by Alan Black
LillieBeth gasped. “Mama, it is beautiful. Where did you get the blue cloth?”
“I traded Mrs. McMahon for the red shirt you got from the Braunawalls. It was a nice shirt, but we don’t need their remembrance from it.”
Mama pulled her special green Sunday dress from her sewing bundle. “I fixed this up for you. It is now your Sunday dress. That one in your hands is now your everyday dress. That patchwork thing you are wearing now will just have to be, well I don’t know what, but it is hardly fit to wear.”
“But the green one is your favorite one.”
Mama laughed. “Nonsense! You are my favorite. I had three dresses. Who needs three dresses all their own? You had…well…one was torn and one was worn. Now I have two and you have two.”
“Thank you, Mama. Thank you ever so much. I love them both.”
Mama laughed and said, “And that green will go much better with your freckles than it ever did against my skin.”
“Oh, Mama, you were always so pretty in that dress.”
Mama said, “You will be as pretty as I ever was in that dress. Besides, you are going to need a pretty dress as a young lady. Why I do declare that if Susanne Harbowe had not caught Reverend James’ eye, he would be in our house courting you right now.”
LillieBeth gasped and blushed.
Mama grabbed her hand. “Oh honey, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you. I did not know you liked Reverend James like that.”
LillieBeth wanted to blurt out the truth of what she knew about Susanne Harbowe, but she bit her tongue. Tears leaked from her eyes. She could not tell if the tears were for her or for Miss Harbowe.
Mama said, “Say, dry those tears. I have a second surprise for you.”
LillieBeth wiped her eyes and smiled. It was not her best smile. She was still all twisted up inside. She wanted to just cry and tell her mother everything.
She said, “Okay Mama.” She would share her news after her mother shared hers.
“Good. Now I hold another surprise in my hand. Which hand do you choose?”
“Right hand.”
Mama laughed. “Right hand it is. This surprise is a secret. I told Daddy this secret last Sunday after church. We were going to tell you the secret then, but you came home from Fletcher Hoffman’s all upset because of the Braunawalls. So, I told Daddy we would wait. Yesterday, you came home from school upset about your friend being raped, so I held the secret.”
“Oh, Mama,” she said, “Do not tease me anymore. I picked the hand with the secret.”
“So you did. Your Daddy and I are going to have a baby.” Mama poked LillieBeth lightly in the middle of her chest. “You are going to get a little brother or sister.”
TUESDAY - EVENING
LillieBeth shot up out of her seat in excitement. “That is so wonderful, Mama.” She stopped, hesitating, thinking and adding this information to what she already knew. “It is… no, we cannot. No, Mama. Not now. Can you wait?” She hugged her mother tightly.
Mama pushed her away, holding her tightly by the arms. “LillieBeth, what are you going on about? I thought you would be happy.”
“I am happy, but I have a secret too.” She blurted out without preamble, “Mrs. Bailey told me this morning, her son and his family are moving. They have nowhere to move but up here. We have to leave our house by the end of the month to make room for them.”
“Leave? We can’t. She can’t. No. It’s not...” Mama stuttered through each half sentence. She calmed herself, taking deep breaths, closing her eyes, and prayed softly.
Mama pulled LillieBeth close, hugging her tightly. “Good. This place is just too small for four people, or more.”
LillieBeth said, “More? How can there be more?”
Mama smiled, “Your Daddy and I want more children. We wanted you to have brothers and sisters to grow up with, but the war interrupted those plans. Things are looking up. Your Daddy has a steady job. It is not close to home, but we are getting our feet under us again. We decided if this one was on the way, then we would have others.”
LillieBeth asked, “How many others?”
“Lots, I hope,” Mama replied.
“Me too,” LillieBeth said. “Lots and lots and lots. But where are we going to live? You cannot be with child and live in the woods, wild like a deer.”
“Honey, I am already with child,” Mama smiled. “I can’t stop it, you know. We will tell your father about moving as soon as he gets home from work. He will know what to do. Meanwhile, you try not to worry about it. I know you will worry, but try not to.”
