“I ortta check on my shortenin’ bread,” Clairey murmured and got up from the table. She took the pan from the oven and set it on a flour-sack towel to cool. “It’s done, but it’s still too hot to handle. Y’all wanna go rest on the porch some so’s I can clean up, and I’ll bring it out direc’ly?” she suggested.
The two men took their chairs out onto the porch, where Forster built a hand-rolled cigarette and struck a match to light it. He puffed generously and then offered a drag off of it to Ellis. Ellis shook his head, and with the tips of his fingers, he shooed a fly away. The old dog, Trapper, spotted them and came at a slow trot to curl himself up at Ellis’s feet, lazy and sluggish in his old age.
Sitting in the shade of the porch, they watched as the sun lent a concluding magnificent light over the mountains in the distance before it finally slipped beyond their view. They seemed comfortable just to observe, not saying anything.
At last, Forster said, “No foolin’ ’bout her cookin’.”
Ellis grinned, his lids half concealing his eyes as he leaned on the back two legs of his chair. “No, sir.”
“You got that over Furgus’s little gal anyways.”
“Wish you’d lay off Furgus. You get him all worked up, pester him, get him all riled. What’s he ever done to you?” Ellis asked, managing to keep his voice amicable.
“Easy target, I guess.”
“I’ll give you that, but after while, an easy target ain’t no fun no more.”
“It ain’t seemed to wear off yet.” Forster snickered.
“’Sides, how you know what his ‘little gal’ cooks like anyhow?” Ellis asked.
“Don’t know that I know of myself. But his mama goes on ’bout her and don’t got much good to say.”
“Think on the source,” he told Forster with a hint of a suppressed smile. “She’d turn on any hen in the henhouse that aims to cut them apron strings from offen her.”
Forster slapped his leg, nearly choking on his cigarette as he howled.
“That poor boy’d yet be sucklin’ if she was to have her way ’bout it.” The two of them visualized Myrna Bayard’s abundant bosom, which made the observation all the more funny.
“You got that right,” Forster managed to get out amidst his laughter, having to lean forward to regain his balance on the chair.
“Don’t matter who Fergus was to a-brung home, she’d a-found fault with her,” Ellis observed.
“And she do find fault,” Forster said, beginning to regain his composure. “Goin’ round town bellyachin’ ’bout she don’t cook good, she don’t take care with Fergus as she ortta, she be laaazy.” He dragged the word lazy out to stress just how lazy she was.
“They come up here just after harvest, Fergus and Elvira. He done tole her she’d only be livin’ with his mama for a short time. If he’s to have any brains in that there head of his, he’d have had her outta there by now, afore that ole heifer eats her live.”
Forster chuckled. “Poor Ellis,” he said, his voice dripping with pity.
Ellis drew his brows together in confusion. “You mean poor Fergus,” he corrected.
“No, I meant what I say.”
“What you feelin’ sorry for me for?” Ellis grumbled.
“You just always tryin’ to make somethin’ right. Always tryin’ to fix somethin’ or n’other. And I s’pect that’s an awful heavy load to carry for one man.”
Ellis shook his head, feeling slightly annoyed by his friend’s observation. “You don’t know nothin’,” he said, forcing a laugh. But what Forster had said bothered him more than he wanted to let on.
Forster shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe not.”
Clairey let the screen door slap behind her as she came out onto the porch with two generous hunks of shortening bread for the two men. She handed them each their own slab and then disappeared into the house again. Now that supper was nearly cleaned up, she would be going to bed and leaving the men to their talk. Their bread was still warm when they bit into it, and they relished the taste.
“This here’s better’n my mama’s shortenin’ bread,” Forster remarked as he crammed his mouth full.
Ellis couldn’t help but mentally gloat over Forster’s reaction as he ate the bread. They sat on the porch for a while longer, till it was good and dark, eating and talking.
When Clairey came back out on the porch to check on the men, Forster was sitting by himself. She froze, shy and unsure with this veritable stranger.
