Kefira spit in his face, and when he involuntarily released her, she kicked his knee. Letting out a cry, he made a wild grab at her. She dodged, and he came after her. It was a cat-and-mouse game she was bound to lose. Several times he lunged at her, and by this time the train was going full speed and the footing was unsteady. Kefira made a lunge at the other door, but it was locked. She felt his hand graze her shoulder, grabbing at her clothes, and when she pulled away, she heard the material rip. She desperately threw herself toward the right, and when he followed her, she jerked quickly left. She made a run for the door, and when she looked back, he was right behind her. She was only two feet from the door itself but knew he would catch her. She threw herself to one side, and so intent was he on catching her that he shot by. She fell to the floor and saw amazement and fright strike him as he realized he was going over. Off balance, he went through the door, missing his grab at the sides. He uttered a long, terrified yell, turned a somersault, and disappeared. Kefira lay there for a moment, unable to speak or move, and then she got up quickly and stuck her head out the door. She saw him rolling down the embankment. He got up and looked around and shook his fist at her. The train swung around a sweeping curve and she could see him no more.
Kefira’s knees buckled, and she sat down abruptly and began to cry. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes and tried to stem the tears and the sobs but finally gave up. She cried until she had little strength left. Finally she straightened up, and there before her lay the bundle, the blanket roll that the hobo had thrown in. Out of curiosity, she untied the leather shoelaces that bound the end. When she unrolled it she found an extra blanket inside, three cans of soup, half a loaf of bread, and a box of matches, but then her eye fell on the gun that lay at the other end. She stared at it, then reached over and picked it up. She had never held a gun in her life, although she had, of course, seen pictures of them and had seen them in the movies. She stared at it, fascinated, and realized it was loaded. She could see the metallic bases of the bullets. She held it for a moment, feeling its weight, and then her mouth became a determined line. She stuck the pistol in the side pocket of her coat and searched through the rest of the bundle. She found sixteen dollars in cash and four shells that probably fit the gun, but no letters of any kind.
She sat there on the floor of the speeding train and realized how close she had come, twice now, to being ruined. She remembered suddenly how, when she was fleeing from the tramp, certain that she would be destroyed, she had cried out to God. She thought of how miraculously, it seemed to her, she had been saved, and finally Kefira got to her feet. She wrapped one of the blankets around her, then went to the door. She held on and stared out at the moon, which was rising now, and looked up into the dark sky. She did not speak for a long time, but serious thoughts passed through her mind. Finally she whispered, “If you’re up there, God, as my father and mother believe, thank you for saving me from that man.”
It was not much of a prayer, but Kefira bowed her head and knew, somehow, that she was going to survive.
PART TWO
Josh
CHAPTER SIX
The Door Opens
A large black fly buzzed Josh Winslow’s face, looking for a possible landing site. As Josh brushed it away for the tenth time, he wondered, What’s a fly doing in here in the middle of February? They all ought to be dead or hibernating. Looking up from his book, he watched the insect circle, then apparently decide that Josh’s companion, stretched out flat on the cot below, was a more appealing victim. The fly disappeared, and Josh heard a slap as Legs Spradlin made an ineffectual attempt to rid himself of the pest. Smiling as Legs grumbled under his breath, Josh looked toward the window, where a pale shaft of morning sunlight penetrated the cell. He watched the tiny dust motes dance in the light, wondering idly how many fragments of dust there were in that single spot. He had a vivid imagination and was interested in everything he saw. His father, Lewis Winslow, had often said with exasperation, Josh, you’re not going to be a poet, I don’t suppose, so why don’t you concentrate on what’s important rather than on how many blades of grass there are in a field or why beans will always climb a pole in a clockwise direction?
