The way she drove, I thought she might go by without seeing us. The driver’s seat on her old car was sunk in, and she had to drive with her chin way up in order to see at all. Usually she never looked to the sides of the road. Actually, I don’t know that she did see us. She may have smelled us. Anyway, she threw the skids to the Ford, and if the hill had been about one degree slicker there would have been three cars in the ditch instead of two. I wish she had stuck it—it would have evened things up. Her and Gid was ever bit as bad a driver as one another; the only difference was that when Molly got in a tight place she slowed down, and when Gid got in one he speeded up. Anything fancy was out of their category.
But by pure luck she got stopped all right. Gid was still sitting there, feeling of his arm, and the old billy had hunched and floundered about thirty yards away. Molly had on her sunbonnet and her blue milking overalls, and an old pair of men’s overshoes that had belonged to me at one time, so she didn’t exactly look like Lily Langtry. But she would be a good-looking woman the day she died; she always kept enough of her looks to make me remember how much she had when she had them all. She stood there in the road, taking her own good time looking the situation over. She shoved Gid’s car with her foot, to see if it would shake, and then she studied the car tracks on the hill awhile, trying to make out what happened.
Gid couldn’t stand the wait. “Come on over here,” he said. “We ain’t ashamed to admit we had a wreck. We’ll tell you all about it.”
But she walked off up the hill a little ways, trying to get it settled for herself.
“Look at her,” he said. “Hog on ice. She’s too independent for her own good. Somebody needs to take Molly down a notch or two.”
“I could spit on two fellers who’ve been trying it for forty years,” I said.
“Yes, and I’ve accomplished it,” he said, “and I’ll accomplish it agin.”
“I never knowed you was such an optimist,” I said.
In a minute she came stepping across the bar ditch. She looked perfectly peaceful: it was the way she usually looked. Lots of times I’d go by her place and find her sitting at the kitchen table, looking rich as cream. Life had took different on Molly than it had on me and Gid. She rested her hands on her hips and looked down at him a minute before she said anything. She had tipped her bonnet off, and her hair was blowing around her face. It was getting a sprinkle of gray, but it was still mostly black, and as long and pretty as it had ever been.
“Well, you sure skinned your nose,” she said. “You look like you had an accident.”
Gid snorted.
“Oh no, it wasn’t no accident,” I said. “We set out on purpose to see who could make the biggest idiot of himself.”
“It’s hard to say who won,” she said, grinning at me.
“I don’t want a word out of you,” Gid said. “As many times as I’ve pulled you out of ditches and off culverts.”
“I know it,” she said. “I don’t claim to be a good driver. But I’m going to town after while, and what are you going to do?”
“Sit here till my nose scabs over,” he said. “I don’t intend to walk a dripping blood.”
“Aw, get your hook and chain,” she said. “I can pull, the pickup out.”
He had just been waiting for her to offer so he wouldn’t need to ask.
“If you think your old hoopey can do it, we’ll sure be glad to let you try,” he said. He reached out a hand for me to pull him up, but when I took it and pulled he bellered like a bull. He had stretched out his sore arm before he thought, and I had to ease him back. Molly squatted down and rolled his sleeve back up and had a look at the elbow. He tried to wave her away with his good hand, but she paid it no mind.
“Quit flapping that hand in my face,” she said. “You look snake-bit.” His arm was hurting so he couldn’t talk, but he held up his good arm and I got him to his feet.
“Let’s go,” he said. “You get the chain and she can pull you out.” He wouldn’t look at Molly; he was afraid she was going to take him up to her place and doctor him awhile. And before I had time to move he went across the road to the pickup and began fishing around for the chain himself.
Molly grinned. “He never will learn,” she said, “and I’m glad. You better go find that chain if you can. He’s liable to drop it on his foot and be down agin.”
“I wish he would. If he had an arm and a leg out of commission, we could slow him down enough that he wouldn’t really hurt himself.”
