Pamela Morsi (14 page)

It was also important to keep an eye out for water moccasins. The stout, flatheaded snake was an adept
swimmer. It was in the marshes to eat fish and frogs, but the threat of a large human tramping through its territory would definitely lead it to make a venomous bite.

Moss felt a sense of self-congratulation as he approached the rise where the lake met the woods and the marsh ended. This was the worst of his alternative route to the cabin. Once into the woods, he could pick up the pace and be inside and dry and wearing trousers in just a couple more minutes.

He actually had a smile on his face as he stepped out of the thick growth and directly in front of his uncle and brother-in-law.

The two were seated on the point of the bluff woods rise, their cane poles hanging lazily out over the water. Uncle Jeptha was in his cart, his oars set into the ground in front of the wheels to keep him firmly in place on the slope. The boy was right at his side, eyeing Moss with amazed curiosity.

“What happened to you?” Rans asked.

Moss hadn’t planned an explanation. It was embarrassing to be caught wearing only his red flannel union suit. It was infinitely more humiliating to admit that he’d been tramping through a wet, snake-infested marsh so his wife wouldn’t see him in his underwear. He glanced back the way he’d come, hoping that a feasible falsehood would occur to him.

“I was … I was looking at the cattails,” he lied with enthusiasm. “We got a lot of people to feed here now. Until we’ve got something coming up in that garden, we’re going to have to find food where we can. Those young shoots, they taste almost like corn and can surely offer a bit of variety from a steady diet of poke salat.”

Moss looked up at them hopefully, willing them not to ask him why he hadn’t actually picked any cattails while he was there.

“No, I meant your face,” the boy said. “What happened to your face?”

Moss drew his hand to the bite on his cheek. It was still sore as the dickens, but he hadn’t seen it yet. He had no idea if it was an annoying scratch or a scar for life. Either way, he didn’t want the details known.

“Oh, this,” he said, attempting to shrug it off casually. “I fell last night.”

Jeptha’s eyes widened in surprise. The boy visibly paled.

“You did that when you fell last night?” his uncle asked in disbelief.

Moss remembered then that he
had
fallen in the cabin while he was in a tipsy pursuit of his new bride.

“Yes,” he answered. “Last night in the cabin. I hit my head on the footboard when I fell.”

“Well, Lord a’mighty, Moss, why didn’t you say something?” Jeptha scolded. “I thought you might have skinned a shin or bruised a knee, but I never imagined that you were hurt so bad.”

“Well … ah … I was a little worse for liquor last night. And … well … you know how it is when you get a belly full of corn squeezings. You can dang near break a leg and not feel a thing.”

Uncle Jeptha was amazed. The boy was strangely silent.

“Guess I’d best get up to the cabin,” Moss said, easing up the rise and into the woods as if he were simply on a leisurely morning stroll.

The two continued to watch him, so he didn’t turn
but continued to wave as he backed away from them.

“Good fishing!” he called out to them.

They nodded lamely, still obviously curious.

“Hope you catch us a mess of trout for supper.”

As soon as he reached the seclusion of the woods, he began trotting away at a rapid pace and cursing his bad luck under his breath. He felt like a fool and he was pretty sure that he looked like one, running through the woods in his work shoes and red flannels.

When he came to the back of the barn, he crawled over the rail and kept close to the stalls. Red Tex was excited to see him, snorting and stomping. Even the old jenny was curious about his surreptitious behavior.

He spotted Little Minnie playing under the plum near the edge of the clearing. She was faced away from the path he needed to take. But there was surely no guarantee that she wouldn’t turn glance around and catch sight of him any minute.

Moss went into the tack room and got Red Tex’s saddle blanket. Caution to the wind now, humiliation a surety, he was getting into the cabin to get his spare trousers, no matter what.

The blanket, a brown and tan weave, was stiff and permanently bent into the shape of a horse’s back. There was no way that Moss could effectively wrap it around him. He simply held it up, between his chest and thighs on the side that Little Minnie would view if she turned around.

He stepped out in the open yard, but kept his movements quiet and smooth, almost tiptoeing down the path. He watched the back of the child’s head, expecting any minute for her to turn around, catch sight of him, and start screaming.

