Journeyman (7 page)

It was getting late. The clock on the mantelpiece was not far from right, and it was eleven by it. Tom was getting up to leave for home then. His wife would not know what had happened to him. If she had known then that he had driven Lorene out to Rocky Comfort, and was in the same room with her at that moment, she would have walked down to the Horey place to take him home. Tom’s wife would take no chances with Lorene Horey.

“I reckon I’ll be going home now,” Tom said. “It’s past me and my wife’s bedtime already.”

“Come back soon, Tom,” Clay said. “We’re always glad to have you.”

“I may drop down sometime tomorrow with a new jug of corn for you and the preacher and Lorene.”

Semon got up to shake hands with him.

“That was a man’s drink, Tom,” he said. “I’ve got you to thank for it.”

“You’ll be doing that again, then,” Tom said, winking at Clay. “I’ll be back tomorrow with another gallon just as good. It all comes from the same run.”

He went out the door and walked down the hall to the door. No one offered to go with him.

After he had left, and when they could hear him starting his car, Semon stood up and said he thought it was past his bedtime.

“Where in the world are we going to put Lorene tonight?” Clay said, thinking of it for the first time. “Now, I don’t know what to do about that.”

He glanced at Dene to see if she had a suggestion to offer, but he soon saw she had nothing to say.

“If we just had another extra bed, it would be no trouble at all. But we ain’t, and I don’t know what to do. I reckon, if Dene said so, we could all three get in the one there.”

He glanced at Dene to see what effect the suggestion had made on her. He did not have to look at her again to know what she thought of the idea.

“Now, I’ll declare,” he said, walking up and down. “It’s always the poor man who has to scheme and figure. The rich man always has enough beds to take care of whoever wants to stay.”

Semon came forward.

“Let her have my room, Horey, and I’ll make myself a pallet on the hall floor.”

He smiled a little when he said it, looking as if he really did not mind spending the night on a hard pallet.

“I reckon that’s the way it’ll have to be then,” Clay agreed. “It’s a shame to make a preacher sleep on the floor, though.”

“I won’t mind that,” Semon said, smiling down upon Clay. “Don’t let that worry you, coz.”

Clay got up and carried the lamp out into the hall. He set it on the table beside the front bedroom door and went out into the back yard. When he came back into the house, there was no one there. He went into his and Dene’s room and closed the door. Dene had already undressed for bed, and he could not hear the others.

“She’s the nastiest thing,” Dene said.

“Who? Lorene?” Clay said. “Aw, now, doggone it, Dene. She was my finest wife back in the old days.”

“She’s the nastiest thing,” Dene said again.

L
ORENE WAS UP
before Clay was awake. She dressed quickly in the early dawn and went into the next room. Dene was lying awake, and when she saw Lorene beside the bed, she drew back under the covers without speaking. Lorene shook Clay until he opened his eyes.

“Get up, Clay, and go get Vearl.”

“What for?” he asked sleepily.

Dene drew the covers from her head and looked at Clay’s fourth wife in the gray dawn. She did not know what Lorene had come into their room for.

“Get up, Clay!”

He opened his eyes wide and looked around the room. Presently he put out his hand and felt Dene beside him. He did not turn over to look at her.

“Go get Vearl right away, Clay. Get up this minute and get him.”

“Vearl? What do you want Vearl for?”

She shook him until he could not see straight.

“Oh, all right, all right,” he said.

Lorene pulled the quilt and sheet from him. She knew that was the only way to make Clay get up in the morning. Clay tried to reach for them to pull back over himself, but she pulled them down to the foot of the bed. Dene slid down as far as she could go.

Clay got up and put on his shirt and pants under the tending eye of Lorene. She threw his socks and shoes to him and went to the door to wait. When he had dressed, she followed him out of the house and down the path to the road.

All the way down to Susan’s neither of them had anything to say. Lorene ran a little ahead, urging Clay to walk faster. The sun was just coming up, bright red, and the color hurt Clay’s eyes. He squinted until he could barely see anything ahead.

At the cabin door, Clay called Susan. The Negro woman opened it at once. She had been watching them from the window all the way down.

“Where’s Vearl?” Clay said.