I went over to the pickup to see what I could do. Gid had about half the stuff under the seat slung out on the road.
“Get out of the way,” I said. “A one-armed man ain’t got no business trying to handle a chain.”
The chain was tricky to get out once you found it. It was between the hydraulic jack and a big pipe wrench that had got wedged in so tight a couple of years before that we couldn’t move it. I had to be awful careful about moving that jack: with the slightest excuse it would have wedged itself, and the chain would have been gone for good. Damn the man that invented pickup seats anyway: you can’t get nothing under them without skinning your knuckles, and then you can’t get it back out if you do get it in. Gid was grumbling because I’d pushed him out of the way.
“That’s how it is,” he said. “I pay a fortune in wages, and then I’m the one gets ordered around.”
I had managed to ease the jack past the seat brace, and I finally captured the chain. Molly came up about that time and Gid shut up like a terrapin shell.
“I wonder where all those goats will go,” she said. “They were strung out clear back to the bridge.”
“I hope the sonofabitches starve to death,” he said. He had given up trying to do anything and was leaning against the fender. “I hope the creek gets up tonight and drowns ever one of them. A man that would own a goat would own a hound dog—they ain’t no worse.”
“Why, I think goats are okay,” she said. “They probably make Jamison good money.”
They went on that way, having a nice friendly dispute to settle their nerves, and I drug out the chain. Then I gathered up all the stuff Gid had drug out and stuffed what I could of it back. I was just getting ready to hook on the chain when I seen Jamison Williams coming over the hill riding his old fat blue horse.
“Looky yonder,” I said. “Get your checkbook ready.”
“Damn you,” he said. “If you wasn’t so slow, we’d be in town by now.”
“He’s riding old Blue-ass,” I said. “We could outrun him on foot.”
Molly got tickled, but she tried not to show it.
“Why Jamison won’t hurt you,” she said. “I’ve never seen him mad.”
“Oh no,” Gid said. “I ain’t scared of him hurting me. It’s his ideas I’m scared of. He’ll have some crazy idea about how much that old rotted-out fence is worth to fix. You watch and see.”
“Don’t let yourself panic,” I said. “Think up a good story to tell him. Say a hit-and-run driver knocked you through that fence.”
“Naw,” he said, “what’s the use? Jamison’s too dumb to lie to. It’ll be all he can do to understand the truth.”
Actually, Jamison managed that without much strain. He rode straight up to the hole and slid off old Blue-ass and came right over to Gid, sticking out his hand. Jamison was foolish about shaking hands. He tipped his hat to Molly and came and shook hands with me before he ever said a word.
“By god, Gideon,” he said. “I see you run through my fence. These roads are slick, would you say?”
“A little slick,” Gid said. When he was in a tight corner he got mighty scarce with his conversation.
“Well, Gid,” Jamison said, “I wonder how long it will take you and Johnny to bring them goats back in? Judith don’t like for them goats to run loose on the road.” Which was a lie. Judith Jamison never cared. In fact, she might have been glad.
“Depends,” Gid said. “How much are they worth to you, Jamison, by the head?”
“Well, you know, Gid,” Jamison said. “You know how I knew them goats was out. By god, if that old one-eyed billy didn’t come right up in the yard and butt that littlest boy of mine. He butted that boy good and hard and was after the dogs.”
“Goodness,” Molly said. “Why, they looked so gentle. You wouldn’t think they’d hurt anybody.”
“That’s what I told my wife,” he said. “It’s too bad she can’t shoot no better. She would shoot that good dog before she hit the goat.”
“Probably should have used the shotgun,” Gid said. “Rifles are a little hard.”
“Well, you know, Gid, it was the ten-gauge she used. I don’t know whether her shoulder’s broke or not. I guess the doc can X-ray it when we take the boy in. He would butt him through the garden fence.”
“These roads are pretty slick, Jamison,” Gid said. “If I was you, I’d wait till they dried up a little before I went in. A man can get off in the ditch and wreck his car before he knows what’s happening to him.”
