The Ghosts of Varner Creek (7 page)

Abram in the meantime had sex on his brain. He gave himself a little rub in his nether regions as he watched her trot away. His eyes followed the way her dress moved over her tiny frame and the way her pretty dark hair curled a bit at the ends despite the sweat. Mama was always pretty and it’s a fact that wasn't lost on Abram Mayfield that day as he watched her. His heart beat fast at the idea of lying down with Annie Stotley. He had heard of other men who'd get so wound up they'd sneak out and do their business with animals, sheep, calves, and what not. There was an old story on Worker’s row about a man who had been found moaning and bleeding in bed with a rear-end full of buckshot. The story goes he had been trying to put his pecker where God never intended it to go at a farm down the road during the night. The farmer had woken up thinking someone was trying to steal his animals and let go a volley of shotgun fire on the culprit when he saw him running bare assed from a pen by the barn where some calves were being kept for branding. The unfortunate recipient had managed to run off into the night and limp home to worker's row, but it didn't take long for everyone to figure out the bleeding miserable in the bed was the same animal fornicator from the barn. Or so the story went. Mr. Wilkins seemed to think it funny and never would confirm or deny its validity. No doubt Abram Mayfield was thinking that he’d never stoop to sneaking around barns with a swollen pecker. He made up his mind then and there he was going to lay with Annie Stotley.

When all the cotton from all the area farms had been gathered, ginned, weighed, and sold, the small town prepared for the Harvest festival. It was three nights of dancing, eating, and general merry-making. At the end of harvest, the big tin building where the cotton had been weighed and stored before it was shipped, was cleaned out and converted into a big dance hall. A small stage was erected and long tables were brought in and put on one side. The festivities began on Friday night with barbecue and dancing. It flowed over into Saturday night with much the same, and it wrapped up Sunday with morning church and an auction that sold everything from arts and crafts to tools and livestock. Harvest Festival was the biggest social event in Varner Creek.

During the day Friday, Annie and her sisters were busy fixing each other's hair and arguing over who got to wear the pretty floral pattern dress. Annie had one younger sister named Candace who was ten, and one older sister named Emma who was sixteen. All the Stotley women shared the same black hair and hazel colored eyes, but Annie was certainly prettier than her older sister, Emma. Annie had inherited her mother's petite figure and had very pretty, girlish features. Emma, on the other hand, was a large girl with a big chin and a somewhat masculine look about her. And seeing how the floral dress was a hand-me-down from their mother, Mrs. Stotley knew it wouldn't fit Emma.

"Why don't you wear that yellow dress, Emma?" encouraged Mrs. Stotley, "It looks so pretty on you."

"Mama, I wore that dress to last year's festival, not to mention last Sunday at Church," she complained., "I can't wear it again tonight. People will think I got nothing else to wear."

"I'll tell you what, Emma," her mother said. "You wear the maroon dress you got for tonight and tomorrow you and I will take one of my other flower dresses and we'll see what we can do with it. Now how'd that be?"

Emma was a little embarrassed that she couldn’t fit in her mother's dress, but she knew she couldn't fight the truth of things. She quit arguing with Annie with an air of resignation, "Okay, Mama."

Even though Annie's younger sister had also played at arguing for the dress she knew just as well as everybody else that nobody was going to let her wear it. Besides being too small for it she'd be running and playing outside with the other children as soon as they reached the dance hall and getting dirt all over herself. She was put into one of Annie’s old feed-sack made dresses, just like she’d worn out in the fields.

Mr. Stotley threw on a plain button-up blue shirt and didn't look much different than any other day, except that he was cleaner. It didn't take him more than two seconds to decide what to wear and he couldn't understand all the fuss the girls were making about who wears what and who had this on last week and that mess. He stepped outside away from the chaos, lit his pipe, and thought to himself,
what I wouldn't give for some peace and quiet around here.

Marcus, on the other, had been pestering his mother all day for his best shirt to be ironed for the second time. "I can't understand what your worry is about this shirt, Marcus," she told him, "it looks fine."

"He wants to look nice because he likes a girl," teased Emma.

