“Did he say that?” Emma asked. “Right up to the judge?”
“He did,” Kirk told her. “I heard him.”
“Hit won’t help him,” Emma said shrewdly. “But I’m glad he did it.”
“Hal Swain said,” Kirk told her, “he’ll be out in a year. Hal Swain’s in politics outside. He was acquainted with some of the men down there. He knew the judge.”
Emma looked away to the window where light was just coming in. The pot of coffee boiled over and she got up to hand the cups and pour it out.
“Did you see him after?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kirk said. “For a little.”
“Did he say anything about the McEacherns?” Emma asked.
“No.”
“I never did trust them,” Emma said. “I believe right now Pap is the one suffering for the lot. I believe they sold him out.”
“He didn’t say.”
Kirk pointed to a package on the table. “He couldn’t take the shirt,” he said.
Emma opened the package and held up the shirt. “I’ll save hit, till he comes,” she said. But she saw that Kirk’s eyes were on it.
“Maybe we’d better not—maybe you’d better have it while it’s new.” She held it out to him.
“Save it for him,” Kirk said roughly and pushed her away. She saw the wanting in his face.
“Now you take hit,” she insisted putting it on his lap. “Maybe when the time comes we’ll have money to get Granpap another.”
Kirk reached into his pocket. There was a rattle of change and he pulled out quite a handful and let it roll on the table into a pile. John and Bonnie watched every move of his hand. They had never seen so much money at one time.
“Neighbors and kin took up a collection,” Kirk said. “Granpap said ye must buy a cow.”
The money was there. And it was important. The cow would be important. But this direct message from Granpap was what Emma had been wanting. It was a great comfort.
Presently when Bonnie had gone to sleep and John was out getting wood she asked,
“Did ye see Basil around?”
“No.”
“Seems like he might have come down. The school ain’t far, is hit?”
“Hal says about twenty miles.”
“And down hill all the way,” Emma said. “He could have walked it in the time hit takes to have a good meal.”
“Well, he wouldn’t.”
“I know. He could but he wouldn’t. I wish he was different.”
“He is different.”
“Different from us. I don’t know where he gets what he’s got. And I don’t know why I don’t like hit. He’s steady. Not like you. You’re s’ reckless.”
“No more than others. No more than Granpap.”
“Granpap’s not near s’ reckless as he was. And maybe you’ll calm down later.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KIRK brought back a souvenir from outside. “When court stopped for dinner,” he said, “Granpap’s case hadn’t come up. I was wandering round and a man in a closed-up wagon called me. ‘Want your picture took?’ he asked and I said no. He looked at me and then he said. ‘If you’ll hold my horse while I get some dinner I’ll do you for nothing.’ So I held the horse, and he took me.”
Emma held the photograph up before her. It was not very clear. But it was Kirk with his hair slipping over his forehead, though the gay, careless look wasn’t there. He was stiff, and solemn as an owl.
“Hit favors you and again it don’t,” Emma said, fingering the piece of cardboard.
“Hit’s me all right, Kirkland McClure. The man wrote my name on the back.”
Kirk took the picture and turned it over. Sure enough on the back was written a name.
“So that’s your name written down—Kirkland McClure.” Emma spoke the name as if she was reading. Going over to the chimney shelf she put the picture against the salt gourd. While she stood there admiring it Kirk spoke some words.
“What did you say?” she asked. He repeated the words with elaborate care.
“There’s a sight of room here—with two gone.”
Emma turned and faced him. What was he getting at? He wanted something of her—that she knew.
“Minnie’s pap has turned her out,” Kirk said.
Emma had no word to say. It was to be expected that Minnie’s pap would do just that.
“When a girl like Minnie,” Kirk said, looking at the floor, “gets out on the world there’re plenty of men waiting round like buzzards over a carcase.”
“And the carcase has got to stink before the buzzards smell hit,” Emma said.
“Sure enough,” Kirk answered. “A woman can’t be kind to another.”
“Ye want her—now?” Emma asked. Kirk did not answer. Emma knew the answer to that question.
