Gap Creek (13 page)

IT TOOK ALL of us to carry Mr. Pendergast to his bedroom. While the smoke was still settling in the kitchen, we lugged him around to the front door. Hank held him by one shoulder and I gripped him by the other, and Ma Richards carried his feet. Mr. Pendergast was half awake and moaning.

“I want to rub butter on your face and hands,” I said to him.

“You near about burned down his house,” Ma said. Ma was the kind of person who was always blaming somebody. If something went wrong she was more interested in pointing a finger than in fixing the problem. I have met a lot of people that way, but nobody as bad as Ma Richards.

“How did the fire start?” Hank said as we toted Mr. Pendergast up the front steps.

“Grease splashed out on the stove,” I said, “when I bumped one canner against another.”

“Everybody knows you throw baking soda on a grease fire,” Ma said.

Before I could stop myself I answered Ma. I hadn’t meant to stoop to her level, but I was tired. “You spread the fire by dumping a whole bucket of water on the lard,” I said.

“At least I tried to do something,” Ma said.

“You didn’t think about baking soda no more than I did,” I said.

Hank opened the door and we squeezed through into the dark living room. The bitter smoke smell hit me soon as we was inside. The house smelled like ashes.

“Somebody will have to get a doctor,” Ma Richards said as we carried Mr. Pendergast into the bedroom.

“I don’t even know where a doctor is,” Hank said.

Mr. Pendergast’s bed looked like a pit of rumpled quilts and blankets. After we laid him down I tried to fix the bed so he was at least under the covers. His hands was burned, but he was still holding on to the jar of money. I tried to take the jar out of his hands.

“No!” Mr. Pendergast hollered, and jerked the jar away from me. “That’s my war pension money.”

Hank lit a lamp on the nightstand and I bent down close to Mr. Pendergast. “Nobody is going to take your money,” I said. “We’ll put it right here on the stand where you can see it.”

I don’t think Mr. Pendergast believed me. He wouldn’t have trusted anybody with his money. But he was in so much pain he couldn’t think what to do. I took the jar from his hands and put it on the table. Skin hung in shreds off his hands where he had reached into the fire to get the money. “I’m going to put some butter on your burns,” I said.

“No!” he hollered.

“He’s beside hisself,” Ma Richards said.

“He’s hurting,” I said.

I hurried out to the springhouse to get a fresh cake of butter. It was starting to grow dark. Hank had gone to milk the cow, and Ma Richards set in the living room by the fireplace. “I can’t stand to look in that kitchen,” she said.

I didn’t see any way to rub the butter on Mr. Pendergast’s burns except with my bare fingers. And I knowed the burns was going to be tender. But when I rubbed my fingers in the butter and made it melt, and put my hand to Mr. Pendergast’s forehead, I was startled by his scream. I’d never heard a man holler that way. When Papa was sick and in pain he was always calm and well behaved, until near the very end.

“This will make you feel better,” I said. I tried to touch him with the butter again, but he howled and jerked away.

I knelt beside the bed with butter on my left hand and tried to think what to do. It was the hardest and longest day of my life. I was wore out from killing the hog, and cutting up the meat, and from cutting up the fat and fighting the fire. I was weak from throwing up. And I was to blame for the fire, as Ma Richards had pointed out. And I was to blame for Mr. Pendergast getting burned, except I had tried to keep him from going into the flames for his money jar. It was my job to do what I could to help, to make up for the bad I’d done.

The grit on the floor cut into my knees. “I’m trying to help you,” I said. But talking to somebody in great pain is like talking to a youngun or a dog. They just want to feel better and can’t think clear about it. And they don’t want to listen to what you have to say. Somebody suffering is as selfish as a baby.

Mr. Pendergast’s lips was cracked and bleeding. “I’m perishing of thirst,” he hollered.

I was going to call Ma Richards to bring me a dipper of water, but I thought better of it. I wiped my hands on my apron and hurried out to the spring to get a bucket of cold water. It was dark now, and the dirt of the path was already froze.

“What are you doing?” Hank called from the cowshed.

“I’m getting a drink for Mr. Pendergast,” I said.

“He needs a drink of liquor,” Hank said.