“Oh Mama, how can I not worry? We are losing this wonderful home and our garden will be gone too.”
Mama said, “You know who takes care of us?”
LillieBeth said with no hesitation in her voice, “Daddy takes care of us.”
“Yes. He has taken care of me since the day we married back when I was not even two years older than you are now. He has taken care of you every day of your life. Who takes care of Daddy?”
“God.”
“Yes. Daddy had never failed us. Would God Almighty do any less?”
WEDNESDAY – LATE AFTERNOON
LillieBeth stopped Ruth at the gate leading to Hoffman’s lane. The gate was still wired shut. She slid off her mule, dropping to the ground, being careful not to break the chicken eggs in her pocket. She had only found six eggs this morning in Mrs. Bailey’s chicken coop. She gave four to Mama and brought two for Mr. Hoffman. She had also, long since, found another friendship stone.
She did not want to leave Ruth tied to a fence post in the middle of the road, nor could she cut the wires to Hoffman’s gate. She led Ruth uphill and into the trees. She wound around, always moving uphill until she found a small open glade. She did not give the hill a thought. Almost every piece of land in the Ozarks was either uphill or down. She had learned as a toddler that it was easier to move downhill than uphill. It was also easier to go up or down than it was to go sideways.
She was not sure who owned the land next to Hoffman’s place, but she doubted they would begrudge a few blades of grass for a hungry mule. She tethered Ruth in the middle of the glade, giving the mule access to most of the grass. Ruth set to diligently working on removing every blade of grass in reach.
LillieBeth could not see the road, but having grown up in the woodlands, she knew exactly where it was. She did not need her sense of direction or woodcraft to know where the fence to Hoffman’s land was. She could see it.
She slid the rifle from the saddle scabbard. She would not admit it to anyone other than Mama, but she was worried about running into the Braunawall boys again. She was angry with them. She was not as worried about what they would do to her, as she was worried about what she would do to them.
She hoped she could keep enough sense in her head to use the rifle only for self-defense. But, seeing the spot in the road by the gate to Hoffman’s lane had caused her anger to bubble to a boil. The Braunawalls had hurt her. They had hurt Susanne Harbowe. They may have hurt untold numbers of women in the hills. The Braunawalls had even hurt Reverend James as well, if he really liked Susanne Harbowe.
She reached the fence in a few short steps. With her usual care she set the rifle on the ground on the other side of the fence. She was extra careful stepping between the wires. She was more than pleased with her new, everyday dress. It was not patched yet and she did not want to tear it on the first day she wore it.
She did look pretty in it. She was not as pretty in her everyday dress as she was when she had tried on the Sunday green one, but that was to be expected. She was pleased Mama had sewn her everyday dress, changing the cut, amending the style, making it more womanly than childlike. The hips were fuller. It no longer felt tight across her backside. The bosom was pleated. It was no longer tight across her breasts. Mama had given her room to grow.
She felt especially pretty because today Mama had brushed her hair out straight. When she was a little girl, Mama had always put her hair up in pigta
ils, those little girl twists sprouting from the sides of her head. As she grew older and began maturing, Mama usually put her hair into one long braid, twisting it until it lay straight down her back. This morning, Mama used her fancy brush, leaving LillieBeth’s hair untangled and smooth. Mama promised to put it up in a bun on Sunday for church, just like most of the other women.
Because of the extra material in the dress to allow for future growth, there was also extra material to snag on a barbwire. She slid through the wires easily, making sure the dress was clear. She took a mental picture of where Ruth stood. She overlaid the picture on the map in her head and cut through the woods heading in the direction of Hoffman’s house.
She went up a small hill and down the other side. Fixing her eye and mind on a blue mountain peak in the far distance, she kept to a straight course. She walked up another rise and was halfway down the next, thinking she had missed Hoffman’s house. She smelled smoke. She angled toward the smell, coming up behind the house.
