Maud's Line (32 page)

“Laswell says Mustard's hand waz hurt.”

“Hurt bad?”

“Evidently.”

“Well, he fights a lot.”

“Weren't his right hand, twer his left one.” Talley took a drag.

“That's a good thing, I guess. Why are you telling me?”

“He's yer daddy. I thought you might like to know.” He puffed on his cigarette again.

Maud thought it was unlikely the sheriff was being considerate. She took her hand out from behind her, leaned her shoulders against the post, and folded her arms below her breasts.

Talley took his cigarette from between his lips. “You know, men lose fingers, hands, even arms, in those oil fields ever' day.” He flicked his ash. “I'm thinking yer daddy's days on a rig are over. Think about that. Where would a man go ifin he was out of work?” He looked directly at Maud. “He'd go home. Give me a shout when he shows. I jist wanta ask him a few questions.” Talley stepped off the porch.

Maud went inside and watched the sheriff leave from the window. Then she sat down on the bed. She wondered where her father was. She hoped he'd show up, maybe come through the back way by the river. The thought of seeing him again brought tears to her eyes. She got up to get a handkerchief from the dresser and remembered the lighter. It wasn't on the dresser's top. She felt relieved. She drew a handkerchief out of the drawer, blew her nose in it, and looked over to Billy's dresser. The lighter wasn't there, either. She tried to recall for sure if Billy had used it that morning. She thought he had. She'd cleared the ashtray off the table. She stepped to the door and looked in the kitchen. The ashtray was on a shelf above the pan and the dipper. She stepped over there. The lighter wasn't on the shelf. Then she remembered Talley holding the door for her. Had he seen the lighter on the table and scooped it up behind her back? She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. She thought taking the lighter was illegal. But maybe not if it was evidence. She didn't know. She felt her stomach knot into a fist. Then she remembered that Talley didn't know the lighter was evidence, didn't know it had been left at the Mounts'. He'd just think it meant her father had been around. But he knew that anyway. She felt some relief. But then she got to wondering where the lighter was. She searched both rooms again. She went out on the porch. She scanned it, and the west one, too. The Banjo was nowhere to be seen.

Maud knew she was working herself into a state over the lighter. And she decided the best thing to do was to get her mind off it by going see her uncle Ryde. He was more likely than anybody to know what her father was up to, and he may've even seen him. He'd also spent enough time in jail to know if the sheriff was a thief. She grabbed her gun from the corner and headed out. But between the cattle guards, she decided the sheriff could very well be at her aunt and uncle's house. She needed to wait to walk up there. Besides, her daddy might show up. She didn't want to miss him if he did. She turned back. She hung around the farm for the rest of the day, scanning her surroundings every few minutes, hoping her father would appear in the distance.

Mustard didn't show, but by the time Billy did, Maud had decided not to tell him about the sheriff's visit. She'd never gotten around to telling him about the Mounts. She was certain he knew they were dead, fairly certain, too, that he knew that her father and uncle had been suspects. But he was too Indian to have asked her about it. In that way, Billy was an improvement over Booker.

However, Maud wasn't too Indian to ask a question or two. The first thing she said when Billy came into the kitchen from washing up at the pump was, “Have you seen Daddy's lighter?”

Billy ducked his head. Then he looked up and smiled. He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out. The Banjo was in his palm. “I fergot what I was doing.”

Maud had a cup of flour in her hand. She took a couple of steps toward Billy and threw the flour in his face.

The next morning, after she'd jumped off the porch seven or eight times, Maud put on the loosest dress she had and picked up her gun and
Show Boat
, the last book Mr. Singer had lent her, and headed out through the cattle guards. Her plan was to talk to her uncle Ryde first and then return the book to Mr. Singer and get another one on medical conditions and what to do about them. Her thoughts moved back and forth so many times between her father and how to ask for the book without raising suspicions that she was at the steps up to Ryde and Nan's yard before she realized the whole place seemed quiet. Their dog was in the yard, and the kids, except for Andy, would be in school, but there didn't seem to be any sign of her aunt or uncle, and the chickens weren't out. She said to the dog, “What'd you do with them?”; and she bounded up to the porch, calling, “Aunt Nan, Uncle Ryde,” two or three times. The door was shut. She tried the knob. It turned. She went in the house, called again, and walked to the kitchen. Plates with half-eaten food were on the table. She went out the back door. She looked around. No sign of a human. The chickens were squawking. She walked over to the chicken house and opened the flap. The hens came running out.

