“Let’s have a little target practice,” he said, and he got his twenty-two out of the pickup and threw three cowchips out in the water and we shot at them till we had used up a box of shells. I had shot that gun so much I could shoot it nearly as well as he could.
Then we dug out a little place not too far from the water, and I laid the fire and got out the supper stuff while he cleaned the fish. The sun was easing on down and it turned the water gold when you looked across it. Five of my old cows came to drink on the other side of the tank and stood and looked across at us and bawled. I guess they were hoping I had a little cowfeed for them, but they never came on around. I greased the skillet and cooked the fish and some of the bacon and made the coffee, and we put the potatoes where they would bake. I had forgot to bring any pepper, but it was a pretty good supper, anyway. The sun went into the mesquites, over west of us, and just a few streaks of light got through and struck the water. Then it was gone and there was just the afterglow, and the killdees and bullbats were swooping down over the water.
“You ever eat a killdee?” Johnny said. “They don’t make two mouthfuls.” We seen some crows going to roost. The dam’s shadow began to stretch across the water.
“My potato didn’t get quite done,” I said.
“Now if you ask me,” he said, “this is the good life.” He was leaning back on one elbow drinking his second cup of coffee.
“It is good,” I said. “I wish the boys could have lived some of it.”
“They did, some of it,” he said. “At least Joe did. I reckon old Jim was the one missed out.”
“Reckon they’ll ever find Jody?” I said.
“No, I don’t imagine.”
Mine would just be scattered, I guess. Dad was buried in Decatur, where his ma had lived, and Eddie was in Chickisha. I forget the name of the place where they buried Jim, and Joe was nobody knew where. I felt calm and rested, but pretty sad.
Johnny moved over by me. “What would you think if I was to steal a kiss from a pretty forty-three-year-old woman who’s lost her boys?” he said. “She can cook the best fish I ever ate.”
That was a funny speech, coming from Johnny. His voice kinda trembled. I smiled and leaned back against him.
“I guess you would just be kissing her because you feel sorry for her,” I said.
“I guess that wouldn’t have nothing at all to do with it,” he said.
We kissed once and sat by the tank listening to the bullfrogs. There wasn’t much moon that night, just a little sliver. We heard a snake get a frog, and the frog squeaked a long time. That sound always made me wince. Johnny turned on the pickup lights so we could gather up the stuff.
When we got to the house he helped me get the stuff in, and I figured he would stay all night. But he kissed me agin at the back gate, and went on.
“Aw, I’m too rambunctious,” he said, when I asked him why. “You got too much on your mind to have me around. I’ll be over in a night or two.”
“Well, I hope so,” I said. I hadn’t had a bath in three days, so I went in and took one. The bed was empty and there wasn’t no moon either, but I went right to sleep. I guess Johnny knew I was completely worn out.
eight
One day the last of August I cleaned out the cellar. I had preserves and canned goods in there going back ten years or more. Some of it I had put up when the boys were little and we were real poor; I thought we had better keep as much stuff on hand as we could, in case of a hard winter. But I put up so much we never could use it all, and ever year we would wind up a little farther ahead of ourselves. Half of it had probably spoiled. I was the only one left, and I knew I couldn’t ever eat half of the good stuff, much less the bad. What looked bad I threw away, and what looked good I stacked in the smokehouse, so I could get Johnny to haul it into Thalia and give it to some poor folks there.
After I got the stuff sorted I set what was left of the jars off on the floor, so I could wash the shelves. Even as cool as the cellar was, it was a hot, dusty job. About halfway through I climbed out and started to the house to get a drink, and there was Gid, standing in the yard waiting for me. He looked all tense.
“Why, hello,” I said. “How long have you been standing out here in the sun?” It was only the second time he had been by since the day we heard about Jimmy.
“Just a few minutes,” he said. “You look like you been working.”
“Cleaning out the cellar,” I said. “Can you stay for dinner?”
“I don’t imagine,” he said. “I just wanted to talk to you a little while.”