The thought of his father saddened Josh, and a dull sense of despair touched him as he lay flat on his back on the upper bunk. He was twenty-nine years old, and many times he had looked back over the years of his life and realized that he had accomplished nothing. Now in a Georgia state prison he had reached the very bottom of his existence. For years he had been an alcoholic, drinking far too much and breaking off from brilliant beginnings of projects, such as college, when he was defeated by his lust for alcohol. Now, as he lay there, his mind reached out, and he could almost begin to imagine what it would be like to drink again. He had not had a drink for a month. There was no alcohol to be found in prison, and even if there were, he was determined to turn his back on the temptation to drink himself insensible.
Some usual prison noises reached Josh, but he had learned to ignore them. They had become part of the grim world he had inhabited for the last four weeks. From somewhere down the cellblock, Johnny DeFrancis was crying, having one of his bad days. At one time Josh would have been concerned about a grown man crying, but Johnny was just one of the many misfits who had wound up in the Georgia State Penitentiary. One of the black prisoners, Spade Jones, was singing a hymn, and Josh lowered the book onto his stomach and listened. Just as Spade ended his song, Josh heard a slap and a curse come from below. Then the double bunk shifted, and the face of Legs Spradlin appeared to his left.
“What you readin’ this time, Josh?”
“A book on archeology.”
“Arky-whaty?” Legs Spradlin was a small, wiry man with more scars than any person Josh had ever seen. Someone had tried to separate his head from his body once, leaving a frightful scar from his right ear down to his collarbone. The rough surgery had pulled his neck muscles around, and also his mouth, forcing him to speak in a rather crooked fashion. His nose had been broken innumerable times. It bent sharply to the east just below the bridge and then took an abrupt about-face to the west. This left a nasal cavity so crooked that Legs whistled through his nose with every breath.
Legs reached over and pulled up the book. He glanced at it, then shook his head. “Too many words and not enough pictures.” He grinned crookedly and exposed a mouth almost bereft of teeth, giving him the appearance of a smiling jack-o’-lantern. Freckles were epidemic across his face, and he was altogether one of the homeliest men Josh had ever seen. He had been good for Josh, however, for he was optimistic, always looking on the bright side of things. He kept Josh entertained with his stories of his escapades working in the oil fields, and he had told Josh when they first met that an injustice had been done. “I’m innocent,” he had proclaimed indignantly. “It was a fair fight, and I won it fair and square.”
“What guy were you fighting with?” Josh had asked.
“Wasn’t no guy. It was a big old woman from the Purple Lantern. I got to admit she outweighed me by fifty pounds, most of it muscle. She claimed, after the brawl was over, that I pulled a knife on her. But that weren’t so. I didn’t use nothin’ but a little ol’ blackjack.”
Spradlin studied Josh as if he were some exotic alien creature. “Do you read all the time when you ain’t in the slammer?”
“I read quite a bit.”
“Well, what’s that there book ’bout? What is this here arky-whatever-you-said?”
“Archeology is the study of ancient civilizations. What people did five thousand years ago.”
“You readin’ a book ’bout dead people?” Spradlin’s eyes opened as wide as the scars permitted, and he was the picture of astonishment. He had light green eyes, and now the light danced in them as the wind whistled through his nose. “What ’n tarnation you wanna read about dead people fer?”
“They’re interesting.”
“I swan, you’re a caution, Josh!”
Josh looked over
and grinned. “Sometimes I think dead people are easier to get along with than live people.”
“Ye’re shore as shootin’ ’bout that,” Spradlin said, nodding. He looked at the book again and shook his head. “Never knew nobody wanna know so much ’bout dead people.”
Josh sat up and held the book loosely in his hand. “I wanted to be an archeologist once. Started out to make a career of it.” His thoughts went back to his college days, one of the more pleasant memories. “I went on several digs, and I enjoyed it more than anything I ever did.”
“A dig! What’s a dig?”
“Well, one was in Louisiana. There were some Indian mounds there, and we dug down to see what we would find.”
“Well, what did you find?”
“Well, for one thing we found a graveyard. One grave that I dug up had a man and a woman and two children in it. It looked like they’d all died at the same time. Maybe some sort of sickness.”
