by Ronald Kelly
She watched silently as he fished a sack of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket and began to hand-roll himself a smoke. His method of constructing a cigarette had always been a source of wonder and envy to most men in Bedloe County, for Clayburn Biggs could roll a perfect smoke using only one hand, without spilling a single grain of tobacco. Once, back in his wilder days, the feat had earned him fame at some of the local honky-tonks, and had net him a few spare bucks nightly, betting against unsuspecting drunks. But those times had long since passed, and now he performed the stunt purely for the entertainment of his five young'uns.
Maudie thought back twenty years, when Clay had first started courting her. She had been sixteen then, the shy daughter of a minister, and Clay had been the rawboned son of a poor tobacco farmer. He had been quite a hell-raiser in those days, Clay had. But Maudie had seen something basically good in the man, some underlying decency that others had failed to notice. His days had been spent in the fields, working hard with his father and brothers on a patch of land hardly big enough for tobacco growing, but his youthful nights had been devoted to sin and wicked pleasure. He was a notorious drunkard, a gambler, and some said a whoremonger. But, still, when Clayburn walked past Maudie's house on a Sunday afternoon, tipping his hat and smiling as he passed, she could not help but smile back and return his attentions, despite her father's stern disapproval.
Then came the night that changed it all. Clay and his buddies, Clint Devane and Joey Lee Tidwell, were drinking and cutting up at the Bloody Bucket. Joey insulted a fellow at the far end of the bar and a fight broke out. Clay and Clint parted the two drunkards before blows could be traded, but as each man took one of Tidwell's arms, intending to escort him to the door, the other man pulled a .22 revolver from his coat pocket and put a slug right between Joey Lee's eyes. Their friend died in their arms, a look of great surprise in his bloodshot eyes, the stench of hard liquor heavy on his last breath.
That night, well after midnight, Maudie Darrow awakened to find a dark form outside her bedroom window. She hurriedly dressed and found Clayburn Biggs on the porch swing, crying his eyes out. Although the two did not know each other very well, Clay told her of the horrid incident at the Bloody Bucket that night. The sobbing words she heard almost seemed like a confession in her compassionate ears, and afterward, the two knelt and prayed. A brief courtship followed, and eight months later, with the grudging permission of her father, the two were married.
Since their wedding day, Clay had proven to be a fine example of a family man. He accompanied Maudie and the children to church every Sunday, and his only vices were tobacco and swearing, two things Maudie figured she could put up with. He had not had a swallow of hard liquor or looked lustfully at a woman other than Maudie since that bleak night at the Bloody Bucket.
"What's troubling you so, Clay?" she asked now. Her hand caressed one stubbled cheek, moving up his sideburn to smooth out a cowlick of tousled black hair. He did not refrain from her affection, but rather reached up and took her hand in his. His grasp was strong, yet gentle, as he brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
"Oh, just the same old thing, Maudie," he sighed.
She pulled up her late mother's straight-backed rocker and sat there on the dark porch beside him. "There ain't no need to worry yourself sick over the land. It's been sold and that's all there is to it. Me and the children, we're doing all right. We're all eating well enough and we have no bad needs. Besides, you're making money doing automotive work for half the price Sonny Martin charges at his garage in town."
"Yeah." Clay nodded glumly. "But there are only so many cars and trucks that need fixing in Bedloe County. After that, I've got no place to turn." He centered his worried eyes on Maudie. "If I could only put back enough money to buy back that land . . . Maudie, I know I could put us back on track. It just hurts me so damned bad to see my papa's land wasted, growing over with weeds. And if he knew that Ransom Potts had the deed to it now . . . well, he'd likely roll over in his grave!"
Maudie saw raw fear and frustration in her husband's blue eyes and it scared her. "Don't ever lose hope, darling. Maybe someday you'll get back that land and raise tobacco like you were meant to do. But until then, we'll get by. We're all healthy; that's more than most folks can say these days."
Thunder boomed from across the woods out back, and for a moment, Clay nearly mistook it for gunfire. But lightning crashed, illuminating the countryside for a split second, and the thunder rolled again, this time with a more natural tone.
