by Pamela Morsi
"How nice."
"Wonderful, actually." Cleav leaned back against the cushions of the divan and comfortably crossed his legs. "Mr. Simmons is active in the Fish Restoration Movement and is very excited about the prospects of what I've been able to do here on the Nolichucky."
"We're all very proud of your work, Mr. Rhy," Sophrona said gently.
Looking across at the unmistakably bored expression on the young woman's face, Cleav's lips broadened into the wide smile that had the power to melt her heart.
"My dear Miss Sophrona," he said. "How generous you are to allow me to ramble on about my fish. You are much too polite to remind me that ladies care nothing for the spawning and rearing of Piscis Salmonidae."
Her answer was an impish little giggle that further endeared her to him. Slowly and with due gravity and consideration, Cleavis took her tiny hand in his own and brought it to his mouth, very lightly grazing the first knuckle with his lips.
"Oh, Mr. Rhy!" she protested breathlessly. But she continued to allow him to hold her hand until they were called to supper.
"Well, it's about time you showed up!" Esme said, greeting her sisters less than favorably as they walked through the front door only a few seconds before full dark.
"Evening, Miss Esme," a male voice called out behind them.
"Saves to graces! I thought you two would have more sense than to invite him to dinner," she scolded the twins.
Armon Hightower gave a good-natured laugh as he walked through the door. "Now, don't get in an uproar, Miss Esme."
Hightower was long and well-muscled, as fair of face as any girl ever dreamed, and his coal-black hair was only slightly less dramatic than his heavily lash-fringed dark blue eyes.
"I don't come to your table empty-handed," he said proudly as he threw the dead carcasses of two squirrels upon the kitchen table. "I shot these for the girls while we were out."
"I would have thought you'd have had time to clean them," Esme said unkindly.
Hightower laughed as if Esme had just told a good joke. "Now, Miss Esme, you needn't take on so. Next time we'll take you with us."
It was as blatant a lie as ever was told, but Esme chose to ignore it.
She glanced over at the two stiffening squirrels with distaste. Food, however, was food, and she was grateful for it even when it came from a no-account like Armon Hightower. "Thank you for bringing the meat," she choked out politely. "I'll have them skinned and a-roasting in two shakes."
The evening was a long one, with Armon's gift for gab and way with a story keeping both the twins and her father rousingly entertained. Esme didn't have an opportunity to speak to her sisters until the young man finally left and the girls began their preparations for bed.
"Why in the world would you two run off from your chores like that?" Esme demanded.
"Esme, we just couldn't help ourselves," Agrippa said in protest.
"That Armon." Adelaide pulled a cotton flour-sack nightgown over her head. "I swear he could talk the leaves off the trees. It's just purdy hard to say no to the man."
"Well, I hope you both still are!" Esme exclaimed in an aggravated whisper.
The twins burst out in giggles and collapsed joyfully onto the worn straw tick. "Esme, I swear, you're too silly," Adelaide finally had the breath to tell her. "If anyone knows about handling men, it's me and Agrippa."
Agrippa sat up on the bed and took Esme's hands in her own. "Little Sister, if you're thinking to give us the 'won't buy a cow when milk's for free' lecture, you're a little late," she said. "Adelaide and I have been practicing what you preach since before you knew what made men's trousers so downright interesting."
Giggling again, the two began to tease Esme mercilessly. "You may know all about putting in a garden and running a house and cooking and such, Esmeralda," Adelaide told her. "But when it comes to the male of the species, there's no chance that you'll ever be more than our baby sister."
"Adelaide and I have already forgot more about men than you'll be able to learn in a lifetime."
Pulling on her own threadbare nightgown, Esme decided that she had heard quite enough. "Well, Sisters," she told them, "in the next few months I'm going to be learning what you know. And"—she paused for emphasis—"you are going to learn what I know."
"What on earth do you mean?" one twin asked.
"Learning what you know?" the other questioned.
"You two are now in charge of the house," Esme said firmly.
"What!" the exclamation came in unison.