“And you enjoyed diggin’ up dead people?”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like much fun, but it was to me.” Josh closed the book after inserting a slip of paper in it and laid it on the bunk. “I like to think about that family. They’d been dead for hundreds of years, maybe thousands even, and they had names, and they had their sorrows, and they had their joys. They had children. I just like to think about what they were like.”
Spradlin shook his head. “I don’t like messin’ round with no dead people.” He looked over to where Josh’s few belongings were all laid neatly on the floor beside the bunk. “Well, ye’re gettin’ out, buddy. An’ ya ain’t hardly even been here! Ya got you a lady out there waiting fer ya?”
For a moment Josh thought about Dora Skinner. It was primarily her doing that he was in prison. She was the daughter of a local bootlegger and had enticed Josh, not only into her bed but into the moonshine business as well. She had been intoxicating in every way, and he had not known a moment’s rest since he had met her. But he shook his head and told Spradlin, “Not really. Don’t guess I’ll have one either.”
“Why not?”
“Because it takes money.”
“Shoot, you gotta find yerself one that’s got money!” Spradlin grinned.
“Maybe I’ll do that, but right now all I want to do is help my family get on their feet.”
Spradlin reached into his pocket and pulled out a sack of tobacco. Expertly he extracted a cigarette paper with one hand and, with dexterous fingers, held it while he dumped the tobacco in a straight line. He rolled it up, licked it, and stuck it in his mouth, then closed the sack and stuck it back in his pocket. Pulling out a kitchen match, he struck it on one of his few remaining teeth, a trick that fascinated Josh. “Ya got a good family, ya tell me. Me, I ain’t got nobody.”
“That’s too bad, Legs.” Josh thought for a minute and added, “My family—they’re better than I am. I’ve been nothing but a grief to them for years.”
“Yer sister Hannah. You tell me she’s gettin’ married?”
“Yes, and that’s an amazing thing to me too.”
“Why’s that? Women get married all the time.”
“We all had given up on Hannah. She stuck to her room for years. Wouldn’t come out. A real recluse.”
“What’s a recluse?”
“A hermit. And then a fellow came along called Clint Longstreet. He about saved our bacon.” Josh shook his head thinking back over the past.
“How’s that?”
“My family lost everything back in the crash of twenty-nine. My father was into stocks. All we had was the clothes on our backs. No place to go. Nothing. But Hannah was going through some family papers and came across a deed to a farm in Georgia that had belonged to my mother’s people. When my father checked it out, he found it was still good, even though my mother had died a couple years earlier. We had no idea what we’d do, but Clint had patched an old truck together. He loaded us into it with all we could haul and took us to Georgia.”
“He sounds like a decent sort.”
“He is. Reminds me of you a bit, Legs. He can do anything. Grew up on a farm just like you grew up on a ranch.”
“Well, what about yer pa? He never married after yer ma died?”
“No, he didn’t. He was engaged to a fancy socialite. A rich woman in New York, but she dumped him as soon as he lost his money. But he’s getting married now pretty soon.”
“That’s good. D’ya like yer new ma?”
“I sure do! Her name’s Missouri Ann. She found my dad when he broke his leg falling into a deep gully and couldn’t move. She hauled him out of there, set his leg—” Here Josh laughed with delight. “And she told him that God had sent him to be her husband. Dad nearly had a fit.”
Legs grinned. “Well, I admire a woman that knows her mind. What sort of a lady is she?”
“Oh, she’s about as Christian as anybody I ever saw. I never thought God spoke to people, but I believe He speaks to Missouri Ann. She’s good at healin’ people, and she’s good for Dad. He needs somebody. He’s been lonesome.”
“What about yer sisters?”
“I’ve got three—Hannah, Jenny, and Kat. Kat is just a kid, but Jenny is really something! The most beautiful girl you ever saw.”
