Will shook his head. “He asked me to stop in his office this morning.”
“About — them calves,” Rhodes said. It seemed bad to him to mention the calves before Rosanne. It was because of the calves that Cousin Tom had been killed. Of course, Cousin Rosanne had never loved Cousin Tom — at least not the way a body could look at her and see she cared about Will. Rhodes shivered, still Cousin Tom had been her husband. It was an involved thing that he did not completely understand.
“I got to get them calves to the stock pens,” Will said, “As soon as they open. I want to be at the bank by nine.”
“Can I go with you, Will? Can I help you?”
Will looked at him. “I’d like that, boy. If you’re sure you don’t want to stay here near your Ma.”
Rhodes looked up. “I better help you,” he said, “you need help, Will. Ma — she’ll be all right — you — you’ll be here with her all the time, won’t you Cousin Rosanne?”
“I won’t leave her, Rhodes. I promise you.”
From the stock pens, Rhodes and Will went to the county building. He had the check for six hundred dollars for the Santa Gertrudis calves in his pocket. The bank had not opened.
The clerk looked up when Will appeared in his doorway. “You believe in waiting until the last minute, don’t you, Will?”
“I don’t believe in paying a thing like this at all,” Will said. “I feel just like you people are holding me up and robbing me — just like you were doing it with a gun in a dark alley.”
“We got to have laws and courts, Will,” the clerk said. “I’m not saying they’re always right. But if we didn’t have them, people would go pretty wild.”
“No court will ever take the place of simple justice,” Will said. “Fines are getting to be a racket in every city and every county, and you know it.”
“My job is to collect ’em,” the clerk said. “That’s all I know. I don’t make the laws.”
“All right,” Will said. He wrote out the check. He waved it to dry the ink. “Don’t beat me over to the bank. I got to deposit the money for this.”
“Don’t worry.” The clerk smiled. “Haven’t you ever heard about county red tape. This check has to go through channels. It won’t be sent over to the bank before Monday.”
• • •
It was still not nine o’clock. Will and Rhodes walked along Main Street and climbed the stairs to Dr. Beckwells’ office.
The receptionist told them to go right in, that the doctor was expecting them.
The doctor looked ill at ease when he saw that Rhodes was with Will.
“The boy,” he said. “Maybe he would like to wait out in the reception room.”
“No,” Will said. “Rhodes is a big boy. He’s got to learn to rely on himself, Doc. To be able to hear the truth, and to stand up under it.”
“This might be pretty rugged,” the doctor objected.
“I want to stay,” Rhodes said.
Dr. Beckwell smiled. “Want your dad to be proud of you, eh, boy?”
“I want to be — what Will wants me to be,” Rhodes said very softly.
Dr. Beckwell shook his head. “I don’t know that I approve, Will. You’re not being kind to him. He’s not grown yet.”
“Maybe the best thing I can do for him,” Will said, “is not be too kind. I want him to see the truth — I want him to see things the way they really are — not like he’d like for them to be — or is told they are supposed to be. But as they really are.”
Will took a deep breath. He stared past the doctor, through the window to the wind-chilled street. “Maybe I’m not much, Doc. But from the time I was ten, I had to see things pretty straight — things like my old man was a bootlegger — and they killed him for it.”
“Are you sure you’re not avenging yourself on this boy — by trying to give him responsibilities before he’s ready for them? Just because you were forced into them?”
“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. Not knowingly.”
Dr. Beckwell nodded. “I guess I understand you, Will, better than I ever did before. Why you take the boy every where you go, why you let him do so many things for himself, why you never try to hide from him anything that happens. I don’t know if I agree it’s best. But if he has strength in him — you’ll temper and set it.”
Will was staring at the street. “I hope so.”
Dr. Beckwell spoke to Rhodes. “Son, I’ve bad news. None of it is good. I can’t spare you, as much as I’d like to. I guess you know how many operations your mother has already had.”
‘Tes, sir.”
