Pamela Morsi (10 page)

“I should go out there right now,” Eulie said. “I should announce the truth and call the whole thing off.”

Miz Patch wrapped her arm around Eulie’s waist, staying her from any hasty action.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said. “You’re going to need a husband, and having been up here with him—well, folks would think the worst.”

“But we haven’t ever … I mean, we haven’t … I haven’t … been obedient to my husband, ever, I mean.”

Eulie buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t look the woman in the eye.

Miz Patch, obviously puzzled, tried to make out her words.

“Are you saying you’re still a maiden?”

Eulie nodded.

There was a long moment of complete silence before Miz Patch laughed heartily.

“Now don’t that beat all,” she said. “I wish I’d seen poor Mosco at the wedding yesterday. I bet he was faunching fit for fury.”

Eulie couldn’t quite see the humor in it.

“He was very mad,” she told Miz Patch.

“But he wed you anyway,” the woman pointed out.

“There was a shotgun at his back,” Eulie said.

“Lots of men would rather be dead than wed,” she replied. “And he was sure acting protective of you a few minutes ago.”

Eulie couldn’t argue with that.

Miz Patch gave her a consoling pat upon the knee

“I think you’d just better make the best of this marriage,” she said. “You did promise before God. Moss Collier needs someone like you, almost as much as you need someone like him.”

“But Miz Patch, it was so wrong.”

She snorted with unconcern.

“There’s wrong and there’s wrong,” she said. “Women have been taking the blame for wrong since
the beginning of time. They say Eve brought sin into the world giving Adam that forbidden fruit. But I don’t doubt for a minute that it was him, forever whining, What’s for dinner? What’s for dinner?’ that drove her to it.”

Eulie burst out laughing.

“That’s better,” Miz Patch said, smiling at her. “Now dry those pretty eyes of yours. You got company outside.”

Ransom Toby was astounded to return to Moss Collier’s home on Barnes Ridge to find a shindig in progress. Folks from all over were laughing and milling around. Music was playing. Duroc Madison was puffing on the harmonica, and Lem Pierce accompanied him on the squeeze-box. Dancing was not allowed, of course. Dancing was sin, and Preacher Thompson was in attendance. But there were musical games like Skip to My Lou and Chairs that were to Rans’s mind just as fun as dancing.

The corner of the porch was piled with the pounding for the new bride and groom. It was the way in the Sweetwood to see that a newlywed couple start out housekeeping with the necessities of life. Everyone was expected to contribute, the poor as well as the prosperous. So people brought what they could spare. A pound of sugar. A pound of coffee. A pound of nails.

The gifts weren’t the only thing they’d brought. There were party vittles, which were a great improvement over Eulie’s cooking of late. And down next to the river, the Pusser brothers had a jug of corn liquor. Most of the men present made a surreptitious visit in that direction at least once that evening. More often
than not, they dragged the bridegroom-host with them.

Rans noticed that Eulie’s husband had begun to weave a little bit on his trips back up the slope, and he grinned maliciously. He hoped the man made a fool of himself and fell flat on his face.

Rans thought about getting himself a drink. The Pusser brothers were not the kind of men to worry about the consequences of liquoring up a growing boy. All he needed was a penny to purchase. But he wasn’t that interested in drinking. Mr. Leight was here somewhere, he’d seen the gray mule hobbled, and in all honesty, he preferred a long talk with the man over a whole jug of illicit liquor.

Rans was not the kind of fellow who really socialized well. He was uncomfortable in a crowd and he couldn’t nod and smile and talk about nothing with people he didn’t hardly know. But he made a stab of it tonight, all the while looking for the only man among them that he truly considered his friend.

He spoke to several of the men, but never allowed the conversation to go past the greeting. He did allow the ladies to feed him. Myrtle Browning filled him a dish with ham and greens, a piece of pone as big as a man’s hand, a fair amount of pickles, and a slice of vinegar pie. A person couldn’t ask more from life from that.

