Zeke and Ned (27 page)

“Well, but what if you stepped in a hole and got swallowed up?” Mart suggested, with mischief in her voice.

“Dern it, Mart, why would I step in a hole and get swallowed up?” the Judge asked.

“Because you don't know everything, that's why,” Mart replied tartly. Mart was slow to get to sleep. She would keep up a conversation as long as she could. The Judge, an easy sleeper, found that characteristic trying at times, and now was one of the times.

“You think you know everything, but you don't,” Mart added.

“Dern it, Mart, I have never claimed to know everything,” the Judge replied.

“You may not claim it, but you think it,” Mart answered.

“I do think I know enough to decide when it's time to go to sleep at night, and it's time to go to sleep,” the Judge said.

“Go to sleep, then. Who's stopping you?” Mart said.

T
HE MOMENT
B
ECCA CAME TO THE DOOR OF THE CABIN AND LOOKED
at him, Zeke got the feeling that it was not going to be easy to persuade her to come home—at least it was not going to be as easy as he had hoped it would be.

Becca had a kind of November look in her eyes, grey and chill. The fresh blood he had squeezed out of his rib wound just before he rode up did not fool her, or move her, either. In fact, it did not appear to interest her at all.

“Hello, Bec,” he said, in a quiet tone. “I'm wounded in the side.”

“If you're wounded, you ought to have found a doc,” Becca told him. “I ain't a doc.”

“But you're my wife,” Zeke ventured, still talking quietly.

“I
was
your wife,” Becca corrected. “How do you know what I am now?”

Zeke was disappointed in the comment, and perplexed as to how to proceed. He thought maybe the direct approach would be best.

“I'm wounded, Bec,” he said. “One of the Squirrels shot me. Where else would a man go when he's wounded but to his wife?”

“That's a scratch, Zeke,” Becca said, guessing.
You
wounded
me,
and I had nowhere to seek help, she thought. In the distance, she could hear the triplets shrieking down by the pond. In her discouragement of spirit, she had lost control of her three tots. They spent most of their days by the pond, in a thicket of reeds. They caught tadpoles
and minnows and cooked small frogs over little campfires they made. Some days, she scarcely saw them from dawn until dark. As long as she could hear their voices, she did not worry much.

“I rode sixty miles to find you,” Zeke pointed out. “I see your ma's cabin has lost what little chinking it ever had.”

It was a rough cabin Becca was living in. Her preacher father had been content to live off what game he could shoot or trap, and whatever his congregation donated to him and his family. He had promised Becca's mother he would build her a snug frame house, but the promise went unredeemed for thirty years. The old man died without ever hitting a lick, or sawing a board. Zeke could see holes between the logs where the chinking had fallen out. It was a sorry place, and it made him realize what an anger Becca must be holding against him if she would leave their well-built home and come to such a poor domicile. The cabin was not the whole of it either—there was Old Ma, and her crippled brother, Lem. A wild mule had knocked an anvil over on Lem when he was still a boy, and his left leg had been bent ever since. He had weak lungs, too, and right this minute Zeke could hear him coughing from somewhere in the cabin.

“Becca, I'd appreciate a bite of grub, if there is any to be had,” Zeke said. “I went home expecting to make a meal, but a whirlwind busted up the smokehouse and Sully let a dern bear get away with the meat. All I've had since the big gunfight is some weevily corncakes Sully cooked up.”

Becca remained where she was, in the doorway of the cabin. She looked at Zeke and she listened to him, waiting without being quite sure what she was waiting for. He was dirty, distraught, and hurt. The wifely thing would be to take him in, clean him, feed him, and dress his wound. Yet, the only wifely feelings she could muster were old and cold and sluggish—thick, like the boggy mud in the creeks near her home—not sudden and liquid, as they had once been.

