Maud found Ryde in the middle of what was left of his beans and squash. The vegetables had grown up tripods of sticks that looked like two rows of tepees, but the vines were brown and played out. Her uncle was tugging on them; the entire back of his shirt was wet; the hat on his head was ringed with a dark band of sweat. Maud knew he didn’t take well to surprise, so she yelled to warn him. Ryde turned, took his hat off, and rubbed his forehead with his forearm. He said, “If this ain’t hell, I don’t know what is.”
Maud asked how his squash and beans had done. And Ryde pointed out his cantaloupes and pumpkins, told her what kind they were, how long they’d been planted, and when he expected to harvest them. It was the calmest Maud had seen him in a long time, and she figured it was because he was away from his kids who got on his nerves. She was feeling empathy for him on that when he said, “Nan tell ya Mustard showed?”
“Talley told me first.” Maud told her uncle about the sheriff’s visit. Then she said, “What’s Daddy gonna do?”
Ryde looked up at the sun. The day wasn’t as hot as the last few had been, but the air was heavy and warm. “Let’s go to the shade.” He nodded toward a scrub elm tree. There was a little wooden bench under it, just big enough for two people. Ryde headed toward it, and Maud followed him. When they both were seated, Ryde took out a pack of cigarettes and held it toward Maud. She took one, and he lit it for her, cupping his hand around his lighter’s flame. Then he lit one for himself. They smoked in silence for a couple of minutes, then Ryde said, “The last of Mustard’s allotment bought that car of his. You know that.”
Maud hadn’t known it for sure. But her father hadn’t talked about his allotment in years. Her uncle added, “He ain’t gonna be able to labor with that hand. And he don’t have any more education than I do. ’Bout the third grade.”
Maud could tell her uncle had put some thought into her father’s circumstances. And it seemed like he was laying out a defense. She felt anxious about that. She said, “So where’s he off to?”
Ryde jerked his thumb toward the horizon. “The Cookson Hills.”
Maud winced. But she didn’t look up. She’d seen the foothills every day of her life. They loomed on the eastern horizon wherever there was a break in the trees. And even though sometimes at sunset when the summer had been particularly dry, they turned a beautiful, unnatural shade of pink, the hills were lawless. Over the years, they’d been the hideout for all of the Starr outlaws, Cherokee Bill, the Dalton Gang—the list went on and on. Maud shook her head. She took a drag off of her cigarette. She felt tears welling up again. She dropped her butt in the dirt and crushed it under her shoe. “Why’s he doing that?”
Ryde took a long draw and dropped his cigarette, too. “Well, he said he were gonna look up Choc Floyd.”
Maud looked at the dead butt between her shoes. She looked at the dirt on her left toe. “I thought Mr. Floyd was sent away.”
“He waz. But he’s due out any day.”
“How would Daddy know that?”
“Mostly common knowledge. Remembered it from when he waz sent up.”
“Does Daddy know Mr. Floyd personally or just from the papers?”
Ryde pulled the cigarette pack out of his pocket again. He lit up, not offering Maud another one. “Choc waz as big on the rooster fighting as we waz fer a while. ’Member Buster, that solid black’un yer daddy raised? Choc won a lotta money on him. That waz before he got into a more high-dollar business.”
Maud remembered Buster quite well. He’d been as mean as the dickens, but she’d felt sorry for him. And she didn’t think robbing grocery stores and filling stations was really a business. She said so. Her uncle stood up, turned, and faced her. He planted his feet wide, his toes pointing out. He waved his left hand toward the foothills. “Don’t ferget, not five years back people waz starving up there. Choc and his buddies brought ’em food. They got it from grocery stores ’cause that’s where it waz at.” He shook his head. “No rain, no crops.”
Maud could see she’d agitated her uncle. That wasn’t hard to do. He raised his belt to whip his kids almost as often as he raised it to hold up his pants. But she didn’t think he’d hit her. He never had. But she wanted him in a good disposition when her cousins got home from school. She said, “I remember all that. I’m not saying Mr. Floyd isn’t good to his friends. But robbing eventually leads to killing. You know that, Uncle Ryde.” She looked up at him straight in the eye.