“If you’re lookin’ for Ellis, he done gone to lock up for the night,” Forster told her as he gestured toward the barn, where Ellis would be inside, tending to the animals.
“I’s just gonna see to it you didn’t need nothin’ more,” she replied.
“Don’t s’pose I do.”
“Well, I’ll leave you-uns alone then.”
“Hold up a minute there,” he said.
She stopped with her hand on the doorjamb, looking toward him but not directly at him, more off to the side of him. “Yes?”
“You mind me askin’ a question or two?” He must have sensed her hesitation because he rushed on. “I mean, I was just wonderin’ how Ellis and y’all met up.”
“What’d he tell you?” she asked. There was an edge, a certain amount of suspicion in her voice. She didn’t know yet if she liked this fellow.
“Well, he done tole me as little as he could get by with,” Forster admitted.
“We met up in a snowstorm,” she said. “I’s walkin’ on the road, and he stopped and offered me a lift.”
“Don’t mean to speak outta my place or nothin’, but it come as strange to me that he done run off with you like he done, all a-sudden like he did. Well, ’cause he had hisself a girl he’s all moonin’ over, and then he done gone and murried you, you know?”
“No,” she whispered. “Didn’t know none of that.”
“She’s called Dulcie Mae, she is. And he’s all broke up over her for a long time now. He musta thought an awful lot of you to go off and get hitched, ’cause nobody else got his attention. Why, he had eyes for only her, till you.”
“Was she purty?” Clairey asked softly.
“Purty don’t cover it. She knowed it too.”
“What happened with ’em?”
Forster didn’t hesitate. “He’s hot after her. Boy was he! And she felt the same for him, I s’pose. But her daddy didn’t like Ellis none. She’s bound to listen to Ole Bill Prewitt. Whatever he’s to say was law, you know. So when Ellis asked her to murry him, she done turned him away. On account of her daddy. Done tole him no. And she murried another.”
“Why wouldn’t he want Ellis for his daughter? Why wouldn’t he?”
“Well, now, there’s some that don’t regard Ellis highly. Don’t know as I can say what for, but that boy seems to inspire the worst in ’em. Always been so. There’s been talk…Well, but I never saw why it’d cause ’em to turn on him, to dislike him so.”
“Talk?”
Forster looked as though he were avoiding the subject. He shrugged and said again, “Don’t know. I don’t understand it all.”
That was strange to Clairey, because from what little she had seen of him, he didn’t seem to mince words. She persisted. “But Ellis is a fine man. A good man.”
Forster smiled in amusement. She read his expression and thought perhaps he was mocking her. She dropped her eyes and went back into the house without saying anything more, retreating to the bedroom, away from him, away from the both of them.
Forster finally left for home during the late hours of night, with a full moon to light his way. He seemed sad to go. Most likely Ellis wouldn’t see his old school friend again in this life. He would leave for Oklahoma, and that was as good as being on the other side of the world. Ellis climbed into bed, dead tired and dreading the morning when he would start all over again in the field.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to Clairey’s even breathing next to him. He thought about sharing that s
poon with her, and he felt a little thrill that surprised him, made him somehow uncomfortable. He began to contemplate what life would be like if they were to truly be man and wife. He had discovered she was more than a lost girl: she was a good woman who had gained his respect. His daddy had taught him well. He had taught Ellis to treat a woman with reverence. Ellis was beginning to understand how this applied to Clairey.
He rolled to his side and watched her for a time. Really, she wasn’t so bad looking. She had lips that were full enough to be almost too plump, but he imagined they might be soft and generous if he ever had a chance to kiss them. Her brown eyes were an exotic almond shape. He thought her freckles were endearing, making her seem genuine and guileless. He had the reckless urge to put his hand to her skin, and then thought himself foolish for it. She was certainly no striking beauty.
If only her dark hair were taken care with. If only she didn’t always look so frightened and half wild all the time. She sighed softly in her sleep, and he wondered what she was dreaming of. What was floating around in that brain of hers? He could see in her eyes at times, her mind working, but she didn’t talk much, and so he was left to speculate what it was she was thinking or feeling.
