Pamela Morsi (20 page)

“He’s been a real good baby,” Lulu told them. “I have to give him that. He’s a lot more placid than my others have been. And he’s not had so much as a night of colic.”

Judith continued to silently hold the child.

“Well, you’ve simply got to give the child a name,” Garda June told her. “It doesn’t have to be a perfect name, just something to call the boy.”

Lulu hesitated thoughtfully.

“Well, you know, I admire your husband’s name, Mrs. Pierce,” the young woman said. “Maybe I should call him Little Enoch.”

Judith looked up then. Her countenance almost
gray, Eulie watched in horror as her composure was swept away in a torrent of sorrow that was near-frightening to behold.

She bent forward across the baby’s body. A howl of grief emanated from her that was like the cry of a wounded animal.

All around her the women jumped to their feet. The baby was quickly snatched away and handed back to his mother. Garda June and Dora Pusser stood like a wall between Judith and the rest of the people in the clearing, hiding the sight of anguish from curious gawkers.

Judith slipped from her chair to the ground on her knees. Miz Patch and Gertie Samson held her in their arms as wrenching sobs broke from her. Her tears were like shards of glass cutting and wounding all those around her.

“Why me? Why me?” she asked over and over. “I have tried to do right all my life. Why is God punishing me?”

“He’s not, Judith,” Miz Patch told her. “I promise you that he’s not.”

“What’s happening?”

The little familiar voice caught Eulie’s ear even above the din.

“What’s happening?”

“Little Minnie, get away from here!” Eulie ordered.

The girl ignored her and pushed her way into the circle of women.

“Are you all right? Mama? What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

As soon as she heard Little Minnie’s questions, Judith raised her eyes and struggled for control.

“Don’t cry, Mama,” Little Minnie said. “Please
don’t cry. I love you, Mama. Don’t cry. We are such pretty girls. Pretty girls ought never to cry.”

Judith embraced the child as if she were a lifeline.

“I love you, Mama,” Little Minnie repeated. “I love you.”

A pain twisted inside Eulie. A pain that was wholly new and yet all too familiar. She thought she might be sick.

Moss had a full belly and a contented heart. He’d come to Preaching Sunday just to please Eulie, but he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. It was actually pleasant, he discovered, to socialize. He had seen people that he hadn’t laid eyes on in years. And he’d talked to folks that he saw more often about things that never came up. It was warm and fun and somehow familiar.

Moss wondered what his life might have been like if his childhood—well, if he had had a childhood.

He wandered along the edges of the crowd speaking to first one person and then another. He kept pretty close to Uncle Jeptha, who pushed his goat cart around one group after another. He spoke to no one and no one spoke to him. It was uneasy and uncomfortable.

Moss tried to make up for it by feigning a friendliness that he didn’t wholly feel The response to his overtures were surprisingly positive and open. And the conversations they precipitated were frequently entertaining and occasionally informative.

“You’re Young Collier’s boy?”

The question came, a bit too loudly, from old Grandpa Madison. The man was ancient and frail. He didn’t hear too well or see too well, and it took a cane
in each hand for him to stand. But there was nothing wrong with his mind or memory.

“Yes, I’m Collier,” he answered.

“What’s yer given?” the old man asked. “I cain’t recall.”

“Mosco,” Moss answered. “Mosco DeWitt Collier.”

The old man nodded sagely. “The DeWitts were your kin up in Virginy,” he said.

Moss was surprised. He’d never heard of the DeWitts, nor had he any inkling where he’d gotten the name, except from his father.

“I got your farm,” the old man continued.

“What?”

“I got your farm,” he repeated. “Your mama sold it to me when Young Collier died in the war.”

“Oh.”

“There ain’t much there to speak of these days,” he said. “There’s a well covered up and some flower bushes where the cabin used to be. But you’re welcome to come and look the place over anytime. It’s always good to remember where ye come from.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is,” Moss replied politely.

“You are the last Collier on this mountain,” the old man told him with a disbelieving shake of the head. “Colliers used to be as thick as thieves in the Sweetwood. And there ain’t no Barneses left, neither. Except Jeptha here.”

Grandpa Madison squinted, trying to take in the full vision of the man in the goat cart.

