part four

Lovers who must say farewell When the road has reached the trees Lovers who have all to tell Where the road runs out of sight In the green beyond the leaves The green cove below the light Lovers who must say farewell When the road has reached the trees Touching hand to hand to speak All their love has ever known Find no words to speak and say Love... O love...

21

Ellen had spotted the wagon before Simon, drawn by a strapping team of grays. The little farmer had a white beard and mustache. He was touching his hat and yelling across the tarred road to where they sat on the station house steps, “Hi. You Mrs. Gaddy?”

They took up their bags and ran. Simon was scrambling into the wagon bed. “Hey, Mester.”

“I’m Matthew Wasilewski,” the old man said. Ellen climbed to the seat beside him. He was clicking to the team and the shod hoofs resounded on the patched streets of Hidden Creek. They came upon dirt country roads and Ellen observed how there were no stones and they stretched flat and straight, not curving and hilly like those about Millville. The horses set a fast pace.

Simon shouted, “That’s a spanky team. Can I hold the reins sometime?”

“Hush, Simon. He’s fond of horses.”

“Let him talk. I say, let boys speak out.” The man’s complexion was translucent, as happens with the aged. His beard was yellow about the mouth from tobacco stains and food. His frail body was engulfed by baggy overalls and a fresh-starched blue shirt. He bobbed his head, “Now, Mom raises Leghorn hens. She’ll want you to help with them.”

“What’s a Leghorn? How’s it differ?”

“They’ll beat any breed at laying, Mrs. Gaddy. Mom follows the Department of Agriculture. She reads the bulletins. And she sees the county agent too. He told her to put those runners on her chicken sheds and tow them out to pasture.”

“Say, feeding them on grass like a cow.”

“Keeps down disease, the agent claims, and saves feed. You think this land’s rich? You should go to the old country some day. Poland. Where I came from. Plums as big as my fist. Apples the size of my head. Never a drought.”

“We had one where I lived two years ago.”

“Where you from?”

“Kentucky.”

“I heard that drought was widespread. We had it bad; most all the crops died right in the field. Our boys took a loan on the mortgage. They shouldn’t have done it. Debts are bad. In the end it was the Triple A that pulled us through. Roosevelt paid for what we didn’t have to plant. Did he pay you folks too?”

“No, but I knew a man got a government check for letting hogs root up his tobacco. I ne’er did understand how that worked.”

“Now in Poland, Mrs. Gaddy, they never heard of a drought or a Triple A either.”

“Say, Mester,” Simon spoke up, “what are those horses’ names?”

“Off one’s Pearl. The other’s Major, son.”

“That Pearl’s a sight the prettiest.”

“Yes, and that Major’s the smartest. Who do you think’s pulling this load?”

Simon fell back abandoned in the straw of the wagon, shouting in glee. He lay gazing up at the sky and the bare treetops that came into view.

“That’s it.” The old man pointed. “Ninety acres.”

Two women and a man were coming from the white house into the yard to welcome Ellen. Mom was fleshy and large-framed, her eyes shy. She was shaking Ellen’s hand. “Guess Pop told you all about the fruit in the old country.”

“Why, he did.”

Sudduth was their younger son, thirty-two, scrawny, anxious-eyed. “We sure can use your help. We’ve been after Mom a long time to get someone. Here’s my wife, Adele.”

“Pleased,” said Ellen.

“Howdy.” The woman held her head on one side like a bird, waiting.

“You-all could call me Ellen.”

“I’ll show you to your room, Ellen.” Adele was going ahead up the stairs. Her face was harrowed from the years, but retained the child’s shape, round and eager-eyed, looking for encouragement. Two little girls with eyes like hers looked from behind a door. “This is Mrs. Gaddy, Hannah. Grace. My boy Dennie is in school.” The girls squealed and ran to hide. Adele was stopping at the room that would be Ellen’s. Simon was to have another for himself.

They came together later for the evening meal, Pop at the head of the table, Mom at the foot. They were all shouting noisily. “Let’s see those brown-eye peas down here.”

“Save a corner for the blueberry dowdy.”

“Let a child talk up, I say.” Pop maneuvered the food through his mustache, his head on a level with the children.

“I got a hundred in Penmanship,” cried Adele’s son, Dennie.

“My, at that child,” said Adele.

“The girls printed for me. I sure could follow it good.” Mom felt the sisters were being slighted at times. At her left stood an empty chair.

“That’th Uncle Dan’s plathe,” Hannah was saying shyly to Ellen.

