Feast for Thieves

by Marcus Brotherton

  Two minutes later, Sally Jo swung open the screen door and pushed a figure toward me. “Time’s ticking, Rowdy. She needs to go to bed.” Sally Jo let the screen door slam behind her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and her shotgun kept watch on me too.

  I stared in her direction. Toward the small figure, I mean. Her hair was the color of honey. Her skin like a peach. She was quizzical and wide-eyed and grubby and stunk of cow manure. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  “You remember me, sweetheart?” I asked. My voice grew gentle.

  The child nodded.

  “You remember my name?”

  The girl shook her head no.

  “I’m your Uncle Rowdy. You remember how I brought you a gift last time?”

  The girl nodded, this time more quickly, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  I fished into my pocket, pulled out the yellow ribbon, and held it out to her. The smallest corner of her mouth twitched. “It’s yours,” I said. “Wear it in your hair if you’d like.”

  The girl took the ribbon and stared at it, fingering the shiny cloth. A bug zapped against the porch light. The child was four-and-a-half years old, born September 1, 1941. I remembered the date, I remembered it well.

  “That ribbon’s real pretty, Susannah, just like your name. You remember what I called you when you were first born—I told you last time I was here—Sunny Susannah. They ever call you Sunny around here?”

  She shook her head.

  I paused and eyed her closely. “Well, it’s no matter. That’s what I’ll call you every time I visit. I brought you another present. You like licorice?”

  The girl shrugged.

  I fished into my pocket again, brought out the licorice whips, and handed one to her.

  She took it and stared, her hands unmoving.

  “It tastes good. Here—I’ll show you.” I took one of the whips, bit the end off, chewed, and smiled.

  Cautiously she bit the end of hers and chewed. Her eyes brightened.

  I hoped she’d sit down next to me. I hoped I could tell her how much I loved her and hug her close, but I didn’t want to press my luck. Sometimes when you’re just getting to know a person, it’s better to eye her from a distance. You watch her out of the corner of your eye, and she watches you. Each time you meet you sit a hair closer. The poor child knew me mainly by my letters; I was pretty sure they’d been read to her, but getting used to a person in real life is different for a child. Last thing I’d ever want to do is scare the little gal.

  “Everything’s going to be fine, Sunny,” I said. “I’m going to make sure of that. I’ll come again and visit you real soon, and I’ll bring you another present then. If things aren’t fine I want you to tell me. Okay?”

  “The girl can’t talk yet, fool!”

  Sunny and I both jumped at Rance’s voice. He was standing in the doorway, his hand resting on his .45.

  “Time’s up, Rowdy. You ain’t paying me so you can put fool ideas in her head.” He glared at the girl and added sternly, “Get in the house, rat.” She scampered inside.

  I stood to my full height and glared at the man. “Be warned how you talk to her.” I wasn’t smiling in the least.

  He glared back at me. “The girl ain’t yours, Rowdy.” He laughed. “I’ll do what I want. Now, what’s your new plan? I’m all ears.”

  It had been nowhere near the half hour I paid for, but I wanted to keep on the man’s good side, so I unclenched my fists and tried to keep my tone casual. “Got me a job not far from here. Pays room and board and a monthly stipend. I can cut firewood and bring in extra. New plan’s for her to come with me right away. I’ll pay off what I owe on installments—plus thirty percent interest. That’s the new part of the deal. You make more money if you let her go today.”

  “And who’ll guarantee that?!” Rance laughed in my face. “Law’s on my side, Rowdy. The day you pay your debt in full is the day I release her. Nothing sooner!”

  I stared hard at the man. He stared hard back at me. Neither of us blinked. Neither of us moved. Finally I said, “What if I make it forty percent?”

  “Make it fifty.” He chuckled. “Make it sixty. Make it a hundred. It don’t make no difference—you ain’t taking her until your debt’s paid in full. We got lots of girls in this house, lots of ways to make money more than trapping. True enough, that don’t happen ’til the buds ripen on the vine a bit. But last time you came around I warned you that time’s coming quick for the rat. You’ve still got time before I put her to work, but it ain’t much, so you best be quick in your full financial delivery—you hear?”

