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.
“I’m Eleanor Dinsmore... Mrs. Glendon Dinsmore.”
“Will Parker,” he returned, curling a hand around his hat brim, then catching his thumb in a back pocket again.
She knew right off he was a man of few words; that’d suit her just fine. Even when she gave him the chance he didn’t ask questions like most men would. So she went on asking them herself.
“You been around here long?”
“Four days.”
“Four days where?”
“Been workin’ at the sawmill.”
“Workin’ for Overmire?”
Will nodded.
“He’s no good. You’re better off workin’ here.” She glanced in a semicircle and went on: “I been here all my life, in Whitney.”
She didn’t sigh, but she didn’t need to. He heard the weariness in her words as she scanned the dismal yard. Her eyes returned to him and she rested one knobby hand on her stomach. When she spoke again her voice held a hint of puzzlement. “Mister, I’ve had that ad up at the sawmill for over three months now and you’re the first one fool enough to come up that hill and check it out. I know what this place is. I know what I am. Down below they call me crazy.” Her head jutted forward. “Did you know that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered quietly.
Her face registered surprise, then she chuckled. “Honest, ain’t you? Well, I’m just wondering why you ain’t run yet, is all.”
He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to the opposite hip. She had the shoe on the wrong foot. Once she found out about his record he’d be marching down that road faster than a roach when the light comes on. Telling her was as good as putting a shotgun in her hands. But she was bound to find out eventually; might as well get it over with.
“Maybe you should be the one runnin’.”
“Why’s that?”
Will Parker looked her square in the eyes. “I done time in prison. You might’s well know it, right off.”
He expected quick signs of withdrawal. Instead Eleanor Dinsmore pursed her mouth and said in an ornery tone, “I says to take that hat off so’s I can see what kind of man I’m talkin’ to here.”
He took it off slowly, revealing a countenance wiped clean of all emotion.
“What’d they put you in there for?” She could tell by the nervous tap of his hat brim on his thigh that he wanted to put it back on. It pleased her that he didn’t.
“They say I killed a woman in a Texas whorehouse.”
His answer stunned her, but she could be as poker-faced as he. “Did you?” she shot back, watching his unflinching eyes. The control. The expressionlessness. He swallowed once and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She submerged another jolt of surprise and asked, “Did you have good reason?”
“I thought so at the time.”
Point-blank, she asked, “Well, Will Parker, you plan on doing that to me?”
The question caught Will by surprise and tipped up the corners of his lips. “No, ma’am,” he answered quietly.
She stared hard into his eyes, came two steps closer and decided he didn’t look like a killer, nor act like one. He was sure no liar, and he had a workingman’s arms and wasn’t going to gab her head off. It was good enough for her.
“Okay, then, you can come on up to the house. They say I’m crazy anyway, might’s well give ‘em something to back it up.” She picked up the baby, herded the toddler along by the back of his head and led the way toward the house. The toddler peeked around to see if Will was following; the baby stared over its mother’s shoulder; but the mother herself turned her back as if to say, do what you will, Will Parker.
She walked like a pelican, swaying with each step in an ungainly fashion. Her hair was dull, her shoulders round and her hips wide.
The house was a tacky thing, atilt in several directions at once. It looked to have been built in stages, each addition blown slightly off level by the prevailing wind of the moment. The main body listed northeast, an ell west and the stoop east. The windows were off square, there were tin patches on the roof, and the porch steps were rotting.
But inside it smelled of fresh bread.
Will’s eyes found it, cooling on the kitchen cupboard beneath a dishtowel. He had to force his attention back to Eleanor Dinsmore when she put the baby in a high chair and offered, “How about a cup of coffee?”
He nodded silently, venturing no further than the rag rug at the kitchen door. His eyes followed as she fetched two cracked cups and filled them from a white enamel pot on the iron cookstove while the blond child hid in her skirts, hindering her footsteps.
