If asked, most would say that they let Jesse help. Or that the boy did what he could. They took him for granted. They all did, Althea realized, including herself. His value to the community continued to be errantly minimized, because Jesse himself was underestimated. He was different. He was like no one else. He was not an equal. Did that make him less?
No, Althea thought to herself. Not necessarily.
Jesse worked, vigorous and eager, upon the boards of the platform he had built. He was actually quite tall, but the sense of his stature was lost while he stood alone. So well built and robust, Jesse appeared much in proportion, with none of the long lankiness associated with great height. Only with other men at his shoulder was an onlooker made aware of how far his head was from the ground.
His thin cotton shirt was now plastered to his muscles like second skin. His pale blond hair was damp with perspiration and glowed golden in the eastern sunshine at his back. He was strong and virile and excitingly male.
Jesse stood now, laughing at something someone had said. His hip cocked to one side, he stood arms akimbo, the thick curves of his chest and thighs outlined in the bright glow of morning. Totally without vanity or cognition, he was beautiful like a snow covered mountain or a tree draped in autumn colors is beautiful. It was a beauty so natural, so artless, that it was possible to stare in silent awe and wonder of it.
And in many ways that was what Althea did. Entranced, she watched him. Her throat went dry. A deep, primitive longing welled up inside her. Against her will she recalled once more the taste of his kiss. He was no practiced lover, but it was his love, as natural as his beauty, that had drawn her into his embrace as easily as had his arms. And it was that authenticity that had kept her there, reveling in the pleasure of it. Now, as memory assailed her, her heart beat faster. She trembled.
Her marriage had in no way prepared Althea for the sensual desire that now pulsed through her. She had been dutiful and willing. Her late husband had been lusty and eager. Her fulfillment in his arms had only hinted at the mysteries that now begged to be revealed to her body.
She remembered Jesse's words. "No, it's that other promise. The one not to . . . not to stir the bed with you like a husband and wife. If I was your man, Miss Althea, I couldn't keep a promise like that for one day."
Althea felt the words as she thought them. They sizzled through her like foxfire on an autumn night and settled in her low, very low. She swallowed nervously and bit down on her lip.
Jesse Best stood upon the platform, smiling, happy, easy in his body, nonchalant, unaware of the stirring he roused within this woman. Unaware that he was an object of desire.
"My God, he is beautiful." The words, spoken in near reverence, came from the man standing next to her.
"Yes, he is," she answered languidly from her sensual trance. "Oh!" Her horrified little squeak came immediately thereafter. Althea looked over at Oather, shocked that he had read her thoughts, and such wicked thoughts, too.
Oather stared back at her, his eyes wide in equal alarm. It was as if he too were aghast at his own words.
"I ... I meant the pig," Oather stammered hastily.
"The pig? Oh, me, too," Althea quickly agreed. "The pig. I was thinking about the pig."
"It's a beautiful pig, ma'am," Oather assured her.
"Yes, that's the best looking pig we ever raised."
"Yes, you . . . you can be proud, Mrs. Winsloe, very proud. That's one of the finest swine ever on this mountain."
"Yes."
"Yes, well, I'd better get to helping," Oather said, still unhealthily pale and anxious to hurry off.
"And me, as well," Althea answered, eager to busy her own hands. She had been thinking indecent thoughts about Jesse Best. She was so shocked at herself, dismayed with her own lustful musings. Contending with her own mortification, she gave no thought to Oather Phillips' strange behavior.
After the hide was completely scraped clean, the butchering began. The hog carcass was raised on the pole and split open on both sides down the belly and along the backbone to make it cool faster. Washtubs full of innards were removed and given into the care of the women.
Every portion of the animal would provide some useful purpose from the snout for headcheese to the hooves boiled into gelatin.
Onery asked for the bladder. Once it was rinsed and clean, he utilized a piece of straw to blow it up. Then he tied it off and gave it to the children for a ball.
"This coffee is purt-near boiled away," Granny complained as she moved the pot from the cooking fire. "I don't 'magine anyone'll want to drink it the consistency of sorghum."
"I'll make some more," Althea promised. "As soon as we have another fire free."
All of the freshly dug fire pits were covered with cooking cauldrons of cast-iron potash. To be safe, healthy, and useful, every portion, every piece of the carcass had to be rinsed, soaked, cooked, or all three. It took the help of all the women to make the task go quickly.
Althea's ladder back chairs had been brought outside and set at intervals around the women's work area. Planks were laid from one ladder to the next forming worktables and temporary storage shelves.
Granny had taken up the grinding of the organ meats. They would be mixed with the jowl and the ham trimmings and spiced with sage and thyme for sausage. Althea was washing the intestines. They were to be turned inside out and saved in salt brine to use for the casings.
"Mavis was making that coffee for Eben Baxley," Althea mentioned casually. Glancing around, she did not catch sight of him with the other men. "I don't know where he got off to."
"Well, where's Mavis?" Granny asked.
"I don't know," Lessy Phillips admitted. "I just looked up and she was gone. It isn't at all like her."
