Jeanie reached down to pick up the hoe, but Bony set his foot on the handle, and she could not lift it.
“That was no story I was trying to dress up for you,” he said, shaking his head at her. “That’s the truth.”
“Davi will take care of himself,” Jeanie said slowly.
“Not if he was to trip and fall off that chained-log path into a mire-hole, on a pitch-black night,” Bony said, swinging his head from side to side. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
Jeanie closed her eyes for a moment, promising herself to make Davi stop staying at new cabin after dark.
“Some folks won’t learn a lesson till it’s too late,” Bony told her.
He had already taken two or three steps toward her, and before she realized what was happening, he had taken another step and grabbed her. Jeanie tried to jerk away from him, but her dress was so old and worn she was afraid it would be torn if she tried to struggle with Bony. Bony put both arms around her and tried to kiss her.
“You wouldn’t try to do that if Davi was here,” Jeanie said.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he laughed. “What’s he got to do with it now?”
She pulled away from him, holding him off with her elbows stiff, and then she hit him as hard as she could. All he did was laugh at her.
“I like a girl with plenty of fight in her,” Bony said.
He caught her with both hands. Her dress tore like a sheet of newspaper. While she struggled to cover herself she realized how much strength was bound up in a man’s muscles.
“The more you fight, the more you’ll wear yourself out,” he told her, laughing at her while she tried to hold the torn dress together. The dress had been torn down her back to her waist, and she could feel the hot sun burning her bare body. “And more than that,” Bony said, “when you fight, it just naturally makes your dress rip more and more.”
Jeanie stepped closer to Bony. A moment later, she had pushed with all her strength, and he went tumbling backward. The last she saw of him then was when his feet went kicking into the air over his head. He had ruined nearly two whole rows of onions and cabbages.
Running with all her might, and holding her dress behind her, Jeanie reached the safety of the kitchen. She slammed the door shut and pushed the table against it.
Bony walked around the house several times like a dog circling a strange animal he was afraid to strike at. He looked in the windows, first at the front and then at the rear, but he did not try to open them. After a while, he sat down on a stump only half a dozen steps from the front door.
“I could get in if I wanted to,” he shouted at Jeanie. “I could smash open one of these windows with no trouble at all. That’s all I’d have to do to get in, if I wanted to. But I guess I’ll wait awhile.”
Jeanie huddled on the floor beside the bed, shivering and crying. Some time later, she thought she heard a sound of some kind outside the room. She crept on her hands and knees to the window and looked out through the broken shutter. Bony was walking slowly down the path toward the swamp. He did not look back.
With the strength she had left, she crawled back to the bed and fell across it. She cried until she lost consciousness.
It was completely dark when she woke up. Running to the window, she could see by the sky that the sun had set a long time before. Overhead were dark patches of clouds drifting toward the moon.
By then she was fully awake. She went to the door, and back to the window. She did not know how many times she went back and forth, looking. Each time she crossed the room she felt weaker. Then she fell on the floor sobbing and shivering, too weak to get to her knees.
At last Jeanie opened the door and looked searchingly into the moon-swept yard. There was still no sign of Davi out there. At first she ran in circles about the place, trying to make up her mind what to do. Then she turned down the path and ran with all her might toward the swamp. A few yards from the edge of the swamp, where the single log path began, she stopped suddenly. Before her lay the tangled swamp over which Davi had always carried her. She started slowly, testing each step of the footing on the slippery, barkless, chained logs. Before she had gone the length of the first log, she felt herself being lifted off her feet. She could not turn around, but she could feel the strange arms around her waist, and she knew then that it was Bony who had caught her up. She did not cry out when he lifted her off her feet and carried her back to the solid ground at the end of the log.
Bony put her down, turning her around to look into her face. He was smiling at her in the same way he had looked while sitting on the stump in the garden that afternoon.
“You’re up mighty late,” he said.
‘Where’s Davi?” Jeanie cried.
“Davi?” Bony repeated. “I was thinking the same thing myself only a little while ago. To tell the truth exactly, I don’t know where he’s at.”
“You do know, Bony! Where’s Davi?”
He held her more tightly, gripping his fingers around her arms.
“I’ve got an idea, but I wouldn’t swear to it,” he said. “The reason I wouldn’t swear to it is because I didn’t see it with my own eyes. It’s so dark in here every time a cloud passes under the moon that it’s hard to see your own hand in front of you.”
“You tell me where Davi is!” Jeanie cried, beating her hands against him.
“I’d say that maybe Davi started across the swamp and tripped up. It was mighty foolish of him to start across the swamp on a cloudy night. I’d be afraid of falling into one of those mire-holes, if it was me.”
Jeanie tore herself away from Bony. He ran after her, but she managed to slip out of his grasp, and she ran toward the swamp. Bony lost sight of her completely after half a dozen steps. He could hear the sounds she made, but it was almost impossible to tell the true direction they came from.
“Jeanie!” he shouted. “Jeanie! Come back here, you fool! You can’t cross the swamp! Come back here, Jeanie!”
