It got quiet on the porch then. So quiet that Rhodes felt he could hear Rosanne’s hoe snicking at the winter ground out back. But he knew better.
“I never noticed until that there moment,” Tom said finally. “Not until ol’ Grandpa started talking about it. Rosanne is changed … You noticed the way she is changed, Will?”
“Maybe I don’t know her well enough.”
Cousin Tom stared at him. “You know her about as well as Grandpa does, wouldn’t you say?”
Will shrugged. “But like you said, Grandpa is a pretty smart old coot.”
“Yeah. He’s smart. He sees too much. And then he gets you to seein’ things. Things that you ain’t noticed one bit before. Like, first I thought one thing: You know that Rosanne has not mentioned going back to Alabama? She hasn’t. Not once in over a week.”
“That so?”
“That’s mighty surprising when you think she cried most all the way down here on that there bus. And didn’t eat anything. Why it was two days after we were here that she started eating right again. But now she eats, and she sings to herself, and — well, I guess you know she ain’t tried to run away since we moved in this place. And that was one thing I was feared of. I was deathly feared that Rosanne might try to run off again down here in this back country that she didn’t know anything about. You know it was different up there in Alabama where she knew the country, and everybody had knowed her since she was born. But, so help me, she ain’t tried once to run away.”
“You ought to be glad.”
Cousin Tom’s face remained gray. “Yeah. Looks that way, don’t it? Shore looks like I should be pleasured right down to my bones. But — ” He touched his fingers to the side of his cheek. For the first time Rhodes saw the lines ripped there. “Damn little slut. Her fingernails.” Cousin Tom cursed. “She’s changed in a lot of ways. But she still ain’t changed in bed. She still fights me like a tiger. She cries and she laughs at me, or then she’ll just lay there like she’s dead — like a sack of wet meal. I tell you, it’s plain enough to drive a man crazy when a woman won’t act right in his bed.”
Rhodes glanced at Will, saw the sweat beaded across his forehead. Will’s voice remained soft. “Maybe you’ve just expected too much from her right away, Tom. Maybe you ought to give her a little time.”
“I give her time. We been married a long time now, and she ain’t changed one bit when we’re in bed. She still fights me and laughs at me. If she ain’t screamin’ cryin’, why you know what she’s doing? She’s poking her finger in my belly and laughing herself sick at my fat belly. And a man can’t help a fat belly. Most of the Wilkes men was built just like me, and its something we can’t help, and it don’t no way impair anything at all.”
“You got to give her more time,” Will said. His voice sounded sick to young Rhodes.
“I’m not giving her more time. No, sir. I tell you, I been thinking since Grandpa was down this way yestidy looking for that there stray calf. I been thinking about what he said. He said, the night we got here, about somebody gentlin’ Rosanne — and now yestidy, he was a-laughin’ to himself and talking how ‘somebody gentled ol’ Tom’s filly.’ It sure got me to thinking. If somebody has been next to Rosanne — I tell you, it’s sure enough got me crazy in my head. I’m sittin’ out here, with my shotgun acrost my knees, and there best not be nobody gettin’ next to Rosanne — because I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him. I’ll pump buck shot into him until I run out of shells or my gun barrel plumb melts down with the heat.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BY TEN o’clock the next morning, Will and Rhodes had cut out a dozen of the yearlings from the range cattle that roamed between the big house and Will’s shack three miles away.
Once while they were working, Rhodes thought he saw Rosanne down at the end of the fenced ground. But he turned to call to Will, and when he looked back Rosanne was gone.
The yearlings were pressed like sardines into the rear of the pick-up truck, but Will worked in a cold anger and did not care. They bawled all the way in to the stock chutes at Pine Flat.
A buyer was waiting there when they arrived. They drove the yearlings out of the truck and into a pen. The buyer and Will climbed the corral fence and walked among the yearlings. Some of them were still unsteady on their legs from being crammed into the truck.