Ryde took a long puff on his cigarette. Then he raised a leg and propped a foot on the bench where he’d been sitting next to Maud. He put an elbow on that thigh and leaned over toward her. In a quieter voice, he said, “Mustard’s already crossed that line. And he’s gotta make a living. Mustard and me, we understand each other. I don’t cross him and he don’t cross me. But if ya wanta try to talk some sense into his head, I ’spect he’ll be slipping back.” He nodded toward the eastern horizon. “Them hills ain’t that fer away.”
Maud stayed long enough to eat and see her uncle into a better mood. But she walked back home with her general blues replaced by worry. It was as clear to her as it was to her uncle that her father wasn’t looking for Pretty Boy Floyd in order to drive a tractor for him. She hoped that Mr. Floyd was still in the pen and that her daddy wouldn’t be able to find him. She thought that if he was out he was unlikely to be reformed. It was more likely that he would be worse. She hoped she could talk to her daddy before he got into some sort of robbing spree.
Within a couple of days, the whole thing put her in even a worse mood. Two evenings later, she started a fight over peeing off the side of the porch. She caught Billy midstream and she didn’t like it one bit. It was a sign of laziness and showed a trashy attitude toward the yard. Not even chickens foul their own nests. Dogs find a tree or a stump; cats dig a hole and cover their messes up. Billy tucked in and retorted, “What about horses? They shit in their stalls.” The two of them named every creature whose habits they knew until the argument petered out because neither one of them knew what foxes did in their holes.
Maud went inside and let the screen door bang. She undressed without going behind the sheet, and she assumed that Billy, who could see in the window, would get so aroused he’d storm in the door and they’d get down to some serious making up. But Billy stayed outside on the porch. Maud lay down on the bed and pulled a sheet over her. She waited. Billy lit a cigarette. She could smell the smoke inside. The smell felt sickening. She went to the screen door with nothing on. “When do you think you’re gonna be through?”
“Is it late?”
“The sun’s disappeared.”
“It’s not July.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“The days are getting shorter.”
“Seems to me like something else is getting shorter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you don’t use it, it shrivels up.”
“I use it when I want to.”
“If you’re cheating on me, I’ll take a gun to you.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Billy crushed his cigarette on the sole of his boot and dropped the butt into a tin can.
“Are you not coming to bed?”
“Not yet.” He sounded firm.
Maud began to feel ridiculous standing at the screen door naked. And she didn’t want to appear to be begging or to have her stomach examined. She turned away, lit the coal-oil lamp, propped herself under a quilt, and tried to read. She figured Billy would soon give up and come to bed. But she fell asleep, and when she woke, the lamp was dark and Billy was on his side of the bed with his back to her.
The next night, Early came over and ate with them. Then he and Billy drank choc beer and the three of them played cards at the kitchen table until Billy ran out of pennies. The men switched to matchsticks and Maud went to bed. She tried to read, but she was too irritated to get very far. She laid Elmer Gantry on the table, dampened the flame, and watched and listened to Billy and Ear
ly in the next room. She pretended they were people she didn’t know just to keep from getting up and hitting their heads with her book.
By Saturday, her irritation had turned to anger. The baby was wiggling. Jumping off the side of the porch hadn’t done any good, and Billy, who was her only relief, was acting like he’d been neutered with a blunt knife. She decided that what he needed was a change of location. She waited until he was in the barn soaping his saddle, and then she walked out there carrying a hot piece of apple pie on a plate. She swung the plate in an arc just out of his reach and waved a fork in her other hand. She said, “I’ve got something delicious for you.” She cut her eyes around and stuck out the tip of her tongue.
Billy’s eyes widened. A grin spread across his face. “Oh, baby, my favorite,” and he held out his hand.
Maud settled on a stool. She asked Billy about his saddle, about what he wanted to do in town that night, about whether there would be food at the fort to buy or if they needed to take a basket. When he was through eating, she said, “Delicious?”
“Best I ever had.” Billy smiled in a lopsided way and kissed her. Then he took up his soaping rag.
