Journeyman (6 page)

“It’s Tom, all right,” he called to Semon at the gate a moment later. “I know his noise.”

Semon ran out to the road and waited beside him.

Tom bore down upon them without slackening speed. Just when it looked as if he had no intention of stopping, and that he was going to run over them, he swung the front wheels to the side of the road with a mighty wrench of both arms, and the car narrowly missed them both. He stopped it and shut off the engine.

“Who’s that with you, Tom?” Clay yelled at him, running to the car.

Tom leaped out on the ground as though he were a ten-year-old boy.

“You’ve seen her enough times to remember,” Tom said. “Now, look and see if you don’t.”

Lorene stepped out and ran around to the other side.

“Well, I’ll be doggone if I won’t!” Clay said. “Where did you come from, Lorene?”

Lorene threw both arms around his neck and kissed him. She would not turn him loose.

“Where’s my little boy?” she asked.

“Who? Vearl? Oh, Vearl’s somewhere down there. I reckon he’s played so hard today he went to sleep in Susan’s house. I wouldn’t bother him now. Just let the little fellow sleep till morning, and I’ll go down and bring him up.”

“Is he all right, Clay? Did you get him well?”

“Who? Vearl? Well, I reckon he’s all right. If he’s not, I’ll take him to see the doctor in town the first thing tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t worry about him none now.”

Lorene released Clay and started towards the cabins. She went as far as the middle of the road and stopped. Clay went to bring her back.

“It won’t do no good to take on about him like that,” he said. “The little fellow’s all right. I’ll bring him up for you to see the first thing in the morning.”

He had barely finished speaking when he thought he detected a familiar odor about Lorene. He bent closer, lowering his nostrils to the collar of her dress. After that he straightened up.

“Looks like you and Tom have been at that jug of his,” he said accusingly. “Now, Tom promised me and Semon the rest of it. It wasn’t fair for you to take it.”

She laughed at him and threw her arms around his neck again. He could not protest any more after that.

“I was just dying for a drink,” she said. “Tom said it was all right.”

“You dying for a drink?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t know you’d taken to drinking the dew, Lorene. You didn’t use to do it. When did you start that?”

“Oh, some time ago. I got so I liked it.”

“I reckon you did. Most everybody likes it, but I didn’t know you would. You didn’t use to take it.”

“I’ve been drinking Georgia corn for the past year or more, Clay.”

“In Jacksonville?”

“Yes, in Jacksonville. Why?”

“I didn’t know they’d have it down that far.”

Tom came between them, pulling Semon with him. Clay stepped back and went to the car to look at the jug.

“This is the preacher I’ve been telling you about, Lorene,” he said. “I didn’t lie about it, now, did I?”

“Are you a preacher?” she asked, looking up at Semon’s great height.

“I am, I am,” Semon replied sternly.

“He sounds like it,” Lorene said, turning to Tom. “Let’s go in the house so I can see him better in the light.”

Clay ran between them and the gate.

“Now, doggone it all, Dene’s in there,” he said.

No one paid any attention to him. They pushed past him and went up the path to the house. He ran to stop them, but each time he tried to block the path either Semon or Tom pushed him aside.

“Now, wait a minute, you folks,” he cried at them, standing on the steps and thrusting his arms at them. “Dene’s in there, now, and you folks wait a minute.”

Lorene and Tom laughed at him. Semon acted as if he had taken sides with them and was intending to follow them. He hung at Lorene’s side.

“Wait a minute,” Tom said. “Wait just a minute.”

Clay thought at first that Tom had sided with him, but when he saw Tom running down the path to the car, he was not certain what Tom had meant. He got the jug from the back seat and ran to the porch with it.

“There’s enough to let everybody get a sniff,” he said, pulling the cork.

He handed the jug first to Lorene. She took a drink, making a face at the jug when she finished. Tom handed it next to Semon, and Clay had to jerk it away from him because he was afraid Semon was going to take it all. There was only one swallow left when it got back to Tom. He finished it and threw the jug on the ground.

Lorene ran into the house ahead of them. The others were only a few steps behind her. The lamp on the table in Dene and Clay’s room was lit, and Dene was standing beside it. She had heard the commotion in the yard when they had first arrived, and she had been watching them from the front window.

“It’s been a long time since I saw you last, Dene,” Lorene said. “You’ve grown up since then.”

“I didn’t know you were coming back,” Dene said, looking at Clay. “I thought you—”

“It’s just a visit, Dene,” Tom said, breaking in. “She just came back for a few days to see the folks.”