“She ain’t hitched, though?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, one thing about it”—Legs slapped Josh on the knee—“ya shore got religion out of this trip to the poky.”
“That’s right,” Josh said, his face growing sober. When he had been sent to prison, Josh felt as if he had reached absolute bottom, even though his sentence was miraculously light. His first day out in the prison yard, one of the other prisoners, Thad Gilbert, had spoken of his love for Christ, and somehow the simplicity of the man’s belief brought a heavy spirit on Josh. He had heard the Gospel in church all of his life, yet he’d always turned from it. But recent events had been softening his heart, and he knew he could no longer run from the truth of it. That night he had cried out to God and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
His life had changed drastically in the few weeks since then. He had begun reading his Bible, and somehow the old words that had seemed so dry to him when he’d heard them in church services as a child came alive with a dramatic force and intensity. To his surprise he took pleasure in praying, although he was awkward at it. He gladly joined the prison services held by a local pastor for those prisoners who cared to attend. Life had become different for Josh Winslow, and to his shock and amazement, all craving for alcohol had left him. He had quit drinking before for short periods, but always, every morning, he had awakened thinking of liquor, and his last thought at night had been a craving for a drink. Now somehow he had been delivered and purged and cleansed. It was as if God had given him this gift to show him that his conversion was real and not just “jailhouse religion,” as some of the other prisoners had scoffed.
Turning now, he said, “I worry about you, Legs. I’d like to see you find the Lord.”
Spradlin shook his head defiantly. “Nope, I got me some wild oats to sow ’fore I hit the Glory Trail.”
“That’s dangerous, I think. What if you die first?”
Spradlin suddenly grew sober. “I guess I’ve thought a little bit about that.”
“I’ll be praying for you, Legs, and I’ll write you. And you write me back. You stick with Thad. The world doesn’t have anything good to offer you except a beating.”
Spradlin stared straight at Josh and said, “I’d appreciate that. Yer writin’ to me, I mean.”
“Well, you’ll be out in seven more months. Tell you what. I don’t know where I’ll be then, but let’s keep in touch. When you get out, we’ll get together and celebrate.”
“Lots of fellas say that, but not many do it.”
“Let’s be different.” Josh stuck his hand out, and when Legs took it, Josh gripped it firmly. “I’ll be praying for you every day, and I’ll get Missouri Ann, my new ma, to pray for you too. Sometimes I think she climbs right up into he
aven and talks to God personally.”
“Well,” Legs said slowly, “I reckon I can use all the help I can get. I’ll be in Texas, though. Got a longin’ to see some longhorn cow critters. Maybe do a little more rodeoin’. But I’d like to see you again, Josh. I shore would like to get a letter from you now and agin.”
Josh heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and when a guard named Prentice appeared, he jumped down and said, “Hello. Is it time to go?”
Prentice was a tall, broad man with a round face and a pair of steady gray eyes. “You’re all set. Say your good-byes to Spradlin.”
Josh shook hands again with Spradlin but resisted the impulse to hug him, for he knew it would embarrass the little Texan. He picked up his few belongings he had packed in a paper sack and stepped outside as the door locked behind him with a metallic clang. “I’ll be writing you, Legs,” he said.
As he followed Prentice down the cellblock, Josh said good-bye to his fellow prisoners. Some of them called out ribald things to him, giving advice on how to behave. He passed Thad Gilbert and stopped long enough to reach through the cell bars. “I’ll be writing you, Thad, and I’ll never forget you.”
“May the good Lord smile on you. You’re in His family now. A child of the king,” Gilbert said. He was a tall, dark-haired man with steady, warm brown eyes, reflecting the spirit within.
Josh followed Prentice to a large room where he received the clothes he had worn when he arrived a month earlier. As he stripped off the striped convict’s uniform, the inmate who worked behind the counter grinned and said, “I’ll be seein’ you pretty soon.”
Beloved Enemy, The (House of Winslow Book #30) Page 6