“When I come over here today I was going to ask you a lot of questions,” I said. “Like why you married him, and all that. But I’ve just about forgot the questions, and I don’t guess I really care about the ones I remember. What do you reckon caused that?”
“Me, I guess,” she said. She was eating a piece of stick candy she had found somewhere, and was slouched back against my arm without nothing on but her pants, just as relaxed as she could be, and in a perfect humor. She wouldn’t let me have any of the candy, but when I kissed her now and then I got her taste and the candy’s too.
“One thing I do want to settle, Molly. What do you want to do about these people we’re married to? Do you want us to go off somewhere or anything like that?”
“Do you want to go?” she said.
“No,” I said. “That’s kind of against my style.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t go. Right here in this house is where I always want to live.”
We got a quilt and stretched out together on the living room floor and stayed there till plumb dark. I just couldn’t quite get my mind made up to go home, and she didn’t hurry me.
“Gid, I’m ready to have a baby now,” she said. “I’m convinced you’ll make a good daddy.”
“Good lord,” I said, sitting up. It was all shadowy in the room; she rested her head against my chest. We sure didn’t get very far from one another that day. I guess she had been as lonesome as me.
“You’re a strange woman,” I said. “How come you don’t want your husband for its daddy?”
“Oh, Gid,” she said, “he wouldn’t make no good daddy. Not as good a one as you.
“You don’t really care, do you?” she said, looking up at me. I could barely see her eyes, but her voice was real serious. “I mean if me and you have a baby. Of course I’ll let on it’s Eddie’s, just you and me and the baby will know.”
I thought about it a long time. Here I was married to Mabel and her to Eddie. It was strange to think of a baby coming out of Molly, but I knew one thing, if one did I wanted it to be mine.
“No, I don’t care, sweetheart. I’d like for you to if you want to.
She curled around me. “I knew you’d come to me sometime,” she said. And that was all we said that day. After a while I got up and dressed to go, and she walked out to my horse with me. We stood there awhile, looking at the Milky Way and the Big Dipper and all the rest of the summer stars. Finally I got on.
“I’ll just get over when I can,” I said. “Okay? I probably can’t stay this long ever time. I sure will miss you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Me too.”
I rode on home by moonlight; it was bright enough I seen a big old coyote loping into the brush ahead of me. I should have been thinking about a story for Mabel, I guess, but I was thinking about Molly instead, and what a tender sort of person she was. And yet she had something fierce in her, like Dad had in him. I saw her agin, all the ways she’d looked that day, hanging up clothes in the morning, with her shirttail out, and sitting on the couch that evening, without no shirttail atall. She had the most changing kind of face, for it always to be the same one. Riding across the League I run into Dad’s old horse, and he nickered. I sure did miss Dad.
twenty-one
It was just amazing how seeing Molly ever once in awhile improved things for me. I begin to kinda take an interest in life agin. And I never seen a whole lot of her, either—I hardly ever got over more than once a week. Lots of time I was too busy, and other times, when I did ride over, I’d see Eddie’s car and have to go back. There wasn’t no sense aggravating him. But it didn’t bother me too much if I missed seeing her one occasion or another. I knew that if I was a little patient, there would be a time when we could get together. Those times were worth the wait. Molly was awful good to me.
And good for me, too. In the meantime, between visits to her, I had the ranch to run, and Mabel to live with, and I began to see that I had better get busy and try to do a little better job of both than I had been doing. It wasn’t fair to Dad and Mabel not to.
At first I was pretty worried that Mabel would find out I was courting somebody else, but that was just because I still didn’t know Mabel too well. In those days she was so proud of herself I couldn’t have convinced her I was in love with somebody else if I’d come right out and told her. Which I didn’t. I was fond of Mabel, and a little sad for her, but not as torn up about marrying her as I had been. And I made her a pretty decent husband too. I got to understanding her a lot better as time went on. We never was much of a delight to one another, I had to admit that, but I know I treated her better after I took up with Molly. Mabel was just a combination of proud and scared; she never had anything, and she always thought she was entitled to everything. It made me blue that I couldn’t be more wholehearted with her, but I just couldn’t. She wasn’t the one. But anyway, she kept such a close eye on herself all the time that she hardly noticed me. She didn’t have much notion of what was going on with me, and a good thing she didn’t. After I got over my first blueness and began to treat her about half-nice, she thought I was plumb crazy about her.
