Rainwater (14 page)

“I don’t want you flying off the handle again.”

She didn’t take umbrage because he said it with a teasing smile.

“I promise not to sling any more toothpicks. You can work with Solly any time you like.”

He set aside time each day.

And, he began going out often. If he bothered to inform her at all that he was leaving the house, he would tell her only the approximate time he would be back. He never said where he was going. He didn’t skip meals, so he wasn’t eating out. If he drove to Waco to catch a movie, he never mentioned the films he saw.

Sometimes he was gone for only a short while in the afternoons. Other times, he left after dinner and didn’t return until hours later. Of course, it was none of her business where he went, but she was curious—which she acknowledged only to herself.

“What do you figure is going on?” Margaret asked one afternoon.

They were in the front parlor, moving pieces of furniture so they could wash the baseboards behind them. Mr. Rainwater had paused on his way out to tell them that he would be back by suppertime. Through the front window, Margaret had watched him drive away, then posed the question to Ella.

She responded with feigned disinterest. “Going on?”

“With Mr. Rainwater. Where’s he off to here lately?”

“I don’t know, Margaret. He doesn’t tell me, and it’s none of my business. Or yours,” she added pointedly.

The maid applied her damp rag to the baseboard. “I’m thinkin’ he might have a lady friend tucked away somewhere.”

“He might.”

Margaret snuffled and shook her head. “You know what the mens is like.”

Ella let that go without comment.

A few days later, she ran into Lola Thompson in the post office. Lola’s youngest child was riding on her hip. She had another by the hand, and she was juggling a handful of mail that she’d just retrieved from her box.

When Ella greeted her, she was as ready as ever with a wide grin. “I got a letter from my cousin. She’s expecting again. I swear. As if they didn’t have enough mouths to feed.” She used the mail to fan her round, flushed face.

“You’ve been on my mind a lot,” Ella told her. “How have you been?”

“Oh, fine.”

“Ollie?”

“He’s mending fences. Plugging up holes in the roof. Working toward the day he can start another herd. We’re not making anything, but we’re not spending much, either. We’re carrying on best we can. What choice do we have?”

“I admire your resilience.”

Lola chuckled. “I’ve had my dark hours. Wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But I try not to let on in front of Ollie and the kids.”

“Anytime you’d like to talk, call me or come by.”

Lola snorted. “Like you need my big self crying on your shoulder, what with your backward boy, and you being all alone, running that house by yourself. If anybody should be admired, Ella, it’s you, not me.”

She didn’t take exception to Lola’s description of Solly, knowing there was no malice intended. “I would welcome a visit with you. Anytime.”

Lola let go of her child’s hand and touched Ella’s. “I appreciate that. Sometimes talking to another woman is just the thing. We females understand each other, don’t we?”

Ella nodded.

Lola reflected a moment, then said, “I guess it’s the same with men, though. I’m glad Ollie’s come to know Mr. Rainwater right good. He came along just when Ollie needed a friend. Their talks have helped Ollie, I think.”

Ella’s heart gave a little bump. “Mr. Rainwater’s been having talks with Ollie?”

“Before and after their meetings. Sometimes he stays over after everybody else has left, or he comes early.”

Ella stared at her with bewilderment. “Lola, what are you talking about? What meetings?”

“You know.” She bobbed her heavy eyebrows, then glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. Leaning toward Ella, she whispered, “The meetings.”

His headlights cut through the darkness even before he turned his car onto the street. Nearby houses were dark. It was past bedtime for most folks. The town was quiet except for a freight train that rumbled through without slowing down or stopping.

Mr. Rainwater had left the house while Ella was working in the kitchen after dinner. The spinsters played cards for a while, then retired. Mr. Hastings, dead tired from another trip, went upstairs directly after dinner. Ella put Solly to bed, saw Margaret off with a pail of pinto beans and two pans of corn bread to dispense in shantytown, then went out onto the porch to wait for her boarder’s return.

Now Mr. Rainwater parked his car behind Mr. Hastings’s, turned off the headlights, cut the engine. He came up the walk, climbed the steps, and was reaching for the handle of the screened door when she said, “Good evening, Mr. Rainwater.”

