The Misadventures of Maude March (25 page)

Joe was out cold, I noticed, in a matter of maybe five minutes.

Maude and I dragged our stuff over to our usual spots, leaving a little room for Ben Chaplin. Our eyes met, and
Maude tried to send a message that I couldn't read. There was no chance for more.

After the boys had eaten, Willie's mood seemed to have improved. He spoke to Marion. He said, “Well, Dusty, I have a couple of openings in my gang, if you want to join up.”

Marion said, “I appreciate the offer, Willie. But I'm kind of a loner.”

“We need a loner, Dusty,” Willie insisted.

“Could be you're right about that, Willie. You're usually right,” Marion said. “But I have to think on it some.”

“You think you'll have thought enough by morning?” Willie asked, scratching his head.

“I'd like to get on my way in the morning, if the weather allows it,” Marion said.

“I don't know,” Willie said. “This looks like a fine enough place to stay till it warms up some.”

“It did warm up,” one of Willie's boys said. “That's how come we nearly got drownded. My cousin is dead back there.”

“Now I hope you aren't going to blame me for that,” Willie said, scratching some more.

“Nope,” the boy said. “You ain't to blame for nothing. I'm just saying, the weather's warm enough.”

“Not for me, it isn't,” Willie said.

This had a bad feeling to it. Like that better mood could change faster than a rattlesnake could turn its head. “Maybe you ought to try Texas,” I said in a respectful tone. “It's warm there.”

Marion shot me a look from under his eyebrows. I pretended not to see it.

“Horrible dry too,” the other boy said by way of complaint.

“Which is maybe a good thing,” I said. “Considering.”

This struck Willie awful funny. Laughter erupted out of him like someone hit him on the back.

I felt pretty good about this for a few seconds. Not only because everybody likes to feel like they say something funny once in a while, but also because I didn't like to have Willie looking only at me. Laughing closed his eyes.

Once started, he went on and on laughing for maybe two or three minutes, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes.

Suddenly the tears were real. Really real. He was crying quietly. His boys acted like they didn't even notice, so I did the same thing. Just went about my business, like, settling down for the night.

Maude heaved a deep sigh as I lay down next to her. I knew just how she felt. For the few moments that Willie's attention was on me, I had been in danger, I knew it in my marrow. Marion was right; we had to stay out of Willie's way.

“Don't stand too close to them,” Maude whispered to me.

“Hey now, we'll have no whispering here,” Willie said.

“We're just saying our prayers,” Maude told him. And, like she was finishing up, she said, “Our souls to keep.”

I shut my eyes and kept them that way till those boys started choosing up their beds. Then I looked at Maude and raised my eyebrows in question. She scratched her head hard, and I remembered how Aunt Ruthie used to move the kids who scratched their heads too hard to one side of the classroom. I understood. Willie had lice.

I
WOKE UP WHEN MAUDE DID, STILL IN THE DARK CHILL
of early morning. It had been my intention to stay awake for as long as the talk went on, so that I might hear what plans were being made. I fell asleep fast and deep, as if I'd taken one of the same pills Joe took. Except that he was still out.

Marion had slept on the floor, as did Ben Chaplin, Mack and Joe, and the Newcombs. Ben Chaplin put on his sheepskin coat as soon as he left his blankets. He and Mack went out to the barn as usual, to tend the livestock, and Marion went with them.

Mr. Newcomb worked up the stove, until a wonderful heat began to come off it. Mrs. Newcomb sat at the table like she had come for tea. Maude looked longingly at the gun rack, but such was the hold those fellows had on everyone that they slept like babies while our guns hung there. No one doubted that things would end badly for someone if we had to shoot it out with Willie.

Without so much as a word to each other, the Newcombs took their coats off the hooks and stepped outside. Cold air
scuttled across the floor for a moment, and then the door was quietly closed.

Maybe they planned this out as they lay in the dark; I couldn't say. Maude and I looked at each other. Were they simply making a trip to the outhouse? Were they hoping to escape? Should we do the same?

But we had lost our taste for being afoot in bad weather. We stayed wrapped in our blankets for as long as it took to know that it was up to us to get breakfast. Maude said to me in a low voice, “Not one more word to that fellow while he's here, okay?”

“Do you think he's going to stay?”

“I think we're going to be in big trouble if he does,” Maude said. “Marion's in big trouble if they leave and he goes with them.”

I rolled up our pallets rather sloppily, covering the saddlebags with them. Maude began to pull flour and such from the hutch where things were stored. There were still snores coming from the beds.

I pointed to the box of nuggets from up top the hutch. “Give me that. I'm going to dose the coffee.” Maude handed it to me without a word.

Ben Chaplin came in at that minute with a bucket of eggs. He set it on the table and came to the stove to warm his hands. He spotted the box of nuggets. “Don't do anything foolish,” he said. “I'm hoping they'll leave today.”

“They aren't likely to leave if we're too hospitable,” Maude said, looking at the bucket of eggs.

Ben Chaplin said, “First let's give them a chance to go peacefully.”

Maude took this hard, but only someone who knew her would be able to tell. She had what Aunt Ruthie called a poker face for moments like this. Because she used it, I knew Maude liked the idea of putting Willie out of commission right away. Or at least, as soon as we could.

So did I. I didn't care if we had to feed him those nuggets till spring in order to keep him on ice. Then I thought, what good was putting those boys to sleep, really? Maybe the better idea was just to put them out of our misery.

