by Pamela Morsi
"Just having Hannah for my bride is gift enough for any man," he said, trying to reassure the older man that his daughter was happy and safe.
He hoped that the reverend wouldn't make a habit of dropping in unexpectedly. That could embarrass his customers and hurt his business. Although he normally took his moonshine elsewhere to sell it, sometimes a customer came by looking.
Hannah served supper to her husband and father with a great sense of pride. She'd fried up some Indian bread to go with the ham and gravy and a huge mess of poke salad seasoned with just a dash of dill weed and a mountain of white potatoes whipped up to a froth; textured and sprinkled with big chunks of real black pepper.
To their credit, the men ate heartily and dispensed compliments liberally, until they had Hannah thinking herself to be a housewife of exceptional quality.
Hannah's father leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his belly in a gesture of sated appetite and smiled at his daughter.
“You planning to drive Henry Lee's buggy in to church on Sunday?"
Rather than answering affirmatively as Henry Lee expected, she turned to him for permission.
"Would that be all right, Henry Lee?"
Surprise that she sought his approval, as well as having a full mouth, gave Henry Lee a moment to consider before he answered. Even so, he was stunned to hear the words come out of his own mouth.
"If it’s pretty far for you to be driving that buggy alone, Hannah. I suspect that I can drive you over once a week for Sunday service."
Reverend Bunch raised his eyebrows.
"Well, I'm pleased to hear that, Henry Lee. I know that you don't care much for the services, but it's real fine of you to come and bring my Hannah."
Henry Lee shrugged. "I don't imagine a bit of churching would hurt me much." But it sure will come as a surprise to my customers, he thought.
The rest of the meal passed uneventfully, with the reverend asking no embarrassing questions about the bed or anything else. Finally the older man prepared to leave, and Henry Lee gratefully waved good-bye to him, admonishing him not to linger so that he'd be home before it was too dark.
Hannah stood beside her husband as they watched her father headed toward the west, his horse at a clipped trot, as he slowly disappeared out of sight into the gray prairie evening on the other side of the creek. Unthinking, Henry Lee put his arm around Hannah's waist. She looked up at him and smiled shyly. Her eyes held him entranced for a moment and her lips seemed to part in invitation. He wanted to pull her into his arms and scorch her lips with his own. She was his wife, lawfully his own, but in fact she was another man's. Remembering, he pulled away from her.
"I'll be moving my things into the workroom for the time being," he said gruffly.
Chapter Seven
Zanola Little was the proprietress of the converted barn that was the dance hall in Sandy Creek. Elijah Brown, the community's religious leader, described it in one of his sermons as "a den of corruption in the midst of God's children."
God's children, for the most part, were very willing to spend their one carefree night of the week laughing, dancing, and drinking moonshine whiskey in that corrupted den.
Zanola was, for six nights a week, a hardworking black farmwoman trying to make it on her own in the new territory. But on Saturdays, she opened up her barn to the neighbors. They could play their own music, dance, or just sit and talk, and it didn't cost them a thing. If they wanted to drink whiskey they had to buy it from her. She made enough, on the whiskey alone, to keep the place open and herself comfortable. The whiskey was very important and this afternoon she was a bit concerned because her supply was very low.
Her whiskey man should have shown up yesterday. Sometimes he came late, but he always came. He was very dependable, and she knew she shouldn't worry, but she'd heard a rumor in town that troubled her.
It was said that he had tied the knot with the preacher's daughter over at Plainview. He'd been caught messing with her by the preacher himself, and there was nothing to be done but marry up. That kind of bad luck had happened to other men before, but the fact that she was the preacher's daughter and, according to the rumor, not even the young, pretty one. All this boded no good as far as Zanola was concerned.
What she'd heard about Hannah Bunch was that she was plain, hardworking, a dutiful daughter, and a God-fearing church member. Zanola was certain those would be great characteristics for a farmer's wife, but wholly unacceptable in the wife of a moonshiner.
For all that folks said you couldn't change a husband, Zanola thought women have too much influence on their men. She worried that sharing his bed with a God-fearing woman might lead the best whiskey man in the territory to do some God-fearing himself. As she swept out her barn, preparing for the evening ahead, she kept glancing down the road, shading her eyes from the sun as she waited for the whiskey man.
When Henry Lee finally arrived, well before her customers, Zanola was very relieved to see him.
"Good afternoon there, Mr. Henry Lee," she greeted him, "I was getting plumb worried that you weren't about to show up."
Henry Lee was surprised. Laughing he jumped down from the buggy and gave her a boyish grin.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't make it over yesterday, but I'd never let fine folks in Sandy Creek go thirsty on Saturday night," he teased her good-naturedly.
The small community of former slaves of the Creek Nation was nestled on the banks of a tributary to the Cimarron River. When the Dawes Act divided tribal lands into individual allotments, the blacks, as members of the tribe, were granted acreage of their own and lived relatively free of outside interference.
Growing up only a few miles away, Henry Lee had known the residents of Sandy Creek most of his life.
"We've been doing business together for a good while now," Henry Lee told the woman. "You know just about everything there is to know about me, and when I say that I'll be here, I will."