“Vearl’s in here asleep,” Susan said. “Howdy, Miss Lorene. I sure am glad to see you again, Miss Lorene.”

“How are you, Susan?” Lorene said, going to the door. “Get Vearl up right away. I can’t wait to see him.”

“Your little boy has got to be real big, Miss Lorene,” Susan told her. “He grows just like a radish, he’s that quick about growing.”

They all went inside. The four children of Susan’s were up and crowding into a corner. They shivered in the early morning air, clinging to the quilts they held around their bare bodies. Vearl was sound asleep in Susan and George’s bed.

Lorene ran and picked him up in her arms, hugging him to her breast and kissing him frantically. She could hardly believe her own eyes; he had grown a lot in a year and a half. He was getting to be a big boy now.

“Vearl! Vearl! Don’t you know Mother? This is Mother, Vearl!”

He woke up and started to cry.

“I’m going to take him up to the house now, Susan,” she told her.

Susan followed her to the door.

“Miss Lorene, do you aim to take him away?”

Lorene did not answer her.

“It would break my heart to see the little fellow go now,” Susan said, unashamed of the tears that fell from her eyes.

Lorene ran out into the yard and started up the road with Vearl holding her tightly around the neck. She did not hear anything that Susan said.

When Clay and Lorene reached the middle of the road, Vearl was wide awake. He looked at Lorene strangely, struggling to get away from her.

“Don’t you know me, Vearl?” she asked fearfully, kissing his face and arms. “Don’t you remember Mother? This is Mother, Vearl! Look at me!”

“He’s got pretty wild,” Clay said. “In another month or two he would be as scary as a rabbit. Couldn’t nobody catch him, ’less it was Susan.”

Lorene held him tightly in her arms. He was heavy, and the dust in the road was deep, but she did not mind. She held Vearl as though she would never turn him loose again as long as she lived.

“This is Mother, Vearl. Don’t you remember Mother?”

“We’d never have caught him if we hadn’t got him while he was asleep,” Clay said, walking fast in order to keep up. “He’s a little wild-cat.”

“Mother sure is glad to see you, Vearl. I thought I’d never get back to see you. Did you miss Mother?”

“Where’ve you been,” he asked her.

“Down in Florida, Vearl.”

“That’s where the oranges grow. I’ve seen them.”

“Yes,” she said. “Just lots and lots of them grow down there, Vearl.”

“Did you bring me some?”

“I’ll get you some in the store in McGuffin, Vearl,” she said. “I couldn’t carry any with me. They are too heavy to carry all the way here.”

“Danny and Jim’s poppa brought them some from Florida,” Vearl said.

Lorene glanced at Clay.

“Those are some of the pickaninnies up the road a little way,” he told her. He knew she would not know any of the Negroes living up there. “Pete drives an orange truck. He goes down to Florida for a load of oranges and tangerines for Ralph Stone sometimes.”

They hurried the rest of the way in silence, and when they reached the gate, they saw Semon Dye standing on the front porch. He motioned to them to hurry.

“Dene’s got breakfast ready and waiting,” he said. Without waiting for them, he went through the hall to the kitchen.

There was a chair for Vearl, which Dene placed at the table, but Lorene insisted on holding him on her lap. He ate his grits and drank his coffee hungrily, unmindful of anyone in the room. Lorene did not begin to eat until he had finished.

“Give me some more coffee,” he told Clay.

Clay went to the stove for the pot and filled his cup. Clay had finished eating, and he did not sit down again.

“Here’s this bottle of medicine I got for him in McGuffin,” he said, taking the dusty bottle from the shelf and setting it on the table in front of Lorene. I’ve never got around to giving it to him yet.”

Lorene looked at the bottle a moment and set it aside. Vearl reached for it, but she put it beyond his reach.

“You’d better take him to the doctor in town,” she said.

“I’ve been aiming to do that,” Clay said.

“Go and get ready to take him now.”

“Now? Today?”

“Of course. Vearl needs a doctor right away. I can tell.”

“I don’t know about taking him today,” Clay protested. “I hadn’t thought about doing that. Wouldn’t tomorrow do just as well?”

“I mean right now,” Lorene told him emphatically. “Vearl needs to see the doctor before it’s too late to do any good.”

