Ellis waited for him to get up, sickened by the show. “You sorry drunk,” he railed. “Good for nothin’, sorry drunk.”
Joe got to his feet and came at him again, missing completely and falling heavily against the stall gate. Draped there, with no energy left to pick himself up, he did not move.
“I got my gun out in the truck there,” Ellis told him. “I ortta go on and get it. I ortta use it on you right here and now, old man. Save a lot of people a lot of trouble. Ain’t nobody’d miss you.”
“Why don’t you then?” Joe taunted. “Why don’t you go get it?” As he spoke, his words were slurred, and spittle streamed from his mouth.
He seemed such a pathetic sight that Ellis didn’t have the stomach to harm him. He thought of his own daddy, of how he had told him to use his hands for good, and the thought of hitting this man, who was so drunk he couldn’t even stand on his own two feet, made him uneasy.
“Can’t kill a drunk what can’t even pick hisself up from the floor. So let it be a warnin’ this time. You come round my place again—you step one foot on my land—and I’ll do it. You lay one finger on that girl again—you so much as look at her crooked—and I’ll do it. I’ll blow your brains out.”
He gave Joe a kick in his pants, and Joe grunted loudly as he sprawled forward onto his stomach in the muck of the barn.
“You sorry puke, hurtin’ women and children. You ain’t nothin’. Ain’t even fit to wipe my boot on. Don’t worry none ’bout payin’ me back that money you stole. I consider it worth the loss if it means I don’t never have to see your face again.” Ellis watched him for a moment, hating him with such a loathing that he wanted nothing more than to hurt him, to cause him terrible pain.
Growing resolute, Ellis stepped over him and walked back to his truck, leaving the shabby little cabin behind for good. Whether Joe believed him or not, Ellis had no way of knowing, but he never laid eyes on him again.
Part IV: Budding
Chapter 19
Spring of 1935
IT TOOK SOME DOING, but Ellis and Clairey eventually got the field prepared for setting. It was then just a waiting game until the tobacco was ready. To Ellis, the process seemed to be taking forever. His whole future was riding on that crop, and he wouldn’t feel relief until it was stored like dry seaweed in the rafters of his barn. He was fidgety, distracted, nervously thrumming his fingers on the tabletop during meals, checking and rechecking the plants several times a day. As if willing it would make it so.
“For sure it’ll be soon now,” he told Clairey as she churned butter on the porch, the rhythm of her paddle steady and reassuring.
Her eyes were earnest when she looked up at him. “No need to fret so,” she said. “It’s comin’ long right nice, and we’ll have work enough when it comes time.” He sat down heavily next to her with a deep sigh. “What troubles you so?” she asked, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.
“Don’t know. Just worried, s’pose. That crop don’t do well, and we gonna lose our shirts.”
“It’s gonna do well. Just you see,” she soothed.
“How’re you so sure?”
“How’s anybody sure? How you know the sun’s gonna come up over them mountains in the mornin’? How you know them seeds we planted is gonna turn to terbaccer when you sowed ’em? No way of knowin’, really. You just gotta do the best you can and then trust in the good Lord and know he’s a-watchin’ over you, and things’ll be as they ortta be,” she answered.
“And what if he ain’t?” Ellis asked, staring out over the majestic mountain range far in the distance before their view. It was green and alive, unvarying and constant.
“You know that ain’t so, Ellis. You read the Good Book, and you pray to him. I know you knowed he’s a-lookin’ out for you.”
“I s’pose he is. But it ain’t all good in this here life. Just like ole Job. All his friends done tole him to curse God and die, he’s so bad off. And ole Job, he’s a good feller. Never done no wrong to nobody. He’s afflicted sore.”
“Well, sure that’s true. Bad things come to the good just the same. Why, even our Lord Jesus done suffered somethin’ terrible. And he ain’t never done no wrong to nobody. And then he done got strung up on that there cross on the hill, and he died in a fearful way because of it. Ain’t nobody better’n he were. It’s like my mama done said over and over. You can’t get through this here life without some bumps ’long the way. But now you got nothin’ to worry over that there crop. It’s a-gonna come out fine,” she reassured.
