Morning Glory (2 page)

He left the farm behind, trudging northward on a gravel road the color of fresh rust. The smell of the pines was inviting, and the look of them, all green and crisp against the red clay earth. There were so many rivers here, fast-flowing streams in a hurry to get to the sea. He’d even seen some waterfalls where the waters rushed out of the Blue Ridge foothills toward the coastal plain to the south. And orchards everywhere—peach, apple, quince and pear. Lord, what it must look like when those fruit trees bloomed. Soft pink clouds, and fragrant, too. Will had discovered within himself a deep need to experience the softer things in life since he’d gotten out of that hard place. Things he’d never noticed before—the beginning bloom on the cheek of a peach, the sun caught on a droplet of dew in a spiderweb, a pink apron on a woman with her hair tied in a clean white dishtowel.

He reached the edge of Whitney, scarcely more than a widening in the pines, a mere slip of a town dozing in the afternoon sun with little more moving than the flies about the tips of the chicory blossoms. He passed an ice house on the outskirts, a tiny railroad depot painted the color of a turnip, a wooden platform stacked with empty chicken crates, the smell of their former occupants rejuvenated by the hot sun. There was a deserted house overgrown with morning glory vines behind a seedy picket fence, then a row of occupied houses, some of red brick, others of Savannah gray, but all with verandas and rocking chairs out front, telling how many people lived in each. He came to a school building closed for the summer, and finally a town square typical of most in the south, dominated by a Baptist church and the town hall, with other businesses scattered around, interspersed by vacant
lots—a drugstore, grocery, cafe, hardware, a blacksmith shop in front of which stood a brand-new gas pump topped by a white glass eagle.

He stopped before the office of the town newspaper, absently gazing at his reflection in the window. He fingered the few precious bills in his pocket, turned and glanced across the square at Vickery’s Cafe, pulled his hat brim down lower and strode in that direction.

The square held a patch of green grass and a bandstand wreathed by black iron benches. In the cool splash of shade beneath an enormous magnolia tree two old men sat, whittling. They glanced up as he passed. One of them nodded, spat, then returned to his whittling.

The screen door on Vickery’s Cafe had a wide red and white tin band advertising Coca-Cola. The metal was warm beneath Will’s hands and the door spring sang out as he entered the place. He paused a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimness. At a long counter, two men turned, regarded him indolently without removing their elbows from beside their coffee cups. A buxom young woman ambled the length of the counter and drawled, “Howdy. What can I do for y’, honey?”

Will trained his eyes on her face to keep them off the row of plates behind the counter where cherry and apple pie winked an invitation.

“Wondered if you got a local paper I could look at.”

She smiled dryly and cocked one thin-plucked eyebrow, glanced at the lump of wet green terrycloth he held against his thigh, then reached beneath the counter to dig one out. Will knew perfectly well she’d seen him pause before the newspaper office across the street, then walk over here instead.

“Much obliged,” he said as he took it.

She propped the heel of one hand on a round hip and ran her eyes over the length of him while chewing gum lazily, making it snap.

“You new around these parts?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You the new one out at the sawmill?”

Will had to force his hands not to grip the folded paper. All
he wanted was to read it and get the hell out of here. But the two at the counter were still staring over their shoulders. He felt their speculative gazes and gave the waitress a curt nod.

“Be okay if I set down a spell and look at this?”

“Sure thing, help yourself. Can I get ya a cup of coffee or anything?”

“No, ma’am, I’ll just...” With the paper he gestured toward the row of high-backed booths, turned and folded his lanky frame into one of them. From the corner of his eye he saw the waitress produce a compact and begin to paint her lips. He buried his face in the
Whitney Register.
Headlines about the war in Europe; disclosure of a secret meeting between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, who’d drafted something called the Atlantic Charter; Joe DiMaggio playing another in his long string of safe-hit games;
Citizen Kane,
starring Orson Welles, showing at someplace called The Gem; the announcement of a garden party coming up on Monday; an advertisement for automobile repair beside another for harness repair; the funeral announcement of someone named Idamae Dell Randolph, born 1879 in Burnt Corn, Alabama, died in the home of her daughter, Elsie Randolph Blythe on August 8, 1941. The want ads were simple enough to locate in the eight-page edition: a roving lawyer would be in town the first and third Mondays of each month and could be found in Room 6 of the Town Hall; someone had a good used daybed for sale; someone wanted a husband...