That is, most persons couldn’t. He saw Little Minnie sitting on a checked picnic cloth with Mr. and Mrs. Pierce. His sister was talking a mile a minute and both adults appeared endlessly fascinated by what she had to say. As the woman listened, she dampened her hand on a wet rag and rolled Little Minnie’s hair around her
fingers. The child was already beginning to look as if her head were hung with sausages.

Rans snorted in disbelief and moved on, eating from his plate as he wandered through the farmyard that had this evening, with augmentation of pine-knot torches, turned into the most lively and fascinating spot on earth.

A quartet of young men stood watching the musical games, jawing tobacco and spitting. It appeared to be some kind of contest where the one coming closest to Maylene Samson’s feet without hitting her would win. The difficulty was heightened by the fact that Maylene stepped sprightly through the game’s movements on the arm of Ned Patchel. Patchel, who was at least ten years older than Maylene, had caught the attention of the fun-loving young lady, much to the dissatisfaction of the fellows her own age. The giggling girl was oblivious to what was going on. Her escort was not. Rans noticed that hitting Patchel’s shoes with an ill-aimed jaw of juice was not counting against a contestant.

Rans considered staying close. Clearly there was a fight brewing, and naturally he wanted to be part of it. But he still had his dinner plate, and hunger took precedence over excitement.

He wandered away from the music and over to the twins, who were seated on the porch next to Miz Patch. They were showing her the chair seat that they’d put together that afternoon.

“We cut all the willow strips and put them in the brine to soak,” Nora May said.

“And then Uncle Jeptha, that’s the old man that lives here, he wove them.”

Miz Patch examined the work critically and nodded with appreciation.

“You girls done a real fine job here,” she said. “All the strips are really even in size.”

The twins grinned proudly at each other.

“Well howdy-do there Ransom Toby,” the woman addressed him.

His mouth was so full that speaking was impossible, so he nodded.

“Having a little bite of supper, are ye?” she asked. “That’s good. A growing boy needs good vittles and plenty of them.”

“Yes ma’am,” Rans finally managed, swallowing.

She was looking at the chair seat once more.

“And this is really fine caning,” she said. “Who’d a thought that Jeptha Barnes would ever do such painstaking work? As careful and precise with weaving as he is with his words.”

“You know Uncle Jeptha?” Cora Fay asked.

“Well, of course I do,” Miz Patch answered. “I know everybody in the Sweetwood.”

“We’d never seen him till we come here,” Nora May said. “He’s a hermit. Rans told us so. And he’s right cranky and yells sometimes.”

“I guess he’s mad ‘cause he ain’t got no legs,” her twin suggested.

Miz Patch nodded silently, as if she had come to the same conclusion.

“He was sure patient when he was showing us how to do this,” Cora Fay pointed out.

“And he did help us teach the dog about the wheel-hoe,” Rans said.

Miz Patch raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“What’s this about a dog and a wheel-hoe?”

“We found a harness that was the right size for Old Hound and we hooked it up to the wheel-hoe to help us break ground for the new part of the garden,” he said eagerly. “It was my idea.”

“It was not!” the twins disagreed in chorus.

A small verbal disagreement ensued which mainly consisted of “Did not!” and “Did too!”

Miz Patch finally held up her hands for silence and gracefully changed the subject.

“So where is Jeptha Barnes?” she asked. “I haven’t caught sight of him all evening.”

“Oh, he’s hiding up in the barn,” Nora May answered.

“He doesn’t care for folks much,” Rans explained.

“And he’s not putting on a clean shirt for nobody,” Cora Fay added.

Miz Patch laughed at that.

“After only one day with the man, you seem to know him pretty well.”

Rans sopped up his plate with the last of the corn-pone.

“Have you seen Mr. Leight?” he asked. “I’ve been looking all over for him.”

The twins shook their heads negatively.