  My eyes blazed. “If you put her to work I’ll—”

  “You’ll do what?” He unsnapped the holster of his .45. “Look Rowdy, we’re no stranger around here to shooting fellas who disagree with us, and it’s your own fault the child boards with the Chicorys. Let me refresh your memory of how you got yourself into this mess. It’s such a prime story.”

  “Won’t be necessary.”

  “Well, it brings a smile to my face to recount it again, it rightly does. Let’s see—you were dating Sally’s Jo’s sister, I remember—Nancy Clugman. A comely girl, folks considered, but a genuine skunk of a gal, everyone agreed. You knocked Nancy up. She had your baby then fled town leaving you holding the bag. What she say to you again?”

  I stayed silent. Rance was doing this to taunt me. I knew the man’s ways. His telling of the story dripped with venom in a way my own remembering wouldn’t.

  “‘You’re the daddy, Rowdy, so you deal with the problem.’” Rance laughed, swatted a mosquito, then continued. “Like a sap, you did the honorable thing, although Lord wonders how you kept going like you did. Working all those extra shifts at the mill, paying for a wet nurse, keeping the child at your boardinghouse. Must have come as a relief when Pearl Harbor hit and you knew every unmarried man in America would soon get drafted. Remember how you came crying to me then? Do you?”

  I hated this man with every yard of being.

  “Gal at the boardinghouse said she couldn’t look after the baby no more, what with the war starting and real money to be made. So in desperation you brought the child to us, her only kin, and offered twenty dollars a month for us to take care of the child while you were away. You enlisted in the army, started writing all those letters to her—oh, we read some of them, I remember. But twenty dollars doesn’t stretch far when raising a child these days, and when I heard you became a paratrooper, well, I had no choice but to double the fee. You paid it heartily all the time you were overseas, but then—” He let loose with a long, lusty cackle. “You got yourself thrown in jail!” He laughed again.

  “I’ll be going now,” I said. “Be back in two weeks for another visit.”

  He grabbed my arm roughly. “But this is where it gets good, Rowdy. Real good. See, right about the time you go to jail, Nancy Clugman wanders back to town. She doesn’t know of your noble arrangement with me and doesn’t care. All she wants is whiskey money. For two bottles of Wild Turkey, she signs over the custody papers. The child’s all ours now—all shiny and legal. You’re still fool enough to have mercy on the brat and keep paying for her keep, so your six months in the clink equals two hundred and forty dollars owed. Seven months later with no job, your bill comes to five hundred and twenty. Oh, I realize it’s tough for a man with a black mark on him to find work, but now we was talking real money, weren’t we? And then—” He let loose with his longest laugh yet. “Once you finally figured out what we do with our girls around here, you had the frantic notion to come to me one night and bet the high card. ‘Double or nothing’ you said! Oh you begged me to play. You pulled jack of hearts and thought you’d won. Until I pulled king of spades. Then you owed me a grand total of one thousand and forty dollars.” He cackled again and scrunched his face in mockery. “Oh, how will the poor hero ever pay his debt now?”

  I was down the porch steps and striding up the long driveway.

  “You’r
e a desperate man,” Rance called after me. “A desperate man who wants his daughter back! And I like that about you, Rowdy Slater. It’s good for business. Save her from a life of working for me, that’s fine. We don’t want her anyway! Just pay me my money, and I’ll sign those papers straight across!”

  The farther away I walked, the more the devil’s laughter lessened. I hated leaving his house empty-handed, but the man had me over a barrel. I was a desperate man indeed. Sure enough that’s why I did what I did. If a choice came to Rance Chicory laying a salacious hand on my child, or me taking a chance in crime with Crazy Ake, well even the fool plan of Crazy Ake’s looked to have merit. It did.

  I found my way back to the DUKW, dusted off the foliage, started up the engine, and started driving back to Cut Eye. I knew the math already. If I saved my ten dollars salary and cut and sold five loads of firewood each month, then it would take three years for me to get Sunny back. Three years was better than nothing. I didn’t like the job in front of me, but it was all I had. That is, if Rance didn’t think up some devilish new reason for me to need the money quicker. The DUKW roared down the highway into the night. I kept the pedal flat against the floorboards as I let loose a roar of war.