“Dan’s my older brother,” Sudduth explained. “He’s off at the cattle sale in Weems Crossroads, trying to buy a Crestmore bull. We already have a purebred bull, but he’s the sire to so many of our heifers we don’t get the good of him any more.”

“Say, I’ve been to Weems Crossroads,” Ellen said. “I visited some folks there.”

“Dan’s going to see if he can bid a bull low,” Sudduth said.

“Nothing but the best for Dan,” said Pop.

“By the name of Dougherty?” Ellen was hopeful.

“Nothing but the best.” Sudduth was sopping the juice from his plate with dark home-baked bread.

“Never heard of a Dougherty,” Pop said. “You know, Sudduth, if a purebred cow jumps the fence and gets to a grade bull, you can just as well sell her? She’ll be no good from then on.”

“That’s ridiculous, Pop.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Ellen said.

“There was a mare bred to a zebra stallion,” Pop told him. “Every foal she threw thereafter was striped. Now that’s proof, Sudduth.” He pounded his knife.

“There,” Ellen whispered, for she had heard this same thing.

“Pop, that old tale’s been shown up long ago. I’ll get out the article for you to read, in the _Breeder’s Journal_. Old superstitions.”

While they were talking the cats were underfoot, three or four of them, tiger-striped and black. They wound under the table legs and sometimes one of the children slipped them a bite of food. A little later Ellen and Simon went up to bed. The talking and shouts from below were seeping through the flooring as Ellen dozed off to sleep.

* * * * *

She heard the cock crowing in her dream, insistent, shrill. She threw her arm in a fending gesture, engrossed in the nightmare. She was running up the stairway from the cellar, her father racing after. “I’ll kill you because you took the boy.” She shouted to stay his hand, “You dassn’t kill on the cock’s crow, Pa.” She awoke, her voice straining in her throat. She lay listening, oppressed by the dream, letting it recede. I won’t hold to any of it. I’ll button it into a far part of me. I want to weave a new way here in this land where all the folks are foreign. I’ll make a place for Simon and me. I’ll put the past away. I vow I will.

It was not yet dawn. Darkness kept the room corners. She threw back the covers. The air was chill but there was an earth odor, fresh, redolent of spring. She was throwing open the window, looking out at the muddled unfamiliar landscape. The eastern sky was gray and hushed. She sat on the low sill in the sleeveless garment she wore at night, hugging her cold bare arms. Her hair hung clinging and disheveled. It was late January but it was warm, the first false spring. There would be cold days yet, and the last frost might come as late as mid-April. But already in protected southern exposures a few flowers were opening, a jonquil or narcissus, releasing suppressed and forgotten perfumes. The earth seemed to turn itself like an animal stirring in its lair.

A bull bellowed in the half-light, pawing the floor of its paddock, shaking its brawny shoulders. It began to butt the bars with its heavy smooth head like a toy set in motion. Tiny pigs wandered to and fro in a yard beyond the bull. The gray of clouds that lay in the east transformed gradually into mauve. Shifting and changing, lights and colors were fanning upward. A man’s figure strode around a corner of the house. There was a black-and-white feist at his heels. The man was tall, seemed young, his hair thick and black, unruly. The cuffs of his pants were tucked into leather boots. He stopped to shake tobacco into his left hand, and rolled a cigarette swiftly. The dog jumped repeatedly at his arm, yapping sharply in the pink-tinged air. As he was walking off, his bass voice came clear.

The minstrel boy to the war is gone In the ranks of death you’ll find him His father’s sword he hath girded on And his wild harp slung behind him

A warm breeze stirred from the east. Ellen shivered. On the brim of the color-draped sky, the first round edge of the red sun was emerging as if pulled by a string. The fields were stretching forth under the rosy light, spreading wide and tended, damp with dew. The pungent sweetness of the earth was arising from its bowels. Time moved quickly. The sun came whole over the line of horizon, lay alive in the brilliant stained sky. The man’s song had faded.

Voices began to call back and forth in the reaches of the house. Ellen turned from the window. The room was furnished with a white wood bedstead, a dresser with a tiny mirror, a table and an upright chair. There was a striped rag rug on the floor, made by Mom; the curtains and bedspread were yellow and threadbare, streaked unevenly by sun rays over the years.

She dressed and hurried down the dusky stairs. Simon and Dennie sat whispering on the bottom step. “You seen my room, Ma?” They followed her. Adele was turning the handle of the coffee grinder, the friendly crusty noise filling the kitchen. “Dennie’s got a room too.”

