Walking Through Shadows

by Bev Marshall

  I started thinking about the tie bar she bought me for my birthday. I needed to go get it, hold it in my hand, feel the heft of metal, the heat from her that might be left there. She gave it to me a month ahead of my day. Couldn’t wait to give it to me once she’d bought it. Sheila was like a child in that. I swear she believed in fairies and ghosts and trolls that she said lived underneath the Flowerdale Road bridge. She could make you believe crazy stuff. She could make you go crazy, turn you into a real loony once she got a hold on your mind through them eyes of hers.

  Sheriff asked me a few more questions about Sheila’s daily doings, where she went to, who she knowed, and he wrote fast in his notebook, and then left off with me. Said he wanted to question the niggers next and they better not be run off somewhere. Right away then, Digger come shuffling out from behind the tree with his head down. “I ain’t gone nowheres,” he said, “but I don’t know nothin’, Mister Sheriff, sir.”

  I walked back toward the porch. My fingers was scratching on my legs, and I couldn’t stop them. A fire was inside my head. I seen her staring eyes, her opened mouth, and I leaned over and spewed white vomit on the goddamned holly bush Sheila had planted beside the steps.

  The first day I ever set eyes on Sheila Carruth was on a Wednesday. I know that because it was four days after I had my last date with Kathleen, which was on Saturday night. Sheila weren’t nothin’ like Kathleen, and I sure didn’t plan on dating a girl with a hump on her back. I could do better. Had done better. Kathleen was some dish. Big jugs like cantaloupes, long blonde hair, a switch in her walk that took your eyes to her warm hips. She was smart too. Worked in a bank as a teller, and I seen her count money out faster than a professional gambler dealed out cards. Money was the cause of our breakup. There wasn’t no other reason it could’ve been. Kathleen said I was the best-looking boy in Lexie County, said she got chills just thinking about my hands running over her. I satisfied her all right. No question there. That Saturday night she wanted to go to the show, and I told her I didn’t have no money to waste on Jimmy Stewart, and that was the end of it. She were always figuring on how to get me to spend more money on her, expecting presents when it wasn’t her birthday, saying she was dying for a pearl necklace. I had told her straight out from the git-go that I wasn’t makin’ nothin’ down at the dairy. Mr. Cotton didn’t pay fair wages in my mind, and I had to lay out a lot of cash on my durn truck which kept breaking down on me. Piece of shit was what it was, but my old man wouldn’t loan me enough for something better.

  Sheila thought that truck was a queen’s chariot. She’d sit up high, flapping her hand out the window like she was waving at her subjects. She was like that, always living some fairy tale kind of day. I reckon that was part of how she got me. I hadn’t never knowed a girl who could make believe so good that I felt like I was some goddamned hero in a picture show.

  First time I saw Sheila though all’s I thought was, man, she’s got a hump, and she don’t know shit about cows. She didn’t look at me when Mr. Cotton said who I was. She didn’t look at nobody, put her hand over her mouth and nodded at the concrete floor smeared up with cow piss and grain. That were her job, to clean out the barn after milking.

  After a week or so, Sheila started coming down to the dairy during milking, before she had to be there. I suspected it were me, and not them cows, that was drawing her there, but I didn’t pay no mind to her. I flirted with little ole Annette, who had a giant crush on me. The girl couldn’t pass by without her face turning the color of a ripe tomato. But Sheila, she didn’t interest me, not at first. Then one afternoon she was there when I was milking old Sid. Usually, I watched Digger’s pace on the teats and tried to time my finishing with a cow, so’s that he would have to milk Sid, but on this day, Digger was still pulling on Bell’s teats, and Sid was the only Jersey with a full bag left. All Jerseys got nasty tempers and will kick and butt us milkers, but Sid was the meanest one of the bunch. Sid wore a mule collar backwards around her neck because the crazy cow liked her own milk. Without the collar she would turn her head, bending her body like it were rubber, and suck her own teats dry. I reckon she thought I was stealing the drink she wanted for herself, and when I sat on the stool, she side-stepped and used her long tail to swat my face so hard I fell backwards off’n the stool. I heard them two girls, Annette and Sheila, laughing their heads off, and I was about to cuss Sid and them, when I felt Sheila’s hand on my arm pulling me up. I came up close on her, and she looked right into me for the first time, and I swear to this day, I don’t know what it was that made me want to kiss her right then and there. It might have been them eyes of hers. I felt like they were magnets and I was a tenpenny nail sliding toward them. Them blue centers were clear and perfectly round. They reminded me of my hound watching me eat, begging with eyes that made you toss your cornbread at him. Annette’s mama called her in just then, and Sheila and I were left standing there in the dark barn. She said something about Sid being a “caution” or some such, and I grinned down at her to watch her eyes light up like fireflies winking in the night. She were about to leave, and I caught her arm. “You wanna go for a drive tonight?”