“I saw him talking to Mosco Collier,” Miz Patch told him. “But that was more than an hour ago, at least. I got no idea where he might be now.”

“Well, I’ll just keep looking.”

He moved on, weaving in and out of the crowd. He returned to the food table to hand in his plate and saw Moss Collier engaged in a serious conversation with Enoch Pierce.

Mrs. Samson, who preferred being called Miss Garda June, pinched his cheek as if he were some baby. He tolerated it, as he always did. His sisters always said that he was prickly and hard to get along with. They never gave him credit for the forbearance he showed among old ladies who treated him like a boy.

He listened for a few minutes to Yeoman Browning tell a story about Old Man George’s big sow going lovesick.

And he watched some boys, most of whom were about his age, shooting marbles in a circle beneath one of the torchlights.

Finally he spotted Mr. Leight sitting with his sister Clara on a bench just outside the kitchen. He hurried up to them eagerly.

“Hullo, Mr. Leight!”

He and Clara startled, as if they had been caught doing something. But clearly they had both just been sitting there on the bench staring into space.

“Oh, hello, Rans,” Mr. Leight said.

His voice sounded a little bit vague. Rans wondered momentarily if he were ailing.

“Been looking for you all evening,” he told the man. “I cain’t get a decent spate of conversation from another soul.”

Mr. Leight looked up and smiled at him, rather distractedly.

“I was never too good at conversation myself,” he admitted, glancing at Rans for only a moment before turning his attention back to Clara.

“Scoot down just a bit,” Rans suggested. “They’s room for me to sit, too.”

That seemed to wake the man up, and he moved
closer to Clara. Clara moved as well, although that was unnecessary. She was already sitting on the very farthest end of the bench.

When everybody was comfortable again, Rans turned to his friend once more, only to find him wearing that strange sappy look again and staring off into space.

“How’s your corn crop?” Rans asked him.

“What? Oh, the corn’s fine,” he answered. “Finished getting it all in the ground yesterday.”

“You’re ahead of Moss Collier,” Rans told him. “He’s still plowing.”

“Well, he didn’t have all the help I did,” Mr. Leight said.

Rans flushed with pride and shrugged. But when he glanced over, Mr. Leight wasn’t looking at him, but at Clara.

“When a man knows he’s got a cheerful home waiting and a fine meal, well, he just naturally works harder and faster.”

Rans was dumbfounded at his words.

And Clara’s reaction, to his mind, was nothing short of peculiar. She covered her face with her hands as if she couldn’t even bear to be seen by the man beside her. And she giggled. There was absolutely nothing funny about what Bug had said, but Clara giggled.

The two were downright peculiar together. But Rans was more or less used to their behavior and chose to ignore it.

He asked a couple more questions. Mr. Leight answered, though he continued to be vague. When he spoke up, his words were directed to Clara.

“I talked to Moss Collier,” he told her. “And he’s given me permission to call upon you here, if that would suit you, Miss Clara.”

His sister placed a hand against her heart as if attempting to slow its beating.

“That’d suit me fine, Mr. Leight,” she answered, her voice so scared and small it could scarcely be heard.

The silence on the bench was monumental. Even Rans was intimidated by it. It lingered for several moments. Finally the man bit his bottom lip and then took a deep breath, as if requiring courage, before he spoke.

“It would give me much pleasure, Miss Clara, to have you address me by my given name.”

There was a long moment of hesitation and anticipation.

“All right, Bug,” she said finally.

Mr. Leight rubbed his palms together and cleared his throat.

“Bug ain’t my given name, Miss Clara, it’s Manly,” he said. “Folks just call me Bug ‘cause I got such big eyes.”

Clara looked at him then, her expression nothing less than adoring.

“I like your eyes, … Manly,” she said.

M
OSS
Collier was feeling pretty good He rarely drank and wasn’t keen on socializing. But tonight the warmth of corn liquor was sizzling through his veins, and everybody he talked to seemed to be a friend.