"I won't be able to take care of the house and find the food and see that you two and Pa are clean and fed and looked after. Somebody will have to do it; it has to be you."
"Now, Esme," Adelaide said gently, "we told you that we were sorry for running off today."
"Yes," Agrippa agreed. "You did leave us in charge, and we promised to take care of things for you, but . . . well—" She looked at her twin for guidance.
"We just forgot," Adelaide said.
Agrippa nodded eagerly. "That's right. We forgot, just like Pa does. I guess it's in the blood."
Esme snorted in disbelief. "In the blood? Well, I suspect that in the future it will be in the stomach instead." She pointed her finger sternly at them. "The next time you forget, you'll just be going hungry, and not just you—Pa, too."
The twins gazed at each other dumbstruck.
"I'm going to be busy with my own concerns, and I won't be able to fetch and carry for you. I've got important business to attend to—I've got plans to make life better for all of us. And it's best that I get at it."
"Esme, you can't do this," Agrippa said. "This is the worst time of the year. Where are we supposed to find food this late in the season?"
"And who'll put in the garden?" Adelaide asked. "It's nearly time to turn the ground, and we won't know how to do it without your help."
"Somehow you'll manage." Esme slipped beneath the covers next to her sisters.
"We can't manage," Agrippa complained. "I'm almost sure of it."
"Well, you'll have to see, won't you?" Esme said as she tried to stick her nose in the air haughtily, a gesture not easily accomplished when lying down.
"What on God's green earth can be so important for you to do that you can't be at the house anymore?"
"That's for me to know," Esme said and closed her eyes.
Adelaide was having none of it. She sat up in bed, her arms folded across her chest and her jaw stiffened in anger.
"'Fess up, Esme, or I'm going to Pa."
"Me, too!" Agrippa chimed in.
The standoff lasted at least a full minute.
"Oh, all right," Esme said, sitting up herself and pulling her nightgown high enough to sit cross-legged. "I won't be around here much for a while," Esme began hesitantly. "Because I'm going courting."
The twins sat silently, staring at their sister for a moment before looking at each other and bursting out laughing.
"Esme, Esme, we said you don't know much," Agrippa began.
"But we never thought it was this bad," Adelaide finished for her.
"What are you laughing at?" Esme demanded.
"You don't go courting," Adelaide told her as Agrippa covered her mouth, trying to hold in the laughter. "The man comes courting for you."
"Not if the man ain't interested," Esme told them. "He ain't about to come up here."
"If the man ain't interested," Adelaide tried to explain, "then there can't be any courting. You just have to find another man. One who takes a liking to you."
"I don't want another man," Esme said decisively. "I intend to marry Cleavis Rhy before the summer's out. And it don't matter to me if he likes me or not."
Chapter Three
The door slammed on a small outbuilding set far apart from the others on the land that belonged to Cleavis Rhy. Loaded up like a pack mule, Cleav came across the winter-shorn meadow carrying his supplies from the "meat house."
It was a beautiful day for March, and Cleav intended to
spend the early afternoon tending the series of ponds and holding pools that were dug out of the low ground between the store and the river. The sun was shining brightly, warming the lingering winter chill out of the air. And the breeze that lifted and fluttered through his hair was just enough to stir, but not disturb, the last of winter's beauty.
Cleav was just glad that he wasn't downwind from what he carried.
The mesh sack of finely ground meat smelled to high heaven. This was Cleav's least favorite chore. The care and rearing of trout was a rewarding, but an occasionally smelly, occupation.
When he reached the ponds, he began distributing his fish food in a methodical manner. An adamant adherent of the scientific method, Cleav believed that order was essential for appropriate and documentable study.
Approaching the nursery pond, he unhooked the loop of rope that stretched across the pond from peg to peg. Carefully, holding the rope, he attached a meat bag and flicked at the rope until the sack had slipped to the knotted stop at midpoint. Then he lowered the rope end to the ground and reattached it to the peg. Already he could feel the steady jerk on the line that meant feeding time.
