A Woman on the Place

by Harry Whittington

  Still, it was true that Will was forced to do something. Or they would jail him. The groves. The cattle, or some of the land. That was Will’s only choice.

  Rhodes shook his head. Will should have sold some of the yearlings, or the orange crop, or some of the land in order to meet the payment he owed Darl Hollister. Now he was forced to sell them, he’d still owe Darl, and it would be like throwing the money in a pig trough.

  But Rhodes knew that was not why he did not mention selling the yearlings to Will. He knew that his voice or manner would never imply that if Will had allowed the pickers to take the crop from the groves, he would not now be forced to sell young cattle in order to buy nothing.

  Rhodes ate supper in silence.

  His mother questioned Grandpa about the trial in county court. Grandpa sat there and told her all that happened, even to the meeting with Kannister in the corridor after the trial.

  Grandpa’s smile was almost malicious as he bore down on the way Kannister had laughed at Will, and dared to offer to send his pickers in again to get him out of his difficulty.

  “Plain to see that Kannister meant the thing was all Will’s fault and that he was getting just what he deserved,” Grandpa said. That tight smile gleamed in his pale old eyes. “Is that the way you feel, Lena?”

  Lena sat straighter in her wheelchair. “I don’t know how I feel,” she said. “I do feel it’s terrible that we have to spend all that money — and have nothing to show for it. Just when we need it so badly.”

  Grandpa leaned forward across the table and punched the air between them with his fork tines.

  “You don’t feel that if’n you’d let things alone, all this would not have happened?”

  Lena dropped her fork on the table. “I resent the way you always accuse me, Papa. You’ve become an evil old man. Do you think for one minute that I was doing anything wrong? Do you believe that I wasn’t trying to do my part? Goodness knows, there’s little enough I can do any more.”

  “Why, I think you done just plenty,” Grandpa said.

  Lena sat rigidly in her chair, staring straight at Will. She did not speak again during the meal. Afterwards, Rhodes cleared the table and Will pushed Lena’s chair into the front room.

  All the time Rhodes washed the dishes, he went over it in his mind. Why was he afraid to ask Will when he meant to cut out the yearlings for market? Was he afraid to mention the Santa Gertrudis calves because Will might be offended? All he knew was, he was afraid to mention the matter, and getting the yearlings to market at once seemed vitally important.

  And because he was afraid to rouse Will’s anger, there was nothing to do but wait. But that didn’t worry him nearly as much as why he was so sure that Will would be angered, and feel that Rhodes was criticizing him.

  And he was positive of it.

  He had finished the dishes and started through the corridor toward the front of the house when he heard someone knocking on the front door.

  His heart sank. And that was strange. It was the terrible new way they lived. Always before they’d welcomed company, looked forward to guests. Their coming broke up the monotony of the farm life in the back country. But now every time somebody came to the door, it was trouble.

  Rhodes opened the front door. Darl Hollister stood there. Beyond, Rhodes saw the green Lincoln parked in the yard.

  “Hello, boy,” Darl said. “Is Will at home?”

  Darl held himself erect, his clothes were fresh and freshly starched, freshly pressed. He looked fine, but Rhodes was afraid. Darl Hollister slurred his words when he talked, even worse than he had the other morning when they visited him in his library. Darl had been drinking heavily all right.

  Rhodes remembered the warning Enoch Gaines had given Will in town.

  Rhodes took a deep breath. “Why, maybe if you could come back tomorrow morning — ” he began.

  Will spoke from behind him. “Come on in, Darl.”

  Darl stepped past Rhodes and laughed, his mouth pulling lopsidedly. “Already taught the boy to do your lying for you, Johnson?”

  Rhodes spoke up quickly. “Will didn’t tell me what to say, Mr. Darl.”

  “Never mind, boy,” Will said. Rhodes glanced over his shoulder. Will was watching him oddly.

  “Who is out there?” Lena called, her voice whining from the living room. “Why doesn’t somebody tell me who is out there?”

  “It’s I, Mrs. Johnson,” Darl Hollister said. “I had a bit of business with your husband, and just dropped over.”

