Carnal Innocence (18 page)

“Have a seat while I fry some of this up.”

Cy would have eaten it cold. Hell, he’d have eaten it raw, but he choked down the whimper and sat. “Yes, sir.”

“I believe we’ve got some biscuits around here, too. You want coffee or a Coke?”

Cy rubbed his damp hands on his thighs. “A Coke’d be fine, thank you, Mr. Longstreet.”

“I expect you can call me Tucker since you fainted on my porch.” Tucker popped the top on a chilled sixteen-ounce bottle and set it in front of Cy.

By the time he’d tossed a couple of slices of ham in a skillet, Cy had downed half the bottle. A belch erupted out of him and had his pale face going red as an American Beauty rose.

“Beg pardon,” he muttered, and Tucker bit back a chuckle.

“Them bubbles work on a man.” As the ham began to sizzle, tormenting Cy with its aroma, Tucker tossed him a cold biscuit. “Sop some of them up with that. I’m going to heat the rest up in this atomic oven. If I can figure it out.”

While Tucker pondered over the microwave, Cy devoured the biscuit in two famished bites. Tucker caught the act out of the corner of his eye and decided to add eggs to the ham. The boy was eating like a starved wolf.

The eggs were a little runny in the center and singed on the edges, but Cy’s eyes rounded with gratitude when Tucker set the plate in front of him.

As they ate, he studied the boy who was plowing through ham and eggs.

Good-looking kid, Tucker mused. For some reason Cy reminded him of a picture of the apostle John in the family Bible. Young and frail and lit with some inner light. But he was thin as a rail—not just teenage gangly, but painfully thin, his elbow sharp edges, his wrists like sticks. What the hell was that bastard doing? he wondered. Starving his kids into heaven?

Patient, he waited until Cy had mopped up every trace of egg.

“So, you’re looking for work,” Tucker began, and Cy nodded, his mouth still full. “Anything particular in mind?”

Cy swallowed gamefully. “Yes, sir. Heard you were hiring on for the fields.”

“Lucius is pretty much in charge of hiring field
hands,” Tucker said. “He’s gone to Jackson for a day or two.”

Cy felt the strength the good food had put back into him waver. He’d come all this way, only to be told to go home and try again.

“Maybe you could tell me if you’re hiring.”

Tucker knew they were, but there was no way in hell he was putting this pale, hollow-eyed boy with pencil-thin arms out in a cotton field. He started to tell him they had all the hands they needed, but something in those dark, shadowed eyes stopped him.

This was Edda Lou’s brother, he reminded himself. Austin’s son. The last thing in this world he needed was to hire on a Hatinger. Christ knew, he had no business caring about one. But those eyes stayed steady on his, full of hope and despair and painful youth.

“You know how to ride a tractor?”

The hope began to deepen. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you tell the difference between a weed and a pansy?”

“I think so.”

“Can you swing a hammer without hitting your thumb?”

Unexpectedly, Cy felt his lips twitch. “Most times.”

“What I need is something more than a field hand. I need somebody to keep things up around here. What you might call a man of all work.”

“I—I can do anything you want.”

Tucker took out a cigarette. “I can give you four an hour,” he said, and pretended not to hear Cy’s sputter of amazement. “And Della’d give you your lunch at noon. Or thereabouts. You can take your time eating, but I expect you to watch the clock. I don’t pay you for munching on corn bread.”

“I won’t cheat you, Mr. Longstreet—Mr. Tucker. I swear it.”

“No. I don’t expect you will.” The boy was as unlike the rest of his family as day to night. Tucker had to wonder how such things happened. “You can start now if you want to.”

“Sure I can.” Cy was already pushing back from the
table. “I’ll be here every day, first thing. And I can …” He trailed off as he remembered Edda’s Lou’s funeral the next day. “I—ah—tomorrow …”

“I know.” It was all Tucker could think of to say. “You do this little job for me today, then come on back Wednesday, and that’ll be fine.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll be here. I sure will.”

“Come on out here.” Tucker led him out the door and across the patio, over the green lawn to a shed. After rapping on the side a few times in case any snakes were napping inside, Tucker pulled open the door. Its hinges squeaked like old bones. “I expect you ought to oil those sometime,” Tucker said absently.

He was struck with the scent here, the damp richness of peat that brought back memories of his mother turning it into the ground as she planted. What he was looking for was tilted against the shed wall opposite the garden spades and hoes and pruning sheers. Grinning to himself, Tucker dragged out his old ten-speed Schwinn.

