Journeyman (9 page)

“Maybe you could borrow some from Dene?” Semon said.

“Dene? Dene hasn’t got a red penny to her name. She never has money except when I give her some, and there hasn’t been need of that for a long time. Dene wouldn’t have any, I know.”

Semon walked up and down. He finally turned and looked at Clay.

“You give me the dollar then. And if you get hold of more before Monday, you can give me the rest.”

“That’s a lot of money to pay for just looking, ain’t it? I declare, it looks to me like it is.”

“You can do more than that, if you want to. The sky’s the limit, Horey. You’ve paid your money, now go ahead and get your value.”

Clay watched Semon fold the bill and put it into his pants pocket. He was on the verge of backing out of the deal when he saw his dollar go into Semon’s pocket. He made a desperate attempt to reach it, but his hand was slapped down.

“I thought you said I was paying her,” Clay stated. “Don’t look like you ought to be putting my money in your pocket.”

“I’m keeping it for her,” Semon said shortly.

He took Clay by the arm and led him towards the barn. After they had gone several steps, Clay pulled loose.

“Now, wait a minute. Where’s this you’re taking me?”

“To the barn,” Semon said, reaching for his arm.

“I can’t figure out what anybody would be doing in my barn. I’ve been living here on this place for a long time, and I never saw anybody in it before.”

“A lot of things go on that you don’t know nothing about, Horey. Come on.”

They walked to the barn and went inside. There was no one to be seen. The stalls were open, and the harness room door was open. Semon looked around unfamiliarly for a moment, and then he saw the ladder to the loft.

“Let’s go up here,” he said, pushing Clay to the ladder.

“There’s nothing up there but some bundles of fodder and a little pea-vine hay,” Clay protested. “I know what’s up there. There ain’t no use in climbing the ladder just to see fodder.”

Semon pulled him to the ladder and pushed him up the first rung. After once starting, they went up quickly.

When they reached the loft, they both stood up. Lorene was standing against one of the center uprights.

“I’ll be doggone, if I won’t!” Clay exclaimed. “What are you doing up here in the loft, Lorene?”

She beckoned to him with her finger.

Clay turned to Semon to find out what it all meant. Semon nodded at him, and gave him a shove towards Lorene. He stumbled around over the bundles of fodder, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“You’ve paid for it, Horey; now, go ahead,” Semon told him.

“Why, that’s Lorene,” Clay protested. “You said there was somebody out here who wanted to see me. And I went and gave you all the money I had. That’s Lorene, there.”

“You paid me to see Lorene,” Semon asserted. “And there she is. Now, go ahead, Horey.”

Clay was bewildered for a while. He looked first at Lorene and then at Semon, and then he stared at the fodder under his feet.

“Doggone,” he said. “I never knew I was paying all my money to see my fourth wife. I declare, I don’t seem able to figure it out. Looks like to me you folks is just playing a joke on me. I never heard tell of a man paying money to see his wife before. True, she ain’t my present one, but she’s my fourth one, just the same.

“By God,” Semon said threateningly, “you’ve paid me the money, and now you’re going to get what’s coming to you for it. You’ve got to take what you bought and paid for. I’m not going to have you going around here saying I cheated you out of it. Now, go ahead, Horey. I’m not going to stand for no more foolishness. I mean business, and I don’t mean maybe, neither.”

Semon looked around hastily for a weapon of some kind. There was a pitchfork standing under the eaves of the roof, and he jerked it up.

“Don’t look like a preacher ought to be so all-fired cussed,” Clay said. “You ought to leave me and Lorene alone.”

Semon raised the pitchfork, advancing on Clay, and jabbed it at him three or four times. Clay moved away from the sharp prongs and got beside Lorene.

Lorene had sat down on a bundle of fodder, and Clay saw her at his feet when he looked down. She waited, without a word, looking up at him. She did not smile, and there was a grim line at the corners of her mouth.

“You don’t act like you used to, sometimes,” he said, looking down at her.

“I can’t afford to be easy,” Lorene said. “If I did that, I’d get cheated out of nearly all that was coming to me.”