When I brought the bucket into the bedroom and held the dipper to Mr. Pendergast’s lips, he drunk like a man dying on the desert. The fire had burned him and parched him, and he was burning up inside. He gulped the water like a mad dog trying to quench its thirst. He gulped so fast he throwed some of the water up. His lips was so cracked and tender it hurt him to touch the dipper. His eyes stretched wide as he tried to drink faster. His eyebrows and lashes was burned away and his skin peeling like old paint with soot and blood on it.

“You’ll get sick if you drink too fast,” I said.

“I’m already sick,” he gasped and swallowed.

He drunk three dippers of water, and then he belched and throwed up. Mr. Pendergast was so weak he couldn’t raise his head, and when he throwed up the water just come out of the side of his mouth and run down his burned cheek. I took a towel and tried to wipe off his cheek and neck, but he screamed and pushed me away. He pushed me away and twisted on the bed and screamed again.

I had to do something to ease his pain. That’s when I remembered the shelf in the kitchen where there was all kinds of bottles and jars and little boxes. I had sorted through them looking for herbs and seasonings. But there was a number of jars and bottles and cans I hadn’t opened. I took the lamp and started out of the bedroom.

“Don’t leave me,” Mr. Pendergast hollered.

“I’m just going to get something,” I said.

“Don’t leave me,” he said again. I seen that he was afraid of the dark. I left the lamp on the nightstand and went to get another lamp in the living room.

Ma was setting by the fireplace.“He will die,” she said.

“We need to ease his pain,” I said.

“He’ll die in any case,” Ma said.

The kitchen was a mess of wet sacks and spilled lard, half-burned fat, soot, and charred boards. The fire in the stove was out, and the room was already cold. I climbed on a chair to look at the shelf. You never seen such a collection of old cans and bottles as Mr. Pendergast had there. Snuff cans was filled with sage and thyme, pepper and allspice. There was camphor and rubbing alcohol. There was oil of cloves for toothache, and Epsom salts, castor oil, and tincture of lobelia for snakebites. I opened several bottles and sniffed them. I didn’t know what some of them was.

But there was a dark blue bottle with a stopper in it. I pulled out the cork and smelled. It had the scent of alcohol, but smelled like something else too, an inky, earthy, musky smell. I had sniffed the scent before. It smelled of black wetness in the dirt, and yet was metallic too. If I remembered right that was the smell of laudanum. I took the bottle back to the front bedroom.

“God help me!” Mr. Pendergast called.

“If you pray to the Lord, he will help you,” Ma Richards said. She had come into the bedroom with me. Mr. Pendergast’s face now had blisters on it, with dried blood and strips of burned skin.

“The Lord help me, please,” Mr. Pendergast said.

“You take a tablespoon of this,” I said and poured a spoonful from the bottle. The liquid was brown and cold. It give off chemical fumes. I held the spoon to his lips, but he jerked away, like the cold spoon hurt his lips.

“Don’t spill it,” I said. “There’s only this little bottle.”

“He’s contrary as an old mule,” Ma Richards said.

“Help me,” Mr. Pendergast said and rolled his eyes.

“I’m trying to help you,” I said. “You drink this quick; it’ll make you feel better.” I put the spoon to his lips but he jerked away again.

“He’s got a devil in him,” Ma Richards said.

“I’m freezing in hell,” Mr. Pendergast said. He shivered so hard his teeth chattered. I had heard that people who had been burned felt like they was freezing to death, but I’d never seen it before. Mr. Pendergast jerked like he was naked in the snow.

“This will warm you up,” I said. I held the spoon just above his lips, and the instant he opened his mouth I tipped the liquid in. A little dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, but most of it went down.

“Water,” Mr. Pendergast called. I got the dipper and give him a drink. As he swallowed the water you could see a change come over him. His eyes got darker and wetter in the lamplight. Some of the inflamed look started going out of his neck and throat.

“He needs to sleep,” Ma Richards said.

Hank come to the door and looked in at Mr. Pendergast. “This is a pretty come off,” he said. He looked more disgusted than I had ever seen him.

“You’ve got to get a doctor,” Ma Richards said.

“Where?” Hank said. “I don’t even know where there’s an herb granny.”

Hank had worked all day and walked to Eaton and back and then had saved me from the smoke. He was as tired as I was. “Maybe we can get a doctor in the morning,” I said.

“This old man won’t live till morning, unless he’s doctored,” Ma Richards said.