“Well, I see you’re beginning to learn how to treat a lady,” she said one night. It was after supper, and we were sitting on the porch. I had complimented her on her cobbler, or something like that.
“I guess I ain’t had much practice,” I said.
“Well, you can get a lot on me,” she said. “And don’t think I won’t tell you when you make a mistake. I ain’t bashful about that.” She scooted a little closer to me on the step.
I put my arm around her and hugged her and never said a word. It was dark, and we could hear an old hoot owl hooting somewhere in the pastures to the east. There wasn’t no moon that night, but there was a good breeze from the southeast, and the country smelled good. We done had lilac in the yard. Life always seemed so complicated in the evenings. Mabel seemed perfectly happy, and I was sitting with my arm around her, about two-thirds melancholy. “Let’s go in, honey,” I said, “before the mosquitoes get to biting.” “Well, you’ve got to kiss me first,” she said. I did, and then we went inside and lit the lamps.
twenty-two
Early in June I spent a hell of a day. Mabel woke up in a bossy mood and practically chased me out of the house, so I done the chores and doctored a few sicklings and then decided I’d go to Antelope. That was where we got our mail, then, and I thought while I was there I’d hire somebody to come up and thrash my wheat. We had a pretty fair wheat crop and I was ready to get it thrashed; it was the last farm produce I ever intended to raise.
I rode old Dirtdobber that day, and I guess that was a mistake. He was the oldest horse on the place, and I never rode him nowhere except to get the mail. I think he was twenty-three years old. When I got to Antelope I tied him up and gave him a good rest, while I talked with the boys a little. I found an old boy with a thresher, said he’d be up after my wheat the next day. While I was fiddling around it come up a real mean-looking cloud in the northwest, and I figured then I’d do good to get home without getting wet. Besides which, the Montgomery Ward catalogue had come that day, and it was so much extra weight I didn’t know if old Dirt would be able to carry it. He was particular about weight.
But I stuck the catalogue in my saddle pouch, and we headed out. If it rained like it looked like it aimed to, that old boy wouldn’t have to bother about my wheat. But I was wrong about the rain, it never rained five drops. What it did was hail.
And I mean hailed. It started out the size of plums and moved up to pullet eggs, and before it was done there was hailstones on the ground bigger than anything our old turkeys ever hatched. Course me and Dirt were right out in the open when it started, and getting him to run was out of the question. I tried holding the catalogue over my head, and dropped it in about two minutes. Finally we got to a little old half-grown post oak, and I figured that was the best protection we would find. I unsaddled right quick and crawled under Dirt a
nd then under the saddle too, and scrunched down tight. The first thing Dirt did was try to piss on me, but I wasn’t worried about that, I was worried about my skull. I jobbed him a time or two to cut him off and damned if the old sonofabitch didn’t jerk loose and step right on my hip and run off. So far as I was concerned it could hail him to death; I wasn’t going after him. I got on the downwind side of the tree and hid as much of me as I could under the saddle, and stayed put. At least none of the big ones hit my head. My saddle got dents in it that never did come out. It hailed for a solid hour. Finally I didn’t have to worry so much, I reached out and raked me up a kind of igloo and was pretty cozy. I had one less worry anyway, and that was the damn wheat crop.
