“If there’s one thing I’ve tried all my life to do, it’s to keep peace in the family,” he told Will. “I reckon I’d just fold up and die away if I saw blood spilled on my land. I’d never be able to get over the sight of it. I’d die to keep that from happening. I couldn’t stand to see blood on my land.”
“There’s not going to be blood spilt, if Buck keeps his mouth shut and minds his own business. I’ve never tried to pick a fight with him. He always starts it, just like he started it this morning. I never even went close enough to him to say anything. He just came up and looked mean and started calling me a son-of-a-bitch and a lint-head, and the rest. That’s all right with me. I don’t intend to fight your boys for a little thing like that. But he keeps it up, rubbing it in all the time, and there’s where the trouble is going to really start. If he’d say what it is he’s got to say, and let it go with that, then it would be all right with me. But he hangs around saying it all day long. Tell him to shut up, if you don’t want to see blood spilt on your land.”
Ty Ty cocked his ears and listened. An automobile was slowing down to turn into the yard. Pluto Swint drove in and stopped under the shade of one of the live-oak trees. He got out laboriously, compressing his big round belly with the palms of his hands so he could squeeze himself between the door and the steeringwheel.
“I’m glad to see you, Pluto,” Ty Ty said. He remained beside Will on the steps and waited for Pluto to come over and sit down. “I sure am glad to see you, Pluto. You got here just when I like to see you most. Somehow, it seems like you sort of bring a calming influence when you come. I can sit here now and feel satisfied that there won’t be nothing to cause harm to me or mine.”
Pluto blew and puffed and wiped his face free of perspiration, taking a seat on the steps. He looked at Will, nodding his head. Will spoke to him.
“Counted many votes today, so far?” Ty Ty asked.
“Not yet,” Pluto answered, still blowing and puffing. “I couldn’t get an early start today, and this is all the distance I’ve gone.”
“Ain’t it hot?”
“It’s sizzling today,” Pluto said. “And that’s a fact.”
Will took out his pocketknife and broke off a splinter on the steps and began whittling it. He could hear Buck saying something about him down in the hole around the house, but he was not interested in what he was saying.
“Me and Rosamond have got to go home today.”
Ty Ty looked at him quickly, on the verge of protesting, but he held his tongue after a moment’s thought. He wished to have Will there to help them dig, but Will would not dig, and he was of no help. That being the case, Ty Ty reasoned that it would be better for Will and Rosamond to go back to Scottsville. As long as Will remained there, Buck was going to make threats, and Will might not be so reasonable after another day. The safest and wisest course, Ty Ty said to himself, would be to let Will and Rosamond go home.
“I reckon we could have taken you last night when we were in Augusta,” he said, “but it was pretty late, for one thing, and everybody wanted to come back and go to bed.”
“I’ll get Darling Jill to take us to Marion and we’ll catch a bus. I’ve got to get back before night.”
Ty Ty was relieved to think that perhaps there would be no trouble between Buck and Will after all. If they left soon, Buck would not have a chance to challenge Will.
“I’ll go tell Darling Jill to get ready and drive you and Rosamond into town,” he said rising.
“Sit down,” Will told him, “and let’s wait a while. There’s no hurry. It’s only about eleven o’clock now. We’ll wait till after dinner.”
Ty Ty sat down uneasily. The best he could hope for was that Will and Buck would not meet before then.
“How’s politics now, Pluto?” he asked, trying to take his mind off such an unpleasant subject.
“Getting hot,” Pluto said. “The candidates ain’t content to count a vote once any longer; they’re going out now and counting them over again to make sure they ain’t lost them to somebody else. This running around all over the country has got me worn to a frazzle already. I don’t see how I can keep up the chase like this for another six weeks.”
“Now Pluto,” Ty Ty said confidently, “you know you’ll win in a walk. Every man I’ve talked with since New Year’s Day has told me he was going to vote for you.”
“Saying he’s going to vote for me and doing it when the time comes is as far apart as the land and the sky. I don’t put any trust in politics. I’ve been mixed up in them since I was twenty-two years old, and I know.”
Ty Ty studied the smooth white sand in the yard, his eyes following the line of small round pebbles under the eaves of the porch where the water drained to the ground.
“I was just thinking, Pluto, that maybe you’d like to drive a little trip today.”
“Where to?”
“Taking Will and Rosamond over to Horse Creek Valley in your car. I know the girls would be tickled to death to ride over there and back with you.”
“I’ve got to be getting on down the road to count votes,” Pluto protested. “And that’s a fact.”
“Now, you know you’d be pleased to ride over there and back, Pluto, carrying such fine-looking girls in your car. You ain’t going to count votes sitting here in the yard, anyhow.”
“I’ve got to get out and count votes all day long.”
