A Woman on the Place Read online

  She didn’t say anything but a shiver coursed through her and Rhodes saw how tired she was. So tired she was about to drop, about to cry, about to give up and crumple right there on the floor.

  Before they could leave the room, Grandpa leaned forward and spat tobacco juice into the fire so it flared orange and blue-green. His high voice filled the whole room, the whole house.

  “Tom, you always was the dangdest fool I ever met. Now here you’ve gone up to Alabama and married yourself one of them Alabama girls that anybody in this world can see you ain’t man enough to git against good. Why’d you ever want to do a fool trick like that for? I’ve knowed girls like this here one. So danged purty the horses act up when she walks past a fence. Sure. But pretty ain’t everything. You git a girl like this here, you got to gentle her. If’n you’re man enough to gentle her, why there’s nothing more gentle in this here world. But you ain’t man enough. And when you ain’t man enough to gentle her, you’re sure God’s worst fool for tangling up with her.”

  Lena spoke up. “Rhodes, you show your Cousin Rosanne to their room. Take her bundle for her.”

  Will had already gone out to the kitchen. Rhodes heard him moving around out there. He hated to leave because Cousin Tom was laughing at what Grandpa said. Cousin Tom brayed when he laughed.

  “Lord, Gran’pa, I’d forgotten what you was like. Did you hear him, Rosanne? Ain’t nothing this old man don’t know about everything.”

  “No, Tom. You’re wrong about that there. There’s plenty I don’t know. But about gentlin’ women, I know. I been up and down the road for quite a spell. I’ve seen it. Seen a man kill his woman for alley-cattin’ with some other man, but that there husband knowed in his heart all the time that the fault was his’n, well as hers. A man leaves a woman hungry — she’s bound to git her saucer of milk somewhere — and you can just bet on that. Don’t happen much. Mostly any man’s enough for a woman — but git one that ain’t happy — and that’s when there’s rip-roaring hell, and I’ve seen a lot of rip-roaring hell in my day up and down the road. I know about that itch that gits in them, and God help the husband that ain’t man enough to soothe that itch.”

  “I can take care of my woman, Grandpa. She knows already who is boss.” Cousin Tom brayed again. “Had a little trouble at first. She run away on me. But she’s meek, Gran’pa. Meek as any lamb.”

  “Is she, Tom?” Grandpa had an odd way of sounding as if he agreed with you when he really didn’t agree at all.

  Tom snorted suddenly. “I said she was.” He doubled his fist, held it for all of them to see. It looked like a ham hung to cure. “She knows what she’ll get for actin’ up.”

  “Fists are no good,” Grandpa said.

  “That’s enough, Grandpa,” Lena said. “You stop teasing poor Cousin Tom.”

  “I’m not teasing him. He knows I’m not teasing him. That’s what he’s making all the noise about. He ain’t been married long.” Grandpa Wilkes winked one eye hard. “But long enough to learn it takes more than a fist to quiet this one — eh, Tom?”

  Cousin Tom didn’t say anything. He just moved closer to the fire and stood staring down into it.

  • • •

  He led the way up the narrow stairs, carrying Cousin Rosanne’s bundle. Rhodes knew there couldn’t be much in it, only a few clothes because it weighed hardly anything at all.

  He opened the door of the guest room that the colored house girl had fixed up for Cousin Tom and his wife.

  “This here is your room, Cousin Rosanne.”

  She stepped inside. “It looks fine,” she said. She smiled. “I’m sure it is fine.”

  She looked so tired and so scared and so alone, Rhodes tried to think of something nice to say. “The bathroom is right there at the end of the hall, Cousin Rosanne. And as soon as you’re washed up, I reckon supper will be fixed for you.”

  She nodded. “Your Pa is real nice, Rhodes, to fix for us like this.”

  Rhodes said, “He ain’t my Pa, Cousin Rosanne. Not my rightful Pa. My Pa died when I was five. Will come here looking for work, and my folks took him in. He didn’t have nothing in this world.” Rhodes had heard his mother remind Will of this often enough. “He stayed on and took care of the farm for Mama after Pa died. Then they got married.”

  “Has — she been ill like this very long?”