When it quit the country looked like it was under a snowstorm. The sun came out in a little while and started melting it off, but some of the big piles didn’t melt for two or three days. I was in a hell of a shape; Dirt had about halfway squashed my hip. I could hobble along, but carrying the saddle and blanket I couldn’t make no time, particularly over that slippery hail. I guess Dirt had weathered it all right; I seen him about half a mile away, poking along toward home. “You old bastard,” I said, “wait till I catch you.” But all I could do was hobble on over to the Eldenfelders’, they was a Dutch family that lived about half a mile away. I hated to run the risk of getting dog-bit—they had about fifty damn mean turd hounds—but it was the only place in hobbling distance. However, it turned out all right. They fed me a little rotten cowmeat and sent their big old dumb girl Annie to haul me home. A lot of the boys thought it was smart to get in Annie’s pants, because she was willing and about a half-idiot, but I never fooled with her. She seemed kind of pathetic to me. The creek was up, so that was as far as she got me, but I gave her a dollar. “Bye-bye,” she said. It’s a wonder she could drive the wagon. I waded the creek and went on home. My hip was beginning to unsquash a little by then.
Old Dirt was in the barn when I got there, trying to kick in the door to the oatbin. The old fart had so many knots on him I didn’t have the heart not to feed him.
But when I got to the house I wished I was back outside in the hailstorm. The ten or fifteen broken windowlights hadn’t improved Mabel’s humor. I was thinking I might get a good hiprub, but I could have staggered in on two wooden legs and she wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t see no signs of supper, and I guess I said the wrong thing.
“Hello,” I said. “What’s for supper, hail soup?”
“I’ll hail soup you,” she said, “going off and leaving me in a storm like that. Where you been all afternoon?”
“Well, I been coming home,” I said. “It wasn’t a very quick trip, I’ll admit.”
“I bet you was,” she said. “I bet you was sitting down in the Antelope domino hall, losing some of your inherited money.”
I let that pass.
“Where’s the mail?” she said.
“Wasn’t none but the catalogue, and I lost that in the hail. I guess we’ll have to get them to send us another one.”
She got so mad it tickled me.
“What kind of a husband are you?” she said. “We’ll do no such thing. You just saddle up and trot back and find it; I want to do some ordering out of that catalogue before it gets too old.”
“Why, you’re crazy,” I said. “Hell, it’s beat to pieces by now, anyway. I imagine we can borrow one.”
“We ain’t going to borrow nothing,” she said. “You go get it. You lost it.”
I tried to grab her and hug her, hoping it would get her in a better humor, but she just stomped out to the bedroom, and I let her go. I got the milk bucket and milked, and when I got back, no sign of her. I cooked myself some bacon and eggs and ate supper. Then I washed the dishes, and still no Mabel. I went in the living room and did some figuring in my little daybook; I was thinking of buying three sections of land that joined us on the northwest.
About nine o’clock I heard her, and she came in in her bathrobe and nightgown, looking like she’d had a good nap. She was a shapely woman, too, when you caught her looking just right.
“Hi,” I said, and she set down on my lap and kissed me and seemed fairly friendly.
“Where’s the catalogue?” she said.
“Good lord,” I said. “Ain’t you forgot that yet? It’s right where I dropped it, and that’s where it’s going to stay, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, I knew you was ignorant but I never thought you was lazy,” she said, and she jumped off my lap and went out the back door just boohooing. I would have swore she was crazy.
But I went out to get her; I didn’t want her to run around barefooted and get on a snake. That would really aggravate her. When I came out on the backsteps she ran down in the storm cellar. It was pitch dark down there, and I went over and stood on the steps.
“Now, Mabel, come on out of there,” I said. “There’s no use in you taking on so over a damn catalogue. You’ll get on a stinging lizard down there if you ain’t careful.”
“I hope I do,” she said. “I hope they sting me to death, so I won’t have to live with you.”
I started down, and damned if she didn’t grab a jar of peach pickles off the shelf and threw it; I heard it hit the steps below me and break. Then she threw two more, just whatever she happened to grab.
I thought what the hell, there wasn’t no use in provoking her to ruin all the preserves.