"Really?" Mrs. Stotley couldn't hide her pleasure. She had secretly worried about Marcus and his finding a good girl to settle down with. He was already eighteen and hadn't shown much interest in anyone. He just kept to himself and wouldn't hardly talk to nobody. "Who do you have your eyes on?" she asked him with a curious smile.

Marcus' cheeks went red and he tensed his eyes, "Nobody."

"That ain't true," offered Emma, "He likes Mary Jo Greenley. They been talking for weeks now. I seen them holdin’ hands the other day."

"Why don't you mind your own business!?" fumed Marcus.

Candace started up a song, "Marcus and Mary Jo, sittin' in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G . . .
"

"Shut up, Candace," Marcus said. He didn't yell it, though. Marcus never yelled. He just tensed up his eyebrows and shot her a warning look.

Candace giggled but stopped singing. Marcus could produce a most intimidating look when provoked. He had intense blue eyes unlike his sisters, and they could be both beautiful when he was in a soft mood, or downright menacing if he wasn't.

Eventually, everyone was dressed, ready, and they started walking down towards the dance hall. They had a mule but didn't own a wagon of their own, so the family walked together. They hadn't gone more than a quarter of the mile to town, though, before Mr. Wilkins came by. "Y’all want to climb in back and hitch a ride?"

Mr. Wilkins favored all the Stotleys. He knew them to be hard working and trustworthy people. He had already talked to Marcus about learning the blacksmithing trade from the man in town so that Mr. Wilkins could hire him later on to do all his metal working.

"That's mighty nice of you, sir," responded Mr. Stotley. "You don't think it would burden your horses too much pulling all of us?"

"Oh, not a bit Tom. They're young and strong, just like your kids there. And a little bit of exercise is good for ‘em. Y’all climb on up."

Mrs. Wilkins gave them a nod in her bonnet with her gray hair poking out, "How do?" she asked.

"Fine, Mrs. Wilkins. Just fine. Sure is a lovely dress you have on this evening," answered Mrs. Stotley. And they all made their way into town.

They pulled up to the dance hall and Candace leaped out of the wagon before it even stopped. She saw some of her friends playing tag outside and went to join in. "Don't get dirt all over yourself, girl!" yelled her mother.

"I won't!" she hollered back, running straight in to the cloud of kicked up dirt with the other children.

"I swear, that girl sometimes," mumbled Mrs. Stotley.

Annie and Emma got out and started walking around saying hello to everyone they knew. Emma looked downright scathingly at all the pretty dresses the other girls were wearing. Neither hers nor Annie’s were much different than the other dresses, but somehow Emma felt Annie fit right in and she didn’t. As they rounded the corner to one side of the building a big burly fellow poked his head from behind the building to see who was coming. He seemed oddly happy to see them and called out, "Hey, Emma!"

Her eyes lit up, "Colby! What are you doing back here?" Emma immediately went around back to talk to him and Annie was obliged to follow. Apparently, Emma and Colby had sown the seeds of a secret romance.

Behind the building, a number of men, mostly the out-of-towners but also some of the bachelor locals, were drinking, smoking, and swapping tall tales. Abram was among them, of course. He was puffing on a rolled cigarette and, noticing Annie, he walked over smiling, "Hey, girl, what’re you doing back here with us no goods?"

Annie just looked towards Emma and said, "My sister."

Abram glanced over to where her and Colby were chatting things up, "Oh, yeah. She’s got a thing for my friend, I think."

Annie looked over and it seemed to be true. Both Emma and Colby were wearing grins. Emma was talking away and Colby just seemed to be contently listening. Annie just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Guess so.”

There was an awkward pause as neither could think of something to carry the conversation forward. Abram held out the little cigarette for her, "You want to try this?"

She made a facial look like he was offering her a booger from right out of his nose. "Naw, I don't want none," she said.

"Go on," he said. “This here’s good tobacco, come all the way from New Orleans. We done planted some seeds around our place and as soon as we get some land of our own we’re going to get rich with it. It's a might better than anything they got around here."

