The Rain and the Fire and the Will of God Page 12

  “It is getting late,” Ma said. “Or are they expecting you?”

  “To tell the truth,” I said, “I doubt if they are.”

  “Well,” Ma said, “I suppose they are used to your ways by now anyhow.” I was not so sure of it as Ma was, at least not as far as Jenny was concerned, but I told her I supposed they was, and I left.

  Once I got headed that way I practically run. Not that I was so sure about Jenny being glad to see me or anything. It was just that I was glad to be doing something, going off like that, with the air cooling off some after the day and the moonlight making things clear, and being back again on that path I knowed so well, the way it took off from the end of our road and then swung around a little south and then lifted up again and curved back to the east and then went slow and twisting and more or less straight down through our woods to the branch. I have run it sometimes just to be running it.

  I slowed some going through the branch, but then I come out in the moonlight and quickened up again, going up and down but mostly up, and curving a lot the way every path through a piny woods does, and then I come out above the Holmeses’ pasture and stopped and looked down at their place and took a rest. It looked like it done the last time I come there at night. There was lights on in the house but for the rest it looked like the whole Holmeses’ place had went to sleep where it lay.

  Then I worked over to the road and come on down it until I seen their pecan tree showing up big and the shadow of it reaching out across the road, then I stepped in under its darkness from out of the moonlight and turned and went up to the gate and stopped. On their porch was only Les.

  So I opened the gate and went in and up on the porch. We said hello. Les was leaning way back in a chair with his feet up on the railing, and I stepped over his feet and sat down in the chair that was next to him and put my feet up on the railing, too. Then we sat there awhile. I listened but couldn’t hear no one moving around inside the house.

  “I can see you is over your boils,” I said. “Where is Jenny?”

  “Jenny?” he said. Like he couldn’t place her.

  “Jenny,” I said.

  He put his feet down off the railing and straightened up some. “The last I seen her,” he said, “she was on her way to the Strattons’. So she is there, unless she kept going and went on into town instead.”

  “By herself?” I said.

  “She took the dog,” Les said.

  I sat there awhile and then I got up. “Well,” I said, “it don’t seem safe for Jenny to go all the way into town with just that little dog of yours.” Then I went to the steps and started down.

  “Try the Strattons’,” Les said. “If Jenny ain’t there you can visit with the Stratton girls.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I hope you get some more boils real soon.” The Stratton girls are not my idea of girls at all. Then I went out and shut the gate and started down the road to the Strattons’.

  It’s about a mile, maybe less. Before I could hardly make out the house, I heard them, laughing. The Stratton girls—there is four of them, all girls—is great on laughing. They’re each of them kind of big and strong and healthy-looking, even the youngest, who is eight or nine, and they go around together everywhere like they was still at home and whenever one of them says anything, or if anybody else does for that matter, then the rest of them laugh. You could not have a conversation with a one of them if you tried. For the laughing. I guess it keeps them happy, though. So I kept going until I come to their gate and went in and was up on the porch among them before they hardly knowed I was there. They was so busy talking.

  When they seen me they stopped. Jenny was sitting there in a chair. The rest of them was sort of milling around. “Jack Haywood,” one of them said, “well, what in the world are you doing here?”

  I said hello to Jenny and she said hello back. “I heard that Jenny was out alone with nothing but a dog,” I said.

  This give the Stratton girls the biggest laugh of their lives. You could hardly hear yourself speak. “Who told you that?” Jenny said.

  “Your brother did,” I said, “when he finally got around to it. I must have been at your place for an hour.” The girls thought that was pretty funny, too, and I couldn’t see how me and Jenny was going to have much of a conversation if they stayed around.

  “Well,” Jenny said, “I am sorry I wasn’t home if it was me you come to see, but since you only come about twice a year anyhow, you can’t blame me none for taking a walk with a dog.”

  I could not say for sure that I heard her right, but it seemed to me that what Jenny meant was that her feelings was hurt by my staying away so long. I could hardly go into the subject, though, with them Stratton girls standing there already swelling up ready to bust out with laughing the next thing I said no matter what. So I said, “Where is the dog, anyhow? All I see is these Stratton girls. Maybe the dog has went off for a walk by his self.”

  This give them something to laugh at again.

  “Maybe he did,” Jenny said.

  We stood there and Jenny and the girls talked some between them, and finally I got tired of the time we was wasting. “Jenny,” I said, “these girls can take care of their selves most any place, but I am worried about that dog of yours. Maybe we should go back and see if he has made it home or not.”

  When they quieted down, the oldest girl explained it to the others. “Jack has come to see Jenny,” she said. “He don’t really care about that dog at all.”

  She had seen right through me all right.

