The mention of Janson Sanders’s name dragged her attention back to the conversation going on around her. Stan was staring across the table toward their father, light from the cut-glass chandelier above the table reflecting off the round lenses of his eyeglasses. “Janson’s teaching me to tell the weather from the signs, that smoke going to the ground means it’s going to rain, and smoke rising means it’s going to be dry—”
“That’s all nothing but superstition,” Martha Whitley said, delicately cutting the meat on her plate with a knife and fork as she glanced up at her son.
“I don’t know about that. So far the boy’s been right most of the time—” William Whitley began, but Bill interrupted before he could finish the thought.
“That’s about all that damned Indian’s good for—”
Elise’s father started to respond, but Elise cut him off mid-sentence, not even taking the time to think. “He’s an Indian?” She had never met an Indian before, or even seen one, and, somewhere in the back of her mind, she had not even really believed they existed any longer, at least not outside reservations and the movies. But Janson Sanders was an Indian, or at least so Bill had said, and he really looked as she thought an Indian might look, so dark, looking much like the pictures she had seen in books and in the movie theatres, with that black hair, and those cheekbones—but weren’t Indians supposed to be savages, living in tepees, wearing breechcloths, murdering people. That was the way they had been shown in the movies, and in the books she had read.
“He’s half Indian,” Stan answered, delighted to at last be the center of conversation at the table. “His mother was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, from a reservation and all, but his daddy was white—”
“Full-blooded or half-breed, he’s still nothing but a damned, useless Indian,” Bill said, interrupting his brother’s words. “It’s a miracle he hasn’t stolen us blind already, the goddamn thieving—”
“Bill Whitley!” Elise’s mother’s face had gone white at her son’s words, her Baptist soul aghast at the blasphemy spoken. She cleared her throat loudly, her cheeks slowly beginning to stain with embarrassment.
“When did you get to be such an expert on Indians, anyway?” Alfred asked, seeming only to want to prolong the confrontation. He smiled with self-satisfaction at the look on his brother’s face. “He’s the only Indian we’ve ever had around here.”
“Everyone knows what they’re like. They’re all still a bunch of thieving, dirty savages, even after having lived with white men all these years.”
“That boy’s no savage. He’s a good, God-fearing boy—” their mother began.
“He’s a ‘Holy Roller’—” Alfred snorted, but fell silent as his mother’s look fell on him.
“He’s a goddamn savage!” Bill snapped.
Before his mother could respond, William Whitley’s voice broke across the table. “That’s enough!” and everyone fell silent. “We’re putting on a bad face for our guest here. J.C. will be thinking that it’s us who are the savages.” He smiled in J.C.’s direction for a moment, and Elise could almost feel the boy cringe away. Then her father turned back to Bill. “Besides, the only reason you’re so against the boy is because he won’t take any of your bluster.”
No, he wouldn’t—Elise thought to herself. From what she had already seen of Janson Sanders, he would never back down from her brother, and he would not be afraid of him, as so many of the other farmhands were. She saw the look of anger in her brother’s eyes, but knew he would not dare to respond—their father would never allow it.
“The boy’s a hard worker, and he earns his pay, which is more than I can say for most of the men on this place.”
“He’s weeded the flower beds for me, and mowed the lawn several times,” Martha Whitley said. “He’s very well-mannered, considering who he is. I don’t think I’ve heard him say more than two words—”
“He has a lot to say,” Stan protested. “He talks to me all the time.”
“You shouldn’t spend so much time around that boy.” A stern expression came to William Whitley’s face as he stared at his youngest son. “It doesn’t look right, your being friends with someone like him, especially not with that boy. He’s only half white—”
“But he’s all right, Daddy. He’s taught me all about growing things, and foretelling the weather by the signs, and about wild plants you can eat, and the ones you can use for medicine—”
“That’s all nothing but superstition,” his mother said, “old wives tales. He ought not teach you that nonsense.”
“But he knows all about it. Really, he does; his grandmother taught him. And he’s all right, really he is, even if he is only half white. He’s my friend—he’s okay, don’t you think he is, Elise?”
Suddenly Elise felt as if every eye in the room was on her. She swallowed hard and glanced around the table.
“How would your sister know anything about that boy?”
Elise opened her mouth to speak—she did not know what she was about to say, and she never had the chance to find out. “Elise went to see him today. I told her something he said, and she didn’t like it. She said she was going to talk to him,” Stan said, looking toward her again. “You did go talk to him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did, but—” she answered, knowing that she had to change the subject, and change it quickly, before someone could ask—
“What was it he said that you didn’t like?”
She was going to say that it was nothing, just a misunderstanding, but Stan blurted out the truth even before she could speak. “He said he thought she ought to marry J.C., that having a husband and some children might settle her down and get the ‘flighty ideas’ out of her head—he said that he didn’t think a good spanking would hurt her any, either.”
William Whitley stared for a moment, then roared with laughter, slapping his knee beneath the table. “That’s damned out of line, but it’s just like the boy!” he laughed. “He doesn’t talk much, but, when he does, he says just what’s on his mind. Those people usually do.”
