Cast a Road Before Me

by Brandilyn Collins

  chapter 15

  You don’t look good; what happened?” The shirt she was folding stilled in her hands, anxiety lining her face.

  Her husband exhaled angrily as he sank onto the bed, its springs squeaking in protest. He pulled off a boot. Sawdust flecked onto the thin blue carpet. “I had a run-in with Riddum.”

  She sucked in air.

  “We was pullin’ in logs from the river. We’d had a big shipment—’bout twice the normal—and they were backin’ up. There was the four a us down there, and finally it got to be such a jam I sent Harlan up to ask for more help, else we’d never untangle it.” The second boot dropped onto the carpet. “I couldn’t hardly believe it when I looked up and saw Riddum hisself standin’ there. He may a promised to treat us better, but it seems he’s everywhere, lookin’ over our shoulders. You’d swear he’s countin’ every piece a wood.” His head disappeared as he pulled off a grimy brown shirt. “Harlan’s standin’ behind him lookin’ scared to death, just a young kid, he is. Then Riddum says, ‘Who sent this boy up for more help?’ and I says I did. And right in front a the other men, he lit into me like a house afire. Said who did I think I was, reallocatin’ where men worked, and there weren’t no reason why the four a us couldn’t handle the job, and if we didn’t handle it, we might as well go on home and stay there.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” his wife’s knees weakened. “You didn’t get fired.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he snapped. “But almost. ‘Cause I just about took Riddum by that scrawny neck a his and wrang it. I was so mad my fingers was twitchin’. Only the thought a you and the kids stopped me.” He jerked down his jeans, wadding them into the corner.

  “What did the other men do?”

  “Harlan’s eyes were near buggin’ out, dartin’ from Riddum to me. Billy laid a hand on my arm; he knew what I was thinkin’. Pete wasn’t havin’ none of it. He jumped in and said, ‘That’s too big a load out there, Mr. Riddum. We don’t get it taken care of properly, it’ll cause a snag down the line.’ Riddum glared back like a drenched cat and said, ‘Then get to it, Mr. Souter, or get off my property.’”

  His wife reacted with disgust.

  “So now we got three men mad as heck, Riddum on one side and Pete and me on the other. My arm musta started to rise, ‘cause I felt Billy’s fingers tighten. And then I took a mighty deep breath and looked at Pete, and he took a mighty deep breath and looked at me, and we turned around and got back to work without another word. Riddum watched us for a minute, then stalked off.”

  The woman dropped wordlessly onto the bed next to her husband, a fright she had not felt in five years seizing her chest.

  He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I’m tellin’ you, baby, we cain’t keep workin’ for a man that unfair. August first seems like a long ways away. You’d think he was the Pharaoh a Egypt, tellin’ us to make more bricks with less straw. Well, one a these days it’ll be the last straw. I think that, and then I remember almost losin’ our house five years ago, not havin’ money for food. Only the kindness a neighbors and Thomas hirin’ me when he didn’t need to saved us. I don’t wanna put you through that again.”

  Wearily, he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. Ignoring the smell of sweat and fresh-cut wood, she buried her face in his neck.

  chapter 16

  Well, Miss Jessie, sounds like you been a might busy.”

  Thomas Bradley’s voice over the phone Saturday morning held a mixture of challenge and tease. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I replied airily.

  “You gonna tell me about it?”

  “A girl’s got to have some secrets.”

  He grunted. “Matter a fact, that’s just what I called about. This town’s been right down-in-the-mouth lately and could use some perkin’ up. How ‘bout you and me raisin’ a little ruckus.”

  I had to laugh, imagining the animation on his face, the hitched eyebrows. “What are you up to, Thomas Bradley?”

  “I got me a little job to do and thought you might like to help. One rule though. We ain’t gonna say one word ‘bout the mill business.”

  “Fine with me. But what’s the ‘little job’?”

  “Well, now, Miss Jessie, if I tol’ you that, I’d take half the fun outta it.”

  “I’m supposed to visit Connie this afternoon. Will we be done by then?”

  “I wouldn’t think a keepin’ a young lady like you from her social life. Now come on, you’re either in or you’re out. Which’ll it be?”

