Sally Beth had not been in a gym since high school, and she was not anxious to go back to smelly locker rooms and shouting boys. “What do you do there?”
Edna Mae laughed. “Gotta stay in shape, and you should, too. Come on, I need to teach you how to take care of yourself. Lilly! Get up. I’m going to show you how to handle men who think they can bully you.”
Lilly moaned from under the covers. Sally Beth felt a tremor of apprehension. “You mean, beat them up? No Edna Mae, we’re Quakers. We don’t fight. It’s against our beliefs.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that! You don’t have to hurt anybody. You just learn how to repel somebody who wants to hurt you. Like that guy last night. I didn’t hurt him. I just showed him I won’t be pushed around. It’s not fighting. It’s self-defense. It’s perfect for you.”
Sally Beth wasn’t convinced. She looked askance until Edna Mae spoke again. “Do you know this kind of self-defense was invented by priests who were absolute pacifists? Bandits and murderers used to come and raid their temples, and they got tired of being robbed and raped and murdered, so they developed this style of defense to protect themselves without hurting their attackers.”
Sally Beth thought about that. Edna Mae had thrown the man to the floor last night, but he had not appeared to be hurt, and she had thrown Lawrence into the pool when he had tried to push her in. She also had dragged him away from Lilly when he threatened to push her off the Canyon rim.
“You sure they don’t get hurt?”
“Did he look hurt?”
“No,” broke in Lilly. “He just looked mad. You could have hurt him, though. Standing on his windpipe like that.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t. Most of the moves are evasive and non-confrontational. You just learn to side step and make an attacker go off balance. Come here, Sally Beth, I’ll show you.” She jumped up on the bed. “Come on! You’ll see. It won’t hurt a bit. Come up here on the bed.”
Sally Beth reluctantly climbed up beside Edna Mae. “Okay, now come at me like you’re going to choke me.” She bounced a little on the bed, moving her shoulders like a boxer.
Sally Beth tentatively put her hands forward, and before she even touched Edna Mae, she found herself flat on the bed with Edna Mae’s tennis shoe resting lightly on her throat. “See? You didn’t feel a thing, did you?” She bounced back and pulled Sally Beth up on her feet. “Do it again. This time try to hurt me.”
Sally Beth knew hurting Edna Mae was not likely to happen. She halfheartedly lunged for her, but again, she ended up on her back, looking up at Edna Mae’s perfect leg.
“Come on, Lilly. You get in on this. I know. Both of you get dressed and let’s go outside, and I’ll show you how easy you can throw somebody, and you won’t even hurt them.”
Lilly jumped up enthusiastically and began throwing on her clothes. Sally Beth wasn’t so sure. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, but she wasn’t certain that she should be taking part in this. Fighting was fighting, and this sure looked like fighting to her.
They moved to the dew-laden grass outside. “Okay, now both of you rush at me like you’re going to grab me or stab me or something. Lilly and Sally Beth looked at each other, and Lilly started to giggle. This wasn’t much different from what they had done as girls when they wrestled with each other and their cousins. Maybe it wouldn’t be so wrong after all. They rushed in toward Edna Mae, who sidestepped them easily. She swept her foot under Lilly, who stumbled and fell, and then she grabbed Sally Beth around the waist and flipped her so gently that she found herself lying on the grass, unhurt and unruffled.
“Did that hurt?” asked Edna Mae.
“No…” mused Sally Beth from the ground.
Lilly jumped up. “Not a bit! How do you do that?”
“Come on, let’s go down to the gym and I’ll show you.” She pulled Sally Beth up and returned to the room briefly to get her University of Texas sweatshirt, pulling it over her head as she trotted into the parking lot. Twenty minutes later, she was showing the sisters how to use the weight of an opponent against him.
It was surprisingly fun and fairly easy to catch on to the basics. Within an hour, both Sally Beth and Lilly were able to throw not only each other, but Edna Mae as well. Laughing, they agreed that the time might come again when they needed to know how to be as tough as Edna Mae. Sally Beth hoped it never came to that, but it did feel kind of good to know she was stronger than she realized. By the time they had showered and changed and had sat down to breakfast, she felt that she was standing just a little taller.
