“That’s your wife?”
“That’s Dene,” Clay said proudly, tossing his head.
“I’ll bet a pretty you don’t give her a minute’s rest, coz,” Semon said.
Semon leaned towards Clay and jabbed him in the ribs with his stiff thumb. Clay jumped clear of the chair, yelling as if he had been shot.
“Good God Almighty, man!” he cried. “Don’t never do that again! I just can’t stand to be goosed!”
Semon turned away as if nothing had occurred.
“I know what you mean, Horey,” he said solemnly. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s anticipating. That’s the word! When a girl or woman knows how to anticipate what a man is going to crave the next minute, whether it’s hugging or kissing, or eating or warming, or just good old-fashioned poontang, then that’s the kind of girl a man will get right out and scrap like a pack of bob-cats for.”
“That’s my wife?” Clay asked, leaning forward. “That’s Dene?”
“That’s her,” Semon said, nodding and scratching his leg. “Coz, that’s her all right, all right.”
Clay got up and walked to the steps and back. He stood looking at Semon Dye, his eyes popping.
“I’ll be doggone,” he said, looking at Semon in amazement. “I’ll just be doggone, if I won’t!”
“What’s the matter with you, Horey?”
“You talk real smart, Semon,” Clay said. “I’ll be doggone if you don’t talk just exactly like I feel to myself.”
Chapter II
SEMON LEANED FORWARD and thrust a big red hand at Clay that looked like the cured ham of a suckling pig. Clay looked at it and then, not knowing what else to do, he grasped the stiff thumb and shook it from side to side. When he had finished, he tried to turn it loose, but Semon had clasped his fingers around Clay’s hand.
“It seems to me like me and you are just about the same two kind of men,” he said. “Me and you ought to hit it off together in fine style after this. Let’s shake hands on it, Horey.”
Semon shook his hand until Clay could feel very little life left in his arm.
“I don’t seem to catch on to what you’re driving at,” Clay said in a daze, drawing in his hand and rubbing the fingers back to life.
“It takes a girl like what-you-call-her to make a couple of men like us understand one another,” Semon said. “That’s us, coz. When you told me your wife was the anticipating kind, then I just naturally knew that me and you were going to get along together like two peas in a pod.”
“Have you got a wife like her, too?” Clay asked.
“Me?” Semon said. “Well, no. I aint. I lost the last one I had, coz. She went to live in Atlanta three years ago.”
Clay studied the tops of his brogans for several moments. He could not look at Semon then.
“I feel downright sorry for you, Semon,” he said finally. “I sure enough do. But I don’t know what to say about it. It looks like you was kind of figuring on me helping you out, or something. Now, me and Dene, doggone it—”
Semon stretched out his long arm and slapped Clay on the back.
“I came here to preach, Horey,” he said. “The Lord God of us all sent me into Georgia to preach the wickedness out of you people. He said the worst people in the whole world live in Georgia, and I told him I’d do my damnedest with you all.”
“Where did you figure on doing all this preaching?”
“In your church,” Semon said. “I take it you people have got a church.”
“What church?”
“The church you people have here. The Rocky Comfort church. You’ve got a church, haven’t you?”
Clay looked across the road towards the pines.
“You sure have got me up a tree,” he said at last. “If there is such a thing in Rocky Comfort, I sure don’t know which way to turn to find it.”
“Where do the people go to hear preaching, then?”
“Nobody hears it, not that I know about. There used to be a church up the road there, about a mile or more, at the bend of the creek, but it’s been made over into a guano shed. Tom Rhodes, up there, keeps fertilizer in it in the spring. Then, when fall comes, he puts his cottonseed in it. Tom tore out all the pews and the pulpit and split them up for stovewood. That Tom Rhodes might be the one to see about it, but it wouldn’t do no good, because Tom wouldn’t let you use it, anyway.”
“I reckon we’ll have to make use of the schoolhouse, then,” Semon said after several minutes’ silence. “How far away is the schoolhouse?”
