Esme turned to face Cleavis Rhy. With a lazy, hip-rolling swagger she approached the counter. Never in her short, busy life had Esmeralda Crabb ever had the opportunity to feel such power, such confidence. Standing before him she saw that his hands trembled slightly and that sweat had beaded on his upper lip. Desire. Ah, desire. An unexpected weapon.
With feigned wide-eyed innocence, she cocked her hand on one hip and said to him, "Let me know if you see anything you like."
His own oft-repeated phrase falling so glibly from Esme's lips shook Cleav from his trance. Quickly, he squared his shoulders. Nearly choking from the inexplicable dryness in his throat, and tortured by the very understandable discomfort elsewhere, he attempted an apology.
"Miss Crabb, I ... I didn't ... I'm sorry that . . . I . . ."
Her smile was triumphant. "Please, Mr. Rhy, you have my permission to call me Esme."
Without another word she turned and marched out the door, her backside swaying provocatively. As far as Esme was concerned, it was all settled. She'd be Mrs. Cleavis Rhy before the turnips were sprouting.
Chapter Two
Yohan Crabb was the laziest man in Vader, Tennessee. That was an accepted fact Some thought he might be the laziest man in the world, but so far nobody could prove it
It would have been bad enough if Yo Crabb were drunk and lazy. But as a God-fearing man, Crabb had never allowed demon liquor to pass his lips. He was lazy for the mere sake of being lazy.
It was said that when Yo was born and his strange, foreign-speaking mother asked with her last breath to name him Yohan, what she was really trying to say was, "Son, I can already see that you ain't never going to turn Yo han' to no good purpose."
When Yo married Providence Portia, the community had felt a spark of hope. Miss Providence was as hardworking as the day was long, and most thought she might be a good influence on Crabb. Unfortunately, most of Yohan's newfound energy was channeled elsewhere. The twins were born barely a year after they wed, and Esme eleven months later.
To Esme's knowledge, Yo had never stirred himself again.
Except, of course, to play the fiddle. And thank goodness for that. Were it not for the fine way that he played, Yohan Crabb would have been totally worthless instead of just practically worthless.
Pa could play that fiddle, Esme thought as she listened, walking back up the mountain. The sound got louder and clearer with each step toward home. How sweet and romantic it was, she thought, her heart still pounding from the memory of Cleav's warm blue eyes fixed upon her.
"Evenin', Pa," she greeted him as she stepped into the clearing next to the house, though house was an exaggerated term for the place the Crabbs called home.
Esme remembered when they had first come to live up on the mountain the year after Ma died. They had been sharecropping on Titus Mayfield's place, but without Ma to do the work, Pa had almost let the crop rot in the field. Mayfield had ended up picking it himself and then told Pa to vacate the house so he could get somebody who wanted to work.
They had come up the mountain, Esme at her father's side and the twins running up ahead, laughing and picking flowers.
"It's a fine, sturdy house, Esme," he'd told her. "I guess you'd call it a stone house. And it's not about to fall down. And the best part is that it's ours, all ours. Nobody's ever going to take it from us."
Even at eight years old, Esme had known her father well enough to be skeptical.
"It's a cave!" Esme had cried in horror as she stared at what was to be their new home.
"I'm sorry, darling," Pa had apologized. "Believe me. Sugarplum, I hate moving you children into a cave as bad as you hate moving into it. But there ain't no help for it."
Esme felt tears of despair welling up in her eyes, but she fought them back.
"We're going to live in a cave!" Agrippa's voice squeaked with excitement.
"I'm a cave girl," Adelaide insisted, pounding upon her chest.
"See," Pa had whispered to her. "It's gonna be all right, Esme. I never lie to you."
It was a stone house, of a sort, Esme had to admit. And bears had been living in it for hundreds of years, so it probably wasn't about to fall down. And he was telling the truth: nobody was going to take it from them. No other human would be willing to live there!