Swallowtail Gap, West Virginia
“Hey, Chap! Slow down!” Geneva called to her husband. “Blue says he doesn’t like being jostled so much.”
Howard halted his horse and drew up the packhorse he was leading beside him. “Sorry, darlin’,” he said, looking back. “Why don’t you let me take him the rest of the way up?”
“No, I don’t trust Lightening. He may try to throw you just for spite, and you have your hands full. I can manage okay.”
“Maybe I’ll go on up ahead? I can get some firewood in and pick some dinner from the garden, and you can take your time.”
She shifted in the saddle, nodding. “Yes, go on. I’ll take it easy the rest of the way.”
Howard nudged his stallion into a fast trot, leaving Geneva alone with her baby and her thoughts. It had been a year since she had been to this cabin. She remembered the night she and Howard had first loved each other, with the sound of the waterfall thundering in their ears, the smell of mint and the wild, summer night. Her heart pounded just remembering, and she felt the familiar, sweet, melting sensation when she thought about how Blue was the result of that night. What kind of divine intercession had occurred, sending that thunderstorm and her illness? Had that storm not come, she would have turned her back on Howard and taken a different path, and the thought made her shudder with dread. She closed her eyes, smiling. God had used her foolishness and wantonness and turned it to good. She breathed a prayer of thanks and nudged April forward.
When she arrived at the cabin, Howard had already nearly unpacked their supplies. He stopped to help her down from her horse before lifting Blue from her back. “I see he made it okay,” he said, smiling into his son’s face. “That’s about the most even-tempered young’un I ever did see.”
Geneva smirked at him. “Blue got my sweet temper.”
Howard’s eyes laughed at her, but he said nothing as she unbundled the baby and carried him inside while he finished the unpacking. He took the horses to the stable, then pulled vegetables from the garden, and went out to shoot some game for supper while Geneva washed and cut up potatoes and made a little relish out of onions, cucumbers, and the two ripe tomatoes they had found. Blue stared at her with his bright blue eyes as she hummed while she worked, contented. The honeymoon in Europe had been nice, but this was home.
After supper, they built up the fire outside, and like they had just a year ago, they filled the zinc washtub with water and placed it over the coals. First they bathed Blue, then Howard said, “The last time you took a bath here, I didn’t get to watch. But you watched me…” He settled himself on the porch step and leaned back on his elbows. “Now it’s my turn.”
Geneva blushed, remembering how beautiful he had been, standing on the cliff above the creek, holding himself still and calm, then plunging into the water, how she had been unable to move, how he had risen from the water and they had discovered each other. The memory made her want to strip for him, but although she attempted a little seductive dance, she soon began to giggle from embarrassment, and ended up just tearing her clothes off quickly and lowering herself into the tub.
He shook his head with mock disgust, sighing. “I think you could’ve done a little better than that. I might as well go on over to the creek. Not much of a show tonight.” He pretended indifference, but his eyes lingered on her as he made his way down the path.
Somewhere near the Texas Border
To Sally Beth�
�s dismay, both Lilly and Edna Mae had refused to stop for Carlsbad Caverns on the grounds that “bats bite and get tangled up in your hair,” and closed spaces gave Edna Mae the heebie jeebies. They did agree to take the back road from Albuquerque so she could at least see White Sands, which finally quenched her desire to see a “real” desert, with towering, undulating dunes of pure white sand. Other than that, the road between Albuquerque and Pecos was a long, dry, hot stretch. Yet, the uninspired scenery soon took an unnoticed position behind the comfortable space made up of music, feminine talk, and laughter. Lilly proved to be even more obtrusive than Lawrence had been with the camera, sticking the lens right up into Sally Beth’s and Edna Mae’s faces and constantly telling them to look that way or smile or make a face until Sally Beth started mugging and positioning Edna Mae into sidesplitting poses.