A husband?

Will’s eyes backtracked and read the whole ad, the same one she’d tacked up on the time board at the mill.

WANTED—A HUSBAND
. Need healthy man of any age willing to work a spread and share the place. See E. Dinsmore, top of Rock Creek Road.

A healthy man of any age? No wonder the millhands called her crazy.

His eyes moved on: somebody had homemade rag rugs for sale; a nearby town needed a dentist and a mercantile establishment an accountant.

But nobody needed a drifter fresh out of Huntsville State Penitentiary who’d picked fruit and ridden freights and wrangled cattle and drifted half the length of this country in his day.

He read E. Dinsmore’s ad again.

Need healthy man of any age willing to work a spread and share the place.

His eyes narrowed beneath the deep shadow of his hat brim while he studied the words. Now what the hell kind of woman would advertise for a man? But then what the hell kind of man would consider applying?

The pair of locals had twisted around on their stools and were overtly staring. The waitress leaned on the counter, gabbing with them, her eyes flashing often to Will. He eased from the booth and she sauntered to meet him at the glass cigar counter up front. He handed her the paper, curled a hand around his hat brim without actually dipping it.

“Much obliged.”

“Anytime. It’s the least I can do for a new neighbor. The name’s Lula.” She extended a limp hand with talons polished the same vermilion shade as her lips. Will assessed the hand and the come-hither jut of her hip, the unmistakable message some women can’t help emanating. Her bleached hair was piled high and tumbled onto her forehead in a studied imitation of Hollywood’s newest cheesecake, Betty Grable.

At last Will extended his own hand in a brief handshake accompanied by an even briefer nod. But he didn’t offer his name.

“Could you tell me how to find Rock Creek Road?”

“Rock Creek Road?”

Again he gave a curt nod.

The men snickered. The smile fell from Lula’s sultry mouth.

“Down past the sawmill, first road south of there, then the first road left offa that.”

He stepped back, touched his hat and said, “Much obliged,” before walking out.

“Well,” Lula huffed, watching him walk past the window. “If he ain’t a surly one.”

“Didn’t fall for your smile now either, did he, Lula?”

“What smile you talkin’ about, you dumb redneck? I didn’t give him no smile!” She moved along the counter, slapping at it with a wet rag.

“Thought y’ had a live one there, eh, Lula?” Orlan Nettles leaned over the counter and squeezed her buttock.

“Damn you, Orlan, git your hands off!” she squawked, twisting free and swatting his wrist with the wet rag.

Orlan eased back onto the stool, his eyebrows mounting his forehead. “Hoo-ee! Would y’ look at that now, Jack.” Jack Quigley turned droll eyes on the pair. “I never knew old Lula to slap away a man’s hand before, have you, Jack?”

“You got a right filthy mouth, Orlan Nettles!” Lula yelped.

Orlan grinned lazily, lifted his coffee cup and watched her over the brim. “Now what do you suppose that feller’s doing up Rock Creek Road, Jack?”

Jack at last showed some sign of life as he drawled, “Could be he’s goin’ up to check out the Widow Dinsmore.”

“Could be. Can’t figger what else he’d of found in that newspaper, can you, Lula?”

“How should I know what he’s doin’ up Rock Creek Road? Wouldn’t open his mouth enough to give a person his name.”

Orlan loudly swallowed the last of his coffee. “Yup!” With the back of a hand he smeared the wetness from the corners of his mouth over the rest of it. “Reckon he went on up to check out Eleanor Dinsmore.”

“That crazy old coot?” Lula spat. “Why, if he did, he’ll be back down in one all-fire hurry.”

“Don’t you just wish, Lula... don’t you just wish?” Orlan chuckled, bowed his legs and backed off the stool, then dropped a nickel on the counter.

Lula scraped up her tip, dropped it into her pocket and
dumped his coffee cup into a sink beneath the counter. “Go on, git out o’ here, you two. Ain’t givin’ me no business anyway, sittin’ there soppin’ up coffee.”

“C’mon, Jack, what say we sashay up to the lumber mill, do a little snoopin’ around, see what we can find out.”

