The Path Was Steep (18 page)

David took the blanket to lie in the back again. The girls, sitting beside me, had lost their sweetness. Davene fought, and Sharon wept. “If you don’t hit back, I’ll spank you, Sharon,” I said at last.

“I might hurt her,” Sharon sobbed.

Shamed, I kissed her. “Mother won’t spank you, darling.”

“I won’t do it again,” Davene kissed her, too. They sat with arms around each other for a few minutes.

“Don’t crowd me!” Davene said then.

“I’m just keeping you warm.”

Davene whacked her again.

“I’ll drive,” David woke, refreshed.

At four, I put the girls in their bed again and leaned against David. Clouds hung low, and it was almost dark.

“Tired?” He reached over to kiss me.

“Dead tired. Will we ever get to Papa’s?”

“I’ll take the short cut,” he kissed me again. “You’re beautiful,” he smiled.

Maybe he believed it. I forgot the cold and the exhaustion for a moment. Every day of our lives, David told me that I was pretty. Ordinarily, he was a truthful person. Possibly, he saw what he wanted to see. It was when I was at my most unglamorous that his compliments were most fervent. I thought of Joshua saying, “She’s so dad-burned purty,” and I glowed. Maybe that is how David thought of me.

We left the main highway and took the short cut. It was almost six now. Soon we would be at Papa’s. If we could ever make it into the house, warmth, food, and a bed could be found. Looming suddenly ahead, a car blocked the road. David swore, stopped Thunderbolt, opened the door, and stepped to the ground. An extra blast of icy wind shot inside and flapped the curtains.

“How about a push, buddy?” a man in overalls, blue shirt, and denim jacket smiled. His teeth were yellow, and he needed a shave.

The girls woke. “I’m hungry,” Sharon began to sob.

“I know, darling. But do you have to cry so much?”

“I’m cold and hungry. Davene, you hungry, too?” Sharon kissed her.

“You leave me alone!” Davene whacked her.

“I’ve never seen you so mean!” I reached to give Davene a taste of her own medicine.

She aimed her small fist at my jaw.

“Don’t you hit Mother!” Sharon grabbed her.

I reached down and picked her up. She bellowed like a lost calf. I held her until she quietened. “I love you, Mother,” she kissed me. “But I am hungry.”

David and the man measured bumpers to see if ours would fit. They wouldn’t. “Sue, help me push,” David said.

He expected me to get out and help push! All right, if I died, it would serve him right! Anger sent a small spurt of energy into my hands and legs. We heaved. The car rolled. Sharon and Davene tried to help. The motor of the car showed no life as we pushed up a hill and down another. David and the man lifted the hood, took out sparkplugs in Thunderbolt’s waning lights. I drove our car close, and we pushed again.

The girls wept. Anger did no good this time. Exhaustion claimed me. “I can’t go another step.” I led the girls back to Thunderbolt. “David!” I yelled as he and the man looked at the motor of the other car.

No answer.

“David Pickett!”

“In a minute.”

Thunderbolt’s motor cooled. My feet grew numb. The children gave lost, sighing sobs. “David!” My voice blasted a hole through the night. “The girls are freezing!”

“In a minute, I tell you!”

I opened the door of the car, staggered out, and stumbled towards the men. “David!” My teeth chattered so that I couldn’t get the venom I felt into my voice. “We’ve got to get these children to a bed!”

“Do you want to leave a man stalled in this weather!”

“It is a half a mile to Bradford through those woods.” I pointed. Lights from the houses could be seen. “He has feet. Let him use them.”

“Will you take me to Bradford, buddy?”

“Yes.” David gave me a stubborn look.

Fury almost warmed my chilled body. “Mister,” I said with cold politeness, “we have two cold, hungry children. We don’t have much gas, and there are no service stations between here and home.” I paused for breath. “Across that hill is Bradford. You can walk it in five minutes. But it is five miles by car.”

“Shut up, Sue.”

“I won’t shut up! I know these roads, mister,” I addressed the stranger again. “We have traveled since yesterday. I am not going to Bradford.”

“What about it, buddy?” The man came close. I smelled whiskey on his breath. “You have to mind her?”

“I’ll take you,” David said.

“David, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live!” I said and meant exactly what I said.

“All right!” he took my arm. “We’ll go!”

“What about me, buddy?”

“Do the best that you can.”

“But it is too cold to walk.”