At one stop, Edna Mae talked them into mooning for a shot. “Come on!” she laughed. “Nobody will ever know it’s us if we don’t show our faces.” She instructed Lilly to place the camera on the front seat of the car and set the timer, then laughing uncontrollably, they pulled down their panties and sat on the hood of the car, mashing their bare bottoms against the windshield. By the time the camera clicked, they were howling, and then they rolled off the car and onto the sand, hysterical. A car drove by slowly, its occupants staring at them, which made them laugh even harder. Sally Beth had forgotten how much fun pure silliness could be.
By dinnertime, they had nearly made it to the Texas border, but there was little to offer in the way of food or respite. They drove a long time on a deserted road before they finally found a decent-looking place offering Mexican food.
“It’s a half-hour wait for a table,” Edna Mae informed them after she had talked to the hostess. “Let’s sit at the bar.” She led them through the throng waiting at the doorway and moved a couple of barstools around so they could sit together.
Lilly perched on her seat as she picked up a menu. “Oh look! They’ve got a special on pitchers of margaritas. Let’s get one.”
“Lilly, we were drinking last night,” warned Sally Beth. “We shouldn’t get in the habit of doing this.”
“Come on, Sally Beth. Once we get home, we can’t kick up our heels like this.”
Sally Beth was about to declare that she’d had enough heel-kicking, but then she looked at her sister’s face and saw it more relaxed and happy than she had seen it in a very long time. The old, pinched look she had worn for years, ever since Daddy had gotten so sick, was gone. A pitcher of margaritas was not worth arguing about, not when she, Lilly, and Edna Mae were on the adventure of a lifetime. “Okay,” she conceded, “but just one.”
“They’re not that strong when it’s the special,” soothed Edna Mae. “You’ll hardly feel it. And I bet they know how to make them here.” She settled happily on the bar stool and hiked up the neck of her muumuu.
Somehow, a full pitcher of margaritas managed to disappear before they even ordered food, although Sally Beth limited herself to one glass. Lilly, too, seemed to be a little more careful. Edna Mae was not. She drank with abandon, and ate with equal gusto. It was remarkable how much she was able to put away.
“So how did you learn judo, Edna Mae?” asked Lilly as she put a dollop of sour cream on her third taco.
“And why?” added Sally Beth.
Edna Mae grew thoughtful. “It comes with the territory. I started having to fight guys off when I was in the fifth grade.” She splayed both hands across her chest, making a wry face.
“Oh. That’s tough. I didn’t get boobs until I was fourteen, and they were pretty little for a long time. Both of us were still climbing trees and playing in the creek when we were eleven.”
“I envy you two. I had to give up running when I was ten; they were so sore from growing so fast. It was too bad, because I had been athletic as a kid. My dad taught me to play baseball, and I was real good at it. But these monsters got in the way.”
“Daddy taught us to play baseball, too. Lilly was really good at it.”
“I bet you two had a good daddy,” Edna Mae said wistfully. “I had a good daddy, too. He didn’t get a boy, so he taught me all those boy things like fishing and baseball and fixing stuff around the house, and he was funny! He could make me laugh without even saying anything.” She looked into her margarita with melancholy eyes that suddenly misted with tears. “But he died when I was ten. Worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Sally Beth and Lilly fell silent while she continued, “My stupid mama took up with the biggest pervert you ever met just a few months later, and he hadn’t been in the house any time before he started trying to feel me up.” Her face tightened.
“Oh, Lord,” said Lilly. “What did you do?”
“I got my friend Sammy Johnson to teach me how to fight. Sammy was this real cool black dude who carried a knife and would cut anybody who tried anything on his little sister. I told him about Clyde, and he took me under his wing. His sister was the same age as me, and we hung out together, and I guess he just felt sorry for me.
“I try to fight clean now, but back then I learned to fight dirty, and I do mean dirty. Sammy always said, ‘Anybody who picks on a little girl is about as worthless as they come, and you can forget all those notions of honorable fighting. You need to be as low-down as he is, and believe me, little white girl’—that’s what he called me, ‘little white girl,’ but he had to look up at me while he was saying it ‘cause I was already a head taller than him—‘that’s more low-down than you can imagine.’ He taught me how to gouge out eyes, how not to be afraid to bite and hang on even if you get slung around, and how to break a man’s neck.”