  Sheila didn’t look surprised like I had expected. She nodded and smiled. “I reckon I could,” she said. “What time?”

  I told her seven and she run off then and I hit Sid’s head with my fist and told her she were gonna give up her milk whether she liked it or not. After we finished, I hurried home to eat and clean up for the date. Daddy near ruined it all. He threw the wire cutters down on the table beside my plate and said he wanted me to fix the back pasture fence before dark. When I told him I had a date and would do it next day, he snatched up the cutters and threw them in my lap. Gave me a bruise, but didn’t hit my jewels, and I was grateful for that. “I said I’ll do it. Tomorrow,” I told him, and he saw my jaws locking up and walked over to his seat. Pete and Daniel kept their heads down like they wasn’t my brothers who could help with the fence if they weren’t the lazy asses they were.

  Ma tried to ease up the air like she always done. “Hugh and Earlene might stop by with the boys later,” she said. “Seems like we don’t see enough of our grandsons even if they don’t live but two miles from us.” Daddy was a fool for Hugh’s two boys, Arthur and Billy, who were two and four. He never played with any of us that I could remember, but when them two showed up, he’d get down on all fours and let ’em ride him like a horse. So he brightened up right then and said he reckoned the fence wasn’t going nowhere before tomorrow.

  When I knocked on the door of the Cottons’ smokehouse where Sheila was staying, I heard her singing “Beautiful Dreamer” and she hit the high notes like a little songbird. I saw right off she’d spent time fancying herself up for our drive. She had on a dress nice enough for church and she’d tied her hair up with a green ribbon trailing down the back of her. I thought to myself then that if it weren’t for the hump she was almost pretty.

  She slid right in the driver’s side of the truck and didn’t move all the way to the window so that I could feel her thigh against mine. I turned out onto Carterdale Road, and she started humming the melody to a song I didn’t know. “You got a nice voice,” I said to her. “I heared you singing ’fore I knocked.”

  Sheila giggled like I’d told a joke. “Ain’t nothing to singing. You just open your mouth and let the songs out.”

  “I play the guitar,” I said. “It’s my fingers that makes my songs.” I turned off on Flowerdale and thought about the woods a mile down where I had taken Kathleen the first time. I wasn’t sure about what to expect with Sheila yet, but I figured to keep all my options open at this point.

  “Ooooh, you got a guitar? Maybe you and me could sing a duet sometime.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ll bring it next date.” I didn’t say what I was thinking which was if we have another one, depending on how this one turns out.

  Before we’d gone another quarter of a mile, the goddamned tire blew. Bang! It were done for just like that.
The tires were bald, but I hadn’t expected one of them to blow. Sheila fell up against me and started laughing crazy like. Ha ha ha ha. What was funny about us having to walk home because I didn’t have no spare?

  I got out and started kicking the shit outta the busted tire. I reached down and picked up some rocks and threw them at the truck bed. “Junk! Heap! Piece of crap!” If I could find a board I’d smash the windows too, and I was looking around for something else to throw when Sheila came over to me and held my arm. I snatched it away from her. I wasn’t gonna listen to no “You’re scaring me. Don’t be upset.” whining like I’d heard so many times from Kathleen. But Sheila opened my fist and put a big rock in it.

  “Throw this’n. See if you can hit the rim. It’ll make more noise.” She was grinning so big I could see near ’bout all her teeth.

