by Davis Grubb
John?
Hush!
And suddenly and with astonishing loudness a cricket commenced chirping in the apple barrel and John, gasping with fright, imagined somehow that this might lead the hunter to their hiding place.
Pearl? called the voice softly from the stairs.
And then a portion of the whitewashed wall sprang suddenly into light as he moved down the steps with the candle in his hand and stopped halfway, straining his angry eyes into the shadows.
I know you’re here, children, he said, not shouting, not angry-sounding at all. So you’d better come out before I come find you myself. I can feel myself gettin’ awful mad, children.
John? she whined faintly. He said—
John’s hand clapped quickly to her mouth and his fingers pressed into the warm cheek. He could feel her fluttering, frightened eyelashes on the heel of his palm.
I hear you whisperin’, children. So I know you’re down there.
John listened to the cricket among the Winesaps and thought: If we was crickets we could hide under the cool apples, deep in the dark barrel, and he would never find us; never ever find us.
Very well! My patience has run out, children. I’m comin’ to find you now.
And his footsteps were quick and angry on the creaking steps and now the whole cellar was alive with new shadows and stretching light from the moving candle in his fingers. John peered between two half-gallon jars of candied apples and he could see him: his back to them, the black of one shoulder and the corner of his head as he stood by the furnace and held the candle high.
This is your last chance, my dears. I’m just gettin’ played out. I’m just gettin’ so mad I won’t be responsible!
Now the whole web of light and dark tore loose and stretched itself and danced again as he moved toward the coal bin and bent to peer inside.
Children!
And then they all heard the voice calling from the kitchen and John thought for one moment of salvation: It’s Mom come back! It’s her upstairs in the kitchen! Nothin’ has happened to her after all!
Yoohoo! Mister Powell!
They could hear him shuffling back across the stone toward the steps and John counted them as the footsteps mounted to the door to the kitchen.
Gracious, Mister Powell! You frightened me!
It was Icey Spoon, and Preacher closed the cellar door and they could hear him greeting her in that coaxing, warm voice he could put on when he wanted.
Here! Icey was saying. It’s just a little hot supper I fixed for you and the children. Walt and me got to thinkin’ about you lonely and helpless over here without a woman in the house and it seemed the least we could do.
Then it was his voice again, fawning over the basket of supper she had brought and then his voice fell and John knew what it was he would be saying.
Because directly Icey cried out: They what? Oh, no! They haven’t!
And now his voice again: whining and trembling with pious concern and bewilderment.
Yes! Yes! he cried. They’re down there playing in the cellar and they won’t mind me when I call them and I just don’t know what to do. It just seems a little too much with everything else on my mind today—Willa and all. Would you mind trying?
The door flew open again and now it was Icey’s voice, clear and commanding.
John! Pearl!
It’s as if I didn’t have enough on my mind, Preacher was whimpering. The grief and burden of what the mother has done—
Icey’s voice crackled with authority now and John knew that the jig was up; the business of disobeying a woman was somehow too much for him.
John! Pearl! You get up out of that cellar this very minute! Icey clapped her hands sharply.
Come on! Shake a leg! I won’t have you worryin’ poor Mister Powell another minute. Hurry!
John appeared, blinking, and moved into the gaslit kitchen and Pearl followed, hugging the doll sheepishly before her shamed eyes.
Now just look at you! cried Icey, brushing the cobwebs from the little one’s curls. Dust and filth from head to toe! If that ain’t a poor way to serve Mister Powell on a sad day like this!
She turned to Preacher and raised her eyebrows.
Want me to take them up and wash ’em good?
Thank you, no. Thank you, dear Icey. No, I’ll tend to them. Thank you.
Well, smiled Icey, folding her hands beneath her apron before she departed. At least you’ll all have a good hot meal tonight.
She turned and patted John’s shaggy head, bowed now in dreadful and stunned defeat beside his sister.
Don’t be too hard on them, Reverend, she whispered. Like as not they’ve took it hard—the mother runnin’ off that way. Poor lambs! Poor motherless children!