Both tires were dead flat, but there was a pump, and there were patches. The chain needed oiling worse than the hinges on the shed door, and the seat had developed a nice coating of mold.

Tucker flicked back the lever of the bell bolted to the handlebars. It jingled. He could see himself flying down the blacktop toward Innocence—he’d driven fast even then—eating up the miles toward cherry Popsicles and fountain Cokes. The sun at his back, and his whole life ahead.

“I want you to clean this up for me.”

“Yes, sir.” Cy touched a reverent hand to the handlebars. He’d had a bike once, a wobbly
second
-hander he’d bartered for with a flute he’d carved out of a birch branch. Then one afternoon he’d forgotten and left it in the driveway and his father had crushed it flat with his pick-up.

That’ll teach you to put your trust in worldly goods.

“Then I want you to keep it in tune for me,” Tucker was saying, and Cy forced himself back. “A good bike’s like a good—” Shit, he’d almost said woman.
“Horse. Needs to be ridden well and ridden often. I figure riding this back and forth from your place to here every day ought to do it.”

Cy’s mouth opened and closed twice. “You want me to ride it?” Cy let his hand fall away from the handlebars. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“You don’t ride a bike?”

“Yes, sir, I can ride one, but … It don’t seem right.”

“I don’t think walking close to twenty miles a day and fainting on my porch is right either.” He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’ve got the bike, I’m not using it. If you’re going to work for me, you can’t balk on the first thing I ask you.”

“No, sir.” Cy wet his lips. “If my daddy finds out, he’ll be awful mad.”

“You look like a smart boy. A smart boy oughta know where he could pull a bike like this off the road someplace close to home, where nobody’d pay much attention to it.”

Cy thought of the culvert under Dead Possum Lane where he and Jim used to play soldier. “I guess that’s true.”

“Fine. Everything you need should be in the shed. Otherwise, ask Della or me. Mark your time. Payday’s on Friday.”

Cy watched Tucker’s retreating back, then looked down at the dull flecks of blue paint under the grime on the cross bars of the Schwinn.

Three hours later, after he’d finished all the busy work Tucker could think of on such short notice, Cy was cruising down the blacktop. The ten-speed wasn’t the slick racing machine it had been in Tucker’s day, but for Cy it was a steed, a stallion, a wind-dancing Pegasus.

This time when he got to the lane leading to the McNair place, he turned in. He tilted dangerously on the gravel, muttered “Whoa, boy” to his trusty mount, and managed to keep upright.

He saw Jim and his daddy, each perched on extension
ladders that leaned against the side of the house. Fresh blue paint glistened. Halfway down the lane, he couldn’t hold back and let out a hoot and a holler.

Jim’s paintbrush stopped in midair. “Holy crow, lookit what Cy’s got. Where’d you get that?” he shouted. “You steal it or something?”

“Heck, no.” He stopped the bike just short of running over some of the petunias—he was a little out of practice. “It’s like a loan of transportation.” Sliding off, he toed down the kickstand. “I got me a job over to Sweetwater.”

“No shit?” Jim said before he remembered his father. His slip earned him a halfhearted bop on the head. “Sorry.” But he was still grinning down at Cy. “You working the fields?”

“Nuh-uh. Mr. Tucker said I was going to be his man of all work, and he’s paying me four an hour.”

“No … fooling?”

“Honest to God. And he said—”

“Hold on. God be patient.” Toby shook his head. “You two going to stand around shouting all day? Miz Waverly’ll send us packing.”

“No, she won’t.” Amused by the whole scene, Caroline stuck her head out of the window between father and son. “But it seems to me it’s a good time to take a break. I’ve been waiting all day for you to offer me another cup of your wife’s lemonade.”

“I’d be pleased to. Jim, you go on down. Mind your step.” The truth was, Toby wanted to see what was doing himself.

By the time he got down, Jim was already ooing over the Schwinn. Toby went to get the two-gallon cooler while Cy related his adventure.

“Fainted?” Jim said, mightily impressed. “Right there on the porch?”

Caroline stepped through the screen door in time to hear. Her brows drew together. She listened, murmuring an absent thanks to Toby as he handed her a paper cup filled with tart lemonade. Tucker had hired the boy, she thought in amazement. As a—for heaven’s sake—man of all work. Chores Tucker was to lazy to do himself, she
decided. The child was stick-thin and hollow-eyed. She’d been much the same herself not so long ago, and she felt pangs of empathy and annoyance.

