Dark River Road (14 page)

“Sit here and have something to eat. You’re bound to be hungry if you’re like my boys.”

“Thank you, ma’am, we’re not supposed to. Mama told us to wait in the hall.”

“I’ll make sure she knows where you are. Sit, now. It gets tiring standing up.”

He glanced at Mikey, and saw his eyes fastened on the cookies and milk. Mama’d be mad at them for not minding her, but he didn’t know what to do when this lady was so insistent. So he sat down at the wide oak table that looked just polished, and helped Mikey with his cookies and milk. His stomach growled, and he took a cookie nearly as big as his hand. It was a sugar cookie, soft and sweet. He ate two so quick Mikey hadn’t had time to finish his first one.

Then Mama was at the door, her tone sounding funny. “I told you boys to wait on me in the hall.”

Chantry stood up quickly, but the lady in the apron said, “I insisted they have something to eat. We don’t have any children in the house, and it’s always nice to see young faces at the table.”

A strange expression crossed Mama’s face, but she didn’t say anything else except to tell Chantry and Mikey to thank her for the refreshments and come along. The apron lady wrapped a few cookies in a paper napkin and put them in Chantry’s hand. Then she walked them to the door and said goodbye, and they went out into the rain that was still coming down.

It must have been the rain, but Mama’s face stayed wet all the way back to Cane Creek.

Nothing was said about the house in Memphis, only more stuff about not having the money to pay for Mikey’s doctors, and Chantry fell asleep finally. When he woke up, the house was dark and quiet and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten when they got home, not wanting to be too close when Rainey and Mama got into an argument. All he’d had to eat were those cookies.

He got up carefully so he wouldn’t wake Mikey, and crawled off the foot of the bed. He wore only a loose pair of thin sweat pants, and shivered in the chill air. Mama would wait as long as possible before turning on the gas heaters. Propane cost money.

A night light burned in the kitchen for those nights when Mikey was restless and Mama got up with him. He didn’t turn on the lights but went straight to the refrigerator. It was an old one, but scrupulously clean. There wasn’t much offered, a few hot dogs and plate of cold bacon, or a bowl of cereal. He got out the milk, cereal, and a bowl, feeling in the drawer for a spoon.

When he carried it to the table, the light suddenly flashed on, bright and blinding and startling him. He dropped the cereal box and it spilled onto the floor, going everywhere. Rainey squinted at him.

“What you doin’ out here sneakin’ around in the dark, boy?”

“I’m hungry. Sorry.” He knelt down on the floor to pick up the cereal box, keeping a wary eye on Rainey to see what he’d do.

“Made a helluva mess there. Clean it up before I put my foot up your ass.”

“Yessir.” He kept his head down, eyes on Rainey as he scooped cereal into his empty bowl until he had it all picked up.

“Oh no,” Rainey said when he started toward the trash bin with it, “you spilled it, you eat it. We ain’t got enough money to be wastin’ food just ‘cause you’re clumsy.”

Chantry looked into the bowl. Mama was a good housekeeper, but it’d been raining and the floor had dirt and specks of mud on it despite her efforts. Debris coated some of the cereal flakes. Before he could decide what to do, Rainey moved from the doorway and grabbed him by the back of the neck, big hands biting deeply into muscle and skin to force him to the table and down into a chair.

“Eat it,” he said, and slammed the spoon into the bowl. “Every damn bite.”

Chantry didn’t move. He just looked down at the bowl and the spoon and dirty cereal and sat still. He didn’t know why. Rebellion was always costly. He just knew that he wasn’t going to eat that cereal without a fight, that was all.

“Leave him alone, Rainey,” Mama said from the doorway, and Chantry looked up to see her sagging against the doorframe. “Stop taking your anger at me out on him. He is innocent.”

“Is he? I wonder just how damn innocent. I heard some things down at the Tap Room. He ain’t no sweet little boy like you think he is.”

Chantry looked at him. He went real still and tried to think what he’d done that Rainey might have heard about. There wasn’t much of anything. He just didn’t have time lately to get into any trouble. Except for sneaking out that night with Tansy
 . . .
and he hoped like hell Rainey didn’t know about that.

“Whyn’t you ask him?” Rainey sneered. “Just ask him what he does when he’s not here. I think you might find it interestin’.”

Mama’s eyes moved to him and he looked back at her. It was cold in the kitchen, but he shivered because he just knew something bad was about to be said. He didn’t know how he knew that but he did.

Rainey took the flat of his hand and knocked it against the back of Chantry’s head. “Go on, boy. Tell her. Tell yore mama what you get up to in the night when you’re s’posed to be in bed.”

Damn. He knew. It wouldn’t matter that nothing really bad had happened. Rainey would make something of it anyway. He stood up.

“Nothing happened, Mama.”

Rainey laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “The hell it didn’t. Run off in the middle of the night with that li’l yella gal and everybody knows what happened. Don’t take a smart man to figure that one out.”