“You miss her ever?” Ellis asked, switching subjects suddenly, because when she had mentioned her mother, his mind went off on a tangent.
She stopped churning for a moment, eyeing him warily. He could see that he had caught her off guard with his question. She began to churn again, more slowly this time, and answered thoughtfully. “’Course I do. She’s my mama.”
“And your daddy?”
She shrugged, choosing to remain silent instead of dignifying the question with any sort of an answer. He knew some things were better left unsaid. She probably didn’t feel the need to verbalize her no when he already knew very well she did not miss him.
After a pause, she said, “I’m grateful to him for givin’ me life.”
“Takes more than the givin’ of life to make a father. Spreadin’ seed is the easy part. Any dern fool can do that.”
Clairey stopped churning again and met his gaze with widening eyes and a raised eyebrow. He realized that he shouldn’t have talked so rough. He had probably deeply offended her, but she didn’t seem angry, only mildly surprised.
“I’m gonna tell you somethin’ right now. I never will slap, kick, nor beat you round. A man ain’t no count that’d do that to a woman; don’t care who he is. That ain’t never gonna happen to you again. He ain’t never gonna knock you in the head or beat on you that a-way no more. I can promise you that.” His speech became heated, and then he felt somewhat chagrined by his passionate outburst, got up from his chair, and quickly stalked off with no place in particular to go.
The next morning, after breakfast, Ellis took the scraps from his and Clairey’s plates and added them to the slop bucket on the porch, where a few flies swarmed about it. He took the bucket and headed out to feed the pigs.
While he was dumping the slop into the trough, over the fence he saw one of his squealing shoats with its head stuck in a can, running franticly around the pen, trying to dislodge it. The sight amused him, and he laughed to himself as he dropped his slop bucket to the ground and opened the gate. It took him a few laps around the pen before he got hold of the pig, its loud protests growing more fevered by the minute. How that pig managed to get himself in such a predicament was a mystery, but the humor of it left Ellis in a mood of merriment.
He bent down and pulled on the can, finding it was lodged more tightly than he had anticipated. He gave it a good yank, and when it did not budge, he gave it another. The can finally yielded, and he pulled it off the distressed pig’s head. The little shoat immediately took off into the shelter, traumatized by the whole episode.
It was at this point, as his attention diverted, that the half-wild hog, Snaggletooth, struck. Like a punishing fiend, he came around the shelter, drawn by the squalling of the shoat, full speed, and hooked his one good cutter right into the meat of Ellis’s left leg, knocking him to the ground with his brutal blow.
Ellis was in shock for a split second, lying in the mud of the pig pen, when he saw the boar coming at him again. His brain was heatedly trying to form thoughts, attempting to work out a plan of escape as his body rolled, kept rolling, while the boar rooted after. Snaggletooth caught up to him, vicious with his cutter as he went for another hit, frothy slobber emitting from his snout. Ellis grabbed the projecting lower tusk and gave it a mighty yank that sent the hog’s head spiraling sideways, twisting his body and laying him out on the ground.
It gave Ellis a moment to struggle to his feet, ignoring the intense pain that was exploding through
his leg, his sense of self-preservation taking over, and he made for the fence, toward safety. The hog wasted no time resuming his pursuit of Ellis; he was not about to lose the match. He worked his body in the mud, squirming until he was back on his feet and back to the attack. His short legs pumping fast and furious, he caught up with Ellis, getting another good hook into his leg—this one not as deep as the other because Ellis was now a moving target—before Ellis staggered frantically to the fence and launched his body over in a limp bundle on the other side. The boar ran himself again and again into the fence, pawing and rooting his nose, bloody spittle flying, trying desperately to still get at Ellis, all the while grunting and squealing and making a terrible noise. Trapper bounded for the fence, barking and growling at the hog. Even the dog did not faze the devil boar.