"Yes, that's true," Zanola said looking him over. "But that was in the past. I don't know what you're going to be like now that you're a married man."
There was an unspoken question in her statement and Henry Lee was taken aback. He hadn't thought that the word would have made it down here so fast. He almost wished that none of his customers would ever know. But in the territory gossip flew around like a whirlwind.
"You heard about that, did you?" he asked, as he thrust his hands into his pockets.
She squinted at him and grinned. "It's the truth then?"
He nodded affirmatively.
"And it's really that preacher's oldest daughter, not the pretty one?" she teased.
Henry Lee felt a spark of indignation. "Hannah is plenty pretty enough. Why, that sister of hers is just a flighty child."
Zanola's face broke into a wide grin and she laughed and shook her head. "Lord, boy," she told him, "you done got it bad, don't you."
"What do you mean?" he asked, eyes narrowed.
"That little gal done got you wrapped around her little finger. Well, I'm hoping that before you get out of the business you teach somebody how to make that fine whiskey of yours. It goes down smoothest of any in the territory."
"What are you talking about?" he asked her, genuinely confused. "I don't have any plans of getting out of the whiskey business. What would make you think a thing like that?"
"That little gal don't think much of the whiskey making, I'd be betting. And I'd wager she's already planning to turn you into a respectable farmer."
"She's not turning me into anything," he retorted. "I like my life just like it is, and I get all the respect I need. Like you said, I make the smoothest whiskey in the territory. You know me, Zanola, no woman is going to be giving me orders."
Zanola looked at him speculatively. "You saying that she don't mind that you make your living from whiskey?"
Henry Lee considered lying, but decided that it didn't matter enough to lie about.
"She doesn't know."
"She don't know you'
re a moonshiner?" Her voice was disbelieving.
"That's right," he answered, smiling. "Nobody's told her, and she hasn't asked, so I guess she'll just go on not knowing how I manage to put meat on her table."
Zanola shook her head. "You ain't going to be able to keep it from her. Somebody's going to tell her and then what are you going to do?"
"She won't be running my life," he assured Zanola. "She's got herself one lucky deal with me, and she won't be trying to do anything to mess that up."
"Good Lord, Henry Lee," she laughed. "You must think yourself some kind of man, doing the little white girl such a big favor!"
Henry Lee had been thinking about the baby in her belly, but he wasn't about to tell anyone about that.
"As you said yourself, Zanola, she's plain and past her prime and she's not so straight-laced as you think. Them church women got needs, too."
"Oh, Lordy! Don't I know it," she exclaimed laughing loudly, "I'm a churchgoer myself, and if I was twenty years younger, I might give you a long look or two myself."
Henry Lee laughed in reply. "Forget that twenty years, Zanola," he teased. "You start giving me long looks and I'll be looking right back!"
This flirty, light conversation came so easy to him with Zanola and with other women, and for a moment made him wonder why he had never really tried his charm out on Hannah. Somehow she seemed different from other women, but he couldn't understand why.
He shrugged. "It's time I had a woman to clean and cook and do for me. She'll serve well enough for that."
"What about your bed?" Zanola nearly cackled. "Ain't it time you had a woman in your bed, too?"
"I've always had that,” he teased.
"Ain't that the truth," she said joining him in laughter. "But now that you're a married man, you'd best keep your eyes off our pretty girls tonight."
"Now, Zanola, you know there ain't a one of them wedding vows that says you can't look!"
Hannah spent her evening alone not very differently than she did her day. She continued working outside until nearly dark. Fixed herself a bit of supper, cleaned everything that she could think to clean in the house. Still she found herself with time on her hands.
She decided that being alone would give her an opportunity to take an all-over warm bath in the kitchen. It was, after all, Saturday night and she wanted to look her best for church tomorrow, especially if Henry Lee was going to take her.
As she trooped back and forth to the creek to fetch water to heat she imagined herself in church beside him. They would hold the hymnbook together and their voices would blend as they sang. Everyone would be surprised to see that he attended with his new wife. And all the unmarried girls in town would be envious of the new bride, whose handsome husband obviously doted on her.
It was a wonderful fantasy, but as she sank her tired body into the gloriously warm water reality intruded.
The reality was he did not dote on her. In fact he had moved to the workroom. He'd taken all his tools and wood out to the shed and set up his bed. He'd brought in a small table to hold his wash pan and his lamp and he'd nailed hooks up on one wall to keep his clothes. Hannah had stuffed him a tick for a mattress and he seemed quite content to take up residence in the next room.
She knew that married people slept together. Her parents always had, it was a part of being married, the part that all the girls giggled about. Why Henry Lee had decided not to share her bed was a mystery to her.
They didn't know each other very well and perhaps he was shy. She certainly must have frightened him with her behavior the first night. She still didn't understand how she could have acted that way and felt embarrassed and humiliated that it had happened. At the same time, she secretly wanted it to happen again. Just thinking about it made her feel strange. Her stomach seemed to have little swarms of butterflies in it, and she had to try harder to breathe. Her breasts tingled with the memory of his hands upon them. And in the hollow of her womanhood, she felt an emptiness that was inexplicable.