“Ain’t seen you in quite a spell, boy,” the old man said. “You been keeping to yourself?”

Uncle Jeptha didn’t even answer. But the old man didn’t seem to take offense.

“No, I ain’t seen you in quite a spell,” he repeated. “Do you recall the time I caught you and yer brother snitching my watermelons?”

“I remember everything,” Jeptha said. “I didn’t lose my mind in the war, just my legs.”

Grandpa Madison nodded sagely and then spoke to Moss once more. “We used to call him Jigging Jeptha Barnes,” he said. “Jigging Jeptha Barnes, the dancing fool.”

The silence gathered around them. Moss had no idea what to say. He’d never really thought about Uncle Jeptha’s life before he lost his legs. He figured that Uncle Jeptha never thought about it either. It must be so hurtful for him to recall it all.

“I heard you’re newly wed, Collier,” Grandpa Madison went on, clearly unconcerned that he might have said anything amiss.

“Yes, sir,” Moss answered. “I’ve been married a month.”

“Well, you best get busy,” he said. “Ain’t no new Colliers or Barneses being born in the Sweetwood. The names will die out as if they never was, except if you see they don’t.”

As they moved away, Moss looked down at his proud, silent uncle in the cart.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.

“I should not have come,” he stated unequivocally.

Moss had no idea what to say to that.

“You go have yourself a fine afternoon,” Uncle Jeptha said. “See to your wife. I’m going to make myself scarce and wait until time to go home.”

Moss nodded, wishing he had a better idea, but he didn’t. Jigging Jeptha Barnes. Moss tried to imagine
his uncle with legs, upright and dancing among this crowd. Somehow he just could not.

“I’ll talk to Eulie. There’s no call for us whiling away the whole afternoon,” Moss told him.

Uncle Jeptha shook his head.

“Don’t ask her to leave early,” he said. “She’s so looked forward to this. I don’t want to spoil it.”

Moss didn’t want to either, but he hated to see Uncle Jeptha so uncomfortable and on display.

“Your Eulie, she’s a good girl,” Jeptha said unexpectedly. “I’m not sorry that you married her. And I’m not sorry she brought all those children to my house.” He hesitated a long moment. “But I am sorry that I was foolish enough to come here today.”

Moss watched as Uncle Jeptha propelled himself off into the seclusion and privacy of the woods.

He turned and began scanning the crowd in search of his wife. Moss didn’t see her anywhere. After the big hubbub among the women, he’d caught sight of her heading alone down toward the river. He suspected that she might still be there and followed in that direction.

Moss felt strangely unsettled and yet calm and peaceful as well. It was as if two parts of him were seeing through his eyes at the same time and coming up with different conclusions. The leaving part of him, the wanderlust, which was most familiar, chafed at the need to see these people in this place, all so familiar and ordinary. But there was another part of him, a part that was somehow new and to which he was unaccustomed that almost longed for the continuity of it. He was the last Collier in the Sweetwood. He knew nothing of the Colliers. He hadn’t even known that his
father had had a farm of his own. He only knew how much his mother had loved her husband. Who would know that when he was gone from here? Who would know Uncle Jeptha? Who would know the sacrifice he’d made? Who would remember that he had been a dancing fool?

“Eulie,” he muttered to himself. He must ask Eulie to try to remember everything.

He found her sitting on a big sandstone boulder at the river’s edge. She had her elbow upon her knee and her forehead in her hand. The hair upon the sides of her head had come loose from the neatly braided twist on the back of her head and hid her face like a veil.

“Hello,” he greeted her.

She looked up, startled. Her eyes were red and she hastily wiped away the remnants of tears.

A wave of protectiveness swept through him like a summer storm.

“What happened? Did somebody do something? Did somebody say something?”

She nodded.

“Me, I said something. I said something mean and petty to Judith Pierce and it hurt her and it hurt Little Minnie.”

Moss sat down on the rock beside her and quite naturally wrapped a comforting arm around her. It was a friendly gesture, he assured himself. Nothing more.

Eulie leaned her head against his shoulder, as if she couldn’t hold it up any longer. Moss almost sighed aloud. She was warm and sweet-smelling beside him. And that blonde hair of hers was so soft and silky against his neck.