Althea shrugged. "I think she may have taken to the brush. She looked just positively pale when I saw her earlier."
"I know just how she feels," Meggie Best admitted. "I love your bloodwurst, Granny. But I swear, I thought I would lose my breakfast when you asked me to mix the salt in it."
Granny humphed agreeably. "Well, Mavis ain't got your excuse."
All the women looked at Meggie questioningly. Granny answered for her.
"It seems our Meggie done stumped her toe agin," Granny said proudly.
There was laughter and murmurs of approval.
Althea's jaw dropped in surprise and then she giggled and hugged Meggie delightedly. "When is the big surprise?" she asked.
"Spring," Meggie answered with only the slightest blush of embarrassment. "About mid-March as best I can judge it."
"Lucky you," Lessy Phillips told her kindly. "I carried all mine during the heat of summer and I don't recommend it."
"All of them?" Beulah huffed in disgust. "You only had two. I birthed six live children. And I buried them each and all, including my dear Paisley, the only one to live past childhood."
The women looked at each other uneasily. Beulah Winsloe's exceptional misfortune was well-known and evoked a sense of empathy throughout the community. But it was just plain bad manners to talk about dying children or miscarriage around a nesting mother.
All women knew the chances. Meggie Farley would know them, too. Half of the babies born wou
ldn't live through their first winter. And half of those who did would never get past childhood illness. Measles, smallpox, whooping cough, and scarlet fever lay in wait and filled the boneyard behind the church house with tiny little graves. A woman took her heart in her hands to give birth to a child. Yet knowing the risks couldn't keep a woman from taking them.
Granny broke the uneasy silence. She too had outlived most of her children. She chose to counter the smothering solemnity with humor.
"This Meggie of ours is a smart gal choosing to carry her baby in the wintertime," the old woman said. "She can grow as fat as she pleases and none of us will be there to tell her she's looking more like a milk cow than a mama."
Her words at first brought a startled silence. Then Meggie laughed, grateful for the lighthearted intervention.
"Well, my husband can tell me, I suppose. But I hope he doesn't," she quipped.
"That man?" Granny shook her head. "That one is so stuck on you, he ain't seen ye clear since the day you wed."
Granny's teasing was light and fun. But everyone knew that Meggie and her Bay State man were very much a love match.
"The worst thing that will happen," Granny postulated, "is that you'll get so big you won't be able to get out of bed. And, mark my words, once you're in that bed, that man'll be in there with you."
Meggie blushed brightly as the women around her giggled at the naughty insinuation.
"Course," Granny continued, "nothing worse can come of it. He done got a babe in yer belly, the fiddler is paid up for a spell, so this lollyin' is plum free."
The women hooted with laughter.
"Shame on you, Granny," Althea scolded without ire. "You've got Meggie's cheeks as red as that scraped hog."
"It ain't my doin'," Granny insisted. "It's the gal's own naughty mind that's put her to blush."
The teasing continued for several more minutes as well-meant congratulations were handed out by all.
"I'm so happy for you," Althea told her. "And a little bit envious, too, I guess."
"Envious?" Meggie asked. "You want to be the one who feels like she's about to puke?"
"Well, not that," Althea admitted. She smiled and motioned toward the children still racing around in riotous good fun. "Our little ones are getting so big now. Baby-
Paisley will hardly let me hold him. And he's far from helpless these days."
Althea shook her head in disbelief as Meggie indicated her agreement. "As much trouble as it is," Althea told her. "The suckling and the dirty britches and no sleep of a night. I'd still love to be starting all over again."
Meggie beamed and nodded in understanding.
Beulah Winsloe snorted unkindly. "And there ain't nothing agin that, Althea Winsloe, except your own foolishness. That Eben Baxley will make a right fine father. If you wed up with him at Christmas, you can have a babe at your breast by fall."
Althea blushed, wishing that she'd had the good sense to guard her tongue more wisely. "I have agreed to marry come Christmas Day," she said. "But do not expect me to change my mind about having more children because I will not."
"Well, you should," Beulah told her forcefully. "You're still young enough to bear a dozen. And to not do it is a crime against heaven and I'm sure Pastor McNees would agree with me."
No one could argue that. Tom McNees was never known to disagree with his sister.
"And it's your duty to the boy to have more children," she said.
"My duty? To Baby-Paisley?"
Beulah nodded self righteously. "That child could well learn not to be so selfish if he had brothers and sisters with which he had to share."
"My son is not selfish," she defended staunchly. "You're his grandmother. You should know that about him."
"Maybe if his mother didn't keep him so close, his grandmother might know him better," she sneered.
"I bring him by to see you every week!" Althea replied.
"And he stays right by your skirts nearly the whole time," her mother-in-law accused.
"For heaven's sake, Beulah," Granny Piggott intervened. "Don't go on so. Baby-Paisley prefers his mama, 'cause he's a little boy. Just a little boy, and a very good one at that."
"He does seem to play with other children," Meggie added, indicating the two playmates who were joyously kicking around the pig bladder ball while the dogs barked and chased after them.
Beulah was momentarily silenced, but it was clear that she didn't like it much.