In all honesty, he had been annoyed at the sight of company headed his way. He was still smarting from his forced wedding the day before and didn’t think that there was a man in the Sweetwood that he would claim for his friend But yesterday’s humiliation seemed to be wiped away, as far as the east is from the west. Today was filled with joyous celebration, pats on the back, foodstuffs and housekeeping essentials in gratifying abundance.

Everyone still believed the worst of him, that he would take advantage of an untried young woman and then do the honorable thing only with a shotgun between his shoulder blades. Rather than condemning his actions as they had yesterday, now that he was a married man, it was almost as if they admired them.

Clifton Knox was typical of the prevailing attitude of the menfolk as he poked Moss playfully in the ribs.

“You sly devil! I had my eye on that little gal for my cousin Ambrose. She’s just as sweet and sunny as a
pure angel. And then I hear you two have been out scorching grass. You ought to be ashamed.”

The man’s tone implied pride rather than shame.

As the evening wore on, the liquor flowed more generously and the accolades continued, Moss began to wish that he
had
seduced her.

And if all of that weren’t fine enough, he began to see a way out his burden. Oh, not completely out of it, of course. Eulie Toby would be his lawfully wedded wife till death to part, but if he could outlive Uncle Jeptha, he could see the other ones on their way as sure as the world.

It was the middle of the night before the company, bearing the torches they brought with them, headed down the river path, across the ford near the falls, and back to their own places.

Moss watched until they were out of sight and then headed toward the cabin. The slope seemed a bit more uneven than usual, but he managed to traverse it.

He nearly slipped as he made it to the porch and grabbed the corner support to hold him upright. He must have had more liquor than he’d thought. Moss shook his head, attempting to clear it, but that somehow only made things worse. He sucked in a big gulp of cool spring air. That hit him like a fist, and he heard bells, saw stars, and clutched the support beam more earnestly.

He saw Uncle Jeptha wheeling himself up the porch. He had a path up the far side where the ground slope met the porch floor and he could easily move the little cart from one to the other.

“Did you spend the whole evening in the barn?” Moss asked him.

The old man came rolling toward him.

“I sure did,” Uncle Jeptha answered. “Got one chair frame completed and two others that’s begun. What’d you do, besides consume a whole lot more corn liquor than a fool’s allowed?”

“I about got my whole life straightened out,” Moss told him with a big, hearty laugh.

“Humph,” the older man said and scooted by him into the cabin.

With the assistance of the support beam, Moss, too, headed toward the doorway.

Inside was completely dark and quiet save for the creaking of the wheels on Uncle Jeptha’s cart and the moving and shifting of tired bodies.

Moss stood in the doorway, not knowing exactly what to do. He couldn’t just start crawling over people until he found the one he wanted. He should just holler out to her, he decided. But then hesitated to use her name. He hadn’t called her that yet, and somehow it just didn’t seem right to do. But she was going to be his wife. He’d figured that out now, and he supposed a first-name basis was best for happily-ever-afters.

“Yoo-hoo! My bride,” he called out in a whisper. “Eulie, where are you?”

He took a step forward. For some inexplicable reason there was a leg sticking out into the middle of where the walkway should be. In his unsteady condition he tripped over it and landed heavily.

“What in the devil are you up to, Moss?” he heard Uncle Jeptha call out.

“I fell,” he answered. “Sorry.”

“If you’re looking for my sister,” the owner of the
foot that caused his fall said, “she’s out in the kitchen. Ain’t that where you sleep?”

“Oh, well, boy, I suspect it is,” Moss answered slowly coming to his knees. “Did you get awful tall of late that your legs stick out all the way to here?”

“Guess so,” he answered.

Moss carefully stood up and retreated through the door. So she was waiting for him down in the kitchen. That was nice. That was real nice. So nice in fact he began to whistle. He was feeling a little less woozy now and a lot more pleased with himself.