Coming from behind, she did not want to startle Hoffman; she shouted a hello. There was no response. She walked around to the front of the house. Hoffman was not at his lean-to. The old mule and the three-legged dog were not in sight either. The fire in the lean-to had all but quit, just a small smoldering wisp of smoke rose from the rocky pit.
The sight of eggshells in the ashes brought a quick smile to her. Hoffman may be grumpy, but he had eaten the eggs she gave him. She put the two eggs she had brought as gifts on the half-broken crate in the corner. It was the same place she had set the first eggs. Hoffman was sure to see them. She also left a small pile of feverfew for his headaches.
The stone from yesterday was missing. She pulled another one from her pocket and set it next to the eggs. This was the fourth stone she had offered him. She laughed as she thought about the stones. This was the Ozarks. She would not run out of stones to give him before he grew tired of throwing them away.
She thought about going down to the meadow to see the new foals, but it felt almost too much like snooping since he was not around. Still, if he had been around he would have chased her off anyway. She looked down the meadow and could see the mares and foals, but passed up the opportunity to go closer. She did give a giggle when she spotted the little paint trip over his own feet, tumbling head-over-hocks and back to his feet again.
She glanced at the house. It was strange. Mr. Hoffman had such a pretty little house. Yet he chose to live in a rough-hewn lean-to a few steps away. The lean-to would be cold in the winter and wet when it rained. The house looked well built. It would be warm, dry and cozy.
She wondered what made a man build such a house and then refuse to live in it. It did not make much sense. It would drive her crazy to be this close to such a nice house, but not use it. Maybe that was it. The Schmitt sisters said Hoffman was crazy. Maybe he really was a little touched in the head.
She had listened to the adults talking about Fletcher Marlowe Hoffman. All of the years of killing, all of the brutality and all of the savagery might make a normal man insane. She wondered how much of what she heard was true.
She wanted to tell Mama or maybe ask Miss Harbowe about it. But, it was really a personal matter to Fletcher Hoffman. Talking about him or his place would be nothing short of gossip. All she knew about him was from gossip. The talk was from people she knew and trusted, but it was gossip just the same. Since she could not talk about it; she decided to just think about it, letting it run around loose in her mind for a while.
She retraced her steps back to Ruth. Once off Hoffman land, she was ready to hunt for supper. Rabbit and squirrel were nice, but she was hoping to scare up something different for a change. Mama had done some harvesting this morning. She had gone downhill and found some wild onions and cattail roots along a slow moving stream. They had four fresh eggs, so even if she did not find something different, she would leave the rabbits and squirrels alone for the day.
Still, just to be prepared, she closed the breech to the rifle, pumping a cartridge into the chamber. She checked to make sure the rifle was safe to carry before leading Ruth out of the glade. She would have to stop along a creek to get water for her mule. She was thinking about whether to stop at the little creek up the road or wait until the bigger pond at the edge of Bailey’s property, when she stopped.
She heard voices. She could see the top of a car in the road. A real car was on her road. It might have driven past her house. To see a car right near home would be a treat. She hurried forward, crashing through the brush and skidded to a stop about thirty feet from the edge of the road. The hill slanted down toward the road. It gave her a clear view of the car and the men in the road.
It happened fast, the tunneling vision, the creeping slow events racing past, the rapid beating of her heart, and her screams mixed with gunshots.
WEDNESDAY – LATER AFTERNOON
Fletcher Marlowe Hoffman sat high on his big, gray mule. His ever-handy Winchester lay easily in his grasp, yet it was pointed at the men near the car. His hat pulled down hard across his head, eyes showing only as dark pits like dead coals atop his wild beard. His mouth was set in a grim frown.
Stopped in the middle of the road was a maroon four-door sedan. LillieBeth did not know automobiles. She would not be able to tell whether it was a new, top of the line Cadillac or not. It was.
