Walking Through Shadows (8 page)

“I, well…” I didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure if she was teasing or serious. “I reckon I didn’t know you were coming back.”

That was the wrong answer, and I knew it because my face got hot, and I could near ’bout hear Rowena saying “Oh Lloyd!”

We didn’t do nothing sinful that day, nor the whole rest of that week, but it was getting harder and harder to leave. I didn’t have Robert or Shorty helping on the milk run back then, so Rowena had no way of knowing what time to expect me home. I stayed a little longer each visit.

It happened on a Monday. I remember that because me and Rowena had a fight right after we got home from church on Sunday. I’m not saying it was the preacher’s fault, but his sermon got me all worked up. The more he talked about David and Bathsheba, the clearer I could see her taking that bath and the wet, soapy body I was imagining belonged to Virgie Nell Jackson. So when we got home, thinking to erase sinful thoughts of her out of my mind, I said to Rowena, let’s skip Sunday dinner at your mama’s and have a little time alone. She knew what I meant, but she turned up that Bancroft nose and turned me down flat. Ever since Rowena had found out she was going to be a mother, when we made love she acted like her womb was an eggshell I was going to crack. Twice I hadn’t even finished before she pushed me off and said she was going to be sick again. I didn’t blame her about that, but that Sunday morning she was fit as a fiddle, and I suspected that her not wanting to stay home had more to do with worrying about missing the gossip at her mama’s table than anything. Looking back now, I know better. I should have been more understanding about her fears and her delicate condition, but I didn’t have an older man’s wisdom in my young head back then.

I stayed mad the rest of that day and all of the next, feeling righteous and sorry for myself, until I knocked on Virgie Nell’s door. It was like she was a snake who knew when and where to strike to get her man. As soon as I stepped inside her house, without one word, she pulled me up against her tits and started kissing me like I hadn’t ever been kissed before. I never found out if she learnt all them things she said and done to me in New Orleans, but I know she didn’t get them from anybody around Lexie County. She told me that I was the best lover she’d ever had, said I had a rare combination (that’s how she put it — a rare combination) of brute strength and gentle touch. I still don’t know what she meant by that, but I left her house that afternoon with my head swelled to the size of a pregnant sow.

By the time I parked the truck at the barn door, my head had shrunk back to normal size and I was sick with regret. All I could think about was Rowena. God knows I never meant to hurt her, and right off I saw that I was plain stupid letting myself get taken in by Virgie Nell’s tricks. And tricks is what it was; it wasn’t nothing like the love I had for Rowena. I deserved to live with the guilt and shame, without the comfort of Rowena’s forgiveness, but Leda, the other snake in my life, had already struck. She told Rowena, and the whole town of Zebulon that my truck was parked at Virgie Nell’s house for over two hours. She said she just happened to drive past twice, but I know better. Leda was trying to pay me back for choosing her younger sister over her is what I think, but it doesn’t matter why. The damage was done, and the feeling I had when I saw the hurt in my darling’s eyes that night will never leave me.

But that was all in the past, and I hadn’t done anything since to deserve her distrust. Oh, once and a while I’d sneak off to Howard’s to play cards, and there was the whiskey I kept in the dairy barn, but I figured the little bit she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. To put it plain and honest, Rowena made me be a better man, and I was glad of it.

When Stoney and Sheila ran off to get married, I was some relieved, and I had hopes they’d go off somewhere far away and find a new life together. But then Rowena said I should offer them the vacant tenant house and told me to give them both a raise. I put my foot down then. All they got was a break on the rent on the house.

It wasn’t much of a house, but it was a step up from the smokehouse, and Stoney was itching to get out from his daddy’s rule, so they jumped on the offer and moved in before I’d had a chance to get Shorty to sweep it out. It wasn’t long before Sheila and Annette had made a path running back and forth over the acre and a half between them. I’d see them hiking up their dresses jumping Rowena’s flowers, always giggling, whispering in each other’s ears about god knows what. I was glad for Annette; she didn’t have many friends, and Rowena worried she was jealous of Lil’ Bit. But she was wrong there. We all loved the little fellow to death. I got a soft spot for little ones. I reckon it started when my mama gave me my first puppy and it got sick and died. It was just a mongrel, but I treated it like a prize hunting dog, and when Daddy had to shoot it after it got the mange, I thought I’d never get over it. Of course, I did get over it, but to this day I can’t stand to see no little creatures, human or otherwise, in pain.

That’s maybe why, when I saw what Sheila’s papa had done to her after she and Annette came from out there to tell them about the marriage, I threatened to call Clyde Vairo and have him lock the man up. Sheila wouldn’t hear of it though, said she knew he was sorry for hurting her, and she didn’t care anyhow because she was already married and he couldn’t change that.