Often, since coming home, Becca had dreamed of her life with Zeke, dreamed that they were together again. Sometimes, doing a chore, she would daydream about happy moments they had when they were younger people. Sometimes her own memories made her weep a little—it seemed that all such happiness was behind her, now that she was back home. Old Ma took snuff all day, and she was vague in her mind, calling her daughter Margaret instead of Becca, the name of her sister thirty years dead. Her brother, Lem, had a pet skunk that
snapped at the triplets if they abused it. Even without the skunk, Lem was a trial to live with. He had long been afflicted with the bloat, and made wind constantly. Day in and day out, he hardly left his chair by the fireplace. Lem had been waited on by his mother his whole life, and now that his sister was back, he expected to be waited on by her as well.

Becca had not come home with hope, nor was she happy to be where she was. It was only that she had to go somewhere, in view of Zeke's behaviour; go somewhere, or rise up some night and kill him.

She left, but the leaving brought her no peace. Despite her anger, she could not stop worrying about her husband. He had made too many enemies with his vain, reckless behaviour. Probably one of the Becks would kill him, or one of the Squirrels. It occurred to her often that she might never see Zeke Proctor alive again, in which case she would have to live out her life feeling all the bad feelings she had in her breast the day she left the farm and walked to the jail.

“I hear the triplets,” Zeke said, to break the silence. He was becoming a little vexed at Becca, for keeping him standing outside for such a long time. It was drizzling, and he was hungry.

“Where's Liza, then?” he asked.

“She's gone to Ned's and Jewel's,” Becca told him.

Becca felt annoyed with Zeke for coming to where she was and stirring up her feelings. The feelings were so heavy and muddy it made her tired just to carry them inside her. It was hard even to stand there and talk to him, with her feelings so heavy and sloughlike.

“How's Old Ma?” Zeke asked, endeavouring to hold his temper so as not to make a bad situation worse.

“Her brain's clouded up,” Becca said, looking at the fresh bloodstain on Zeke's shirt. There was old blood beneath the new blood, which made her wonder if maybe she was guessing wrong. Maybe the wound was serious; her own Uncle Perry had died of a gut wound, incurred in an argument over hounds. Zeke's wound might fester; he might even die, in which case she would have a load on her conscience even heavier than the load of feelings in her breast now.

He was her husband, after all. There he stood—filthy, hungry, and shot—wanting and expecting that she would be a wife again. He looked so weary and so pitiful that her feelings quickened a little. She had not yet lost the habit of having him for a husband. Such a habit was hard to break, though she believed she ought to break it. Zeke

Proctor had too strong a will. She could live with him, or leave him, but she could never change him. If she gave in and went back to him, there might be a little happiness come from it; the triplets would have their father at home again, and there might be some possibility of getting them under control, too. Liza would come back, and they could live in their own house. Perhaps with luck, she could even conceive again and feel the joy of fresh motherhood once more. Zeke wanted more children. He told her that over and over, in their private moments. Even with the triplets, Zeke and Becca were well behind Zeke's father, who had fourteen children in all.

“Let's fan the fire,” he said, when he came to her. “Let's fan the fire and get us some more tots.” It was one of the things that had made her start feeling hopeless. Becca was nearly forty, and she had almost died giving birth to the triplets. She feared she might never really recover from the birth of the triplets, as it was. Zeke must know she would be lucky to have one more baby, let alone a dozen.

But Zeke only knew what he wanted. He did not know how tired she felt, or how hard it was to drag herself out of bed at night, if one of the triplets had a nightmare, or ran a bad fever. Her body might accept one more child, but if Zeke Proctor really meant to match his father, he would have to do the matching with another woman.

Zeke would find them, too, once he got what he wanted of her for a few months, or a few years, at best. He would go on being vain, and reckless; he would find willing women to slip off with; there would be more of the same hurts she had already felt. Only she would be older when they came, and even more tired than she was now.

Becca would share chores and duties, but she did not intend to share her man. If it came to a point where she had to leave again, she would be doing it with such a weakened spirit that she might give up the ghost before her triplets were full raised.

“Bec, it's drizzling, I'd like to come in, if you don't mind,” Zeke proposed. “I would not have thought you'd keep me standing out in the wet like this.”

Becca heard the throb of anger in his voice. But she had a throb in her, too, and she immediately let him know it.

“Don't crowd me, Zeke. I was not expecting to see you today,” Becca told him. “I have to think a minute about what's right.”