Preacher chuckled and reached out his hand and ran the fingers named Love through Pearl’s tumbling, dusty locks.
I’ve been thinking, he said, of something that might ease the pain.
Yes? said Icey.
I thought I might take them away for a week or two, he said. To my sister’s—down at Marietta.
Well, now!
The change might help, he sighed. A different scene. Good country food for a while. A kindly Christian woman to tend them.
Well, now! Hear that, children? Don’t that sound nice?
Yes, said Preacher. I think I may do that. It would give me time to—help mend things.
That’s a grand, sensible plan, Mister Powell. Just grand!
She gave Pearl’s head a final pat and pinched John’s cold, livid cheek and moved out onto the porch with Preacher.
And remember, now, Mister Powell. If you need anything—any time of night or day—don’t be afraid to call on us. Mind now! Good night!
Good night, Miz Spoon. Thank you. The Lord will watch over us all.
And in a breath her fat round figure was a small shape, bobbing away into the green dusk under an early moon. Preacher came back into the kitchen and smiled at the children by the pump.
Weren’t you afraid, my lambs? he said softly. Down there in all that dark?
—
For a moment the kerosene lamp teetered and rocked on the littered table but then the old hands darted out and caught it and steadied it before it fell. Uncle Birdie snatched his bottle from under the rocker and filled the tin cup half full again. Then he began shaking worse than ever, teeth chattering like an angry groundhog, and Uncle Birdie knew suddenly that whisky wasn’t going to help him that night: it would take more than that to exorcise the day’s phantoms. And yet he drank it swiftly and choked once and settled back again, rocking and moaning softly to himself and sucking the liquor from his dripping mustaches. Earlier he had considered lighting his lantern and taking Ben Harper’s skiff back down along the shore to the deep place to see if it was really there: what he had seen that morning. But he thought that seeing it again would drive him crazy with fear and he would fall out of the boat and drown. And so he sat a moment longer, rocking with that measured beat of children and the very old, hugging his tough, scrawny arms around his chest like a frightened old woman, and then he labored to his feet and steadied himself on his way across the wharfboat cabin wall to the hair chest by the stove. Bess would understand why he was so powerfully and brutally drunk this night. Bess would forgive him his intemperance once he told her what he had seen that morning in the deep place below Jason Lindsay’s west fence. He fell thickly to his knees and fumbled at the green brass hasp to the chest and got the lid up at last and fetched out the faded cardboard photograph in the cheapjack tin frame he had bought from a country peddler thirty-five years before, and when he had stumbled back to his rocker again he propped the little picture against the lamp and fell back into his cushions.
Now, Bess! Don’t go preachin’ at me again. I’m drunk as a lord and I know it but hear me out, woman. Hear me out and you’ll understand. Now, Bess! Don’t scold!
And he turned his face away from the proud black eyes of the handsome country girl in the picture.
And still not looking at her he commenced rocking swiftly now and considered how he should shape the tale, how he could tell his long-dead wife why he had been driven again to the awful drunkenness that had been the plague and sorrow of their marriage. Something dripped with the soft rhythm of blood on the floor boards beside him and he saw that he had upset the bottle and the soft whisper of the falling drops made him shake all the worse and for a while there was no sound but that and the cry of the rockers and at last he dragged his eyes back to the stern cardboard face. Because she was waiting to hear his excuse and Bess got angry when she had to wait for things.
This mornin’! he choked. I borried Ben Harper’s skiff and went down in the deep place along the shore there below Jas’ Lindsay’s west fence. I ’lowed to catch me a few cats for supper, Bess. Now hold on, woman. Wait! The boy didn’t mind me borryin’ the skiff. I figgered to take her out every day like that for a little fishin’. He said I could!
Yet the eyes seemed to mock him: burning with scorn under the unfailing gleam of the lamp.
Hear me! Hear me out, woman! Hold on now, ’fore you go to preachin’ me!
Now he leaned toward the picture with starting eyes and jaws agape and his hands clamped to the table’s edge like the prisoner’s on a bar of justice.
