by Peggy Gaddis
Enoch gasped. “Hey, Maw, you know whut you’re a-sayin’?”
“Nobody ain’t never accused me o’ bein’ loose-tongued,” she assured him. “Way look at it, feller wants a gal, ain’t nobody but the gal got the right to try t’ stop him.”
Jennie bustled out of the kitchen and down the back steps towards the stable, milk-bucket over one arm, milking stool over the other.
Enoch stood staring after her goggle-eyed, until the sound of her passing had vanished, and then he turned and looked down at Cindy. His face was crimson.
“Maw’s willin’ fer us to git married-up,” he muttered as though he could not credit it.-
“I reckin so,” said Cindy. “But I got somethin’ to tell you, Enoch, that’ll maybe change your wantin’ me.”
Enoch’s face darkened, and his great ham-like hands closed into tight fists. “Reckin I seen that city feller comin’ up hyer,” he growled. “So reckin I kin guess whut you wanta tell me. You’re aimin’ to take him ‘stead o’ me.”
“It ain’t that, Enoch,” she said. “Set a spell, an’ I’ll tell you. I done tole your Maw, an’ she reckins maybe it ain’t my fault. Not all o’ it, leastways.”
Enoch’s handsome face showed his puzzlement. Quietly he slipped into the rocking chair and fixed his eyes on Cindy, waiting tensely for her to speak.
Once again she related her story, feeling hysterically that by now she could recite it like a parrot. Maybe, she told herself wearily, she might even tell it often enough for it to seem less ugly and shameful to her.
Enoch listened, wide-eyed, shocked and with growing fury, as she finished. She waited, not daring to look at him, terrified of his reaction. She knew the rigid code of the mountain men, that a woman is “good as ary angel” or “rotten as hell.” There was no in-between gradations to the mountain man where his woman was concerned.
He sat leaning forward, his hands locked tightly together, the big knuckles-showing white with the strain of his grip, his eyes on the fire. Then suddenly he got to his feet, towering above her, and Cindy shrank from him, fearing for a moment some physical violence from him.
“Why’d ye have to tell me this?” he burst out at last. “They ain’t no way on God’s green earth I could ‘a’ knowed about it, effen ye hadn’t tole me. Why’d ye tell me?”
“I couldn’t let you go on lovin’ me and wantin’ me, Enoch, ‘thout tellin’ ye I ain’t no good,” she confessed.
Enoch stood staring down at her, and a terrible fear flickered for a moment in his eyes. “Did ye kill the little young-’un, Cindy?” His voice was husky with the fear and horror that gripped him.
Cindy cried out in sharp protest, her eyes wide and sick. “Enoch, you ain’t ‘cusin’ me o’ that!” she whispered. “You couldn’t think I’d do a awful thing like that to a helpless young-un!”
“How’d I know whut you’d do? I reckin I don’t really know nuthin’ ‘tall ‘bout you, Cindy.”
“I guess maybe, Enoch, you got a right to think like that ‘bout me,” she said. “I never even seed the baby. Granny birthed him, same’s she’s birthed hundreds o’ babies all up and down the mountain since she was a gal. She tole me he was borned dead. But when I knowed he was a-comin’, Enoch, I didn’t want him. Maybe that’s how-come he didn’t live. Maybe I was to blame.”
Enoch drew a breath that seemed to come from the depths of his being. “I’m still a-wantin’ you, Cindy. Wantin’ you like it was gonna tear me t’pieces, but I ain’t marryin’ no woman that’s been whut you been to another man. It’s more’n a man could be expected to do.”
“I know, Enoch,” she said simply. “I ain’t askin’ ye to. Ain’t no decent man could want to marry a gal like me.”
“You sure enough do drive a man wild, Cindy. I’d do anythin’ for you. Anythin’, to make you see me for a man, too, not just a shadow of a man. But don’t expect me to do what I can’t do.”
“I don’t expect nothin’ from you, Enoch. I don’t figure you owe me nothin’. I understand how you feel like you do.”
He looked down at her, and there was desperation in his eyes. Then, as though he did not dare trust himself further, he turned and plunged out of the room, and the door slapped shut behind him.
Jennie came back at last and looked puzzled at Cindy who sat sunk deeply into her chair, her hands over her face.
“Whar-at’s Enoch?” asked Jennie.
“He’s left,” Cindy answered.
Jennie put down the brimming milk bucket on the table in the kitchen and came back to stand beside Cindy, hands on hips, her eyes bright and dark. “I s’pose you tole him about you and that flatland feller,” she suggested at last.
“I had to, Miss Jennie.”
“An’ he taken it right hard, I reckin, him bein’ a decent, God-fearing boy, the way I raised him,” said Jennie.
“0’ course.”
Jennie was silent, studying her sharply. “I ain’t gonna lie and make out like I’m sorry he’s done with you, Cindy,” she said slowly at last. “I ain’t never wanted him to marry, I reckin, but I shore ain’t wanted him to marry a gal as bad as you are.”