"We just ain't making it, Maudie," he told her flatly. "Every day we're having to do without something we took for granted the day before. Little things, but I can see the strain on you and the kids. That's why I've gotta find steady work and find it fast."
The woman did not like how her husband was sounding. "What have you got in your mind, Clayburn Biggs?" Her tone was demanding, but he could detect a hint of panic in her voice.
Clay regretted telling her straight out, but he knew he had to. He returned his tobacco sack to his pocket and lit his smoke with a sulfur match. "I came across Clara Jones in town the other morning. She told me Norman was still working that steel mill in Detroit, making fair wages, fixing to send for her and the kids. I . . . well, Maudie, I asked her to write Norman and see if they've got any jobs open there."
His wife was shocked. "I don't want to hear you talking of such things, Clayburn. We ain't hurting so bad for you to consider breaking up this family and going north. I already gave up my boy Johnny today. I ain't about to give you up to the road, too."
Clay was about to argue the point, when their conversation was cut short. A shrill, girlish scream sounded from inside the house. Maudie and Clay exchanged glances, and they both left their chairs. They found the source of the screaming in the girls' bedroom. Clay lit a kerosene lamp on the nightstand, and he and Maudie stared breathlessly at the wailing child.
Cynthia Ann stood there in the center of the bed that she and Polly shared. She screamed again and again, her hazel eyes wide in sheer horror.
"Will you shut her up, Mama?" complained Polly. She rolled over on her side and crammed a goose down pillow over her ears.
Maudie stepped to the bed and grabbed Cindy's heaving shoulders. She shook the child gently. "Wake up, honey, wake up. You're having a bad dream."
The red-haired girl ceased her screaming and stared at her mother, her eyes still glazed with sleep. "They killed him, Mama." There were tears rolling down her freckled cheeks. "They killed him."
"Who, baby? Killed who?"
Cindy's eyes suddenly regained their normal intensity, and she stared around the shadowy room in growing confusion. "I . . . I don't know. I can't remember."
"What's going on?" asked Josh. He and his little brother stuck their heads curiously out the door of the adjoining room.
"Nothing, boys," Clay told them. He stared at Cindy Ann as if she were crazy, then turned and walked into the kitchen. "Your sister just had a bad dream, that's all."
Maudie helped the frightened girl off the bed and took her hand. "Come on, baby. I'll warm you up some milk. It'll help you get back to sleep."
She sat the child down in a kitchen chair, then went to building a fire in the iron cook stove. She gave Clay an annoyed glance, but he did not notice. He stood engrossed at the window, watching the thunderstorm grow in its fury. "It's raining pitchforks and nigger babies out there," he said to no one in particular.
A few minutes later Cindy had drank her milk and was sent back to bed. Maudie watched her shut the bedroom door and shook her head. "I'm worried, Clay."
"About what?"
"About Cindy," she replied. "I can't figure whether she only had a bad dream . . . or a vision."
Clay turned, incredulous. "What the hell are you talking about, woman?"
Maudie hesitated, then answered. "I put off telling you, Clay, 'cause I know you don't hold truck with such things, but now I think you oughta know. Our Cindy has the power of second sight. S
he has the gift."
"Hogwash!" said Clay. He dropped his half-smoked cigarette to the floor and ground it under his heel. "Ever since that Holt woman lost her baby, I've been hearing a bunch of bull about Cindy Ann being some kinda witch or jinx. Dammit, half of Coleman thinks she's some sort of evil-eyed monster! And here you are, of all people, telling me that she's some kinda freaking fortune teller!"
"Please, Clay, don't carry on such. It ain't nothing to be ashamed of. My mother, she had the gift, as did my great-grandmother. We should be glad the Lord chose to bestow little Cindy with such a divine power."
Clayburn Biggs paced the kitchen, shaking his head in disgust. "Well, you can believe in all that mumbo-jumbo if you want to, Maudie, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I do. I ain't about to put no faith in conjuring and soothsaying, just like I don't believe in haunts and spirits. There's nothing wrong with Cindy Ann . . . excepting maybe she's a little strange."
