Hill Man

by Janice Holt Giles

  Sick as he was that tickled Mister Rowe till he laughed himself into another heaving spell. “Jim, shut up!” Miz Rowe told him.

  “Well, by God,” he said, still laughing, “1’11 bet I’m the first man ever took a hearse ride and knew it! I’ll find out how it feels to be a corpse. Only a corpse doesn’t feel, does it?”

  “Don’t be morbid! I said shut up!”

  “I’m not being morbid. I just think it’s funny.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  She went with him to the city and stayed several days, but him being an alcoholic as well as the other things was wrong with him, they wouldn’t even let her see him, so after a while she came on back home.

  While she was gone Rady’d finished up on the Rowe place. The corn was laid by, the tobacco cut and racked in the barn, and everything was tidy so’s the Pringles would only have to keep an eye on things and could turn to cutting and sawing up the winter wood. Work was pressing on Rady’s place, though. He went over the day Miz Rowe came home to ask after him, but he set to then cutting his own tobacco and getting caught up around the place. Must of been a week or ten days he never even went near the Rowe place. Then he went over late one evening just to take a look around and make sure the old man and boys were keeping busy. He satisfied himself they were doing all right and then he went over towards the house to ask after Mister Rowe again.

  Miz Rowe saw him coming across the back lot and met him near the gate. “Where have you been?” she said, her mouth as tight-crimped as if she’d been his wife.

  “Workin’ over at home,” he says, “why?”

  “You didn’t say you weren’t coming … you didn’t tell me … I didn’t know …”

  “Why would I tell you? I’m caught up here, an’ I’ve not slacked nothin’. The Pringles is takin’ keer of what’s to do.”

  “I didn’t mean you’d neglected anything.”

  He knew what she meant. She’d looked for him every day and he hadn’t come. And every day he hadn’t come she’d looked that much longer and that much harder the next day, getting more and more uneasy and restless. He knew how the days had gone, with her standing at the back door keeping her eye on the woods path, watching for him and looking to see him come through the gate. Getting mad at herself for being so foolish and flinging herself around to do some chore in the house, and fifteen minutes later taking up her stand at the door, unable to keep busy at anything for fear she’d miss him. Like he’d been there, he could see her, fixing her breakfast and pulling the table over so’s she could keep an eye on the gate while she ate. Then she’d wash the dishes, watching out the window. She’d string out her kitchen chores as long as she could, because she could see the gate from the kitchen. But finally, and he yet hadn’t come, she’d have the other rooms to redd up, and he knew how she’d make up half the bed, maybe, before giving in to the need to go to the kitchen door. And she would stand a few minutes, then cuss a little maybe, and maybe cry a little, and go back and make up the other side of the bed. He knew how it had been, with her vowing to herself she wouldn’t watch the gate, and breaking her vow five minutes later. He knew well enough what she had meant when she came out to the back gate, her mouth crimped and her words short.

  “Don’t you think,” she said, “it would have been nicer to tell me you were going to work at home this week?”

  “I don’t know,” Rady said. “I never thought what was nice or what wasn’t. I never thought it was any of yore business one way or the other. I ain’t a perticklerly nice feller, Miz Rowe.”

  “You certainly are not” she stormed out at him. “Well, now that you’re here, will you saddle up for me?”

  “Why, shore,” and he went in the barn to get her saddle.

  She watched him go into the barn, and then she flung around and went into the house to change her clothes. When she came out Rady had her horse ready for her. She got on and pulled the horse’s head around like she was leaving. Then she pulled him up and looked down at Rady. “Ride with me,” she said. “Get Jim’s horse and ride with me.”

  Rady made as if to look at the saddle girth. He had to move her foot out of the way, and he was slow turning loose of her ankle. He looked up at her and said, kind of soft, “I couldn’t do that, Miz Rowe. Hit would be all over the settlement in less’n an hour that we’d been ridin’ together, with him gone. Hit wouldn’t do.”