She could tell from the red dust that the car had been travelling on the Ozark roads for a while. There was mud around the tires where they had splashed through creeks and streams, as the only time someone built a bridge was where the water was too deep to drive through.
There were four men standing in the road. She could see the heads of two men on the far side of the car. One of the men was big and muscular with a city hat. The other man was short, fat and older with a shiny, bald head. They had their backs against the car. They were facing Hoffman and facing away from LillieBeth.
There was a man standing at the front of the car. He wore a suit and tie, with shoes polished to a high gloss. He had one foot propped up on the car bumper, having just wiped the dirt from his shoes. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. He held the gun easily in the crook of his arm, but the muzzle pointed in Hoffman’s general direction. The shotgun had both hammers cocked back. The man still held his handkerchief from dusting his shoes, but his finger was not far from the trigger of the shotgun. He was trying to look relaxed. Even to LillieBeth’s unpracticed eye, he was failing miserably.
A fourth man was on the near side of the car. His suit was neat, clean with sharp creases on the pants and he wore spectacularly white shoes. He had a white hat matching his shoes so perfectly they might have been painted from the same can. He held a revolver in his hand. He cocked the hammer back and peaked through the glass at Hoffman.
LillieBeth, crashing through the underbrush followed by a mule, startled the man with the revolver. He spun about and fired at her. The bullet splintered the tree next to her head. A crack of Hoffman’s rifle sent the man with the shotgun flying backwards, his face dissolving into a red splattering mist. Shotgun pellets blasting uselessly at the clouds.
In one smooth motion, without thinking, LillieBeth snapped the rifle to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. She hit the man with the revolver in the shoulder, spinning him sideways. He did not drop his gun.
She could not explain why she continued to shoot. The little .22 rifle never left her shoulder. LillieBeth pumped in another cartridge and pulled the trigger. She pumped in another cartridge and pulled the trigger. She pumped in a fourth cartridge and pulling the trigger hit the man for the fourth time. He dropped his revolver and fell to the ground screaming.
Both men on the far side of the car had their hands up, pleading with Hoffman to hold his fire.
The gunfire quit and it was quiet. It was a strange quiet as men were shouting, cursing, crying and pleading. To LillieBeth, it seemed quiet none-the-less.
The bald man on the far side of the car, pleaded for peace. He held his hands skywar
d; his eyes never left Hoffman’s. The man said, “Please stop. This is not what I wanted.”
Hoffman said, “You may not have wanted it, but your boys started it. You keep your hands where I can see them.” He rode the gray mule around the back of the car. LillieBeth had never seen a mule walk sideways. Hoffman and the mule moved, yet kept their faces to the men and the car.
He looked long and hard at LillieBeth.
She stared back. Her eyes felt cold and hard. It was a warm spring day, but she felt a chill. She wanted to look away, to run away, to ride Ruth and get away. She simply stared back at Hoffman. The rifle was still at her shoulder with a cartridge in the chamber. It was almost as if the little gun was screaming to be set free again.
LillieBeth knew what she had done. She had shot a man. She had shot a man four times. She had shot a man four times until he had fallen to the ground screaming in agony. Her hands felt like rocks, heavy and hard. Her heart was a match. Nevertheless, the rifle muzzle never wavered from the man on the ground.
Hoffman stared and she stared back. She was unafraid of what any man might do. She had done something that could not be undone and it would be written against her in God’s big book. She would answer to God, to her parents and to none other. She certainly would not answer to Hoffman or the man on the ground.
Finally, without looking, her eyes still focused on Hoffman, she slowly pointed the rifle at the sky. Hoffman nodded, but did not speak. LillieBeth just stared back. She wanted to smile, but could not. Smiling normally came easy to her, grinning at friends, smiling at a loved one, and laughing with family. Now, she could not smile.
Hoffman did not smile, either.
LillieBeth had shot a man and could not smile. She knew Hoffman had killed untold number of men. He had shot and probably killed another today. If she could not smile after shooting just one man, it was no wonder he never smiled.