GodPretty in the Tobacco Field

by Kim Michele Richardson

  Then I turned to the porch, squeaking the boards, cocking my ear for Rainey’s homecoming—his violin.

  When I saw something move behind the willow oak, I leaned over the rail, hoping. Soaked, Baby Jane rushed over with her basket of eggs. She stood at the bottom, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, chewing on her nails.

  I was thrilled when Gunnar popped out the screen door and motioned her up onto the porch. Taking a seat, he rocked, and asked, “Miss Stump, are you selling those eggs or toting them home?” He crooked his finger.

  “I-I’m s-sellin’, sir—”

  “Get your fingers out of your mouth and speak up,” Gunnar bristled, “and get on up here and let me see.”

  Wary, Baby Jane climbed the steps. She lifted the cloth and took out an egg. “Sellin’. Be a nickel for four of ’em if you want ’em, sir. One nickel.” She bit on another nail.

  Gunnar thrust three wiggling fingers in front of her face. “Three cents.”

  Paling, Baby Jane looked down at the boards and brushed her toes across a plank, pulling fingers back to her mouth. The egg trembled in her other hand and rocked softly against her wet skirts.

  I lit into Gunnar. “Eggs cost forty cents for a dozen at the Feed, Gunnar. Give her five cents,” I scolded.

  “Highway robbery,” he growled, then raised his chin and flashed three fingers back to Baby Jane.

  “Five.” I waved five fingers at him.

  “Three.”

  “Five,” I pushed harder.

  Baby Jane’s hands shook so bad, she dropped an egg at Gunnar’s feet.

  “Baby Jane’s worked all week for those eggs,” I snapped.

  “Working at cheating honest folks,” he clipped low.

  A tear caught on Baby Jane’s bottom lash.

  “How could you?” I shot.

  Me and Gunnar continued the argument until he went inside to get the bitters. When he smacked the jar down on the rail, Baby Jane startled and took off. For most of the afternoon we bickered.

  Since the long rain, I’d already suffered the taste of Gunnar’s bitter herbs twice for back talking, and it would’ve been a third if Abby hadn’t interrupted and saved us both by stopping in to drop off a pile of socks she’d darned for us.

  “Lord o’ mercy,” she clucked, stepping onto the porch, “if this weather ain’t making even the birds fussy. I can hear the barn swallows from my porch even.” She snuck us meaningful glances.

  I dropped my sass. Gunnar grimaced. It was rare for Abby to come by without Rainey, and I was sorely disappointed to see her alone. Gunnar rose from the rocker, greeted her kindly, then cut me a warning look. I hung back watching.

  “Abby, it’s always a pleasure to have your company, but it’s not a good evening to be out. Is everything okay? Rainey—”

  She wagged her hand. “Fine, I reckon, but he’s still not home, Gunnar. I wanted to get these socks back to you before I needed to build an ark to tote them across the field.” She set down her covered basket and slipped out of her wet overcoat.

  Gunnar took her coat and hung it on the hook beside the screen door. “RubyLyn, where’s your manners?” He turned and tutted. “Go get a towel—one of those pink towels for Abby, and clean up this egg mess.”

  Had the rain drowned his brain? Gunnar never liked anyone to use Claire’s fancy guest towels in the downstairs bathroom. “You mean the company’s-coming towels—Aunt Claire’s?”

  Abby pressed her lips together. Gunnar glared back his answer, shooing me away. “Abby, let’s get you dry. Have a seat in the rocker and I’ll go fetch us a cup of coffee,” he said.

  “No need to fuss,” Abby said.

  I went back inside, grabbed Aunt Claire’s towel and took it out to the porch for Abby, and then cleaned up the egg with soap and water.

  While Gunnar went in for coffee, Abby sat with me on the porch and tried to teach me about the crisscrossing and stitching, like so many times before. More than once I tangled it up, and when I dropped her wooden darning egg that Rainey had carved for her long ago, she calmly said, “Maybe another lesson, another day, chil’.”

  Likely never. I was all thumbs when it came to sewing.

  Gunnar came out with the cups, and said to Abby, “Don’t know what they’re teaching her in school. Fifteen-year-old girl can’t even darn a sock.” He set down the coffee and went back inside for napkins.

