Gap Creek

by Robert Morgan

  “Is anything wrong?” I said.

  “I’ll be all right in a minute,” the woman said.

  “You all pull up a chair by the fire,” I said. I throwed another log on the fire. It had got chilly in the room as the fire died down.

  “Thank you, darling,” she said and wiped her eyes.

  I set down with them before the fire and the man held out his hands to the flames. I knowed I had to be neighborly, the way Mama would be. “It’s cold out there today,” I said.

  “Cold weather makes this place even sadder,” she said.

  “Cold weather is good for hog killing,” I said.

  “Honey, you don’t know who I am,” the woman said. “I’m Mr. Pendergast’s daughter, stepdaughter.”

  “I was awful sorry when he died,” I said.

  “I didn’t even know until this week,” she said, and cried again. Her husband didn’t say anything.

  “Hank and me have took care of the house,” I said.

  “Tell me how it happened,” Caroline Glascock said. She looked at the pictures on the mantel and shook her head and dabbed at her eyes.

  “We was rendering lard when the kitchen caught fire,” I said.

  “And he died in the fire?” she said. “How awful.”

  “He died later that night,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her no more than I had to.

  “After he got burned?” the woman said.

  “He did get burned,” I said, “on his face and head and hands. It was terrible.”

  “Pappy and me didn’t always gee-haw,” Caroline said. “But it broke my heart to hear how he died.”

  “I stayed up with him the night he died,” I said. “We did what we could for him.”

  “How long have you lived here?” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “We just moved here this fall,” I said, “from up in North Carolina.”

  “How long did Pappy suffer before he died?” she said.

  “Like I said, he died the night after he got burned,” I said. “We went after a doctor, but it didn’t do no good.” I felt bad to have to tell her about that night, but there was nothing else to do. I looked at the man. He set in front of the fire turning his black hat in his hands. He was listening, but didn’t say nothing.

  Caroline stood up and lifted a picture from the mantel. “Wasn’t Mama a pretty woman when she was young?” she said.

  “She was beautiful,” I said. Caroline was a big woman. I guess she weighed about two hundred pounds and was forty, maybe forty-five.

  “Did he tell you who this place belongs to?” Caroline said.

  “No, he never did,” I said.

  “It belongs to me,” she said.

  “What about your brother?” I said. “The one that lives out in California?”

  “Mr. Pendergast, Pappy, meant to leave the place to me. I bet there’s a will somewhere in this house that proves it.”

  “I ain’t found a will,” I said.

  “Don’t matter,” she said. “Nobody’s thinking of property at a time like this.”

  “Could I get you all some coffee?” I said.

  “It upsets me so much to come back here,” Caroline said, “I don’t think I could drink anything.”

  “I’m awful sorry about what happened,” I said.

  “What started the fire?” Caroline said. I looked at her and then I looked away. I felt a wave of sickness inside like I was going to throw up.

  “I had helped Mr. Pendergast kill his hog,” I said. “And we was rendering the lard.”

  “You helped butcher the hog?” Caroline said.

  “Wasn’t nobody else to do it,” I said. “Mr. Pendergast couldn’t lift much.”

  “Word is he burned hisself trying to save the house,” Caroline said. “Pappy ever was a fool when he got scared.”

  “He got burned in the kitchen when the kerosene exploded,” I said.

  “But the house didn’t burn down,” she said.

  “I got some wet sacks and put the fire out,” I said.

  “Bless you, honey,” Caroline said. “We owe you.”

  There was a pause and the fire popped and whined, like it was coming a rain or even snow. I didn’t want to talk any more about the fire. I knowed it would just make her sadder. I wondered if she was going to tell us we had to move out of the house.

  “I think Pappy Pendergast had a lot of money hid away,” she said.

  “Where did he hide it?” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to admit I had give the jar of money away. I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “I reckon he hid it in different places,” Caroline said. “Sometimes he had it in a shoebox in the closet, and some money he had buried in a tobacco can in the backyard. I’ve knowed him to keep his money in a old leather shot pouch that hung in the attic.”

