Maud's Line (33 page)

She fell asleep and woke up when the bed shook with Billy taking off his boots. He said he'd waited out the storm at Nan and Ryde's. That he'd eaten there and that Sanders had been snakebit, but the doctor didn't think by a cottonmouth. That answered Maud's question about her aunt and uncle's disappearance, but not the one about their seeing her father. Billy said he was tuckered out, and she didn't want to ask him that anyway. He stripped, lay down beside her, and slid his arm under her neck. He was asleep before she could blink. She lay awake listening to his breathing, wondering where her father was and if she would see him.

The next day, she walked up the line and found Nan on her front porch. Her aunt told her the story of Sanders' snakebite, his screaming and crying, Ryde's cutting the bite with his knife and sucking it with his mouth. Maud listened to the story, thinking about both her young cousin and her mother. She was relieved when Nan got to the part about what the doctor had said and about the older kids not wanting to be left in town at school after the excitement. Sanders' ankle was swollen and bandaged, more because of the remedy than the bite, and he was, that morning, back in school with the others. The story went on with meanders off into Renee's reaction and Morgan's search for the snake under the house. After a while, Maud felt glad for the distraction, and she was thankful to have her aunt to herself. Andy was napping and Ryde was in the garden. Maud let Nan wear her story completely out before she said, “Talley paid me a visit looking for Daddy.”

Nan was letting out hems in pairs of overalls. “Yeah. He stopped by here. Ryde told him we ain't seen Mustard. Spoke the truth. Mustard didn't come 'til after Talley left. I was aiming to tell ya, but we got distracted.” She pulled on a thread and it unraveled in one long piece from a leg.

Maud felt hurt that her father hadn't come to see her. He'd been so near. She looked off into the trees on the far side of the road. “What's he have to say for himself?”

“Talked mostly to Ryde. They went to the side yard. But Mustard left something fer ya.”

Maud's eyes turned to her aunt. “What?”

“Let me get it.” Nan set the overalls on top of her sewing basket and went inside. She came out with an envelope, handed it to Maud, and sat down. The envelope had the feed store's address and symbol in the upper left-hand corner. It was sealed. Maud held it to the light and tore open a side. She shook the envelope and three ten-dollar bills fell out. “Daddy left this for me?”

“Yep. I reckoned it waz money. Held it to the light myself. Couldn't tell how much.” Nan chuckled and took up the overalls again.

Maud fingered the bills. They were a token of love from her father that she sorely needed even more than she needed the money. Her tears came again. But they were coming so often that she had a handkerchief in her pocket. She set the bills and the envelope under a river rock beside her chair, wiped her face, and blew her nose. “Did Daddy know about Lovely?”

“One of yer sisters got him word. Peggy, I think he said.”

“The sheriff said Daddy hurt his hand.”

“Yeah. It were still bandaged. Said it got caught in machinery. Tore his little finger plumb off. Half tore the next one off, too.”

“What's he gonna do?”

“That's what he and Ryde waz talking about in the yard.” Nan picked a threaded needle out of a pincushion. “Maybe you oughta ask Ryde directly.”

Maud figured her aunt knew as much as her uncle did. She wasn't a person who needed to be protected, and as hard as Ryde was on his kids, he and Nan got along well, after their fashion. So, in Maud's calculation, Nan was trying to wiggle out of delivering bad news. She asked, “He's in the garden?” Nan nodded, and said, “Stay fer dinner. I baked a pie this morning.”

Maud found Ryde in the middle of what was left of his beans and squash. The vegetables had grown up tripods of sticks that looked like two rows of tepees, but the vines were brown and played out. Her uncle was tugging on them; the entire back of his shirt was wet; the hat on his head was ringed with a dark band of sweat. Maud knew he didn't take well to surprise, so she yelled to warn him. Ryde turned, took his hat off, and rubbed his forehead with his forearm. He said, “If this ain't hell, I don't know what is.”

Maud asked how his squash and beans had done. And Ryde pointed out his cantaloupes and pumpkins, told her what kind they were, how long they'd been planted, and when he expected to harvest them. It was the calmest Maud had seen him in a long time, and she figured it was because he was away from his kids who got on his nerves. She was feeling empathy for him on that when he said, “Nan tell ya Mustard showed?”