Ty Ty got up and went into the house, leaving Will and Pluto on the steps. Will rolled a cigarette and borrowed a match from Pluto. The sound of the pick striking the hard clay in the bottom of the crater around the house rose and fell in their ears to the rhythm of Uncle Felix’s work-song. Pluto would have liked to have gone to the hole and looked down into it to see how deep it had been dug, but it was too much of an exertion for him to get up. He sat listening to the sound of the picks, trying to determine from the sound how deep the hole was. After he had thought about it a while, he was glad he had not gone around the house to look into it. He did not particularly care how deep it was, anyway; and, on top of that, if he had gone, the sight of seeing Buck and Shaw, the two darkies, and Dave sweating in the air-tight hole would have made him much hotter than he was already.
He looked up to see Darling Jill standing beside him. She was freshly dressed, swinging a wide-brimmed hat in her hands. She looked as if she were getting ready to go somewhere without consulting him. Will moved over a little and she sat down between them, putting her arm through Pluto’s and placing her cheek against his shoulder.
“Pa said you were going to take Griselda and me for a ride to Scottsville,” she smiled. “I didn’t know anything about it until he came just now and told me.”
Will laughed, leaning forward to see Pluto’s face.
“I can’t do that,” Pluto protested.
“Now, Pluto, if you loved me a little you would.”
“Well, I do that, anyway.”
“Then you’ll take us over with you when you take Will and Rosamond home.”
“I’ve got to get out and count some votes,” he said.
She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Pluto beamed. He leaned closer so she would do it again.
“You can’t be wasting your time canvassing for votes today, Pluto.”
“I don’t reckon I can,” he said. “Can’t you do that another time?”
“Once before we leave, and once before we start back,” she promised.
“I sure can’t get elected like this,” Pluto said. “And that’s a fact.”
“There’ll be plenty of time after today, Pluto.” She allowed his hand to rest on her knees, and watched him closely while he lifted her skirt and slipped his fingers under her garter.
“You’re nothing but a big overgrown baby, Pluto. You’re always wanting something you can’t have.”
“What do you say to getting married, Darling Jill?” he asked, his face flushing.
“It’s not time yet.”
“Why isn’t it time yet?”
“Because I’d have to be a few months gone before I’d do that.”
“It won’t be long then,” Will said, winking at Pluto.
Pluto was slow to understand what Darling Jill meant. He started to ask her, but he was silenced by Darling Jill’s and Will’s laughter.
“It won’t be long if that fellow from the swamp stays here another week or so,” Will said.
“Dave?” Darling Jill asked, making a face. “He’s nothing. I wouldn’t hurt Pa’s little white-haired boy.”
Pluto smiled contentedly when he heard her dismiss the albino so completely.
“Well, if you’re going to forget him,” Will said, “was I something, or wasn’t I?”
“To tell the truth,” she confessed, “you’ve got me worried.”
“You ought to be. When I drive a nail into a plank, it stays driven.”
“What’s that you’re talking about got to do with getting married, Darling Jill?” Pluto asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she replied, winking at Will. “Will was just counting the daisies he picked.”
“Well, I’m ready to get married,” Pluto said.
“Well, I’m not,” she said. “And that’s a fact, too.”
Will got up, laughing at Pluto, and went into the house to get ready to leave. Pluto put his arm around Darling Jill and hugged her. He knew he was going to drive them to Scottsville, because he would have done anything in the world Darling Jill asked. She sat close to him, submissive, while he squeezed her in his arms. She liked him, she knew she did. She thought she loved him, too, and in spite of his protruding stomach and his laziness. When the time came, she would marry him. She had already settled that much. What she did not know, was when the time would be.
Sitting so close to him then, she wished to tell him that she was sorry she had treated him so meanly at times, and had called him such vulgar names. When she turned to speak to him, however, she was afraid to say anything. She began to wonder of the wisdom of telling Pluto she was sorry she had been free with Will and Dave and with all the others while refusing him. She decided in that moment not to say anything about it, because it would not matter to him that she did not say it. She loved Pluto too much to see him hurt needlessly.
“Maybe next week we can get married, Darling Jill?”
“I don’t know, Pluto. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
“I can’t keep on waiting all the time,” he said. “And that’s a fact.”
“But if you know you are going to marry me, you can wait a little while longer.”
“That would be all right, maybe,” he agreed, “if it wasn’t that I’m scared somebody is going to come along and take you off some day.”
“If I do go away with somebody, Pluto, I’ll come back in time to marry you.”
Pluto hugged her with both arms, trying to hold her so tightly that the impression of her body against his would be in his memory forever. She at last freed herself and stood up.
“It’s time to leave, Pluto. I’ll go get Will and Rosamond. Griselda ought to be ready by now.”
Pluto walked out toward his car in the shade. He turned just in time to see Buck crawl out of the big hole and walk around the corner of the house. He met Griselda as she ran out the front door.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Darling Jill and I are going to ride over to Scottsville with Pluto,” she said, trembling. “We’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch,” he said, running up the steps. Buck was angry and hot. His clay-soiled clothes and his perspiration-matted hair gave him the appearance of a man suddenly become desperate.
“Please, Buck,” she begged.
“Where is he now?”
