Maud's Line (6 page)

Renee squinted. “Looking for company?”

“No. Just wondering. Go back to your words.”

“You wanta play with us?”

“I'd love to. But I gotta . . .” She didn't know what she was going to say until she added, “Catch up with Lovely.”

Maud didn't have to walk far before she saw Lovely in the distance between a stand of trees and a potato field, using a mule to move limbs into a pile. Mr. Singer had hired him to clear the trees for planting because the woods bordered both on their mother's allotment and their grandmother's.

Lovely looked up while Maud was still walking the road. He started unhitching the mule from the limbs before she got to him. When she was within talking distance, he said, “You want to ride her back with me?”

Lovely threw his tools in a pine box sitting on two stumps under the trees. He threw the ropes over the animal's back and led her to another stump. He mounted first and pulled Maud up. They were on the section line before she said, “We may have a problem at the house.”

“What kinda?”

“I went to visit Aunt Nan, and when I got back, the guards were down on the ground.”

“Both of 'em?”

“Yep.”

“You think I need to stop at Aunt Nan's?” Lovely said, over his shoulder.

“Might oughta.”

Lovely kicked the mule in the side. He often brought the animal home rather than return her to Mr. Singer's for the night, and so there was no worry about being considered mule thieves, and as they clip-clopped along, Maud described her fear of going up to the house with the gates on the ground. Lovely had a handgun in the saddlebag he carried to the field, and when they got to Nan's, Maud slid off of the mule and borrowed a rifle.

They rode as far as the intersection of the section line and their lane, and stopped at their uncle Gourd's house. Gourd was laying out with a woman, and when he got one of those, he could be gone a whole season or until the woman, whoever she was, threw him out. So they tied the mule to Gourd's porch post and went inside. When they came back out, Lovely untied the animal and mounted her from the porch, and Maud slipped off the planks, went behind the house, and scooted down the ridge, carrying the rifle in her left hand. She used her right hand to grab on to weeds to manage the incline. On flatter land, she took the cow path below the ridge west toward the house.

Maud had climbed through the fence and was leaning against a large tree just under the ridge with her rifle pointed when Lovely came out on the porch and shouted her name. She recognized the shout as urgent, but not terrified, and she laid her gun on higher ground and used roots as steps. She stepped high until she got out of the weeds. Lovely was still on the porch when he said, “We've got a problem in the kitchen.”

“What kind?”

“A dead dog.”

“In the kitchen?”

“On the table.”

“That's just meanness,” Maud said.

“You betcha. Shot in the head and slit in the throat. It's a mess in there. One of us will have to clean it up.”

Maud figured who that was likely to be. “I guess I better take a look.”

“It's pretty bad. I've already seen it.”

Maud felt like she might, on the strength of that remark, get out of having to bury the dog. And she wasn't above using her gender to her advantage. She said, in a voice that was a little less assertive than she usually used with her brother, “How bad?”

“There's blood everywhere.”

“What kind of dog was it?”

“Dog, dog.”

“It's the Mounts' doings.” Maud leaped to that conclusion without even drawing a breath, and for a few minutes, she and Lovely distracted themselves from the carcass in the kitchen by discussing their neighbors. They took into account that they'd found Betty in the Mounts' pasture, or what the Mounts called their pasture, which was really just scrub in the wild between real pasture and the river. And they took into account a fistfight Mustard had had with Claude Mount during the last election. They also counted in the real possibility that Mustard and Ryde had done something in the early morning light to settle the score with the Mounts over axing Betty's back. But then they figured it might be just as likely that the Mounts would've gone after Ryde, and they knew no meanness had taken place at their aunt's. So they left it at that, and Maud asked, “Do you think they actually killed it in the kitchen?”

“Don't know. I can't see them bringing it into the house to shoot it. But there's a lot of blood for them to have kilt it somewhere else. I got some on me.” Lovely held up his hand and spat on it.

“Why are you spitting on yourself?”

“I got a thistle poke.” He massaged his palm with his thumb and then swiped his hand on his overalls.

“I've told you to wear gloves a thousand times.”

“I was wearing gloves. It poked me through one.”