Cindy set her teeth hard. She lifted her white face, and her eyes met Jennie’s straightly. “I ain’t blamin’ you fer that, Miss Jennie,” she said quietly.
“Well, no, ain’t nobody gonna blame a woman fer wantin’ her son to have a decent, God-fearin’ wife that’ll be a right kind o’ maw fer his young-’uns,” said Jennie vigorously, and added as she turned away, “Well, I’ll strain up the milk and fix some vittles. Then I’ll git along home and look atter my boy.”
“You best go now, Miss Jennie, whilst it’s still light ‘nough fer you to see, goin’ down the trail,” Cindy told her. “I’m right obliged to you fer all you done fer me, but I’m feelin’ fine now. I kin look atter m’self. You go ‘long and take keer o’ Enoch.”
“An’ leave you hyer, weak as a kitten, to cry yer eyes out? Now that would be a Christian thing t’do, wouldn’t it now?” snapped Jennie and went on to the kitchen.
Supper was eaten in silence, and after Jennie had tucked Cindy into bed, she stood above her for a moment. When she spoke her voice was unexpectedly gentle. “Reckin mebbe you ain’t be such a good girl, Cindy,” she said. “But gotta say one thing. You’re a gutty little bitch!”
Despite the words, Jennie’s tone made it a compliment. She did not wait for Cindy’s answer, but turned and went out of the cabin door and down the trail, lighting her way with a stick of pinewood set on fire and blazing like a torch. It was the customary nightlight used by mountain people when it was necessary for them to be abroad at night.
Seth stood beside the bed, whining deep in his throat, puzzled by all the comings and goings in a place that had hitherto held only himself and this girl. Cindy sat up in bed, reached out for him and put her arms about his shaggy neck, burying her face against him as she gave way to the tears that shook her in her bitter loneliness and desolation.
“Oh, Seth, boy, what’s gonna be for me from now on. Now even Enoch won’t be no kind of a friend no more to me. It’ll be just you an’ me—an’ that’s all. Maybe I oughta figure on movin’ some place else. I got to be gettin’ away from all this. Miss Jennie’s a good woman, but Seth, she ain’t gonna keep that story a secret. I jus’ know she ain’t. We gotta leave, boy. It looks like I can’t even have my loneliness here. Can’t even have this cabin, my young-un’s grave …”
A fresh storm of sobs broke from her, and Seth, nestled closer, and whined softly with her.
CHAPTER 18
It was mid-morning when Jim came up the trail once more, and was startled to find Cindy alone, completely clothed now, but still sitting in the big chair, her strength unequal to the task of the weaving frame, or even the spinning-wheel.
Jim looked swiftly about as he came i
nto the room, answering her voice that had called when he knocked. “Where’s the old harridan?” he demanded.
“Effen you’re a-meanin’ Miss Jennie, she went home last night,” Cindy told him.
Jim stared at her, frowning. “You mean she went off and left you here all alone, and sick?” he protested.
“I ain’t real sick no more, an’ Jennie had to look atter Enoch, an’ fix him his vittles,” Cindy pointed out. “She done the milkin’ an’ the feedin’ ‘fore she left, an I reckin Enoch done it this morning. I ain’t seed him, but I heard him puttin’ the milk on the kitchen table. He was gone ‘fore I got in the kitchen.”
Jim came and stood beside her, his hands in his pockets lest he follow his ardent impulse to sweep her up into his arms and crush her against him. She looked small and frail he was afraid to touch her, except with the utmost gentleness. “My darling,” he said very low, his tone throbbing with ardent passion. “My precious, dearest darling.”
Incredulous, her eyes widened as they lifted to his, and a wild-rose color spread itself over her pale face as Jim went down on his knees beside her chair and gathered her hands in his.
“Cindy, darling, will you please marry me? Right away?” he begged.
“You don’t have to marry me, Jim,” she stammered.
“I don’t have to, but I want to. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything in all my life,” he told her, with convincing tenderness and simplicity.
Tears slid unnoticed from her eyes, and for a moment she was unable to speak.
“I behaved shamefully, Cindy, when you told me what had happened to you,” he went on. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that, and I can’t hope that you can. It’s just that I was so sure that you were untouched, a virgin, and that I’d had the incredible luck to find a girl whom no man had ever known intimately. When I found out what had happened, it knocked me for a loop.
“I’m not trying to excuse myself, or alibi. No alibi is possible. I was a skunk and a lout, and I should be kicked from hell to breakfast, as Storekeeper says. Still, if you can possibly find it in your heart to forgive me and give me the chance, Cindy, I’ll work my head off to prove how much I love you, and to make up for the hurt I caused you.”
“You only done what any decent man would ‘a’ done,” she protested. “I been knowin’ Enoch since I was knee-high to a duck, but when I tole him about—what happened—he didn’t want to marry up with me no more.”