  I shook my head at his fluid charm. “I’m in.”

  An hour later, Thomas was climbing into my car after carefully placing a brown grocery bag on the backseat floor. Yep, Bradleyville needed cheering, he declared again, and naturally, there was no one better qualified to fix whatever ailed the town than himself. Following his command to drive out Main, I tried to imagine Bradleyville without him and could not. I knew if I were to ask, he’d say that his life had been full here in this tiny metropolis, even though he’d been overseas in two different wars and had certainly seen what other places had to offer. “Bradleyville was built independent—strong,” he’d say, “and it’s stayed that way. That’s just how I like it.”

  He leaned a tanned arm out the window, chuckling to himself, right leg jiggling. A hot breeze was blowing hair across my face, and I tried vainly to tuck it behind my ears. I couldn’t guess what he was up to. Being chosen as his coconspirator was quite an honor, but then ours was that kind of friendship. We could talk about almost anything. Except for war. Currently, of course, that meant Vietnam. The previous Christmas Thomas had made the mistake of asking me if I’d witnessed “any a those crazy kids” protesting the war on the university campus. I’d bristled. “Afraid so, Thomas,” I’d replied, keeping my voice steady. “Matter of fact, I’ve been in peaceful sit-ins once or twice myself.” I’d stared at him, daring him to say more, but he’d wisely changed the subject.

  I’d gotten used to hearing about the times he won his three medals in the wars, however. You couldn’t live in Bradleyville and not appreciate those stories, for they certainly were drilled into you, if not by proud residents, most certainly by Thomas himself. Far as I knew, most of the town denizens could recite every detail.

  I hadn’t been in Bradleyville but a few months when Thomas told me his favorite story—about his crossing the Volturno River in Italy under full moonlight. He’d volunteered for the task in order to scout out a German camp, swimming underwater on his side while breathing through a long reed stuck in his mouth. Had he surfaced just once, he’d certainly have been shot. He accomplished his mission so well that he not only returned with news of how to infiltrate the camp but he brought back a German canteen as a souvenir.

  I sat in his living room that day as he related the story, cautiously fingering the worn brown canteen, thinking of the enemy mouths it had quenched, the shoulders it had chafed. They had been young men who’d wanted to live too—those soldiers—with parents and wives and children. Thomas’s own wife, Adele, was busy in the kitchen making us supper as he told his tale. When he finished, eyes bright and mouth pitched in a grin, I’d remained silent. “See that medal there.” He pointed to one of three open blue velvet boxes lined up on the coffee table. Each displayed a bronze star medal attached to a patriotically striped ribbon. “That’s for the Volturno.”

  I thought of the blood and carnage of war, then of my mother, peacefully doling out plates of mashed potatoes and baked chicken to hungry children at Hope Center. Pain and resentment flashed through me. If only they gave out medals for caring.

  “Now, Jessie, where has that mind a yours taken you?” Thomas had asked.

  I looked away at nothing, not wanting to offend. “I guess war’s just not my favorite subject.”

  His face clouded. “Because of your cousin, Henry, you mean. A course. I don’t talk ‘bout it ‘round your aunt and uncle; I shoulda known you’d be sensitive too.”

  I flinched inwardly at my own se
lf-centeredness. I hadn’t even thought of Henry. “No, it’s not that. It’s that … my mother was against all violence. Especially war. She taught me that from an early age.”

  “Why do you suppose that was?” he asked quietly.

  Once again, I remembered the slap of roughened fingers on a smooth cheek, their crimson mark on Mama’s white skin, the pain in her eyes. I wondered how much Thomas knew of Mama’s and Aunt Eva’s upbringing; I didn’t want to say more than I should. “Her father,” I replied tersely.