“Okay,” I said, “sleep down there if that’s how silly you are.” She didn’t say nothing, so I went in and went to bed. There was a cot in the cellar, and it was a warm night; I didn’t figure it would do her any harm.
Only I couldn’t sleep worth a flip. I went back out twice more to try and persuade her, and all it did was cost me preserves. The last time I went was about three-thirty, and I just sat down in the kitchen and read the almanac till it got light. Then I went down in the cellar, and she was curled up on the cot asleep, peaceable as a baby. But the cellar steps looked like a cyclone had hit a jelly factory. I went in to cook breakfast, and I heard her hollering at me. So I went out.
“No, I ain’t gone after the catalogue yet,” I said.
“Could you carry me up these steps?” she said. “I’m barefooted and I’m afraid I’ll cut my foot off on all this broken glass.”
“No, I’m afraid to carry you, I might drop you and break your precious butt.” I went and got a basket and a broom and the ashes shovel and cleaned up the mess, while she sat on the cot and watched. Then she came in and made coffee and never said another word about it. And for a day or two, she was sweet as pie.
twenty-three
One morning early in July a damn horse kicked a hole in the water trough, and while I was down patching it, getting wet up to my ears, I looked up and seen a horseback rider loping across the Ridge toward the barn. By god, if it wasn’t Johnny, he’d come home, and he was riding the prettiest little sorrel gelding you ever saw. He called him Jack-a-Diamonds.
“Well, by god,” I said, standing up to shake his hand. “Where’d you get that horse?”
“Bought him off a feller,” he said. “How you been?”
“Oh, fair,” I said. “How long you been home?”
“Since last night.”
“You’re walking just like a normal feller. You don’t look crippled.”
“I finally growed back together,” he said. “This country sure looks good to me.”
“Well, we had four inches of rain in May. Course we had that hail.”
“Heard about that. See it smashed hell out of your wheat.”
“What I get for raising it,” I said. “Tie up your horse and stay awhile, I got to patch this water trough.”
“I’ll help you,” he said, and he did. If he hadn’t I wouldn’t have got the damn thing patched by dinnertime. While we worked he told me a million funny stories; he was the same old Johnny. I was sure glad to see him back.
That night, of all things, me and him and Molly went coon hunting, and had a hi-larious time. Jo
hnny’s dad had a new coon dog he was proud of and Johnny wanted some excitement, so he asked me if I wanted to go with him to try the dog out. I said sure, and after supper I told Mabel where I was going and met Johnny on the Ridge. We decided to go over and see if Eddie was home, and if he wasn’t to take Molly. She was there by herself, peeling potatoes in the kitchen, and she put on an old pair of boots and was ready in a minute. Johnny had brought the dog with him across his saddle, and we all struck off toward the creek, walking. It was a hot night with plenty of moon, but we took a lantern anyway.
“I hope we don’t get snake-bit,” Molly said. She had been bit once and was afraid of snakes. Sure enough we killed three rattlers that night, but we didn’t have any close calls.
We hadn’t been out thirty minutes when the dog treed a big old fat coon in a live-oak tree. I didn’t much want to kill him, because we’d have to lug him around all night, but we went ahead and done it. After that we got pretty excited, and the dog soon struck another trail. Johnny had the lantern and the gun, and I had the coon in one hand and Molly’s hand in the other, so I could help her through the brush.
“I like this,” she said. “I’m glad you’all came by.”
Then the dog treed in the shaft of an old hollow oak, and from the squealing we heard it was a momma coon and two or three little ones. We never brought an ax, but the old tree was just barely standing, and me and Johnny pushed it over. Only no coons come running out.
“Now what?” Molly said.
“I’ll stomp it open, I guess,” Johnny said. About the time he said it the momma coon went scooting out the open end of the tree, right between Molly’s legs. She jumped about three feet. I had the gun and couldn’t shoot for Molly, so it was up to the dog, and he let the old momma get plumb away. He was a good dog for treeing, but he wasn’t worth a shit for fighting. She got in the creek and he didn’t have the backbone to go in after her.