“About a mile and a half. It’s up there on the other side of Tom’s place.”
“He didn’t make use of that too, did he?”
“Tom didn’t molest the schoolhouse. They keep school up there three or four months of the year, some years. Tom let that alone.”
“Then I’ll preach in it Sunday. You can spread the word about so the people will know I’m going to preach.”
“Won’t be no sense in doing that,” Clay said. “Everybody’ll know about it, all right. Can’t a doggone thing happen in Rocky Comfort without the news of it spreading like wild-fire.”
Semon held up his hand.
“Shhh!” he whispered. “Who’s that?”
“Where?” Clay asked. “I don’t see a solitary soul nowhere.”
Semon got up and walked softly around Clay’s chair towards the door. When he appeared to be on the verge of running inside, Clay jumped up and beat him to it.
“Now, hold on here, Semon. What you fixing to do?”
“I heard somebody right inside one of these windows,” Semon said. “I wanted to see who it was.”
“Doggone it, this here is my house,” Clay said. “I’ll do the looking if there’s any to be done.”
“Go see who you can find, Horey, and bring them out here,” Semon told him. “I’ll sit right down and wait.”
Clay looked into the hall, waiting for Semon to sit down in the chair. When Semon had seated himself, Clay tip-toed inside.
In a few minutes the sounds of somebody scuffling reached the porch. Semon got up and waited. He was at the door when Clay came through the hall, pulling Dene behind him.
“Now, she’s shy of strangers,” Clay apologized. “Don’t be taken back if she acts scared and tries to run off. She’s just turned fifteen, like I said, and she aint got accustomed to seeing strange folks yet.”
Semon caught her other arm and helped Clay bring her out on the porch. When they were outside, Semon smiled at Dene and patted her lightly on the buttocks. Clay swallowed hard.
“Now wait a minute, here,” he said.
“Don’t get all wrought up, coz,” Semon said. “I’m just trying to pacify her. It’s just like stroking the wildness out of a colt. You can’t do a thing with them until you stroke them some and make them forget their excitement. You being a farmer, you ought to know that.”
Clay stepped forward and gave Semon a shove. Semon did not budge an inch.
“Doggone it, now,” Clay said. “I don’t like that one bit.”
Semon smiled down at Dene, and she looked up at him. He stroked her some more.
“See there, coz?” Semon said, looking at Clay. “What did I tell you? That’s all it takes to tame the wildest colt or the most fidgety woman. Seeing is believing, ain’t it, coz?”
Clay pushed Dene towards a chair. She sat down quickly, looking first at one and then the other. Clay felt relieved when she sat down. He glared across at Semon.
“Dene never got accustomed to a stranger like that before,” he said, “but I don’t reckon it was her fault this time.”
“Now, just sit down and calm yourself, Horey. We’re all of a color here, and there’s no sense in flying off the handle. We don’t want to have a falling out so soon. Especially, when I’m tickled to death to be here. I feel sort of proud to be visiting a man with such a fine-looking wife.”
Dene got up from her chair and tried to leave the porch. Clay grabbed her.
“Where you go
ing now, Dene?” he said.
“To see about supper,” she told him.
“I reckon it is getting on close to the time to eat, at that. You’d better tell Sugar to cook up a company dish for supper. Semon’ll be mighty hungry.”
Dene got up again and ran across the porch. Long after she had disappeared from sight, Semon continued to look after her.
“Who’s Sugar?” he said suddenly.
“Sugar?” Clay said. “Why, Sugar’s the cook.”
“Does she happen to be a colored girl, coz?”
“Sugar’s that, all right, only she’s not black. She’s sort of yellow.”
“High yellow, eh, Horey? Well, well, well!”
Semon studied the outline of the magnolia tree in front of the house, breathing deeply of the odor of the tree.
“You’ve got a right nice little wife, too, Horey,” he said finally, nodding at Clay. “You ought to be pretty well fixed, all in all.”