  The whine went out of her voice. “Come in, Mr. Hollister.” Her voice dripped cordiality. “Come right in here and let me look at you.”

  Darl glanced at Will, face twisted with contempt. He walked by him into the front room. Will and Rhodes followed.

  Darl greeted Lena and Grandpa. Lena said. “We haven’t seen you in so long, Mr. Hollister. How is your lovely wife?”

  Darl glanced at Will again. “You mean you haven’t heard how Connie is getting along?” His voice was cutting, and bitter, and full of meaning that he felt was subtle and hidden.

  Lena laughed, simpering. “Now, how in this world could we hear about either of you? We’re just hard working people over here — and don’t get off the place much.”

  “Don’t you?” Darl stared at Will again, brow tilted. His gaze moved over the room. “I hate to disturb you like this, Mrs. Johnson. And believe me, I never would if it were not a matter of being forced to. I believe there’s a payment due on an eight hundred dollar debt — and well, I hadn’t heard from you people — I thought I better drop by and inquire.”

  Lena looked completely surprised and shocked. “Why, Will,” she said. “Do you mean that you haven’t paid Mr. Hollister yet?”

  “I’ve explained to Mr. Hollister why I didn’t.” Will’s voice was level.

  Darl shrugged. “I suppose you did. It’s just that maybe explanations won’t do. I need something more tangible.” He glanced at Lena. “You can see how that might be, Mrs. Johnson?”

  “Indeed I can. And I’m sure that Will will make some arrangements about an immediate payment, Mr. Hollister.”

  “I think that would be wise,” Darl said. “Most wise. As you know, Will, I gave you time only because of the condition of your poor wife.” He stared at Will. “I have nothing but great pity for her. But pity is one thing — and business is something else.” He walked to the door. “I think the end of this week, Will.” He stared about the room. “You can see how it is.”

  He walked out and the front door was closed quietly after him. It was so silent in the house when he was gone that they heard the smooth flow of his car engine, heard the way he raced out into the lane.

  “Oh God,” Lena whispered at last. “Oh my God, that something like this should ever happen to humiliate and embarrass me. Oh God, I don’t see how I can stand it.”

  The next day Rhodes was sure that Will would go to work separating the calves for market. But it did not happen. The nearest Will came was to drive to the fields with Rhodes. They parked at the fences, climbed through, and walked across the grass meadow. Will looked at the herds, but he said nothing. Rhodes walked beside him, and they covered two miles like that.

  They passed the pens where the yearlings were, bawling for their mothers and purposely fenced from them.

  Rhodes waited for Will to speak about the court fine and the money he needed. But Will said nothing. To Rhodes it seemed they were sitting in separate row boats on a swift river and that they were steadily being borne apart. They’d always talked together, about everything — now they drifted apart so that soon they could not even speak to each other.

  Will started across the field again, and Rhodes hurried along beside him. He wanted to blurt at Will that he trusted and believed in him, no matter what anybody else said.

  They climbed another fence, and Rhodes’ heart sank. He saw where they were going.

  They went across a lane, through a stand of white pine, and beyond was Will’s shack �
�� and they could see Rosanne bent over a wash tub in the yard. The faint breeze stirred the clothes and sheets she’d hung to dry on the wire lines.

  They walked into the yard. Rosanne heard them and turned from the tub. To Rhodes, she looked wan and hollow-eyed. The front of her cotton dress was water spattered from the tub.

  She wiped her soap-reddened hands on her apron. She said, “Hello, Rhodes. Hello, Will.” And in her voice there was some kind of singing. Her eyes were on Will’s face, and her smile was uncertain.

  “How is Tom?” Will said. Rhodes watched him, feeling his throat tighten. Will’s voice was natural, but his gaze was moving over Rosanne slowly, and in his eyes there was a terrible kind of need and hunger.

  “He’s better,” Rosanne said. “He says he is going to get out of bed tomorrow.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No. You see, Ab Taylor and some other man came by yesterday. They left a hundred dollars for Tom. I asked Tom why. But he wouldn’t tell me.”

  Will’s laugh was short. “The hundred was for taking a bullet in his belly — and for keeping his mouth shut.”