“Being as it’s me,” Clay said, “it looks like you ought to break down and smile just a little instead of looking so hard at me. I declare, you almost scare me out of my skin—you and Semon put together.”

“Now you folks stop talking so much,” Semon said, prodding the air between them with the pitchfork. “The first thing I know, both of you will be scrapping me to get the dollar back. I won’t stand for that. I’ve earned my share of it. Now, go on and stop your foolishness.”

“You’d better give me my share now,” Lorene said, holding out her hand. “As long as this’s business, I don’t want any misunderstanding later. Just give it to me now, Semon Dye.”

“I haven’t got change for it now, Lorene. As soon as I can get it, I’ll give you yours. If I can’t get it before then, I’ll make change out of the collection Sunday.”

“Are you still aiming to preach at the schoolhouse?” Clay asked, watching the pitchfork.

“I am, I am,” Semon said. “That’s what I came here for. I’m going to preach nearly all day Sunday.”

“Looks like you sort of got side-tracked, then. First you say you’re going to preach, and now you’re out bargaining about money to see Lorene. It don’t look to me like the two go hand-in-hand. Maybe they do, but it don’t look like they ought to, somehow.”

“Stop arguing, Clay, and get down here,” Lorene said, pulling at his hand. “So much talking back at each other won’t do any good.”

She pulled Clay down on his knees beside her. Clay waited for Semon to go down the ladder; but he sat down on a bundle of fodder instead, showing that he had no intention of leaving the loft.

“I don’t reckon anybody else will be prowling around out here and come up the ladder,” Clay said uneasily. “There’s Tom here. He might take it into his head to look around.”

Lorene ignored his concern. She pulled him closer.

Semon was observing them closely. He did not turn around to look the other way, and he acted as though he was an invited guest.

The moment when Clay felt Lorene’s arms around his neck he forgot that anyone else was there. He kissed her to the quick.

“This feels like old times, don’t it, Lorene?” he said huskily.

Her arms were tight around his neck, but she squeezed him more tightly. He had to fight for breath.

When he saw the flaring curves of her hips and the lissom swell of her breasts, he forgot all that had gone before. She no longer had to hold him with her embrace. Clay fell upon her, gouging his fists into her breasts and searching eagerly for her lips. Lorene had always been like that to him, but he had not realized until that moment how much he had missed her.

Semon had been forgotten. He had been apart from them, and it was hard for Clay to remind himself of him. He heard Semon speaking, his voice carrying as if from a great distance, but he did not try to hear what was being said. He was not interested, anyway.

Lorene was smiling at him and running her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and seeped himself in his thoughts of her.

Presently Clay turned his head to one side, his face pressed warmly against Lorene. His eyes were open, but nothing did he see.

“I don’t reckon there’s ever been anybody like us,” he said for her to hear.

She tried, until tears came to her eyes, to hold securely their ultimate possession.

“It used to be like this all the time, didn’t it, Clay?”

He nodded, looking at her.

Semon was standing over them then. He looked down upon them, urging them to leave the loft.

“I’ll be back again sometime, Clay,” she promised. “I won’t stay away always. I’ll come back.”

He nodded again, accepting her word.

Semon had tossed the pitchfork aside, and he was waiting impatiently. He walked back and forth beside them, trying to separate them from their thoughts.

“It’ll be all right if you’re satisfied with Dene until I come back the next time. I can satisfy you better, but I can’t stay. It’s too late now. I’ve got to go back to Jacksonville where I belong. Maybe when I get tired of staying there, and if you stop liking Dene, I’ll come back to stay some day. I’d rather do that than anything else, after I’m through with Jacksonville.”

On the way back to the house, Lorene and Clay walked side by side, and yet several feet apart. Semon followed several paces in the rear. None of them had anything to say on the way to the porch. They walked slowly, not seeming to care how long it took them to get there.

Dene and Tom Rhodes were there. Tom winked, smiling at all three of them. He had known what would happen when they left for the barn.

“Dene’s been asking me where you folks went to,” he said. “I didn’t hardly know what to answer her.”

No one said anything; yet all eyes were directed at Dene. Clay did not wish to look at her then, but he could not help himself.