It aggravated him how complacent she seemed. He would have liked for once to see her get emotional; he wanted to see her show anger, laughter, annoyance—anything that might be an expression of her true feelings.
He wanted to solve the puzzle because she was such an enigma to him, but instead he was left to speculate about who she really was. It seemed the more he thought on it, the more his thoughts were consumed by her. He blamed her daddy for it. Because the one thing that Ellis could read, could see through, was Clairey’s fear. Fear of disapproval? Fear of rage? He really couldn’t say what it was.
Sometimes it made him angry that she was afraid because it was something he had no control over. He couldn’t erase her past mistreatment; that was already a part of her, established long before they had met. Ellis wanted to punish her father for what he had done to her, for how he had scarred her. Even if he could give that man a whipping, it wouldn’t change what had happened to Clairey.
A man reaped what he sowed. A seed that was not watered and cared for didn’t grow. It was simply the law of the harvest. And it was as his daddy had told him all those years before: a person was just the same as a seed. Those were his thoughts as he drifted to sleep.
Chapter 17
ELLIS WAS OUT IN THE FAR PASTURE for the day, clearing and fencing more acreage in his ambitious way. Shortly after lunch, he left with Katie the mule, the chains to pull logs with, and his ax. As Ellis worked in the field, Clairey stuck to the house, working at her own domestic tasks. The sky was overcast, threatening rain, and in the distance, thunder rumbled and groaned. It was still light enough that Clairey did not need a lamp as she worked to make a pie.
Once the pie was finished and baking in the oven, she went out to the chicken coop to gather some fresh eggs and feed her fowl. The hens were a pleasant sort on the whole, but the rooster was a temperamental thing. He did not like intruders in his yard taking eggs as they pleased. He would threaten her by approaching in a confrontational swagger, making noise and ruffling his feathers to intimidate. Clairey was accustomed to him by now and calmly disregarded him. If he was treated with indifference, he generally backed down.
As she left the chicken yard, she glanced up at the sky. Judging from the looks of it, she would not need to water her garden. If it didn’t rain today, it surely would by tomorrow. She checked on it anyhow, setting her bowl of eggs on the ground at the edge of her perfect rows. She began looking for signs of pests by crouching down on all fours, lifting leaves and peering at them closely for signs of anything that threatened to ruin their production come fall. While she was there, she took the time to weed, picking at any little stray green that popped up in the wrong place, making sure she got the roots and all. It was much easier to get them when they were of an insignificant size and before they grew to be a force to reckon with.
Clairey went back up to the house to check on her pie and take it from the oven. Before she mounted the steps, she noticed muddied boot prints upon the once clean porch. Ellis had not come back from the fields; she would have seen him.
She heard the scraping of the kitchen chair against the wood floors from inside the house. Someone was moving about within. A strange, inexplicable fear took root within her breast. Clairey knew. She stood just at the edge of the stairs with that knowledge turning her innards to pudding, desperate to not have to face him. But she couldn’t stand there forever, putting off what would inevitably come next. With a budding dread, she dragged her feet up the stairs, her hands gripping the rail to keep herself steady.
She paused outside the screen door, looking into the gloomy interior, again attempting to prolong the confrontation. Although she had expected it, she was startled nonetheless when she saw her father sitting at the table, making short work of her pie. She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and waited.
Joe Davenport turned to his daughter with the spoon in his hand, berry stains on his beard, acting as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to be there, devouring her pie. Clairey’s heart went from a naturally slow rhythm to a fast and furious pounding. The bowl she carried in her arm tipped forward ever so slightly, and a few of her precious eggs rolled out, breaking over the floor.
“Look what you done,” he teased. “Ortta be more careful.” Joe had begun right off with the sweet-talking angle, his way of ensuring submissive cooperation. This meant nothing to Clairey. He might play nice now, but she knew it was simply a precursor to his rage.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I made a mess.”