He drew up short and turned toward her as he whipped off his hat. “Mrs. Barron. I didn’t see you.” He walked toward the rocking chair where she sat. “I hope you weren’t waiting up for me so you could lock the door.”

“I was waiting for you, but not so I could lock the door. In fact, I may wish I had locked you out.”

His head went back an inch or two as if he were dodging a blow. “I beg your pardon?”

“Where have you been?”

He paused for several beats, then said, “May I sit down?”

She gave a curt nod. He took the chair nearest hers, even pulling it a few inches closer to the rocker.

In response to that, she moved her knees, directing them away from him. “Before you say anything, Mr. Rainwater, you should know that I saw Lola today. She mentioned secret meetings taking place at their house, assuming that I knew the purpose of them.”

“They’re not always at the Thompsons’ house.”

His composure was infuriating.

“Where these meetings are conducted isn’t the point. What kind of meetings are they? What’s the purpose of them?”

Her voice had gone up in volume. He cut his eyes toward the yard, beyond it to the house across the road, then glanced over his shoulder toward the hedge of oleander bushes that separated her property from her neighbor’s.

His caution only heightened her misgivings, but she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please don’t think I care about your comings and goings for any reason other than that you’re living in my house and eating at my table. I believe that entitles me to know if you’re into something dangerous or criminal.”

“I assure you it’s not criminal.”

“But dangerous?”

“I hope it won’t become so.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. What’s the purpose of the meetings?”

He placed his hat on his knee and leaned toward her. “This drought relief program to buy livestock was designed specifically to help people in dire straits, not cause them more grief. People suffering hard times shouldn’t also have their houses riddled with bullets, their property damaged or destroyed, and their children threatened. Like what happened to the Pritchetts and the Thompsons. We want to stop it.”

“‘We.’ Who?”

“Me, Ollie, Brother Calvin. He’s rallied men in shanty-town, Negroes and whites, those who were beaten to within an inch of their lives. Remember the man with the three children whose wife had just died?”

She nodded, remembering that she’d seen Mr. Rainwater talking with him.

“His name’s Emmett Sprule. He’s been in the shantytown for a long time, so he knows a lot of people. Pritchett signed on. He’s brought in all his lodge friends, even deacons in his church.”

“Brought them in to do what?”

“We’ve got a network in place now, a relay system. When it comes time for a farmer’s or rancher’s herd to be bought and culled, he sends word. It’s spread through the system we’ve worked out. We all drop what we’re doing and converge on the place. We can’t change the rules of the program.” He flashed a grin that showed up white in the darkness. “We might bend them a little and get some fresh meat or a soup bone to those people while no one’s looking. But short of that, we can certainly stop Conrad Ellis and his cronies from doing their meanness.”

“Conrad’s wild. He and his gang are armed and reckless.”

“We’re armed, too. But we’re not wild or reckless. We’re organized. And there are more of us than there are of them. If we make a stand, I think those thugs will back down. Men who’ve lost their livelihoods, their homes, men who’ve been beaten down will start feeling like men again.”

The idea behind their organization was noble, but she feared men from shantytown armed with sticks, and church deacons with Christian decency as their armor, wouldn’t pose much of a threat to Conrad and his heavily armed, drunken, violent friends.

“It’s the law’s job to protect people and property,” she argued. “Why don’t you send a committee to appeal to the sheriff?”

“Anderson is scared of the Ellises. He won’t cross Conrad’s father, who bankrolled his election.”

It was true, but she wondered how Mr. Rainwater, an outsider, had come by that information. When she asked him, he said, “Ollie told me Sheriff Anderson was gutless and on the take, and everyone confirmed it. Brother Calvin said he and his deputies stood by and watched Conrad and his friends beat up those people out at Pritchett’s place, remember?”

“I remember very well. Which only proves my point.” She pulled her lower lip through her teeth. “Please don’t get involved, Mr. Rainwater.”

“I already am.”

“This isn’t your town. You’ve only just met these people. I’m surprised they’d even have the nerve to invite you to join them.” She stopped suddenly. When she next spoke, her words came out in a slow, measured cadence. “Who organized these men? Who devised this system of communication, this relay?”