  “I never seen any of those,” I said.

  “And sometimes he kept it in a fruit jar,” she said.

  “What kind of jar?” I said.

  “Why a mason jar, honey, a half-gallon mason jar, like you buy corn liquor in,” she said.

  “There is mason jars in the basement,” I said. “Would you all like to search the house?”

  “Honey, it don’t matter,” Caroline Glascock said.

  “I ain’t searched the attic,” I said. “But I’ve cleaned the rest of the rooms and washed all of Mr. Pendergast’s clothes.”

  “Bless your heart,” Caroline said.

  “We have tried to take care of all Mr. Pendergast’s things,” I said.

  “Pappy was a squirreler,” Caroline said. “He would squirrel away just about anything. He could have left his money out in the smokehouse or the woodshed. He could have put it in the springhouse, or under the crushing in the barn.”

  I felt a flash of pain in my belly, like a cramp was coming on. I wished they wasn’t there so I could make some herb tea and rest. I felt like there was some big change in my life about to happen. I wished Hank would come and talk to them about paying the rent on the house. “Mr. Pendergast was here by hisself for a long time,” I said.

  “I know he was and I feel bad about it,” Caroline said. “Baylus works in Columbia and that’s where we have to live. It’s too far to come up here more than about once or twice a year. We come when we could.”

  “How long does it take?” I said.

  “It’s not just the train ride to Greenville. It’s finding a way to get from Greenville to Gap Creek that is the trouble. You have to hire a carriage or a buggy or some such. It’s an all-day operation.”

  “So you growed up here on Gap Creek?” I said.

  “Only for a while,” Caroline said. “But I have such happy memories of this house.” Her voice broke and she cried again.

  I hoped I didn’t have to throw up while they was there. I didn’t want to have to turn my back on them and run away and puke. I was embarrassed enough as it was. I felt sorry for her, and I was scared she would find out I had give away the money.

  “How much rent are you all paying?” Caroline said and blowed her nose.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You don’t know?” she said.

  “Because I kept the house and cooked for Mr. Pendergast,” I said.

  “You mean you was the housekeeper?”

  “Hank, my husband, made an arrangement with Mr. Pendergast for us to live here,” I said. I had never knowed exactly what the arrangement was.

  There was a wrenching in my belly and I felt something push like a fist right up in my throat. The sour taste reached the back of my mouth before I could stop it. I stood up and put my hand over my mouth and started running toward the kitchen.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Caroline Glascock called after me.

  As I run into the dark kitchen I tried to think what I could throw up in. There was the slop bucket behind the stove, but it would take too long to find it and get it out in the open. There was the dishpan, but if I used that I’d have to wash it out. The kitchen still smelled l
ike the baked turkey, and that made me even sicker. I run out the back door and down the porch steps. At the corner of the porch I bent over and retched so hard it felt like my tailbone was coming up through my belly. I heaved like I was trying to get rid of everything I had ever eat. I heaved like I was trying to turn myself inside out.

  When I quit heaving I was so weak I had to hold on to the post of the porch. I was wet with sweat and felt like I had just been born.

  “Are you all right?” Caroline Glascock said. She had come out on the back porch and her husband Baylus stood in the doorway behind her.

  “I must have eat something,” I said.

  “You must have been poisoned,” Caroline said.

  I was so stiff and weak I had to walk slow to the steps and up the steps. I was sore inside, like every muscle in my belly had been strained. I hobbled up the steps one at a time.

  “You be careful, girl,” Caroline said.

  They followed me back to the living room where I stood by the fireplace trying to catch my breath. I felt clean and steady, but weak.

  “How much do you want to charge for rent?” I said.

  “We’d rather sell the place than rent it,” Caroline said. “We already have a house in Columbia.”

  “I don’t reckon we can afford to buy a house yet,” I said.

  “Leasing is better than renting,” Caroline said.

  “I don’t think we’ve got much money,” I said.

  “We need to find somebody to buy the house,” Caroline said. “Much as I hate to sell Pappy’s place, I know it has to be done.”