The cave now had a split log front for protection from the wind. The logs, culled from fallen trees and scrub brush, were chinked together every which way and supported, where possible, with rocks, mud, and anything else that Esme could drag up the mountain. There was also clearly a front door which made it seem almost like a house. Esme had cut a window one summer, but it was covered over and chinked up now. The cave was never too hot, but it surely could get cold. For that reason a stovepipe now came through a hole near the top of the logs. The stove made cooking possible and living bearable.
"That's a pretty song you're playing. Pa," Esme told her father.
The old man smiled up at her. Even nearing sixty, he was still handsome and a charmer to boot. "You like that, Esme-child?" he asked. "I thought up that little thing today."
She smiled briefly before a worried frown creased her face. "You wrote the song today? I hope it didn't take you all day."
"Purt near," he admitted.
"You promised you'd head down to the river and see if you could catch us a fish for supper."
Yo sighed and shook his head. "Esme-girl, I clean forgot it and that's the truth."
She felt the annoyance rise up within her. "Pa, how could you forget. We don't have a blame thing to eat in the house!"
"I just forgot. Sugarplum," he answered. "You know how it is with me, I get to playing and I forget what time it is, I forget about eating and sleeping and purt near everything."
"Didn't Adelaide or Agrippa remind you?"
"Ain't seen neither since early this morning. Right after you left, that Hightower boy showed up, and they went running out to have a picnic with him."
"A picnic!" Esme's voice was incredulous. "Well, I sure hope he brought the food."
"Nope," Pa said shortly. "They both were carrying a basket of vittles."
Esme's spark of vexation quickly flamed into a full- fledged anger.
"Well, sure to graces, I bet there is not so much as cornmeal dust left in the house. How am I supposed to feed this family anyway!"
Her father had the decency to look embarrassed and hastily rose to his feet. "I'm sorry, Esme-girl," he told her cajolingly. "I'll head down to the river right now."
Esme sighed in exasperation and shook her head. "Pa, it's late afternoon. It'd be dark afore you even got to the river."
Her father glanced up, surprised to notice the sun had nearly disappeared behind the mountain.
"You're surely right, Esme. Lord, girl—where you been all day?"
A flush of embarrassment stained her cheeks. She should have come straight back home and gone to work. Instead she'd wanted to hold those moments in the store more closely, to think about them, to inspect them, and she had spent the afternoon wandering along the river, daydreaming about Cleavis Rhy and the way he had looked at her.
"I went to town, Pa. I told you that."
"That don't take all day," her father said. "And you didn't bring nothing back. That young Rhy wouldn't give you nothing? He was always fairly generous to me."
Esme's chin came up defiantly. "I will not stoop to begging."
Yohan shook his head slightly in disbelief. "Accepting Christian charity ain't begging," he told her. "Believe me, Esme, it makes those folks feel downright warm inside to be able to help those less fortunate, like ourselves."
"Well, it don't make me feel 'downright warm inside.' It makes me feel downright queasy!"
Her father nodded. "I know. Your ma was the same way. She hated taking anything from anybody. Why, that woman worked herself down to a nub. Always thinking about what we were gonna eat and where we were gonna live."
"Well, somebody's got to worry about those things!"
Yo
seated himself back on the ground, leaning against the rough wood of the house, and drew his bow sweetly across the strings of the fiddle.
"You've got the right of it there, and I cain't deny it," he admitted. "But sometimes it appears to me that you've been considering the practical too much. You're neglecting to live and breathe. Feel that breeze stirring, Esme-girl? You can almost smell spring in the air. Spring's a-coming. Flowers gonna bloom, birds is a gonna sing. And plenty of young gals like yourself is going to be falling in love. That's what you ought to be considering."
Esme jerked the front door open with disgust. "I think a gal would be a good deal more likely to fall in love when she's got a full belly and a pantry full of food put by for the winter. Now, if you don't stop talking that nonsense and let me get to my work, I'm going to break that dang fiddle over your head!"
Yo chuckled slightly at the idle threat. "Just like her ma," he whispered to himself. A wave of sadness crossed his face. Putting the fiddle to his chin, he returned to his music, filling up the growing shadows with beautiful sounds, sounds of spring and romance.