“Is there any poison around?” I whispered to Maude. “Any rat poison?”

Ben Chaplin's ears practically rose to a point on hearing this. I doubted Maude was ready to go that far, but I might be. If Willie planned to stay around for long, I just might be. I wanted to ask Ben Chaplin about the Newcombs, but before we could talk further, one of those boys snorted and coughed and woke up.

“I'm making breakfast,” Maude said to Ben Chaplin as the boys tumbled each other out of bed. “If Joe wakes up, is there anything I ought to do for him?”

“He won't wake up till sometime this afternoon,” Ben Chaplin said. “Don't worry about him.” Willie and his boys trundled by us like great bears coming out of the cave, hardly seeing us at all.

They stood on the edge of the porch; they didn't go all the way to the outhouse. It was only a minute that they were out there, but Maude stepped over to the gun rack and pulled back the hammer on Ben Chaplin's rifle and her own. She pulled back both hammers on my shotgun too.

Ben Chaplin saw this and went out the door, saying, “I'll
be in the barn with Mack.” He spoke in a tone that meant, I'll have nothing to do with this, which I must admit did not sit well with me.
We
were not his trouble, and I didn't like to be counted among them.

Furthermore, he had not uttered a protest when it was Mr. Newcomb who suggested that Maude and Marion shoot the boys dead. He might well have gone along with it if Marion had been more agreeable.

This put Marion in quite a rosy light, as he would never allow Maude to risk her life, and I hoped she was taking that into consideration. Marion had put himself on the line for us, which was more than Ben Chaplin cared to do, however highly Cleomie appeared to think of him.

When Ben Chaplin came inside for breakfast, the Newcombs did not come with him. Maude stood at the stove, starting another round of scrambled eggs, while I served the table. I looked at Maude and then at the box of nuggets as I stirred sugar into the coffee.

But Maude gave me a disapproving look. She felt she'd agreed to Ben Chaplin's terms, and she would abide by her agreement. To my mind, she had not agreed; she had simply not argued the point. She had, after all, been the one to pull the hammers on the guns.

The chairs were filled, and I hoped the Newcombs' absence would not be noticed. Willie didn't seem to notice much. He didn't speak to anyone till after breakfast, which in his case was three helpings of everything, and no one spoke to him.

Very likely we all would have gone on without talking just as well, but for the fact that a full belly made him talkative,
just as it had the night before. “You boys are good cooks,” Willie said.

I gave him a nod without quite meeting his eyes.

He said to Ben Chaplin, “You there, you any relation to them?”

“Nope,” Ben said. Then, thinking better of his answer, he said, “They're my neighbor's boys. Happened to be here when the snow got to blowing pretty bad.”

I appreciated that Ben Chaplin said that much on our behalf, but it was a moment that got swept aside as Willie asked us, “How would you boys like to join up with a gang?”

He had that same mood on, like he was handing out presents. I remembered how quickly that mood had gone quickly from good to bad, and from bad to worse. Maude remembered too, because she had frozen in the midst of measuring the flour for another batch of biscuits. It struck me suddenly; this was more or less the same kind of feeling of being asked to marry someone she didn't want, and she didn't do well with that feeling. It was up to me to get us out of this.

“Aw, we can't,” I said, trying to look flattered and regretful at the same time. “Our family depends on the money we make here, working for Ben Chaplin. They'd starve without us, and you don't want that to happen, I'm sure. You're a thoughtful man; I saw that in you right away.”

There was a kind of war being fought on Willie's face, between the disappointment of being told no by a no-account boy who should be honored enough to say yes, oh yes, and thank you, and the idea of being a man who was known for having finer feelings.

“It was a good idea you had last night, Willie,” Marion said, then went back to picking his teeth with his knife.

“What idea was that?” Willie asked.

“Texas.”

Willie gave the beams overhead a considering look, then said, “It was a better idea yesterday than today.”

I wanted to say, why's that? I bit my tongue to keep it still. Maude must have known how I felt because she laid the spatula on my arm and when I looked at her, gave a quick shake of her head. Why did no one think I had a lick of sense? Had I not already kept quiet?

“Why's that?” one of Willie's boys asked.

“Now if I thought you need to know why, I would have said, wouldn't I?” Willie said in a voice to chill the blood. It chilled mine.

The boy said, “I just asked, that's all.”

“I'm pretty sure you blamed me for the flood last night.”

“Now, Willie—”

There was no chance to learn how Willie's boys handled him. The rattle of wagon traces drew Willie's attention. He clopped Ben Chaplin one to the head and said, “You trying to fool me?”

Ben Chaplin said, “I am not.” His glance moved to the jar of nuggets, and I knew he regretted that he had not agreed to putting them in Willie's coffee.

Willie got to the door with surprising speed and threw it open. “You good folks going somewhere?”

M
RS. NEWCOMB SHRIEKED, THOUGH WILLIE HAD NOT
yet done anything to give her cause. I hoped she would not inspire him. Mr. Newcomb's voice was high and reedy when he answered, “We hoped to get an early start.”

Willie whined, “It's still icy out here. It isn't safe to travel on ice in a wagon.”

“We are experienced with the wagon,” Mr. Newcomb said.

“Come in and set a while,” Willie said in a manner that was both cordial and would not be ignored.

After a long moment during which they must have weighed their chances and found them slim, the Newcombs climbed down from their wagon. Ben Chaplin got up from the table, clearing his place.