“I guess forty dollars apiece for them goats,” Jamison said. “They got to be drenched if I keep them, and they ain’t due to wool till September.”
He tipped his hat to Molly agin and went over and began to climb on old Blue-ass. I watched that, because Jamison Williams getting on a horse was a sight not many people got to see. Jamison was a little short fart; he led old Blue over to Gid’s car and got up the car so he’d have elevation and got on from there. Gid didn’t get much kick out of that performance. He was in a fairly solemn mood.
“Forty apiece?” he said. He was trying to let on he thought that was too high.
“Why, you could have them for that, Gid,” Jamison said. “There was eighty-six of them. If you don’t want to buy them, you and Johnny just feel free to bring them in any time and leave them in the pen. Judith and the boys can take them back to the pasture after they milk.” We found out later it was Judith’s collarbone that broke. I guess we ought to be glad she didn’t shoot one of the children.
“We’ll get them back tomorrow,” Gid said. “And I’ll get a crew out to fix your fence. Shore sorry all this happened. Send me them doctor bills.”
“Well, Gid, such is life,” Jamison said. “By god, this rain did us good. Just leave the goats in the pen. We don’t mind helping our neighbors, me and the wife.”
“Okay. You’ll all come to see us,” Gid said.
“Sure, sure. Go, Blue. By god, I hope that boy’s stopped bleeding when I get home.”
He turned old Blue-ass toward the barn, and off they went.
“Ain’t that a sight?” Gid said.
“Get in and back her up, Molly,” I said. “This chain ain’t very long.”
It didn’t take long to get the pickup out, once I got her hitched to it. It’s just a wonder she didn’t pull it in two.
“Now you got about ten feet of slack,” I said. “Go slow till the chain gets tight. Then give her hell.”
“You reckon she can do it?” Gid said.
“You just stand back so the mud won’t splatter on you,” she said.
She gunned that old Ford like it was a B-36. I just braced myself; I knew what she was going to do. Directly off she went, and it like to popped my head off when she hit the end of the chain. But we sure came out of the mud. Gid gave a jump for the running board, but he wasn’t close enough, so he got left. I went to honking for her to stop: the road was still so slick I was afraid to tap my brakes. I just sat loose in the seat and got ready to jump if it come to that. There wasn’t no limit to how reckless Molly could drive. Once I was riding with her when she turned over a trailer with two sows and eleven shoats in it; a Greyhound bus passed us and honked. “He never needed to honk at me,” she said. It took me half a day to gather those squealing bastards up.
For a change, I was lucky. We came to a corner, and when we got around it she felt a little jerk on the chain and remembered me. I was out of the pickup and had the chain unhooked before we quit rolling good.
“I’ll be,” she said. “I guess we left Gid.”
“He’s coming down the road.” I hadn’t looked, but I knew Gid that well. I was fixing to back up for him when I heard him holler.
“Just hold on,” he said. “If you was to back up you’d run over me.” He was red in the face as an old turkey gobbler.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said to Molly. “I wish you’d been tied to a tree.”
“You didn’t need to walk,” she said. He didn’t bother Molly. “Now git in this car. We won’t go to town, we’ll just go back to my place. I want to work on this arm a little.” She slipped up and got him by his sore arm, so he couldn’t pull back, and led him right on over to the Ford without another word said. He knew better than to fool with her when she had the advantage. We stopped at the wreck a minute, so he could fish out a box of cigars. I bet it blistered him a little to have her drive him up the hill he’d just slid down.
