Gap Creek (5 page)

“Julie!” a voice called in the wind, but I ignored it. It was maybe three in the morning, and I had a lot of wood to split yet.

AFTER ALL THE logs was busted open and ready to be carried in, I got a piece of pine from the woodshed to hack for kindling. It was fat, knotty pine I’d gathered on the ridge above Papa’s newground. Holding the axe close to the head I shaved off some splinters from the brittle piece and then split it into slivers. I needed little pieces to start fires in the cookstove and fireplace in the morning. The pine wood glittered in the lantern light like sugar or some yellow crystals. Some of the splinters was no bigger than matchsticks. And some was the size of knives and forks. I piled the kindling in a neat little heap beside the lantern.

My eyes was wet, but it was not from sweat. There was tears running down my cheeks as I started splitting another piece of seasoned pine.

“Julie,” somebody said in the wind, but the voice was close by. I kept hacking at the wood with the axe, though I couldn’t see too well.

“What are you doing?” the voice said. It was Rosie, who had come up behind me still wrapped in the blanket.

“I’m getting in wood, since nobody else will do it,” I said.

“At four o’clock in the morning you’re splitting more wood?” Rosie said.

“Somebody has got to keep the house warm for Papa,” I said.

“Papa is dead,” Rosie said. “You might as well come back in.”

“I’ll come in after a while,” I said, and hit at the stick of pine again. In the lantern light I seen my tears drip on the axe.

Three

After Papa’s death things hadn’t changed as much as you might think. For Papa had been sick a long time, and I was already doing most of the outdoor work, me and Lou, and sometimes Mama helped. You didn’t get Rosie much out in the fields or woods. She was a house worker. When things had to be done in the fields or woods, Mama would complain, and then she would tell Lou and me to go do it. But it was up to me to see that things got done. In any house somebody has to take the burden. Mama would say, “Julie, don’t you think it’s time to plant the taters,” and I’d say, “Mama, I’ve done dropped the taters yesterday, and I’ll plant corn today.” She had never got over the death of Masenier, and then Papa died, and it seemed to leave her wore out, like she didn’t feel up to trying no more. Wasn’t anything for me to do but take over and get out and do the work, whether I liked it or not.

There was this Spanish oak that had fell in a storm the winter before, on the bank of the road. It fell in the wind on the night Papa died, but I had been too busy in the fields all summer to cut it up. So it laid there and dried out and seasoned a little, which made it easier to saw.

The first time I saw Hank I was too embarrassed to speak. But that was just because I was took by surprise. Because it was the last thing I was expecting, to fall in love. It was late summer after Papa died in early spring, and Mama and me was sawing the Spanish oak right on the bank of the road where it comes up from Crab Creek.

I reckon there’s nothing awkwarder in the world than the sight of two women in long dresses at either end of a crosscut saw. It was still hot and my hair had come unpinned when I wiped the sweat off my forehead. My face was hot and there was big rings of sweat under my armpits. I was so busy working I didn’t hear the horse until it snorted and kind of cleared its throat. And when I looked up and brushed a strand out of my eyes, I saw this wagon hitched to a chestnut mare. The wagon stopped and this man, really almost a boy, a big, strong boy, stood in the bed holding the reins.

“Howdy,” he hollered to Mama, not paying much attention to me.

“How do,” Mama said, standing up. She had took to saying “How do” the way Papa used to.

I can say without doubt the man in the wagon was the handsomest I had ever seen. His hair was black and he had this high rounded forehead. And already he had a soft mustache that hung around the ends of his mouth. He was tanned dark from working in the fields all summer. But the thing that caught my notice first was his shoulders. He had the straightest, widest shoulders, and you could tell how powerful he was, and how much he could lift. It was the way he was made, and not that he was such a terrible big man.

“I’m looking for the Willards that are selling sweet taters,” he said.

“You ain’t there yet,” Mama said and pointed on up the road.

“Figured I had a ways to go,” the man said.

“Where you coming from?” Mama said. It was not what she would have said when Papa was alive. She said it the way Papa would have.

“All the way from Painter Mountain,” the man said. “I’m Hank Richards.”