Cleavis flipped open his gold watch and checked the time. "Six o'clock, precisely," he said to himself, smiling. Slipping the fancy timepiece back into the watch pocket of his trousers, he picked the sign up from under the counter and went to hang it on the door.
It read, CLOSED. ASK AT THE HOUSE. It was not a good sign. His father had painted it, and the big block letters were formed like those of a child and all the e's were upside-down. It didn't matter, however. Very few people on the mountain would actually bother to read it. And every living soul in and around Vader knew that if Cleav wasn't at the store, they should ask at the house.
After grabbing up his thick wool coat from the hook and dousing the light from the one coal-oil lamp, Cleav headed for home.
He took a circuitous route, walking along the ridges of the numerous small ponds that he'd dug in the marshy bottom land between the store and the river. The fish swimming in those pools were his true work, or at least he liked to think so. Storekeeping might be his vocation, but natural science was his avocation.
Darkness precluded any investigation this evening, but he already knew what was going on beneath the surface of each still, small pool. He smiled to himself, thinking of the gentle silence of the water and the scores of trout eggs to be harvested next fall. Someday he hoped his work with trout would be known to fish culturists worldwide. Perhaps in the distant future a new species might carry his name. The Nolichucky Rhy Trout, he postulated. The idea brought a whistle to his lips.
When he approached the house, he noticed a lamp was lit in the parlor. Clearly it meant guests for dinner, and he hurried his walk. Taking the porch steps two at a time, he saw a young woman's head inside the parlor window, her crowning glory neatly twisted into a topknot of flaming red.
Not red, he corrected himself quickly. Ladies do not have red hair, only strawberry-blond.
Stepping into his foyer, he hung his coat on the elaborate wooden hall tree and checked his reflection in the mirror. His hair on his forehead had formed errant curls, and he hastily pushed it back into place. He hesitated only momentarily to run his hand across the fine mahogany finish of the hall tree's umbrella rail. Like every piece of furniture in his house, it had been brought over the mountain for the specific purpose of conveying fashion and good taste.
"Good evening, ladies," Cleav said to the three women as he stepped into the door, but his eyes immediately sought only the lovely Miss Sophrona.
"Cleavis, dear," his mother said. "Finally you're home. I feared we'd be waiting dinner on you all night."
Cleav didn't need to check his watch to know that it was no more than a quarter after six, his usual time to return from the store.
"I'm here now," he commented agreeably and seated himself in a stuffed horsehair chair, near—but not too near—Miss Sophrona.
"The Reverend Tewksbury has gone to sit up with Miz Latham," his mother continued. "Poor old thing, she's about dead herself, and now her man's took sick."
Cleav nodded with appropriate gravity.
"We, of course, are blessed that dear Mrs. Tewksbury and her precious daughter can therefore spend the evening with us."
"Doubly blessed," Cleav said and then cast a glance at Miss Sophrona, who was blushing prettily.
Unbidden, an image sprang to mind of a long slim leg encased in black wool. He was so surprised at the unexpected and inappropriate image that it must have shown upon his face. Miss Sophrona glanced at him curiously.
Quickly trying to recover himself, Cleav turned to Mrs. Tewksbury. "So what pleasant pursuits have you ladies been discussing? A new quilting pattern, perhaps? Or something more serious, such as ... ah ... the actual versus the symbolic meaning of John's Revelations?"
Mrs. Tewksbury beamed with approval. She was very proud of her deep and sublimely metaphysical understanding of the Bible. In fact, the woman was virtually certain that her husband, Reverend Tewksbury, knew absolutely nothing by comparison.
"Mrs. Rhy and I were just discussing the parable of the twelve virgins and how such careful Christian planning could be translated to charity to the less fortunate of our own community."
Smiling politely, Cleave turned to the attractive strawberry-blonde on the divan. "And Miss Sophrona, what bit of wisdom did you offer to this discussion?"
Lowering her eyes humbly, Sophrona's voice was sweet and almost childlike in its clarity. " 'For I was hungred, and ye gave me meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me in. I was . .”