  If Rance touched her before then, I had no problem killing the man.

  No problem, I thought. No problem indeed.

  TWELVE

  It was long past midnight when I got back to Cut Eye. The town was quiet and I topped the tanks of the DUKW at Gummer’s station, then drove through town and over to the parsonage.

  There were two packages on the doorstep and a lone note tacked to the front door. The first package was from Augusta Wayman. It was filled with more clothes and shoes. Missed you tonight at dinner—come by real soon for some more peach shortcake, was carefully written on a note card and set on top. The second package was from Mert Cahoon. In it were sheets for the parsonage bed, an alarm clock, a clothes iron, and a homemade quilt. Make sure your shirt’s always well ironed, was scrawled on top.

  The sole note tacked to the front door was stuffed in an envelope of quality stationery grade and looked feminine, yet all business.

  Dear Reverend Slater:

  A missionary’s coming into town this weekend. He’ll take care of the evening service. For this, your first week only, I’ll teach Sunday school for the children and lead singing. All you’ll need to worry about is the morning service.

  Sincerely,

  Bobbie Barker

  It felt funny to read a note signed from Bobbie. I don’t know why it made a good shiver run up and down my spine. I put it out of my head and focused on the content. It was good—and meant a few less things I needed to concern myself about. I did my overhand pull-ups for the night, added some sit-ups to keep my gut strong, made up the bed, and flopped into a restless sleep. At dawn’s first light I was up. It was Saturday, and I drove over to the café for breakfast. Neither of the Waymans were there. It was the cook who was handling business, and the weekend fare wasn’t nearly as sumptuous as the weekday fodder. After eating, I headed back over to the church to begin work on my very first sermon.

  Oh, I’d heard a few sermons in my life. Never liked none much. There was that going-to-Sunday-school business when I was a kid. Then in the service there was always a chaplain or two who had something to say. I didn’t mind when the chaplains spoke. We was usually heading into battle, and the words they said were uplifting to a man. I went into my office, found a pencil, notepad, and the big old Bible that Bobbie had mentioned, and started into work.

  I had no notion where to begin. No idea what to do. An hour went by and I scratched down a thought or three. They looked okay on paper, but when I read back my words out loud, nothing sounded like any sermon I’d ever heard. Another hour went by, and then another, and then another. It was lunchtime, and I drove over to the café, downed a quick sandwich and a cup of black coffee, and went back to work. The afternoon heat was stifling. My eyes drooped, even with the coffee floating in me, and I propped up my head with my elbow. At one point I jolted myself awake. Clock on the wall said 2:15 p.m. This would never do. Never do indeed. I’ve always been the type of fella who thinks better on his feet. I left the office, headed over to the firewood awning beside the parsonage, grabbed the axe, and hiked out into the pine stand.

  I walked about a quarter of a mile, found a tall slash pine, and begin to chop. My mind cleared a bit and I found I could think much better as I swung an axe. When it came to the Bible, I figured I just needed to start at the beginning and work my way forward. The folks might have heard sermons from the book of Genesis before, but now they’d need to hear them again from me. The first chapter of the Bible was all about God making the heavens and the earth. He made light and darkness and called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” All basic stuff. I reckoned once I stood up in front of the people, I could just read the chapter straight through, then give a few thoughts on being outdoors. I could tell stories about fishing and hunting, being out in God’s great creation. Memories would come to me of when I was a boy. How proud I felt the first time I went deer hunting. The folks might get something from that, I guessed. I didn’t know what else to do.

  Well, I chopped the rest of that afternoon and felled the tree. I headed to the café for dinner, came home, limbed the tree, and started sawing it up for firewood. Late after the sun sunk in the western sky I headed home, did my pull-ups, brushed my teeth, and flopped down for bed, my hands good and blistered, my body calmed and tired.

  Funny, but in my dream I thought I heard the sound of a car’s engine. Lots of engines, in fact. They was coming into my bedroom, parking right at the foot of my bed. My eyes opened. The alarm clock! Sunday school started at 8:30 a.m. The service at 10. It was already 9:45.