Jim’s jaw hardened. “That’s about what I would have expected from a guy like Enoch, brought up by the old witch,” he said. Then he added, “I don’t know why the hell I should take that attitude, though, and it’s exactly what I did!”
“I reckin it ‘s what any man would ‘a’ done,” she said.
He looked down at her tenderly. “No man would have done it, Cindy, if he had enough sense to be allowed out of a mental institution,” he told her. “But as soon as I got away from here and could begin to think straight again, I knew that I loved you, and that I wanted to marry you. So I came back.”
“I want to marry you, Jim,” she told him, and then when he would have caught her close, she held him off, as her voice stumbled on, “Only it ain’t right, Jim. I ain’t nobody fer a man like you. I’m just a ignerant, backwoods hillbilly of a gal. I can’t even talk nice, the way Miss Blake does.”
Jim’s arms held her close, and his cheek was against her own. “The way you talk suits me fine, darling,” he assured her. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you, though, in making a mountain man out of me. How’d it be if I teach you things about flatland people, and you teach me mountain lore? The things a man needs to know if he’s going to live out his life among mountain people?”
She gasped, and stared at him wide-eyed, unable to believe he was really in earnest. “You mean you’re willin’ to live hyer on Ole Hungry? Oh, no, Jim, it ain’t no fitten life fer a city man like you.”
“It’s a fine, fitten life, Cindy, only I’m afraid I’ll be pretty stupid at first and you’ll have a rough time training me. But I’ll try very hard, I promise,” he assured her.
She studied him uneasily. “I reckin maybe I could learn t’live in the flatlands, effen I wouldn’t shame you ‘fore all your fine friends,” she said reluctantly at last.
“Would you like living in the flatlands, Cindy?” he asked.
She looked swiftly about the beloved and familiar cabin, at the big dog who lay before the fire, head on paws, watching them intently. Through the small windows she saw the dear and familiar scene outside, and then she looked at Jim. “I reckin I’d like anythin’ you’d like, Jim,” she told him. “I can be a woman, all the woman you want— if you tell me to be. I never thought I could be, ever again, after what that animal—did. But I can. If you want me, I can be your woman, and forget every other man in the world.”
His arms tightened about her and held her close. “Look, darling, I’ve done a lot of thinking these weeks since I treated you so shabbily,” he said. “I hear there’s room in Marshallville for another lawyer. I thought if you’d marry me, I could have an office there, and we could go on living here, where you’re happy and at home. Wouldn’t you like that better than being uprooted and dragged down to the flatlands that you hate and fear so much?”
Tears stood in her eyes, and her lovely mouth was tremulous as she tried to smile at him. “I reckin it would be jest ‘bout as near Heaven as I ever reckined I’d git, Jim, only I dunno how satisfied you’d be—and effen you wasn’t satisfied, it would near ‘bout break my heart,” she confessed.
“I’ll be satisfied and happy wherever you are,” Jim told her. “Suppose we leave it this way? Suppose we try it for a year? Then if I’m not contented here, you’ll try Atlanta with me for a year. Is that fair?”
“Oh, yes.” she breathed, her last fears and qualms put to rest.
Jim saw the glory in her eyes, the lovely color that flushed her white face. “I’ll feel satisfied an’ happy anywheres you would,” she went on, “but it would be mighty fine effen we could start out together up hyer, an’ I could maybe learn me some things that ‘ud keep me from shamin’ you effen we go away.”
“You couldn’t ever shame me, not even if you tried hard and took lessons,” Jim assured her. “How soon will you be able to travel to Marshallville?”
“What fer?” she asked, puzzled.
“Why, to find a justice of the peace and be married, what else?”
“We don’t have to travel none to find a justice o’ the peace, Jim,” she told him. “No further than Ghost Creek, noways. Storekeeper can marry us, same as he marries most o’ the mountain folks hereabout.”
“You mean Storekeeper is a justice? No foolin’?” he asked.
“Well, sakes alive, shore he is. Didn’t you know? He marries folks an’ holds court when folks gits to quarrellin’ amongst theirselves, an’ he sells huntin’ licenses and things,” Cindy assured him.
“Well, I’m damned!” said Jim. “Look, would it be all right with you if I brought Storekeeper up here today, and got him to marry us? He could bring Marthy as a witness, and I suppose Mrs. Haney would be willing to be the second witness. Would that be all right with you?”
Her head was up and her eyes were shining. “Oh, Jim, I’d be plum proud. Them thinkin’ me no better’n dirt, an’ stickin’ up their noses at me, an’ now you are gonna marry me!” she cried. “I’d be so proud to see the way they’d look at me when we stan’ up ‘fore Storekeeper an’ he marries us.”
Jim kissed her fiercely. “I’ll enjoy seeing their faces, too!” he told her. “You wait right here, darling. I won’t be long.”
The door slammed shut behind him, and she heard his footsteps dying away down the trail. Cindy’s heart swelled with a happiness she had never dreamed might be hers as in her mind she relived the ecstasy of his k
iss, knowing there would be many more to come.
THE END
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