“Today’s my birthday,” he shouted. “Mama gave me a iron bank and Grandpa gave me five pennies to shoot the bear ’cause I’m five.”
Mike’s eyes met Letty’s as he wiped his feet on the rag rug at the door. She saw the regret in them. Something deep within her stirred. He had missed out on five years of his son’s life through no fault of his.
“So you’re five years old. You’re a good-sized boy for five,” he said with wonderment in his voice. “I suppose that’s too old to be picked up and . . . hugged.” His voice cracked, but Patrick didn’t notice.
“No, it ain’t. Grandpa hugs me. Mama hugs me, too, but she can’t lift me up high. She says I’m too heavy.”
“Let’s see how heavy you are.” Mike grasped Patrick beneath the arms, lifted him, and gently bumped his head against the ceiling. “Son of a gun! You are heavy. You must weigh fifty pounds.”
Patrick giggled. “Looky, Mama! Dolan can lift me. He’s strong.”
When Mike lowered him, Patrick wound his arms about Mike’s neck and his legs about his waist. With his eyes closed and such a look of anguish on his face that Letty’s heart thumped painfully, Mike hugged his son.
“Happy birthday,” he murmured.
“We’re goin’ to have chocolate cake, Dolan.” Patrick giggled again. “Your whiskers scratch—”
“So will yours someday.”
“I like you, Dolan.” Patrick put lips sticky with cake frosting against Mike’s cheek.
“I like you too.” Mike’s eyes sought Letty’s. She was staring at him and Patrick, her cheeks red from the cookstove, her hands buried in her apron pockets. Her eyes looked straight into his as if she could read his innermost thoughts, and he sent a silent message. We’ve lost five years that we can never regain, Letty. I love you. I love this child we made together. It kills me to hear him call me Dolan.
An emotion rose up in Letty as acute as pain when she saw the loving look on Mike’s face as he looked at their child. She turned away lest he see the tears in her eyes. She hadn’t counted on her life being disrupted this way. All she’d wished for in life, after she had become reconciled to the fact Mike was not coming back, was to live here with her son and take care of Grandpa. Now the thought of the gentle touch of Mike’s lips and the safe haven of his arms sent a violent wave of longing crashing over her.
She had to get hold of herself.
“Dinner is almost ready,” she said, forcing lightness in her voice. “We’re having all the birthday boy’s favorites. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and spiced peaches.”
“I don’t like green beans,” Patrick said as soon as his feet hit the floor. “I don’t like ’em.”
“You won’t have to eat any today because it’s your birthday. Next time you will. They’re good for you. Come on, Grandpa. Where’s Helen?”
“Here I am.” Helen slipped around the table and dropped the package on Patrick’s plate.
“Another present. Oh, boy!” Patrick tore the paper and the marble bounced on the floor. He dived under the table after it. “Looky, Dolan. Helen gave me her marble.”
“It’s a dandy.” Mike rolled it around in his fingers. “You can use it as a taw.”
“What’s a taw?”
“That’s what you call your shooting marble.”
“I’ll use it as a shooter.” Patrick put the marble beside his plate. “I like it, Helen. It’s the best marble I got.”
Helen’s eyes fairly danced with pleasure.
Patrick was too excited to eat a proper meal, but Letty didn’t scold him. This was his day. He talked continually, taking full advantage of the grown-ups’ attention.
Jacob, under the guise of listening to Patrick’s chatter, watched his granddaughter and Mike Dolan. Although Letty didn’t direct any of her conversation to him, the hostility of the last few days had lessened. Jacob congratulated himself. He had made a good move when he sent Mike to the Pierce farm to ride home with her even though he had known the Watkinses would have seen her safely home. Dolan, Jacob noticed, could hardly keep his eyes off her. When Letty laughed, the man’s dark eyes shone with pleasure. He listened intently to every word she said. Yessirree, he had made a good move. Mike Dolan would do just fine. He had taken to farming like a duck to water. Jacob chuckled silently. All he had to do now was to sit back and let nature take its course.