When they climbed out of the pen, the buyer told Will he would not give him more than forty dollars a head. “It’s not prime stock, Will. You know that.”
Will shrugged. Rhodes smiled to himself. Will knew the animals were scrubs all right. He had carefully driven the most promising cattle away before he began to choose his yearlings for sale. Rhodes sighed, Will was a man who hated to part cheaply with what he’d worked hard to produce.
“You won’t get any better price,” the stock man said. “You know that, Will. We can haggle. But I’m giving you tops right now because we’re friends, and I’ve bought good meat from you before, and hope to do it again later.”
“I need six hundred dollars,” Will said. He appeared to be studying the yearlings over the corral fence.
The buyer did not even glance at them again.
“They’ll bring thirty-five dollars a head anywhere else, Will. You know that. You best take the forty.”
“I’ll sell you the twelve for five hundred dollars,” Will said.
The buyer exhaled heavily. “Will, I know you got good breeds on your place. Them Santa Gertrudis, and them Brahma cross-breeds. You got better range bred stuff than this. Why you trying to hold me up?”
“I just told you my best offer.”
“All right, Will, for twenty dollars we’re going to stay friendly. But you’re taking me, and I don’t want you asking mercy from me. I’m a man gets his money back — even when it’s just twenty dollars.”
“I know that,” Will said. “That’s why I’m not worried about that twenty.”
“Come on in my office and I’ll give you a check.”
From the stock pens, they drove to the bank where Will deposited the check. Rhodes was surprised when Will turned the pick-up out of town.
“You’re not going by the court?” he said.
“Reckon not today, son.”
“You only got one more day to — pay that fine.”
“I figure it’s more important to meet that payment with Darl Hollister. He’s got a burr up his tail. I can sit ninety days in jail if that’s what they want. But your Ma is gettin’ real sick at the idea that Darl means to take her house from her.”
“But you got some more young calves you can sell,” Rhodes said.
“You know better than that, boy. You saw how that man acted back there. Them calves weren’t ready for market. I knowed they weren’t, and so did you, and so did that buyer. That’s why he cut the price down. When we brought in beef that wasn’t ready to sell, he knew then we needed money bad, and he knocked at least fifteen dollars a head off the price.”
“Why’d you sell to him?”
“Why, he had us over a barrel. He knew it, and we knew. That’s why, you got to remember, boy, try to keep an advantage.”
Rhodes was thinking about all the things that had happened to Will in the past few weeks. “That ain’t always easy to do.”
“No, son. Sometimes, it’s pretty hard to do. But you got to remember, as a farmer, you got goods to sell, and it forever pays you to sell when the advantage is with you. That’s as important as what you plant and when you plant.”
They turned into the drive before Darl Hollister’s place. Uncle Felix led them into the same darkened library. Darl was sprawled back on a leather club chair with a highball glass in his hand. It was to Rhodes as though he had not moved since the last time they were here.
Will wrote out a check for three hundred dollars. He handed it to Darl.
Hollister took the slip of paper between his fingers, holding it away from him as if it were unclean.
“Very nice, Johnson,” he said. “Three hundr
ed. That’s the payment that was due over a week ago.”
“That’s right. I’ll try to be on time with the next one.”
“Maybe you misunderstood me. I told you that when you defaulted on this payment, the whole eight hundred dollars was due. I’ve already instructed my lawyer. He is to collect the full amount, or take over the farm.”
Darl tossed the check back toward Will. It fluttered in the airless room and settled to the floor.
Will reached down and picked up the check. He folded it once, tore it up.
“I’m sorry you’re acting this way, Darl.”
“Eight hundred dollars.”
Will bent over the desk again and filled out a new check. He handed it to Darl. Rhodes caught his breath. He knew that Will didn’t have a balance of eight hundred dollars in the bank.
Darl’s eyes widened. He looked up, mouth twisted. “My lawyer will mail you the canceled mortgage.”