David used his whole vocabulary of swearwords, and it was not a small one. He did have cold, hungry children. A man who refused to walk half a mile to help himself . . .

The man muttered a curse and reached into his pocket.

“David! Look out!” I screamed.

David wrested a knife from the man, threw it into the woods, and hit him on the chin. The man sprawled to the earth, cursing viciously.

“Want some more?” David asked.

“Don’t hit me again,” the man sniveled.

We walked to the car. The girls waited for us. “Did you hit the man hard?” Davene asked.

“Oh, Daddy, did he hurt you?” Sharon wept.

“No, darling,” he kissed them both, then climbed into Thunderbolt. As we roared down the road, the man stood directly in the center. David kept a straight course.

The man dodged, fell, and rolled to the side of the road. We missed him by at least an inch. I thought it best to keep any spare comments to myself. The girls huddled close together, and we jolted through Crosston, Haig, past the Morris road. Thunderbolt gurgled and steamed.

The clock said five till nine as we turned into the muddy lane and rolled up to the farmhouse. In the pale moonlight it was the same: age-silvered, with hand-riven shingles. The porch was ragged with broken boards all along the edges. At the moment, it was the most beautiful place on earth.

Bulger stood up and escorted us to the steps. We opened the unlocked door and stumbled inside. Firelight gleamed dully on full beds and the pallets that lined the floor.

“David! Sue!” Papa sat up in bed and began to laugh. “You must be half-frozen.” He stepped from the bed into his pants.

“Company?” David looked at the row of pallets.

“Yes,” Papa admitted. A cousin and five children had dropped by. “But there is always room for one more.”

“Where?” I wondered, and for an unholy moment, almost wished the cousins in a more uncomfortable spot.

17

Every River Leads to Piper

Miss Mildred slipped into her dress under the covers. “There’s potatoes and milk,” she said and came to the fire to kiss us. We sat before the fire and ate. I nodded, totally exhausted.

“Mildred, fix a bed,” Papa said, as if one would appear by magic.

“All right.” She seemed to believe in the magic, too.

Their faith sparked the one brain cell of mine that was working. “We’ll sleep in the cotton,” I said. (There was always cotton in the shed at this time of year.) “Can you put the girls anywhere?”

“The boys are in the cotton,” Papa said. “But there is room for a dozen more.”

“I’ll put Jerry at the foot,” Miss Mildred said. “Davene can sleep with us.” Davene peeled off shoes and stockings and fell into bed.

The girls on the pallet moved. “Sue’s here!” Colleen said. “Oh, Sue!” She sat up and smiled at us, then held out her arms to Sharon. “Darling, come here,” she said.

“Now, now, Sue,” Papa waved his hands, lighted a lantern, and started out the door. “I’ll sleep in the cotton. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“No, Papa. I am sleeping in the cotton!” I stated.

“Never saw anyone as stubborn as she is,” Papa went towards the cotton house*. Then he paused. “David, what is wrong with your foot?” he asked.

“Broke it,” David told the happy story. “That is why we were able to come home.” Our shadows loomed before, around, and behind us as Papa swung the lantern. Ice spewed up from the ground. The air was cold, but it had the feel of a Southern night.

Wind whistled through the logs of the cotton house. Starlight gleamed through chinks in the shingles. An owl hooted softly behind the cow lot; roosters crowed in the barn lot and on neighboring farms. A distant train sent its wail across the fields.

We were home!

Cotton spewed behind David like snow as he dug a bed. “Pile in, Sue,” he said. I fell into the fragrant cotton. David heaped mounds on me. Papa hung the lantern on a nail and helped.

Through blurred eyes I saw them make a bed for David. “We made it home for Christmas,” I marveled. Then I fell into a well of dark slumber.

“Breakfast,” someone called and woke me. I sat up and blew cotton from my face. Grayson, Lee, Royce, and little J. D. stood in the door. They began to heap cotton on David, who was still asleep. He erupted from his mound. We brushed cotton from our clothes, pulled cotton from hair and eyebrows, and looking like fresh bales of lint we were windblown across the yard. The scent of woodsmoke, coffee, and sausage pulled us straight to the kitchen.