  Rhodes nodded. “Nearly the past five years. But Will takes care of her. He waits on her, carries her up and down the stairs.”

  “He seems real nice.”

  “He knows he had nothing in this world and Mama took him in. I reckon he’s right grateful.”

  “I’m sure he must be.”

  There didn’t seem anything else to say.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RHODES and Will were just washing up after milking the next morning. Will was silent, and Rhodes didn’t try to talk to him. After last night he knew Will had plenty of worries. Worries that talk wouldn’t help.

  Rhodes watched the steam billow when he breathed in the cold air, even the warm cow droppings were smoking in the stalls. He decided he loved the cold of winter better than any other time of the year. He felt better. When it got hot in the scrub, people looked for shade and if they were lucky enough to find it they sprawled out in it. In the winter they had all the energy they were going to have all year.

  “Anything I can do to help?” Cousin Tom met them when they stepped out of the barn.

  “Just on our way to breakfast, Tom,” Will said.

  Tom laughed. “That’s what I’m the biggest help at.” Will’s laugh was polite, but Rhodes looked at Cousin Tom and felt the big man wasn’t joking. Looked like he’d timed his offer.

  Tom put his hand on Will’s arm. They stopped just outside the bam. Chickens moved about in the bare gray sand as if they were chill-cramped.

  Will and Rhodes stopped. Rhodes looked up at Cousin Tom’s heavy jowled face. Cousin Tom said, “I want you to understand, Will. I hate crowdin’ in on you like this here.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Sure. I know this is Cousin Lena’s place. But I don’t want to be bargin’ in unless it’s all right with you, too.”

  “It’s all right with me.”

  Grandpa came out of the barn behind them. He was so deep in coats and shawls they could hardly see his face when his hat was pulled down. He had a basket of stove wood.

  Grandpa said, “What kind of trouble you have up there in Alabama, Tom?”

  Rhodes watched the blood suffuse his Cousin Tom’s cheeks. “We didn’t have no trouble. I got out of work a while. That was all.”

  Grandpa peered at him from under his hat. Steam puffed from his lips when he spoke. “Out of a job? There’s just as many jobs up there in Alabama as down here in Florida. More. No. That ain’t why you come.”

  “It’s none of our business why Tom came, Gran’pa,” Will said.

  Grandpa snorted. “Why, I don’t know whether it is or not. If’n he just come because he liked our climate, and missed this here part of the world, why that there is one thing. But it’s entire something else if he’s in trouble up there. We got troubles of our own, Tom. You know that. If you got in some trouble up there that might follow you down here and tangle these folks in it, why you better speak up right now.”

  Cousin Tom brayed with laughter. At that moment the back door slammed, the sound sharpened in the cold air. Rosanne came out on the back stoop and down the steps with a colander of chicken feed. She walked out into the yard and began to toss the feed and call to the chickens.

  Cousin Tom watched his wife. They all did, and Rhodes saw in Will’s face a tension that puzzled and frightened him. Even when Cousin Tom talked directly to him, Will didn’t take his gaze from Rosanne across the yard.

  Cousin Tom said, “I got no troubles like that, Gran’pa. Why you know if I did have, I’d speak right up and tell you.”

  “I don’t know,” Grandpa said. “You always was one of the shifty Wilkes, Tom. I never did trust y
ou any further that I could have throwed you, even when you was a kid.”

  “Well, that’s a fine way to talk,” Tom said.

  “You never did tell us why you come back down here, Tom.”

  Cousin Tom stared down at Grandpa. It seemed to Rhodes that Cousin Tom’s small eyes were going to lose themselves in their fat-pockets. After a moment, Cousin Tom sighed out and laughed.

  “You always was a suspicious old devil, Gran’pa,” he said. “I come back down here because I didn’t have no place else to go. I need a place to stay. I’ll farm or whatever I can do. But I ain’t going back up there to Alabama.”

  Grandpa persisted, still watching Rosanne across the yard. “You didn’t knife nobody, Tom? Oh shoot ’em? Or brain ’em with a jack handle?”

  Cousin Tom’s voice shook. “What you trying to say, Gran’pa?”

  “I reckon I’m saying it plain enough.” He blew a long cloud of cold-smoke. Rosanne started back into the kitchen. “Will you look at that there walk on that white girl?”