Maud felt a jab of anger. But she shoved that away by reminding herself that she was on a mission. She unbuttoned the two top buttons of her dress. “How about some dessert for your dessert?”
“I’m a little busy here.” Billy rubbed the horn of his saddle.
Maud didn’t know what to do. Having to interest a man in sex was outside of her range of experience, and she didn’t think it was quite natural. She said, “If you don’t get your fire back, I may need that horn myself.”
Billy ran his thumbnail down a crease in the saddle, scooped out some soap, and flicked it from under his nail.
Maud sat quietly. To wait him out, she looked at the scythe that Lovely had used. Her mind wandered back to that day until it reached Booker. She was trying to shake him out of her head when Billy said, “It ain’t natural to keep poking a baby the way we’ve been doing.”
“Natural? Of course it’s natural. What’re you jabbering about?”
Billy turned, the rag around his fingers. “So you admit yer in a family way?”
Maud instantly saw she’d been trapped. And she wasn’t used to being on the short end of the smart stick. Her temper flared out. “What if I am? It’s my own business.”
“Is that the ground you want to stand on, Maud? I’d think that through if I were you.” Billy cocked his head.
Maud didn’t know what to say. And her emotions weren’t under much control. She started crying big tears. She couldn’t stop. Billy started twisting his rag in both hands. He said, “It can’t be that bad,” which didn’t have any effect. Then he said, “Go on up to the house and take a rest on the bed.” He turned back to his saddle.
Maud couldn’t bear to go into town that night. She couldn’t bear to be with Billy. She wanted news on Pretty Boy, but she couldn’t stand to think about talking to anyone at all. She sat on the porch, and although the weather was perfect, she felt hot and then cold. Eventually, she went inside, lay down on the bed, and stared at the crack in the ceiling until she wasn’t sure if she was seeing it in the dark or in her imagination. She was going to have to carry that baby to term. And then she would have to go through the birth. She recalled Lucy’s screaming. She shuddered. But the birthing wasn’t the worst of it. She’d be saddled with the thing for the rest of her life. She’d never get out of the bottoms, never get away from the dirt. If she got lucky, she might get electricity. But that would be a long time in the future; and even if she did, she would never see a city, never ride in an elevator, never shop in a store on the second floor. Those thoughts led her to Booker, who was doing all of those things; and she became even more infuriated at him for leaving and for being such a coward that he couldn’t stand a little killing of people who were as mean as wild boars. In the midst of that anger, Maud remembered that she was unhappy with the thought of her father joining Pretty Boy Floyd. She liked books, learning, and clean things. She liked folks being nice to one another. But most of all, she wanted to live in a place where people died of natural causes when they were old and were dressed up in suits and laid down in wooden boxes.
That night, Maud sank into a misery that not even reading relieved. She lost all interest in visiting. She spent most of her days on the porch looking out toward the river. The smells of cooking reminded her of horse piss. Billy began picking up food from Nan’s for them to eat. When Maud wouldn’t milk the cow or put the chickens up, he took over those chores. When she wouldn’t wash herself, he led her by the hand to the rainwater barrel and washed her hair. But when he tried to undress her, she fought. She couldn’t stand to have her stomach looked at. She started waiting until Billy rode off to work to dress in clothes that her father had left.
She stayed like that for weeks until, one morning in early November, she was sitting on the porch in Mustard’s overalls and shirt with her stomach bigger than she wanted it to be but still small enough to be mostly hidden under the bib. She was worrying a river rock in her hand, turning it over and over, when she looked up and saw her aunt Viola leading a sorrel horse by a rope. Viola was wearing a long-sleeved checkered dress covered by an apron. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. Maud was interested enough to wonder why Viola had chosen to walk rather than ride that horse. But even that question soon left her, and the dull blankness she’d felt for weeks slid back into the space behind her eyes.
Viola tied the horse to the hitching rail and walked the stones to the porch. She stopped on the top step. When Maud didn’t speak, Viola said, “I brung ya a horse.”