  Hank come in the front door. He looked cold, like he had walked a long way, cold and tired. I was so relieved he had come back I could have cried. “This is Caroline Glascock,” I said to him, “and her husband Baylus. She’s Mr. Pendergast’s stepdaughter.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Caroline said.

  “How do,” Hank said and took off his mackinaw coat. He stretched out his hands to the fire.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Glascock say we might be able to rent the house,” I said. It seemed polite to mention both of them, though Caroline had done all the talking.

  “We’d like to sell the place,” Caroline said. “Baylus and me don’t have any use for it.”

  “What are you asking?” Hank said.

  “We want to be reasonable,” Caroline said. “We just want to get a decent price for the place, don’t we, Baylus?”

  Her husband nodded and didn’t say anything.

  “I ain’t got a lot of money,” Hank said.

  “This place will pay for itself in a short time,” Caroline said. “Pappy raised a ton of hogs and sold the hams down in Greenville. He raised everything here, corn and sorghum and cotton.”

  “Ain’t seen no sign of cotton,” Hank said.

  “It’s been a while since he raised cotton,” Caroline said. “He got too old and feeble to raise cotton after Mama died.”

  “I thought this was above the cotton line,” Hank said. “I thought they never did grow cotton north of Traveler’s Rest.”

  Caroline looked at Hank and wiped her eyes. “Pappy knowed how to do it,” she said. “It would grow here on the valley floor, protected by the mountains.” The fire popped and I heard a wagon rattle by outside. My sides was sore from all the throwing up, and there was a sour taste at the back of my mouth. I needed a drink of cold water to freshen my mouth and clean my throat. But my belly felt cool inside, almost cold. I was glad it was settling.

  “Mr. Pendergast let us stay here cause Julie kept house for him and cooked his meals,” Hank said.

  “We need to sell the place,” Caroline said, “much as we’d like for you all to stay on.”

  “But you might rent the house to us?” I said.

  “We’d prefer to sell,” Caroline said. “And we could use the money. Just last summer I had an operation we’re still paying for.”

  “How do I know you all are who you say you are?” Hank said.

  “Who else could we be?” Caroline said. She opened her purse and took out a card. Hank looked at the card and then handed it to me. “Mr. & Mrs. Baylus Glascock” it said on the card, and give an address in Columbia.

  “I just wanted to be sure,” Hank said.

  “I don’t blame you, the way people are these days,” Caroline said.

  “How much would you rent it for?” Hank said.

  “We could only rent it till we found a buyer,” Caroline said.

  “If we could afford to we’d like to stay here,” Hank said, “at least till the baby’s born.”

  “I thought you might be going to have a baby,” Caroline said and smiled at me. “When is it due?”

  “Around May or June,” I said.

  “We need to sell,” Caroline said, “but you all look like decent people.” She looked around at her husband and back at me. “Maybe you could stay here till after the baby is born.”

  “How much rent would you charge?” Hank said. “I ain’t got a lot of money.”

  “Did you say you are a carpenter?” Caroline said.

  “I do carpentry and masonry,” Hank said.

  “Maybe in the spring we could hire you to fix up the place,” Caroline said, “to get it ready to sell.”

  “I can do any kind of work,” Hank said.

  “How much could you pay now?” Caroline said. “We want to be reasonable.”

  “I ain’t got but five dollars to my name,” Hank said. He reached into his pocket and took out five silver dollars. I reckon that’s all he had left from working at the mill in Lyman. The coins sparkled in the firelight as he held them in his outstretched palm.

  “Ain’t you got something you could pawn?” Caroline said.

  “All I’ve got is my tools,” Hank said. “And I have to keep them if I go back to work this winter.”

  “I’ve got a necklace and a brooch Mama give me,” I said.

  “I couldn’t take your brooch,” Caroline said.

  “It’s got gold around the edges,” I said, “like a little picture frame.”

  I got the brooch and necklace from the bedroom and showed them to her. “They’re worth about five dollars,” she said. She held on to the jewelry. I tried to think of something else that could be sold. Mama had give me an alarm clock, but it was only worth a dollar or two, even when it was new.