  “Best looking country girl in the whole state of Alabama,” Tom said. His voice was proud.

  “It ain’t just her looks,” Grandpa went on. “It’s more’n looks. Looks is something a woman has for a while and then loses. Some of ’em quicker than others. It’s something they got. And that girl is got it. Why she looks like a young filly I’ve seen in a field that ain’t had no rider in the saddle yet, or no stud to quiet her. That there is some filly you got for yourself, Tom. You sure she ain’t the reason you’re down here, Tom?”

  Tom cursed. “All right, you old nanny goat. I did come down here on account of Rosanne. I don’t like to talk about it. But looks like you’re going to pester me until I do. Like I said, I got out of work. Like you said, I could of got another job up there. But I figured since I was out of work, I might as well come on down here. Rosanne wouldn’t behave herself. She was always running off home, and laughing at me. I swear, Gran’pa, sometimes that woman would laugh at me while I was beatin’ her. So I reckoned if we got down here where Rosanne didn’t know nobody, we’d get along better.”

  Grandpa shook his head. “I figured it was something like that. Still running away from your troubles, Tom?”

  Cousin Tom brayed with laughter. “What you talking about? Didn’t I just tell you?” He nodded toward Rosanne. “I brought my troubles with me this time.”

  “You do everytime,” Grandpa said. He went on across the yard with his basket of stove wood.

  • • •

  Rosanne was putting fried eggs and ham on a big platter when they came into the kitchen.

  Cousin Tom laughed. “One thing I got to say for Rosanne. She’s a good cook. Her old lady taught her that, even if she didn’t teach her anything else.”

  Rosanne’s head tilted, but she didn’t look at Tom. She said, “I hope everything will taste all right.”

  She spoke so softly that Rhodes barely heard her.

  They followed her into the dining room. Lena was already pushed to the end of the table in her wheelchair. Rhodes sat beside Grandpa. Grandpa kept on two of his coats and a shawl even at the table. He had a stocking cap pulled down over his ears. He grabbed at the food as soon as Rosanne put it on the table.

  Cousin Tom went around the table and sat at Lena’s left. When she’d poured coffee for everybody, Rosanne sat beside him. This put her at Will’s right where he sat at the head of the table facing Lena.

  Rhodes looked at his mother. She was staring at Rosanne. Rhodes glanced that way. Rosanne’s cheeks were tinted even pinker than the heat of the kitchen would make them. When Cousin Tom gave her the platter of ham and eggs, she took one small egg and no meat.

  She passed the platter to Will, but didn’t speak. She did not even meet his eyes.

  Rhodes sat there wondering if maybe Cousin Rosanne didn’t like Will, and wondering how anybody could dislike him.

  Lena said, “Will, I want you to notify the man from the concentrate company. Today. You must let them come into the groves and take the fruit. Perhaps he’ll give you an advance — enough to cover what you owe Darl Hollister.”

  “Hollister?” Cousin Tom laughed. “How come you owe him money, Will?”

  Will looked up. “Bad crop last year. Had to borrow a little.”

  Gran’pa talked around a mouthful of eggs. “Now, Will Johnson, you know that there ain’t true. I swear my eyes, you took the best crop of cotton out of them fields I ever saw come. And tobaccy! I tell you, Tom, the stuff Will has been growing, looks good enough to chew right there on the stalks.”

  Cousin Tom brayed. “That so? If things are so fine, why would you get in debt to a man like Darl Hollister?”

  Lena’s voice was sharp. “I needed an operation, Tom. I thought you knew.”

  “Operation? That must be about the third or fourth?” Cousin Tom said.

  Lena nodded. “Yes. It’s been a drain on us.”

  Cousin Tom said, voice loud. “Why now that there is too bad. Here I been thinking about you people as my rich relations. That’s what I tell people up in Alabama, ain’t that true, Rosanne?”

  Rosanne nodded. She didn’t speak. She pushed bits of egg about her plate. She did not look up.