But that was just what he thought he wanted, I knew that the minute I seen him. Gid had come to me keyed up like that too many times for me not to know what he was needing. I wisht I hadn’t been so hot and dusty.
“Well, come on in,” I said. “I’ll at least get some ice tea down you while we talk.”
But I didn’t have no intention of fixing him any. I knew Gid too well. If I made him sit around and talk when he didn’t want to talk, he would just get self-conscious, and get ashamed of himself, and that would spoil things for him before he ever touched me. The only way with Gid was to keep him from having to face what was on his mind until he was already in the bed. When I could manage that, he loved it. He loved it as much as Eddie or more; but it was just very seldom that he could let himself go.
When we went into the kitchen he was walking right behind me, and I turned real quick so that he ran right up against me. He kissed me without thinking, and I knew I had him for once, so I could forget it too. I wisht I could have gone to the bathroom and washed off a little of the dust, but it didn’t really matter. Gid was loose, and that was the main thing; unless he was, neither of us could be.
I slept awhile—I didn’t usually—and when I woke up Gid was sitting by me on the bed, washing my face and neck with a washrag.
“You had dust on your eyelids,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“I’m sweaty,” I said. “Let me get some ice tea, I already got some made.”
I went and got two glasses and brought them back to the bedroom. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed holding the washrag, but he had put his pants on.
And he had the saddest look on his face. I didn’t know why; I felt so happy. I handed him his tea and crawled back on the bed.
“What’s the matter, hon?” I said.
He pitched the washrag on the bedside table and didn’t say anything for a minute. He squeezed one of my feet.
“I was just thinking about you,” he said. “I guess I’m still crazy in love with you, after all these years. What I come out here for today was to tell you I wasn’t going to do this any more. I guess I’m sad because it was our last time.”
“Oh now,” I said. I smiled, but it hurt my stomach, and I wanted to grab him and hold him. Gid had never said anything like that before, and I knew the instant he said it that he meant it, and that he would stick by it. And I knew I oughtn’t to say a word: the more I said, the more we would lose. But I loved him, so I fought anyway.
“Well, it just about kills me when I think of it,” he said. “But it has just got to be that way, Molly.”
I waited a minute. “Gid,” I said, “it ain’t one bit of my business, but I’ve always wanted to ask you, and I might just as well. Do you and Mabel ever do this?”
He kinda twisted his mouth. “Oh yes, of course,” he said. “Three or four times a year, I guess. But Mabel don’t have nothing to do with what I just said.”
“Well, Gid,” I said. “That ain’t very much. If she don’t care to give it and I do, what’s the harm in letting me? Why make it hard on both of us? Don’t you know I need to be able to give somebody a little something?”
He didn’t say anything; he still had one hand on my foot.
“Are you ashamed of me, too?” I said.
“Ashamed of you ‘too’?” he said. “Who’s good enough to be ashamed of you?”
“Jimmy was ashamed of me,??
? I said. I didn’t feel happy at all, any more.
“Who I’m ashamed of is us,” he said. “The both of us. And Jimmy’s part of the reason I made up my mind like I have.”
“Why is it you’re ashamed and I’m not?” I said. “Am I just sorry? I always thought really caring about a person made a difference in what was right and wrong.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was raised to believe that what we done is wrong. The Bible says it’s wrong. The churches say it’s wrong. The law says it’s wrong. And I’ve always believed it was wrong—except when we did it. But any no-count bastard can get around something that way. Lots of people think stealing’s wrong, except when it’s them stealing. But if this here’s wrong, it’s wrong when we do it too, now ain’t it?”
My leg was trembling. I knew I had come to the wall, and I don’t know why I even argued, but I had to.
“Gid, I’m just me,” I said. “I ain’t the law, and I ain’t the church. All I say is, if it’s wrong, then let’s go ahead and have the guts to be wrong. We can’t but go to hell for it, and that would be better than doing without you.”