She closed her eyes and imagined him coming home right now. He would walk in the back door with that same look he had had that night. He would see her here in the bathtub, slick and wet, and would kneel down beside her. He would grab her hair and twist it around his hand, forcing her mouth into his control. He would kiss her lips and then her neck and her throat. Then his lips would touch her breast.
Abruptly she sat up in the tub. What would happen after that she didn't know. And suddenly the idea that he might come home and find her here in the tub was very frightening. She quickly finished scrubbing herself, washed her long hair, standing up to rinse it with a bucket of clean water, and climbed out to dry off.
After dressing for bed, throwing out the bath water and braiding her still damp hair into one long braid, she put out the lamp and went to bed. She had no idea what was happening in her marriage, but she wished that Henry Lee would come home. She felt safer when he was there. She wasn't really afraid, she assured herself, she just liked having him around. She slipped off to sleep dreaming that he was lying beside her.
The man of Hannah's dreams was at that moment sitting in a dark corner of Zanola's barn listening to strange soulful music that was unique to the Negroes. He had always liked this music, it had made him want to laugh and love and put his arms around the pretty girls. Tonight it was having an unusual effect on him, It seemed almost sad and he wanted only to retreat to the corner alone. So he sat quietly drinking his own whiskey.
He didn't indulge himself often. Occasionally, out with friends, he would drink a bit, but rarely to excess. Living with his father had shown him what whiskey could do, and he had little tolerance, and no sympathy, for drunks. He liked to be in control. But, as he sat in the corner at Zanola's, he was slowly, steadily drinking himself beyond restraint.
Several Sandy Creek residents had stopped by his table to congratulate him on his recent marriage. Everyone wished him well, yet it was clear they were curious about the details. The pretty young girls who always flirted and danced with him tried to tease him about his newfound marital status, but his distant attitude, mixed with his alcohol consumption, discouraged any further approach and fueled rumor that he was not completely happy with his shotgun wedding.
Toward midnight, with the help of Zanola's right-hand man, Jones, he got back into his buggy and headed toward home. He gave the horse its head and let him find his own way. Zanola wasn't too worried about him, thinking that the distance to be traveled and the night air would clear the whiskey vapors from his brain. She would have been more concerned if she'd known that he had stowed a jug of moonshine under the seat and before he was even out of sight he had continued imbibing.
Henry Lee was not exactly sure why he was drinking. The situation with Hannah really shouldn't bother him so much. It wasn't as if he was in love with her. She would make a good wife and would give him a respectable position in a community that did not hold whiskey men in great respect. He would see that she didn't shame him with other men and once she'd birthed her current burden, he would have no problem bedding her. The passion he had unexpectedly discovered in her was pleasant to contemplate.
He wanted her to be happy, too. He had traded the whiskey for bushels of corn, beans, peas, and potatoes instead of his usual cash. He wanted to please her and let her do for him the way she felt a wife should. He didn't think that she deserved to be punished forever. He wanted to let her be a real wife and have a husband that would take care of her.
He was not like Skut, he reminded himself. He was strong enough to appreciate a good woman. And there was time for him to have children of his own.
What Zanola had said, about him giving up the whiskey business for her, bothered him more than he cared to admit.
He was proud of his business and proud of the whiskey he made. The idea that a woman, any woman, could make him give that up was ridiculous. Or was it? She had already managed to force him, a man she hardly knew, to marry her and to agree to give her bastard child his name. If
she could do that, getting him to become a full-time farmer might be easy.
That angered him. By God, he had never let any woman run his life; he had always set the rules. Women were convenient and warm and eager to please him, or he didn't bother to give them the time of day. He had never had any patience with men who allowed females to control them by holding back or giving favors, to get what they wanted. If Hannah could control him, then he was less a man than he had thought.
With that in mind, he drank deeply of the fiery liquid in the earthenware jug. It was strange to think of Hannah as one of those cold, calculating women. Those women always seemed overtly sexy and used their bodies like weapons.
And yet, although he knew Hannah was experienced, she did not seem to be very aware of her body. Perhaps it was just more of her subterfuge.
He gazed down the road into the darkness, but in his mind he looked at her. He imagined her face, soft and smiling, but with a strength that made her seem more womanly than girlish. Her hair, its curls forced into the severe style she always wore, could be evidence that she was not all that she seemed. And her body. He imagined that lush, bountiful body and it flamed his imagination. That fire quickly spread to his groin. In his mind's eye he saw her again before the fire, the light shining through her gown, leaving no doubt about the generous warmth of her thighs and the shapely curve of her legs. He saw himself pulling her down onto the table, as he had wanted to that night. Resting himself between the soft strength of those thighs as her legs wrapped around his back, urging and begging him closer.
Adjusting himself on the ungiving buggy seat, he shook the lustful images out of his brain. He told himself that his train of thought could lead only to frustration or self-debasement. He drank deeply and thought that the next several months couldn't possibly pass quickly enough.
Hannah awakened to the sound of someone falling in the back door. The clamor of someone tripping over the milk buckets, knocking over a chair, and falling onto the floor was followed by a familiar voice uttering a very unfamiliar expletive.