“I’m Delia Harmon,” Mama said. “And this is my daughter Julie.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the man said and tipped his hat.

That was when I felt myself get red in the face. The sweat run down my temples, and I felt myself blushing all over. Because it wasn’t till that second that I remembered I didn’t have any shoes on. I was saving my shoes for winter and I didn’t want to wear any heavy work shoes if I was just going to be standing in the leaves and sawing. And it was so much cooler to go barefoot. But at that instant I knowed I didn’t want Hank Richards to see me barefoot, like a little girl or a pauper. It was bad enough that he had seen me pulling a crosscut saw.

I wiped the hair off my forehead and tried not to look at him. And trying not to show I was moving, I worked my feet into the leaves. My dress was long and I hoped the mayapples on the bank would help hide my dirty feet. It was like I was caught naked, though there wasn’t anything bare except my face and hands and feet.

“I was sorry to hear about your man,” Hank said.

“We have to believe the Lord knows what he’s doing,” Mama said.

“Hard as it is,” Hank said and shook his head. I could see he was talking like a grown-up man, which he wasn’t used to doing. And he was talking to Mama for my benefit, or at least partly for my benefit. I seen he had stopped for my benefit too, for he must have knowed perfectly well where the Willard place was. I was so pleased at the thought I must have blushed even more.

But I seen that Hank wasn’t going to speak to me. He was just going to talk to Mama so I could get a good look at him, and he could steal glances at me, and I could hear his talk.

“Mr. Harmon was a mighty fine man,” he said and shook his head to show he understood how hard it was to make sense of things that happen.

“He worked as long as he could,” Mama said.

“He was a man you could count on,” Hank said and spit tobacco juice over the side of the wagon. The horse stepped sideways and he hollered, “Whoa there.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Mama said.

“I don’t get up this way too much,” Hank said.

“You ought to come to church here sometime,” Mama said. “We’re having a singing a week from Sunday.”

“Might do that,” Hank said. “I might just do that.”

“Come to church and then come on home with us for Sunday dinner,” Mama said. She said it just like Papa would have.

“I’d admire to do that,” Hank said and looked right at me.

“Do you like to sing?” Mama said.

“Better than I like to eat peaches,” Hank said.

“Come by some evening and we’ll raise a song around the fireplace,” Mama said.

Hank lifted the reins and rippled them across the mare’s back. It was time for him to go on. He had stopped in the road and talked as long as was polite. “You all come see us,” he said.

“We don’t never get as far as Painter Mountain,” Mama said, “unless we’re going to Greenville.”

“You’re welcome if you do,” Hank said and tipped his hat, first to Mama and then to me. And as he did he looked right at me, right into my eyes, and I felt a jolt go through me like lightning from the back of my neck to my groin, and my knees trembled. I was so thrilled I looked right back at him. I couldn’t look away.

Now a look can tell you more than hundreds of words, if it’s the right look at the right time. A look can go through your face and eyes right inside you. The look Hank give me lifted me off my feet and burned into my heart. I was a girl that never had been around boys much, been too busy working and worrying about Papa. I
guess Papa had been the man I had been in love with, in a way, more than any other person.

But I don’t know why Hank’s look stung me so deep at that instant. We don’t ever know why we fall in love with one person as opposed to another. Let’s say I was just a healthy girl that once Papa died was ready to fall in love. You can say it any way you want to, and it still comes out to mean the same thing.

I looked right back at Hank, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from him. I’d never done anything so bold before, but I couldn’t help it. The look may have lasted only a second, but it felt like we was fixed on each other and couldn’t break loose. I’d never felt so scared or so inspired. Hank’s look filled me with something that was sweeter than the sweetest sleep when you are tired. He flicked the reins again and the horse stepped up the road. I watched the wagon creak and rattle on the rocks, and Hank’s straight back where he stood holding the reins.

“There’s a young man that’s proud of hisself,” Mama said when he was out of hearing.

“I reckon so,” I said. Mama looked at me and seen how I was blushing. I never could hide a thing from Mama. And she must have seen that look Hank and me had traded.