“That boy has no business working,” she said under her breath.

“Oh, I expect he’d like some pocket money,” Toby said easily.

“He looks like he could use a hot meal more.” She started to call out, prepared to fix the child a late lunch herself. “What’s his name?”

“He’s Cy, Miz Waverly. Cy Hatinger.”

Her blood froze. “Hatinger?”

Toby’s eyes flicked away from the appalled look in hers. “He ain’t nothing like his daddy, Miz Waverly.” In an old habit, Toby ran a fingertip down the scar on his cheek. “He’s a good boy. Hope you don’t think I’m overstepping, but I’m partial to him. He’s a good friend to Jim.”

Caroline struggled with her conscience. He was a child, after all. She had no business having this urge to shout him off her land only because he carried the Hatinger name. And Hatinger blood.

The bike’s bell jingled as Cy and Jim took turns ringing it.

The sins of the fathers. That had been Austin’s quote. And his threat. She didn’t believe it, not when she looked out at the thin-faced boy who smiled like a dreamy angel.

“Cy.”

His head came up, not like an angel’s but like a wolf’s—fast and wary. “ma’am?”

“I was about to fix myself some lunch. Would you like some?”

“No, ma’am, thank you, ma’am. I had me some breakfast down to Sweetwater. Mr. Tucker, he fixed me up ham and eggs himself.”

“He … I see.” But she didn’t see at all. Beside her, Toby let out a bellow of laughter.

“Tuck cooked, you ate, and you’re still standing? Boy, you must have a cast-iron stomach.”

“He cooked it good. He has this microwave. He put
biscuits in and quick as you blink they came out again steaming.” Revving up, Cy went on about how he was going to get lunch fixed for him every day by Miss Della, and about the loan of the bike, and how Mr. Tucker had given him two dollars in advance already.

“And he said I should spend it as I pleased—as was a man’s privilege with his first pay—long as it wasn’t on whiskey and women.” He flushed a little and shot a look at Caroline. “He was only kidding.”

Caroline smiled. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Cy thought she was the prettiest female he’d ever seen. He was afraid if he kept looking at her, his old tool of Satan would start to twitch. So he looked at the ground. “I’m awful sorry about how my daddy shot out your windows.”

Caroline hated to see his thin shoulders go tense that way. “They’re all fixed now, Cy.”

“Yes’m.” He was going to say something, maybe offer her the two dollars for the damage, but he heard the car. Seconds before any of the others heard the sound of the engine slowing, the whisper of gravel under tires, he turned. “It’s that FBI man,” Cy said, his voice expressionless.

They all watched in silence as Matthew Burns drove up and stopped at the end of the lane.

He wasn’t terribly pleased to come across the crowd. He’d hoped to find her alone so that they could have a leisurely chat. But he fixed a pleasant enough smile on his face as he stepped from the car.

“Good afternoon, Caroline.”

“Hello, Matthew. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing official. I had an hour free, and thought I’d drop by to see how you were.”

“I’m fine.” But she knew that wouldn’t be enough. “Would you like some iced tea?”

“That would be wonderful.” He stopped by the bike where Cy had his eyes planted firmly on the ground. “You’re the young Hatinger boy, correct?”

“Yes sir.” Cy remembered Burns coming out to the house, trying to get some sense out of Ma while she wept into her apron. “I’d best be getting home.”

“Come on, Jim. Let’s get back to work.” “I wish you’d take a longer break, Toby. It’s so hot.”

“Toby?” Matthew’s gaze sharpened on the broad-shouldered black man. “Toby March?”

Muscles tensed, Toby nodded. “That’s right.”

“Coincidentally, your name’s on my list to be interviewed. That scar on your face. Hatinger gave that to you?”

“Matthew,” Caroline said, appalled, her gaze locking on Cy’s face.

“I gotta go,” Cy said again, quickly. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, Jim.” He hopped on the bike and pedaled furiously.

“Matthew, did you have to do that with the child here?”

Burns spread his hands. “In a town like this, I’m sure the boy knows already. Now, Mr. March, if you have a moment.”

“Jim, you go on around and scrape that window trim.”

“But, Daddy—”

“Do as I say.”

Head down, shoulders slumped, Jim obeyed.

“You wanted to ask me a question, Mr. Burns.”