Then Stoney took up where Sheila’s papa left off. I don’t know when it started. He might’ve been whipping her since the beginning, but the first I knew of it was the day I bought the Ayrshires at the state fair in Jackson. I’d heard that a man named Patterson was bringing his prize Ayrshires to the fair, and that he was in trouble and aimed to sell them to settle his debts. I bought the cows all right, but I also borrowed a lot of trouble that day. Annette had asked if she could invite Sheila and Stoney to go to the fair with us, and so I gave them the day off. The kids deserved some fun, and I liked the idea of them seeing me buy the best damned cows in the state. We stopped by my folks on the way up, but didn’t stay long because Annette was about to have a hissy fit to get to the rides. I told her to hold her horses until I made the deal with Patterson. After a little half-hearted haggling, Patterson named a fair price, and when I pulled out my billfold, Sheila stepped up so close to me that I got a whiff of her toilet water. Her eyes got real big when she saw how much money I counted out for the Ayrshires and the trailer, and she said, “Mr. Cotton, you must be the richest man in Lexie County.”

I laughed at that. “No, no. There’s a lot of men got more than me.” I winked at her then. “But I guess I do all right for a dairy farmer.”

We spent the rest of the day tromping through the dust and trash that blew up around our legs. The noise bothered me most. When you live your days listening to birds calling, cows lowing, horses neighing, and such, the harsh screaming and loud music around a midway can near ’bout do you in. I won Annette a teddy bear throwing knives, which she accepted with a frown, and that told me it was time to go. We’d had our fill of the fair, and I said we should find Sheila and Stoney and head for home. Just then I heard this show gal calling out to me. “Buy a ticket, and I’ll show you my hoochy koochy.” I turned around and a woman, dressed up in some kind of Egyptian outfit that showed a lot of her skin, strutted across a make-shift stage toward me. I tried to ignore her at first, but she kept on swiveling her hips, and before I knew it, I heard myself ask, “How much?” When she said ten cents, I turned to Annette and told her to wait for me. Right away I saw Rowena’s disapproval written on her face, but she didn’t say a thing.

The show was a disappointment, not worth the dime it cost. The hoochy koochy girl didn’t do much more inside the tent than she had on the little wooden stage outside. There was some strange Egyptian-type music playing from somewhere, and then she stepped out from behind a red curtain and began her dance. She switched around, jiggling the coins on her hips and shimmying her tits, leaned over so that I could see near ’bout all of them, but she didn’t take off the veil or anything else. I had a front row seat on one of the metal folding chairs, and when the show was over, Salome (that was what she called herself) came over to me and took my hand and brought it right up to her left titty. My fingers were stretching out to touch her, and she laughed and dropped my hand. A real tease she was. I was ashamed of myself, and I felt my face heat up. I hurried out of the tent, wishing I hadn’t wasted money on Salome and her lousy music.

Just before I got to where Annette stood with a big scowl, Sheila and Stoney came running up. I didn’t take much notice of them as I was worrying more that Annette was gonna spill the beans about me going into that tent to her mama. I could already hear Rowena crying, asking me what was I thinking leaving Annette alone, disgracing the Bancroft family with my behavior. I’m not a man who acts on impulse ordinarily, but I reckon the excitement of buying the Ayrshires had affected me, causing me to forget myself that day. I stared hard at Annette and said to Stoney and Sheila that we had been looking for them, that it was time to go. Annette’s face was frozen, and I knew she was mad as a setting hen. I pulled her close and whispered a plea for forgiveness and help. I saw the slow deliberation cross her face, and I smiled, hoping for understanding. Finally, Annette nodded and backed up my lie. She wouldn’t tell, but I knew the reason was that she was looking out for her mama, not me.

I was in a hurry to get home, speed away from the loud noises, bad smells, and cheap women. I’d load my Ayrshires and by nightfall I’d hold Rowena in my arms. I turned to Stoney and Sheila and said, “Let’s get started home,” and that’s when I noticed the handkerchief wrapped around Stoney’s hand. I was about to ask him what had happened when Sheila raised her head and I saw that her eye was swollen some. It didn’t take a genius to figure two and two. They’d had a fight, and Stoney had got the best of her. I wanted to punch his face, and I felt my hands balling up, but Sheila stepped in front of him. “I run into the edge of one of them booths,” she said real low so that only I could hear her. “It were my fault.” I shook my head, but then she reached out and touched my arm. “Please, Mr. Cotton. Let’s go home.” I gave Stoney a long warning look that said I knew what he’d done. Sheila’s eyes filled with tears. “Please,” she said again. I uncurled my hands and nodded then. I couldn’t go against the husband if the wife had forgiven him. Stoney put his arm around Sheila’s shoulders, and as he steered her toward the livestock barns, his face crumpled with misery. He was ashamed of himself, sorry for what he’d done, and I imagined that my own shame over my acts that day showed on my face, too. We’d been forgiven, but both Stoney and me were making the trip home with the heavy weight of guilt on our chests.