After that, she didn't know what to do, so she washed the dishes. Her fear arose as she did. What if the sheriff had arrested them? They both knew that her daddy had killed Claude Mount. What if they confessed that? Maud scrubbed egg off a plate. No, that was as unlikely as a tornado at Christmas. Ryde had already held up under questioning and Nan would pretend she couldn't understand what the sheriff was saying. They had to be somewhere else. Maybe with somebody who came by asking for help. She thought they'd show soon; they had Andy with them. But by the time the dishes were dried and put up, Ryde and Nan still weren't back. Maud decided she'd walk on up to her grandfather's and see if anybody there knew what was going on. But then she saw
Show Boat
sitting on the table. She decided to go on to Mr. Singer's. Wherever her aunt and uncle were, they'd be back eventually. They hadn't locked the door.

When she got to Mr. Singer's, his front door was shut. Instead of knocking, she went around the side and saw that the garage was empty. She walked on toward the summer kitchen. As she got nearer, she heard whistling. She peered in the screen door, saw Lizzie, and said, “Hello, there.”

The cook jumped and said, “You frightened me outta my drawers.” But she invited her in.

Maud had seen the summer kitchen only from outside the door. Stepping inside it was like stepping into a book. A large rectangular table sat in the center of the room. Pots, skillets, and cleavers hung from the ceiling. Maud was staring up at them when Lizzie said, “You can sit.”

She propped her gun by the door. “I came to bring Mr. Singer his book. I've kept it too long.” She slid into a chair, glad to be off her feet.

“He ain't here. You look tuckered out. Want some tea?”

“Yes, please.” Maud looked around. The windows were high up on the walls; the sink had both a spigot and a pump. The fireplace was huge. A pot hung on chains was inside it. The west wall was lined with shelves and cabinets. There was both a wood stove and an electric one. The electric one still had a tag on it. Mr. Singer's mother had sold some of their land to an electricity company before she'd died. Everybody knew Mr. Singer would be the first in the bottoms to get the goods when the plant was eventually built.

Lizzie went to a wooden icebox taller than she was and took out a bowl of ice with a pick in it. She chipped, jabbing quickly. When she set the glass in front of Maud, she said, “Hear anything from Mr. Wakefield?”

Maud didn't know any Negroes. There had been a bad killing of them over in Tulsa, and especially since then, most of them lived off by themselves. But she did recognize that Lizzie's asking a personal question was peculiar. She didn't know if that threw her or if she was thrown because the subject was Booker. However, she'd read
Show Boat
and didn't care for hatefulness toward anybody. And the cook had been a real friend to her. “He's written me; but I never answered his letters.”

“Ahum.”
Lizzie poured herself some tea and leaned against the sink. She looked at Maud over the top of her glasses.

“He ran off and left me.”

“Well, some of 'em do that.” Lizzie took a drink. Then she looked over Maud's head. “But if ya can get ya a good'un, they's a blessing. I had me a husband fer twenty-two years. A good man. Appendix busted.”

Upon hearing that, Maud's last uneasiness about talking to Lizzie faded. She asked if she had any children. The cook had three, two sons alive and one daughter dead. Maud could tell the dead daughter was a painful subject, and she didn't want to dwell on the topic of children beyond politeness, so she was fishing around for another subject when Lizzie said, “Yer look whipped and hung up. Want some vittles?”