Letty cleared the table and, wanting to make the occasion as festive as possible, made a big to-do about cutting and serving the birthday cake, even using clean plates. As she served clockwise around the table, her fingers were sticky with white icing by the time she reached Mike. His eyes lingered on her fingers before lifting to her face. What she saw there made sparks as alive as those in the fireplace race through her veins. He looked at her as if he were starving. It took a breathtaking moment for her to come out of her daze. When she did, she felt as if her heart had been suddenly exposed.
Jacob was the first to leave the table. He packed his pipe with tobacco and settled down in his big chair. When Mike stood, Patrick scooted around the table and took his hand.
“Don’t go. I want to show you how to shoot the bear.”
“I’m only going to the porch. There’s something there with your name on it.”
“A present? Golly!”
“A present.” Mike glanced at Letty, then back to his son. “Stand over there and shut your eyes. It isn’t wrapped.” He went to the door. “Don’t peek,” he cautioned just before he went out.
When the door opened again, Mike had a grin on his face like a boy who had been given a slingshot and a pocket full of stones. His laughing eyes darted first to Letty, then to Patrick, who stood in the center of the room with his hands over his eyes.
“All right. Open your eyes.”
Patrick’s hands fell away, his eyes flew open, and he blinked. “Stilts! Oh, boy! Stilts.”
“Have you ever walked on stilts?” Mike asked.
“Jimmy Watkins has some, but they’re too high for me.”
“These are six inches high. After you learn how to walk on them, we can move the platforms higher or make a new pair. Hold on,” he said when Patrick stuck his foot in one of the stirrups. “Your mama won’t want you walking on these in the house.”
“It’ll be all right if you hold onto him,” Letty said and turned to pour water from the teakettle into the dishpan. Her hands shook; her eyes misted.
Lordy, how was she ever going to sort out this mess? Grandpa was sitting over in his chair looking pleased with himself. Didn’t he know what a scandal it would cause if the neighbors found out Mike was Patrick’s father, there was no Mr. Graham, and she had never been married?
* * *
In a room above the Piedmont billiard parlor four men sat at a round table playing cards and drinking whiskey from a glass fruit jar. A grossly fat man was dealing. He paused, leaned sideways to spit in a can beside the chair, then continued passing out the cards.
“I knowed he was trouble the minute I set eyes on him,” Arlo said and slapped the last card down on the pile in front of him. “We was sittin’ in the store the day he got off the train. Unfriendly a cuss as I ever did see. He had a mean look on him and eyes as cold as the bottom of a well. Looked like he could split ya end to end and not bat a eye.”
“Maybe so,” Oscar Phillips snarled. “But he don’t know what trouble is. Us Phillipses don’t take kindly to being sneaked up on and laid flat like he done. Hell! One minute I was sayin’ my goodbyes to Letty; the next I was on the ground. He ain’t gettin’ away with it. I aim to stop his clock one way or another.”
“He’s a close-mouthed bastard. I tried to get a word out a him when he was staying over at the hotel ’cause I thought he might be a U.S. marshal, but he didn’t give out nothing.” The man who spoke had a red face and jowls that hung down almost to his collar. He also wore a tin star with the word deputy printed on it.
“Clerk said he asked where the Fletcher farm was.” Oscar said o
ut of the side of his mouth because the other side was still swollen.
“I ain’t figured out what a man like him is doin’ signin’ on as a hired hand,” the deputy said. “Old Jacob’s gettin’ on, but he can hire neighbors to help out at plantin’ and harvest time.”
“Ya reckon he’s lookin’ for a place to stash a load a white lighting?” As Arlo talked, tobacco juice gathered in the corner of his mouth.
“If he does, he’ll get the shit shot out of him sure as shootin’.” The deputy’s hard eyes stared into the fat man’s. “Ain’t nobody hornin’ in on my operation and drawin’ attention to that part of the county.”
“I heared a big boss is comin’ out from Chicago. Reckon it’s him?”
All eyes turned to Cecil Weaver who had arrived in town that morning after serving his time for bootlegging.
“Who told you that?” the deputy demanded.
“Boys in the jailhouse.” Cecil reached under the table for the fruit jar and took a long drink. Then he set the jar down on the table.
“Get that off the table,” the deputy snapped. “Ain’t no tellin’ who’ll come poppin’ in that door.”