“Well, ain’t you got a howdy for your old papa?”
“How is it with you, Daddy?” she replied carefully. She had learned from many years of previous experience to be wary of him.
He didn’t seem to hear her inquiry. “Curtis Bowler done tole me you was a murried woman, and I was glad to hear it.”
Clairey waited. No point in saying anything. He would make his intentions known soon enough. Pressing him would only anger him. She shifted uneasily, waiting for him to make his next move.
“Fine pie you made. Sure miss the cookin’.” He used his spoon in a sweeping motion to include the cabin. “Nice place you got here. Looks like you done real well for yourself. Never thought you’d a-done so well.” He then dipped the spoon back into the pie to help himself to another bite.
“S’pose so,” she agreed.
“S’pose so?” he repeated with a hint of sarcasm. “Nothin’ to it. You got a nice place. You don’t gotta s’pose. Just look round and you can see it.”
“Well, now, Ellis done worked real hard to make it so.”
“Does Ellis got any ’shine layin’ ’bout? A body gets awful thirsty, you know.”
“Ellis ain’t a drinkin’ man.”
“No? What sort of man be he then?” Joe laughed feebly.
Clairey didn’t answer. What she wanted so say, what she thought in her head, was: He’s a man that’s nothing like you! That’s a-certain! She watched him with a cautious gaze, guarding her tongue against saying anything that might upset him. She was inexplicably worried that he might have read her thoughts and that he would punish her for them. Despite their separation, she had not forgotten how quickly his anger could grow. And here it begins, she thought. Yes, here begins the erosion of his false motives and counterfeit gaiety. Here begins the crumbling away of his deceit until the serpent’s tongue is revealed. Her silence only proved to irritate him.
“You gonna answer me, girl?” he barked.
“He be a good sort,” she whispered.
“The sort that’d hep out his woman’s daddy if need be?”
Clairey’s brow puckered, her eyes narrowing as she began to understand why he had come. She saw what direction the conversation was taking, and her anxiety flourished. “He ain’t got nothin’, Da
ddy.”
Joe chuckled. “Hell, he ain’t. Curtis Bowler done tole me your man got hisself a dozen or more cattle. Heard it with my own ears. You sayin’ Curtis Bowler is a liar?”
“I never said he were.”
“So’s how’d your man get all them cattle if he ain’t got nothin’?”
“Well, but he barra’ed against ’em. He never paid for ’em outright,” Clairey explained.
“I see how it is,” Joe spat. “I see. Don’t think I don’t. You got yourself in a good spot, and when your family needs you, you turn your back on us.”
“I done tole you, Ellis don’t got nothin’. And even if he did, it ain’t mine to give. None of it’s mine,” she reasoned.
“If it wasn’t on account of me, you wouldn’t have none of this, not none of it, you ole heifer. I seen to it you was murried off good. Nineteen years of age, and not a prospect in sight. If it wasn’t on account of me, you’d have none of it. I done right by you, and now you think you’re too good for your old papa?”
“I don’t,” she insisted.
“Where’s he keep it?” Joe demanded.
“What?”
“Where’s he keep his monies, damn it?” Joe got up from the table and walked toward her.
“He don’t got nothin’. He don’t,” she maintained.
“Don’t lie to me,” he barked, taking her face in his hand and giving it a brutal squeeze. “I could always tell when you was.”
She felt the tears come to her eyes and hated herself for it because she knew that it would give him satisfaction. She was afraid of him still, wilting beneath his strength. And if she was afraid of him, perhaps she would cave. That was something she could not allow herself to do. She would not betray Ellis. Not for this man or any other. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she lied.
He hauled off and slapped her across the face, stunning her. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head no, and he slapped her again. Clairey’s tears became a full-on sob.
“You don’t know?” he persisted, and gave her another blow with his open hand. “You gonna tell me what I wanna know, girl. Yes, you are, ’cause you a girl that does what she’s tole, now, ain’t you?”
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