People were crowded around fireplace and kitchen stove. Clarence was living at home now; he, with the kinfolk, was up and ready to do justice to the food. We washed faces and hands; Papa motioned to the table. His face was bright; there was food enough for everyone. The table was heaped with biscuits, sorghum*, butter, and fresh country sausage. Mary, one of the cousins, was rolling out more biscuits. Miss Mildred turned the sausage and looked in the oven. Colleen and Daphne had washed the girls’ faces and hands and spread newspaper on a flat-top trunk; the four of them were eating on it. Butter and sorghum dripped from Davene’s mouth. Sharon was cramming biscuit and sausage into her face.

All that day we skimmed from house to house, visiting kinfolk. The next day we left for Pea Ridge. Granny was so happy to see us that she sacrificed one of her best Rhode Island Red hens. Chicken and dumplings. Dressing, too. Baked sweet potatoes, green tomato pickles, and canned blackberry pie. We talked, laughed, and cried a little.

Then Papa told astonishing news. “Piper is working five days a week,” he said. “Why don’t you get a job and move back home?”

David rolled a cigarette, lighted it, opened the door to look at the hills, then slammed the door. “I mean to do just that,” he said. Skyrockets began to explode inside my head.

Early the next morning, we drove across the beloved hills and at last saw the faded red and green houses of Piper. “Is this home, Mother?” Sharon asked.

“Yes, darling. This is home.”

“I don’t like it,” Davene announced.

We jolted around a curve and took a left turn. Then we stopped, sliding gravel under the tires, less than a foot from the steps of the green building that housed the post office and company offices. Friends looked and ran to greet us. David’s big plastered foot seemed very conspicuous. He covered it with his hat.

Mr. Randle, the superintendent, came out of the office, saw us, and hurried down the steps. “Looking for work?” he laughed.

“Anything for me?” David asked.

“You wouldn’t stay six months,” he said and started away. My heart plunged a thousand feet and landed at the bottom of the Cahaba River. Then Mr. Randle turned. “Rosalyn is getting married tonight,” he grinned. “See me Saturday.” Rosalyn was his very beautiful, oldest daughter.

David picked up his hat, started Thunderbolt, and we headed back to Pea Ridge.

“Aren’t we going to visit anyone?” I gasped.

“Not with this foot,” he said.

“Oh, David! You can’t take a job!”

He drove a little faster.

“Did you find work?” Papa asked, as we came in the door.

“I’ll know tomorrow.” David said.

“But David, your foot—” I whispered.

“My foot is well!” He sat before the fire, took out his knife, and began to cut away at the plaster cast.

“Dave,” Granny said. “Sue is right.”

“I know what I’m doing!” He unwrapped his white, shriveled foot and stood on it. No bones crunched.

“Please take it easy,” I begged.

“All right,” he sat down and held out his foot, stretching his toes. I ran for a pan of hot water and bathed the foot. Having no other medication, I rubbed the foot with Vaseline. David held it closer to the fire, then drew back. The foot was not used to exposure.

“Every river leads to the sea” is a familiar saying. But I just didn’t believe it. I had been too homesick for too long. David went to Piper alone the next day; two hours later, he was back. “Got a job,” he swaggered. “Night wall boss.” Part of the job included running a machine and cutting coal. “Three eighty-five a shift,” he said. “We are used to lots more than that.”

“Three eighty-five will buy a week’s groceries here,” Granny said. “Sweet potatoes are fifty cents a bushel, eggs ten cents a dozen, pork chops ten cents a pound.”

Granny had a very short lower lip which gave a natural downturn to her mouth. “You could all stay with us,” she said the next morning as we packed to return to Morris.

“I haven’t seen Maurine and Lucile and Thelma,” I explained. “We’ll be close to you when we move and can drive over any time.”

David left the car with me. “You’ll need it,” he said. “Clarence can drive you wherever you wish to go.” As Clarence drove us to the bus station the next morning, David explained Thunderbolt’s idiosyncracies. The car had been stubborn of late, but David knew how to tinker with the motor and speak a few magic words; the engine would rattle into life.

“Never saw a car I couldn’t start,” Clarence laughed.

“Remember,” David repeated his instructions until the bus roared up and stopped. He kissed me, slipped into the bus, and it swooped out of the station.

The motor was still running, and Clarence had no trouble driving us home.

“Want to go to Haig?” I asked Miss Mildred the next morning. Any trip was a rare event to her, and both of us needed to do a little Christmas shopping. Papa agreed to watch the children. We hurried with dishes and beds; then we worked on my black dress again, this time getting most of the lint brushed off. She put on her one good dress, a blue wool crepe. This was an event!