Magnolia City (39 page)

“That’s an Irishman for you,” Pearl said. “They’re friendly, but they never tell you what’s really going on inside.”

Even though Garret had warned Hetty to stay out of the business dealings, she just couldn’t. She watched through the front window all day to see if he’d drive into town as he’d threatened. But neither vehicle budged. Nothing happened. Garret took his dinner down to the doghouse and didn’t return. After putting the baby to sleep, Hetty decided to take matters into her own hands. She imagined tiny gurgles rising from underground as their oil slowly drained away. After opening the valve on the well, she called Smack and arranged for him to make a pickup early the next morning. She had such bad dreams that when the alarm went off at four a.m., she was lying there awake waiting for it, castigating Lamar in her mind. She made her way down to the tank with the help of an electric lantern. She tried a few times to get the pump going but just couldn’t seem to crank the cold motor into life. She gave up and went to the derrick, turning the beam of the lantern into the doghouse. Garret was asleep with a grease-stained wool blanket pulled over him. She flashed the light at his eyes.

“Mac, get up. You’ve got to start the pump for me. I can’t do it.”

Garret threw off the blanket and shielded his eyes. “Will you let me figure this out?”

“What? Give up and go home? Let Lamar beat you?”

“He already has.”

“What kind of a man are you?”

“Go to hell.”

“I mean it, Mac. I’m really disappointed in you. I didn’t know you were a quitter.”

“That’s not fair!” He sat up, his eyes red and swollen in the lantern light.

“Why not? I notice Lamar didn’t give up. He found a way to steal our oil. He found a way to win. And if we let him, he’ll gloat about this for the rest of his life.”

“So let’s sell it and deny him the satisfaction.”

“No! That oil is ours. I don’t want anybody else to have it.”

Garret slid off the canvas and stood to face her. “You don’t want Lamar to have it, you mean.”

Hetty faced him down. “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t.”

They stared at each other in silence, their faces ghostly in the quivering beam.

Finally, Mac looked away and asked, “What happened that night?”

“What night?”

“The night you went out to dinner with him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about. What happened?”

“I conceived Pierce, that’s what happened. You should remember—you’re the father.”

“Nothing else happened?”

“No.”

“Then why is Lamar so interested in our little oil well?”

Hetty tried not to look guilty. She glanced away, then met her husband’s bloodshot eyes and held his fretful gaze without blinking. “I think he’s getting his revenge on me, Mac.”

“So nothing
did
happen that night?”

“No, nothing happened. That’s why he’s angry.”

“But he did try to get into your pants?”

“Well, of course. But he didn’t succeed.”

Garret drew back his hand as if to slap her. Hetty flinched, but he stopped himself in time. “I knew it. Why would you go out to dinner with him in the first place?”

“He offered to help us . . . I was hoping . . .”

Garret’s uplifted hand twisted into a fist. “What about me? Didn’t you wonder how I’d feel about it?”

“Is that still eating away at you? After all this time? We’ve had a baby together. We’ve struck oil together. I’m with
you,
Mac.”

“But you’re not with me. You’re fighting with him.”

“I was hoping you’d fight
with
me.”

“That’s not the wise thing to do, Hetty.” Garret brushed past her and stepped out of the doghouse. She aimed the beam into the darkness, catching his profile cocked back at her. “I can’t stay here any longer. I’m leaving. If you love me, you’ll come with me.” He extended his hand.

She watched his fingers opening to her, golden in the light streaming out of her electric beacon. She felt split in half, one hand longing to reach out to his, the other holding the lantern so tight her knuckles were aching. She just couldn’t let go. “You’re asking me to give up everything. I won’t do that. I’m staying.”

“You made your choice then.”

He started to walk away, but she spotlighted him. “Mac, if you’re really leaving me, let me have one last going-away gift. You owe me that much.”

“What?”

“Start the pump, dammit.”

Garret packed his clothes and was gone by dawn. He left her the Wichita truck and twenty-five dollars in cash. Hetty tried to find out where he was going, but he wouldn’t tell her. He left without saying good-bye.