After they had seated themselves, Dene looked boldly at Clay.

“Where’ve you been, Clay?”

Clay looked off into the woods along the creek on the other side of the road. He looked at the tops of the trees, at the blue sky overhead, and at the row of sagging fence posts that bordered the road.

“Where did you go just a while ago, Clay?” she asked persistently.

“Who? Me?”

He glanced at Dene to see her nod her head.

“When? Just now?”

He looked again to see her move her head slowly up and down while her eyes bored into him.

“Where? Oh, just out around the barn,” he said.

He did not look at her after that.

“Dene said she couldn’t figure out what you folks were doing out there all that time,” Tom said. “I told her that maybe you and Semon and Lorene were digging fishing worms.”

Clay hoped the questioning would stop there. When Dene said nothing more for a while, he thought it had stopped. But later, after thinking about it, he realized that the questioning had just begun. Dene would keep him awake night after night asking him, begging him, threatening him; and she would not stop until he had told her where he had been and what he had done there. But even that would not be the end; Dene would worry him for months afterward, making him talk about it. Clay did not know what he could do about it, though. He would just have to let her talk.

“I don’t reckon there’s an organ in the schoolhouse,” Semon said, not to anyone in particular. “We can get along without it Sunday though, I reckon. Somebody ought to bring a fiddle or a banjo, and we can raise a tune with that. I never have much trouble with the music and singing at a meeting. People like to sing in a church or schoolhouse when they all get together. Looks like sometimes they’d a heap rather sing than listen to the sermon. I’ve figured it out so as to give half the time to one, and half to the other. That pleases almost everybody.”

Clay took out his harmonica and tapped it on his knee. After that he ran his fingers over it to wipe off the tobacco dust from his pocket. When he was satisfied with it, he began playing.

“What are you aiming to preach about Sunday, preacher?” Tom asked. “You didn’t exactly ever say, did you?”

“Preach about? About sins. I always preach about sins, Tom. There’s nothing else the people will put up with, for any length of time. And the more sins, and the worse sins, and the reddest sins, I can preach about, the better the people like to listen. I believe in preaching about the things the people want to hear. I’ve found out what the people want to hear, and I give it to them.”

“How can you tell what folks like to hear?”

“I tell by the size of the offering they drop in the hat, and by the number that come through with religion. I’ve been preaching long enough to know just what people everywhere want to hear.”

“I reckon you know all about it then,” Tom said.

“Know all about it? Sure, I know all about it.” He stopped until Tom had filled his glass from the jug. After swallowing half of it, he continued. “I know just about all there is to know. I’ve been traveling over Georgia and Alabama since I was twenty years old, and I’m nearly fifty now. That’s why I know so much about preaching. If I had sat down in one church, like most of the preachers do, and not got out among the people, I wouldn’t know a bit more than the settled preachers know. But I travel. I’m a traveling preacher, and I know just about every sin there is in Georgia. And then some!”

L
ATER IN THE AFTERNOON,
after Lorene and Dene had gone into the house to take a nap, Semon left the porch without comment and walked around the corner of the building. Tom and Clay followed a minute later to see what he was doing around there.

Semon was sitting on his haunches near the brick chimney, rolling a pair of dice on the hard ground. He did not look up when they approached.

“That’s my game,” Tom said enthusiastically. “How’d you know it, preacher?”

Semon went on rolling the dice, snapping his fingers occasionally, and did not bother to look up. The easy rhythm of his motion made it plain that he had had much practice.

Tom sat down in front of him, squatting on his heels, and watched the cubes tumble over the hard white sand.

“Let’s have a friendly little game,” Tom suggested, unable to hold himself back any longer. “I don’t know a better way to pass the time of day.”

Clay also had become magnetized by the dice. He rubbed his fingers together, hoping to get a chance to touch them.

“It’s going to be a friendly game,” Tom insisted. “I wouldn’t like to have it end up in a scrap.”

Semon nodded assent. He looked over at Clay.

“How about it, Horey?”

“Doggone right!” Clay said, shifting the weight of his body to his other heel and scooping up a handful of sand to sift between his fingers.