“Be ye going to marry?” she asked, then.
“Come spring we’d walk down. She’s too big now.”
“And her carrying another man’s child,” Emma said.
“She’s a gal that draws men and they take her. She needs a man to keep her from temptation.”
“Her pap tried to. He didn’t seem to do hit.”
“Her pap used her bad,” Kirk said. “She needs kindness.”
Emma held to the chimney shelf. She stood up quiet and still before Kirk. What was he asking? Children didn’t know. They could see only their side. Like an owl in the daytime, their eyes were open but they couldn’t see. They flew by night getting what they wanted and if they were shown day things they fluttered and twisted away from seeing.
“Sam McEachern is a-hanging round her,” Kirk said.
“Let him,” Emma cracked out. “They’d do for each other.”
“Ye wouldn’t turn out a hog that was going t’ litter,” Kirk accused his mother. “And ye won’t take in a gal.”
“I’ve got enough t’ do with Granpap gone,” Emma said. But Kirk saw that she turned away.
“I’ll help,” he told her. When Emma did not answer he walked out to where John was digging the trench clean for sweet potatoes on the south side of the cabin. Kirk took the hoe from John and began digging.
“Run along and grabble taters,” he said. John stood by the open trench. He had dug hard and long and wanted to finish.
“I ain’t a-going to grabble taters for nobody,” he said to Kirk angrily. “I want that hoe.”
Kirk wouldn’t get angry. “Then grabble them for yourself,” he told John. “You’re going to eat them, ain’t ye? Run along.” Kirk began to dig long deep strokes. “I’ll be ready before you’re half finished grabbling,” he said, and smiled up at John from under his hair. John had been ready to fight. There were times when Kirk had a way that made people wish to do what he wanted them to do. This was one of the times. Suddenly John was satisfied to go out and join Bonnie in the potato patch.
Bonnie was reaching down into the dirt feeling after the roots with her grimy fingers. The shallow gully between the potato hills already held a number of potatoes, slim ones, and fat bellied ones with long tails. John began on the row next Bonnie at the other end. He spread his fingers and pushed them through the dirt under the yellowing vines. It was a pleasure when his finger tips touched a root. There was a moment of excitement and suspense before the fingers closed around the potato. For no one could tell until that moment whether it would be small or large and round and worth pulling out.
Emma came from the cabin. Instead of beginning at the end of a new row she started just opposite John.
“Remember Minnie?” she asked John, looking across at him from her row. “Minnie Hawkins?”
“Yes.” John gave a tug in the dirt and brought out a fat potato. He felt it carefully, then slung it on the pile behind him. “She’s little side up, big side down,” he said, not looking at Emma.
“Who told ye?”
John hesitated. “I know it,” he said.
“He wants to bring her here.” Emma jerked her head toward Kirk.
&
nbsp; “Why?”
“He wants her.”
John could understand the sounds in Emma’s voice. Now he understood that she was disturbed. But he could not make out everything. Kirk wanted Minnie and his wanting should make it right for Minnie to come. Yet Emma’s voice said it was not right.
“The McClures,” Emma said, “have always been people that stuck. If Kirk takes her he’ll stick. And she’ll ruin him, just ruin him.”
“She’s a pretty gal,” John said. He had heard them say this at church, and he felt himself that Minnie was pretty.
“Too pretty for Kirk’s good. He said,” Emma went on bitterly, “I wouldn’t turn out a hog if it was going to litter.”
“No,” John said, “I reckon you wouldn’t.”
It sounded as if John had pronounced judgment on her. She left her row and went back into the cabin. She could not deny Kirk his home, so long as he wanted to stay. And she did not wish to. She did not grudge Minnie the food nor the roof. If it had been any other girl having a baby she could take her in and say welcome. It was Minnie who made it hard. She was lacking in something fine and upstanding. Minnie’s mother was the same. Even when she was a woman married twelve years she would go to the store and if a man was leaving with a sledge or on a horse for the outside she would beg him to bring her something “nice.” Emma had heard her once. This was no idle talk. If Minnie came she would be like poison ivy climbing around the cabin. Yet if Kirk wanted Minnie, it seemed that Emma must give in.