“Ain’t nobody goin’ to see it,” Cecil grumbled as he set the jar on the floor. “I got to go get my little Helen.” Tears of self-pity filled his bloodshot eyes. “Poor little motherless girl—”
“Play cards, if you’re goin’ to,” Arlo said.
Oscar placed a card in the middle of the table and gave Cecil a sly look.
“I’m thinkin’ you’ll have a time gettin’ your little girl away from Mrs. Letty Graham. She’s taken a shine to her.”
“My poor baby needs her pa,” Cecil blubbered. “My woman is gone . . . my babies. All that’s left is my little H-Helen.”
Deputy Elmer Russell gave a snort of disgust. He was a man eaten up with resentment. Born and raised in the county, he had had a gigantic blow to his ego when he ran for sheriff and lost by an overwhelming majority to a man who had lived here for only a short while. He had reluctantly accepted the deputy job because he loved the authority it gave him, and he was privy to information that was helpful not only to him but to certain others. Not even Arlo and Oscar knew the extent of his connections. Men were getting rich selling illegal whiskey, and he intended to be one of them. If a big dealer was coming in to poach on his territory, he wanted to know about it.
“I asked you who told you the big boys were comin’?” Elmer slapped a couple of cards on the table. “Give me two,” he said to Arlo.
“My poor l-little motherless l-lamb—”
“Goddammit! Shut up your pissin’ and moanin’ or get out.”
“Tell him what he wants to know, Cecil,” Oscar urged.
“ ’Bout the big b-boys? Well . . . it was a feller who’d been in that iron bird-cage jailhouse over in Council Bluffs. You know the place? Hit’s the most god-awful place—Round, it is. Iron floors, iron walls. Cells is shaped like a piece a pie. He said there was a big old nigger in there who’d killed a white woman. He beat on the bars all night long. Boom! Boom! Boom! He said that bird cage went ’round and ’round—”
“Ah . . . shit!” Elmer reached over and grabbed Cecil by the shirt front. “You no-good drunken son-of-a-bitch. If you leave this room before you sober up I’ll nail your balls to a stump. Hear?”
“He’ll be all right, Elmer,” Oscar said. “I’ll watch him. He’s just all tore up ’bout not seeing his little girl.”
“Bullshit!” Elmer snarled.
“I’m not worried Cecil’ll spill anythin’. It’s that big dark bastard out at Fletcher’s that worries me. He ain’t there just to help out the old man. He’s got somethin’ else on his mind.”
“Like Letty Graham.” Arlo snickered and watched Oscar’s face darken with anger. “She’s been puttin’ the hard on you for years, ain’t she, Oscar? She sure can switch her pretty little ass, but I reckon it’d not hold a candle to the pretty little asses Dolan humped while he was over in France.”
“It gets to you, don’t it, Arlo?” Oscar said with heavy sarcasm. “All that ass out there and you ain’t had none yet. All you know about it is what you read in dirty books or hear the fellers talkin’ about.”
Arlo’s face flamed and his jaws shook. “You don’t know nothin’ ’bout me. I don’t tell you ever’thin’ I do.”
“I know enough to know you ain’t seen that stick between your legs in ten years. Maybe more,” Elmer said and laughed.
Arlo pushed back his chair and stood chewing viciously on a quid of tobacco. “Just ’cause you’re a deputy don’t give you no right to say things like that.”
“Sit down, Arlo. I’m just a hurrahin’ you. Tell you what. If you’re hankerin’ to get your pecker in somethin’ soft, I’ll take you down to Boley to see Naked Ann. For two bucks she’ll ride you till your eyeballs bug out.”
“Naked Ann don’t hold a candle to Genny at the Nook in Claypool.” Oscar leaned back and scratched his armpit. “And she’ll do it for two bits.”
Elmer gave Oscar a cold stare. “What makes you an authority on whores? You get what you pay for, Arlo. Remember that. Naked Ann knows every trick in the trade.”
“She ort to,” Oscar grumbled. “She’s been at it long enough.”
Arlo sat down. “I seen that Naked Ann once. Ain’t she a mite old ta be whorin’?”