"Strange?"
"You know what I mean. A little touched in the head. Don't deny she's acted differently since her stay in the hospital. I believe that fever did something bad to her brain."
Maudie stared at her husband as if she did not know the man. "Clay Biggs, I don't want to ever — ever — hear you say such a thing about one of your young'uns again!" Then she stormed down the cramped hallway and slammed their bedroom door behind her.
Clay grumbled an obscenity and stared morosely out the kitchen window. She was right of course. He was acting foolishly. But he simply did not believe in such things as second sight and the foretelling of futures. He thought of the nine-year-old girl and knew right then that that was not what bothered him most. It was the awful resentment he felt toward Cindy Ann. He knew it was terribly wrong, but every time he laid eyes on the child, all he could think of was the generous acreage of prime tobacco land that he had signed over to Ransom Potts and the Coleman Citizens Bank. He had sold that land to pay off the hospital bills that had added up during Cindy's long sickness. In turn, the loss of the land had crippled Clay financially in an already disabling depression. Perhaps he would never fully forgive her for his bad luck, though it truly happened through no fault of her own.
"Confound this rain," he growled to the empty kitchen. He stood at the open window for a long while that night, breathing in the earthy freshness of the downpour and listening to its steady, drumming fall.
Chapter Nine
Harvey Brewer lay in total darkness, his ears clutching for every little noise. Soon, a sound echoed over the pounding swish of the downpour. It was the deep-throated roar of an engine, a truck from the sound of it. The old man remained in his bed, stone still, his muscles tense and restless, his pulse beating swiftly with the adrenaline of pure fear.
The elderly man had turned in early that night. He had devoured a tasteless supper of cold beans and taters at seven, and listened to the state news and evening farm report on the radio, more out of habit than anything else. Then he had fallen asleep on the big feather bed that he and Norma had shared during their long and loving marriage. His sleep had been one without dreams, without physical tossing and turning. It had been the motionless slumber of the dead, or of a man who had simply stopped living a very long time ago.
Harvey had slept for only an hour or so, the only intruding sounds being the faint ticking of the parlor clock and the rumble of distant thunder. Then his peaceful slumber had been jolted asunder by the harsh roar of a vehicle pulling off the main road and onto his property. He had lain there and listened to the rickety truck drive past his house and head down the rutted track into the fields. He knew exactly where their destination lay. The old tobacco barn.
Many had trespassed into the dark security of that abandoned structure before, searching out privacy to commit their individual vices away from the reach of prying and disapproving eyes. All matter of sin, had passed unnoticed in Brewer's back pasture; drinking, gambling, adultery, and God knew what else. But the old man had chosen to look the other way, for confronting the perpetrators would only cause him trouble. It had gotten to the point lately where Harvey Brewer simply did not care who sneaked onto his land anymore.
That stormy, spring night, however, Harvey had been unable to drift back into unconcerned slumber. He had lain there in his shadowy bedroom, ears straining for sounds. They came faintly to him through the open window in the form of incoherent voices, laughter, and the slamming of heavy truck doors. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the elderly man rolled over, attempting to fall asleep; but he could not. His rheumy eyes stared blankly at the dark cracks of the plaster ceiling, an inexplicable dread pressing on his age-sunken chest like some unbearable weight.
The next thing he heard was the violent boom of a gun. There were screams . . . long, horrified screams. Whether they were those of a man or a woman, Harvey couldn't tell for sure. His heart pounded painfully in the hollow of his ribcage as he lay there and listened to the terrible sounds. The screaming ended abruptly, and Brewer knew that only death could have ended the hysteria that swiftly. What is happening down there? wondered Harvey, but he made no move to get up.
A second shot rolled across the dense pastureland, surpassing the storm in its violent resonance. Harvey's ancient ears strained against the growing rush of the rainfall, but for a long time he heard nothing. Then, just as he began to think it was all over, a third and final shot was heard, this time at a distance.
Someone's been killed, realized Brewer. Something awful has happened down there. Then a sobering thought occurred to him. What if they come for me next? He could lie there no longer. He sat up and, with trembling hands, reached blindly for his overalls.