  About that time Jenny got up from her chair. “As long as Jack has come,” she said, “maybe he can see me home at that. I haven’t seen that dog of ours since I got here.”

  The girls was quiet. “Yes,” I said, “and it is getting late.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jenny said.

  We stood there for a while, with the Stratton girls arguing it wasn’t late at all and me and Jenny arguing it was, and then finally we got backed around by the steps, and I said, “Watch, I will jump down all these steps at once.” There must have been ten of them. So I took a run and give a jump and come down somewhere out near the road on my head. More or less on my head, anyhow. Knocked the breath from me. I sat there and Jenny come running up and bent over and asked was I hurt.

  “No,” I said. “Just winded. But let’s you and me get on away from here while them girls is still laughing.” I got a good breath and stood up and give them all a wave on the porch and then me and Jenny went out to the road and started toward her place.

  We walked along quiet for a ways. I said nothing about we might jump a ditch and go sit on a log, and when we come by the place where we had stood and argued the matter once before, I stayed way over in my track of the road and Jenny stayed in hers. When we was past the place, Jenny begun some conversation.

  “It’s been a time since I seen you,” she said.

  “I have stayed a good deal at home,” I said. “The last time I seen you I got the feeling maybe I was not so popular at your place any more.”

  “Well,” Jenny said, “I believe I know how you got such a feeling, but maybe some things about that should just be left and forgot.”

  I said nothing back, and we walked along letting it all be forgot. I was sure glad to be away from them Stratton girls. I guess Jenny was, too, as every once in a while she kind of sung a little song to herself and swung around in her track of the road some in time to it and looked up at the moon, like she had got pretty tired of their company herself. I just walked along and watched Jenny. She was wearing a light blue dress with some buttons on it, like a kid’s dress, but more flared out at the bottom. In the moonlight the dress looked white and her arms looked real brown where they run into it, and when she swung around in her track of the road the dress swung out around, too, and one time she would look just like a kid and another time not at all. It come from her being so small, I guess.

  After a while we come to their place. “Jenny,” I said, “maybe your dog has go
ne on up the road some.”

  Jenny stopped. We was already past their gate several steps by then, so I was not too worried. “Jack,” Jenny said, “I don’t know if we should go on or not. I don’t know if Pa would like it.”

  “Look,” I said, “it is bright as day.”

  Jenny looked around. “On the road it is,” she said.

  “It might as well be noon,” I said.

  Jenny stood and looked up at the moon and then down the road and then back at the house. Then we started walking again. “You could practically read a book with all this light,” Jenny said.

  “You are right,” I said. “But who would want to read a book in the nighttime?”

  “Some people would,” Jenny said.

  “I doubt that,” I said.

  “Why argue?” Jenny said.

  We walked on and stayed quiet for a time. Jenny stayed in her track and I stayed in mine. I couldn’t tell if everything had really been forgot or not. Finally I said, “Rodney and me has busted up as friends.”

  “Is that so?” Jenny said. “I suppose you picked a fight with him.”

  “No,” I said, “he is just not good for the country at all. He can never keep himself out of trouble. He has got no strength to begin with, and then the other day, he did not have sense enough to duck when an oak limb come up at him, riding in a truck.”

  “He looks strong enough to me,” Jenny said. “And he is certainly tall. How did he get run into by an oak limb?”

  “On account of he was so tall,” I said. “And because he was standing up riding backwards in our pickup.”

  “Was he hurt?” Jenny said.

  “No,” I said. “Only his feelings. It knocked him down.”

  “All the way down?” Jenny said.

  “We was going slow,” I said. “Anyhow, he blamed it on me and we stopped being friends.”

  “How come he blamed it on you?” Jenny said.

  “I seen the limb coming,” I said. “He should have been watching for it himself.”

  We walked along and Jenny was quiet. Then she said, “You should have told him.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “As a friend,” Jenny said. She was right, so I stayed quiet and we walked along not arguing. We went by the end of their land and kept going. With a moon like that there is nothing to walking at all.

  Finally I said, “It is sure a nice night.”

  “It sure is,” Jenny said. “Cool for a change.”

  We walked along some more. That road goes straight for so long that you can walk for five or ten minutes and hardly notice the difference. “You are right,” I said, “I should have warned him as a friend.”

  Jenny give me a look and we kept walking. “I guess he should have knowed better than riding backwards standing up, even if you should have warned him.”

  “Well,” I said, “to be honest I have done it myself and got hit by the same limb. Only not the limb, just some leaves from it. He is taller than me by a lot.”

  “He struck me as being skinny,” Jenny said.

  “Yes,” I said, “mostly bones. But he is not a bad swimmer at that.”