“Don’t go getting ideas,” Mama said. “You’re not but seventeen, and you know we need you on the place.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I snapped. But I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. I was watching Hank’s straight shoulders as he rode through the spotlights and dapples of sun that come through the oak trees, and I was wondering if he had seen my bare feet. I wiggled my toes in the leaves.

“Take hold of that saw,” Mama said. “We’ve got to finish this log.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

• • •

THE VERY NEXT Sunday Hank come to church on the mountain. He wore a gray suit of clothes, like he was from town. He must have just bought the suit, for it looked brand-new. I saw him standing outside the church when we arrived. The other young men and boys was slouching on one side of the door and Hank was standing on the other by hisself. The Willards always said they wouldn’t let boys from any other community come to court girls on the mountain.

Hank touched his hat as I walked past him up the steps. I didn’t know if I should speak to him or not, since that would tell all the other boys he had come courting me. I glanced at Hank and walked by quick, but I had seen that look in his eye, like there wasn’t nobody in the world except me and him. Something thrust up in my heart like water busting from a fountain.

All through preaching I could feel Hank’s eyes on the back of my head and neck. He had come in and set down on the last bench with the backsliders and sinners and most of the boys in the community. I reckon they elbowed and shoved each other, and throwed lit matches in each other’s laps during service like they always did. They didn’t get a bit of good out of preaching, and the rest of us ignored them.

Soon as service was over I dreaded to go outside, for I didn’t know what would happen. Would the Willard boys get in a fistfight with Hank? Would they let him get away? I knowed they was rough, mean boys and I was afraid for him.

But soon as I come out the church door following Mama and Rosie, there stood Hank with his hat in his hand like a peddler. “How do,” he said to Mama. “How do, ma’am.”

As I stepped by him he said, “Miss Harmon, may I have the honor of walking you home?” He said it just like he was a lawyer, an educated person from town. Everybody in the churchyard was listening. I couldn’t think of what to say. “Why sure” wouldn’t sound
right, and “Yeah” wouldn’t sound polite. All the other girls, and the Willard boys, and Mama and Rosie, and the preacher, was watching. Nothing I could think of to say sounded right. So I just nodded and Hank held out his arm for me to take.

As we walked out of the yard I could feel the pressure of all eyes on me. It was like a high wind coming at my back, pushing the cloth of my dress against my skin. I don’t know if I was blushing or not. In the bright sunlight it didn’t matter.

Don’t ask me what we talked about walking down the road toward our place. I was just aware of holding on to Hank’s strong arm. I think he talked about playing the banjo, and about how to make a banjo out of the skin of a cat. I think he asked if I sung alto or soprano, and I told him alto. He said he’d thought so. Mama and the other girls walked along behind us so we didn’t have a chance to kiss, even if we had wanted to. People in those days didn’t kiss anyway unless they was already serious.

We walked up that road and I thought about what those Willard boys might try to do. And I thought about how Lou and Rosie would tease me. And I thought about how even if Hank never did come back I would always remember how he had walked me home. A handsome boy from Painter Mountain had walked me home from church.

Back at the house Hank took his hat off and set on the porch talking to Carolyn while the rest of us helped Mama put dinner on the table. Mama had cooked her chicken before church and kept it warm in the oven. Mama asked Lou if she would take the bucket to the spring for some fresh water. It was a good thing I had killed and plucked the chicken that morning, because we didn’t always have chicken on Sunday. I had hoped Hank might show up at church, and come home with us.

When we finally did set down to eat, Mama asked Hank to say
the blessing. He set at the head of the table where Papa had set, and bowed his head. “Lord,” he said, “for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful, and for the struggles of this life make us strong and worthy, and for the beauties of the world make us humble and grateful.”

It was an eloquent blessing, unlike any I had heard before. I looked at Hank just as he raised his head and caught his eye for a second. He didn’t wink, but it felt like he had winked.

Everything went all right at the dinner until I had to go to the kitchen for the coffee. The chicken and rice and peas and peaches was good. And the cornbread was hot and just soft enough. Hank eat plenty of everything.