Clay went out on the back porch and got a drink from the bucket on the stand. He spat out a mouthful before he swallowed any. Then he went down the steps towards the barn where his car was standing under the shed. He knew there was no use in trying to argue with Lorene after she had made up her mind that something was to be done. He had never succeeded in bettering her in any argument.

The car started up without any trouble, and he backed it out and turned around in the yard. He waited for Lorene to bring Vearl out and put him in the seat beside him.

Lorene finished washing Vearl’s face and hands on the back porch. She combed and parted his hair, and buttoned all the buttons on his clothes.

“I don’t reckon tomorrow would do just as well, would it?” Clay said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, and I like to go to town a lots better on Saturdays than any other time.”

Lorene did not answer him. She placed Vearl on the seat beside Clay and closed the door. When they were ready to go, she leaned over and kissed him good-by.

“Take him to the doctor and have him treated, Clay,” she instructed. “If you don’t, I don’t know what I won’t do to you. Vearl needs to see a doctor right away.”

Clay nodded glumly and drove off. He did not look back. Lorene went as far as the front gate to watch them, and when they had passed from sight down the road, she walked slowly back to the house.

Semon was waiting for her.

“I wonder where Tom is,” he said. “He promised to come back today.”

“I don’t care where Tom Rhodes is, now or any other time,” Lorene said curtly.

She sat down on the porch and looked down the road in the direction in which Clay and Vearl had gone.

Semon sat silently for a while, waiting until she was in a better mood. Presently she turned back to look at the magnolia tree at the fence.

“Tom said he was coming,” Semon began again. “If he said he was, he ought to keep his word.”

“He’ll forget about it,” she told him. “I know Tom Rhodes. You can’t depend on him too much.”

“You didn’t know him before you left and went away, did you?”

“A little.”

“He acted like he was real friendly with you yesterday. I thought you might know him pretty well.”

“I used to know a lot of men in Rocky Comfort before I went to Jacksonville over a year ago. Tom was one of them.” She was silent a moment. “Tom was the first one I knew.”

“I’ve been thinking that maybe you’d like to ride back with me,” Semon suggested, moving his chair closer. “Next Monday morning I’m leaving for South Georgia, and I wouldn’t mind going all the way to Florida. That is, if you’re going my way.”

“I wouldn’t like to go off with you and get into trouble,” Lorene said. “How do I know about that?”

“I’d see after that part,” Semon promised, pulling his chair still closer. “I’ll take you to Jacksonville. I’ve been thinking that maybe I ought to go to Florida. The Lord’s been talking to me about going down there, but I’ve put it off and put it off till I’m almost ashamed to think about it now. But I’ve made up my mind to go Monday.”

“All right,” Lorene said. “I’ll go with you Monday.”

Semon leaned forward and put his hand on the back of her chair.

“Maybe we could stop off along the way a little,” he suggested.

“What for?”

“Well, just to stop and break the journey. We could stay a day or two along the way, and still get there soon enough.”

“That would cost a lot, staying at a hotel.”

“I figured that maybe we can make expenses without much trouble.”

“How?”

“I could sort of speak of you to a few people and get them interested.”

“I see,” she said, nodding. “That’s all right with me, just as long as everything is split fifty-fifty. But if you hold out on me, there’s going to be hell to pay. I’ll make it hot for you, Semon Dye, if you don’t split even. I don’t take chances with men like you. It’s going to be businesslike.”

Semon removed his hand from the chair and sat up erect, nodding in agreement.

“That’s fair enough.”

“Do you know how to go about it without getting into trouble? I don’t want to get thirty days in some little cross-roads jail in South Georgia.”

“I know my way around pretty well,” Semon assured her. “I’ve had a little experience that way one time or another. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Lorene regarded him for several moments.

“Look here,” she said severely, looking him straight in the eyes. “You talk like you do know your way around.”

“I’ve had a little experience,” he said. “A little.”

“That’s how I had you figured out.”

He leaned forward once more, placing his arm over the back of her chair and lowering his head close to hers.

“I’ve been thinking that maybe we can get started right here before Monday. If Tom Rhodes comes down here today, we ought to be able to get a little money out of him.” He waited to see what effect that had on her. “He looks like the kind of fellow who would pay his way.”