“I always had a room.” Dennie hiked his suspenders.

When breakfast was nearly ready, Sudduth came in with the man Ellen had seen earlier. They washed at the sink, then leaned against the wall to wait for food to be set out. Ellen had difficulty finding things. “Where does the sugar live, Mom?”

“This is my brother Dan,” Sudduth said as she was passing with the bowl of sugar. “Mrs. Gaddy. Ellen.”

“How do you do. Mom keeping you busy? You’ve got to watch her.” He was a head taller than Sudduth, older than he had looked from the windows, with an air of authority. His straight hair hung over his forehead, his eyes were greenish-yellow, his ears pointed at the top. His lips were thin and flat, his nose angular. His skin was olive and creased. There was a birthmark on his left cheek, and when he flushed it darkened. “That damn bull’s a beaut, Sudduth. Supposed to be delivered this morning. We’ll charge a service fee on him that’ll pay his price a few times over.”

“Let’s eat.” Mom was carrying a bowl of fried potatoes in one hand, a platter of smoking ham in the other.

When they had finished, Simon got his coat from upstairs, for he would set out with Dennie to school. There was over a mile to walk. He stood in the doorway and his blue eyes settled on Ellen. “Bye now, Ma.” He picked up the yellow cat mewling at his feet.

“You tell the teacher who you are proper, Simon.”

“I will, Ma.”

“Say you’re living at the Wasilewski farm.”

“I know.”

Dan rolled a cigarette, leaning back. “You like horses, boy?”

“Oh yes, Mester.” Simon spilled the cat to the floor. “What can I do?”

“You groom them every night. Will you do that?”

“Mornings too, Mester? You won’t find a loose hair.”

“Call me Dan,” the man was laughing. “We’ll see what else we can find for you.”

The boys ran off and Ellen said, “He’s proud to just lay his hands on a horse.”

The day had begun. When the beds were made and the kitchen floor scrubbed, Ellen scoured the white refrigerator and the electric stove. She washed the white-painted wood cabinets that lined the walls. “Pop made those,” Adele said, “three years ago. They got the notion one night when Mom was reading the _Farm Woman’s Magazine_. Dan and Sudduth put the old pantry cupboards in the shed for machine parts.”

The brothers drifted in at noon, hobnail boots clacking on the floors, preoccupied in talk of the new bull that had arrived by truck. They ate hastily, hurrying out. Mom said the hens were to be deloused. The county agent advised it. The women caught each bird by the leg, shook the can of powder over it and turned it loose so it escaped to the yard, shaking its feathers, clucking indignant. Dust from the litter mingled with the powder and hung in the air. The women sneezed. Mom’s face was hot. “The roosts have to be scrubbed down next.”

At supper Ellen was tired. When she finished her plate, a cat jumped on her lap. She let it remain for she saw it was the custom. It was purring, kneading its paws. Simon joined in the clamor and Ellen was bending her thoughts to how different these ways were from the house where she had been raised.

“Come play for us, Uncle Dan,” Dennie was coaxing.

The girls joined, “Thing ‘Thay, Darling, Thay,’ Uncle Dan.”

“Tomorrow, you pesky kids,” he shouted over the din. “We have to check on the bull right now. Coming, Sudduth?” He was charging through the door.

The next morning the tractor roared out of the barnyard, Dan perched in the driver’s seat. “Land,” Mom was laughing, “he does love that machine.”

“It’s a good day to start the spring plowing,” said Ellen. “The land’s thawed good.”

“They’re not plowing yet,” Mom said. “They’ll wait till February.”

“I’ve heard folks say it ruins land for seven years to plow in January. Pa ne’er held to that notion. He plowed when he had a mind to.”

“Sakes, Ellen.” Mom was amused. “That’s not it. It’s the house. We’ve got a busy year laid out here. Adele’s going to have her own home. Her and Sudduth.” She was turning to Adele. “He went by already with the team and the scoop. Did you see him?”

“Sudduth’s just raring,” said Adele.

“We’ve got to be ready to paint and all in late summer, Ellen. So Adele and him and the kids can get moved in the fall.”

“I want everything to be perfect when we leave, Mom.” Adele was earnest.

They told Ellen that lumber was stored at the warehouse in Hidden Creek; part had been bought in fall when cash crops had been sold and part was still on credit against the early wheat crop. “There’s kegs of nails and rolls of tar paper and shingles in the shed. They drew the plans out on paper.” Mom was proud. “There’s going to be another big event here in the fall.” Mom’s eyes gleamed secret. “Wait and see.”