  She bit her lip and he could tell she was close to crying.

  “But I tell you,” he went on, “I’ll wait fer you in the woods. Down by the branch.”

  “No,” she said, quick-like, “no!”

  “All right. But I’ll wait. An’ I’ll be there this time of evenin’ ever’ day. I’ll be there when you want to come.”

  He figured there wasn’t much use him waiting that evening, but he did so, until nearly dark. She didn’t come. And she didn’t come the next day nor the next. But she did come finally, of course. He’d known she would. All he had to do was wait.

  She came from the house, in a white dress like a bride’s, and she was crying when she came. Rady saw her stop at the gate and look back at the house, and then duck her head and hurry into the woods. He went to meet her, his hair still wet from the bath he’d taken in the brook. He was always clean with his body, but in the summertime he was downright finicky, going to the creek every evening to wash himself of the sweat and field dust. His clothes now were the ones he’d had on all day, but under them his body was clean and ready.

  He went to meet her and she came straight to him, not making a sound with her crying, just letting the tears roll unhindered down her face. But even with her face wet with tears there was still a look of pride on it. She didn’t come gladly, nor she didn’t even come willingly, but she did come pridefully.

  And she went straight into Rady’s arms like a homing pigeon, fierce and eager and hungry. Hill men don’t talk at such times. They don’t make love by talkin’; they just take, and even if Rady had wanted to talk, he knew she wouldn’t. She’d come … she was ready. He held her, and like they were one body they touched and pressed and flattened, melting together in the hardness of their touching. Like a waterdry deer, they slaked the long thirst of their mouths, drinking deep and greedy, until neither of them had any breath left. Like starved pieces of living flesh seeking food, their hands and their mouths looked for and found the places of love, neither of them saying a word, neither of them even knowing when they sank down to the bed of moss on the bank of the brook. All they knew was, it was now … the joining and the finishing of what they had started. They were shaking with the need, impatient of the end. They didn’t even take off their clothes that first time. It wasn’t that Rady took her … they took each other, she matching his heat with her own, following him in the mounting rhythm, in the hurried sweeping away of all things real and solid, completely joined, one flesh. Followed him, or led him, into the quick breathing, the quivering, shivering suns and shaking earth, until the dam was broken … the flood spilled.

  Not even afterwards did they talk much. Once Miz Rowe moved her head on the moss and Rady took off his shirt and made a pillow for her. “You’ll be cold,” she said.

  “No.”

  She looked around her at the woods. “It’s a pretty place.”

  “Yes.”

  She slid her hand into a flat band of sunlight and turned it this way and that to watch the light, studying it. The back of her hand was smooth and gold … and then she turned her hand over and made a cup of it. She held the sunlight in the cup of her hand, and then she opened her fingers and spilled it out, slow, like she had used it up and it was no good to her now. She turned her head to look at Rady.

  “Is the sun almost down?”

  “Almost.”

  He turned over on his stomach and laid his face on his folded arms, so he could look at her. He was bare above the waist and she put out her hand and ran a finger down his back. He shivered.

  She smiled at him and took her hand away.


  He smiled back at her and then he closed his eyes and slept a little. Not long, for the sun was still tipping the trees when he woke. But he didn’t know when she had left. There was only a little flattening of the moss where she had laid, and his shirt was still warm from her head.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rady never made the mistake of acting like Miz Rowe was beholding to him. He took no advantage of that evening in the woods. Never presumed on it at all. Most guys would of. Would of been clumsy enough to have taken for granted that once would guarantee more. But Rady didn’t. He never acted like there’d be other times, or even another time. He knew Miz Rowe pretty good by now. Before, where he had made her know what she could have, by touching her and reminding her of her own wants, he now left her free to remind herself by her own remembering. He acted like he had never touched her. Like he didn’t know how she’d come in a white dress with tears running down her face. Like he didn’t know how greedy and starved and hungry she’d been. Like he didn’t know how the bed of moss was barely flattened where she’d lain.

