The Truest Pleasure (16 page)

What I mean is I saw Ida Jenkins come to Tom in the field. We was digging taters in October. Everybody knowed what a hard time Ida had after Jimmy died of smallpox. I was raking taters out and cleaning them, and Tom was loading baskets on the wagon.

Ida walked up on the rough clods, squinting in the sun. She always did have a kind of squint, and as she got older it seemed worse. “Tom,” she said, “will you sell me a peck of taters?”

Tom was straining to lift a basket onto the wagon and his face was red. “No,” he said. “I won't sell you a peck of taters.”

I stood up to rebuke him. A smile broke out on his face.

“But I will give you a bushel,” he said.

And I could tell how much Tom enjoyed that. He felt good about hisself. It made him feel happy and secure to give away taters to somebody that needed them.

The anger over what I give the Brights was only the beginning of Tom's fury. He made his pallet up in the loft, and he didn't hardly speak when he was in the house. Mostly he stayed away. Even in cold weather he worked in the barn or toolshed, or he gathered pine needles in the thickets for cowbedding. He acted like I had gone crazy and he couldn't trust me. He acted like I wanted to steal his money, to hurt him where he was most tender.

The first weeks of the new year was cold and silent, except for Moody's crying. Pa didn't talk much when Tom was around.
And Joe and Lily didn't come over often. When Florrie visited she talked a streak, but I didn't have much to say to her. Sometimes she stopped at the barn and talked to Tom a long time before she come in. By late February it was clear I was expecting again.

That spring Joe started holding small prayer meetings, and I attended those right up to the time of my laying-in. It was not a happy pregnancy. During the first two I was contented. It was like I had a mysterious joy. During the third one I thought mostly about spite. I thought if I could hurt Tom by giving, I might as well give away more. I couldn't seem to think about anything happy. I didn't even enjoy reading during those months.

A traveling preacher, a faith healer, come through and stayed with Joe and Lily. But because of the cold weather he was never able to hold services. I walked across the hill for the little prayer meetings they had. His name was Worley and he was from around Pickens. It was obvious he had little more than the clothes he wore, and they was threadbare. If he couldn't have services he had no way of collecting money. I made him two shirts, and some handkerchiefs. If I had had material I would have tailored him a suit. But I give him money instead. I handed him ten dollars from my savings under the jewelry. Pa had give it to me at Christmas, but I never let Tom know how much I had.

Of course Florrie went and told Tom, as I knowed she would. I don't reckon it was more than two days before he found out. Lily had told Florrie, and she must have come special to tattle to Tom. And that seemed like the worst insult to Tom. I can't say but what I meant it partly for an insult. With
two children already, and a third one coming, I guess he was worried, as all men worry about their duty. It was winter and he had the place to look after, and who knowed what hard times might be ahead?

“You want to give what we have to any religious trash that comes through,” he said. He spoke almost with his teeth together, hissing his words. “You will be the ruination of us,” he said.

“You are already ruined by greed,” I said.

We took to going to church separate. I went with Pa and the children almost till I was due. Tom had been sleeping on the pallet since the first of the year, and he got up long before I did. Weekdays he was in the fields before I even woke. Sundays he milked and got dressed and went to service on his own.

Tom had less and less to do with Pa, and Joe too. When we was first married him and his brother-in-law had always worked together at fodder-pulling time or when there was a shed to be built. Joe was the strongest man around, and though he stuttered when excited or among strangers, he was always a talker, just like Pa, with a loud voice, lots of laughing. He liked to read too, religious tracts and pamphlets, magazines and history books, and he talked about what he had read as he worked. He knowed the history of the community and the family better than anybody else.

The more Joe talked the harder he worked, and Tom never seemed to mind his talk. Joe went on and on about Darwin and evolution, while he dug holes for posts or sawed a pine log. Only somebody strong as Joe had the breath to work and talk at full speed.

“People don't come from no monkeys,” he would say as he pulled the crosscut saw.

“No sir,” Tom would say, and pull it back.