At mid-morning Ellen was busy. “I declare at this iron, it’s so light.” She skimmed over the clothes swiftly, laid them folded and smooth on the newspaper-covered table.

“It sure is a help having you here, Ellen.” Mom was mending, a wicker basket beside her. “Makes me feel old though, not doing my own work.”

“Only I forget about the cord and keep walking off with the iron.”

The kitchen door slammed. “It’s me,” Dan’s voice shouted. The sound of running water came.

“You’ll see, he’s had trouble with the tractor,” Mom said.

“The tractor turned over on me.” His voice was muffled. “Cut myself.”

“That suits you fine, Dan,” Mom called. “He can play now. Nothing suits him like when some piece of equipment won’t work and he can get his head under it. Rather do that than work.”

“You don’t have to shout. I hear you.” Dan appeared in the doorway, rubbing his face with a white turkish towel, a gash on his browned forehead. He was shaking his head, cocky. “Ellen, you think my family’s crazy?”

When she was washing the supper dishes she heard the tinny sound of the piano in the sitting room. Simon was behind her at the kitchen table leafing through his new schoolbooks, waiting for her. “Wonder who that is playing?” she asked him.

“That’s Dan. I’ve ne’er heard that song, Ma.” Simon smiled, his blue eyes curious.

She put the plates away. “It’s right melancholy.”

A spanish cavalier stood in his retreat And on his guitar played a tune, dear The music so sweet would ofttimes repeat The blessings of my country and you, dear

O say, darling say, when I’m far away Sometimes you may think of me, dear Bright sunny days will soon fade away Remember what I say and be true, dear

Ellen was hanging up the dishcloth. “Let’s go hear the music.”

“Can we?”

“This is our home,” she said with dignity, “while we’re here.”

From his easy chair, Sudduth was bemoaning, “We’ve got to clean out the barns again. Get it on the fields before plowing. Jesus, we’re going to be strapped with work this year.”

Dan looked up at Ellen as she came in, his eyes golden in his lined dark face. “Wish it would rain liquid manure for a whole week. Save us some trouble.” His lean fingers ran over the keys tenderly.

She sat down in the rocker by the windows. On the table beside her was a tall glass bell, exhibiting underneath a stuffed red bird with black wings and tail, its eyes bright glass. Ellen was looking down at her hands in her lap. She had an inflexible manner about her, seldom laughing easily even with her son. It was as if she had been bruised once and armed herself against a recurrence. And when she would make her hair into braids in the morning, winding, and fastening with tortoise shell pins, she would pull tightly. There was an unconscious satisfaction to the act as though it were easing a guilt. Ellen held herself at times almost like one righteous. She was glancing at the scarlet tanager under the bell, wondering who had shot it. Vaguely she was listening to the words the man sang. They differed from those Penny had taught Ellen.

When your heart was mine, true love And your head lay on my breast You could make me believe By the falling of your arm That the sun rose up in the west

22

The weather turned brisk, the temperature fell, the dew had frozen in a white sprinkle. Mouths of animals and men steamed. The excavation for the cellar of the new house had been completed, a square gash in a rise of land at the far end of the farm. “Now let it freeze,” Mom was saying. “They can still lay cinder-block.”

“It’s like a dream come true,” said Adele, “them building our house. Land.”

The little girls had spread old mail-order catalogs on the kitchen floor. They cut and snipped, squabbling. “It’th mine. You shut up, booby.”

“You see, Mom?” Adele pleaded. “It’s not right you should have to put up with this commotion.”

Ellen was savoring the friendly companionship of the two women. The girls she had known—her sister, Lily Garrett, even Amanda York—had been younger than she. And they had leaned on her. She could never look up to them or turn to them for advice. There was a freshness in her relationship with these older women.

“Just wait till Ellen sees my roses, Adele. They’re a sight, all pink and white.”

“You know, Ellen, Pop can tell to the exact how many flowers each bush has every year,” Adele said.

“Keeps it in his head.”

They worked, their hands busy in the baking, they talked idly, “He’ll say, this white rose had only fifty-one buds last year.”

“Every rose, he’ll count.”

The cold air rushed in as the door opened. “There. That cake fell,” said Mom. “Land o’ Goshen, I’m peeved.” Dan came in, leading Simon, who was tear-stained. “You will slam doors on baking day, Dan.”