Who ‘those people’ were Elise did not know, and at the moment she did not care. She had never been so horribly embarrassed in all her life.
“Maybe you ought to listen to the boy’s advice, Elise,” her father said, still chuckling, looking from her, to J.C., and then back again. “It sounds to me like he’s speaking good, common sense. It’d do you good to get married, settle you down—and, if you behave yourself, J.C. might even let you get by without the spanking.”
Her face was burning with embarrassment—she only wanted to get out of this room. Janson Sanders had made her the center of this joke, had caused her this embarrassment—and he had only given her father one more weapon to use in his drive to marry her off to J.C.. She was absolutely furious, her hands twisting the linen napkin in her lap into knots. Damn him! Damn that ill-mannered—
She glanced over at J.C.. The boy looked absolutely horrified, pink to his ears, almost choking on the food in his mouth. She had to get them both out of there before anything else could be said. She had to—
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, sliding her chair back and setting her now wrinkled and knotted linen napkin on tablecloth beside the plate she had only barely touched all through the meal. “J.C., would you like to go out and sit on the veranda with me?” she asked, wanting only to get them both out of this room and away from her father.
“Yes, I—I’d like that.” He looked unbelievably relieved and grateful, pushing his glasses up from the bridge of his nose as he got to his feet.
Elise saw her father’s complacent smile as she rose from her chair—he thinks I’m going along with him, she told herself. He thinks that he’s won, that I’m going to marry J.C. without a fight—damn that Janson Sanders, it was all his fault, Elise told herself. The damned, ill-mannered farmhand.
Ethan Bennett sat in the fro
nt parlor of his home that night, trying to drink himself into a stupor. He sat on the velvet settee, staring at the light as it reflected through the half-empty bottle of whiskey on his knee. The house was quiet; Phyllis Ann had gone out, and Paula had gone upstairs long ago—but his wife held little interest to him. He wanted only to drink and forget, to sink into the blackness he could so often find at the bottom of a bottle.
But tonight that nothingness would not come. His mind refused to stop working; his thoughts refused to stop coming, so he just sat and continued to drink, getting only drunker—but still that nothing would not come.
It was all Phyllis Ann’s fault. The confrontation with her earlier had only served to clear his senses and somewhat counteract the alcohol that had already been in his bloodstream. It was all her fault, the damned, ungrateful little bitch, getting sent home from—
But, no, it was not Phyllis Ann’s fault. She had said something—yes, it was Elise Whitley who had gotten her sent home. It had been Elise Whitley who had done whatever it was that had gotten Phyllis Ann thrown out of school. It had all been Elise Whitley’s—
He knew the entire County had to be laughing at him, laughing at how he had allowed William Whitley’s daughter to take his Phyllis Ann down the road to ruin—Phyllis Ann had done nothing wrong; she was a good girl. He had raised her to be a good—
Elise Whitley was a bad sort. He should have realized that long before. All the changes in Phyllis Ann—but it was not too late even now. Whitley’s brat had to be shown she could not ruin his daughter’s good name and get away with it, that she could not make him the center of jokes the County over, that she would have to pay for—
He turned the bottle up and drank from it again, long, burning swallows that brought tears to his already watery eyes—Elise Whitley needed to be taught a lesson. She needed to be taught a lesson indeed for what she had done to his family. If her father was not man enough to give her what she deserved, then Ethan Bennett was. Then Ethan Bennett was—
He got unsteadily to his feet, swayed and almost fell, the room shifting slightly around him. He steadied himself against the settee for a moment, then began to slowly walk toward the door, knowing what it was he had to do—Elise Whitley had a lesson coming to her tonight. A lesson she would remember for a very long time.
A very long time indeed.
The night was calm and quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of crickets in the front yard. Elise sat in a wicker chair on the front veranda of her home, staring out across the yard toward the dark road, thinking. The light from the parlor windows behind them fell onto the veranda, dimly illuminating J.C. where he sat nearby in a chair that matched her own—they had never in their lives had trouble talking, not from the time they had been small children together. Now there were no words to say and silence hung over them, a physical silence as real as the barrier her father had placed between them, a barrier of pressures to make a long-standing friendship more than it could ever be.
“Damn my father!” she said aloud, but quietly, without thinking, then laughed at the shocked expression that came to J.C.’s face. She reached out and took his hand, smiling. “Well, it’s how I feel.”
“I guess he just wants what he thinks is best for you.”
“Best for him, you mean. He doesn’t give a whit for what I want, and he never has—but it won’t work. He can’t make us get married if we don’t want to.”
For a moment J.C. looked unbelievably relieved. “I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to get out of it,” he blurted out, then sat blinking at her from behind his glasses, aghast at his own unthinking words. “Oh, Elise, I didn’t mean it that way. I—I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to marry you. I—I don’t, but—I mean—it’s just—”
She laughed at his discomfort and squeezed his hand. “Oh, J.C., calm down. I know what you mean, and I don’t want to marry you either. You’re one of my dearest friends, but I don’t love you, at least not in that way.”