  “Almost sixteen.” I fussed after him.

  Abby chuckled. “I’m sure your talents are waiting for bigger things.” She patted my arm. “How’s the tobacco, RubyLyn? Rainey thinks it won’t be long till harvesting. Hard to believe this season is almost done.”

  “It can’t get done quick enough, ma’am.” I flexed my hands.

  “Rainey says your prize crop has shot up real fine. I’ve never been to the State Fair. Bet you win all the pretty ribbons.”

  I held up crossed fingers.

  Despite Abby’s polite refusals, Gunnar insisted she stay for a late supper and sent me scampering to fix it. When we joined hands for Gunnar to bless the sinner who prepared the dinner—me—Abby scolded him with her eyes. Gunnar cleared his throat and mumbled an added blessing for our visitor. Abby squeezed my hand, and a satisfied smile rolled across her lips.

  After the meal, they took their coffee and blackberry cobbler out to the front porch. Then Gunnar had me light the two lanterns hanging at each end of the boards.

  A small woman with earth-darkened skin, Abby’s soft brown eyes and easy smile somehow softened him, too, and many times I’d wondered why, since Gunnar tolerated very few people. I hurried to wash the dishes, then slipped back outside to watch them from the other end of the porch. Lazy, I rested against a beam.

  They set their empty cobbler plates on the floor boards and settled into their porch rockers, watching the rain mist over Nameless.

  Sierra, the orange barn cat, jumped onto the porch, mewing a greeting, brushing against Gunnar with her whiskers before settling at his boots. He’d never had a fancy for dogs, saying his cat worked more than three dogs and kept the critters out of his house, barn, and the vegetable patches. Sierra followed him everywhere, too, and you’d see her trailing behind his tractor even. Sometimes, Gunnar’d stop the tractor, get out and inspect one thing or another, sneak his eyes around to make sure no one was looking, then lift that old cat up onto the seat and let her ride home beside him. Sometimes, I wished I was that old barn cat.

  “You make the best cobbler, RubyLyn,” Abby said, sipping her coffee. “Wasn’t it delicious, Gunnar? Sure does have the skillet smarts, don’t she, Gunnar?”

  Gunnar grunted into his mug.

  I took a seat on the floor, watching the rain, too.

  “I pray Rainey didn’t meet trouble,” Abby fretted. “He should’ve been home by now.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Gunnar said. “Did he take that brown tie?”

  “Yessir, he sure did,” she beamed, “and practiced that Windsor knot you taught him.”

  Tie. I’d never seen Rainey in anything but his old jeans and a soft blue chambray shirt, even when him and his mama set out for the colored church on Sundays. Maybe he was walking the avenues now. . . .

  “I packed it in the satchel you lent him,” she continued. “Sure appreciate you getting it for him. I hope he found himself a safe room . . . Oh, Gunnar, do you think he found himself a safe place to sleep up there in Louisville?”

  He rubbed his whiskered chin. “I imagine Rainey’ll be fine as long as he keeps his mind on the business of the real war.”

  “His mind.” Abby sighed heavily. “Just don’t know what that boy’s thinking, Gunnar. A fool mind he has sometimes. Going to the fighting like that in Vietnam when he could’ve been a smart boy and joined the navy before he got drafted.” She rocked a little, then asked him, “How many miles did you say it was to Louisville?”

  “I reckon about two hundred fifty, maybe a bit more,” he said.

  She took another deep breath. “Sure
wish his papa was around to talk to him. The fool things Rainey takes a mind to. Wanting to be in the jungle like that instead of on a big boat.”

  Gunnar shifted in his rocker, bent over, and scratched Sierra’s ear. “Now, Abby, it’s a wise man that knows to be shooting at what he can see.”

  Even from my end of the porch I could feel her slapping his words with a glare.

  I expected Gunnar to lay his executioner’s stare on her, but he didn’t—only lifted his mug, and said, “More coffee, Abby?”

  Abby puffed up. “Should’ve given him a bus ticket to Canada instead.”

  Gunnar chimed in about a Kentucky boxer named Muhammad Ali, who’d been arrested a few years back for evading the draft.

  “Why folks call him the Louisville Lip,” Abby muttered.