“Dammit. Sorry, Mom. He bumped his knee, Ellen. Fell down.”

Simon was pulling his torn pants leg up to reveal a soiled bruise. He held his tongue between his lips; phlegm was dripping from his nose. “Hit don’t hurt now,” he mourned. Ellen washed the wound. Her mind was apart from the accident. Wonder why Dan came in with Simon. He needn’t have. Simon’s ten and not a baby. Maybe Dan’s thinking on me. I don’t want him. Nor any man. She was wrapping the strip of cloth about the knee.

Dan was lighting one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. “Press my suit today, Mom, will you? I’m taking Star to the grange dance.”

“All right, Dan.”

As the two went out Mom shouted, “And don’t slam it.”

“Star’s his girl,” Adele was telling Ellen. “She’s lots younger than him.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Mom said. “She’s nearly nineteen.”

“And Dan’s over forty.”

“Wish they’d set the date,” said Mom. “Keeps me on edge.”

“You think Star’ll settle down to being a farmer’s wife?” Adele asked. “After all, she’s used to a maid doing the work. Why, I bet she can’t cook even.”

“She loves him. That’s what counts.”

“She’s an only child. She gets whatever she wants.”

“Star’s so pretty,” Mom told Ellen.

“Her folks have spoiled her,” said Adele. “But Dan’s crazy about her.”

“Marrying will settle her. She’s the nicest looking girl in the countryside.” Mom was complacent.

“Dan wants his bull to have the best blood lines. He’s got to have the latest machinery, the newest hybrid seed.” Adele sawed the air with a flour-streaked hand. “I wouldn’t be his wife.”

“Well, you’ve got Sudduth.”

“Praise the Lord,” Adele was laughing, an edge to her voice.

“When are they getting married?” Ellen asked, quiet in her relief, detached.

“Didn’t I tell you there might be a big event this fall? The date’s not fixed, but when the house is built, there’ll be nothing to stop them.”

“Sudduth figures that’s why Dan’s in such a stew to get the cellar dug.”

“Now there. I forgot the eggs,” Mom was saying. “They have to be gathered at ten, two, and after supper. Maybe you’d better take over that job too, Ellen.”

* * * * *

Every Saturday afternoon Ellen would find an envelope on her dresser, in it four and a half dollars. When she laid them in her drawer she felt a wealth and a peace. She was moving less uncertainly in the new household. She was the hired girl and the value set on her talents gave her a self-respect. On Sundays, Pop, Mom, Adele and the three children would go to the Presbyterian church in Hidden Creek, Adele driving the Dodge car. Sudduth and Dan would work on the new house. Ellen walked out with Simon to see the farm, for during the week she was too busy. Simon showed her the gray horses he groomed and she patted sleek brown-and-white cows, fastened in metal stanchions, munching hay, their tongues curling about the wisps. “Aren’t those stalls modern, Ma?” They passed the hog lot where white-banded pigs were squealing and snuffling at a trough of water in the cement lot. “They’re not dish-faced like Granddaddy’s pigs.”

“I see they’re not. They’re a different kind.” The shouts of the men were faint on the air, mingled with the low lonesome bawl of the new bull. Some day I’ll tell Simon what Pa did. And why we had to leave.

“Wonder how little Rhodie is, Ma?”

“Oh, Simon.”

“And fat old Pie. And Leona. If their hoofs are cut regular.”

“I don’t know. You still honing after them?” Reckon I’ll tell him sometime what Pa did to my goats, cutting their throats. “You miss your granddaddy?” She was looking off to the bowl of sky. The far calls floated and echoed in it.

“Reckon he was e’er good to me.”

“It’s nice here, on this place.”

“And there was old Jack. I set store by him.”

“Dennie’s feist is pretty.”

“He’s a scrappy thing.”

“Well.” They walked back.

* * * * *

Dan wore a white shirt on Saturday nights, with a blue detachable collar. He knotted on a brash necktie and brushed his shoes, stood at the doorway to the sitting room where the family convened. He seemed older to Ellen when dressed in the brown suit, his lean body pinched into tight cloth, the tough skin of his face emphasized. He was leaning against the frame, the birthmark a dull red. He tapped tobacco into thin paper, licked the edge, twirled the ends, all in a quick motion. “How’s this tie, Ellen? Too loud? Think my girl will take a second look?”

“I reckon.” She was patting the cat, inwardly disturbed.

“Well, if she was smart,” Sudduth mocked, “she’d run the other way fast, wouldn’t she Pop?”