She went out to Kirk. “I reckon,” she said, “if you want her you’ve got to have her.”
“Will you give her welcome?” Kirk asked.
“I’ll give her welcome,” Emma said and walked away, leaving Kirk standing by the trench and the big mound of dirt. He did not stay there long. She heard a noise out front and there was Kirk walking the path to the trail.
She called him and ran to catch up. He stood and faced her.
“Be ye bringing her to-day?” she asked. She had thought there would be some time between accepting Minnie and having her.
“Ora kept her.” Kirk looked across the cabin to South Range. He did not want to see his mother’s face. “It’s why I was late. I brought her last night. Ora said I’d got to ask you first.”
A warm rush of blood went over Emma at the knowledge that Ora had taken up for her and understood. But this was so soon. Yet she had told Kirk “I’ll give her welcome,” and soon or late it must be.
“I’ll cook some supper,” she said. She turned back to the potato patch where John and Bonnie were gathering up the potatoes to carry them to the trench. She thought, “With his Granpap just put in jail he had time to think of Minnie. Like dancing on top of a new grave.” In a moment she had another thought. “He’s young and the young can’t see what the old suffer. They’re blind. He’s blind as a hoot owl.”
All the rest of the afternoon while the sun went down further and the shadows got longer, and the white clouds made shadows on the mountains, Emma walked about the clearing and the cabin, helping Bonnie and John, and making supper. Inside her there was unquiet. It was like winds that blew from the north and the south at the same time. She would hate Minnie and Kirk too, and feel cold and hard toward them. Then she would think of excuses for both. The warm feeling struggled with the cold until Emma felt as if a storm had struck her and torn up her roots, so that she was lying helpless, like a tree on the side of a mountain.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ONE day in the late fall Minnie’s boy child came. Ora sat over the fire with her legs spread out to make a big cradle of her lap for the child. Bonnie and John had gone over to tell Ora it was time for her to come. They had stayed with the children there. Ora reached Emma’s cabin just in time. A few moments after Ora arrived Minnie groaned a little, and there was the baby. The child had got its first nursing and Minnie was sleeping over in Emma’s bed.
“Come as easy,” Ora said. “Not like yours, Emma.”
“No,” Emma answered. “Mine all came hard. They seemed to dread getting into the world.”
“She’ll have plenty of milk, being big and healthy like she is.”
“Hit’s a good thing. That cow Hal sold us is most dry.”
“Hit’ll be a surprise for Kirk,” Ora said and leaned far over the baby to spit.
“I do so hope they’ll get a bear.”
“Who went along besides Frank?”
“Fraser McDonald and Jesse.”
“Four,” Ora said. “Hit won’t be much for each one. Hal don’t give much for hides.”
“No.”
Minnie stirred on the bed. She gave a great sigh and turned over. The women listened until she breathed regularly again.
“Does she vex ye much?” Ora asked in a low voice.
“No, I can’t say she does. She hasn’t helped, but she hasn’t hindered. She ain’t a talking woman and most of the day she just sits over the fire a-waiting for him.” Emma smiled. “Hit seems almost like a reproach from the Lord for the thoughts I had of her before.”
“Maybe.” Ora drew back with a sudden jerk from the baby. “That’s right,” she said to him. “Wet me up, ye little man child.” She held out the baby to Emma. “Hold him,” she said, “while I dry out.”
In Emma’s lap the baby sputtered as if it might come fully awake. Ora leaned over and the two watched the thin bowed legs squirm, and the head move weakly.
“A man child,” Ora said. “Look at him. Look at the damage his pappy did, and now he’s here t’ bring others to sorrow and maybe t’ shame.”
“Ye’re putting all the blame in one place,” Emma said.
“Hit’s where hit ought to be.”
“The way I look at it,” Emma said, “hit’s not one’s fault nor the other.”