“Talley told me first.” Maud told her uncle about the sheriff's visit. Then she said, “What's Daddy gonna do?”

Ryde looked up at the sun. The day wasn't as hot as the last few had been, but the air was heavy and warm. “Let's go to the shade.” He nodded toward a scrub elm tree. There was a little wooden bench under it, just big enough for two people. Ryde headed toward it, and Maud followed him. When they both were seated, Ryde took out a pack of cigarettes and held it toward Maud. She took one, and he lit it for her, cupping his hand around his lighter's flame. Then he lit one for himself. They smoked in silence for a couple of minutes, then Ryde said, “The last of Mustard's allotment bought that car of his. You know that.”

Maud hadn't known it for sure. But her father hadn't talked about his allotment in years. Her uncle added, “He ain't gonna be able to labor with that hand. And he don't have any more education than I do. 'Bout the third grade.”

Maud could tell her uncle had put some thought into her father's circumstances. And it seemed like he was laying out a defense. She felt anxious about that. She said, “So where's he off to?”

Ryde jerked his thumb toward the horizon. “The Cookson Hills.”

Maud winced. But she didn't look up. She'd seen the foothills every day of her life. They loomed on the eastern horizon wherever there was a break in the trees. And even though sometimes at sunset when the summer had been particularly dry, they turned a beautiful, unnatural shade of pink, the hills were lawless. Over the years, they'd been the hideout for all of the Starr outlaws, Cherokee Bill, the Dalton Gang—the list went on and on. Maud shook her head. She took a drag off of her cigarette. She felt tears welling up again. She dropped her butt in the dirt and crushed it under her shoe. “Why's he doing that?”

Ryde took a long draw and dropped his cigarette, too. “Well, he said he were gonna look up Choc Floyd.”

Maud looked at the dead butt between her shoes. She looked at the dirt on her left toe. “I thought Mr. Floyd was sent away.”

“He waz. But he's due out any day.”

“How would Daddy know that?”

“Mostly common knowledge. Remembered it from when he waz sent up.”

“Does Daddy know Mr. Floyd personally or just from the papers?”

Ryde pulled the cigarette pack out of his pocket again. He lit up, not offering Maud another one. “Choc waz as big on the rooster fighting as we waz fer a while. 'Member Buster, that solid black'un yer daddy raised? Choc won a lotta money on him. That waz before he got into a more high-dollar business.”

Maud remembered Buster quite well. He'd been as mean as the dickens, but she'd felt sorry for him. And she didn't think robbing grocery stores and filling stations was really a business. She said so. Her uncle stood up, turned, and faced her. He planted his feet wide, his toes pointing out. He waved his left hand toward the foothills. “Don't ferget, not five years back people waz starving up there. Choc and his buddies brought 'em food. They got it from grocery stores 'cause that's where it waz at.” He shook his head. “No rain, no crops.”

Maud could see she'd agitated her uncle. That wasn't hard to do. He raised his belt to whip his kids almost as often as he raised it to hold up his pants. But she didn't think he'd hit her. He never had. But she wanted him in a good disposition when her cousins got home from school. She said, “I remember all that. I'm not saying Mr. Floyd isn't good to his friends. But robbing eventually leads to killing. You know that, Uncle Ryde.” She looked up at him straight in the eye.

Ryde took a long puff on his cigarette. Then he raised a leg and propped a foot on the bench where he'd been sitting next to Maud. He put an elbow on that thigh and leaned over toward her. In a quieter voice, he said, “Mustard's already crossed that line. And he's gotta make a living. Mustard and me, we understand each other. I don't cross him and he don't cross me. But if ya wanta try to talk some sense into his head, I 'spect he'll be slipping back.” He nodded toward the eastern horizon. “Them hills ain't that fer away.”