“We could do a lot worse than that,” he said, and he put his head in his hands. “We could have another Jimmy. You ain’t too old. And I’ve got a little girl now that’s got to be thought of too. We ruined one child’s life and we could ruin another. That’s worse than any going to hell.”
There wasn’t one word I could say to that.
“Molly, you could marry Johnny,” he said. “He’s always loved you too.”
“Johnny don’t want to marry,” I said. “And I don’t either. You know you’ve always been my mainstay.”
“Then why did you marry that sorry bastard you married?” he said. He’d been wanting to say it twenty years. “Why didn’t you marry me? It’s just about ruined my life, Molly!”
It had just about ruined his life, and I was to blame. And Jimmy’s too, and I was to blame for that. And Gid was going to quit me. That was the way.
“I wish I knew what all was involved in this loving somebody,” he said. “Mostly a lot of damn heartbreak, I know that.”
“I know we’ve done at least a little something that was good,” I said. “Please don’t quit me, Gid.”
“Oh, I’ll be by,” he said, “whenever I can risk it.”
That was what finally made me cry. “Well, good-by then, damn you,” I said, “because you can’t ever risk it, not even if I am forty-three. I’ve liked it, even if you haven’t, and I ain’t ashamed of it, even if you are.”
“What about Jimmy?” he said.
“Jimmy’s dead. You quitting me won’t make nothing up to him.”
“Molly, it ain’t quitting,” he said. “We got to do it. Don’t you know this is killing me? I never quit nothing in my life.”
“If you can think of a prettier word for it, fine,” I said. “You’re the one that has clothes on.”
Things were just a blur, but I reached out for him and he got up and put his shirt on. “I don’t have much pride where you’re concerned,” I said, but he left, and I laid on the bed and cried for a long time.
nine
Gid kept his word. I knew he would. He never loosened the reins on himself agin. It was over ten years before he ever touched me, and then it was just a pat on the shoulder.
Right after he quit me I couldn’t stand to think he would actually make it stick. I was determined I’d bring him back the next time I saw him, whatever it cost me, or him. I knew I could make him come back; I had ways I had never had to use.
But I didn’t lay eyes on him for two months, and when he finally did come I knew in five minutes that I wouldn’t do what I had planned to do. It was October when he came; I was in the kitchen; and he knocked and came in with a coyote puppy. He had brought me one or two to raise before that.
“Well, I killed his momma, Molly,” he said. “You want to raise him?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll get him a box.”
And when we had the puppy fixed I walked to the gate with him. Only I stopped inside the fence and didn’t go to the car, the way I usually did.
It would have been easy to have touched Gid, that day; he was just starving for somebody to. But it wouldn’t have been loving him much to have tricked him into doing something he had suffered so much to quit doing. And the two months had really told on Gid, I guess worse than they had on me. If he really wanted to quit that bad, I thought I would do better to help him keep his word. If he broke it, it would just be that much more agony for him. But I don’t know; never will know. The way he looked before he drove off, I think he was wanting me to help him break his word. Those things are awful complicated. Or more likely it was both he wanted: me, on the one hand, and to do what he thought was right on the other. I never will know which one he wanted the most. I don’t imagine he knew himself. But when he drove off and I went back in, I thought he had sure been right about the heartbreak.
That last day, when he asked me why I married Eddie instead of him, I didn’t have no answer for him. I thought about it a lot after that—too much, I guess—but I never came up with an answer for myself, either. Not one I could be sure was right. There may not have been no one answer, but if there was, I didn’t know it. I guess that said something pretty bad about me, that I didn’t know why I married who I did. I knew an awful lot of little things about myself, what I liked to eat and smell and do. And I knew some bigger things than that—about giving and taking, and the things Mr. Fry had talked about the one time we talked. But marrying Eddie may have been the most important thing, for all of us, that I ever did. I didn’t know why I done it, and I don’t know what good it would have done me if I had. Knowing wouldn’t have made it any less done.