  Tom laughed. “Rosanne ain’t a big talker.” He stared at her. “How come you ain’t eatin’ nothin’, Rosanne?” He brayed again. “Usual she eats like a plow horse. She didn’t git them round full beauties from eatin’ like a bird, I can tell you.” He waited but Rosanne did not lift her head. “I had no idea you folks had been gettin’ in deeper all the time … Reckon you cain’t run to a doctor all the time without plenty of folding money, eh, Lena?”

  “We’ll get along all right,” Will said.

  “We certainly will,” Lena said. “A concentrate company has offered to send in trucks and pickers into the groves. Tell me, Tom, can you see anything wrong with that?”

  “If’n Tom goes for the idea, you’ll know it’s wrong,” Gran’pa said.

  Rosanne laughed suddenly. Everything stopped and everybody at the table stared at her.

  Cousin Tom snarled. “Oh, how she loves to shove in that needle.”

  “Filly,” Grandpa said softly. Only Rhodes heard him. “Somebody got to gentle the filly.”

  Cousin Tom said, “I don’t see nothing wrong with lettin’ somebody else pay your picking and hauling charges.”

  “They strip the trees, smash them, scar them. They can put a grove back two years in the time it takes them to get the fruit,” Will said. His voice was low. He looked up, met Lena’s gaze. “There’s some other way, Lena.”

  “Yes. Running up debts. Owing people that trust us. Getting us talked about.”

  “Not now, Lena,” Will said “Well talk about it later.”

  Cousin Tom said, “Looks like Rosanne and me got here at a bad time. Hope we’re not putting you folks to a lot of expense you can’t afford.”

  “We’re not that bad off,” Will said sharply.

  “Because if you are,” Tom went on. It seemed to Rhodes that Cousin Tom enjoyed the idea of Will’s being hard hit. “If you are, why Rosanne and me can find some place to go.” He laughed. “Though just off hand I can’t think of where. Not until I get a job somewhere. But — that shouldn’t take more’n a day or two. Always could get a job. Though to tell you truthfully, I was hoping maybe you’d need help here on the farm, Lena. Figured I could be a big help to Will.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Will said.

  “Soon as I get a little stake, I’ll buy a place of my own,” Cousin Tom said. He sopped cornbread about his plate and chewed loudly. “Though nothing like this. Always did think this branch of the Wilkes loved to live it up fancy.”

  Nobody said anything. Rosanne’s head bent lower over her untouched food.

  Cousin Tom went on, “I tell you, I’ll never get my back against the wall. Oh, I’ve had my troubles, I won’t deny that. Been times like right now when I was broke. But if it comes right down to it, I’ll run a l
ittle shine and make myself a stake.”

  “Not me,” Will said. Rhodes was staring at him and saw his step-father’s lean frame quiver. “To me that’s like dying. No. A man’s better off dead.”

  Cousin Tom brayed. “What’s wrong with peddling a little moonshine?” He stared down the table at Will. “You too good to peddle bootleg? All your neighbors do out here in the scrub, I can tell you that.”

  Grandpa waved his fork. “I never did. They was times my kids went a mite hungry — except for rabbit and gravy. But I’m like Will. Bootlegging is a crime. It’s a fool’s crime. It ain’t something you commit alone. You got others in it with you, people that help you still it and help you sell it, people that buy it. That’s too many people. When two people can’t keep a secret — it shore ain’t good sense to share some dirty secret with a half-dozen people. Gits so you don’t sleep good nights. Gits so you don’t trust nobody. Git mean-eyed and tight mouthed. I seen plenty of them mean-eyed, tight-mouthed crackers. First they don’t trust strangers, then they don’t trust their neighbors. Finally they don’t even trust themselves. No … It’s like Will says. You’re better off dead.”

  Cousin Tom laughed. “Maybe so, but I just ain’t ready to die.”

  “Every man has got to do things the way he sees it,” Will said.

  “Which brings us right back where we were,” Lena said. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “You better get those concentrate people out here today.”

  Will’s head jerked up. His thin jaw was taut and Rhodes saw a small muscle moving in it. Rhodes knew what strangers could do to a grove that didn’t belong to them, that they didn’t care about. The way they stripped the trees and backed trucks over them.

  “Give me a little time,” Will said. “If I can just get through two months, Lena, I won’t have to let them strip my groves.”

  “Your groves?” Cousin Tom brayed. “You really have taken over, haven’t you, Will?”