“One night, Clyde came home while Mama was working, and he got right in my bed while I was asleep. He grabbed me and pinned me down before I could even wake up, and he was slobbering all over me, but I had a knife under my pillow—thank you Sammy—and I stabbed him in the arm, left a five-inch gouge right here.” She made a slicing motion on her forearm and gave a bitter smile at the memory. “He never laid a hand on me again, but then, about a year later, he started in on Sarah Jane. She was just eight.”
Sally Beth could not believe her ears. Somebody’s daddy would do that? Well, technically, he wasn’t her daddy, but any man had a responsibility to protect children. “Did you tell your mama?” She could only imagine what her own mama would do, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Oh, I tried. But he had already been talking trash about me to her, and well, I think she was suspicious of me because I looked so mature.” She sighed sadly. “To tell you the truth, I think she was jealous of me. My boobs were bigger than hers by then, and Clyde would make snide comments to her about her being a skinny sack of bones. I think she wanted me out of the picture because it was important to her to have a man around.”
“What did you do then?”
Edna Mae laughed again, but this time the sound was cheerful. “I beat the living tar out of him. I came in one day and he had little Sarah Jane backed into a corner, and she was sitting there whimpering while he pawed at her, and I got an iron skillet and sneaked up on him, and—Wham! I busted his head good, then grabbed up Sarah Jane. I took his wallet and his car keys, then cleaned out the mayonnaise jar Mama kept her cash in, shoved Sarah Jane in his car and we took off for Texarkana to my granny’s.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
Lilly gaped. “Lord have mercy! What happened then? You didn’t get caught driving that little?”
“I wasn’t little. I was already taller than any grown woman I knew, except for Granny—I take after her, you’ll see—and I looked a lot older. Nobody batted an eye.” She laughed. “Old Clyde was too afraid to report us ‘cause he knew we would tell what he had done to us, and I could point to that scar on his arm as evidence. Sarah Jane had some bruises where he had tried to hold her down, too, and I was ready to do whatever it took.” Sally Beth looked at the set line of her jaw, and she figured Clyde probably had an inkling
of what he was in for if he made trouble.
“Good for you, honey. He deserved worse than you gave him,” she said, patting her arm.
Edna Mae flinched at the touch, then laughed. “We kept the car, and I managed to steal almost a hundred dollars off him, and another twenty off Mama. Me and Sarah Jane lived it up all the way to Granny’s. We probably had ten milkshakes on the way down.”
“Then what happened?”
“When we got there and told Granny about it, she called up Mama and cussed her out and told her if she didn’t throw that creep out, she’d never speak to her again. Last I heard, he was still there, and Granny nor any of us haven’t seen or talked to her since.” She dusted tortilla flour off her hands with a gesture of finality. “Hey bartender! We need another pitcher here.”
The bar began to fill up, the band arrived, and Lilly found a dance partner. When someone asked Sally Beth to dance, she forgot her troubles of the night before and leaped into the music and the energy bounding through the room. Even Edna Mae was persuaded to get out on the dance floor, dancing and singing along with the band until everyone in the bar joined in. The later it grew, the more celebratory they felt. Sally Beth learned the Texas two-step and was breathless and dizzy from spinning around, and, she admitted, from margaritas, even though she sipped at them slowly, drinking a glass of water between each one as Edna Mae had instructed her.
The music grew louder as more people arrived, including several odd-looking characters and three very small men. She thought at first they were children, but on closer look, she realized they were just very petite, like jockeys.
“Look!” exclaimed Lilly. “Munchkins!” The men stared at her.
“Lilly. Don’t make fun of them.”
“Sorry.” She looked over at the little men. “Sorry guys! I thought you were munchkins.”
“Lilly!” Sally Beth gave the men an embarrassed smile. “Don’t mind her,” she apologized. “She’s from the hills and doesn’t get out much.”
The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set Page 53