Enduring (45 page)

“Why’d you tell him that?”

“Why, to protect you, of course, you fool. See? That’s what I did for you, after you’d gone and threatened to kill me. And you would have killed me, wouldn’t you have?”

“I still haven’t said it was me,” he said.

“Then don’t say it! Keep it a secret to your grave! I don’t need you to say it, because I know it was you!”

“Shhh, Latha. No call to shout. Somebody might hear.”

Quietly and wearily she asked, “Why did you do it, Every?”

“It wasn’t me, Latha, Not me, the me that I am. Not the me that I am now. I’m a Christian, and a good man. That job was pulled nearly twenty years ago by a mean young hellraiser.”

“All right, why’d he do it then?”

“Pure meanness. He hated Stay More. Those Ingledews had already run him out of town twice, hadn’t they? And after all he’d gone and done, getting in trouble with the Army and court-martialed, trying to rescue Raymond Ingledew from the Huns. And coming home to find his dad dead and finding out nobody’d even gone to the funeral. And finding the girl he’d loved all his life was still pining for Raymond that wasn’t ever coming back…”

“And raping her.”

“Yes, and ravishing her out of despair, and doing all kinds of mischief and making all kinds of trouble, until the only mean thing left for him to do was take the bank’s money and—”

“And go away forever.”

“No. He never meant to do that. He meant to go down to Little Rock and buy an automobile and come back and get that girl.”

“And why didn’t he?”

“Because being a mean young hellraiser, you see, wouldn’t he just have to go and get himself into a gambling game down there in Little Rock and get himself drunker than a boiled owl and lose most of his money, and get in a fight, and get picked up by the police and handed back over to the Army to serve out the rest of his court-martial that he’d broken out of Leavenworth to go back home and ravish that girl and rob that bank, and be locked up for three more years before he could break out again and go back to Stay More once again long enough to find out that she herself was locked up down in the state hospital in Little Rock.”

“She broke out too,” Latha said.

“Does she remember how she broke out?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “I just woke up one morning and discovered that I wasn’t in the state hospital but in a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee.”

“That,” he announced, “was the same hotel room where the mean young hellraiser I used to be got converted into a faithful Christian.”

“Why land sakes, Every!” she exclaimed. “What
ever
do you mean by that?”

Chapter thirty-five

B
ut they were interrupted by the approach of a man on horseback, and Latha groaned and whispered to Every, “Listen. Just pretend you’re my husband. I’ll explain it to you later.” Dolph Rivett climbed down off his horse and exchanged howdies and comments on the hot weather and then he came and sat in the porch swing and asked her if she’d like to hear a funny story about what happened to him over to the canning factory. She said she’d already heard it from Luther Chism. He said, Well now that you’ve had your fun, would you care to tell me who you really are? And she told him she was Latha Dill, liking the sound of that very much, and introduced him to her husband Every Dill. The two men shook hands, and Dolph commented on seeing his picture on all the posters all over town. He said he’d like to know how Every could hit town one night and get married to Latha Bourne the very next day. Every wanted to know why Dolph thought it was any of his business. Dolph said that he aimed to marry Latha himself and if it was sure enough a fact that Every had beat him to it, he reckoned he aimed to kill Every. Every sat up straight and told him those were mighty strong words and asked him what he planned to do it with. Dolph held out his big fists and said he’d do it with his bare hands. Every invited him to step down from the porch and into the yard. Latha tried to intercede but they were already squaring off. Every asked Dolph if he would mind if Every prayed first, and Dolph told him it would be advisable.