“Well, each time we were trying to clean out a cancer, boy. And each time we were sure that we had done it, only to have it spread again. Well, that’s what’s it has done now.”
“What — can you do?” Rhodes could barely speak.
“I don’t know, boy. Do what I always have done, I guess. Another operation.”
‘That’ll cost a lot of money.”
“About a thousand dollars.”
“And you’ve got to have it right away.”
Dr. Beckwell nodded. “We’ll have to take her to Jacksonville, boy. Just as we’ve done before. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to have money for the surgeons, the operating expenses, the hospital. It’ll take a lot of money — and immediately. As for me, I can wait, but these other people who don’t know us very well, they’ll want to be paid at once.”
“I see.” Rhodes nodded. “We’ll have to do it.”
Dr. Beckwell smiled. “I’m proud of you, Rhodes. I’m proud of what Will has done for you.” He looked at Will. “You’ll have to sign the necessary papers. Agreement for the surgery, and the other papers.”
“When do you want the money?”
“As soon as possible. I’ll want to take your wife to Jacksonville tonight.”
“All right.”
Rhodes felt ill. A thousand dollars. It looked like no matter what Will did, it was never enough, never good enough, things kept crowding in.
Will signed the legal papers the doctor gave him. Then he wrote out a check for one thousand dollars and gave it to the doctor.
Rhodes said nothing until they were in the street Then he said, his voice frightened, “Will — ?”
“The money, boy? I look at it this way, Rhodes. What’s the biggest thing in our minds? Doing what we can for your Ma. Right?”
“Yes. But you don’t have that money.”
“Sure, I have,” Will said. “I’ll stop payment on that check I gave Darl Hollister, and the one I gave the county clerk. I’ll have all the money in there that the doctor needs.”
“Will-”
Will put his arm about Rhodes’ shoulder. “Don’t you worry, boy. I learned you to row a boat. You recollect?”
“Sure, Will. But Mr. Darl Hollister-”
“I taught you how to back up with the oars when you had to, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Sure. But-”
“Well, I been rowing along, boy, sure that I could do things my way. I can’t. No matter how hard I fought — it looks like I just wasn’t good enough. I kept fooling myself that I was — and now I got to backwater — and fast.”
They walked into the bank and the teller smiled at Will. “Well, two nice deposits in two days. Who was it said that farming is a poor business?”
“Whoever said it wasn’t, is crazy as hell,” Will told him. He gave him the numbers of the checks that he wanted voided. “I’ve given a check to Dr. Beckwell. He’ll send it over before noon today — that will just about clean out the account. Kill off those other two checks — and I’ll take care of them — the first of the week.”
“Mrs. Bums — pardon me, Will, I mean is Mrs. Johnson bad sick again, Will?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes.”
From the bank they drove to the packing house and into the office of the Golden Cold Concentrate company.
“Will — ” Rhodes caught
his arm at the door.
“No, boy. It’s like it was with the Santa Gertrudis. The things I wanted to do — I wasn’t ready for them. The grove will be hurt — maybe not too bad. We’ll have a poor year next year, but the year after will be all right if we give it a lot of care. But it’s right now that matters.”
Kannister looked up from his desk. His smile was chilled, but his voice was overly-cordial.
“Well, Will. This is a surprise.”
“Yes. I guess I was wrong, Kannister. Looks like if you want the fruit, you can bring your people back in the groves.”
Kannister figured on his pad a moment, trying to keep the smile of triumph and satisfaction from showing. “Kind of got scared about that lawsuit, did you, Johnson?”
“Do you want the fruit?”
“That’s why we’re in business, Johnson. You’ve cost us a lot of money, and two valuable men. But I’m big, Johnson. I can overlook the mistakes a man makes — even a bullheaded man like you. And you’re pretty bullheaded. You’ve always thought you were pretty goddamned important, Johnson. Well, maybe now you know, you don’t amount to a damn thing beside a company as big as mine. But — as long as you got sense enough to go along with us when you can’t fight us — we’ll come in your groves — at the price I quoted your wife.”