Elmer snorted. “It ain’t her face ya’ll be lookin’ at, ya dumb cluck! Play cards or I’m headin’ out of here.”
They continued the card game playing three-handed. Cecil Weaver lolled in the chair, his eyes glazed, his mouth agape. When the game broke up, Elmer stood.
“I’ll be going out to Fletchers in a few days to see what I can find out about Mike Dolan. Keep your eye on this bird.” He jerked his head toward Cecil. “Jesus! He smells like he’s messed his drawers.”
CHAPTER
14
Spring arrived in all its glory. Dandelions sprang up; the buds on the lilac bushes popped; birds were busy building nests, and Letty was busy housecleaning. Jacob and Mike worked long hours in the fields.
After the floors had been scrubbed, the curtains and windows washed, the mattresses aired, and kerosene dribbled in the seams to discourage bed bugs, Letty cleaned out the small storage room across the hall from her room, taking some things to the cellar, others to the barn. She washed the floor and walls, laid down one of her grandma’s braided rag rugs, and moved in a dresser and Helen’s cot. She found a pair of old curtains for the windows and, after they had been washed, shortened them on the sewing machine.
Helen was delighted with the room and fascinated with the sewing machine. Letty cut pillowcases from the outer part of two sheets that had become so thin in the middle that they were beyond patching and taught Helen how to stitch them on the machine. By the end of the week, she was so adept that she made herself an apron from the skirt of one of Letty’s old dresses.
Once in the morning and again in the afternoon, Patrick carried a Mason jar of fresh water to the men in the field. He spent every possible moment with Mike, and, as hard as she tried to control her feelings, Letty couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. How ironic that the man her son had come to idolize was his father.
Under Jacob’s guidance Mike was learning every aspect of farming. The work was strengthening his body; the fresh air was healing his lungs. He was up before daylight and had the chores done by the time dawn streaked the sky. After a full day in the field, he spent an hour or two sharpening the plows, mending the harnesses, repairing the chicken house, or whatever else needed to be done.
Patrick looked forward to this time of day. He followed Mike like a shadow. Mike taught him things as simple as how to pound a nail or as complicated as splicing a rope.
The woodbox beside the cookstove was filled each evening. Mike chopped and carried in the wood, Patrick the kindling. Mike let him help sharpen the ax on the grindstone and cautioned him always to leave the blade sunk in a log so that it didn’t rust. B
efore dark they played a game of catch or Mike showed him the proper way to hold the bat, and pitched him a few balls. Jacob usually watched from the porch and yelled encouragement.
At bedtime, when Patrick had to be separated from his idol, the child threw his arms about his neck. Mike closed his eyes in an agony of bliss as he hugged his son tightly to him. It never failed to bring a lump to Letty’s throat. Patrick had missed so much. He deserved to know that this man he had come to adore was his father. But how could she tell him?
Gradually, Letty ceased to feel threatened by Mike’s presence although she avoided his eyes and seldom spoke directly to him. On the rare occasions when they were so close that she could smell the tangy odor of his body, she was steeped in sensation. Her heart thumped and goose bumps climbed her arms. At times she could feel his eyes on her, but he never made any attempt to catch her alone.
On Monday morning, a week after Mike had brought her home from the Pierces, he filled the iron wash pot and built a fire beneath it. Earlier in the week he had tightened the clothes wire that stretched from the corner of the house to the side of the chicken house and had propped a pole in the middle where the long line sagged.
He was stacking more wood beside the iron pot when Letty came out of the house and attempted to drag the heavy washbench from the porch. He hurried to her.
“That’s too heavy for you. Let me do it.”
“I can do it.”
“Not while I’m here you can’t.”
Letty shrugged and returned to the house for the basket of dirty clothes. Mike’s eyes followed her, fastening onto the sight of her smooth back and swaying hips. His insides felt warm and melting.
“You’ll be gettin’ spoiled, sure as shootin’,” Jacob said drily as Letty passed him on her way to the house.
“Glory, Grandpa,” she retorted. “I didn’t ask him to fill my wash pot or carry the bench. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“If ya didn’t have yore back up in the air so dad-burn high, you’d admit that you like havin’ him do for ya.”
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