  Gunnar spoke a little about the brave troops in Vietnam and an ugly battle called Hamburger Hill until Abby shushed the talk.

  He moved on and told about a prison execution that went wrong in another state, and one here in Kentucky until Abby shook her finger and took the subject to the weather. “Gunnar”—she lowered her voice—“let’s not talk ’bout that. It makes you upset. Lighting on bad things is the devil’s doings. You took the job to save your family’s homestead, and when you saw the meanness in it, you tried to fix it.”

  She fluffed up the soft collar on her plain brown dress, straightened her skirts, and shifted in the rocker. “Now when do you think this rain’s gonna let up?”

  Gunnar wouldn’t let it rest until he laid the last word. “Only government job around at the time,” he grumbled. “But then I saw how bad things were with the condemned men—the rotten treatment of those poor lost souls. There’s a right way and a wrong way to punish, and you start with the teachings of the Bible—”

  “Gunnar.” Abby raised a brow.

  I rubbed my jaw. I could picture Gunnar brewing up his bitters and dumping the potion into prisoners’ mouths.

  Gunnar nodded like a scolded child, rubbed his hands. “This rain takes a toll on the bones.”

  “And soul,” Abby said quietly.

  They went on to speculate about the weather some more and then chatted about the man named Neil Armstrong, marveling how he’d walked on the moon two weeks ago.

  Abby said someone had seen it on the television, and she thought America had come a long way since the old days when they’d send monkeys and mice up there, and wouldn’t she just love to have herself a television set one day so she could watch The Johnny Cash Show? The postmistress told her all about the show, saying she’d heard of it when visiting her kin in Ohio—and “wouldn’t that be something to see a talking picture right in your sitting room? . . . Oh, and a telephone! I’d get me a pink telephone,” Abby added. “Talk to my Rainey anywhere. Now that’d be something grand!”

  Gunnar actually chuckled and agreed it might, though he’d never seen the need for a house telephone.

  “Love the sound of rain, but not every day. Gunnar,” she said, restless. “Why don’t you go get your harmonica.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Go on,” she poked, “play us a song. I remember when you and my Gus used to play together. Him with that old violin and you with the harmonica made some sweet music.”

  “Afraid I haven’t played in years and would only kick up the coyotes,” he said.

  “Humph, you used to make them wild dogs sit up and howl. Especially when you played ‘Kentucky Babe.’ Remember that?” Abby hummed a verse, motioned for me to join her.

  Smiling, I shook my head no, the cut of missing Rainey digging deeper, his other song “Kentucky Lady” first in my heart.

  “Rainey sings it just like his pa did.” She rocked and sang the song soft and sweet. “‘Close your eyes, close your eyes and sleep. Skeeters are a-humming on the honeysuckle vine. Sleep, Kentucky babe. Sandman is a-coming to this little babe of mine. Sleep, Kentucky babe . . . You are mighty lucky, Babe of old Kentucky.’ ”

  I found myself humming along to the old Kentucky lullaby.

  Abby watered the last verse and suddenly remembered something else. “I hope Rainey doesn’t lose his change for the pay telephone. Do you think the city will have—”

  “Likely one telephone on every block.” Gunnar read her mind.

  “Speaking of calling. Have you called on Mrs. Wise?” Abby asked.

  “Maybe after housing,” Gunnar answered.

  “That’s what you said last year,” Abby reminded him. “She’s a good Christian woman . . . could keep a good Christian house for you.”

  Widow Wise lived on a mountain two hills over. Whenever she visited town, I could see she favored Gunnar. She’d stop him to talk about this or that, then let him know how lonely she was up on Wise Mountain. How maybe him and his niece could stop by for supper sometime? Once, she had him come over to kill a rabid fox on her land and she made him a covered dish to bring back home. She was sweet on him and I could see Gunnar was giving it some thought, too.

  While Abby and Gunnar talked, I visited my mind on Rainey and missing my “seven.” Maybe he’s not too hot to get home after seeing those city girls. Them in their stylish Sears and Roebuck dresses covering Honey Girl slips of every color of the rainbow—and their twisted up sprayed hairdos. What a grand important life!

  I tried to flip the ends of my hair upward, tugging. Again, and again, trying to tame my long, tangled curls into a spiffy city hairstyle.