"Well, Meggie," she said finally with a snide look toward her daughter-in-law. "I am happy that you, at least, are planning on having more children."
"Yes, thank you," Meggie answered.
"Perhaps if you're lucky it will be a boy this time," Beulah suggested. "I'm sure your Mr. Farley is hoping for that."
"Not necessarily," Meggie answered.
Beulah looked momentarily puzzled. It was a visibly deliberate expression. Then she nodded sagely. Her tone dripped sugar. "Yes, I suppose you're both scared you might get one like Jesse."
There were gasps of disbelief from several of the women.
Granny Piggott's face-hardened to fury and she looked ready to give the quarrelsome Mrs. Winsloe a thorough set down. Meggie Farley, however, didn't give the older woman an opportunity.
"No, we are not scared that we might have a child like Jesse," she said. Her voice was calm and completely without anger or venom. "In all honesty, I don't worry a minute about it."
Meggie raised her chin and looked Beulah straight in the eye. "Being simple is not something that was carried to Jesse in the blood, it was a thing that happened to him when he was born. It could happen to any child. It could happen to the children we have now. A bad fall or a bump on the head or a spell of apoplexy can injure the mind of anyone, anyday."
The truth of her statement was sobering to all.
"But even if it were something in our family," she continued, "something that we could expect to see again and again in our children, I wouldn't be scared by it. Jesse is a strong, loving, generous man. He works hard. In some ways harder than other men, because things in this world don't come easy to Jesse. He is good and fair to everyone that he meets. That isn't something that comes any more natural to him than it does to you and me. I don't believe, as some will say, that he's touched by angel spirits or not all of this earth. I believe he is every bit as human and as fraught with human frailties as the rest of us. He is not special or favored or a better man than others you'll meet, but he is every bit as good as any. I am proud to call him my brother. And I would be just as proud to have a son or daughter who was like him."
"Amen!" Granny agreed loudly.
"Yes, amen," Althea said, taking Meggie's hand in her own. "Your brother is the most genuine, honorable, trustworthy man I have ever met in my life. You just know that if Jesse makes you a promise, he will keep it."
"Yes," Meggie answered. "Jesse will."
* * *
Eben didn't quite know what had happened. He had Mavis Phillips just where he wanted her. And suddenly, that wasn't where he wanted her at all. He tried to stop the tears. Desperately he tried to stop his tears. Men didn't cry. It was weak to cry and Eben was never weak. Never. Still he cried. His face buried in the mass of sweet-smelling red hair, he wept with grief that came from so deep inside, he feared that all his life's blood might begin to pour out.
He could hear himself repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." But he could come up with no other coherent thought.
He pulled out of her body and away from the tree, releasing Mavis from his grasp. He was loath to let her go, but he had to. He expected her to run away. He wanted her to run away. Amazingly she did not.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. She held him. Eben rested his cheek on the top of her head. Inside he was still shaking. He had wanted to hurt her, shame her, destroy her. Somehow it was himself whom he had hurt and shamed and destroyed.
"I am so sorry, Mavis. I am so so sorry."
She pulled her head back slightly and lo
oked up at him.
He felt too sick to meet her eyes. He tried to glance away, but she didn't let him.
"It's all right, Eben," she whispered to him. "It's all right.”
She eased her hand along his nape and into his hair. Ever so gently she urged him closer until his mouth met her own.
It was a kiss of forgiveness and a kiss of healing. It was warm, soothing, pleasurable. Eben didn't deserve pleasure. He felt that he should resist it. But he could not. He needed her kiss. He needed her.
"My Mavis," he murmured. "My own beautiful Mavis."
The taste of her was as he remembered and as he had dreamed. There was nothing of bitterness in it. It was sweet and fresh, and oh, so very right.
Slowly she sank to her knees and he went with her. Their embrace was closer there, closer to each other and closer to the earth beneath them. Mavis pressed her body against him and feathered tiny biting kisses along his neck and throat.
Eben moaned. The sting of shame was slowly being supplanted by the hot flare of desire.
Her hands, her soft feminine hands, moved across his arms and chest, seeking, surveying, and scorching him as if she were carrying fire.
She met his lips once more and deepened the kiss with teeth and tongue. She eased him out of his coat and slipped his suspenders from his shoulders.
He moved closer, seeking her warmth, her comfort. But his hands stayed still. He had hurt her with his hands, with his body. He didn't want to hurt her anymore.
So effortlessly did she find the buttons on his shirtfront and so hastily did she do away with them. Touching his bare flesh with such obvious yearning, such obvious pleasure, he was nearly overwhelmed.
Eben was hard, urgent. He wanted to clasp her to him once more, to press himself tightly against her. But he did not.
When she brought her lips to graze his chest, he gasped with the thrill of it. She kissed and teased and tantalized her way across him, stopping only to take his nipple in her teeth in a not-too-gentle love bite.
Eben cried aloud. It was an animal's cry, a cry of need. His eyes were closed tightly against the loss of control that seemed so near. His erection was hard, pulsing, aching. He moved back from her slightly, not wishing to embarrass her with its evidence.