Ellis lay face down, covered in mud, groaning in agony, unwilling to move right away, listening to that wretched boar’s caterwauling and Trapper’s reaction. He finally got the strength to pull himself further away from the fence by dragging himself several feet forward on his elbows. As he looked toward the house, he thought that it might as well have been the same distance to the moon; it seemed that far. With a great effort, he managed to get to his feet, keeping his weight off of his left leg. He limped bit by bit through the yard, falling once, then again, moaning from the agony radiating from his lower leg, the warm, wet blood running down into his boot so that his foot sloshed in it when he put his weight on it.
Once he made it to the porch, he endeavored to climb the stairs but collapsed before he made it all the way up. “Clairey,” he called out weakly. “Clairey!”
She was inside, cleaning up after breakfast, untouchable within the haven of those walls, oblivious to his plight just beyond that screened door.
His desperation made him panic. He struggled harder to move himself, pulling his body with his arms up the last few stairs, and gasped again, “Clairey!”
She heard him this time and came through the door, alert, searching for him. And when she saw his predicament, she rushed to him, bent down with a little gasp, her eyes fearful. “Ellis, what happened?”
“That devil hog run me through,” he told her through clenched teeth as she helped him back to his feet. For a moment, he thought he would lose consciousness. His vision was lost, and there was a ringing in his ears he couldn’t account for, but he fought it because he knew that Clairey couldn’t move him into the house if he didn’t do his part. He leaned on her heavily while she guided him into the house and to the bedroom.
Ellis fell on his stomach across the bed, grunting loudly.
“Is this where he got ahold of you?” she asked.
But he didn’t have to answer her. The leg of his overalls, torn and saturated all the way through and dripping with blood, alerted Clairey to where his wound could be found. She rushed over to the chifferobe, fumbling through the contents of her sewing basket, and came back with a pair of scissors to cut the pant leg up the side seam so that she could survey the damage.
She pulled the blue jean flap back gently, and her heart sank. “It don’t look good,” she said, her voice anxious when she saw the ugly gouges in his leg. One was more shallow than the other, but they were both deep, the more severe one just shy of the bone, jagged and ripped. Without the restrictions of skin, the pale layers of fat and pink muscle tissue swelled from the slashes with a constant issue of blood draining from it. She hurried to the cupboard in the other room, grabbing a few clean dish cloths, and rushed back to press them to his calf in an attempt at stopping the bleeding.
“You’re gonna have to clean it,” he said between pursed lips as he grimaced.
“There ain’t nothin’ to clean it with,” she replied as she leaned heavily against his leg. She put most of her body weight behind her clenched hands, but the cloths were already drenched.
“Whiskey in the cupboard. You’re gonna have to use that.”
She had seen the whiskey before, in a tall thin bottle that was nearly full to the top, but she had never seen it used, not once since she had been there. Ellis kept it only as a curative remedy.
She could see the fine sheen of sweat on his brow. He was hurting bad. She couldn’t begin to imagine how much pain he was in, and she knew that it would only grow worse if she poured whiskey over it. “I ortta go get the doctor,” she protested, reluctant to be the one to inflict more pain upon him.
“Go on and get the whiskey,” he ordered her. His tone called for no disputation on the matter.
Clairey went again to the cupboard and retrieved the bottle of whiskey kept there and returned, pale and troubled, as a foreboding filled her breast. “It’s gonna hurt,” she warned him.
“I know, but it’s gotta be done.”
She straddled him, facing backward, putting her full weight on his upper thighs, and then took hold of his leg at the bend of his knee, gripping it firmly as she leaned forward. She pulled the cork from the bottle with her teeth, pouring the tawny liquid over the gashes on his leg. The tears came to her eyes when he let out a yell, just once, as he writhed beneath her. It was difficult for her to keep her balance for he was moving so, until he went limp and grew quiet, and she knew he must have passed out.