  I took the rock and did like she said. “Bull’s eye,” she yelled. “Can you do it some more times?”

  I couldn’t help grinning even though I was still plenty pissed off at my truck. This little gal had taken the edge off me though. She was holding another rock out to me, and I grabbed her wrist and pulled her up close to me. I could feel the rock against my chest, and then she let it loose and I could feel her little jugs a-rubbin’ up against me. “You’re something, girl,” I whispered. I leaned my head toward her and she rose up on her toes and kissed me. I say it were a kiss, but I hadn’t never had one like it. Her mouth went sideways and up and down, and I felt like she must have had four sets of lips a-workin’ on that one kiss. My peter started getting into it then, and I ran my hands over her back, pulling her into me. It weren’t till I got home and was laying on my bed still aching from her that I realized I were rubbing that ugly hump like it was a golden egg.

  After that night I was done for as far as the single life goes. In just a week’s time I couldn’t do nothin’ without thinking about them eyes of hers, her little jugs that was so sweet to taste, her pretty voice that could follow any note I strummed out on my guitar. She’d let me do just about anything to her that I could think up, and I didn’t think near as good as her. One night when we was stretched out on a blanket in the bed of my truck, I asked her where she learned all them things about what pleases a man and she told me she didn’t know how she knew. Said she just done what felt natural to her. I had my suspicions though. I didn’t think I was her first, but she swore I was and I didn’t figure her for a liar. She was like a kid in a woman’s body and that combination is hard to resist for somebody like me.

  I asked her to marry me right after our first fight. We had been down to the Cottons’ that night. Mrs. Cotton had turned in with the baby, and Mr. Cotton and me were sittin’ on the back porch smoking. Mrs. Cotton didn’t allow no tobacco in the house, nor any kind of spirits either, so Mr. Cotton kept his hooch down to the barn and smoked his cigarettes outdoors. I wouldn’t live with a woman like that. I’d tell her a thing or two about who was boss of the home, but it didn’t seem to bother Mr. Cotton none to live with what he called a “delicate lady.” We wasn’t talking much. I remember blowing out a smoke ring, watching it rise like a blue halo in the dim light, and here come Sheila out of the house all painted up like a whore. She was wearing a low-cut dress without no brassiere and when she bent over my rocker, I could see her pink nipples plain as day. Mr. Cotton seen ’em too, and he didn’t look away neither. I grabbed her arm. “What you trying to look like in that paint?” I asked her.

  Sheila just smiled like I wasn’t hurting her though I was sure I was. “Annette and I were just playing. She’s coming in a minute. I done her hair up and we’se pretending to be moving picture stars on our way to some fancy place Annette heard about in New York City. The Ritzy something or other.”

  I didn’t let go of her, but pushed her back as I got outta my chair. “You get that paint off’n you right now. Come on,” I yelled at her. We left then, went down to her room, and when she got inside, I slammed the door and threw her face down on the bed. “You showed your titties to Mr. Cotton,” I said looking down at her with her legs splayed out like she was ready for taking from behind. “You’re mine, and I don’t share what’s mine with nobody.”

  Sheila’s eyes watered up, and she scrambled down to the floor and grabbed hold of my ankles. “You whup me,” she said. “I’m bad. I shouldn’t done what I done.”

  “I’ll whup you.” I jerked her up by her forearm and slung her back on the bed. I raised my leg and my boot came down on her hump. She didn’t say nothing, didn’t cry out for me to stop, so I gave her another good hard stomp. I thought I’d make her good and sorry she ever put on that paint and whore’s dress. I’d make her cry and beg forgiveness. What happened next is what happened from that time on. She flipped over on her back and held her arms up to me.

  “Do it now. Hurry,” she whispered. I saw the look in her eyes then and my breath starting coming out in short pants. She was askin’ me for something I never figured on. A feeling come over me that was just like how I felt when I skinned my first squirrel. I had run my hands over them slick intestines, and dug my fingers into the bloody fur. I licked the brains when I cracked open the head, and now the taste of them was in my mouth. I grabbed her hair and flipped her over. I ripped her dress and my shirt and came away with bits of skin beneath my nail. Then her hump was in my stomach, my head between her legs, and I bit into the soft flesh of her thigh and tasted her blood.