She tried to talk to Buck, but he would not listen to her. Just then Ty Ty came out of the house and took Buck by the arm.
“You’d better leave me alone, now,” he told Ty Ty. “Let the girls go for the ride, Buck. There ain’t no harm in that.”
“You’d better turn me loose, now.”
“It’s all right, Buck,” Ty Ty argued. “Darling Jill and Rosamond will be along, and Pluto in the car, too. Let the girls go along for the ride. Can’t no harm come of that.”
“I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch, now,” Buck said unchanged. He was not impressed by his father’s assurance of Griselda’s safety.
“Buck,” Griselda begged, “please don’t be angry. There’s nothing to talk like that about.”
Ty Ty led him down the steps into the yard and tried to talk with him.
“You’d better leave me alone, now,” he said again. They began walking up and down in the yard, Ty Ty leading him by the arm. After a while, Buck pulled away and went back to the crater beside the house. He was not so angry as he had been, and not nearly so hot, and he was willing to go back to work and let Griselda go in the car to Scottsville. He went back where Shaw and Dave and the two colored men were without saying another word.
When they were certain Buck had gone to the crater to stay, Darling Jill and Rosamond stopped holding Will in the house and allowed him to come out and get into the car.
Chapter XV
They reached Scottsville in the upper end of the Valley two hours later.
Will had jumped out of the car when they stopped in front of the house and had run down the street, shouting back over his shoulder for them to stay until he came home. That had been in the middle of the afternoon, and at six he had not returned.
Pluto was anxious to get back to Georgia, and Griselda was frantic. She did not know what Buck might do to her for not returning home immediately, and it frightened her to think about it. She was glad to stay as long as she could, though, because it was the first time she had ever been in Horse Creek Valley, and the feeling of the company town gave her a pleasure she had never before experienced. The rows of yellow company houses, all looking alike to the eye, were individual homes to her now. She could look into the yellow company house next door and almost hear the exact words the people were saying. There was nothing like that in Marion. The houses in Marion were buildings with closed doors and uninviting windows. Here in Scottsville there was a murmuring mass of humanity, always on the verge of filling the air with a concerted shout.
Pluto and Darling Jill had made a freezer of ice cream while they were waiting for Will to come home. At dark when he still had not returned, they ate the cream with graham crackers for the evening meal. Pluto was still restless, wishing to get back to Georgia. He felt uncomfortable in Horse Creek Valley and he did not like to think too much of the probability of being there long after dark. For some reason he was suspicious of cotton mill towns, and firmly believed that after dark people came out of hiding and preyed upon strangers, robbing them and beating them if not actually murdering them.
“I really believe Pluto is scared to go out of the house after dark,” Darling Jill said.
Pluto trembled at the suggestion, clutching his chair. He was afraid, and if one of them asked him to go to a store down the street on an errand he would refuse to leave the house. At home in Marion he was afraid of nothing; the darkness of night had never cowed him before in all his life. But here in the Valley he trembled with acute fear; he did not know at what minute somebody would run through the unlocked door and strike him dead in his tracks.
“Will can’t possibly stay out much longer,” Rosamond said. “He always comes home for supper at night.”
“I wish we could go, anyway,” Griselda said. “Buck will be wild.”
“Both of you are scared to death,” Darling Jill laughed. “There’s nothing to be scared of here, is there, Rosamond?”
Rosamond laughed. “Of course not.”
Through the open windows the soft summer night floated into the room. It was a soft night, and it was warm; but with the evening air there was something else that excited Griselda. She could hear sounds, voices, murmurs that were like none she had ever heard before. A ‘woman’s laughter, a child’s excited
cry, and the faint gurgle of a waterfall somewhere below all came into the room together; there was a feeling in the air of living people just like herself, and this she had never felt before. The new knowledge that all those people out there, all those sounds, were as real as she herself was made her heart beat faster. Never had the noises of Augusta sounded like these; in the city there were other sounds of another race of people. Here in Scottsville the people were as real as she herself was at that moment.
Will came in then, surprising her, and walked as noiselessly as a soft-toed animal. Griselda felt like running to him and throwing her arms around his neck when she first saw him. He was one of the persons she had felt in the night air.
He stood in the door of the room looking at them.
There was a look on Will’s face that forced Griselda to suppress a cry that rose to her throat. She had never seen an expression on anyone’s face such as he had. There was a painful plea in his eyes, a look that she had seen wounded animals have. And the lines of his face, the position of his head on his shoulders, something, whatever it was, was horrifying to look upon.
He seemed to be trying to say something. He looked as if he were bursting with words that he could not turn loose. All the things she had ever heard Rosamond say about the cotton mill down there below were written on his face more plainly than human words could express.
Will was speaking to Rosamond. His lips moved in the form of words long before she heard them. It was like looking through a pair of binoculars at a man speaking afar off, and seeing his lips move before the sound reached her ears. She looked at him wild-eyed.
“We had the meeting,” he told Rosamond. “But they wouldn’t listen to Harry and me. They voted to arbitrate. You know what that means.”