So Every knelt in the dust. “O Heavenly Father,” he said in a loud voice, as if God were hearing-impaired, “Thou knowest that when I killed those three fellers in that barroom up in Springfield, Missoura, I done it in self-defense. Thou knowest, too, Lord, that when I splattered Carl Rawley’s brains all over his corn patch that it was forced upon me. And it was sure self-defense when I had to strangle those two Germans in that trench in the Argonne forest. So now, Lord, Thou hast heard this pore wretch threaten to kill me, and when I put him in his grave I ask Thee to have mercy on his soul. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” He stood and presented his fists to Dolph. Dolph’s adam’s apple bobbed a few times and he nervously exclaimed that Every must’ve been trying to get him scared but it wasn’t going to work. And then he swiftly lashed out a fist and caught Every a blow that sent him sprawling backward into the dust. Every scrambled to his feet but couldn’t get his hands up in time. Dolph pummeled both sides of his head with several hard blows, the last of which sent him into the dirt again. Latha yelled at Dolph to quit and Dolph asked Every if he’d had enough but Every said they hadn’t truly started yet; that Every was just testing Dolph’s punches out, to see how hard they were. Then Every was back on his feet before Latha knew it, drubbing Dolph with smashes of both fists until he was almost flattened, but Dolph managed to charge into Every’s stomach and flatten him instead, and pounded Every’s face with short blows. Every got to his feet again and missed his first swing but connected with his second, then hit him with two tremendous punches to the jaw, the second one actually lifting him off his feet and laying him flat out. Dolph could hardly move but he managed to climb slowly to his feet and say, “If yo’re going to kill me, preacher, then kill me, cause I don’t keer to live without Latha!” Every wrapped Dolph’s neck into his arm and dragged him to a seat on the porch, and asked Latha for some liniment, which she fetched from the medical shelf of her store and which Every applied with an almost loving touch to Dolph’s battered face, saving some for his own. Every questioned him about just what was going on between him and Latha, and to her embarrassment Dolph reported the incident of lovemaking in the cavern on Banty Creek. She was angry at Dolph for telling on her, and she told him in no uncertain terms that she would be just as happy if she never saw him again. He got on his horse and rode away.

She remembered
Sing before breakfast, Cry before supper
. She had sung in the early morning in her garden, but she had not cried since she had wept for poor Mrs. Cardwell, slain in Tennessee. She wondered when she would have to cry today. Supper was still a while away.

There was one more visitor late that afternoon. Tearle Ingledew came staggering down the road, climbed the store steps, tripped but caught himself and plunked into a chair. “Good mornin, m’love,” he said to her. “Real fine and fragrant morning, aint it?” He said he was out of “aspreens” and his old head felt like “two dozen dogs fighting over a rutty gyp.” It took him a long moment to recognize Every. Tearle said cooly, “Howdy, stranger.”

Every said, “Why, I do believe it’s ole Tull!” Tull only scowled at him. “Latha, is this really ole Tull?” She nodded. She got a dipper of well water and a package of aspirin for him. He appreciated the cool water from her well and said it was the best drink on earth and he wished he could stick with it. She wished he could too, but then realized that, no, she used to wish that but now she knew he had only one liberation. There were three, she reflected: drink, madness, and religion. Tearle had chosen wisely. Without the whiskey he had been the most handsome of all the Ingledews, and he wasn’t a man who had any use for being handsome. He had told her once that he was just as woman-shy as all the other Ingledews but the reason he could talk to her was because she was so kind to him. This reminded her of the reason she wasn’t able to talk to people when she was in the state hospital: that they were unkind to her.

Tull said to Every, “What have ye come back fer? You’ve fergot what you was tole when we ran ye off. You was tole you’d be shot on sight if ever you come back.” Every said he had come back for his third chance, that everything comes in threes, that he’d been run out of town twice and wanted to see if anybody would try to run him out a third time. Latha excused herself from their bickering on the grounds she had to start supper, and she left the porch. After rolling out the dough for a wild cherry pie, she returned to the store to peer out the window at the two men and see if they had killed each other yet. But Every was telling some kind of anecdote to Tearle, and Tearle was laughing fit to bust a gut. After she had all of supper on the stove or in the oven she rejoined the men in time to hear Every telling another anecdote which made Tearle pound his knees with laughter. She invited both of them to supper, but Tearle, surprised, said he hadn’t even had his dinner yet, and anyhow he’d told his sister Lola he’d eat with her. The two men actually shook hands before Tearle disappeared. Every exclaimed over the change in Tearle, who used to be the only Ingledew he was afraid of. He asked Latha when had Tearle started drinking so hard. Latha said, “Right after he lost most of his money when the bank was robbed.” Every said nothing to that.