  I asked her to marry me that night. I didn’t figure I had no choice really. Somebody had to give her what she needed, and her eyes were set on me, Stoney Barnes, who didn’t have no power against a blonde witch who screamed my name at night and laughed when the sun come up every blast day.

  CHAPTER 19

  Sheila and me moved into the Cottons’ tenant house the weekend we got married. On a Friday we drove over to Tylertown and got hitched by this old geezer who read out the vows so loud Sheila started giggling and covered her ears with her little hands. I didn’t have no money to buy her a proper ring, but she was tickled to death with the tin band I gave her. It didn’t take much to please her, and that’s one of the reasons I felt I’d picked good for a wife. By the time we got back to our new house, we was so hot for each other, we done it on the floor in the front room. I had a bottle of hooch my brothers had give me, and I was planning on a few celebration drinks, but Sheila didn’t allow me no time to think of it. She was like a wildcat that night, a-screeching and hollering out. She kept shouting “I love you” and such every time we done it. What nobody would believe she done was she tied a string on my peter. We was both used up and ready to get some sleep and I had rolled on my back and shut my eyes when I felt her fingers on me. “What you up to?” I asked her, lifting my head up from the pillow.

  She smiled without opening her mouth and kept on with her fingers. When she’d made a little bow on top, she looked up at me. “It’s loose, won’t hurt you none.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But what the hell is it for?”

  Sheila leaned down and bit the end off the string, held up the piece. “This here is a magic cord. It gives you powers.”

  I sat up then to get a better look. The string was tickling my leg and I moved my thigh out to the side. “What kind of powers?”

  “To have perfect babies,” she said. “Babies without no humps, smart ones.”

  I yanked the string off me. “Tying a hundred strings on me ain’t gonna make no difference ’bout us having kids. Put your lips around it instead,” I said. Sheila looked kinda hurt for a second, and then she smiled, made a big “o” with her mouth and bowed her head to it.

  Next morning was more of the same, and we had another whole day and night of loving before Sheila went out to tell her folks about us getting hitched. That visit ruint our first week. Sheila’s papa beat her so bad she couldn’t do nothin’ in the bedroom ’ceptin’ sleep. When Annette pulled up in the drive and helped her in the house, I didn’t have to ask who done it. I got rid of Annette soon as I could. She was crying all over Sheila,
shaking, her teeth a-chattering, like it were her who was bloodied up. Sheila didn’t cry; she just laid still on the bed, looked up at me and said, “Papa were mad about us gettin’ wedded.” She whimpered when I tore what was left of her dress off her, but she said she didn’t need no doctor when I offered to go down to the Cottons’ and call for one. “I been a lot wors’n this,” she said. “It’ll be all right. I should’ve said it different. I knowed he was gonna be mad at me.”

  I went out to the well and saw Mr. Cotton a-hurrying up to our house, and I figured Annette had spilled the beans about what happened. I waved him away, shouted to him that I would take care of my wife, I’d do what had to be done. He looked like he wanted to come on anyhow, but he waved his hat, turned around and went back toward the barn. I drew some water and went back to the house and bathed the blood off’n Sheila. Then I went to the closet and took out my gun. Sheila cried out when she seen it. “No.”

  “You ain’t got no say,” I told her. The hard metal felt good in my hands, and I breathed in the scent of the oil from the barrel. I would smash his head in with the gun before I put a bullet through his heart.

  Sheila half fell off the bed and crawled over to me. “Please, please, please. Don’t do it. He didn’t mean it. He just lost his temper is all. He didn’t mean to.”

  I understood about losing your temper. I knew all about red eye rages that come over you and cover your head with ruby fog so that you feel like your head is in a vise getting screwed tighter and tighter and you got to do something before your head comes off. I knowed what her papa knew all right, but I couldn’t be a man and let this go without taking action. “He’s got to pay for it,” I said.

  Sheila was hanging on my knees, squeezing me hard. “Stoney, he will. I promise. He will, but don’t go over there now.”