It was a while before I took another trip out of town, but the rodeo down at Liberty coaxed me to take another day off. Rowena despised rodeos and wouldn’t go to one if someone offered her a brand new cook stove to spend an hour there. Annette is a chip off the block though and wouldn’t miss sitting in what her mama called the dirt pit of horrors, for anything. She begged for Sheila and Stoney to ride with us, and the four of us crammed into my truck and set out on a Saturday.

On the twelve-mile ride out, I found out that Stoney had entered the bull-riding contest, which was just the dumbest idea he’d ever had. I told him so, too. He wasn’t even a good horseman. “A bull can gore you quicker than you could believe,” I told him. “You fall off your bull, and if you’re lucky, there’ll be enough of you left to be carried off on a stretcher.” Stoney’s jaw was set though, and he didn’t say anything to that. “You tell him, Sheila. You don’t want to be a widow at the end of the day.”

But she wasn’t any smarter than Stoney. She laughed. “Stoney ain’t gonna get kilt; he’s gonna win.” She was half-sitting in his lap, and she squeezed herself against him more. “Ain’t you gonna win?”

Stoney grinned big. I could see his chest swelling up. “I reckon I might,” he said, as I pulled the truck onto the grass and cut the engine. He took off to get signed up, and I ushered the girls over to the stands where we got good seats on the third row. I bought the girls some peanuts when the vendor came by, and Sheila dove into her little brown bag right off. She tossed the nuts into her mouth and threw the shells at the birds that circled overhead. No, she wasn’t worried one bit. “The prize is twenty dollars,” she told me. “If Stoney wins, think of all the things we could get with that much money.”

“If,” I said, “he doesn’t get killed. Last year Bucky Moran was gored so bad in his thigh, he’s gonna walk with a limp the rest of his life.”

Sheila popped another peanut in her mouth. “Stoney’s fast. If he falls off, he’ll beat that bull to the fence. Hey! Lookit that.”

I followed her pointing finger to the clown in the orange wig who was tossing a lasso around one of the barrels set up for the race. “I wouldn’t want to be a rodeo clown,” Annette said. “A couple of them get hurt bad every year, don’t they, Daddy?”

Sheila wiped her fingers on the front of her overalls. “If they’d let women be one, I’d try it. They is so cute. It must be a real good feeling to make people laugh all the time.”

Stoney came up to us about then, held up four fingers to Sheila, and walked off. She squealed and jumped up and down. “Number four! He’s number four. That’s my lucky number; he’s gonna win.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that winning wasn’t a possibility. Stoney would be competing against cowboys from the neighboring states of Louisiana and Texas who were well-known rodeo champions.

But Sheila kept on eating peanuts with a confident grin while we watched the other events. Darnell Glascock won the calf-roping by expertly throwing his lariat over a running brown calf and tying its thrashing legs in eleven seconds. I was pulling for my second cousin Eric who entered the contest and embarrassed our family by taking twenty-eight seconds to truss his calf. My friend, Homer Knight, was in the bull-dogging event and he wrestled his steer to the ground in eight seconds, which earned him second place. The saddle bronc and bareback riding were next, but my seat was getting hard. So I stood up and stretched. “Let’s go see how Stoney’s making out and wish him good luck,” I said to Sheila and Annette.

We found him squatting beside a muddy truck talking to some other men I didn’t know. When Sheila called out to him, he stood and smiled at us. “Come to wish me luck?”

“Uh huh,” Sheila said, pulling him away from the men. “I’m gonna give you a magic kiss that’ll keep you safe, too.” She stuck out her tongue and ran it in a circle around Stoney’s lips and then thrust it into his mouth. She drew back and laughed. “You never had a magic kiss before?”

I heard Annette’s breath sucking in, but I couldn’t look away from them. Stoney laughed. “My mouth ain’t what needs magic. Kiss what parts you don’t want that bull to puncture.”

Sheila bent her knees and ducked her head. “Okay.”

I thought of those times I’d watched them in the barn then, and I knew she’d do it. But Stoney caught her by the arms and pulled her up. He whispered something in her ear which made them both laugh. I felt my face turning red; I didn’t like standing there watching Sheila make a fool out of herself, but she didn’t give a hoot. She giggled and kissed him again.

She wasn’t laughing an hour later when we saw Stoney’s brown hat sailing off his head as he and a monstrous Brahma bull shot out of the gate. To win, a cowboy has to stick for eight seconds, and Stoney lasted for only three. The only thing we saw was the white hump of the furious bull who turned to charge at the puny rider he had just thrown. Sheila was right about Stoney’s speed; he fell on his back and somehow managed to flip over, jump up, and scramble to the fence rail before the dust covered him from our view. All the while Sheila was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Stoney, Stoney, Stoney.” When we saw that he was safe, I turned to Sheila figuring she was going to be filled up with disappointment, but she was laughing. “Did you see that? Ain’t he something? He done so good, y’all. I can’t believe it. Do you think he won?”