Cleav had always been fascinated with fish. When he was still in knee pants, he had raced away from school each day and hurried through his chores so he could go fishing.
Some might have described his childhood as ideal: He had plenty to eat, warm clothes, a clean bed, and that elusive of all human commodities, leisure. But young Cleavis Rhy filled his leisure not with daydreams of adventure on the high seas, or rough and tumble games of strength with his schoolmates, but with a quiet watch on the ways of nature.
Now, for a few moments every afternoon at feeding time, as his mother minded the store, Cleav continued this lazy pursuit. Stretching out on the grass beside the pond, his long legs casually crossed at the ankle, he propped himself on one elbow to view the show he knew was about to commence. The fingerlings, so called because of their size, circled excitedly around the mesh sack. They were young trout, alone and on their own in the world. Hungry by now, but fearful. The world was a dangerous place for a baby trout, and they approached their food cautiously.
Circling, circling, the fingerlings would investigate for several moments. Finally, a brave soul would find the food so alluring that the daring fingerling would sneak in for a bite.
The trophy clutched firmly between his baby fish teeth, he would swish away, creating a momentary flutter of panic among his siblings. The crowd would nervously re-converge on the beloved but feared mesh sack until the next adventurous trout risked it all for the sake of his belly.
Cleav watched, satisfied. They were learning, these babies of his. Each day the fingerlings overcame their fear sooner and sooner. His brooders were totally fearless, knowing that there was nothing to harm them in these ponds. The fingerlings would learn, too, but by then these would be in the fattening ponds. Fingerlings would always be afraid of the bag, he decided. It was nature's way of helping the smallest trout to protect themselves.
As he watched, the banquet was steadily increasing its diners. The fancy swirling dance of a hundred tiny trout entranced him. It always did. He could think here, imagine, postulate. Nothing would disturb his peace. That is, until he saw a woman's reflection in the water before him.
Startled, he turned. Esme Crabb was standing behind him, dressed in the same clean but worn dress as the previous day.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, surprised. No one had ever disturbed him at the ponds before.
Esme dropped to the ground beside him, carelessly crossing her legs Indian style, and gave a little shrug of feigned indifference. "Just looking for you, I guess."
Cleav had no idea what to make of that. Since that incident in the store yesterday, thoughts, and memories of Esme Crabb, had plagued him. The sight of her raising the dress to adjust her garters was a shocking one. But he had, with great effort, painstakingly come to the conclusion that he had been at fault. He had continued to stare at her naked calf, knee, and lower thigh. Why he acted so impolitely he couldn't imagine. She was hill bred and motherless. Such behavior for her, while not excusable, was understandable. He, on the other hand, should have had the decency to turn his back. A gentleman would have, he was sure.
Esme looked around curiously and watched the tiny fish nibbling their dinner. "What about you? What are you doing?" she asked Cleav.
"I'm working."
Esme's expression lit with amusement. "Working?" she repeated, glancing at Cleav's relaxed pose and then at the quiet bucolic surroundings. "I'd best tell Pa about this. It looks to be just the job he's been praying for!"
His jaw tightening with annoyance, Cleav rose to his feet. He knew people didn't appreciate his work. Even Reverend Tewksbury and dear Miss Sophrona could barely keep the boredom out of their expressions when he talked about it. But it was work, important work, and Cleav bristled with the unfair comparison to the lazy and worthless Yohan Crabb.
"Some men labor with their backs and others with their minds. It's obvious that you're more accustomed to the former." Almost rudely, Cleav walked away from the young woman who had interrupted his afternoon. He had things to do, and he couldn't allow a curious hill girl to distract him.
Esme bristled slightly at his scornful tone, but then bit down on her lip and hurried to follow him. "He's got a prickly pride," she whispered to herself, as if making a notation for future reference. She was supposed to be making him coo and pant after her, not getting him all puffed up and nay-minded.