Success was at hand when he set foot on the porch. Unfortunately he still had his eyes on Little Minnie and he tripped over a dishpan of dirty dishes that had been left, for some unknown reason, sitting next to the front door.

As the dishpan tipped over and the noisy tin plates went flying in every direction, Moss dived into the doorway. He was going to get his trousers on, no matter what. He scrambled to his feet and raced to the peg. It was empty. Horrified, he turned to the other pegs, the shelf, the beds. There was not a stitch of clothing, blanket, or linen in the whole cabin.

I
T
is one of the hard truths of life, Eulie realized, that a person can do something for a very good and worthy purpose that unwittingly causes an unacceptable inconvenience for someone else.

The sweet-tempered husband-man, who didn’t so much as spew a foul name at her for nearly biting his cheek off, was in a terrible fury to discover that she had inadvertently left him with nothing to wear but his union suit.

It was simply an unfortunate mistake. She was to blame. And she admitted that immediately. But somehow that didn’t cool his anger. Moss Collier ranted like a mad man. He paced back and forth in the cabin like a caged animal wearing his red flannel union suit, a horse blanket wrapped precariously about his loins.

“So what were you expecting me to do?” he asked her. “Didn’t you think that I’d have work to do today?”

“I didn’t think at all,” she admitted.

“That’s common for you, it seems,” he pointed out unkindly.

Eulie held her peace, declining to respond to that.

“It’s too wet to plow anyway,” she pointed out. “Yesterday’s rain needs to soak in some.”

“But there is plenty of other work to be done,” he told her. “There are shingles that need to be cut for that shed roof, repairs to be completed, and a thousand other chores that need doing before I go.”

“That’s what I was thinking about,” she said. “I was thinking about you leaving.”

“You were thinking about that?”

She nodded affirmatively “You can’t very well leave Tennessee without clean clothes,” she said.

“Clean clothes?” he scoffed at her. “I’d venture to say there is not a man in West Texas today wearing clean clothes.”

There was no arguing, so Eulie didn’t try.

“Maybe you should just take to your bed today and have a nice rest,” she suggested. “That’s what my daddy used to do. Some days he’d just take to his bed, he said he needed to garner his strength.”

“Your daddy was the laziest man that ever lived in the Sweetwood,” the husband-man pointed out. “I don’t think anyone should use him as the example.”

Eulie didn’t take offense at his words. They were more than likely true. And after what she had done to him last night, evidenced by the ugly purple bruise on his cheek, she refused to be offended.

As for leaving him near-naked and hollering like a fool, she couldn’t even manage to be very sorry. What she felt mostly was amused. It was all she could do to keep from giggling out loud. Here her big proud husband-man, puffing, furious as a wet hen, paced back and forth across the cabin floor wearing red flannel underwear and a horse blanket.

He stopped suddenly and turned to look at her. She bit down on her lip, but it wasn’t enough.

“You’re laughing at me!” he accused.

“No, oh no,” she assured him as one tiny snicker escaped from her throat.

“You are! You are laughing at me.”

She did then, full force.

“I can’t believe that you are laughing at me!” he exclaimed. “After all you’ve done to me, all you’ve put me through, you stand there laughing at me.”

Eulie did try to stop, but his tone, a mixture of indignation and incredulity, his puffed-up posturing, considering his current predicament, just struck her as hilarious.

“You just looked so funny,” she spurted out in her own defense.

He glared at her, hands on hips, still maintaining his modesty with the horse blanket. She managed to stop for a second, only to burst out once more.

She watched as his expression softened and a wry grin began to curl at the corner of his mouth. Finally, he shrugged, glanced up toward heaven, and then came at her like a wild man.

“If you’re going to laugh, I’ll give you something to laugh about,” he declared in feigned fury.

He grabbed her around the waist, lifted her into the air and began tickling her.

“No! No!” she shrieked.

Her words had no effect upon him. His fingers moved with the skittering movements of a pail full of fishing worms across her rib cage. She screamed, slapped at his hands, pushed him away, but mostly she laughed. She simply laughed. She laughed She giggled She shrieked.

And he did, too.

They fell sideways together on the girls’ bed. Her feet free now, she attempted to kick at him as well. With little effort he wrapped his legs around her own, effectively trapping her against him.