“If we are descended from monkeys how come we ain't got tails?” Joe said and pulled again.

Tom would grunt; he didn't need to answer.

“I heard Darwin caught a disease in the tropics,” Joe said. “His mind was never right after that.” He pulled again, working up a sweat and pulling faster. Tom had to strain to keep up.

“Now I've seen people that looked like monkeys,” Joe said.

“Me too,” Tom said.

“And I've seen them that acted like monkeys,” Joe said, as he pulled the saw back. They was getting far down in the log and it was pinching. The saw was hard to pull.

“Put a block under it,” Tom said.

Joe shoved a section of cut wood under the log to prop it up. “M-m-maybe apes is descended from people,” he said. “Maybe they was people that didn't go to church or help other people out. They didn't b-b-believe in nothing, and eventually they just growed hair and tails and went to live in the trees. Maybe apes is d-d-descended from politicians.” Joe busted out laughing just as the saw cut through and the end of the log rolled away.

Early on a Sunday morning I could sometimes hear Joe praying in the thicket on the hill. His voice would carry in the quiet, though you could only catch a word here and there. His voice would rise to a holler, then die away again. It was the way he prayed at church and at meetings. And he prayed so long the preacher almost never called on him. Joe
had always wanted to preach, and he liked to take over prayer meetings and talk until it was time to go. Some said they didn't mind, that he knowed more and had more to say than other people. But Preacher Jolly didn't agree, and never called on him. Florrie said he talked so much at church and in the field because he never got a chance to say a word at home. Lily was a nonstop gossip. When Joe went out to pray or work all his bottled-up feelings and thoughts was ready to be let out, no matter where he was or who he was with.

But after Joe and Lily kept Preacher Worley, and I give the preacher money, Tom appeared to blame Joe. He didn't ask Joe to work with him anymore. I don't reckon they had words about it. But I rarely saw them working together. If Joe come over to help Pa, Tom was always busy someplace else. Tom had a way of disappearing, of just not being around when he didn't want to be.

One day in June I felt the pains start. Tom was thinning cane at the upper end of the bottom, and I sent Pa to tell him to go after Hilda Waters, the midwife. I had thought it would be at least another month. I kept walking around the kitchen because it helped a little if I was standing up.

It must have took Tom an hour to bring back Hilda. It seemed an eternity. I told myself I would not lay down till Hilda come. I thought if I could just stay on my feet the pain wouldn't get bad. I had heard Indian women walked up and down the river bank before they give birth, and they didn't need any help.

I kept thinking of the Sunset Rock, wishing I could walk there. I hadn't been on the west side of the hill in weeks. If I
could go there and look up the valley to the cool mountains I would feel better. I got my bonnet and put on my shoes.

“Where you going?” Pa said. He was on the porch watching Jewel and Moody play in the sand.

“I'm going for a walk,” I said.

“You stay here,” he said. He almost never did give an order, but I guess he was scared.

“Tell Hilda and Tom I went out the trail above the barn.”

“Can I come?” Jewel said. She run up and grabbed my hand.

“You stay here,” I said.

The sun was so bright it blinded me. I reckon June sun is the brightest there is. It was like the air was full of lit white dust. Everything looked on fire. The weeds was green fires, and the air white clear flames. The mountains was far blue flames.

I walked the path through the lower edge of the orchard thinking if I could get to the rock I would feel better. My bones was so weak I felt something was about to go wrong. A little snake trickled like oil across the path and vanished in the weeds. The bright sun made me feel cold, and I shivered.

“Who are you?” somebody called from up on the hill. I stopped on the trail and shaded my eyes. There was pines looming way up on the hill but I couldn't see anybody. The trees was so dark they looked like standing shadows.

“Who are you?” they said again.

The pines was a bright black. It didn't make sense somebody way up in the trees was talking to me. I tried to see who it was, but there was just the trees up there, and the blazing sky beyond. The orchard tilted steep, and the pasture even steeper. Could it be Joe up there praying?