“Dene’s all a man could beg for, I reckon. I’ve been married three or four or five times so far, and Dene’s my pick of the lot. The one I had just before I married her was fair-to-middling. That was Lorene, whose little boy Vearl is down the road there now. Lorene was one of the finest wives I ever had, but she got so she didn’t seem to give a whoop whether she pleased me or not. Sometimes I’d say she didn’t care whether she stayed a jump behind all the time, or a jump ahead. I couldn’t complain about Dene, though. She’s always that all-fired jump ahead of me.”
“You mean to say she anticipates you,” Semon said. “She has that rare gift of anticipating. I see that myself now, after I’ve met her. You are dead right about it. She does give a fellow the notion that she’s the anticipating kind.”
Clay sat up erect.
“What in the doggone hell do you know about what Dene does?” he said angrily.
“I was just helping you out with the big word, coz,” Semon said.
“Well, now,” Clay said, “I don’t give a doggone if you are a preacher, but I don’t aim to have you butting in all the time like that.”
“Take care, Horey,” Semon said severely. “I’m a man of God, I am!”
“I don’t give a hoot who you are. You ain’t past looking at a woman, are you?”
“Now, wait a minute, Horey. You’re taking the hurdles before you get to them. Just what are you driving at, anyway?”
Clay jumped up, his fists doubling.
“I don’t like for no man, be he preacher or be he sinner, to be coming around and patting Dene on the behind like you did.”
“I don’t see how you can talk like that,” Semon said. “I was taming her just as much for you as I was for myself, coz.”
“That’s all I want to know,” Clay said, turning and walking heavily into the house.
Chapter III
WHEN SUPPER WAS OVER, they walked out into the yard. The sun had set, but the hour’s twilight had just begun. There was a thin layer of blue smoke hovering close to the earth. The wild-fires on the ridge that had been smoldering all day in the sun began to blaze in jagged outline against the sky.
Semon strode around the yard, looking, listening, and breathing deeply. Clay tried to keep up with him, but Semon did not notice him. He moved about the yard as restlessly as a fox in a cage.
“What’s galling you, Semon?” Clay asked him, running in front of Semon and blocking his path. “I’ll be doggone if I ever saw a man carry on like you do. What’s tormenting you, anyway?”
Semon craned his neck to look down at Clay. In the twilight his face looked like a sheet of pebble-grain leather.
“It’s like this, Horey,” he said, leaning closer. “My wife has been gone from me for three or four years now, and I’ve never married again. Women like to stay in one place, where they can have a house and grow flowers and raise children. But I can’t settle down. And as long as I’m a traveling preacher, I reckon I’ll be wifeless.”
“That’s a doggone shame,” Clay said.
He did not look at Semon. If he had had a little more nerve, he told himself, he would have advised Semon to pack up his belongings and go somewhere else before night set in. Before he could get really good and mad, Semon slapped him on the back and winked at him with one of the slits in his leather-tight face.
“I feel horny tonight,” Semon said, nodding his head. “How about showing me a little fun, coz?”
He jabbed at Clay with his stiff thumb, but Clay was too quick for him. He stood back and looked up at the leather-colored face jutting into the sky.
“You know what I mean, coz,” Semon said, nodding his head.
Clay caught himself nodding his own head. To save his life he could not keep from doing that.
Before he knew it, he was following Semon across the yard and running beside him in the road.
“Which house does Sugar live in?” Semon said, striding ahead no matter how fast Clay walked to keep abreast.
“Now, you don’t mean Sugar, doggone it,” Clay said.
He saw there was no way to stop Semon from going to Sugar’s house. He hoped Hardy was not there. Just before reaching the cabin, Clay stopped.
“Don’t be lagging behind, Horey,” Semon said, grasping his shirt and pulling him along. “I want you to knock on the door and call her outside.”