The old man cackled. Ellen felt stiff and plain, smiled faintly as Dan walked out. I’d never be that Star.

On weekday nights Dan played the piano. His energy was contagious, it was as if his day had just begun. In the lamp glow their faces turned to where he sat.

There are many flags in many lands There are flags of every hue But there is no flag however grand Like our own red white and blue

The family were joining in, swept away by his exuberance and health. Sometimes Ellen sang with them.

Then hurrah for the flag, our country’s flag Its stripes and white stars too There is no flag in any land Like our own red white and blue

She was saying, “I know a languishing one, Dan. ‘Lord Lovel.’ You know it?”

“I can play the tune if you’ll sing.”

“All right.” He found the keys easily.

They like me here. She dwelled on it. It’s not like home where Pa jeered when I sang Penny’s songs and Ma never heard me.

Lady Nancy she died as it might be today Lord Lovel he died tomorrow Lady Nancy she died out of pure pure grief Lord Lovel he died out of sorrow

It was the first week in March, on a warm windy day, when the bees swarmed. Pop had on an old hat decked with a bee veil, he was wearing long gloves and had tied strings around the bottoms of his overalls. He carried a smoker to still the swarm that hung like a living sack on an oak branch. Ellen saw him from the window. He stooped and moved until finally the bees were in the new hive, their angry droning muffled, subsiding. The old man came in, taking off the veil. “Hee. Only got one sting.”

“My sister Frankie and me used to beat pie pans and make a racket when our bees wanted to swarm.”

“How come?”

“That’s so the workers can’t hear the queen calling.”

“Did it keep them in the home hive?”

“Two-three times it did. But the queen’s call is strong.”

“Don’t tell the boys. They’d call it a superstition. They go by the book too much for me.” His teeth flashed through his beard.

Before going up to bed, Ellen went out into the night. There was a light fog. She was curious about the bees, went to listen to the new hive. From it came a faint contented purr. She laid her hand on the wood. It’s like they’re one creature, like the whole drove’s got but one mind. Her hand was feeling the movement within, the insects changing position endlessly. While she was standing enclosed in the darkness, she heard Dan humming as he came back from the barnyard. His boots rasped on the pathway. She was waiting for him to pass but he sensed a presence, and stopped. “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Ellen.” She could see the coal of his cigarette. The air was balmy, brought up during the day from the south.

“The wind’s laid,” he said. Overhead a twisted sliver of moon was freeing itself from dodging clouds. The starlight was dim, pulling at the mist gently. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling the bees move. The hive’s like an animal.”

“That’s so. It is.” She heard his body settling against a tree trunk.

“Like it’s bedded down for the night.”

The silence dwelled while she waited on him. “What happened to your husband, Ellen?”

“He died.”

“How?”

She was seeking his face, but there was blackness. “He was killed.”

“I see. How?”

After a while she said, “It was in the haying time. He was down on the wagon bed.” The words were dragged up from some other part of her. She watched that part of her talk on, fumbling, “He had a watch-eye man hired to him. That man pitched the fork down and it stuck him between the shoulders.” The fog was rising, the moon slid away in clouds. Her tongue stumbled along of itself. “When they reached him, they say he was dead already.”

“I’m sorry.”

Something welled in her then, born of loneliness. It caught high in her throat. “No. I ne’er had a husband.” She wept. But she was eased. She was speaking of Christian Ay and how she couldn’t recall if he was tall or if his hair was brown. It had happened to her when she went to see a horse belonging to the farmer he worked for. Her letters had come back unopened. Ellen’s tears stopped then, and her voice. She began to hate the man hidden behind the black curtain. A shame was rising in her so she felt her face heat.

His voice was flat. “Windy days like this one’s been can bring on a cyclone.” He hummed slowly.

Some call her Lady Nancy Belle Some call her the Lady Nancy, Nancy Some call her the Lady Nancy

A twig broke under his foot, he ceased in the middle of the tune. “A cyclone’s a sight to see, Ellen. You should watch my kid brother run when one comes. You ever have them in Kentucky?” He paused for an answer, and resumed, “Star’s home was right in the path of one last year. Her father lost a bull valued at five thousand. He’s a big Jersey breeder.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Al Webster’s his name.”

“Webster?” Ellen remembered. “Webster’s Stock Farm?”

“That’s it. You’ve heard of it?”

“You know a Luke Dougherty?”

“Sure. Tall fellow, black-haired. Runs one of the barns.”