“Vearl’s down at Susan’s,” Dene said, moving towards the door. “I’ll go get him. He’s the wildest thing.”

Clay stopped her, pushing her back into the room.

“Let the little fellow sleep, Dene,” he said. “There’ll be plenty of time for Lorene to see him tomorrow.”

“I’d like to see him now,” Lorene said. “It’s been a year or more since I saw him. Has he grown much since I left?”

“A little,” Clay said. “I’ll bring him up the first thing in the morning. Just sit down and rest some now.”

The others had all found chairs by that time. Everyone sat down except Dene; she still stood by the table.

“Sit down, Dene,” Clay said, stretching out his feet and locking his hands behind his neck. “We’re all of a color here. It’s hard on your feet to stand up so much at a time. Sit down.”

“You’ve got the strangest smell,” Dene said.

“Know where I found her?” Tom asked, pointing at Lorene. “Guess where I found her, Clay!”

“Where? In town?”

“Right in McGuffin. She was standing on the corner in front of the barbershop talking to some of the boys when I happened to pass by. As soon as she saw me, she asked me where she could find you. I told her out here at home, I thought; and then she asked me if she could ride out here with me. And, now, here she is. The same old Lorene, Clay! Doggone, if it aint just like old times to see her here again.”

“I’m mighty glad to see you, Lorene,” Clay said. “Aiming to stay a great while?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she laughed, glancing at Tom. “You wouldn’t mind if I stay, would you?”

“It tickles me to have you here, Lorene. But it makes me feel sort of foolish to be sitting in the house with two of my wives. And, on top of that, it might be against the law, or something. I don’t know what the law would say about it.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Tom assured him. “Semon, there, is a preacher. He can fix things up to suit. Can’t you, preacher?”

Clay glanced anxiously at Semon across the room. He could not imagine what Semon could do about it.

“You can fix things up, can’t you, preacher?” Tom insisted. “Can’t you?”

“Who? Me?” Semon said, coming back to life. He had been looking at Lorene for so long that he had forgotten that there was anyone else in the room. “You mean me?”

“We don’t need anything fixed up,” Lorene said. “I didn’t come back to make trouble. I just came back to see Vearl and find out if he is all right.”

“I’ve got some medicine for him,” Clay said. “Don’t worry about Vearl. He plays so much up the road that I don’t have to bother about him none.”

“He’s six years old now,” Lorene said.

“Is he?” Clay asked. “I clear forgot.”

“It sure feels like old times to see Lorene sitting here,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together. “It makes me feel real good to see her back.”

“I reckon you like living in Jacksonville,” Clay said. “It must be fine living in a big city like that.”

“Oh, it’s all right. I get tired of it sometimes, though. I was working in a five-and-ten up to about three months ago. I had to stop working there. I couldn’t stand it. Being up a lot late at night made me sleepy all the time.”

“The stores down there don’t keep open all night, do they?” Clay asked in amazement.

“Oh, you don’t understand,” she said. “I worked in the five-and-ten all day, and then I was up late nearly every night. It got so after a while that I stayed up to three or four o’clock every night. That’s why I had to stop working in the store.”

“Why didn’t you go to bed early, then?”

“Oh, Clay, you don’t understand. When I started working in the five-and-ten, the men would be coming in all the time and making dates with me at night. That’s when I got so I couldn’t stay up all night and work all day, too.”

Clay shook his head. He could not understand what she was talking about. He looked at the others in the room. All of them, Dene included, looked as if they knew exactly what Lorene was talking about. Tom was grinning.

“Don’t be so stupid, Clay,” Lorene said, smiling at him. “I was hustling on the side.”

“Hustling?” Clay repeated.

She nodded, looking at Dene beside the table.

“Well, I’ll be dogged,” Clay said, shaking his head. “I still don’t know what you’re driving at.”

“Putting out for money, Clay,” Tom said, nodding.

“I’ll be a suck-egg mule!” Clay said, straightening up. He glanced over to see what Semon was doing. “You mean to say you’ve been doing that down in Jacksonville, Lorene?”

“Sure,” Tom spoke up. “That’s what she’s been trying to tell you. I know all about it, because I’ve been talking to her all the way back from McGuffin.”

“Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule!” he said. “I never knew it was done that way before.”

“It’s that way all over the country,” Tom said, nodding. “There’s a couple of thousand of them up in Augusta, hustling just like Lorene’s been doing in Jacksonville.”