He’d been thinking about her all day. How could a man do anything else? Row after dirt patch row with nothing to look at but the backside of an old mule, a man’s mind wandered. And when a man had spent the previous evening hugging and squeezing on some pretty little gal, it was to be expected that she would cross his mind. He remembered the shape of her, the softness of her skin, the scent of her in his arms. And he’d been downright annoyed with himself. He’d said he was not going to touch her. He’d meant it to punish her. But who was it going to punish? She was probably grateful.

But now all that had changed. It was all going to work out much better than he’d imagined, and he could both lawfully and with good conscience be a husband to her.

By the time he reached the door to the kitchen he was singing.

“She climbed upon her maiden’s bed,

And took the pillow from ‘neath her head,

She tossed the quilts and the blankets, too,

So I crawled right on to her doodle-di-do.”

The kitchen was dark save for the remains of the fire. He spotted her, lying in the same cold corner as the night before.

“Eulie,” he called out in a whisper. “Hello there, my bride. Are you awake?”

She sat up in her blankets.

“Yes, yes, I’m awake,” she assured him in a sleepy voice that suggested that perhaps she hadn’t been.

Eagerly and without any thought to neatness or the value of his good shirt, Moss began to disrobe. He dropped his shoes and left them wherever they fell. He hardly had the patience for the buttons on his shirt. And he dropped his trousers and stepped out of them as if he never intended to look back.

Stripped down to his red flannel union suit, he was ready to simply throw himself upon her and her pile of blankets.

He hesitated, wondering uncharacteristically about cleanliness. He’d washed down before the company arrived. Somehow that didn’t feel like exactly enough. Barefoot he walked back out the door into the moonlight. He didn’t want to go all the way to the river, so he scooped a dipper full of water from the rain barrel and rinsed his face and hands. That sobered him a little, but not enough to distract him from his present course.

“She is my wife,” he reminded himself aloud. “When I go west I’ll have somebody to cook for me. And the comfort of a woman whenever I feel the need.”

With that cheery thought he was whistling again and reentered the darkened kitchen.

She had lain back down again and rolled over, facing the wall. Moss knelt down and crawled in beside her.

“You want to share some of these blankets with me, my bride?” he whispered.

She relinquished his share without an argument, and Moss eased up close to the back. Without one whit of caution or sensibility he reached out for her. The short josey barely covered her backside. He pushed it away and ran his hand over her bare flesh.

That woke her up.

With a screech of shock, she rolled over and faced him. That was even better.

“Hello there, Eulie,” he said. “Why don’t you give Moss a little kiss.”

He didn’t wait for her to reply but pulled her snugly into his arms and brought his mouth down upon hers. She was so soft and so sweet and she was his.

He’d never thought to wed, since he’d planned to leave. But now, with absolute clarity, he saw what a good idea it was. A man got a full-time servant who received no wage or even so much as a day off. And at night she turned into his personal whore. Of course, wives were not whores, he reminded himself, and he’d never expect his to be. Wives never did any of the
special
things that whores did. But in his scant experience with whores, he’d never done any of the special things anyway. The regular suited him just fine. And tonight he wanted to do the regular with his very own bride.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, clearly a little nervous.

“It ain’t what I’m doing,” he answered. “It’s what we’re doing. It is something important, something that a man … and a woman do without their clothes,” he said.

“Oh!” Her reply was part surprise and part fright.

He felt the warmth of blush on her skin as he explored her.

“Are you saying you want me to … to obey my husband?”

He grasped her shoulders, momentarily taken aback by the thin frailty of her. He pulled her closer, almost protectively. She was not so skinny as you’d think, he decided. Her bosom was a nice firm handful. And he liked the way that her backside sort of pouched out, sort of inviting attention.

“I’m saying I’m accepting you to be my wife in all ways that a woman is a man’s wife.”

His words silenced her. He continued.

“So that surely gives us something to do on a warm spring night,” he told her.

He wrapped his arms around her and forcefully pulled her closer, enjoying the scent of her and the soft way her hollows fit against him.