Harvey Brewer went to a closet and rummaged through a clutter of old boxes and mildewed clothing. He found his father's old Remington rolling-block rifle in a far corner, along with a box of tarnished brass cartridges. He fed a round into the breech and snapped back the hammer. Swallowing dryly, he went to the back door and turned on the porch light, his house being the only one on the outskirts of Coleman with electricity.
The night was black and sodden. He could see nothing past the two-seat privy at the edge of the yard. The thick growth of brush and the massive structure beyond were engulfed in dank darkness. Are they still out there or have they cut and run? He dreaded the possibility of the first and hoped for the latter. He tightened his grip on the pitted stock of the antique rifle.
The sound of an engine suddenly came from near the barn, and headlights sliced through the driving rain. A gray Ford pickup churned up the dirt road toward his house. Harvey did not step out onto the porch, but stayed well inside the screen door. The vehicle slowed and then stopped just past the outhouse. The driver had noticed the porch light where none had burned before. The truck sat idling in the roadway for a long moment. Then it surged forward and braked to a halt thirty feet from Harvey Brewer's back porch.
The window of the driver's side was rolled down, but the elderly man could only make out a shadowy form in the dark cab. "Who is that out there?" Brewer demanded. "What'd you fellas go and do down there? Thought I heard shooting."
Silence met his questions, then a deep, gravelly voice came from the truck window. "Shut off that porch light, old man."
"Who is that?" Harvey asked. He recognized that voice from somewhere, but could not place it right off.
"I said to shut it off . . . right now!"
The threat raised the old man's dander. "I've got a gun here."
He watched as the driver slid a short-barreled scattergun across the sill of the truck window. To emphasize the point, a beefy hand thumbed back the shotgun's twin hammers. "I ain't gonna tell you again."
The sight of those two black muzzles directed squarely at the flimsy screen door dampened Harvey's bravado. Reluctantly he reached over and shut off the light. The labored throbbing of his heart increased, sending a strange tingling numbness down his left arm and the upper side of his chest.
"Who are you?" he asked once again. This time there was less def
iance in his feeble voice.
"That ain't no concern of yours," gritted the unseen driver. "Now you just listen to me and listen good. Nothing went on here tonight. You didn't hear or see a thing. Understand?"
"But what'd you do? You were down at the barn—"
One of the shotgun's barrels discharged loudly. Harvey tensed himself, bracing for the force of deadly pellets. But the buckshot hit the porch instead, splintering a wooden post three feet from the door.
"You ain't listening, old man" came the voice again, after the roar of the shot had subsided. "You got absolutely no business down at that barn. You go messing around down there and I'll know about it. And, rest assured, I'll come back and put a round through that sickly, bald head of yours."
The death threat sank into Harvey Brewer's frightened mind, sending him into a palsy of trembling. The rifle dropped from his liver-spotted hands as a sharp pain coursed the length of his arm. He fell back against the dingy wallpaper of the kitchen, gasping for breath and enduring the searing agony in his chest.
"You get my meaning?"
"Yes," rasped the old man.
"Let's get the hell outta here," insisted a different voice within the darkened truck. Then the Ford was shifted into gear and driven up the pathway toward the two-lane blacktop of the main road.
Old Man Brewer groaned. His left side felt heavy, as if he could no longer stand without falling. He staggered to the iron pump at the kitchen sink and, with some effort, pumped enough water to wet his feverish face. Then he stumbled to the security of his bedroom.
My confounded heart, Harvey thought, that's what's wrong with me. For years he had flatly ignored the nagging sensation in his chest, ignored Doc Hubbard's warnings of a bad heart problem. Now he would die and he had nothing but his mule-headed stubbornness to blame.
He finally reached his bed and collapsed there in a clenching fit of terrible agony. It felt as if his heart were in the squeezing jaws of a vice. For a few minutes he lay there on his side, his breath heaving from his lungs, sweat trickling down his neck and the pits of his arms. When, at last, the pain diminished into a dull ache, Harvey turned over on his back and shut his eyes.