She stared at the smoking paper in his fingers, "I don't like the smoke. My daddy’s got a pipe, and it smells okay, but that stuff don’t smell too nice."

He laughed a little bit, "No, I reckon you’re too young nohow." And he started smoking on it himself.

She frowned a bit, "Am not, just don't like to is all. Besides, if my Mama smelled that on me she'd tan me."

Abram put his head back and let out a little circle wisp of smoke that floated above his head, "Ain't seem to bother your sister none."

And sure enough Annie looked over and Emma was now taking puffs from the same little kind of cigarette with Colby that Abram had. "Emma! Mama’s gonna whoop you and me both if she catches you."

"Well how’s she gonna know less you run and tell her?" Emma asked accusingly. "Just hush up!" And she went back to her conversation with Colby.

Annie wasn't liking being behind the building anymore. It was bad enough Abram telling her she was too young and her sister treating her like a little child in front of him, but the men smelled bad and Abram's smoke kept drifting in her face. "I think I bes' be going inside now," she told him.

Abram quit leaning against the tin siding and scolded her, "Why? What's wrong with being out here and visitin' a little?"

He kind of scared her the way he got so offended like that, "I promised my Mama I'd help her with some of the settin' up," she lied.

"Fine," he said disappointedly, "go on, then." And as quick as he had gotten mad he was smiling at her again, "I hope to get to dance with you tonight, though."

Annie went back around into the building and decided she would help the women set the tables, after all.

As the night's festivities progressed Annie forgot all about being upset with Emma for talking down to her or being bothered by Abram's moodiness. She was having a great time. The fiddlers were fiddling and everyone was on their feet. She had danced with her father, danced with Candace, and was currently dancing with Gerald, a cute boy her age. He swung her around and spun her so fast she got dizzy and fell right over on her butt and laughed herself silly. Gerald went off to find someone else who could handle his fine dancing abilities without falling over and going into hysterics. Annie was still sitting and laughing at herself when she felt two hands come up under her arms, the fingers of which were unnecessarily close to her breasts. She heard Abram's voice and smelled whiskey on it, "Here, let me help you up, girl." He had already started picking her up so it wasn't so much as an offer as a statement.

She felt herself being placed back on her feet and turned around. Abram then took her by the waist and started dancing. Well, it was a dancing of sorts. She might have been the one falling over a minute ago but it was him that was lacking the proper balance now. He tried to give her a little dip and nearly stumbled right over on top of her. "H-h-had a bit too much to drink, maybe," he breathed in explanation. His breath was so rank she could practically see the words coming out of his mouth.

She turned her head to the side trying to deflect some of the foulness. She tried to walk off or at least take a couple of steps back so he wouldn’t be hanging all over her like he was, but his arm was holding around her waist too tight. Just when she felt she couldn't stand being next to him anymore she felt another hand grab and yank her away from him. Marcus pushed her aside and stood glaring at Abram.

"What'd you go and do that for?" asked Abram, wearing a look of true confusion.

"Cause I don't like you hanging on my sister like that," warned Marcus. He was a few years younger than Abram but Marcus had a temper not to be trifled with.

"We was just dancin'. She fell down and I helped her up." He looked over in Annie's direction, "Ain't that right?"

Annie figured even if he had been dragging her around like that on the dance floor, the part about him picking her up was true enough. "Yes. He did help me up, Marcus."

"Don't care," Marcus said flatly. "You stay away from her."

It probably would’ve ended there, but Abram made a poor decision in his intoxicated state. He took a couple of steps towards Marcus with his own glare in his eyes and said, "Well fuck you, you little . . . " but whatever else he was going to say never came out. Marcus hit him so fast and so hard that Abram didn't know he'd been hit until after he was on the ground. Then a dull ache, which quickly became a throbbing pain, pounded in his jaw. Blood dripped on the dirt floor and the music stopped as people began to stare and whisper. He tried to get up but his entire head was pounding, and every little movement seemed to make it worse. He could feel his lip busted and swelling and the whole right side of his face felt like a sledgehammer had just made his acquaintance.