“We’re married, Mrs. Collier,” he said “Married, for better or worse. I’ve already seen some to the worse, now I want some of the better.”

He began pulling up her josey.

Frantically she grabbed at it.

“I can’t,” she told him with absolute certainty. “I can’t just be naked with you.”

He’d bent forward to plant tiny kisses on the side of her neck.

“All right,” he whispered against her throat. “We’ll leave our clothes on.”

Eulie sighed, relieved, and released her grasp on the fabric.

“I’ll just raise it up to about here,” he said, baring
her breasts and tucking the hem of the josey against her collarbone.

It felt so nice to have her in his arms. It felt as warm and comfortable as a soft cotton blanket fresh from the sunshine. And as daring and thrilling as a swift water crossing from a narrow high-perched log.

He eased his hands against the edge of her breasts, but continued to explore the soft flesh of her throat. Moss had not done a lot of kissing. The women with which he had experience were not ones that a fellow might want to kiss. But his new bride was very much a female to be kissed. That’s what he’d first wanted from her. A simple kiss. He’d taken it, and he’d had to marry for it. Since he’d already paid the price, it seemed reasonable and right to enjoy it.

“This is very nice,” he told her.

She was trembling in his arms.

“There is no need for you to be afraid,” he whispered against her skin. “We’re not doing anything that lots of other people don’t do all the time.”

“All right,” she answered, her tone stoic and fearful. But the sensation of his lips upon her neck somehow made it difficult to listen to what he was saying.

He blazed a trail up the length of her jaw to the sensitive flesh of her ear and then to her lips. The taste, all heat and excitement, urged him forward in contrast with the leisurely pleasure he wanted to take in it. He wanted to spend a lifetime exploring her body. And he wanted to be buried inside it in the next minute.

He moved his hands along her, confident and sure. One lingered upon her chest exploring the edge of her bosom, but never grasping it. He didn’t want to shock her or have her pull away. Uncertainly he eased his hand
upon her. It was almost as if he thought he might sneak up on her bosom and she would not notice. Her nipples were tightly raised, as if she had taken sudden chill. The feel of them, tight and taut against his palm, robbed him of caution.

“Do you like this?” he asked her as he gently squeezed the breast she offered. “Do you like having your bosom squeezed?”

“I like it,” she answered him in a tiny voice. “I really like it.”

“How about this one?” he asked, bringing up his other hand to grasp her other breast. “Do you like this one squeezed as well?”

“Yes,” she assured him a little more confidently. “I like it.”

He caught her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you like this, too?”

Eulie gasped. The sound of it went through him like a bolt of lightning, igniting fire in his veins, and settled rigid in the front of his flannels.

“Oh yes, you like that, don’t you,” he said “You do like that.”

She murmured something unintelligible.

“If my new bride likes to be squeezed, I’m a husband whose going to remember to squeeze her every day.”

He kissed her again.

“Open your mouth, Eulie,” he whispered close to her.

“What?”

The single word she uttered gave him the access he required. He tilted his head sideways and opened his lips upon hers.

It was exciting and instructive and much more than he thought that a kiss could be. A rush of weakness sped through him that did not extend to his erection, straining against confinement. He ran his hand along it, stiff at full prow as he undid his buttons.

He rolled over upon her, pressing her back against the hard pallet and stretching out on top of her. A groan of pure pleasure emanated from his throat.

Because he was heavy and she seemed so small, he raised himself slightly to be no burden. This had an unexpected but appreciated benefit of wedging his knee firmly between her thighs. They were flesh to flesh. He could feel the warmth and wetness of her against him.

He raised her leg to his waist and they both shivered. It was as if the heat building inside was intense enough to make the outside chill.

Moss brought his lips down upon hers again and now, more sure of herself, she opened eagerly for him. Reveling in the sweet, familiar taste of her, he tugged insistently upon her mouth until she moaned.