Lula glared at him, refusing to break down and ask him to come back and tell her what he learned about the tall, handsome stranger. The town was small enough that it wouldn’t take her long to find out on her own.

By the time he found the Dinsmore place it was evening. He used his green towel to wash in a creek before going up, then hung it on a tree limb and set the fruit jar carefully beneath it. The road—if you could call it that—was steep, rocky and full of washouts. Reaching the top, he found himself sweating again but figured it really didn’t matter; she wouldn’t take him anyway.

He left the road and approached through the woods, standing hidden in the trees, studying the place. It was a mess: chicken dung, piles of rusting machinery, a goat chewing his cud on a back stoop that looked ready to drop off the house, outbuildings peeling, shingles curled, tools left out in the weather, a sagging clothesline with a chipped enamel kettle hanging from one pole, remnants of a weedy garden.

Will Parker felt as if he fit right in.

He stepped into the clearing and waited; it didn’t take too long.

A woman appeared in the doorway of the house, one child on her hip, another burrowing into her skirts with a thumb in its mouth. She was barefoot, her skirt faded, its hem sagging to the right, her blouse the color of muddy water, her entire appearance as shabby as her place.

“What can I do for you?” she called. Her voice sounded flat, wary.

“I’m lookin’ for the Dinsmore place.”

“You found it.”

“I come about the ad.”

She hitched the baby higher onto her hip. “The ad?” she repeated, squinting for a closer look.

“The one about the husband.” He moved no closer, but stayed where he was at the edge of the clearing.

Eleanor Dinsmore kept a safe distance, unable to make out much of him. He wore a curled cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, stood with his weight—what there was of it—on one bony hip with his thumbs hitched in his back pockets. She made out scuffed cowboy boots, a worn blue cambric shirt with sweat-stained armpits and faded jeans several inches too short for his lanky legs. There was nothing to do, she guessed, but go on out there and take a look at him. Wouldn’t matter anyhow. He wouldn’t stay.

He watched as she picked her way around the goat, down the steps and across the clearing, never taking her eyes off him, that young one still riding her hip, the other one tagging close—barefoot, too. She came slow, ignoring a chicken that squawked and flapped out of her path.

When she stood no more than ten feet before him she let the baby slip down and stand by himself, braced against her knee.

“You applying?” she asked smilelessly.

His eyes dropped to her stomach. She was pregnant as hell.

She watched, waiting for him to turn heel and run. Instead, his eyes returned to her face. At least she thought they did from the slight lifting of his hat brim.

“I reckon I am.” He stood absolutely still, not a nerve flinching.

“I’m the one placed the ad,” she told him, so there’d be no question.

“Figured you were.”

“There’s three of us... nearly four.”

“Figured there were.”

“The place needs work.”

She waited, but he didn’t say he figured it did, didn’t even glance sideways at all the junk in the yard.

“You still interested?” she asked.

She’d never seen anyone could stand so still. “I reckon so.” His britches were so loose she expected them to drop over his hipbones any second. His gut was hollow. But he had wiry arms, the kind that look as strong relaxed as flexed,
with veins standing out in the hollows where the flesh was palest. He might be thin, but he wasn’t puny. He’d be a worker.

“Then take your hat off so’s I can see you one time.”

Will Parker wasn’t fond of removing his hat. When he’d been released from prison his hat and boots were the only things they’d returned to him. The Stetson was oily, misshapen, but an old friend. Without it he felt naked.

Still, he answered politely, “Yes, ma’am.”

Once the hat was off he stood without fidgeting, letting her get a gander at his face. It was long and lean, like the rest of him, with brown eyes that looked as if he worked hard to keep the expression out of them. Same with his voice; it was respectful but flat. He didn’t smile, but his mouth was good, had a nice shape to the upper lip with two definite peaks, which she liked. His hair was a dirty blond, the color of a collie, shaggy at the back and around his ears. The front was plastered against his brow from his hatband. “You could use a haircut,” was all she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He put his hat back on and it hid his eyes again, while from beneath its shadow he took in the woman’s worn cotton clothes, the sleeves rolled to the elbows, the soiled skirt where her belly was fullest. Her face might have been pretty, but looked old before its time. Maybe it was just the hair, flying around like goose grass from whatever moored it at the back of her neck. He took her for thirty, maybe, but thought if she ever smiled it might take five years off her.