“Luke’s wife’s a close friend of mine. They live near Weems Crossroads.” All the time the echo of her voice rang in her ears: I ne’er had a husband. I ne’er had a husband.

“I’ll drive you over sometime to see her, if you want. It’s only twenty miles or so. Come along when I go see my girl some Sunday. I’ll drop you off.”

“I hear your girl’s a beauty.” He’ll tell everyone.

“Hell, Star’s got more than beauty. She’s exciting.” His voice was heavy.

Ellen thought how it was full of love. When he goes about the farm here, Star bides in him. She softens his movements like the way Penny and Luke love each other. And when he plants the wheat, his mind’s but a part on his work. And when Sudduth and he laid the cement in the cellar, he was thinking all the while, each day’s bringing me closer to when Star’s my bride. Why did I tell him I wasn’t married?

The yellow flash from a match spurted, making shadows streak over his bent face. The smoke filtered through the warm fog. “It’s just the past year Star’s mother hasn’t had to sit by her bed when she goes to sleep.” He was tender, boastful. “She’s afraid of the dark.”

There came to Ellen’s mind the little donkey Luke had led up the lane. They had gathered around it as a wonderful thing and set baby Clate on its back. Star Webster’s father had given it to Luke when his daughter tired of it.

The red ash glowed. Dan’s harsh voice was there. “Even that’s exciting about her.” His voice drifted in the south air, “I’m glad you kept your son with you, Ellen. Instead of giving him away like lots of women would have done. Shows you’ve got strength.”

“It’s a secret.” It sounded thin and anxious as she said it.

“I won’t let it out.” Then his voice lowered, “Simon’s a good boy. You taught him manners, too.”

“Well. Good night.”

“Good night, Ellen.”

She went into the house and to her bedroom. I’m a jawing fool. In the morning when Dan came into the kitchen she managed to avoid speaking to him. But he shouted down the length of the table, “Can I have the butter, Ellen? Let’s see that grape jelly, Ellen.”

She averted her eyes, passing the plates. I don’t like him one bit.

23

The storm was already forming. The radio reported a twister passing briefly through a small town in Kansas. Throughout the troposphere of the Midwest certain conditions prevailed as the ancient pattern of the spawning of the tornadoes got under way. In corners of the Southwest, winds were gathering and moving across the continent; they drove warm wet air before them in a mass hovering close to the earth. In the fluctuations of these winds, gigantic columns of air would rise rapidly, a mile or so in diameter. At the spreading foot of these tall clouds, rain would gather and often local storms occurred under them. To complete the scheme, eight kilometers above ground the cold jet stream was rushing constantly in from the West at tremendous speed. This was the pattern. And when the summit of a rising cloud was hit by the jet stream, it began to twist counterclockwise. The movement was transferred in a spiral down the length of the column into the ugly widespread base. A whirling funnel of great power would lick downward. This was a tornado.

It sucked dust and stones, any object not fastened down. Its duration was from a few minutes to sixty or more. And no one could predict where it would strike. People who lived in these areas had a way of watching the sky during certain months. If there was a sudden drop in temperature or the sky darkened, if the wind rose, they fastened barn doors and herded their families into rooms where shades were pulled, or into cellars. It happened so fast that sometimes there wasn’t enough time and they were caught in the open. And if a noise was heard suddenly like a monstrous machine at high speed, they might pray as they crouched, waiting.

A few miles from Hidden Creek, Illinois, a gray-white cloud pillar was rising now, churning. Rain clouds at its base were low-spread and frowning. Over the land it became so dark that twilight descended though it was mid-afternoon. Ellen Gaddy was gathering eggs. “It’s making up a storm, biddy,” she said to the hens, “I heard the raincrow just this morning.”

Adele was shopping in Hidden Creek. Sudduth was distracted because she had taken the girls with her in the Dodge. Hannah had a stye and they planned to stop at the doctor’s. “I said, Adele, it’s fixing to storm. You ought to stay home,” Sudduth was explaining. “She should do what I say. I’m supposed to be wearing the pants.”

“Adele’s smart,” Pop soothed. “She’s all right.”

Pop and Mom and the boys were going down the cellar stairs, Sudduth pushing them before him. Ellen followed. Dennie was carrying the feist dog and Simon three cats. “Get a move on, Simon,” Sudduth was muttering, “Hurry.” Then on the last step he tripped, sprawling on the cement. “God damn it.” His voice was shrill, near tears.