“Who are you?” they called again. And then a crow flapped out of the tallest pine. It was just a crow cawing, and it sounded like it was talking to me. I tried to laugh at myself. A June bug buzzed by my face and I could feel the faint wind off its wing.

The pain hit me again, a deep-down pain. And it felt like something burning, red hot, had been drove into me. I told myself I could get through this, for I had done it before.

But I had forgot how bad a pain can be. You can't really remember pain once it's over. A pain has a taste, but you forget it once it's gone. I thought if I could just get to the rock and rest I would be all right. The pain was loud and I couldn't get away from it. A million birds was screeching inside me and a train roared right between my ears.

As the pain begun to ease a little I looked up and saw this dog on the trail ahead. It was a dog I hadn't ever seen before. Wasn't exactly a cur, and wasn't exactly a bulldog, but it looked like part of both. It had short gray hair that appeared brushed the wrong way. I tried to think whose dog it might be.

I saw it wasn't walking right. A lot of dogs trot sideways, especially when they're young. But this dog walked sideways, weaving from one side of the trail to the other. I thought at first it was looking for something, since its head was down. Then I saw it wobbling with each step like it was about to fall.

When the dog got close it saw me for the first time, and stopped. A chill went through me, on top of the pain, when I saw the dog's eyes all wet and glazed over. They was fevered eyes with stuff crusted on the edges. And there was slobber hanging from the dog's mouth like a beard. It was a mad dog for sure. It looked at me like it was cross-eyed and couldn't hardly see me.

“Lord help me,” I prayed. I knowed a pregnant woman wasn't supposed to look in a mad dog's eyes or it would mark her baby. It was the devil looking at you from those fever-crazed eyes. I tried to look away. I had heard of women that saw mad dogs and had babies that was blind and had fits. And I heard of one baby that had hair all over it like a dog, and moaned and barked.

The dog stopped like it was trying to figure out where I was. I knowed if I moved fast I would show it where I was. I stood still and the dog growled and groaned in terrible pain. Dogs that go mad burn up inside from fever because they can't drink water.

I thought I would take one tiny step back in the grass to see if it noticed. I eased my left foot so it didn't seem to move at all. The weeds twitched a little and I stopped. I moved my right foot back a little, so slow the grass and weeds didn't even shake. I tried to think what I would do if the dog jumped. Should I turn and try to run? If I was not carrying the baby I might be able to run faster than it. But that was a big risk.

The dog was confused. It tried to look and to sniff. It was in pain. I never heard anything more anguished. I figured if I could just back away far enough I would turn and run. But I had to keep my mind on the dog, and on each little step back. If I tripped on a rock or a weed I would be a goner, and the baby too.

There was a kick inside me, and I felt the pain again. It was like a red-hot wire pulled through me, a barbed wire that tore hunks off what it passed through. The pain made me want to bend over to ease it. I didn't dare put my hands on my back to
cool the pressure. I had to balance the pain with the slow effort of stepping back. Every step seemed to make the pain worse.

Never have I had to work that hard. Sweat dripped in my eyes and run down my back. My neck was wet and my armpits streamed. My hair was damp around the temples, and it felt like the sun was hot enough to set my hair on fire.

One little step at a time I eased away. I got back a foot, two feet. The pain thundered in my ears. The dog swung its head side to side. Maybe it was trying to see where I had gone.

I took steps so slow it made me tremble. The heat come off the weeds in waves, like steam from a washpot. I wished I could sink into the blackness of the heat and go to sleep. Sleep would be a cool shade to slip into. Sleep would quiet the noise of pain.

It looked like the dog was pitching forward, about to leap. But it tumbled to the ground and begun twisting and growling. The dog was having a fit right on the trail. Its mouth foamed and it jerked and twitched. I backed a bigger step, and then another.

“Step to the side,” somebody said.

I turned and backed into the weeds at the side of the trail. There was a flash and awful bang. It was as if the sky blowed away in smoke and my ears rung. It was Pa with his shotgun.

The dog jerked on the trail and then stopped. There was a wheeze coming out of the hole in its side, and blood wetter and shinier than any water soaked out. The dog laid still.