  I never overslept. Why today of all days? I was up in a panic, scrambling to find my suit. I splashed cold water from the sink in the tub, shaved my face, washed the tree sap off my body, dried myself with an old work shirt, and jumped into my clothes. No time to iron my shirt—I hoped Mert wouldn’t notice. Grabbing my notes and the big Bible, I eyed the full parking lot from the doorway of the parsonage, then sprinted across the lot toward the church. Mert met me at the front door, a dark stare in her eyes.

  “You’re late!” she hissed. “Real late! Go at once and sit on the platform. Reverend Bobbie’s going to start the service in two minutes. Hurry!”

  I stumbled forward, trying to eye the crowd as I walked up the aisle. Word musta got around there was a new preacher in town, because I counted thirty-two people in the pews, a higher count than what Bobbie said was normal for Sunday morning. A few folks shook my hand on the way up and offered complimentary greetings such as, “Nice to see you, Reverend,” and “Glad you’re making your home with us.” Bobbie was already standing behind the pulpit, an open hymnbook in her hand. Augusta was on the organ, launching into a prelude. My, but that Bobbie sure cleaned up nice. She wore a pale pink dress with a touch of pale lipstick. I would have liked to see her standing aside from the pulpit so I could view her willowy figure more, but I quickly pushed those troubling thoughts out of my mind, climbed to the stage, and sat down.

  The congregation was already standing, already belting out “Shall We Gather at the River?”, and I noticed they skipped straight over the third verse for no good reason and sprinted straight on to the fourth. I fumbled around for a hymnbook, looked on the wall chart to note what page number we was on, and found the correct page just as the final verse was sung. The song ended, and all the folks sat down. Bobbie led in a prayer. Every eye closed and every head bowed, and I figured I’d better do the same. We stood in a jiffy and sung another hymn. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” All verses. I liked the feel of the words but didn’t understand what they meant, and then we sung a real rouser, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Sounded just like a beer-drinking jig if only the tempo was lilted up a bit.

  An offering plate was passed around like a rake, then Halligan Barker took t
he pulpit and I heard him introducing me. All eyes were on me now. I’d hoped I could look over my sermon notes before it was time for me to talk, but the folks was all clapping my welcome, looking my direction. My face grew hot. The sheriff shook my hand, then slapped me on the back. He was letting everybody know we was in for a real treat today, we was.

  Then, all of a sudden, I found myself alone onstage.

  A lump slid down my throat. I looked across the congregation. Time for me to start talking. Mostly it was all old blue-haired farming ladies, all pushing eighty. Mert stood at the back, glancing at a clipboard. Deputy Roy sat near the front next to the sheriff, Bobbie, and Emma Hackathorn and her four children. Augusta Wayman sat near the middle and gave me a smile, but her husband must have been back at the restaurant because she sat alone. I recognized old Woburn Jones from the mercantile. I didn’t see Gummer there, nor any other men except for one real fat cat slouching in the back row. He was dressed in a fancy white suit and his eyes were half closed. Three young women sat on either side of him. Those women didn’t much look like church ladies. Their lips were painted a vivid red, their dresses were cut low, and their bosoms spilled over bountifully. I recognized Luna-Mae, the woman from the car crash. She was painted up like a new barn door though her nose was swollen. She was staring at me with a quizzical look in her eyes.

  “Well, uh … good morning to y’all,” I said to the folks.

  “Good morning, Reverend!” they all yelled back.

  That upset my stride—them all shouting in unison like that, and I wasn’t exactly sure where to go next. I decided more introductions would appeal to their down-home natures.

  “Uh … name’s Rowdy … uh, but my real name’s Zearl, but everybody calls me Rowdy. Rowdy Slater. Um … and I guess I’m your new preacher. Uh …”

  I was finished. No more was coming out of my mouth on its own accord. I glanced high on the back wall. Staring straight at me was the bold-faced glare of a clock. I had at least thirty minutes to fill and already I was short on material. A bead of sweat formed on my forehead. From the back row I heard an uncomfortable cough. I cleared my throat and looked at Bobbie, hoping maybe a previous preacher would give me some kind of clue as to how to proceed. Her eyes were wide, her Bible in her lap. She pointed emphatically at her Bible and mouthed, “READ IT!”