Christ God Almighty! he breathed. If you’d a-seen it, Bess! Swee’ Jesus, if you’d a-seen it down there in the deep place!
Then he shut his eyes against the scorn of the dusty face and fell back in the rocker again and the faint, wooden tread of the rockers resumed like the pace of a damned sentry and he could hear her voice again: vibrant and rich with disdain as it had been in those decades long gone to earth: Drunken sot! You worthless, drunken fool!
Bess, don’t go ’way! Don’t leave me, Bess! Wait! Wait now till I tell ye—
And the hands thudded back to the table and the old face was back to the picture again, his nose fairly brushing it.
Under—the—stern, he grated. That’s whar I seen it! It was water black as No Bottom but I jedge it was ten foot down. Christ God Almighty, Bess, my heart like to bust inside me then—
He shut his eyes and slavered for a moment with the sheer horror of it and then he shook his head and lifted his eyes to the yellow lamp chimney.
—And like as not they’ll think it was me that done it, Bess. Like as not Jake Arbogast and them deppities’ll come and drag me off to Moundsville and slip me the noose, Bess. Oh, swee’ Jesus save us all!
And he could hear her voice now as plain as the voice of the man downshore in the houseboat laughing and joshing his sweetheart under the summer moon. And so he knew he would have to tell it all to her, from the beginning: what it was that he had seen. And so he gulped and licked his lips and turned his face away from hers before he began, mouthing the tale with his thick, drunken tongue.
About ten this mornin’ it was. I mind that, Bess, ’cause the nine-thirty eastbound was long gone. I taken Ben Harper’s skiff. John said I could! And I was down there fishing for cats over the deep place below Jason Lindsay’s west fence and directly I felt my hook catch on somethin’ and I bent over the stern—Swee’ Jesus, I can see it yet!—Swee’ Jesus save poor old Uncle Birdie! ’Deed, Bess, I thought first it was a snag or a tree root and I leaned over the stern—Bess, you know how clear the water is down there except in flood stage. Well, that’s right where it was, Bess, where the kids used to swim—where the water’s way over a man’s head.
Now he leaned closer across the table and his eyes burned back at the stern stare of the paper woman in the cheap tin frame. His fingernails bit into the table wood as he spoke.
—’Twas there I seen it, Bess. Down there in all that water. Ben Harper’s old Model T and her in it!—Jesus save me!—Her in it, Bess—just a-sittin’ there in a white gown and her eyes looking at me and a great long slit under her chin just as clean as a catfish gill!—Oh, Godamighty!—and her hair wavin’ lazy and soft around her like meadow grass under flood waters. Willa Harper, Bess! That’s who! Down there in the deep place in that old Model T with her eyes starin’ and that slit in her throat just like she had an extry mouth. You hear me, Bess? You listenin’, woman? Swee’ Jesus save us all!
He paused, choking and gasping with fresh terror, and snatched up the bottle and greedily sucked from it the few drops that had not spilled, and then whirling as if at the footfall of an enemy hurled the bottle crashing through the wharfboat window.
And there hain’t a mortal human, he whispered, not just to her but to the night now, to whatever ears might be harking at the shattered window through which the breath of the mist already curled. There hain’t a mortal human I can tell but you, Bess. For if I go to the Law they’ll hang it onto me.
He staggered sobbing to his feet and wallowing his way to the door like a listing boat, steadied himself against the jamb and stared off wildly into the darkness toward the shore to southward: where the tiny lamps of the shantyboats gleamed in the dark.
One of them, he whispered, slobbering into the stubble of his chin. It was one of them shantyboat trash done it. But they’ll think it was me. Christ God Almighty, they’ll think it was old Uncle Birdie!
And he stumbled back into the tangled blankets of his cot and fell to snoring, rousing up from time to time to quarrel with his dreams, while the eyes of the woman stared through the unwavering and golden lamplight: eyes unforgiving, dark with scorn and outrage now fifty years lost in the dust of the Ravens Rock churchyard.