  And he did it without making her feel it had been quick done and over for him, forgot and moved on past. That would have made her feel as cheap as pestering and reminding would have made her sick. He didn’t make that mistake.

  Instead he made her know the shine was all there, and he did it by going about his business as usual, only adding one thing. In little ways he took more care of her and consideration. At best, with plenty of money, living in the backwoods has got a lot of everyday problems. And the Rowes never had plenty of money now. Long since they had had to send the people they’d brought with them back to the city. They had no help of any kind about the house. And while there were conveniences in their house most ridge folks would of counted luxuries, they burned wood for heat and cooking just like the rest of us, and Miz Rowe did the washing and tended the house like any other woman in the settlement. She had the electric in the house, and she had a washing machine. And she had a hand pump in the kitchen to furnish her water. But it wasn’t easy for a woman used to city ways and the ways of money. There were lots of ways Rady could make things easier for her. Like getting her wash water ready for her the night before. Like separating the milk before it was brought in the house. Like seeing her firewood was good burning and stacked handy to use. And he did so. And every extra thing he did was like telling her she was fine and good and nice, and to be cared for and protected.

  He did those extra things as casual as the regular work, made no fuss or bother with them, and saw to it they laid no pressure on her. Saving the pressure of her own wants, stirred by the sight of him day after day.

  There were other times, of course. But Rady let them come at her wish. Like he knew that was the only way they could come without tearing down something in her that held her together. But like he’d done when he told her he’d wait in the woods till she came, he gave her the feeling that he was always waiting. Like all she had to do was pick her own time and place and he’d be there, waiting.

  She never would say a time and place, though. She never would say, “I’ll meet you this evening,” or pick a time ahead, or name a place. She would come, instead, of a sudden, like something inside her had, right then, to be fed and satisfied, without waiting.

  It suited Rady. It was a man’s way and he could understand it. A thing planned and named has none of the need that must be met now, and loses by its naming and planning some of its goodness. He liked it in her. And besides it gave him a feeling of excitement. He never knew ahead what day, or what hour she’d seek him out.

  She met him twice more at the same place in the woods before Mister Rowe came home. Without saying anything to him, she would be there in the evening when he cut through on his way home. Waiting where the path turned by the brook and where the moss laid heavy on the bank. And it was like it had been the first time … hard and greedy and hungry. No words said. Just a starved, needful joining.

  Then when Mister Rowe came home, white and weak and shaky, and housebound by the first chilly days of October, she came to the barn one rainy afternoon, and they climbed to the hayloft. It was good up there, high up in the barn with the hay warm and sweet-smelling all around them, and the rain solid and heavy on the roof right over their heads. She was different that afternoon. She was more free, less greedy, less knotted up. It was like the rain and the nest of hay and the gray day had soothed her somehow, making her slip some tight hold inside, and by slipping the tight hold, let her take with a kind of gladness, and give with a joyfulness Rady had not known in her before. It was like she knew, all at once, it was more than the hard, starved need. Like she knew, now, it was fun … play … laughing … talking.

  That was the first time she took her clothes off, and she did it quick and in a hurry, without Rady’s asking or his help, like she wanted to be shut of them and unhindered. She laughed when she saw the mat of hair on Rady’s chest and buried her face in it and bit him, easy at first and then hard, until he swore at her and cuffed her loose from him. They laughed a lot that afternoon, and slept a little and woke and laughed again, at the hay in their hair, at the wrinkles it made on their bodies, at the itch it made on their backs, and they were together again, still laughing, teasing and loving all together.

  The hayloft was where they were together after that. It was too cold and too rainy for outdoors, and besides they liked it there. Maybe the hay was like the twigs and straw and bits of string a bird uses to build a nest with. Maybe the loft, being high in the barn, was like the top of a tree. Anyway, they liked it, and once a week maybe, or every ten days or so that fall and early winter Miz Rowe came to the barn and waited for Rady. He knew when she was there. She left her red ribbon hanging on a nail at the foot of the ladder.