He smiled tentatively.
“I do love you, but like I love my brothers, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
“Your father, he wants us to be more than that—Elise, what are we going to do? It’s not just him; it’s my father as well. He’s pretty set on it, too. We can’t go on just trying to ignore them both forever.”
“I know.” She sighed and sat back, thinking. There had to be a way to end the marriage plans and still keep peace in both families. But, try as she might, she could think of nothing.
“Well, we’ll think of something; don’t worry,” she said, wishing she could feel a little more assured herself.
J.C. looked less than convinced—she knew that she would lose the little peace of mind she had left if she had to look at his sad expression much longer. She stood. “It’s getting late, J.C.. You better go on home. Us being alone like this can only make matters worse.”
“Yes—yes, of course, you’re right.” He stood, fidgeting with his glasses. She walked him down the front steps and to his car, then stood watching as he drove away.
The quiet of the night closed in about her as the car turned out of the drive and into the dark road, then disappeared among the cotton fields that led away from the house, the sound of the crickets now seeming to have fallen silent as well. She sighed and looked back up at the house from where she stood just before the front steps, the tall, brightly lit windows throwing patches of light onto the curve of the drive and the smooth lawn around her—she could not go back in just yet. Her father would be waiting for her, waiting to find out if anything had happened between her and J.C., waiting to find out if his plans were working.
The night air was chill and she hugged her arms for warmth as she turned and wandered slowly out into the yard, thinking. There had to be a way to put a stop to her father’s plans. She had no intention of marrying J.C., no matter how much trouble it might stir up in her family, or in his.
“Oh, why can’t things just be easy and simple?” she wondered aloud, hearing her own words as she reached the old oak at the edge of the yard and stopped beneath its branches. Life seemed so uncertain now. So very uncertain.
She looked up into the dark branches overhead, wondering how old the tree was, how long it had stood in this spot, how many Whitleys it had seen come and go, how many changes in how many lives. She felt as if she were almost between stages in her own life now, not a girl anymore, and not quite a woman, uncertain about life and the future itself. She sighed and looked back toward the house standing at a distance across the yard—it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop; she knew something would have to happen. She knew—
She also knew that, whatever that something was, it would change her life forever.
Ethan Bennett parked his car a short distance down the red clay road from the Whitley house and walked the remainder of the way. He did not want to announce his presence, his intentions, too soon. Elise Whitley would not have the chance to get away, to deny him the lesson she had coming—she had to learn, had to be shown that she could not take advantage of his little girl, use her, and then make him the butt of jokes the County over for what she had done to Phyllis Ann.
He stopped at the edge of a field of young cotton plants as he neared the house—then he saw her, standing beneath a large tree not too far distant, alone, unaware that her judgment stood so close at hand. He turned up the bottle he had brought with him and drank—she had grown up, matured, since the last time he had seen her. He remembered her as a skinny girl, all arms and legs, with long, red-gold braids, and freckles across the bridge of her nose. Now she had the body of a young woman, rounded and soft. And waiting.
He licked his lips and took another drink, feeling his penis begin to harden in the crotch of his pants. He had not touched Paula in months, and the girl he kept in town had not had anything to do with him in the weeks since she had seen his LaSalle parked in front of Delta White’s hou
se one Saturday morning—it’s not good for a man to do without, he told himself, his hand straying unconsciously to his crotch. He might just do more than teach her a lesson. Once he finished punishing her, he might just teach her a few other things as well. That was all they wanted anyway, he told himself, being batted about a bit, and then bedded good and hard.
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and started forward, almost stumbling over his own feet for a moment, then catching himself and continuing on, his eyes never once leaving the girl—Elise Whitley would never forget this night, he told himself. This night, or the lessons she had coming.
10
There had been the sound of movement behind her, harsh breathing, the feeling of being watched—Elise turned, fear rising to her throat as she saw a man approaching her across the narrow expanse of yard edging the cotton field near where she stood. She took a step away, prepared to run toward the house that stood at a distance across the yard—then she recognized him, the sparse moonlight filtering through the branches of the tree overhead throwing his face into sharp planes of light and darkness.
“Mr. Bennett, what are you doing here?” she asked as he stopped before her, his eyes on her in a way she did not like, edging her voice with caution as she spoke again. “Mr. Bennett—”
“Don’t Mr. Bennett me, girl. I know what you’re about—”
“What I’m about?” She took a step backwards, away from him—she had seen too many times the results of his rages: the blackened eyes, the swollen lips, the purplish bruises, on Phyllis Ann and her mother; but never in her life had she ever had reason to fear him herself. His violence had always seemed restricted to his own family—but somehow she was afraid now. His eyes moved from her face and down her body—she could feel the look more than see it, but she knew it was there. She shivered involuntarily, suddenly cold, and took another step away, hugging her arms for warmth. “I don’t understand. Maybe we should—”
Behold, This Dreamer Page 21