Will started to speak. Kannister sat there pushed back in his swivel chair with a faint derisive smile on his mouth, watching him.
Will drew a deep breath. “All right, Kannister. You can bring your men in there Monday.”
“Sure.” Kannister went on sitting there. “Glad to see you showing some sense, Johnson.”
Rhodes was clenching his fists at his sides, and blinking back the tears of anger. He followed Will out on the raised plank platform where the conveyors belts were loading orange crates on freight cars.
“God, Will,” he said. “My God.”
“When a man can’t stand up like a man,” Will said, “I reckon he’s pretty smart to know it.”
Rhodes swallowed. “They got no right, Will. They got no right to — to hurt you like this.”
“They got every right.” Will’s voice sounded dead. “You don’t stand up to a man, he’ll walk over you every time. You remember that, boy. You remember it good.”
They walked back downtown without speaking again. The sun was higher now, but the chill lingered. It seemed to Rhodes that it was the kind of chill that got into the marrow of your bones.
They stopped at the pick-up truck. Will touched Rhodes’ shoulder. “I want you to go back home now, boy. I’ll be there. Later. I got a few things to attend to. I don’t rightfully know when I’ll be there. But you help your Cousin Rosanne to get your Ma ready for the trip to Jacksonville. You understand? You know what your Ma has to take.”
“Will, what you going to do?”
“Nothing that matters, boy. Don’t you worry about it. We need some money. More money than we got. They’s got to be some way of getting it.”
Rhodes stared up at him. “What are you going to do, Will?”
“Don’t ask me any questions that you know I ain’t going to answer.”
“You’ve sold the calves, and the oranges, Will. What’s left?”
“There are a lot of things I can do for money, kid. Now go on home and help your Cousin Rosanne get your Ma ready.”
“All right, Will.”
Rhodes got into the truck. Will stood there on the walk a moment. He smiled and waved at Rhodes. Then he turned and walked along the street to the Pasttime Bar.
Rhodes put the key in the ignition. But he did not turn it. His eyes were filled with tears and he was staring at the door of the bar.
After a few moments he got out of the truck. He ran to the door of the bar, went inside. He had to blink his eyes in the darkness. He stood there looking around. He saw Will at a table, talking rapidly with a man who looked like Ab Taylor. Rhodes recognized Ab’s brother.
Rhodes walked uncertainly across the room. Will looked up and saw him. Will’s mouth twisted, and the anger showed in his gray eyes.
“I told you to go on home, boy.”
“I — I reckoned maybe you might wanted to tell me what I’d say to Mr. Darl Hollister when he comes to the house. In case you’re not there.”
Will shook his head. Swamp Taylor rattled his glass impatiently on the top of the table. “Get the kid out of here,” Swamp said.
“Go on home, boy,” Will said. “If Darl comes, you’ll have to tell him I’ll have his money for him — Monday.”
“Yeah. Monday!” Swamp Taylor laughed, his mouth jiggling loosely. “Go on, kid. Get out of here.”
Rhodes turned and walked slowly out. The room was dark. The people along the bar and at the tables were not real. They were part of the darkness. Through the door he could see the bright rectangle of sunlight.
He put his hand over his mouth and swallowed back the sickness. Nobody knew better than he the way Will hated and feared bootlegging. But nobody had to tell Rhodes why Will was in the Pasttime talking to Ab Taylor’s brother. It was the thing Will feared most on earth. God, when you thought about it, it was the only thing Will was afraid of. But he’d been driven to it, no matter how hard he’d fought against it.
It’s for us, Rhodes thought, for me and Ma and Grandpa. Not for himself. He’d die before he’d run shine for himself. That’s what Will said it was. It was dying. And a man was better off dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RHODES was sitting by his mother’s bed a little after noon. He did not afterwards know how long he had been staring out her window at the Chinaberry tree, the cleared land, and the rolling green of the groves beyond. He was not seeing any of it. He was seeing all the work that Will had done, and for nothing. Darl Hollister was going to take it all. His anger would drive him to an immediate foreclosure when he learned there was no money in Will’s account to cover the check.