“You can’t kill a bear without a shot in its side,” Ora said. “The bear does its part by getting in the way, but the gun does the killing. A man is a danger to every good woman and she’s got to know it . . . . A danger to every woman good or bad. I tell my Sally to look on men that they’re deadly as rattlesnakes.”
“There’s good men,” Emma said. “Like Frank. And Jim McClure was good.”
“I’m not a-talking about husbands, but men and girls unmarried.”
“As I look back there was times when I would have been willing if Jim had a’wanted to take advantage before we was married,” Emma said. “And afterwards he was kind for a man. I would a’done anything he said. If he’d a’told me to put my hand in the fire and hold it there I think I would a’done it. But he never did. And before Bonnie was born he walked to Swain’s a cold November night to get some pickles. I wanted them s’ bad.”
The baby’s red face screwed up into ugly tight knots. Small gasping whimpers came out of its mouth. Emma stood up. “I’ll put hit in the bed,” she told Ora. “Maybe she’ll wake up and give it some milk.”
The next day about noon the men who had been bear hunting came down the south trail. John was at the back watching. Bonnie couldn’t be budged from the baby inside. She wanted to hold it continually. Emma almost had to smack her because she got in the way with her begging.
Both the young ones were so taken up with their interests Emma had to do everything about the cabin. She cut the wood and brought it in. But she was used to that. Even when the others were there, it took so long to urge them to the tasks she often did everything herself rather than go to the trouble of persuading them.
Since early daylight John had been on the lookout for the men. He went up the trail every few minutes. At last he saw them far up the trail and knew by the way they swung along together that they had a bear. Running through the bushes toward them he could see the poles across Kirk’s and Jesse’s shoulders. It was a huge she bear. Her feet were tied to the long poles and her head hung down. John felt her. His hands dug into her thick fur and he felt the nipples under the hair.
When they came on a rise and saw the cabin John remembered the baby. He looked at Kirk. The men were
laboring, saving their breath for the burden they were carrying. It was no time to speak of a baby. He saw Emma come to the back door. He was afraid she would speak. But she was silent, watching them carry the load around the house to the spring hollow.
The dogs frisked around the carcase and John hung there too, watching and sniffing as if he was another dog. The men let him bring the stone and whet their knives, while they sat and drank from the jug Kirk fished from the bushes, where they had left it on the way out.
The four guns rested against the spring bench, and John took his soap stone there. He spat on the stone and pressed the blade down. With all the energy in his arm he moved the blade in a circle. When the stone got dry he spit again. When Fraser’s knife seemed sharp enough he wiped it carefully on his jeans and picked a blade of dry grass. The knife cut straight through. The late sun glittered on the blade. John looked at Fraser. He wondered if Fraser would notice how finely the blade had been sharpened. If he did, perhaps when the time came to divide the carcase he would think, “What a fine boy Kirk’s brother is. We will let him choose.”
For Fraser being the oldest and the best bear hunter was the leader. He would do the skinning and later hold up the divided carcase for the parts to be chosen.
When Fraser called for his knife John carried it to him. and stood by while Fraser began the skinning. Three skillful cuts and the skin lay back. The dogs, smelling the fresh meat, crowded between Fraser’s legs.
“Shut them pests up, John,” Fraser said. The boy struggled with the dogs. They were very fierce now the blood was dripping and bit at him.
“Here,” Fraser said. He sliced off a piece of red meat and put it in John’s hand. “Just let them smell that.”
John let them get a whiff and started toward the cabin. They followed yapping at his heels. He ran into the other room and left them fighting over the piece of meat. The door opened on the inside, and he had to spend some time getting it shut without crushing his fingers.
When he returned Jesse McDonald was finishing the knives. He was sitting to rest his leg that had been hurt in a fall over a cliff. It was not hurt much for he had been caught in some laurel bushes. But his face and hands were scratched. He had been out on the mountain picketing. When John came up and sat down beside him, he told how he had walked along taking a drink now and then when suddenly the ground went right out from under him. He winked a swollen eye at John. “The wine was good,” he said, “and the night was long.”
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