  Thomas had seen through my reticence. “I know. Your mama must have been a wounded child, just like your aunt.” He reached for the boxes holding his medals and began to close them one by one. “Eva still bore the emotional scars when she came here as Frank’s new bride. I think that’s one reason why she’s loved this town so much. It was far removed from her folks, and it’s peaceful. I believe she thought she could hide here forever from violence. Then the war reached out and took her own son. He volunteered, you know; he wanted to go so badly.” Thomas gazed through the front window, his eyes growing distant before he blinked them back to regard me intently. “No one likes violence, Jessie. Especially those of us who’ve seen it firsthand. But there are times when you got to fight.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know about that. Mom always said, ‘Raise your hand to no one.’ She worked all her life doing the opposite of violence. No matter how hard life became for her, she gave more and more. She cared for others until she was so tired, she could hardly stand.”

  Thomas thought that over for a moment, compressing his lips. “Did it make her happy?”

  His voice had been gentle, but the words were like a punch in the stomach. I stared at him, dismayed that his ridiculous question would remind me of the brief look of despair that had crossed my mother’s face moments before she drove to her death. “Of course she was happy,” I responded with a measure of indignance. “Nobody was making her do it; she chose to. She could have done lots of other things, you know. There’s a lot more fun things in life than serving the poor.”

  “Well,” Thomas inhaled deeply, “you’re right about that.”

  I hadn’t been quite sure what “that” referred to, or what was left for me to be wrong about. At any rate, I hadn’t wished to pursue it. Something told me Aunt Eva had talked to Thomas in a less-than-positive manner about my mother’s pursuit of giving.

  “Jessie. Jessie!” Thomas nudged me in the shoulder, bringing me back to the present. “Where’s your mind at? Are you listenin’?”

  “Yes, Thomas,” I blinked. “Of course I’m listening.”

  “All right then. Now, here’s the thing.” His voice dropped, as if eavesdroppers ghosted the backseat. “We got to be real stealthy, like soldiers on a raid. In other words, we cain’t be seen. Somebody’s gonna notice soon enough, and if my aim is right, that somebody’ll be ol’ Jake. He’ll come gunnin’ for me in a hurry, tell you what.” He slapped his leg with glee, forgetting to be quiet. “Whooee! It’s gonna be somethin’.”

  Jake Lewellyn was the same age as Thomas, and depending upon the day, they were either lifelong friends or avowed enemies. As the Bradleyville legend went, when they were both nine years old, Thomas tricked Jake into trading his favorite marble for a toadstool, and Jake had been scheming to get it back ever since. Their resulting “bestin’ feud” had carried them through the years, affording the town some of its most beloved stories. Usually the stories were at Mr. Lewellyn’s expense, Thomas’s cunning far outwitting his somewhat slower and decidedly pudgier friend.

  “Poor Mr. Lewellyn,” I put in, stopping at the light at the corner of Minton and Main. “He just can’t seem to keep up with you, can he?”

  “Hah!” Thomas snorted, “poor Mr. Lewellyn, nothin’. Man’s been a thorn in my side for over sixty years now; you think he’d take a rest.”

  I swallowed a smile. “He idolizes you. And of course, you do nothing to provoke him.”

  “‘Course not!” Thomas was indignant. “Just live my life, that’s all.” He rolled his shoulders. “Cain’t help it if I’m smarter’n he is.”

  “That’s just it. You’ve always been smarter, and he can’t accept that. He works like crazy to be you.”

  “You’re right,” he grinned. “Poor Jake Lewellyn.”

  A short distance out of town, Thomas told me to slow down, then turn around. “Now here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said, leaning around to fetch the grocery bag. “And remember, it’s got to be stealthy, like savin’ the French on D-Day.”

  Like a good soldier, I kept a lookout while he performed his task.

  chapter 17

  By the time I arrived at Lee’s house that afternoon after helping Thomas, the temperature had hit eighty-five, with equal percent humidity. All the windows in my Ford were down, and still it felt like an oven. Lee was waiting for me under a shade tree on the front lawn, a phone call having alerted him that I was on my way. His white T-shirt and old jeans were clean, his hair wet. I knew he planned to continue working on the house as I visited with Connie and his mother, and wondered how they viewed his showering midjob for my benefit. I could just picture the gleam in his mother’s eye.

  “Hey there,” he smiled, looking wonderful. I wanted to touch him but dared not. The eyes of Bradleyville were ever-watchful. Tonight, I thought, tonight. “I noticed this as you were drivin’ up.”