  “I wish Tom would stay out of it,” Rosanne said. “But he was already talking with that Ab Taylor — about when he got well.”

  Rosanne had moved close to Will. She put her hand on Will’s arm. Rhodes stared at them, and knew that in this moment they’d forgotten him and Cousin Tom and Ab Taylor and the yearlings….

  The yearlings.

  Rhodes turned and walked slowly away. He went to the pump that Will had installed for Rosanne. He found a tin cup and ran himself some cold water. He touched the cup to his lips and then was not thirsty.

  Suddenly he knew why he’d been afraid to mention the yearlings and the fine to Will.

  It had nothing to do with the yearlings.

  It was Rosanne.

  No matter what anybody else guessed, Rhodes was the only one who knew all there was to know about the way Will and Rosanne felt about each other.

  That was why Will had withdrawn from him.

  Will knew he couldn’t hide his need for Rosanne from Rhodes. And Will was sure that Rhodes despised him for it. Wasn’t Rhodes Lena’s son?

  If Rhodes said anything in criticism of Will, the gap between them would be complete — and they could never cross it again. That was why Rhodes had been afraid to ask about the yearlings.

  They would talk about yearlings — but they would be thinking about Rosanne.

  It had been like that since the first moment Rosanne arrived. She had come between them.

  Will would not try to hide what he felt for her. But he could never believe that Rhodes could forgive him for his weakness. He had no right to fall in love with Rosanne.

  He felt guilty. He never dared believe that Rhodes would forgive him. But as long as there was no break between them, they could go on, pretending things were the way they’d been before Rosanne came.

  But they couldn’t talk to each other any more. Because if they did, they might fight. They might fight about the yearlings.

  But it would be Rosanne who had made them them enemies.

  Rhodes looked down at the tin cup. He had bent it flat in his fist.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHEN Will and Rhodes drove up in front of the shack the next day, Cousin Tom was sitting in an old rocking chair on the front stoop. He had broken down his shotgun and had the barrel across his knees, cleaning it.

  He had a white cloth on a wire. He pushed it through the barrel, then held the gun up to his right eye, squinted and peered through it.

  He did not appear to notice Rhodes and Will bringing in the boxes of groceries that he’d asked them to pick up for him in Pine Flat.

  Will started around the side of the shack to the back door. Cousin Tom put aside the gun then. He said, “Needn’t take them back there, Will. Just set ’em right here on the front stoop. That will be fine.”

  Will put the box of groceries on the porch and Rhodes pushed the smaller one beside it. Will said, “Be careful of your side, Tom, carrying these heavy boxes through the house to the kitchen.”

  Tom gave him a smug smile. “Oh, I won’t carry them at all. Nothing wrong with Rosanne. She can fetch them all right.”

  Will looked around. He did not see Rosanne.

  Cousin Tom laughed again. “Come up on the porch here and set, Will, and you, Rhodes.” He fitted the barrel back into the gunstock, locked it in place. “Rosanne is out back there, chopping up a kitchen garden.”

  Will and Rhodes came up on the porch. Will sat in a straight kitchen chair and leaned back against the wall, watching Tom. Rhodes sat at the top of the slab steps with his back against a two-by-six upright.

  Rhodes watched Will. Will’s face flushed slightly when Cousin Tom said Rosanne was clearing a garden, but Will didn’t say anything.

  “I figure it don’t hurt a woman none to do some chores,” Cousin Tom said loudly. He brayed with laughter. “It keeps them busy, so their minds ain’t up to some devilment.”

  “That ground is pretty hard this time of year.”

  Cousin Tom laughed. “Do her good to work up a sweat. That there was always the trouble with her when we were up there in Alabama. She had nothing to do with herself. She sat around, lettin’ her mind get full of devilment. I tell you, Will, I had me a belly-full of trouble with that woman up there in Alabama. Trouble that I don’t intend to have now that I’m down here in my own country.”

  Cousin Tom looked at Will but Will did not speak.

  • • •

  “And beside that, I told her the way it was going to be. Right now with my side bothering me like it is, I won’t be able to get any work — and you know good and well, Will, I’d have to be feeling a whale of a sight better before I’d dast try any more of that business with Ab Taylor…. You know don’t you, Will, that’s how I got this here bullet in my side.”