“That’s fine,” Will said. “But I want a paid in full receipt from you now. I’ll just keep that until your lawyer gets around to the mortgage.”
“Now you’re being a fool.”
“Am I? Why should I trust you? You don’t trust me.”
“No. You’re right.” Darl stood up. He went to his desk, flopped behind it. They listened to the scratching of his pen as he wrote out the receipt. He handed it across the desk to Will.
Will took it, read it, and put it in his pocket.
“That washes everything up between us, Darl,” he said.
Darl stood up. His mouth was pulled down. He said, “Does it, Will?”
Will looked at him a moment, turned and walked out.
Rhodes got into the pickup beside Will.
“Will.”
“Yes, boy?”
“You don’t have that much money.”
“I figure Darl is drunk. He’ll stay drunk the rest of the day. He’ll send the check in to be deposited at the bank sometime tomorrow. By that time I’ll just have to get the rest of the money in there.”
“And the fine?”
Will laughed without mirth. “Things are a mess, eh, boy?”
“What will you do, Will?”
“There ain’t but one thing to do. We’ve a few Santa Gertrudis yearlings. We’ll sell them off. We’ll get some pickers on the groves. With a little luck, we’ll be all right.”
“But — if you sell the Santa stock — that’ll put you back more than a year.”
Will nodded. “There’s just one way to look at a thing like this, boy. We’re just not ready for the Santa Gertrudis yet. We thought we were, but we’re not.”
Rhodes glanced at his step-father. He’d never heard such bitter emptiness in Will’s voice before.
Sheriff McCall’s big Buick was parked in the yard when they pulled the pick-up through the front gate. McCall was talking to Grandpa. He came waddling across the bare sand, with Grandpa at his heels.
Will shook his head and laughed helplessly. “They send you out here to collect that fine, Sheriff?”
McCall took himself seriously. “I don’t run errands, Will. Not for nobody.”
Will shrugged. “All right then, what is it?”
“Little trouble,” McCall said.
“That’s just what I need,” Will said. “A little more trouble.”
“This is not you,” Grandpa said. “This is Cousin Tom.”
Will’s face went white. “What’s he done?”
“He’s run some shine,” McCall said. His voice was level. “He run some shine with Ab Taylor. Now we know that there for a true fact. But we ain’t got evidence to take to court, so we’re not pressing him on that. But this new thing is pretty bad, Will.”
“Why you coming to me?”
Grandpa said, “They figure you the head of the family, Will. And somebody has got to talk to Tom.”
“What’s he done?”
McCall fiddled with the watch chain across his immense belly. “He’s thievin’, Will. Now, we’re pretty sure of it. Chickens, calves. And they was a filling station holdup. Description the man gives pretty much fits Ab Taylor and your cousin Tom Wilkes.”
“Never knew Ab Taylor to go in for robbery,” Will said.
“Neither did I.” Sheriff McCall shook his head.
“Knew when that Tom Wilkes came back down here from Alabama that he was bringing trouble with him,” Grandpa said.
“The thing with Ab is,” McCall said, “He gets to drinking, and he’s mean. You see, the Federals are pretty hot on him and he can’t get away with much on the moonshine any more. They’re ready to put him away for a long stretch. So he must be branching out. Reason I came out here is that the robbers were masked, so identification won’t be positive. You see? If there’s some way you can get Tom to stay away from Ab Taylor, I might be willing to give him this one more chance.”
Grandpa laughed. “That’s the way with the law. They take a bad egg, a knowed bad egg, and they always want to give him one more chance. But let Will here try to put tree-wreckers off his property, and they throw the book at him.”
McCall didn’t smile. “You got to pick your victims, Grandpa,” he said. “That’s the way I look at it. I been a law man these past thirty years. I wouldn’t fight a corporation that had a lot of money. I found out they just naturally got the law on their side. Big courts, smart lawyers, clever judges. But take a poor devil loses money from his filling station — a two-bit judge, and overworked police to help him recover.”