  “Tell you what we’ll do,” Caroline said. “Give us the five dollars and the necklace and brooch as a kind of down payment, and we’ll give you a receipt. Then the rest you can work out by fixing up this house. That should be good enough, don’t you think, Baylus?”

  “That is mighty understanding of you,” Hank said.

  “It’s hard to sell a house in the wintertime anyway,” Caroline said.

  “We’re obliged to you,” I said.

  “You all helped take care of Pappy,” Caroline said. “I’d like to know a young couple was getting some good out of this place. Besides, it needs some fixing up.”

  “We’ll take good care of it,” Hank said.

  “We’ll come back in March to talk about the repairs,” Caroline said, “and to buy what materials you need.”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening, that we was renting the place and would have somewhere to live until after the baby was born.

  “Don’t you all want to stay the night?” I said. “It’s getting late and there’s plenty of room.”

  “Honey, we’ve got to get back on the road,” Caroline said. “We’ve got to go back to Greenville to catch the train to Columbia. Baylus has to work tomorrow.”

  “You can at least stay for supper,” I said. “We have plenty of turkey left.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” Caroline said. “But we really do have to be on our way. And this place makes me sad. I have too many memories here.” She opened her bag and looked inside, and then closed it. “I will mail you a receipt for the five dollars and the jewelry,” she said.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said.
/>   “Business is business,” Caroline said. “I believe in doing things right and proper.”

  I was so thrilled my head was buzzing.

  “You all should stay the night,” Hank said.

  “We’re much obliged for your invitation,” Caroline said. “But there are a few things in the house we should take. They belonged to Mama and they have sentimental value.”

  “You take whatever you want,” Hank said. It had been a while since I had seen him so cheerful.

  “I’ll just get a few of Mama’s things,” Caroline said. She took the clock off the mantel and handed it to her husband. Then she went into the kitchen and gathered a lot of silver from the drawer into her big handbag. There was a little silver cream pitcher on the table and she took that too.

  “Is there anything you can’t find?” I said. I could understand why she would want her Mama’s things.

  Caroline took a lamp into the front bedroom and looked through all the drawers of the bureau. She got some jewelry and a comb and brush set. Baylus come back in and carried another load out to the carriage. There was a mirror on the bedroom wall and Caroline took it down. She got Mr. Pendergast’s rifle out of the closet, and a revolver she found in a drawer. She looked in the attic but didn’t find anything she wanted to take.

  “You all come back and see us,” Hank said as they climbed into the carriage.

  “We’d love to come back to the mountains in the summertime,” Caroline said. “We’ll come back and have a picnic by the creek.”

  “You all come back any time,” I said.

  “We’ll see you along about March,” she said as Baylus drove them away. “And I’ll send you a receipt for the rent.”

  Eight

  But there wasn’t ever any receipt come from Columbia for the rent on the house. We waited every day and Hank walked to the little post office down at the crossroads. I got a letter from Mama, and Hank got a letter from Ma Richards. But nothing ever come from Caroline Glascock or her husband Baylus. As the days passed and Christmas got closer, I wondered if they had been who they said they was. After two weeks I figured they wasn’t.

  It was hard enough to lose the five dollars and my brooch and necklace, and all the things they had took from Mr. Pendergast’s house. Christmas was coming and we didn’t have no money at all, and no way of getting any. But that wasn’t as bad as what it done to Hank. He could blame me for giving away the jar of Mr. Pendergast’s money, and I had to take the blame. It made Hank feel better that he could blame me and call me a stupid heifer. But now it was him that had been outfoxed. There was no way he could deny that he had give the money and the jewelry and all the things from the house away. And he had been just as pleased as I was at the thought of renting the place with such a little payment, and fixing up the house in the spring. His feelings was hurt because he took such pride in his judgment of people. Hank never liked to admit he had made a mistake. Men are like that. They care more about their pride than anything else. It made him mad that I knowed he had been suckered just as bad as me. It made him angry at me more than at the Glascocks or whoever they was.