Mama was looking at him real close, and Chantry wanted to tell her the truth about it all but didn’t want to say anything in front of Rainey. He’d only make it sound worse than it really was.

“Yeah,” Rainey said, “he come sneakin’ back in here a couple hours later smelling like a whorehouse and cheap wine. Thought I didn’t know. But I saw him, and I heard him, and I smelt him. And if that li’l gal gets knocked up then you’ll see just how long you get to keep your job teaching decent folks’ kids.”

Chantry went cold. All it would take is rumor to get old man Quinton down on Mama.

“It’s not true,” he said, and Rainey reached out quick as a snake and smacked him upside the head before Mama could stop him.

“Don’t be callin’ me a liar, boy. I heard you.”

Chantry caught his balance and looked back at Mama. “I meant that we didn’t do anything wrong. We just talked. And
 . . .
and drank a little wine.”

“Oh, Chantry,” she said with a long sigh that sounded so sad he wanted to cry. That was all she said. Just
Oh Chantry
like that, and he felt like crying and hitting something and going to his knees and asking her not to be disappointed in him. It was the funniest thing. Rainey could be mad and hit him and say all kinds of bad stuff and he’d never feel sorry, but all Mama had to do was give him that sorrowful look and sigh, and he wanted to turn himself inside out to undo what he’d done.

“We will talk in the morning,” Mama said after a moment. “Go to bed now. It is late.”

Chantry cleaned up his mess and didn’t eat the cereal even though Rainey stood there so long he thought he was going to try to make him. He’d lost his appetite anyway, and went to bed and lay there awake until the sky got a little bit light and birds got ready for the day.

Mama woke him up for church and told him to hurry or they’d be late, and he felt like he’d just gone to sleep. She’d made pancakes, with thick sorghum syrup over them, and he was glad Rainey was still asleep so he could eat without being grudged every bite. After he’d brushed his teeth and helped Mikey, they went outside on the front porch to wait for Mama.

It’d stopped raining, and the ground out under the black walnut tree was slick with mud. Liberty Road had plenty of gravel and stayed pretty good even in winter unless the fields flooded, because it was built up on a roadbed that let it drain quickly under normal conditions.

Mama didn’t say anything about taking Rainey’s truck, and they walked down the middle of the road toward town and the church. Just as they got to the church, Mama turned to Chantry and said, “I intend to ask Reverend Hale to counsel you, Chantry. You need a strong, decent male influence.”

Chantry recoiled. “No.”

Mama’s eyes held his, and she said, “Yes. There are things you need to know that I cannot properly teach you, things that will be better coming from someone like the reverend.”

“I don’t like him.”

“He’s been trained in this sort of thing. Would you rather I talk to the coach at school?”

That’d be worse. Coach Ray ogled all the young girls and made nasty comments he’d just as soon Mama not know about.

“No. I guess the reverend will do.”

For the first time that he could remember, he didn’t want the preaching to be over. He sat there dreading the counseling with Reverend Hale. Not even Cinda sitting in the pew just ahead of him and to the left so he could see her good helped much. All he thought about was having to confess his sins to a man who’d tell him he was going straight to Hell. Reverend Hellfire. If he didn’t feel like he’d used up all his prayers on Shadow, he might pray that God would get him out of this. But no point in wasting prayers. He guessed that he could stand it for a little while.

Reverend Hale ushered them into his office after the services and waited for Mama to tell him why she’d asked for his counseling. For a moment Mama just sat there primly like she was trying to find a tactful way to start, and Chantry hoped maybe she’d decide it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t.

“Chantry is in need of some guidance, Reverend. He is of an age now where there are certain temptations. Of a physical nature.”

Chantry tried to blend into the chair and pretend he wasn’t there, staring at the floor and the front of the reverend’s desk, anywhere but at Mama or the preacher.

“I see,” the reverend said solemnly. “It’s a carnal world, Mrs. Lassiter.”

“Yes it is, Reverend.”

“He needs to resist fleshly lures of impure females and his own carnal nature.”

“Yes.”

The reverend stood up. “Leave him here with me. I’ll see that he gets home after we’ve talked. I’ve a great deal of experience in these matters.”

Chantry gave Mama a frantic look. He didn’t want to be left alone with the reverend. Not for as long as he might take. But she didn’t even look at him, only nodded at the reverend and went out the door to where Mikey sat in a chair in the hallway. They’d go home to Sunday dinner while he was stuck here with a man determined to hear his darkest secrets. Like the dreams.

He hung his head and looked at the floor. Thick carpet cushioned the legs of the desk. He saw the reverend’s feet move back behind the desk. They were surprisingly small for a man, clad in shiny black shoes that mirrored the desk’s underside.

“Chantry.” The reverend’s voice was soft, not his thundering damnation voice, and he looked up reluctantly. Dark eyes bored into him. “An interesting name. A chantry is a medieval chapel, did you know that?”