  Maybe I should make my own fortune come true, take that first step. Rainey, six, Bur, five.

  I’d only been kissed by one boy in my life and that didn’t count since it was Henny’s eighteen-year-old brute cousin who’d paddlefished his tongue inside my mouth. A kiss that was pried, not privileged. One that he’d tackled me for when I was eleven. He’d pushed me to the ground in back of the Stumps’ cabin when he thought no one was looking. Rolled atop me, pinning my arms down with his knees, bruising bones. Mrs. Stump caught him and took her broom to his head, batting him all the way down Stump Mountain. Henny, too, hot on his tail with a thorny locust branch. And when Rainey got wind of it from Henny, he sharpened his pocketknife and searched the hills for him for two days.

  A thousand years I’d been practicing for that important kiss, waiting to be kissed properly . . . at least since I was ten, I reckoned.

  I’d often steal into the barn when no one was around and take the sheet off the tall gold-painted floor mirror that had been stored in the dusty corner. Being extra careful not to disturb the corn spider who’d caught my hopes and dreams in her arching web above it. When I asked about the mirror long ago, Gunnar only said it belonged to my aunt. And that it was vain to have it in the foyer of our house. I didn’t think it was any more vain than his other stuff, though.

  There in front of the six-foot mirror I’d stand on dried corn husks, practicing and planting my perfect pucker, the slant of sun slipping through the slatted dark oak boards. Hidden behind the mirror was a tiny jar of shortening that I’d put there. I’d unlatch the jar, paint the cooking oil across my lips. Then I’d fix kiss after kiss on that ol’ barn mirror, my prints sawtoothed across the looking glass like spreading dandelion heads.

  I couldn’t help wondering if Mama had practiced her kisses this way. I tried not to think about the latest dreams I’d been having of her—the hissing snakes in those sleeping hours, about drawing the broken heart on Mama’s fortune-teller—and what everything meant.

  Over the years, I’d tried to talk to Gunnar about my folks, but he’d shoot down any more talk about them, saying he was too busy for chat, done with useless things that can’t be done over, and that I needed to stop wasting my time on the dead. Then he’d send me out to the porch with a bucket of water and a scrub brush or back to the fields to appreciate the living bones in my knees.

  Why it was so hard to believe he was talking so nice to Abby now. It didn’t matter that they had known each other since they were kids. He’d known lots of folks forever and he hadn’t shared a long, quiet
porch-talking with any of them lately—heck, in forever.

  Growing drowsy, I scooted closer to the wall, pulled up my knees, and rested my head on them. Sierra came over to bunt her head against my legs.

  Abby shifted suddenly in her seat and clucked softly. “Trouble’s coming, I can feel it.” A firefly brushed a glow past her cheek.

  I shuddered. Abby could smell trouble, same as a rain crow could bad weather.

  A coyote called from the hills. The lanterns burned low. Gunnar went inside and poured them each a bourbon. In a few minutes, their hands slipped into the shadows, talking.

  Where is he? My Rainey seven.

  Chapter 13

  The rain stopped, and sinners’ prayers were answered till God snuck out from the slippery shadows beckoning for more.

  Gunnar yelled up the stairs while I tried to safety-pin a button to my church dress. “Time to get, RubyLyn. Now!”

  “In a second,” I called back, same as I did not two seconds ago.

  I hated Sundays. It seemed useless going. Here my daddy was a preacher and drank himself to death. What kind of God-fearing man does that? And for all Gunnar’s fine talk about good and evil, he drank, too. Hypocrite! It was no wonder I had to spend every service praying for God to make him less ornery. But God didn’t listen and I found myself drifting during sermons, praying for a way out of this town in the folds of my sinful fortunes.

  Sunday was supposed to be my day to rest, He’d said, but I had to get up even earlier to cook a hot breakfast for him and get myself neat for church. Still, once I got there I felt a little better seeing all those folks. With only the Fords and Stumps as my neighbors, and the visits to the Feed, it got pretty lonely during the summers, unless you could drive to other hills to visit. Which Gunnar’d made sure to let me know long ago: not happening. And except for the few times the church held a picnic and a swim in its creek, it was rare to visit other kids. And that was only when one of the mamas or a schoolteacher wore Gunnar down with their pleas to let me stay.