Clairey searched out a clean sheet, tearing it into thick strips, their edges frayed and shredded; she used them to bind Ellis’s leg. When she had finished, she sunk to her knees next to the bed and began to cry. Her heart hammering, her mind strained, she wondered what she should do next. What was the best thing for Ellis at that point? She had cleaned the wounds, but they were still seeping blood, and she knew they would need to be sewn shut. That was something she did not feel she was capable of. Again and again, she settled upon one thought: she had to go get the doctor and bring him back to Ellis. She had to go and get him right away before it was too late. Time was not his friend. But she could not bring herself to leave him. What if he was to wake while she was gone and not know where she had gone?
Before long, Ellis stirred, his voice feeble. “Claire?”
“I’m here,” she answered, sliding her hand across to his and touching him lightly. “We gotta get you cleaned up. Can you manage it?”
“I don’t reckon I feel up to it,” he mumbled. His face was deathly white beneath the smears of mud, and he hardly had the strength to speak.
“I’ll hep you,” she promised. But when she tried to pull her hand away, he held it tight, refusing to let go.
“Where you goin’?” His words were nearly inaudible.
“I ain’t a-gonna leave you,” she soothed. “But I gotta get that there bucket of water in the other room there. You just sit here for a spell, an’ I’ll be back direc’ly.”
He unwillingly let go of her fingers, and she went to get the water. She poured from the bucket of well water into the wash basin, dropping a washcloth, and soaked up the liquid.
When she returned, she tenderly set about bathing his face and hair, removing the dirt and grime as if she were working with an infant. “Can you sit up?”
He nodded his head slightly, struggling to position himself upright. Clairey had to assist him, propping the two pillows from the bed behind his back. She unclasped his overalls and unbuttoned his filthy shirt, easing his arms out of it as he grunted and groaned from the strain of it. She pulled his undershirt up over his head and tossed it onto the floor.
His eyes seemed unfocused, and he was disoriented, signs to be alarmed over. She brushed the cool rag over his clammy skin, working in gentle, even strokes until she felt she had done all she could. She then helped him into a clean, fresh undershirt and shirt, buttoning each button carefully.
“The doctor,” she began. “I ortta go fetch the doctor, Ellis.” Clairey felt the tears welling up in her eyes again because she was afraid, because she felt so alone, but she resisted the urge. “He’d know what to do.”
“Ain’t no need to do that,” he told her. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
“If I leave now, I can be back afore nig
htfall.”
“If it’s as bad tomorra, we’ll fetch him then,” he insisted, doing his best to talk her out of it.
“Might be too late tomorra,” she protested. “You could lose that leg or worse, Ellis.” Clairey was trying to scare him a little so that he would agree to what she was asking for.
“My daddy tole me once that he left my mama to go and get the doctor when she was fixin’ to have me. He tole me it was the worst thing he ever done, leavin’ her alone like that.” He struggled to keep his words even, to keep any emotion from compromising his message. “Didn’t matter no how ’cause the doctor weren’t nowheres around to come hep. My daddy was the one that brung me into this world after all of it. He tole me if he’d a-knowed she was dyin’, he woulda stayed with her. He wouldn’t a-wasted the time he had left with her, you know.”
She didn’t speak for a long while, wondering what she should say to him, what would convince him. She ended up deciding not to try convincing him. “I’m gonna go get the truck,” she told him. “I’m gonna bring it right up to the porch, and you’re gonna get in so’s I can drive you into town, Ellis,” Clairey said in a quiet but firm voice. She left no room for argument.
Chapter 20
THE DOCTOR SWABBED ELLIS’S LEG with cotton soaked in iodine, leaving an orange stain over the back of his calf. He had already administered morphine, and now Ellis was lying upon his stomach, out cold. Clairey leaned eagerly over the doctor’s shoulder as she hung on his every word.
“I’m appalled by the amount of damage here,” he remarked. “The entry wound is clean, but when that boar pulled upward, he literally ripped the skin and tissue into pieces.”
“Can you fix it?” Clairey asked. Her voice was strained, and she was doing her best to keep from losing her composure.
“It isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but it certainly isn’t good. It’ll be difficult to repair; that goes without saying. If all else fails, I may have to take the leg.”
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