She wiggled and squirmed to try to get away, but only managed to roll him atop her. Tickling. Tickling. Tickling. She thrashed wildly beneath him, howling with humor.

“I’ll teach you to laugh at me!” he vowed, feigning threat.

“Stop! Stop!” she pleaded.

He was laughing himself as he rolled atop her. Joviality dissipated rapidly when she felt that big male thing of his—that part of him that he’d tried to put inside her last night—when she felt it hard against her thigh.

Shocked, she suddenly gasped and stared up into his handsome dark eyes. He gazed back, as if stunned by his own unexpected reaction. He released her immediately.

Abruptly he sat up. Eulie did, too.

He grabbed the horse blanket, which he had carelessly discarded during their roughhousing, and used it to cover his lap.

Nervously, he cleared his throat.

Eulie felt her face flaming. They had been playing, just like children. They obviously were not children.

“Sorry,” he said finally, not even daring to glance her way.

“You didn’t do nothing,” she said.

“And I’d better not,” he told her. “We’d better not. I don’t want to get you with a baby and then leave you here. They’ll be enough bad talk for you to live down without that.”

She nodded.

“Besides, it just wouldn’t be fair,” he said.

“No, I suppose not,” she agreed.

They sat together in silence for a long moment.

“It’s a good thing then that I stopped you last night,” she said. “Even though I am really sorry about the bite. It sure looks bad today.”

He shrugged. “It won’t amount to much,” he said, rubbing the angry-looking bruise on his cheek. “It is probably good that we didn’t finish what we started last night. They say a gal cain’t get a baby the first time, so you’d have been all right. But it’s best if we keep circumspect until I go.”

“That’s a good idea,” Eulie said.

They sat together in an uncomfortable silence. Eulie regretted the unwanted intrusion of his baser nature. And she regretted her reaction to it. She liked having him hold her. It was very pleasant. And having him lie on top of her like that, the warmth and weight of him, that was really nice as well. But he was probably right about the baby. Although she did
like
babies.

Beside her, he chuckled. She turned to glance at him.

“I haven’t laughed like that in … I don’t know when,” he told her.

She smiled “My youngers and me, we laugh like that all the time.”

“Do you?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied “I guess with you not having any brothers or sisters you didn’t romp and play that much as a boy.”

“I was alone most of the time,” he admitted “Mama was so busy taking care of the place, and Uncle Jeptha
sickened a lot back then. But I used to pretend I had a friend.”

“You mean you just made up somebody to play with.”

“Not to
play
with,” Moss corrected her, feigning a serious rebuke. “He was a partner to go out West with.”

Eulie giggled at him.

He grinned broadly at her, his dark handsome eyes crinkling attractively, the deep tone of his chuckle resonating warmth.

“Did he have a name, your partner?” she asked.

Immediately she noticed his chagrin. He cleared his throat but could not so easily dispense with his discomfiture.

“I just called him Tex,” he said, a little too casually.

“Tex? Like the horse?”

Moss Collier blushed vividly. “The horse is
Red
Tex,” he stated unequivocally.

Eulie smiled at him and nodded. “Yes, of course, the horse is Red Tex.”

They were both silent, contemplative. Then they eyed each other and both commenced laughing once more.

“The day we wed, I worried that you’d never get over your black temper,” she teased.

Moss raised an eyebrow. “I had every right to be spitting mad,” he pointed out.

“Yes, you did,” she agreed. “But life has a way of just working things out. I always trust that somehow things always work out.”

He nodded. “That’s certainly true in this instance,” he said. “I can hardly believe that I’m free to just pick up and go whenever I’ve got a mind to.”

“So when are you thinking to leave?” she asked him.

His expression turned thoughtful. “Well, there are some things I should get done around here,” he said. “I want to get that shed roof fixed and that grain moved. I’ll do some repairs and some heavy chores. See the crop along a bit. Make certain there’s enough meat to get you through this first year.”

“That would be mightily appreciated,” she said.

“In a few weeks, I could be heading out,” he said. “Unless something comes up that you need me.”

His words were gentle and sincere. They touched Eulie in an unexpected way, making her suddenly wish that he were not so intent upon leaving.

“You’re a good man, Moss Collier,” she told him.

“That’s not what folks are going to say,” he warned her. “They are going to say that I’m lower than a snake for running out on this family.”