Later, she set the alarm for four a.m. even though she probably wouldn’t need it. She lay there in the dark and quiet, her mind ablaze. She thought of Humble’s inferno, the well that someone had dynamited during the war over proration. Everything had caved into the fiery crater, even the roughnecks. She wondered what they saw on their journey down to hell. Yes, it was true what people said about war—it
is
hell but not because of what you have to do. It’s the way it makes you feel, that’s the hellish part. You fall into the crater. Churning with deep dark heat and hate. Hetty remembered reading in the safety manual at the Warwick Hotel that fire isn’t as bright as people imagine. Fire is pitch-black. Which is why it’s so hard to escape.

When the alarm woke her, Hetty was tempted to turn on the carbide lamp Garret kept on the derrick floor, but she was afraid its searing light could be seen from a distance. Instead, she flicked on the electric torch just long enough to locate the pump, covering it with her fingers and letting one thin ray of light through. It x-rayed her hand, turning her skin bloodred.

She knelt and grasped the metal crank, spinning it as hard as she could. She knew it was up to her now. The cold motor refused to sputter into life. In the distance, she heard a rumble and saw two yellow lights weaving down the hill toward her. Smack cut his motor and let his truck roll slowly toward her, gravity bringing it to a rest nearby. He killed his parking lights and waited in the cab.

Hetty tried over and over to rev up the pump, her arm muscles burning with the effort. But she just couldn’t get it churning fast enough. She smelled gasoline. Perhaps she had pulled the throttle out too far and now it was flooded. She rested for a minute, then she went at it again.

In between attempts, she heard the scrunch of the truck door opening and looked up. The sky was beginning to turn a dark blue.

“I’ve got to go!” she heard Smack wheeze.

“I know! Just give me a chance,” she spit back.

She tried several more times until her arm cramped. She rocked back and shook it out, tears of frustration misting her eyes.

She heard another snuffle. “I don’t dare wait!” Then a sound following it from the other direction, unmistakable: pine needles being crushed underfoot. Not like twigs snapping. A softer sound. Almost a whish. The needles whispering against each other. It came again.

“Shhh!” Hetty looked around but couldn’t see anything. She heard Smack slide back into the truck and pull the door almost shut with a groan.

She held on to the handle of the crank and didn’t move a muscle. Only her eyes roamed through the murk. She couldn’t see anything moving, even though the swishing sounds approached very close, then stopped. Hetty began to tremble inside, realizing what a spot she’d put herself into. Terror sent absurd notions spiraling through her mind.
I’ve been caught red-handed,
she thought, laughing darkly at the literalness of her fingers turning the color of blood over the flashlight.
I’m sitting here with a tank half filled with oil, my hand on a crank, and a trucker waiting for me to turn on the pump. What more evidence do they need?
She shuddered.
Will I be able to take Pierce to prison with me?

Her hand holding the crank disappeared as something warm and dark covered it.

“Why are you milking my well without me, Hetty?”

Her lungs sucked in air again. “Pick! You scared me to death.”

“Smells like that motor flooded.”

“I was afraid of that.” She slipped her hand out from under his, straining to make out his dusky face as he knelt beside her. “I thought you were off looking for work?”

“Ain’t none. Anywhere. I been up to Longview and over to Tyler. What you doing here in the middle of the night?”

She told what she’d learned about Lamar and the Rule of Capture. “That’s why I need to get this pump going. Smack’s waiting.”

“How come Mac ain’t doing this?”

“He left this morning. He quit on me, Pick.”

“That ain’t like Garret. What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is, I can’t let my sister and brother-in-law steal my oil right from under my feet. Would you help me, Pick?”

“I could sure use the work.”

“You got to pump oil for me again. I’m desperate. They won’t catch you. You’re invisible at night.”

“Not anymore. I been seen.”

“By who?”