—
I’m hungry, John. Let’s go downstairs and eat supper. The door’s locked!
Why did Daddy lock us in our rooms? Were you bad again, John?
Hush up! I’m thinkin’, Pearl.
What about?
About gettin’ away. Listen to me, Pearl. You’ve got to mind me tonight.
All right, John.
They huddled in the bedroom, hearing Preacher below in the kitchen eating the hot supper Icey had brought and taking his time about it because they would be there as long as he wanted them there and because presently he would climb the stairs and have the first real privacy he had ever known when he asked them the question again.
No matter what he says! whispered John. No matter what he does, Pearl—remember what you swore!
Yes.
But he thought: But there are ways. He will take her on his lap again and start in again about the secrets and she will commence to giggle directly because she loves him because she is too dumb to know what he really wants.
Preacher had finished his supper now and was singing while he rinsed the dishes and stacked them by the pump. And when the house grew still again John thought: You never hear him coming up steps because his feet are like leaves falling, like shadows in the moonlight. He is coming up them stairs right this very minute, I bet, and directly he’ll unlock the door and we will hardly hear the key.
Hello there, children! Guess what? I saved you some supper. Have we got good appetites tonight, my lambs?
I’m hungry, said Pearl.
Why, sure you’re hungry. And guess what’s waitin’ for you. There’s fried chicken and candied sweets and cornsticks and apple cobbler!
Can I have my supper please?
Well, sure. Naturally. I’ll go warm it up for you directly. But first—
Can I have milk, too?
Yes, little bird. To be sure! he cried, gathering her gently into his arms. But first of all we’ll have a little talk.
Pearl frowned and put her finger in her mouth, remembering the night he twisted her arm.
—About our secrets! he said softly.
No, whispered Pearl.
No? And why, pray tell?
Because John said I mustn’t!
Ah, but we both know what a bad, bad boy John is. In fact, I think we had better punish John tonight for the way he’s been carryin’ on lately. But we’ll attend to John later, won’t we, my lamb? Now let’s just you and me talk. We’ll have a nice little chat and we won’t even let John open his
mouth.
Pearl scowled at John.
You’re bad, John! We’ll have a chat and we won’t let you open your mouth!
The moon had come up: a sickly wisp of silver in the last phase, hanging like a harvester’s sickle in the apple tree below the grape arbor.
Do you have any secrets you’d like to tell me, Pearl?
Yes, she whispered, torn by those strange winds of yes and no.
What is it?
She was still, her eyes moving gravely back and forth between the two of them.
The money, she said softly and darted a glance at John.
Ah, of course! The money. And where is the money, little darling?
She began to sob.
John said—she choked softly.
Preacher slapped his knee and his eyes crackled dangerously.
Never—mind—what—John—said!
He thrust her to the floor and towered above them, radiant with fresh fury.
I’ve told you once, my girl, that John ain’t even here as far as you and me is concerned. John don’t matter! Can you understand that? Eh?
Yes.
John is a meddler! Do you understand that? John is a nasty, sneaking, mean little—! Stop sniveling! Looky here a minute! In my hand—here!
He shot his left hand into the alpaca coat and brought out the knife and bounced it twice in his palm: the blade still secret in the bone helve, awaiting the cunning button’s touch.
See this, now? Know what it is?
Yes. I know.
Looky! What do you see now? What is it, Pearl?
I don’t know.
Well then don’t say, I know, if you don’t. That’s lying. This is a knife! Want to see something cute? Looky now!
He clasped the bone handle in his palm and, closing it, touched the button lightly with the finger named H and now the six-inch silver blade, honed to paper-keenness, flicked out like the clever bright wing of a toy bird. Pearl smiled.
How about that, now! he cried, proud as a child, but then his face snapped back into a mask of blanched leather and his lips curled angrily.
This, said Preacher, is what I use on meddlers, my lamb! Get me? For meddlers!
He laid the knife open on the bright calico of the quilt on the bed and lifted his eyes to the boy.