After a while he cleared his throat and said he wanted to ask her something. Could she tell him who Sonora’s father was?
Is this what I’m supposed to cry about
? She wondered. But she insisted that Vaughn Twichell was Sonora’s father. Every asked if she were not aware that Vaughn Twichell’s first wife had left him because he was sterile. She said she hadn’t known that. He said he had a suspicion that the girl was Latha’s. “I swear she’s not!” Latha said, but realized,
Oh no, it’s coming
. Every said he suspected that maybe he was Sonora’s father. “You’re mistaken!” Latha said. “I swear she’s Vaughn’s and Mandy’s!” She felt the first hot tear drop down her cheeks. “I swear it! I swear it!” She broke down in sobs. “I swore to them I’d always swear it!”

Every held her tenderly until she had herself under control. She knew she was back in control when she was able to tell Every the story of her time in Little Rock at Mandy’s leading up to the birth of the baby and their later trick of getting Latha committed to the lunatic asylum in order to steal Sonora. Every grew angry, saying it was the godawfullest story he’d ever heard. The cherry pie nearly burnt in the oven.

Sonora came home from wherever she had been, and Latha invited Every to eat with them. Every said grace in an eloquent, polished manner that left no room for doubt that he was an experienced preacher. He asked blessings for Latha, for Sonora, and for himself. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Sonora commented on Every’s black eye and on Latha’s red eyes, and wondered if there was any connection. Every made up some fibs to explain the black eye and the bruises, and Latha made up some fibs to explain her red eyes, but Sonora wasn’t satisfied.

After supper Latha went out back to her evening chores, leaving Every and Sonora to get better acquainted with each other. She wasn’t worried that Every would give away the secret; she was worried that Sonora might back him into a corner and get him to confess what she’d already guessed on her own.

Later, as lightning bug time came on, the three of them sat on the porch to watch the evening gathering and the tussling of the
W.P.A
. boys with the local boys. But the fighting got vicious, and Every broke it up, suggesting they ought to settle their differences by arm wrestling, which they hadn’t heard of, so Every demonstrated by arm wrestling with, and losing to, Junior Duckworth. There began a round of eliminations, in which the winner took on somebody else, and Hank Ingledew defeated several of them and Every declared him the winner, but Hank insisted on challenging Every, despite Every’s protestation that he had been eliminated in the first round, which Hank said was “rigged” on purpose. So Every took him on in a long bout that ended in Every’s defeat, but Hank accused him of not even trying, and said “Come on, goddamn ye, and
try
!” Every said it was permissible to cuss all he wanted, but never to take the Lord’s name in vain, then he matched up with Hank again and defeated him quickly. Hank insisted that they were even and would have to have a third match to get the best two out of three. The third match was so interminable that Latha had to turn her eyes away. Hank was cheered on by his fellow Stay Morons; the
W.P.A
. boys took sides with Every and urged him to break Hank’s arm. But the two hands clenched together would not budge one inch one way or the other.

Latha found herself wondering where Dawny was. It wasn’t like him ever to miss a night. She looked around for him, but all the boys were big boys. She returned her eyes to the contest in time to see that Every had Hank’s arm tilted at a downward slant, and then with a crash it was all over. Hank complained that Every wasn’t human, and asked him his name, and when Every gave it, Hank said that if he’d known that he would have tried harder and beaten him. Every offered to go another round, but Hank declined, saying his arm felt like it was pulled loose from his shoulder.

When the gathering had broken up, and the boys had gone away, Sonora hand in hand with Hank, Latha offered to mend Every’s trousers. She led him into her bedroom where she kept her sewing supplies. She wondered again where Dawny was. She lifted Every’s coat-tail and inspected his trousers, which had a bad rip in the seat. She asked him to take his pants off. He wouldn’t. She said she didn’t think she could mend them while he still had them on. Finally he took them off but whipped the coverlet off the bed to wrap around himself. She sat at her sewing table and began mending the tear. She asked him why he had never married. He said she wouldn’t believe him if he told her. Try me, she said. He told her that the Lord had once told him that if he was patient enough, and good enough, the Lord would allow Every to find Latha again. And now He had. Latha was so moved by this that she embraced him and kissed him, pushing him down on the bed and giving him the best kiss of her life or his, but he turned his face away. “Don’t you like to kiss?” she asked.