For a month or so after Gid quit me, I like to have run Johnny ragged. He came over a lot. Sometimes I wouldn’t let him in ten feet of me, and other times I went to the other extreme. I wasn’t in very good control of myself. Finally one night at the supper table he brought it up.
“Well, I guess I better tell you off, Molly,” he said. “You been getting me mixed up with Gid, lately, and it’s about to get me down. You know me and him are different fellers. It ain’t fair to me for you to pretend I’m him.”
I was so ashamed I couldn’t say a word. We sat for several minutes.
“You’re right,” I said finally. “I’m sorry, Johnny. Don’t hold that against me, will you?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Now that you’ve quit. I couldn’t hold anything against such a good cook.”
“Gid’s changed his way of thinking about me,” I said. “I guess you knew that. It made me pretty miserable.”
“Not as miserable as it made him,” he said. “I’ve been thinking he’d probably kill himself. But since he’s made it this long, I guess he’ll probably survive.”
I let him know I appreciated his patience, and his finally speaking up. It made me feel a lot better after he had. I felt calm for the first time since Gid left the bedroom that day.
“Now see,” Johnny said. “Me and you may not kill nobody over one another, but we’re comfortable. We’ve always been comfortable, and I want us to keep on being that way.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I might kill a person or two for you. It would depend on who.” That made him feel good. He knew I probably meant it.
But I guess Gid was still heavy on my mind, because I had to talk about it.
“Johnny,” I said. “What do you think about this we do? Is it right or is it wrong?”
“Well, it’s enjoyable,” he said. “I ain’t gonna bother to look no farther than that.”
But that wasn’t answer enough, just then.
“You quit worrying,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing Gid has to worry about. There’s no need in you worrying about it too.”
“But you know I’ve done it with him, too,” I said. “Do you think it’s wrong for me to do it with both of you all these years?”
&nb
sp; “Of course not,” he said. “Gid’s even more crazy about you than I am, and he deserves a little enjoyment too. Only he’s so crazy he reasons himself out of it.
“After all, we raised a son,” he said. “And a good one. You and Gid had bad luck with yours, but that’s life. The stars were just set wrong for Jim. I never lost a night’s sleep in my life from being ashamed, and I don’t intend to start.”
“You’re right about it,” I said. “In a way, you are. I never lost much sleep over it, either, not till lately. I just wish Gid agreed with us.”
“Oh no,” he said. “That wouldn’t be Gid. Somebody’s got to take an interest in the right and wrong of things.”
All the same I would always miss Gid, even if Johnny was right.
About nine o’clock I woke up and he was pulling on his boots.
“You ain’t leaving tonight, are you?” I said.
“Oh, of all the stupid things,” he said. “I left my damn milk cows in the lot; I just now remembered. If I don’t go turn them out, there’s no telling what they’ll get into. I hate to leave.”
“Oh, it’s all right if that’s all it is,” I said. I got up and put on my nightgown and got a flashlight and walked out to his pickup with him.
“I guess you’ll be barefooted the day you die,” he said.
He had just half-thrown his clothes on; one of his sleeves was flopping, and I made him wait till I buttoned it at the wrist.
“You come back when you can,” I said. “Now that I’m straightened out on who you are.”
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “You won’t hardly know I ain’t living here.”
It was a beautiful warm night and I walked around to the porch and sat on the glider awhile, in just my nightgown. I didn’t feel very sleepy; I heard a coyote, back off toward the Ridge. The moon was just rising; it was full, and I sat and watched it, a big old gold harvest moon, barely up above the pastures. My hair was down, but I didn’t have no comb, and I didn’t feel like going in the house. While I sat there my menfolk begin rising with the moon, moving over the pastures, over the porch, over the yard. Dad and Eddie, they was drunk, had whiskey on their breath. Jimmy was looking away from me, thinking of school. Joe, he was laughing, and Johnny was lazing along, grinning about something. But Gid was looking at my face, and wishing he could put his hands on my hair.