Jeanie did not answer him, and he started treading his way along the first log of the path. He stopped when he found he could not see or feel his way any farther. He listened, and he could not hear anything of Jeanie. In desperation, he got down on his hands and knees and felt his way forward along the slippery logs. Every once in a while he stopped and called to Jeanie, listened for some sound of her, and felt in the mire-holes beside the path.
Towards morning, mud-caked and helpless, Bony reached the firm ground at the end of the path. He sat down to wait for daylight, wondering how long it would take to find some trace of Jeanie, or of Davi.
(First published in College Humor)
Mamma’s Little Girl
“I’M AFRAID,” ARLENE whispered, closing her eyes tightly. “I am so afraid, honey.”
In the next room, Miss McAllister lifted the heavy lid and rattled half a hod of dusty coke into the firebox. The cookstove was already red-hot on top, and the heat from it sang in the stifling air.
Before replacing the lid on the stove, Miss McAllister walked over to the table by the window and picked up a piece of gauze that had been lying there on the white oilcloth ever since she had finished sterilizing the blue and white enameled pan. She carried the cloth to the stove and dropped it into the flame. There was a sizzling sound, a leaping tongue of purple fire, a puff of blackish smoke, and the gauze had been incinerated.
Miss McAllister shook down the ashes for the third time.
“I’m so afraid,” Arlene said again, her lips trembling more than ever. “Honey, don’t — don’t let anything happen to me!”
“It will be all right,” I said, looking away from the eyes that burned through me. “Nothing could ever happen to you, Arlene. He promised nothing would. Everything will have to be all right.”
Her fingers stiffened.
“I told Mamma we were going for a ride into the country this afternoon. I told her we would not be back in time for dinner tonight. I told Mamma not to worry, because I would be with you.”
The heat fr
om the next room was swimming before my eyes. All the doors and windows had been closed tightly, and there was not a breath of fresh air anywhere. Overhead, beads of pitch dropped from the pine ceiling and fell on the bare floor at our feet.
“What did she say?” I asked Arlene. “Did she say anything?”
“She said that would be all right. She said she knew you would bring me home safely.”
“What did you say?”
“What did I say then? Why, I’ve forgotten now. Though I suppose I told her we would be back early. Why?”
Miss McAllister came into the room and looked at us. She stood close to the other door, turning around to look at us. She was wearing a stiffly starched white skirt with broad straps over the shoulders, and white cotton stockings and white canvas shoes with flat heels. The blouse she was wearing was pink georgette, and it was so thin that I could see the brown mole on her skin just above her waist.
“Where is he now?” I asked her.
“He’ll be here any minute now,” Miss McAllister said, looking at Arlene. “He phoned that he was on his way.”
Arlene’s fingers squeezed mine.
“You don’t suppose he will be delayed, do you?” I asked. “Do you think there’ll be anything to make him late? Will he get here in time?”
“Of course he will come,” Miss McAllister said, smoothing the pink georgette over her breasts and laughing deeply within her chest when she looked at Arlene.
A bead of glistening brown pitch fell from the ceiling to the toe of Miss McAllister’s right shoe, missing the tip of her nose by a hair’s breadth and dropping between the hollow of her breasts. Somebody was coming up the squeaky stairs.
Arlene was about to whisper something to me when the door opened and Doctor Anderson came in. He paused a moment to look at us. He smiled at Arlene, waved his hand at me, and then turned to Miss McAllister. She closed the door, bolted it with the thumb lock, and took Doctor Anderson’s hat and hung it on the tree behind her. They walked into the next room, side by side, talking to each other.
Doctor Anderson wet his finger on his tongue and tapped the top of the stove with it. We could hear the sizzle in the room where we were.
“I like your regulation blouse,” Doctor Anderson said. “At the next meeting of the board, I’m going to propose that we adopt your style of uniform for all the nurses at the hospital.”
Miss McAllister unbuttoned his vest and helped him with his long white coat.
“I forgot to bring the other one with me today,” she said. “I was in such a rush all morning that I didn’t have time to look for a regulation blouse.”
“How did you feel this morning? All right?”
“I had a little wobble in my walk for an hour or so. When I first got up, I felt like I was walking on stilts.”
“My wife asked me what kind of case I had last night. I told her it was an emergency call.”
There was a quick step, a moment’s silence, and an almost inaudible sucking of lips.
Doctor Anderson stepped into the doorway.
“All right, Miss —” he said. “We’re ready now.”
Arlene turned her face from him and buried her head against me.
“I’m afraid, honey,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid.”
I could not release her, and after a while Doctor Anderson came over and pulled us apart. He said something to Miss McAllister that I did not hear.
“Kiss me just once more, honey, and I’ll not be afraid to go,” Arlene said, holding her lips up to mine. “I’ll not be afraid to go.”
Doctor Anderson stepped back a moment. He waited for several minutes, fingering his stethoscope.
“All right, Miss —” he said. “We’re ready now.”
“I’m not afraid any longer,” Arlene said, standing.
Doctor Anderson took her by the arm and led her into the next room. I saw them enter the kitchen and I could hear Miss McAllister shaking down the ashes in the red-hot cookstove for the fourth time. It was so hot by then that the air in both rooms smelled scorched.