He was aware through his thoughts of his mother’s forced, raspy breathing. But for a long time it was not there, and the lack of the sound brought him back to awareness of her on the bed.
He jumped up from his chair and stared down at his mother. Her face was wan, sunken, the flesh pulled taut over the bones. Her eyes were closed. She was barely breathing.
Rhodes dropped to the bed beside her. He whispered her name over and over. Lena did not move.
“Rosanne!”
Rhodes was hardly aware that he had called out. He was staring at his mother. She did not even move when he shouted for Rosanne.
Rosanne and Grandpa came through the bedroom door. Rosanne stood close behind Rhodes, with her arm about his shoulder. He wanted to withdraw, but it felt good and reassuring to have her close behind him.
“She’s not breathing,” Rhodes whispered. “She’s dead.”
Rosanne sank to the bed beside Lena. She looked up over her shoulder. “She’s unconscious, Rhodes. You better go to town for Dr. Beckwell.”
Rhodes’ lips were trembling. “She might die.”
Grandpa’s voice was soothing. “She might, boy. Unless you stir yourself. Your Cousin Rosanne and I — we’ll stay here with your mother, right here in this room until you get back with the Doctor.”
• • •
Dr. Beckwell’s office was closed. Rhodes looked around the town for Will but did not see him. He drove out to the doctor’s home and found him working in the front yard.
“I’ll drive right out in my own car, Rhodes,” Dr. Beckwell said.
Rhodes waited only to see the doctor get into his car and start out of town toward the farm. Rhodes turned the truck around and drove back down to Main Street.
He parked near the Pasttime Bar, went across the walk. He stood in the doorway, letting his eyes get adjusted to the darkened room. He stood there so long that the bartender spoke to him from behind the bar.
“Hey, kid. You in the door. What you want in here?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Will Johnson.”
“He ain’t in here.
He ain’t been in here the last three hours.”
“Do you know where he went?”
The bartender laughed. “People come and go all the time, kid. I don’t know where they come from, where they go. I don’t care. I like it that way. Now get away and stop blocking that door.” He laughed again. “Gives a place a bad name to have kids hanging around.”
“Do you know where I might find Mr. Swamp Taylor?”
“Look, kid. Nobody in this county can keep up with them Taylor brothers.” He laughed, swiping at the bar with his rag. “Except Ab — right now you can keep up with him pretty good. He’s over there in the county jail.”
Rhodes spent twenty minutes driving around town looking for Will and Swamp Taylor. He did not even find anyone who would admit to having seen them together at all. Sure, why would they. The Taylors were in a bad business, and the people in Pine Flat never talked about it to anybody. It wasn’t healthy. If you knew too much the government men got suspicious and started watching you. If you talked too much, you made the Taylors mad, and that could be fatal.
• • •
Dr. Beckwell was downstairs when Rhodes got back home. The doctor touched Rhodes’ shoulder. “I gave your mother something for the pain, Rhodes. She’ll feel better, and she’ll regain consciousness soon.”
Rhodes sighed, but the heavy knot remained in his stomach.
“You want Rosanne and me to get her ready to go to Jacksonville tonight?”
Dr. Beckwell shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll take her to Jacksonville tonight, Rhodes. We better wait a while. I’ll talk to Will. Did he come in with you?”
“No, sir. I don’t know just when Will will get back home.”
“It’s all right. I’ll come back tonight — and tomorrow morning. I’m sure to catch Will here one of those times. Meanwhile, don’t you worry. Your Cousin Rosanne has something to relieve your mother when the pain gets too bad.”
Rhodes thanked the doctor and started tiredly up the stairs. Grandpa was dozing outside Lena’s bedroom door. Rhodes opened it and went inside.
Rosanne sat in the chair beside the bed. The shades were drawn, the room was darkened. His mother’s thin arms looked wan and bloodless against the coverlet.
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