McCall turned toward his Buick. “You see what you can do with Tom,” he said to Will. “And you better do it pretty soon. If he gets caught on one of these jobs, there ain’t nobody that can save him from a stretch in the gang.”
Will nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go down there today. I’ll see if I can make him listen to me.”
The sheriff looked at him. “You got to make him listen, Will. Tell him I’m on to him — tell him I’ll put him away for good the next time he pulls something in my county.”
He started the car and pulled out of the yard.
Will stood there watching him go. But Rhodes was looking at Will, at the sag of his shoulders, the weariness in his face. Still the keeper of the Wilkes, Rhodes thought in anger. They still lean on him. All of them — and they don’t care how hard they lean.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHEN the sheriff was gone, Will and Rhodes went in the truck to the south pasture where the Santa Gertrudis were grazed and separated from the other cattle.
This was an expensive and experimental breed on Will’s land. He had only a few cattle and less than a dozen yearlings.
Will parked the pickup. His face was set. Rhodes said, “You going to sell the last one, Will?”
Will gave him a taut smile. “You figure it up, boy. We need money to put in that bank before Hollister deposits his check, and to pay that fine if I’m going to stay out of jail.”
The yearlings were gentle, rich-coated animals. It was much less trouble driving them into the feeding pens than it had been to cut-out and corral the range cattle yearlings. To Rhodes this made it all the tougher. It looked as if it were always easy to throw away the good things. These yearlings acted anxious to be taken to the stock pens in Pine Flat and sold at bargain rates.
“Next year,” Will said, “we’ll start again.”
He flicked at a yearling’s rump with a rope-end and the animal loped into the pen.
Rhodes stood with his hand on the gate. Will told him to close the gate, but Rhodes went on standing there staring across the pasture.
“Ain’t that Grandpa?” Rhodes said.
He pointed, and Will turned shading his eyes.
“It’s Grandpa all right. I never saw the old man run like that before.” He shoved the gate closed. “You stay here, Rhodes, I’ll run across to meet the old man.”
Will ran across the field. The older cows that had been standing around watching them drive the yearlings into the pen moved out of his way.
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p; Rhodes stood and watched them meet out in the open field. The mid-afternoon sun glinted on the tall slash pines and on the palmetto fans. There was no breeze. Will and Grandpa stood in grass about their ankles. Grandpa was talking and gesturing, Will nodded. Grandpa turned then and started back toward the house. Will returned across the field, moving hurriedly, but as though he were trying to think as he walked.
“It’s your mother, Rhodes. Grandpa says the pain is fierce. Like you know, we just about got to get these yearlings into the stock yards before they close this afternoon. I think if you take the pick-up and bring Rosanne up to the house to stay with your mother just until I can get these calves in town, everything will be all right.”
“Is it — that cancer again, Will?”
“I don’t know, boy. I hope not. They said — last time — they had cut it out clean. We don’t know what it is. We’re going to hope it ain’t. You’ll get Rosanne, won’t you?”
“I’ll get her.”
Will nodded. “You’re a good boy, Rhodes.” He turned and started to run across the pasture toward the house.
For just a moment Rhodes watched him run, taking long steps, like a lean fleet hound. Will would be in the house in a few minutes. Lena would be all right when Will got there. She was always all right when Will was with her. She would always be all right — if Cousin Tom hadn’t brought that woman on the place.
And then he thought, what was it Rosanne had said? Didn’t Will have a right to be wrong, to be tired, to have a life of his own?
Rhodes started the truck, stomping on the gas, filled with anger. He didn’t know. Was the anger directed against Rosanne for saying that, saying a truth he’d never considered before? Or was he angered at himself because what she said was true — that he had never until that moment considered that Will had any right — to be tired, to be wrong, to have a life that didn’t belong to him and his mother and Grandpa — and all the other Wilkses and Burrises who wanted to lean on him.
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