She waved away his concern. “I’ll set them straight right away,” she assured him. “I’ll never allow a spiteful word to be said about you.”

“Maybe you ought to let them think what they will,” he said. “It might go better for you if they do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that not many people have ever understood why I want to leave the Sweetwood,” he explained. “They just say I’ve got a bad case of the wanderlust and I’ll get over it. I don’t expect they’d ever understand how you could let me go. It’s probably best that they think I upped and left you high and dry.”

“That’s so unfair,” Eulie said. “I’m the one who trapped you into marriage so I could get my family under one roof. They should be told that, so they can place the blame fairly where it belongs and understand
why it’s reasonable that you should go.”

Moss shook his head in disagreement.

“Whatever they think of me, Eulie, I’ll be too far away to hear it,” he said. “But you’ll be right here among them. They need to think well of you, because you’re going to need all the goodwill and neighborliness that you can get.”

She had to admit there was certainly credence to that.

“I disgraced you so with my lies about a baby,” she said. “It just don’t seem right to heap more shame upon you.”

“You and I will know the truth,” he said. “That’s all that really matters.”

“Yes, we’ll know,” she agreed. “And Uncle Jeptha and the children.”

Moss looked over at her, his expression questioning.

“Do you think we should tell them?” he asked.

Eulie was surprised. “Do you think that we shouldn’t?”

He shrugged.

“It’s pretty complicated,” he said. “A couple marrying for false reasons and living apart so they can both get what they want. They are so young, making them understand it wouldn’t be easy.”

“That’s true,” Eulie agreed.

“It’s not like they are going to be forlorn or feel abandoned. They don’t really even know me,” Moss added. “I doubt if my leaving will give them even more than a moment’s pause.”

Eulie nodded, accepting his decision.

“But at least we’ll tell your uncle Jeptha,” she said.

Moss shook his head “I don’t know if we should do that either.”

“You don’t?”

The husband-man wove his fingers together and tucked his chin upon his thumbs.

“I’ve never really talked to Uncle Jeptha about my dreams,” he said. “He knows, of course, that I’ve always been interested in the West, but my plans have always been for
after
he’d passed on. I’ve kept them from him because I didn’t want to seem like I was waiting around for him to die.”

“Oh, no, of course not.” Eulie could certainly understand that.

“The old fellow is my only blood relative,” he said. “He’s a good, decent man. He never asked for what happened to him.”

Moss squeezed his lips together as if he found speaking the words difficult.

“I never knew my father,” he said. “Uncle Jeptha has always been that to me. Even bad-off as he is, he’s always taught me how to work and the right way to behave. He’s done whatever he could for me. I guess I’m afraid that if he thought I wanted him to die, he would quit trying to live.”

Eulie nodded. “Maybe it would be better if he speculated that your leaving had to do with me, not with him.”

“You don’t mind?” he asked. “The old man loves me and might think the worst of you for it.”

“I’d be honored to take on that guilt,” she said.

The two sat together silently for a long moment, contemplating their future.

“It’s a lot of lies to be telling,” Moss suggested.

Eulie couldn’t dispute that.

“Lying is a sin of which I seem to be getting a lot of practice,” she said.

The morning was a clear one, and bright. The sun shone through the faint smoky haze that always lingered in the low valleys after a rain, and the sacred blossoms of dogwood were in evidence along the hillside. The company was quiet and congenial and the fish were biting well. Within a couple of hours of their easing those cane poles out over the river, the stringer was nearly full, and Jeptha Barnes felt calm and content with his world.

Young Rans was spirited and pensive at turns, but eager to please. As his companion appeared uneager to converse, the boy kept his silence, sparing the occasional question that simply could not be suppressed.

Jeptha had spent a lot of his life fishing off this point. As a young man he had found it a task most suited to his temperament. His parents had thought him a little bit lazy, not too work-brittle, likely to lolly-gag the day away. What he’d been, of course, was a little bit sleepy. A common complaint for young fellows who couldn’t stay in bed at night.

He and his older brother would sneak out after sunset and run wild in the countryside. They played pranks on men they didn’t like, chewed home-cured tobacco, and cursed blue streaks about anything and everything. And they were endlessly on the prowl for the sight of that most elusive and curious of all mountain creatures, the human female.