Cleav picked up a pail that he had left near a larger and deeper pond just downstream. Hurrying to catch up, Esme smiled up at him when she reached his side. He was just the right height, she thought to herself. Not so tall as to be clumsy, but plenty tall enough to see over the crowd. She also approved of how easily he'd scooped up the full bucket. His muscles were strong.
These cheery thoughts intrigued her for a moment, until she smelled a distinctly unpleasant odor. She peered into the bait bucket.
"Whew! What is that?" she asked him, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"It's trout food," he answered.
"What you feeding them, skunk turds?"
Cleav was momentarily taken back by her frank language, but recovered quickly. "Meat," he answered calmly.
"Meat?" She raised her eyebrows. "I suspect you're dang right it is, and sure to graces it's been dead near a month!"
"Trout can't smell," he explained with only slight agitation. "Fish, in natural circumstances, never consume pork."
"And that's just exactly how God intended it. Can you imagine what would happen if every time a pig wandered into the river the fish came up and started gnawing on the poor thing? Why, they'd be purdy mangled afore we'd get them to slaughter."
Cleav couldn't quite tamp down the ghost of a smile that came to his lips at the image of a squealing hog being attacked by swarming carnivorous river trout. She had humor, this one, he thought in grudging appreciation. Humor being a high form of intellect, he wondered curiously how bright the Crabb woman might be. People in town said she was smarter than her sisters, but in his slight acquaintance with the twins, he thought perhaps even rocks were closer to his intellectual equals than those two.
With a touch more patience he continued his explanation. "It's very difficult for me to provide enough small fish and minnows to feed this many trout. So, I'm trying to extend the fish products I feed them by grinding them with pork. As far as preference, thus far they seem unable to tell the difference. But their digestive systems seem to tolerate the pork better when the meat is partially decomposed."
Esme wrinkled her brow seriously, listening to his explanation. "You mean when it's rotten?" she translated.
"Just so," he agreed, suppressing a laugh. Cleav stopped at the side of the pool, and Esme saw to her disbelief that the shadows his body cast on the water was enough to bring a bevy of huge full-grown trout out of hiding.
"Look at that!" Esme's words were whispered in stunned
amazement.
"They're coming to be fed," Cleav answered cheerfully. Squatting down beside the water, Esme saw him dip his hand in the pail of coarsely ground, rotten meat. Retrieving a fistful, he put his hand just under the surface of the water and, to Esme's awestruck surprise, the big proud trout hurried up to get a bite.
"They eat right out of your hand!" Her eyes were wide with amazement. She looked at Cleav as if he'd just accomplished a great miracle.
Her exuberant enthusiasm over his fish delighted Cleav, but honesty compelled him to explain more fully. "It's not me," he told her. "These are my brooders. I've been feeding them at this same time from this same spot for two years."
"So they know you." Esme's eyes were bright with approval.
"They're just fish," Cleav protested good-naturedly. "They don't know anything but eating and breeding."
"That's pretty much life anyway." Esme glanced into the water. "Do they have names? What do you call that kind of grayish looking one with the black mole on her cheek?"
"I don't call them anything," he said.
"You could call her Pearly, after Miz Beachum," Esme told him. "Miz Beachum's got a big mole just like that."
Cleav gave a little chuckle. "You're absolutely right. She does look a bit like Mrs. Beachum."
Esme sighed loudly. "I'm just so proud of you," she said. "I never knew a living soul that could call the fish to come to them."
Grabbing another handful of the vile-smelling fish food, he offered it to the still hungry swimmers. "When they see a shadow across the water, they just know that there's food here, and it's safe to come and eat it."
"Oh, but it's wonderful," Esme insisted. "The fish know you and trust you."
"No, you're thinking that these trout are like hunting dogs. And they are not."
"Of course not." Esme shook her head with agreement. "The master tames the dog and then trains him. You've got the fish a-coming to you, and they're not trained or tamed. They're still fish. It's like you talk to wild things."
Cleav laughed out loud at that. The sight of his wide, white smile made something catch in Esme's chest. The gentle afternoon breeze had mussed his curls, and his tangled brown hair accented the depth of his pale blue eyes.