Everything had turned out so bad, I couldn’t think what to do next. The kitchen was half burned up, and the lard was burned up. The sausage wasn’t made and I was so tired I was not at myself. Ma
Richards was quarreling at everything I did. And Mr. Pendergast was so bad burned he was in pain and in danger of dying, and I was partly the cause of it all. But it was no good to think about blame. Ma Richards had showed me that. The first thing was to take care of Mr. Pendergast, and all the rest could wait. Everything else could be sorted out the next day, or even the next week.

“Surely there’s a doctor in Tigerville,” I said. “Or somebody that can tell you where to find one.”

Hank come closer to Mr. Pendergast. “Where is your family?” he said, loud, like Mr. Pendergast was hard of hearing.

Mr. Pendergast mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand what he said.

“Where is your children?” I said. He mumbled again, but it didn’t make sense.

“We can find out tomorrow,” I said.

After Hank got his coat and left, I told Ma she might as well go on to bed. “I’ll stay up till Hank comes back,” I said.

“It’s in the fine hours that people suffer and die,” Ma Richards said.

“Hank will be back with a doctor soon,” I said.

I took a lamp back to the burned-out kitchen and looked for a fruit jar of liquor I’d seen on the shelf. I figured the liquor would go well with the laudanum. Together they might make Mr. Pendergast comfortable. The lamp throwed its yellow light and shadows on the table where the cold biscuits and tenderloin from our dinner remained. Only a few hours before we had set there eating and feeling so good. The biscuits and grits had soot on them. I found the jar and took it to the front bedroom.

Mr. Pendergast had not gone to sleep as I had hoped. His eyes was open and he watched me come through the door. “No!” he hollered. “You’re not coming after me.”

“I’m going to make you feel better,” I said.

“No,” he said and wrenched around in the bed like he was trying to get away from me.

“Everything is all right,” I said. “You’re going to feel better tomorrow. You’re going to feel better after a drink of this.”

But Mr. Pendergast looked at me like I was trying to poison him. He pulled away, and his eyes stretched wide in fear. “I’m just Julie,” I said. I poured some of the liquor into the dipper and held it out to him.

“No!” he screamed and pulled further away.

“Who do you think I am?” I said.

“I know who you are,” Mr. Pendergast said. “You’re the angel of death.”

“I ain’t no kind of angel,” I said, and held the dipper close to his lips.

“There was an angel of death in the prison camp,” Mr. Pendergast said. “Now you have come back for me.”

“Drink this and I’ll put some butter on your burns,” I said. I held the dipper in front of him but he didn’t drink. He was quiet for a few moments.

“I have committed the unpardonable sin,” he said.

“Ain’t no such thing,” I said.

“You’re taking me to hell,” Mr. Pendergast said.

“I’m just giving you a drink until the doctor comes,” I said.

“I have committed the unpardonable sin without even knowing it,” he said.

“What have you done?” I said. I wanted to keep him humored until the doctor arrived.

“I’ve sinned against the Holy Ghost,” he said.

“You’re talking out of your head,” I said. “All you did was get burned looking for your money.”

“Where is my money?” he said, his face in a panic.

“Your money is right here, see,” I said and pointed to the jar on the nightstand, beside the lamp and bottle of laudanum.

“You can have the money,” he said, “if you’ll leave me alone.”

“I don’t want your money,” I said. I held the dipper to his mouth and he gulped some of the white liquor and coughed. He took another big swallow and coughed again. I hoped with both the liquor and laudanum in him he could rest a little, and I could rub butter on his burns. I wanted to soothe him and keep him soothed until the doctor come. He laid back on the pillow and I reached for the butter. But before I rubbed any on my fingers he jerked up in bed again.

“Can you smell it?” he said.

“Smell what?” I said. “All I smell is this corn liquor.”

“It’s the pit of hell,” he said, “the stink of brimstone like rotten eggs burning.”

“Just the smoke from the fire in the kitchen,” I said. “Let me put some butter on your burns.”

Tears was streaming out of Mr. Pendergast’s bloodshot eyes. “It’s the fire that never dies,” he sobbed.

“You just smell the grease fire,” I said.

He cried like his heart and will was broke. I had never seen a man cry like that. “I will burn for all time,” he said.

It was as if the liquor and the laudanum had soothed the burning on his face and head and hands but made his conscience burn worser. He was truly afraid. “You should get some sleep,” I said.