Molly was still living on the old Taylor place, where she had lived her whole life. It was on a hill—some say the highest place in the county—and you could see it for miles and miles around. The first time I ever saw Molly was on that place; she was carrying a jug of the old man’s whiskey up the cellar steps. It was the first time I had ever been visiting anywhere. All my folks were blonds, and I never will forget how surprised I was to see them black-headed Taylor kids. Pa and the old man sat on the back steps and drank whiskey out of the same jug for half an hour, and then they chased me and Molly down and made us drink a little. We cried and run off down to the pigpen together and made some mud pies out of the pigwallow and ate them, to get the whiskey taste out of our mouths. When we went back the old man thought of some more devilment: he sat a bucket on the fence and said he’d give me a dime if I’d shoot it off with his old twelve-gauge shotgun. I didn’t know what a dime was, but I was crazy about guns. Pa steadied it for me, so I don’t guess I caught the whole kick, but I caught enough. I missed the bucket, too, so the old man wouldn’t give me the dime: I never found out what one was till two years later. Molly took up for me and led me down in the cellar and showed me the still.
And she stayed right there and done all of her living right up on that hill. I guess she just never saw no reason to move around. Her old man and old lady were dead before she married Eddie, and all the other kids had left home. Eddie never had nothing but a pack of turd hounds and a pair of roughnecking boots from the day he was born till the day he fell off the derrick; their getting married was just a matter of finding a justice of the peace who was sober enough to talk. But it’s still strange to think of her spending her whole life there on her hill. One night when we were younger and were laying up together, I was awake listening to the wind rattle the windowpanes, and I asked her about it.
“Ain’t you curious to see the world at all?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’m doing just as much living right here and now as I could anywhere.” And she hugged me and we went back to sleep.
Probably, in the long run, she was right. She done her share up on that hill. She was born there, and went to school what little she went over in the Idiot Ridge schoolhouse. The flu killed the old lady in 1918; the old man drank lye. Her oldest brother Shep, I don’t know what became of him. Mary Margaret married a store clerk, and Rich got caught stealing saddles and sent to the pen; Molly said once he was out, but he never came our way. Eddie fell off that oil rig, and then the Germans got Joe and the Japs got Jimmy. All that time Molly stayed there and went on. Sometimes I wonder what will become of the old Taylor place when Molly and the rest of us are gone. I can’t imagine that hill without her. But I guess there ain’t nothing that don’t come to an end sometime.
When we got there she took us in the kitchen and fed us peach cobbler and coffee. Gid was quiet as a mouse. After a while she went out in the smokehouse and brought in some kerosene for him to soak his arm in.
He perked right up. “Oh, is that all?” he said. He couldn’t get his sleeve up fast enoug
h. I guess he thought she went after the dehorning saw.
“Yell if she gets too rough,” I said. “I got to go outside. Smelling that kerosene ain’t good for a healthy man.”
I went out back and sat on the steps. You could see way off west, across Molly’s land and a lot of Gid’s. Her back bedroom was a nice place to wake up. The clouds to the west were peeling away like layers of gauze, and it wasn’t long before the sun was shining on the wet mesquite. I could hear her and Gid talking through the screen door. It was childish, but it made me feel left out. I knew all about it. Old as they was, Gid was still halfway talking about leaving Mabel and coming to live with Molly, and she was halfway encouraging it. And it would have been a good thing for Gid and her both, I guess; it just made me feel a little left out. We had both hung around her so long. Course Gid ought to left Mabel. Living with her thirty years was no judgment, in my book. But she had a grandkid to hold over him. I got up and walked around to the garden, to see how the tomatoes and the roasting ears were holding out. I seen I was going to have to make it around for supper a little more often, if I was going to beat the blister bugs to what there was. Molly kind of expected me for supper anyway, a lot of times.
When I came out of the garden the sun was so bright that I went around to the front of the house, where the shade was. In a little while Gid come out on the porch; he had about half a bedsheet wrapped around his arm, and he was grinning like a possum.
“I’m as good as new,” he said.
Molly came out with three big glasses of buttermilk and a plate of cold cornbread. Nobody had much to say, so we sat quiet for a change, eating cornbread and buttermilk. Once in a while the conversation would kinda settle; I guess we were all thinking about old times. Finally I looked around and Molly and Gid were staring off across the pastures, not seeing anything.
“What time is it?” I said. They both jumped.