“She calls Mrs. Pierce mama,” Eulie said quietly.

“Ahhh,” Moss commented noncommittally.

“You should have seen them together,” she continued. “Judith was holding on to Minnie as if her life depended upon it. And the both of them crying like their hearts were broken.”

Moss was silent for a long moment. To his thinking, the Pierces offered a wonderful chance for Little Minnie. They were good people, and they obviously loved and cared about the child. But Eulie’s youngers were her concern, not his. Any decision she made about them would always be made with an abundance of love and the very best of intentions.

“You didn’t break their hearts, Eulie,” he told her quietly.

“You should have seen them, heard them,” she insisted.

“I’m not saying their hearts aren’t broken,” Moss told her. “I’m saying that you did not do it. Minnie can’t be blamed so much, she’s just a girl, and a mixed-up, confused one at that. But Judith Pierce is a grown woman. She should never have allowed the child to call her mama, to believe that she could live there with her forever, without making certain that was exactly how it was going to happen.”

Eulie sighed and nodded. “I couldn’t believe she told Minnie they were going to adopt her before she’d even asked me about it.”

“She was in the wrong,” Moss stated flatly. “It hurt Minnie. Minnie blames you for that, but it was truly Judith’s fault.”

“I suppose she was mighty desperate,” Eulie said. “She would do anything to make what she’s longed for come to pass.”

“And that’s all good and well unless it hurts someone else,” Moss said. “She was hurt, but she also hurt you and Minnie.”

Eulie looked up at him, her brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“So you think that Judith would not be a good mother?” she asked. “I was right to turn them away.”

“I didn’t say that,” Moss corrected. “I said that a lot of Judith’s pain here, she brought on herself. Desperate people ofttimes behave foolishly. Don’t hold it against her. But don’t be blaming yourself for any of this. Everything you’ve done, including marrying me and taking on Uncle Jeptha, you’ve done to try to better the lives of your family. I admire you for that.”

Eulie raised her head up and looked in his eyes, her own filled with wonder.

“You admire me?” she asked.

Moss nodded. “Oh yes, I admire you,” he told her with certainty. “From that first day at the falls when I glimpsed those long legs of yours and wanted to kiss you, until this very moment when I see a glimpse of your gentle heart. I admire you.”

They sat looking at each other, the bond between them forging forward, growing stronger, the sound of the fast-running river the only intrusion into their private communion. The intensity of it was almost more than Moss could bear.

Drowning, he grabbed for a joke.

“Who could not admire the woman who got Uncle Jeptha to bathe?” he said.

The spell was broken. She giggled delightedly.

He hugged her tightly, pressing her body against
his own. It was a teasing, friendly gesture but one that he managed to enjoy very much.

“Hey, you two!” a voice called out to them. “We’re getting up a game of Wink-em. You want to play?”

They turned to see stripling young Tyre Dickson.

“You don’t want us,” Moss answered. “We’re old married folks.”

The fellow’s answer was toned with teasing challenge.

“Well, if you’re afraid you’ll lose her, Collier, then for sure you’d better stay out of the game,” he said.

Moss glanced over at Eulie. Her sad mood gone now, she was her usual bright-eyed, cheerful self.

“You want to?” he asked.

Laughing, she nodded.

“Then let’s go,” he said.

He hurried to his feet and hollered out to Dickson. “Any extra girls I get, I’m going to keep.”

“Don’t start chopping till you’ve treed the coon,” the fellow hollered back. “You’ll be lucky to keep the one you got. And you’ll only keep her ‘cause you’ve already tied the knot.”

“He makes it sound like a pretty dangerous game,” Moss said to Eulie.

Still seated on the rock, she was grinning up at him.

“Perhaps there is something about me that you really should know,” she said.

Moss folded his arms across his chest and gave her a stern look of feigned consternation.

“I have a feeling you’re not about to give me any good news,” he said. “All right, Mrs. Collier, I’m waiting for a complete and full confession.”

Her eyes shone up at him, teasing and full of joy.

“Well the truth is,” she began and then hesitated dramatically, “I am the fastest Wink-em player in the Sweetwood.”

Moss shook his; head and laughed out loud.

“You would be,” he told her. “And I suppose you’ll try your very best to make me look the fool.”