His steady gaze didn’t falter.

“You did.”

He said nothing.

Ella’s breath caught in her throat. “Why?”

“It needed to be done.”

“Not by you!”

“Why not by me?”

“It’s not your fight. You’re not a rancher or dairy farmer. You don’t live in shantytown. You didn’t get clubbed by those hoodlums. You’re not involved.”

“I involved myself.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. It’s a dangerous situation. Sheriff Anderson could arrest you.”

He looked amused. “For what? Meeting with friends?”

“For anything. For spitting on the sidewalk. If the Ellises tell him to put you behind bars, he will. Or worse, they may leave him out of it and come after you themselves.”

“Come after me?” he repeated, again looking amused. “And do what?”

“Whatever they have a mind to! Do not underestimate Conrad, Mr. Rainwater. He could hurt you, and he would.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“Well, I am. And you should be. Stay out of his way, and out of this business.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s too late to back out, even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”

“I don’t understand you. Truly I don’t. Why risk your life—” She bit back her words, stopping before finishing the thought.

Mr. Rainwater smiled wanly and gave a small shrug. “Exactly.”

ELEVEN

They said no more about it that night. Realizing the futility of arguing with a man willing to cut even shorter his short life expectancy, Ella had gone inside and straight to her room, trusting that Mr. Rainwater would remember to latch the door when he came in.

At breakfast the following morning, they exchanged polite nods but didn’t speak. At midmorning, he came out into the backyard, where she was hanging towels on the clothesline. Solly was sitting in the dirt, drumming a wooden spoon against the bottom of an upturned metal bucket. Margaret was in the shed feeding wet clothes into the wringer.

As Mr. Rainwater approached, he touched the brim of his hat. “Good morning, Mrs. Barron.”

“Good morning.”

“We didn’t finish our conversation last night.”

“I can’t tell you how to live your life.” She pushed a clothespin over the corner of a towel, securing it to the line, then turned to him, raising her hand to shade her eyes against the sun. “But I won’t allow you to bring any trouble into my house.”

“That’s the last thing I want to do.”

“That may not be your intention, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. People know you live here. Your involvement in this business puts Solly and me, everyone in this house, at risk.”

“I would leave before I let anything bad happen to you.”

He said it with such conviction, Ella glanced uneasily toward the shed, certain that Margaret was doing her best to eavesdrop even though she was pretending not to as she cranked the handle of the wringer. Probably Margaret already knew what was going on, especially since Brother Calvin was one of the ringleaders. But Ella didn’t want anything she and Mr. Rainwater said to each other repeated.

Her gaze came back to him. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“If you ask me to move out, I will.”

“Do you have a firearm?”

“No.”

“Because I don’t want guns in my house. Solly—”

“I don’t have one.”

“And I don’t want any of these meetings conducted on my property.”

“I would never suggest it.”

She gave him a long look, then bent toward the basket on the ground and took another wet towel from it, shaking it until it snapped. “I still think it’s foolhardy for you to become involved in this when you don’t even have a stake in it.”

He removed a clothespin from the cloth bag hanging on the line and extended it to her. “But I do have a stake in it, Mrs. Barron. A big stake.”

She looked at him inquisitively as she took the clothespin from him.

“I’d like the time I have left to count for something.”

He backed away, then stepped around the basket of laundry and Solly, and headed toward the front of the house.

“Mr. Rainwater?”

She called out to him without thinking and was embarrassed by her spontaneity. She was aware of Margaret, well within earshot. Aware also that she was clutching the wet towel against her chest. But it was too late now. He had turned back and was looking at her expectantly.

“Take care.”

He smiled and touched the brim of his hat again. “Thank you. I will.”

Holding Solly by the hand, Ella entered the sanctuary and found them seats on one of the back pews. Each Sunday she timed her arrival to be a few minutes late, during the singing of a hymn or when heads were bowed in prayer, in order to avoid the other churchgoers, who stared at Solly with curiosity, sometimes with apprehension, often with compassion that bordered on pity, all of which Ella scorned and didn’t want Solly subjected to.