  “I reckoned as much.”

  Cousin Tom’s face looked gray. “Running a little shine is not as easy as it was once in this here back country. We got in trouble, and bad trouble, in a hurry.”

  “Yes,” Will said.

  Cousin Tom shrugged that thought from his mind and laughed again. He jerked his round head toward the rear of the house. “So, with me laid up like this, we’re liable to be up against it for a while as the man says. If Rosanne has her a little kitchen garden, and I can bring down a few quail, some doves and a rabbit now and then, we ought to fare all right — and not ask help from nobody.” Cousin Tom laughed again. “Least ways not from no strangers.”

  “You’ll get along all right.”

  Rhodes was shocked when Cousin Tom did not laugh again. His slack-jowled face was suddenly gray and serious. His mouth pulled and he sat staring at the shotgun in his hands. From a shell box on the floor beside him, he took two buck shot shells and thrust them into the double-barrel.

  He put the gun against his right shoulder, sighted along it, and blew the tip off a pine fence post across the bare yard.

  The explosion shook the whole cabin, and then the sound rolled across the yard and over the fields of wire grass and beggarweed.

  Cousin Tom did not take the gun from his shoulder, only moved it tightly, sighted and pressed the trigger again. A pine knot flicked off the next fence post and the whole cabin shook again.

  “Pretty good shot, eh?” Cousin Tom said.

  “You’re not planning to shoot quail with that buck shot though, are you?” Will said.

  Cousin Tom laughed.

  “No. I just keep buckshot handy. I’m a man that likes buckshot. I like to see what I’ve done with a gun. Buck shot leaves a mark you can’t never mistake, and that there’s a fact.”

  Cousin Tom picked up two more shells, inserted them in the gun. This time he did not put the gun to his shoulder, but held it across his knees, the gleaming snout faced toward Will.

  Cousin Tom did not look at Will, or at Rhodes. Rhodes stared at the fat face with the sweat gleaming on it,
the mouth pulled into a faintly derisive smile, and the little pig eyes almost lost in the sockets of fat.

  Cousin Tom said, “Grandpa was by yestidy.”

  Will’s voice remained low. He appeared not even to notice the gun. “That so?”

  “He was looking for a stray calf,” Cousin Tom said. “He said he trailed him this way.”

  “Yes,” Will said. “He told me.”

  “Wonder did the old man ever find that calf?”

  Will shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Cousin Tom laughed shortly. “Said he tracked him right down this way. I declare that old man’s eyes must be gone on him, or else he’s got one hell of an imagination.”

  “He’s always been pretty good at trailing a stray,” Will said.

  Cousin Tom drew a deep breath. Rhodes was staring at the box of buck shot shells at Cousin Tom’s side. It seemed clear to Rhodes what had happened to that calf, and it appeared to him that it should be as clear to Will. But the expression had not changed on Will’s lean face.

  “While Grandpa was here, we had quite a chat,” Tom said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Seems Grandpa just can’t get over the change that has happened to Rosanne.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah. Seemed a big joke to Grandpa, the way she had changed. He sat there in that self same chair and stared at Rosanne. She was sitting there on the steps, the way the kid is now, and she was staring off across them fields, like she was seeing something miles away, and wasn’t even hearing what we was saying, and kind of like she never even knowed we was on the face of this earth. The old man started needling me again. You recollect the way he started on me the first night Rosanne and me got down here from Alabama.”

  “Grandpa doesn’t mean anything by his talking.”

  Cousin Tom breathed heavily. “That there is where you and me differ in our thinking, Will. I believe that old man always means something, and it ain’t always what he says.”

  “Don’t let him get under your skin.”

  • • •

  “Oh, he don’t. Nobody can get the best of Tom Wilkes. But he said something that I hadn’t noticed. He kept saying ‘somebody has gentled ol’ Tom’s filly’. Then he’d look at Rosanne sitting quiet and dreamy on them steps and chuckle to himself. He must have said that to himself a dozen times before he left here.”