After a few minutes, Doctor Anderson came to the door. His sleeves were rolled above his elbows and his face and hands were so inflamed by the heat in the kitchen that the skin looked as though it had been smeared with blood.
He beckoned to me.
“You may come in for just a moment, Mr.—” he said. “But please do not touch anything on the table with your hands or body.”
He stepped back and I walked unsteadily into the room with them. Miss McAllister had opened a can of ether, and the odor had already permeated the air. It made me a little sick to smell it, even though the odor was still faint.
“I’m not afraid at all now,” Arlene said, smiling up at me from the white oilcloth on the table top. “Kiss me just once more, and I’ll be all right, honey.”
Miss McAllister stepped over to the table and drew the sheet over Arlene, folding back the hem at her throat. When she turned to go, she looked at the three of us through tight lips.
Doctor Anderson stepped over to the table and drew the sheet from Arlene, jerking it off in a single motion, and throwing it on a chair beside the cookstove. He came back and stood on the other side of the table looking down at Arlene.
I kissed her until Doctor Anderson laid his hand on my back and pulled me away from her. Her face was bloodless.
“That will be too much excitement for the patient, Mr.—” he said, pushing me away.
Miss McAllister was standing impatiently beside me with the ether cone in her hands. She caught Doctor Anderson’s eyes and nodded her head in the direction of the door. He turned me around and pushed me towards the other room.
When I looked back at Arlene and saw her for the last time, she raised her head just a little and said something. I stopped and waited until she could repeat what I had not heard.
“Please call up Mamma,” she said, smiling, “and tell her I’ll not be home tonight.”
“I will, Arlene,” I promised, starting back into the room where she lay. “I’ll do anything in the world for you, Arlene.”
Miss McAllister tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for Doctor Anderson to send me out.
“That’s sweet of you to say that, honey — and don’t forget to call up Mamma and tell her I’ll not be home tonight. And — honey, if — if I never see you again — you will always love me, won’t you — you’ll always remember me, won’t you?”
Before I could run to her, Doctor Anderson had grabbed me by the arms and had pushed me into the next room. Miss McAllister ran and shut the door between us, bolting it with the thumb lock. Already the sickening odor of ether had entered that room, and I ran to the other door and down the stairs for fresh air.
On the front porch the old man was still sitting there smoking his pipe. The tobacco had burned out, but he puffed on the stem just as though it were lit. He glanced up when I ran out on the porch, and looked at me over the rim of his spectacles.
“I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen your face before, son,” he said, squinting at me. “When did you move in?”
My head was swimming and I could not understand anything he was saying. I leaned against the rooms-for-rent sign on the wall, closing my eyes as I felt myself slide slowly downward to the porch floor.
(First published in Contact)
Honeymoon
NEVER MIND WHAT put Claude Barker up to getting married. Nearly everybody does something like that sometime or other. They’ll be going along minding their own business for months at a time, and then all at once they come across a girl that sort of — well, never mind about that, either.
If it had been anybody else than Claude, nobody would have thought much about it. He was one of the bunch that had been hanging around town, mostly at the poolroom, doing nothing most of the time, for five or six years, maybe ten or twelve. Claude said he was waiting for a job at the filling station, but everybody else who wasn’t working said that, too.
Jack and Crip
were sitting in the sun in front of the filling station when Claude went by the first time. That was about ten o’clock that morning, and Claude was on his way to the courthouse to get a license.
“What’s Claude up to?” Crip said.
The car Claude had borrowed early that morning from Jack sounded as if it would never make the trip to the courthouse and back.
“Search me,” Jack said. “Maybe he thinks he knows where he can find a job.”
“Yeah,” Crip said, spitting. “But whoever would have thought of borrowing a car to run away from it? If a job ever hears of Claude, it’ll wish it hadn’t by the time it catches up with him. He’d turn around and fan its tail all the way from here to Atlanta and back again. His old man . . .”
Claude’s old man, sitting on the bench in front of the post office, said he thought he knew why Claude had suddenly taken it into his head to get married. Everybody was waiting for the cotton-gin whistle to blow so he could go home to dinner. Claude had been to the courthouse and back, and somebody had seen him drive out to the preacher’s house on the edge of town half an hour before.
Claude’s old man said he reckoned he knew why Claude was getting married. “By God, it wouldn’t pain a man much to make a guess like that,” somebody said. “No, but it would be a hell of a come-off if there were no more girls like Willeen Howard left in the country.” “That ain’t no lie,” somebody else said. “When that time comes, I’ll be ready to turn the country over to the niggers and boll weevils and screw-worms and sell out from here.”
The ginnery whistle down the railroad tracks blew for the twelve-thirty layoff. Claude’s old man stood up to go home to see what his wife had cooked up for dinner.
“I’ll tell you people what put the marrying bug on Claude. The boy is young yet, and he wasn’t used to fooling around with white girls. He’s been of the habit . . .”
The crowd broke up like a rotten egg hitting the side of a barn. “Claude’s been in the habit . . .”
Old man Barker didn’t have time to finish. He had to hurry home and eat his meal before his wife let the victuals get cold.
Stories of Erskine Caldwell Page 43