  He squatted down to run a finger over my right front tire. “Looks pretty bald. You should get it replaced. Before you leave.”

  His last sentence pulsed. I bent over him, my hair brushing his shoulder. “Okay.”

  Lee’s house was not air-conditioned, and I noticed his mother’s discomfort as she huffed over to hug me in the doorway, her good hip rolling with the strain of hauling the other. My heart went out even more to Connie as she panted with the effort of greeting me, her stomach huge under a tent dress, cheeks mottled with heat. Her hands and feet were swollen. “It’s hard to breathe,” she apologized. “No room for my lungs.”

  I urged her back onto the couch, lifting up her feet. Miss Wilma took her cane in hand and struggled toward the kitchen until Lee and I insisted on fetching the iced tea and sugar cookies. Gratefully, she fell into her arm chair.

  Once out of sight, Lee pulled me into his arms and kissed me. I melted into him. When we pulled apart, I couldn’t hide the concern on my face. “What?” he whispered.

  “They look so uncomfortable in this heat.”

  Defensiveness flecked his forehead. “I been wantin’ to buy an air conditioner. But with all the money goin’ into the addition….”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “We’d a had it by now if I’d gotten a raise.”

  “I know.” Once again I saw the reality of Blair Riddum’s greed. My own household was comfortable enough with its two incomes. How sheltered my outlook had been.

  I turned toward the table, keeping my voice light. “Here.” I handed him the plate of cookies. “You take these and one glass. I’ll bring the rest.”

  Back in the living room, Lee sat with us for a few minutes, then reluctantly announced he had to get back to work. “Come say good-bye before you leave?”

  I nodded.

  “Would you help me up, Lee?” Miss Wilma held out a hand, smiling at me in apology. “I just need to make a quick trip down the hall.”

  Connie breathed heavily in the silence after they left. She looked so forlorn and lost. “Here, eat something, Connie,” I offered, handing her a cookie. I pushed her iced tea glass closer so she could reach it easily, then regarded her with helplessness. “I wish I could do something for you—take the heat away, the discomfort.”

  Her smile was rueful. “Not much anybody can do right now. Even me. All I can do is wait.”

  The “wait” seemed to refer to more than her delivery. I wondered if she hoped her ex-husband would return. “Your baby’s going to be beautiful, Connie. It’ll bring you so much joy.”

  “I know. I know it w
ill.” Her brow furrowed. “This is all just hard for me right now. Thank goodness I’ve got Mama and Lee—especially Mama. She’s here all day for me. We’ve talked a lot.”

  This was the most Connie had ever said to me. I wanted to keep the conversation going. “What have you talked about?”

  Her shoulders lifted. “Life. Babies. Men.” She paused. “Most of all, God.”

  I couldn’t suppress a smile. “Aunt Eva talks to me about God a lot too. Sometimes I think she should have been the preacher, rather than Pastor Frasier.”

  Connie nodded. “Yep. She and Mama are a lot alike. They’re praying women, and lots of times when your aunt comes to visit, they talk about Christ in their lives. I know they both have been praying for me.”

  On cue, my guard came up. I reached for a cookie and bit into it.

  “Anyway, I did what they have been praying for,” she ventured almost hesitantly. “Asked Christ into my life, I mean. And ever since then, things have been easier to handle.” She raised her eyes to mine with self-consciousness. I admired her fortitude in stating her beliefs, especially given the fact that we’d not mentioned religion during my prior visit. My own reticence at the subject lifted; the last thing I wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.

  “That’s good. I’m … glad you have something that helps you.”

  She gazed at me intently, gauging my personal understanding of her words. I pinned an encouraging expression on my face.

  “Now Mama’s praying for Lee,” she added.

  “Because of the sawmill, you mean?”

  “That too. But mostly that he’ll understand he needs Christ in his life. ‘Cause bein’ a Christian is more than just goin’ to church and believin’ in God, isn’t it?”

  I smiled a polite agreement, taking another bite of cookie.

  “He’s crazy about you, you know.”

  A crumb caught in my windpipe, and I coughed. “Who, God?”