“Leave off now, Donald Wade, so I can get Mr. Parker his coffee.” The child clung, sucking his thumb until at last she reached down to pick him up. “This here is Donald Wade,” she said. “He’s kind of shy. Hasn’t seen many strangers in his life.”
Will remained by the door. “Howdy, Donald Wade,” he said, nodding. Donald Wade buried his face in his mother’s neck while she sat down on a scarred wooden chair at a table covered with red flowered oilcloth.
“You gonna stand by that door all night?” she inquired.
“No, ma’am.” He approached the table cautiously, pulled out a chair and sat well away from Eleanor Dinsmore, his hat again pulled low over his eyes. She waited, but he only took a pull on his hot coffee, saying nothing, eyes flickering occasionally to her and the boy and something behind her.
“I guess you’re wondering about me,” she said at last. She smoothed the back of Donald Wade’s shirt with a palm, waiting for questions that didn’t come. The room carried only the sound of the baby slapping his hand on the wooden tray of the high chair. She rose and fetched a dry biscuit and laid it on the tray. The baby gurgled, took it in a fat fist and began gumming it. She stood behind him and regarded Will while repeatedly brushing the child’s feathery hair back from his forehead. She wished Will would look at her, would take that hat off so they could get started. Donald Wade had followed her, was again clinging to her skirts. Still feathering the baby’s hair, she found Donald Wade’s head with her free hand. Standing so, she said what needed saying.
“The baby’s name is Thomas. He’s near a year and a half old. Donald Wade here, he’s going on four. This one’s going to be bora just shy of Christmas, close as I can reckon. Their daddy’s name was Glendon.”
Will Parker’s eyes were drawn to her stomach as she rested a hand on it. He thought about how maybe there was more than one kind of prison.
“Where’s th
eir daddy?” he inquired, lifting his eyes to her face.
She nodded westward. “Out in the orchard. I buried him out there.”
“I thought—” But he stopped.
“You got a strange way of not sayin’ things, Mr. Parker. How’s a body supposed to make up a mind when you keep closed up so?” Will studied her, finding it hard to let loose after five years, and especially when she stood with her children at guard. “Go on, then, say it,” Eleanor Dinsmore prodded.
“I thought maybe your man run off. So many of ‘em are doin’ that since the depression.”
“I wouldn’t be lookin’ for no husband then, would I?”
His glance dropped guiltily to his coffee cup. “I reckon not.”
“And anyway, Glendon woulda never dreamed of runnin’ off. He didn’t have to. He was so full of dreams he wasn’t here anyways. Always miles away dreamin’ about this and that. The two of us together, we had lots of dreams once.” The way she looked at him, Will knew she harbored dreams no longer.
“How long’s he been dead?”
“Oh, don’t you worry none, the baby is his.”
Will colored. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Course you did. I watched your eyes when you first come up here. He’s been dead since April. It was his dreams killed him. This time it was the bees and his honey. He thought he’d get rich real fast making honey out in the orchard, but the bees they started swarmin’ and he was in too much of a hurry to use good sense. I told him to shoot the branch down with a shotgun, but he wouldn’t listen. He went out on a branch, and sure enough, it broke, and so did he. He never would listen to me much.” A faraway look came into her eyes. Will watched the way her hands lingered in the baby’s hair.
“Some men are like that.” The words felt strange on Will’s lips. Comfort—either getting it or giving it—was foreign to him.
“We sure were happy, though. He had a way about him.” Her expression as she spoke made Will sure it had once been Glendon Dinsmore’s hair through which she’d run her fingers that way. She acted as if she’d forgotten Will was in the room. He couldn’t quit watching her hands. It was another of those soft things that got him deep in the gut—the sight of her leafing through the baby’s airy hair while the child continued with its biscuit and made gurgling sounds. He wondered if anyone had ever done that to him, maybe sometime long before he had memory, but he had no conscious recollection of ever being touched that way.