Lovely looked toward the river. The sun was past four o'clock. “If Dad doesn't stop off somewhere, he could be home in an hour.”

“We better get to digging, then.”

“Let's dig in the garden. We can make fertilizer.”

“Do you want to drag it out, or do you want me to?”

“Well, I've already seen it,” he said. “And it didn't get to me like Betty did. I'll drag it out. You get the shovels.”

They dug a hole three feet deep and a foot longer than the dog. While they threw dirt, they talked about whether the dog belonged to somebody or was one of the feral ones that lived in the wild of the river, roamed the sandbar, and sometimes took up with the wolves. It was a dog they'd never seen. But dogs and cats turned up around the house on a regular basis, and if their father hadn't been so particular about the kind he wanted, they could've had their pick of a half dozen or so. This dog was mostly black and a little long-haired, but not speckled with burrs. Lovely had dragged it to the garden wrapped in the only tablecloth they had, and with a good bit of regret, Maud agreed to bury it in that cloth. Lovely shoved the carcass into the hole with his boot. It raised a little dust when it hit the bottom. He said, “Should we say something over it?”

“Like what?”

“Don't know. It might've been somebody's pet.”

Maud looked around. Sunflower stalks were growing at the north end of the garden. They weren't yet blooming, but they had the makings of buds. She walked over to them and broke a stalk off. She walked back to the hole, knelt, and laid the stalk on the tablecloth.

By the time Mustard got home, Maud had Lovely's overalls soaking in cold water in the kettle in the yard and the kitchen looked as usual except for the bare wood of the table. Mustard came in weary but carrying news of various conversations about the fire. He reported on arguments about its origin and was halfway through his meal before he rubbed his thumb along the grain of the wood, and said, “Cloth on the line?”

Maud was at the stove picking a biscuit out of the oven. Lovely was at the table with his father. He cleared his throat. Maud straightened up, dipped some beans onto her plate, and said, “We've got a little problem, Daddy.”

Mustard grunted.

Maud sat her plate down and slid into her chair. “Do you want a cigarette?”

“Not through eating. What's the problem?”

“Well, I went visiting Aunt Nan, and when I got back, the cattle guards were down.”

Mustard had hominy on his knife. He threw his head back and dropped several kernels into his mouth. Then he waved the knife in front of Maud's face. “That reminds me.” He pointed the knife at Lovely. “You kids lied to me about Betty. Her back was axed. If you wasn't so big, I'd whip the tar out of you both. As it is, as soon as I finish this meal, I'm gonna kick yer butts.”

Maud and Lovely glanced at each other in a communication they'd used since before their mother's death. It was barely noticeable to anyone else, but it said between them,
Don't run. He's just bellowing
.

“We're sorry about that. We didn't know how to break it to you, and she had to be put down, no matter.” Maud rubbed her thumb over the headdress of the Indian on the Calumet baking-powder tin they used as a pencil holder. She was glad the tin had been on the floor and unsplattered with blood after the dog had been left on the table.

Mustard pinched the end of his nose. “I can't for the life of me figure out why anybody would want to protect the Mounts.”

“We were protecting you, Dad.” Lovely spoke. “If you stormed off and shot one of 'em, then where would you be? In jail, we reckoned.”

“Somebody would have to catch me first. Haven't you got any faith in me?”

“We do, Daddy. But you've been known to fly off the handle,” Maud said.

“Somebody bring me an ashtray.”

Lovely got up, went to the front room, came back, and settled a clear glass ashtray on the table. Mustard took his Banjo, a pouch of tobacco, and papers from his shirt pocket. After he'd rolled his cigarette and taken a couple of puffs, he said, “Ryde figured three hogs to a cow. But then I told him she was carrying, so we upped it to four.”

“When did you do it?”

“While everybody was watching the fire. Any attention grabber can be an opportunity. Remember that.”

Maud and Lovely were used to Mustard's parental advice. It included “Cut up, not crossways,” “Hit 'em before they know yer mad,” and “Stomp 'em if you can; yer a lot less likely to break a hand.” They saw his recommendations as signs of affection but tried not to dwell on them. Maud was imagining the dead hogs when Mustard added, “Shot 'em in the head and then cut their throats for good measure. Little hogs, though. Not big-hog season.” He said that with a tone of regret.