“I rode a freight car back here from Tyler and was heading down Commerce Street. I was trying to stay in the shadows, but a Ranger spotted me. Gets down off his horse, wants to see my hands.”

“Your hands?”

“That’s how they tell if you’re a worker or a pimp. He asks me where I been working. I say on the Ada Hillyer. He asks me what I’m doing in town. I say just looking for work. He say, ‘There ain’t no work for white men much less niggers, so you better get out of town, boy.’ I say, ‘Yes, sir.’ He say, ‘I mean it. I don’t want to see your coon face again.’ He had the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen on a man.”

“Uh-oh. That was Poke Pritchett.”

“That’s when I walk out here. I got to hide.”

“I’m sorry he called you those names.”

“You can’t protect me from that, Hetty.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want you ending up on Lone Wolf’s trotline.”

“It don’t worry me.”

“It’s not much fun, from what I hear.”

“That’s all right,” he said, standing up. “My mother always taught me, son, your home’s in glory with God, and life on this earth is filled with trials and tests. Just bear them patiently and you’re sure to be called home someday. She used to sing,
‘We’ll run and never tire, we’ll run and never tire, Jesus set poor sinners free.’
” Pick’s hands came together in prayer as he sang in his fervent baritone.

Hetty stood. “We’re all being tested right now, that’s for sure.”

“Lone Wolf ain’t no test for me. It’s the other man I’m scared of.”

Hetty heard the truck door grinding on its hinges again and knew that Smack was going to leave if they didn’t start pumping some oil soon. She covered Pick’s hands in hers, shielding them and at the same time feeling their strength.

“You need to do this for Addie, Ollie, Minnie, and Lewis. How else are you going to keep them alive?”

“I reckon there be no other way.”

“All right, my man, get this goddamn pump going for me. And pray to Jesus your soul to keep.”

After a week, Smack rewarded Hetty with fifty dollars in cash. At six cents a barrel, that was all she could expect to make. Enough to stay alive, buy some groceries, and have a few dollars to spread around to all the people she owed. It would keep her operating during martial law, but Hetty wondered if it was worth the toll it was taking on her nerves. She was edgy during the day and woke up at four every morning listening for the sputter of the pump. She lay there in complete darkness, sprawled across the bed, still smelling Stacomb on Garret’s pillow. She wanted to choke the pillow till her nails split and beat it on the headboard until all the feathers ruptured like pestilence across the floor.
How could you leave me!
A ragged pulse beat in her ears; her guts went hot. She couldn’t fall asleep again until Smack’s truck had rumbled back up the hill and off into the dawn. She fantasized the sound of Pick’s screams as he was dragged off by the Rangers in chains. But none ever broke the silence. He did his job flawlessly, in secret, in quiet, in utter darkness.

With Smack’s fifty dollars in hand, she paid Pick and took Pearl and the baby into town. Hetty didn’t want anybody to know she had money to spend, so sent Pearl into the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and then into Brown’s Drugs for hamburgers and milk shakes. She lifted the
rebozo
over her head to hood her face and tossed the long fringes off her shoulders.

“I never thought a chocolate shake would be my idea of a good time,” she told Pearl, relishing the savor of the meat after endless suppers of purple peas and cabbage.

“One of Odell’s favorites,” Pearl said.

“How is he? Any more letters?”

“Not this week.”

“Sure wish he were here. ’Specially now that Garret left.”

“Look at us,” Pearl said, taking the last bite of her hamburger and shaking her head. “Both without our menfolk.”

“Amen,” said Hetty.

Pierce fell asleep as they drove home through the dusk. Pearl unpacked the groceries while Hetty put the baby to bed. She held him in the crook of one arm while she pulled back the clean white sheets and the light cotton blanket he slept under at night. She laid him down in the darkness, cradling his head on the pillow. He burbled as she drew the sheet up and tucked it under his arms. Then his breathing fell into the gentle tides of infant slumber. She cloistered herself at his cradle for a moment, holding his tiny hand, envying the deep peace of his untroubled sleep.