Not one other person at that rodeo would have asked such a question, and for a moment I wondered if my eyes had played a trick on me and I hadn’t seen what she had. I knew better, of course, but that’s when I understood what that saying about rose-colored glasses really means. When Stoney strutted over and proudly accepted her compliments, I thought maybe that kiss she planted on him sure did have some magic power — over Stoney anyway.

Sheila didn’t have much power over herself though. I don’t think it ever occurred to her to stand up and fight when she needed to. There was a time when I tried to make her see things straight.

I remember that it was on the morning Rowena and me had had a little fuss over me going to Howard’s to play cards. I don’t know to this day how she found out, but she did and she was slamming pots around the kitchen when I came back from the milk run. Didn’t fix me any breakfast, said she was too busy to be feeding sinners who gambled in dens of iniquity. I turned and walked out of her kitchen and stayed away from the house all day. When Rowena gets like that, there’s no use trying to reason with her. She gets over it fast though, and so I figured she’d come around by nightfall if I stayed out of her way. About mid-morning Annette came sailing by the barn door loaded down with pine cones for making Christmas decorations. I figured that would lift Rowena’s spirits and she’d forget she was mad at me. I ate some brisket out of Shorty’s dinner pail and then Stoney and I took off for town.

I had returned from the late run and was in the bottling room when I heard Sheila come in, her boots scraping slowly on the floor, like she was reluctant to get to work. I turned around just as she came through the door. I had switched on the overhead bulb, but it doesn’t cast out much light, and Sheila was in the shadows. When she didn’t come on in and start gathering up the bottles, I walked over to her. Before I got there I said something like, “How’d the Christmas doodads turn out?” She didn’t answer, and then I saw the bruise on her face. I’ve seen enough injuries to have a fair idea of how to judge what caused them, and looking at the circle of red slits inside the puffy purple rise below her eye, I would say the fist that made it was wearing a ring. I lifted my hand to her face, and she shrunk back from me. When she limped over to the bottling table, she winced. I followed and knelt in front of her. “Let me have a look,” I said. She lifted her dress. The large mass of blackish skin on her leg made the face wound look like nothing. I kept my knees on the damp floor waiting for words to come to me. “Stoney?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low.

She grabbed my shoulder. “No. No, he didn’t.” She was crying now. I hadn’t ever seen her cry, and I rose up and took her in my arms. I was surprised at how soft she was against me. The hump wasn’t the heavy rock I thought she carried all this time. She buried her face against my chest, and I took a breath and then I smelled it. She had been taken along with the beating. I let her cry awhile, and finally she pushed back from me and hung her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lloyd. I done wet your nice shirt.” She ran her hand across Rowena’s embroidery that spelled out Cottons’ Dairy.

“Sheila, you can’t allow this. Stoney is gonna hurt you bad one day.”

Her hair whipped back and forth against her face as she shook her head. “No, no. I told you. It weren’t him that done it.”

I cupped her chin and lifted her face to look into her eyes, and I saw that she was telling the truth. Stoney had been with me most of the day, hadn’t he? I read fear in her eyes. Sheila was scared of my finding out, but I knew. It had to be her papa who’d done this. I felt sick. “Goddamn him,” I said. “May he burn in hell.” I thought then that I should have called the law on him when she came back from Mars Hill all bruised up after she announced her marriage to her folks.

Sheila put her hand over my mouth. I know it was crazy; I don’t know what came over me, but when her palm touched my lips, I grabbed her wrist and kissed the spot where the blue vein ran up her arm. She allowed it, stood quiet while I lifted her bangs and touched my lips to her forehead. I just wanted to comfort her like I would Annette; that’s probably all I was feeling.

She drew back from me. “Mr. Lloyd,” she whispered. “Please. You don’t know. You can’t tell. If Stoney finds out, he’ll kill him.” She clutched my shirt in her fist. “Please. Please.”

She was right; Stoney would kill him. I wanted to do the job myself and she wasn’t even my wife. “He’s gonna see what’s been done to you. How’re you going to explain this?” I touched her face.

Sheila chewed on her lip. “I’ll think up something. Stoney believes near ’bout anything I tell him.”

I had to smile at that. She was simple, but she was most likely right about Stoney. “Next time,” I said. “Get a gun, and you use it on that bastard you call Papa.”

Sheila shook her head. “It weren’t him,” she said. “That’s all over and done with now.”

I wondered how she could protect such a devil, but I guessed that Rowena’s mama was right about blood being thicker than water, so I didn’t push her to say the truth. After she left, I decided to keep a closer watch on who visited up there at my tenant house.