“Well, they got even,” Lovely said.

“How's that?”

“Killed a dog and threw it on the kitchen table.”

Mustard pursed his lips and trimmed the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Is that it?”

“It was pretty bad, Dad. Shot it in the head and slit its throat. Blood was everywhere. Ruined the tablecloth and Maud had to soak steel wool in vinegar and use it on a spot on the table where the blood leaked through.”

Maud moved a plate. “Didn't get it all. I think it's gonna have to be sanded.”

Mustard extended his hand and fingered the spot. “I can take care of that.”

Lovely reached for the honey pot, dipped a spoon into it, and let the honey drip onto a biscuit. Watching the honey's slow move, Maud recognized that she'd been expecting storming and threatening. Maybe her father figured one dog against four hogs and thought he'd gotten the better of the Mounts? She didn't want to encourage more retaliation, so she said, “Thanks, Daddy. It wasn't really all that bad. Was it, Lovely?”

Lovely was as practiced as Maud at settling Mustard's temper, and he hopped back into the conversation with “Naw. We used the tablecloth to lug him to the garden and buried him there. He'll grow fat onions next season.”

Mustard lowered his eyebrows and winced. Then he took a long drag and stumped his butt out in the tray. “The Mounts generally go up in their meanness, not down. Keep yer eyes wide fer something sneaky. One dog fer four hogs ain't exactly enough.”

Maud often found her uncle Ryde as difficult as
a cow with a twitchy hind foot. But she conceded that he was the best square-dance caller around. Her job on the way to the dance was to protect his fiddle from his children. She rode in the back of his buckboard on a quilt with her cousins, Morgan, Renee, Sanders, and Andy, holding the instrument in her arms as if it were a baby. The sun was still shining on the potato plants and Maud's back was against the west planks of the wagon bed where she was trying to stay squeezed into a little patch of shade. When they arrived at the schoolhouse rubble, Ryde stopped his horses in the middle of the line. He said fire was still burning under the ash and the only thing salvaged from the building was a book that had been locked in the safe because it was dirty.

“What was its name?” Maud asked.

“Don't know. It's about a bunch of people walking to church, telling each other tales. Some of 'em stories will scald you bald.”

When the wagon started rolling again, Maud's mind stayed on the dirty book. It tickled her to think about people telling naughty tales on the way to church, and she decided that if she saw Booker, which was her primary wish, she'd ask him if he was familiar with the book. As the wagon rolled along, the combination of naughtiness, literature, and Booker focused Maud's attention like pollen focuses bees. She clutched the fiddle so tightly that it made creases on her arms.

When Ryde pulled up at the dance corner, Maud was relieved to turn the instrument over and eager to walk the streets with Nan and her children. The town's two drugstores, two cafés, and the Golden Rule Grocery excited her, but her favorite place of all was Taylor's General Store. And that was where she, Nan, and her brood headed to first. Once they got there, Morgan ran off to play with other boys, and Renee was charged with minding Andy and Sanders out on the front porch. Maud and Nan went inside and marveled, fingered, and yearned so much that Maud temporarily forgot about looking for Booker. It wasn't until they reemerged into long afternoon shadows that her mind once again veered to her main mission. By that time, the streets were filled with wagons, horses, mules, automobiles, and people. Maud parted ways with Nan, walked in and out of stores on Lee Street, spoke with people she hadn't seen in a while, and let a boy she knew from school buy her a Coca-Cola. After finishing the soft drink, she extracted herself with the promise of a dance and with the excuse of needing to give Lovely a message from her father.

Maud didn't really think Lovely and Early had yet made it into town; Lovely hadn't started washing up when she'd left, and Early would want to make a late appearance so he could make the women wait. As for Mustard, Maud didn't think he'd take the occasion to slip down to the Mounts' to extend the feud because, for the moment, he had the upper hand. She figured he'd spend the early part of his evening near his bootlegger's and come to the dance shouting drunk but before he was falling down.