Sophrona stopped, her face flaming with color. She glanced toward her mother without uttering another word.
Cleavis realized immediately that Miss Sophrona's hesitance concerned the next line of the verse: "Naked and you clothed me." It was without a doubt not to be spoken by one such as Miss Sophrona. He was sure no one could ever imagine such a thing!
Like a heroic knight for a damsel in distress, Cleav quickly covered the gaffe. "It's interesting that you ladies should be discussing charity this evening. I had a visitor to the store today, sorely in need, I believe."
Grateful for his rescue, Sophrona showed an inordinate excess of interest. "Whoever could it have been?" she asked.
"One of Yohan Crabb's girls," Cleav answered, then he discovered to his surprise that he didn't wish to elaborate.
"One of those twins!" Mrs. Tewksbury shook her head in exasperation and gave Mrs. Rhy a concerned glance. "I don't know whatever we will do with those two."
"No, not one of the twins," Cleav hastily corrected. "The other one, Esme she's called."
"Ah." Mrs. Tewksbury shook her head wisely. "She's a good girl, that one. Must be a throwback to her mother's side of the family."
Eula Rhy's forehead creased into a frown. "I do hope that you haven't allowed them to run up more credit. There is no chance in the world that they would ever pay." Smiling at her guest, Mrs. Rhy added, "Dear Cleavis is so soft-hearted, I swear he'd give away the store if he thought somebody needed it."
Cleav bristled slightly under the criticism. "If folks are hungry, we have to feed them, Mother, that's not even a question for discussion."
"If the Crabbs are hungry," his mother suggested coldly, "it's because that old man won't work. The Bible says the Lord helps those who help themselves."
"Actually, that's not in the Bible," Sophrona corrected gently. "But it does say to 'consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'"
Mrs. Rhy was so dumbfounded by the unexpected rebuke that she didn't respond.
"Actually, the young woman didn't ask for anything," he told them. He gave his mother an appeasing glance. "Nonetheless, I clearly let her know that business with her family would have to be on strictly a cash or barter basis."
"Then whyever did she come down the mountain?" Mrs. Tewksbury asked.
In his memory Cleav distinctly hear
d the words "You wanna marry me?"
"I have no idea," he answered. "But she was certainly looking poorly. It occurred to me that this late in the year they must be pretty low on winter stores. It's a good two months before they'll get so much as a potato from the ground."
"Oh, then we must get up a basket for them," Sophrona said with genuine sweetness. "Thank you so much for mentioning it, Mr. Rhy." Her voice lowered to a shy whisper. "I will make it my personal duty this week to bring this need to the attention of the Ladies' Auxiliary."
Miss Sophrona's sincere goodness was so powerful that Mrs. Rhy quickly forgot her previous irritation. Once again she beamed at the young woman.
"Such a precious daughter you have," she told Mrs. Tewksbury.
"'Raise up a child in the way he should go,'" the preacher's wife quoted proudly. The two women gazed fondly at their children. The handsomely dressed Cleav was nodding approvingly at the sweetly blushing Sophrona, who smiled back at him shyly.
"Mayhap we should leave these two alone," Mrs. Rhy suggested in a whisper. "Would you care to help me get our supper on the table?"
Cleavis rose politely as the women left the room and then, with only a moment's hesitation, seated himself on the divan next to Sophrona.
The young lady continued to face the front, her eyes on the pale lavender hankie that she nervously twisted in her hand. Her hands were beautiful, pale and unlined, with tiny little childlike fingers. It was not, however, her hands that captured Cleav's regard. Miss Sophrona was a diminutive woman, no higher than a fence post. If she'd been standing next to Cleav, the top of her head would have come no higher than his heart. But what heaven had robbed from her in stature, it had repaid in abundance. As with every opportunity Cleav had to observe her, his gaze unerringly went to the overgenerous outpouring of firm feminine flesh that was Sophrona Tewksbury's bosom.
This evening that blatant attraction was modestly covered with a lavender dotted-swiss bodice, its neatly stitched pleats designed to disguise the beauty that just couldn't be hidden.
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