“Dern your goddamn thinking, and dern you!” Zeke said, his temper bursting. “We're man and wife, that's what's right. We took vows!”

“Yes, and you broke them!” Becca reminded him. “I doubt you reminded yourself of them vows when you slipped off with that woman you went and killed.”

“Shut up about her, she's dead and that's that,” Zeke said. “I've done been tried and acquitted for that.”

“By a jury, maybe, but you ain't married to a jury,” Becca told him. “I'm your wife, and I ain't acquitted you.”

Zeke raised a hand, with thoughts of slapping Becca for her insolence. But then his strength suddenly left him, as it had in the courtroom and again when the Squirrels ran him down. He dropped his hand and tried to make it over to a stump a few yards away, but his legs went rubbery before he made it to the stump. The best he could do was sit down on the ground, although the rain was making shallow puddles all around him.

Becca had just put up her hand to ward off the smack, when Zeke suddenly went white. To her amazement, he took a few steps back and then sat down in the mud. Anger had been rising in her, but the sight of Zeke getting his pants all wet in the mud turned it to concern, a concern her better judgment could not smother. She ran to him and felt his forehead, which was clammy.

“Zeke, is it a chill?” she asked.

“I don't know, honey . . . I been getting spells . . . ,” he said, in a confused state.

Becca reproached herself for being so stiff, but before she could say anything more, she heard the triplets shriek. They had caught sight of their pa and were racing up from the pond, yelling like little banshees.

“Why, here come the tykes,” Zeke said, weakly. “I wonder if I could hire a buggy somewhere around here?”

“Why a buggy?” Becca asked. Then Lem's old hound came dashing out of the cabin, and headed for the woods.

“Where's that hound off to?” Zeke asked, surprised.

“He don't like the triplets, they've been tryin' to set him on fire,” Becca said. “If they can catch him asleep by the fire-place, they stick his tail in the coals.”

Zeke had a chuckle about that. The triplets' tendency to mischief had always amused him. A moment later, the triplets themselves swarmed over him like three puppies. Becca had put clean clothes on them that morning, but in no time they were muddier than their father. Zeke seemed to recover a little energy, and with her help he
was able to stand and hobble to the cabin. He held Minnie in his arms; she would not be put down. Becca helped him, but she felt confused and distant—she almost wished Zeke had smacked her before he got weak. He probably wants a buggy so he can take us home, she thought. Now the children were part of it, and there was no easy way she could draw back, though it was not finished. She had made no promises. The sight of little Minnie, so happy to see her father, made Becca want to cry. The two girls were digging their hands in his pockets. Zeke had promised them each a penny when they got inside.

As soon as they walked in the cabin, Old Ma began to cackle.

“Sam Houston's come,” she said to Zeke. “Howdy, Sam.”

“Ma, it's Zeke,” Becca said. Long ago in girlhood, her mother had ridden in a wagon with Sam Houston. Now she had got Zeke muddled up with him in her cloudy old mind.

They had been getting by with firelight in order to save kerosene, and as a result it was rather dim in the cabin. Becca got the lantern and lit it; then she stirred up the cookstove. She needed hot water and better light so she could clean her husband's wound.

Zeke saw Lem, sitting in his chair by the fire, his pet skunk in his lap. Lem was pale from staying indoors all his life. He was a huge, clammy man who did not seem to belong either to the daylight or to the dark.

“Hello, Lem. I see you still got your skunk,” Zeke said, in an effort to make a little conversation. Lem did not answer. He kept on stroking his skunk.

Lem did not trust Zeke. Once he had a dream, and in the dream Zeke stole his skunk and sold it. He knew Zeke was not Sam Houston, which was what Old Ma thought, and he meant to keep an eye on him. The triplets were hard enough on his skunk. He did not mean to get friendly with a man who had stolen his skunk and sold it, even if it did happen in a dream.

W
HEN
J
EWEL TOLD
N
ED A BABY WAS COMING, HE WAS OVERJOYED
. They were in bed when Jewel shyly broke the news. Ned immediately embarrassed her by pulling up her gown and looking at her belly, though so far there was not much to see.