The mention of food made Maud's stomach growl. She took up Lizzie's offer, and as she ate, she fell into conversation with the cook so easily that she told her about Lovely's death, about the goings-on with the rest of her family, about everything except the sheriff's visit, Billy, and what was foremost in her mind, that she needed to get rid of a baby. However, at one point, the thought did come to her that Negroes probably had their own baby-ridding remedies and that they might work as well as any. Certainly anything would work better than what she'd been doing. But she couldn't approach the subject without giving herself away. She didn't know what Lizzie might, or might not, tell Mr. Singer, and she didn't want him to know she was carrying, particularly if she found a way to get rid of the baby.

After they ran out of conversation, Lizzie gave her a flour sack and let her search the library by herself. She left toting a medical dictionary, a book about the Spanish influenza, and
Elmer Gantry
. Rain clouds were filling the southwest sky. Maud had her gun with her and had endured the catcalls on her way over. She started out on that same route again but hoped to hitch a ride before she got to within shouting distance of the work crew. And she was on the section line, turning to look back toward the highway in hopes of seeing a car, horse, or wagon, when she felt a stir in her belly. Though it was new, she recognized the movement, and her heart jumped with the hope that the baby was fixing to leave her for good. But the movement came two or three more times, didn't interfere with her walking, and didn't have any pain attached to it. By the time she heard the whistles and yells, she realized that the baby was big enough to move around. She held off crying until she got past the building site and then burst out so loud that she startled a couple of quail out of the Johnson grass.

Maud was still crying when she heard a motor behind her. It was her uncle Ame's car. There was no place to escape. She wiped her face with the top of the flour sack, stood in the road, and waited for Ame to stop. Viola rolled down the window and said, “Hop in.”

Maud knew her face looked like a gully after a rain, and she was afraid any sound she'd make would come out as a wail. She got into the backseat without a word. The car started rolling again without any remark from Ame. Viola talked. They'd been to Manard to work on their new house. The outside walls were up and the floor down. They were waiting on windows, plywood for the inside walls, and a sink.

Maud felt thankful for her great-aunt's interest in her own business, but she was miserable in every other way. Her great-uncle turned onto the ruts to her grandfather's house without asking if she wanted to go there. And because Maud was afraid of what her voice might sound like, she rode without asking to get out, wiped her nose on the flour sack, and hoped her eyes weren't puffy. When they stopped, she couldn't face more conversation with Viola and she didn't want to see Lucy's children. She said, “Thanks for the ride. Billy'll be getting in.” She squared her shoulders and walked away, carrying her sack of books in one hand and her gun in the other.

In her misery, Maud had forgotten to ask her great-aunt and great-uncle if they knew where Nan and Ryde were. But by the time she got to their house, it was clear Nan and Ryde were back, and she slid past, hoping nobody would call to her. Nobody did, and as she was closing the last cattle guard at home, the rain moved in. She ran to keep the books dry, caught her breath on the porch, and watched the drops hit the dust and the chickens flee. She looked to the sky. Black clouds were racing at an unusual speed. But it was late in the season for a tornado; she took a deep breath and decided to watch and wait. She deposited
Elmer Gantry
and the book about the Spanish influenza inside on Billy's chest. She brought out the medical dictionary and took a chair on the only spot on the porch that wasn't getting wet. Billy's dog settled at her feet.

Maud had hoped she'd find useful information under the word
abortion
, but what she found was a definition, causes of, and complications from. The causes were explained in sentences sprinkled with words she didn't know and had to look up on other pages. She found the complications particularly stomach turning. She closed the book to put them out of her mind. She watched the storm. As she did, the baby moved again.

Maud was hardened by killing whatever animal they needed for food. She wrung chickens' necks without wincing, had helped butcher hogs since she was little, and routinely gutted fish. But with the exception of poisonous snakes and the occasional gar she shot in the head, she didn't kill anything she couldn't use. That was the way she'd been raised; she didn't know anybody who did any different unless they were mean. She thought about the Mounts. They'd killed just for the pleasure. Her mind returned to Betty, axed in the back. She saw her bawling in the dirt, struggling, wild in the eyes. She recalled the poke stalk standing up out of her wound, the terror on Lovely's face, how she'd looked down the barrel, waiting for her shot. To keep from thinking about the killing she wanted to do, she went inside, lay down, and looked at the crack in the ceiling.