“We’d pull the shades and stay in the house because of lightning.” Ellen went over to Mom. “But we ne’er would go down to the cellar.”

“Land, we always do.”

Pop and Dennie sat with Simon on a crate in a corner. Sudduth was rubbing his back. He leaned on the wall and whined, “Don’t you be sick now, Dennie, or I’ll swat your bottoms.” He ran his hand nervously across his face.

The boy laid his small head in the fur of the dog. He was pale. Pop turned to him, “Say, Dennie. Let’s you and me buy a sofa. Might as well set the storms out comfortable.”

Then Ellen remembered. “Where’s Dan?”

“He was working,” Sudduth said, “on the dump rake last I saw. I hollered to him to come.” He was rubbing his palm across his face again. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll go see.” Ellen ran up the stairs.

“Ellen,” Mom called.

“I’ll be all right.” The sky was massed with rolling cloud of blue and green and purple. In the north, lightning erupted in a yellow flare and the blacked clouds hanging before were outlined. A jagged orange bolt cracked through them. She was exhilarated. It’s a sight. And those folks are all hiding from it. She heard a rushing noise. The wind was coming. It tore at her hair, loosing it from its bonds. Within her, joy leaped again, like youth and first experience. And underneath she quailed. She was rounding the corner of the barn, running toward the shed.

She heard his shout and Dan was in the wide barn doorway, scowling, booted feet spread. His black hair was wild, the wind had whipped his shirt out, the birthmark burned like a new wound. He cried again, “You damn fool.” She was stopping, poised.

He strode out and pulled her arm, hurrying her to the barn. She protested, “I was afraid for you.”

“For me? You fool.” He was roaring above the wind. “Dammit. Look there.” He pointed at an inky cloud where a tongue licked downward and retreated. “That’s a twister.” Like a long thick snake it shot down to the earth and a whining roar commenced.

Dan’s hand was gripping hers. They were dashing to the stalls in the middle of the barn. She was suddenly afraid. “Now they’d talk of cyclones, but I ne’er saw one before, Dan.”

Swiftly, in the dull light, in the musty smell of the unused stable, he had his arms about her. His yellow-green eyes glittered, laughing, “Lady Nancy Belle.”

It came upon Ellen the way Craig Hedrick was grabbing with a band of steel while she struggled. That had haunted her dreams so she would awake in a sweat sometimes. And there was Uncle Garland’s hand seeking incestuous under her coat that lonely winter, so she had to drive the memory from her, suppress it, divorce it from her uncle whom she loved for his goodness. These things flooded up when she saw Dan’s weathered face, his shut eyes and hawknose, the red scar bending. She fought, violent, her hands hard against his blue shirt. “Bullying bastard.” The words were framed out of fright, without volition.

He shoved her against the stall’s side planking, furious because her struggle disconcerted him. “You little bitch, what do you mean? You’ve been licking after me ever since you came.”

“That’s not so.”

“Dammit, Ellen. You aren’t going to get raped again. You’re not that lucky.” His yell was coming under the hurricane wind. He was gripping her arms, forcing his hard mouth against hers.

By the stiffness of her lips and body, she resisted. But suddenly it all was falling away and a gentle hotness came up within her. She was parting her mouth and his tongue was seeking its softness. She moved her arms, laid them about his neck, holding him, feeling the coarse hair at her fingers. Wish I was Star. And there was the distant storm racket.

He let her go, laughed regretful, “What were those names I called you? Dammit, Ellen, you are pretty. I never noticed that.” She felt it too, though her dark-blue dress was long and her low-cut shoes soiled because she wore them at her work about the Leghorns. “I never saw you before. Look at your hair. The wind’s blown it out.”

Hail clattered on the galvanized tin roof. Thunder rolled. She leaned upon the worn wood of the manger, where bites of cribbing horses had made notches during long winters. She was putting her hand to her yellow hair, tucking it up while he watched. The thing that had happened, she felt it. How she would never be rigid and tied again, how she was free. Courage had replaced her hidden fears. Then it was that she came up to kiss Dan. And she put her head against his opened shirt, his tall strength, she felt the even thrusts of his heart. His hard arms were holding her and he stroked her hair. “The rain’s come,” she said, “it’s all o’er.”

“Did you see that twister come out of that cloud?” He was releasing her.

“First one I e’er saw, Dan.”

“We’re safe for another year, now. They never come twice.”

“Why’s that?”

“The law of averages.” He was going down the aisle then to the doorway. “The rain’s letting off.”