After passing the first cabin, where Susan and George lived, and where Vearl slept and played, they stopped in the road in front of the next house. There was no light in the front room, but from the kitchen they could hear sounds of laughter.
“Go on, Horey,” Semon said, pushing him.
Clay found himself stumbling across the ditch into the yard. He went slowly to the back door.
Sugar was sitting in a chair at the door. She was as surprised to see Clay as he was to be there.
“Why, howdy, Mr. Clay,” she said, getting up.
“You better come around to the front a minute, Sugar,” he said.
She followed him around the house to the middle of the road. Semon was standing in the same tracks Clay had left him in.
“Here she is,” he said. “Here’s Sugar.”
Semon grabbed her in the darkness before she knew what had happened. She tried to twist out of his grip, but Semon held her firmly.
“Look out there, white-folks,” Sugar said. “What you trying to do to me?”
Semon put one of his arms around her and began patting her buttocks. Clay watched them with his mouth hanging open. Sugar stopped twisting and struggling and appeared to be standing still of her own accord. Clay stepped closer and watched Semon stroke her into submission.
“I’ll be doggone if I ever saw the likes in all my life,” Clay said. “That’s the doggonest little trick I ever laid eyes on.”
Semon craned his neck and looked around at Clay. There was an opening and closing of one of his eyes that made Clay blink in admiration. He could not stay angry with a fellow who acted like that.
“There’s nothing like knowing how, coz,” Semon said.
Clay walked in a circle around them trying to see all that was taking place. When he got back, Semon was still patting Sugar.
“My Hardy would choke the life out of me if he caught me messing around,” Sugar said.
“This is different, Sugar,” Semon said. “You’re not messing around with one of your own race. I’m a white man.”
“And what else?” Sugar asked.
“I’m a preacher, too.”
“Uh-huh! I thought so!”
Semon stroked her some more.
“Man, you oughtn’t be messing around like this. Looks like you’d leave colored girls alone and attend to your business.”
Clay began pulling at Semon’s sleeve. He finally got him started back up the road, after Semon had told Sugar something that he could not hear.
When they were half way up the road, Semon asked him why he had pulled him away like that.
“I heard Hardy coming somewhere,” Clay said. “I’ll be doggone if I want to get mixe
d up in anything that you started.”
They walked the rest of the way without talking again. When they got to the house, Clay started up the steps to the porch, but Semon stopped and looked back at the quarter where the cabins were. Clay went back down the steps.
“Come on in on the porch and sit down,” Clay said. “I wouldn’t stand up out here.”
“I’m waiting for Sugar,” Semon said. “She’ll be along in a little while.”
Clay gazed up into the leather-hard face.
“I didn’t know you told her to come up here to the house. What makes you think she’s coming?”
“I told her, all right,” Semon said. “She’ll come.”
Clay sat down on the bottom step, looking at Semon all the time. He did not know what to think about a man like that.
Presently he turned around and caught Dene standing behind him looking at Semon. She did not know Clay had seen her.
“What you doing, Dene?” he said, turning around and catching her before she could get away.
“Just looking,” she said.
“Looking at what?”
“At him,” she said, pointing at Semon in the yard. “He’s the handsomest thing.”
“If I ever catch you making up to him, I’ll thrash the hide off you, Dene. That’s one thing I won’t stand for at all.”
He turned her loose, but she did not run away. After looking at Semon a little longer she sat down in the rockingchair by the door. Clay could hear her rocking back and forth, but he did not look back at her again. He was busy wondering if there was going to be any trouble that night. He knew he could not handle Semon.
Semon had gone to the road several times, only to come back and stride up and down the yard. He did not look in Clay’s direction.
Clay heard Dene stop rocking.
“He’s the potentest thing,” she said.
“Now, look here, doggone it all,” Clay said, jumping up and running up the steps.
He ran to her chair and shook her.
Just when he was getting ready to scold her for talking the way she did, he heard Semon run across the yard to the road. Clay was able to see Sugar coming up the road.