Maud stayed long enough to eat and see her uncle into a better mood. But she walked back home with her general blues replaced by worry. It was as clear to her as it was to her uncle that her father wasn't looking for Pretty Boy Floyd in order to drive a tractor for him. She hoped that Mr. Floyd was still in the pen and that her daddy wouldn't be able to find him. She thought that if he was out he was unlikely to be reformed. It was more likely that he would be worse. She hoped she could talk to her daddy before he got into some sort of robbing spree.

Within a couple of days, the whole thing put her in even a worse mood. Two evenings later, she started a fight over peeing off the side of the porch. She caught Billy midstream and she didn't like it one bit. It was a sign of laziness and showed a trashy attitude toward the yard. Not even chickens foul their own nests. Dogs find a tree or a stump; cats dig a hole and cover their messes up. Billy tucked in and retorted, “What about horses? They shit in their stalls.” The two of them named every creature whose habits they knew until the argument petered out because neither one of them knew what foxes did in their holes.

Maud went inside and let the screen door bang. She undressed without going behind the sheet, and she assumed that Billy, who could see in the window, would get so aroused he'd storm in the door and they'd get down to some serious making up. But Billy stayed outside on the porch. Maud lay down on the bed and pulled a sheet over her. She waited. Billy lit a cigarette. She could smell the smoke inside. The smell felt sickening. She went to the screen door with nothing on. “When do you think you're gonna be through?”

“Is it late?”

“The sun's disappeared.”

“It's not July.”

“What's that supposed to mean.”

“The days are getting shorter.”

“Seems to me like something else is getting shorter.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“If you don't use it, it shrivels up.”

“I use it when I want to.”

“If you're cheating on me, I'll take a gun to you.”

“What the hell's gotten into you?” Billy crushed his cigarette on the sole of his boot and dropped the butt into a tin can.

“Are you not coming to bed?”

“Not yet.” He sounded firm.

Maud began to feel ridiculous standing at the screen door naked. And she didn't want to appear to be begging or to have her stomach examined. She turned away, lit the coal-oil lamp, propped herself under a quilt, and tried to read. She figured Billy would soon give up and come to bed. But she fell asleep, and when she woke, the lamp was dark and Billy was on his side of the bed with his back to her.

The next night, Early came over and ate with them. Then he and Billy drank choc beer and the three of them played cards at the kitchen table until Billy ran out of pennies. The men switched to matchsticks and Maud went to bed. She tried to read, but she was too irritated to get very far. She laid
Elmer Gantry
on the table, dampened the flame, and watched and listened to Billy and Early in the next room. She pretended they were people she didn't know just to keep from getting up and hitting their heads with her book.

By Saturday, her irritation had turned to anger. The baby was wiggling. Jumping off the side of the porch hadn't done any good, and Billy, who was her only relief, was acting like he'd been neutered with a blunt knife. She decided that what he needed was a change of location. She waited until he was in the barn soaping his saddle, and then she walked out there carrying a hot piece of apple pie on a plate. She swung the plate in an arc just out of his reach and waved a fork in her other hand. She said, “I've got something delicious for you.” She cut her eyes around and stuck out the tip of her tongue.

Billy's eyes widened. A grin spread across his face. “Oh, baby, my favorite,” and he held out his hand.

Maud settled on a stool. She asked Billy about his saddle, about what he wanted to do in town that night, about whether there would be food at the fort to buy or if they needed to take a basket. When he was through eating, she said, “Delicious?”

“Best I ever had.” Billy smiled in a lopsided way and kissed her. Then he took up his soaping rag.

Maud felt a jab of anger. But she shoved that away by reminding herself that she was on a mission. She unbuttoned the two top buttons of her dress. “How about some dessert for your dessert?”

“I'm a little busy here.” Billy rubbed the horn of his saddle.

Maud didn't know what to do. Having to interest a man in sex was outside of her range of experience, and she didn't think it was quite natural. She said, “If you don't get your fire back, I may need that horn myself.”

Billy ran his thumbnail down a crease in the saddle, scooped out some soap, and flicked it from under his nail.

Maud sat quietly. To wait him out, she looked at the scythe that Lovely had used. Her mind wandered back to that day until it reached Booker. She was trying to shake him out of her head when Billy said, “It ain't natural to keep poking a baby the way we've been doing.”