  Sometimes she’d be asleep when he went up to her, curled up like a little girl in a bed of hay, and he’d wake her by tickling her neck with a straw, or by kissing her so soft she’d brush like it was a gnat or moth. Sometimes she’d be reading, and maybe she’d pretend she hadn’t heard him coming and not put her book aside until he snatched it away. Sometimes she was happy and ready to laugh and tease. Sometimes she was broody and cried easy. Sometimes she talked a blue streak, fast and hurried, and sometimes she was quiet and made Rady do the talking.

  However it was with her, though, during those fall and first winter days, during the time of the falling of leaves, and of the shucking of corn, and of the shortening of days, she never talked about one thing. It was like she had agreed with herself not to name it. Like she was afraid, maybe, to mention it or look straight at it or handle it at all. She never talked about what they were going to do. She never said what’s to come of this, or where is it going, or what will be its end. She never said to Rady, what are we going to do? She never said, what about Annie? And she surely never said, what about Jim? It was like she’d called a truce with time and was trying to get him to settle for Now. Like this time, this gray, misty day in the hayloft, was all there was. No more to come. Nothing real beyond it. This, now, was all. And she never talked about more.

  Rady never named it, for he knew there would be more. He hadn’t yet thought it out, and I wouldn’t say for sure he ever did. I misdoubt but few men, looking back on their lives, would say I did this and this and this because I knew what I wanted and where I was going. Instead he’d say I did this because a thing came up I could turn my way. And I did that because it came handy. And I did this other thing because it happened so. And then put them all together and you can see how a man always does what’s in his nature to do. And he goes where it’s his nature to go, and he wants what’s in his nature to want. Once Rady wanted a gun, and he got it. He wanted a dog, and he got it. He wanted a gittar, and he got that too. They were in his nature to want, and he followed his nature. Then he wanted Annie and Harm Abbott’s farm. It turned out he could work it his way. Now he wanted Miz Rowe and the Rowe place. He didn’t know yet how he would get them, but he never doubted for a minute that he would. For besid
es it being his nature to want certain things, it was his nature also to get what he wanted.

  There was time, though, and he rode it easy, content to wait, to let something come up, to let something turn handy, to let something happen. He’d know when it did.

  Tobacco market opens the first week in December and Rady was right there with his loads, one in Mister Rowe’s name, one in his own. And when it sold and he got his checks he went to the bank and cashed his own. Mister Rowe’s he endorsed and put in the bank like he’d been told. When he got home that night he set down and did some figuring. He’d sold fifteen yearlings that fall and twelve hogs. He had a fine tobacco crop of his own, and half of Mister Rowe’s due him. Even after taking out what he owed old man Pringle he’d made a good profit. He figured he had enough he could get the bull he wanted, and with Mister Rowe furnishing the land and the seed for another pasture, it wouldn’t cost him much to raise a bigger herd next year. He could buy, say, ten more calves and raise ten of his own, breed Mister Rowe’s cows and take half the calves and market anyway forty head. He’d have to clear some new land and raise more corn, but there was land aplenty, and he’d see that it made corn a plenty. His mind was sharp and clear, thinking straight and seeing it all work out.

  He went over to Mister Rowe’s the next day and laid all his figures in front of him. To give him credit, Rady never cheated a penny on Mister Rowe. He had receipts for all his business and he turned them over to him along with every dime that was coming to him. But of course it looked right scant to a man that was used to alot. He kind of made a wry face when he looked at the statements. “That all?” he said.

  “Hit’s pretty good, Mister Rowe,” Rady told him. “We got a fair price on the tobaccer, an’ the extry corn an’ oats. We done right good seems to me.”

  Mister Rowe handed the statements to Miz Rowe. “That’s what we’ll have to live on another year.”