“How do you know so much about it, Tom, and I don’t?” he asked bewilderedly. “I never knew a thing like that before in all my life. I thought it was done sort of free everywhere just like it is in Rocky Comfort. I’ve seen little presents passed out, but I never saw real money change hands over a deal like that.”

“Oh, I know a little,” Tom said. “I’ve been around some. I get off to Augusta every once in a while.”

Clay continued to stare at Lorene as though she were a stranger. He did not know what to think.

During the silence, Clay looked up to see Semon moving his chair across the room. He placed it beside Lorene’s and sat down, leaning towards her. His voice was so low no one else could hear what he was saying to her.

“Did you hear all that, Dene?” Clay said. “What do you know about that!”

She shook her head, looking from Lorene to him and back again.

“Ask the preacher what he thinks about it,” Tom urged. “Go on and ask him; don’t be scared of him.”

“Semon, is that one of the things you preach about?” Clay said.

“People’s habits is grist for my mill, coz,” he said.

Clay looked closely at him. He did not like the way he leaned over Lorene.

“I reckon you’ve sort of got a free rein,” Clay said sharply. “You tell other people what not to do, but you go ahead and do the same thing yourself.”

Semon was too busily engaged in talking to Lorene to notice him. He ignored Clay as if he had not heard a word.

“Leave him alone,” Tom said. “Let him go ahead and talk to Lorene. I’d like to see her give him something he couldn’t give away.”

“I haven’t got a thing in the world against Semon as a preacher,” Clay said. “It’s true I haven’t heard him preach yet, but just the same I’m willing to grant him that for what he claims to be. That’s all right with me. But I don’t like it worth a doggone to have him fooling around my wife like that.”

“You must have forgot. Lorene’s not your wife now. You’re married to Dene.”

“That is true, in a way. I am married to Dene, but I’ve never been unmarried from Lorene.”

“You can’t claim both of them, Clay. They’ve got a law against men who keep two or more at the same time.”

“The law can’t touch me, if Semon thinks he can fool around with Lorene. I won’t stand for it. I’ll go ahead and break the law with the two of them, but I ain’t aiming to stand by and see him fool with Lorene. And I don’t believe they ever made a law to suit me, either. There’s some men who need two wives, and I’m one of them. There’s plenty of times when I need two of them. There ain’t no use making a law against it, because that don’t stop me from wanting a couple.”

Tom picked up his chair and moved beside Clay. He bent his head down and said something.

“She’s just a whore now. Let Semon get burnt.”

“I used to think a lot of Lorene, and I can’t sit here and see nothing like that go on right under my roof.”

“You’re married to Dene, Clay. I wouldn’t blame you for putting up a fight for her. But it’s different with Lorene. She’s been fooling with a lot of men in the past year or so. She won’t think no more of Semon than she did of all those others.”

“Semon ought to be content with Sugar,” Clay said doggedly.

“He ought to be, but he ain’t. Let him go ahead, and Lorene’ll burn him for a fare-you-well.”

“He ought to stay content. He ought not to want more than what’s furnished him.”

“That’s what he ought to do, I grant you. But he ain’t doing it. That’s why I say, let him burn.”

While they were talking with lowered heads, Semon had got up. He strode across the room to the window and back again. He did not appear willing to sit down again. When he left Lorene, she waited for someone else to speak to her.

When Tom looked up and saw that they were no longer talking to each other, he took Semon by the arm and led him to a corner. He spoke to him in a whisper for several minutes. After he had finished, Semon shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. He went back to his chair and sat down in front of Dene.

“How long are you aiming to stay here, Lorene?” Clay asked.

“Maybe I’d planned to stay all the time,” she smiled. “I said, maybe I had.”

Clay did not know what to say to that. He wished, somewhere down in himself, that she would not leave and go back to Florida right away. He hoped something would occur that would keep her from ever going back again. He had lived with her for almost five years, and he missed her. After he married Dene, he began to forget her. But now that she was back in the house, sitting there before him, he wondered if he should try to keep her there, or to allow her to leave. He knew he could not keep both Lorene and Dene; one of them would refuse to stay in the house with the other in it at the same time. He knew without thinking that such a plan would not work out. Dene had not said anything since Lorene came home with Tom, but he could see by the way she looked at Lorene that she did not wish her to stay even for the rest of the night. There was nothing that could be done about it, though; Lorene had every right in the world to come back to see Vearl whenever she wanted to.