Maud didn’t feel like she could form words. She nodded. Viola took a seat on the planks, leaning against a post with her face to the sun. She started talking. Her voice sounded to Maud like it was coming from deep in a cave. Her words didn’t make any sense.
Eventually, Viola said, “Ya got the blues bad,” and Maud clearly heard that. She nodded.
“The thing is, this is a rough patch. Yer daddy’s gone off. Lovely went and did hisself in. That man, what’s his name, Booker, left. And now yer in an inconvenient way that ya don’t seem to take to. My mama got inconvenienced when she waz fifteen. They waz living down in Texas. Her ma had broke with the first Early and had taken up with a mean man. She waz packing to leave him when he rode up on a horse and shot her dead in the doorway. Smack in front of Mama and her little brother and sister. But he didn’t shoot them. He jist rode away. Mama buried her mother, gathered up her brother and sister, and started walking. She walked all the way from the Red River to ’round here carrying that baby in her belly. Gave birth to him at the end of that walk. That’s my brother Frank. You’ve met him.” Viola took a pouch out of her apron and pinched tobacco from it. She put the pinch in her bottom lip and tucked the pouch away. A rooster crowed. Billy’s dog stood up from his dust hole, shook, and trotted off toward a fence post where he lifted his leg. Eventually, Viola said, “I hear tell if ya want rid of a baby, the best way is to ride it out.”
Maud eyes widened a little. She looked at the horse.
Viola got up slowly. She walked to the hitching rail, untied the horse, and led it to the edge of the porch. “She don’t take a bit. Tender in the mouth. You’ll haveta use this hackamore. Let me see if ya can git on her from here.”
Maud stood up, went to the edge of the porch, and threw her right leg over the horse’s back. “What’s her name?”
“Leaf.”
“Whose is she?”
“Yer grandpa’s now. Early won her offin a fellow and gave her to Bert as payment for something or other.” Viola looked off toward the river. “We can’t be losing Lovely and you both. Ya don’t haveta ride her hard. Jist enough to keep arocking back and forth. I’m not saying it’ll work fer total sure. How far along are ya?”
“Five months, as best I can tell.”
“Then it’s too late fer anything else. I’ll open the guards fer ya.” Viola
started walking, talking over her shoulder. “You ride her up and down the line. Jist stay on her as much as ya can. But if ya get to cramping or bleeding, get to Nan or Lucy.” She looked up at Maud. “Ame and me, we’re gonna move in a couple of weeks. You can ride her up to our place and visit a spell. We’ll be south of Manard on a hill. Yer cousin Minnie’s allotment.” Viola was referring to her husband’s first wife. “The important thing is not try to deal with it alone if it starts to coming. It’s too late fer that. There’ll be a lot of blood and you’ll be weak. Billy won’t be much help.”
Maud started crying. She cried until she sobbed. Viola drew a handkerchief out of her apron and handed it to her. Maud wiped her nose and tucked the handkerchief in her bib. “I’ll give it back.”
“Don’t worry ’bout that. But ride over to see us tomorrow. I don’t feel too good ’bout leaving ya down here with this remedy. Bert said to do it, so I am. But a delivery can be hard, ’specially if the baby ain’t helping.”
Maud understood that her grandfather was taking care of her and that she had to get help if the remedy started working. She promised to visit the next day, swore she wouldn’t ride far off the section line, and agreed to get to family if she felt any cramping or saw any blood. At Gourd’s corner, they parted ways. Viola walked east to see the spot on Nan’s allotment where she and Ryde were planning to build a house, and Maud rode up the line.
She turned west at the cross of the section lines and rode on past the snake lakes to the cemetery beyond the water. She stopped at Lovely’s grave and looked at the sandstone marker they’d put up until money was saved for a better one. The soil was still bare except for a few fallen leaves. She was cried out, too listless to get off the horse and figure out how to get back on, too foggy in her mind to form many words. But she did say to Lovely, “If I can’t get rid of this baby, I’ll name it for you.” However, she regretted that as soon as she’d said it; the promise might keep the baby in her long enough for a live birth. She said, “Not if it’s a girl. Only if it’s a boy.” She hoped that cut the chances of a live birth in two.
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