  “I guess he is not for the country at all,” Jenny said.

  “No,” I said, “you are right. But he has got a guitar and has learned to play it. Plays country songs, good, and he is sure a lot smarter than that Jimmy Bay.”

  “That is some name, though,” she said. “Rodney.”

  “He is no fighter, all right,” I said, “but there is things about him. He just don’t like to fight, I guess.”

  “Maybe he is afraid,” Jenny said.

  “No,” I said, “just different. I can tell. He is not the kind of person you think he is. If you knew him better you would know. The trouble is you don’t know him hardly at all.”

  Jenny got quiet then and we kept walking and I seen that maybe I had made her mad, taking up for Rodney. But what I had said was true. Then Jenny said, “I guess he is a nice sort of person at that.”

  I stopped in the road and looked at her. Jenny stopped when she seen I had stopped. I was mostly surprised. I had thought she was mad. She come back a few steps and looked up at me, to see what was the matter, I guess. Then I guess she seen I was surprised, because she laughed and said, “You are sometimes a nice sort of person, too, Jack.”

  I had always knowed I was, even if nobody else knowed it. But it was still confusing why Jenny should have just discovered that now when what I had been doing was tell her she was wrong about Rodney. I laughed. When I am confused I am apt to do that. “Well, I am glad to hear that,” I said, “as I have never give it a thought before.”

  We started up walking again and I walked in Jenny’s track of the road and she said nothing about it. Out of the corner of my eye I could look down and see her hair going along beside me on her head, the ends of it hanging down by the side of her face and curled in and swinging some when she walked and the rest of it spread out in back just missing the top of her dress and sort of sliding back and forth on her skin. Other times I have seen Jenny slide her hand in under her hair in back of her neck like that and lift it up, and I could see why she done it. To give the feel of her skin a rest from it. Other times I have seen her just give her head a shake, for the same reason, I guess. While I watched, she done it once. The hair come back down about where it was before. It was a nice thing to see. “Jenny,” I said, “you sure have a nice way of walking.”

  She turned her face up toward me some and then looked away. “I hadn’t noticed,” she said.

  “No,” I said, “I guess you can not see behind your self.”

  Jenny looked up at me again, and I seen she was wondering what I meant. “I was just noticing your hair,” I said.

  “What has that got to do with my way of walking?” Jenny said. It was like she hardly believed me at all.

  “Look,” I said, “you can probably feel it, but have never noticed is all. When you walk it swings your hair some, by your ear. And in back it goes back and forth against your skin. I guess you can feel it all right, even if you can’t see it.”

  “I have never noticed it special,” Jenny said, “but I guess I can feel it at that.”

  “It comes from walking,” I said.

  “I suppose it does,” Jenny said. “I wasn’t sure what you meant.”

  “I just happened to notice,” I said.

  We walked along some more and I looked around at the woods and up at the moon and down the road, and far down the road I seen the darkness where the road goes through the branch. I figured when we come to it we could turn around and come back.

  “That dog of yours may be down in that branch hunting rabbits,” I said.

  “The mosquitoes is terrible there,” Jenny said. “I would not set a foot in that place for a million dollars.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “I guess dogs don’t get bit by them, though.”

  “I guess they don’t,” Jenny said.

  “At least I have never seen a dog take a swat at one yet,” I said.

  Jenny laughed and I could tell that things was all right. Then we come up to the edge of the branch, and right where there is a line where the moonlight ends and the dark of the branch begins, Jenny stopped. “We shouldn’t go in there,” she said.

  “The mosquitoes would eat us alive,” I said.

  We stood there looking into the dark. You could make out the road, and the shapes of some trees, but mostly it was like a solid dark on both sides of us with an empty dark going straight on into it. I remembered that road from times I had been on it before. The branch was about as solid there as a branch can get without being jungle. They had narrowed the road down putting it through, so that limbs come out over it from every side and going through it it was more like going through a tunnel.

  “Well,” I said, “on the other side it is just about the same as here.”

  “It’s a mile through there,” Jenny said.

  “About a half a mile,” I said. It was prob
ably not even that.

  So we stood there looking at it for a while longer, and then we started through. Once you got in it it was not so dark as it seemed from outside. I took Jenny’s hand and we walked through it in the dark, swatting mosquitoes, but except for that quiet. And then we seen the light at the end and came out into it and I let go of Jenny’s hand and we stopped and looked around. It looked like it did on the other side.

  “Those mosquitoes sure ate us up,” Jenny said.

  “They sure did,” I said.

  We stood there, out in the moonlight again, and looked at things. Off to the west I seen an oak tree with some Spanish moss hanging down from it, and I remembered a thing about Spanish moss that I had only noticed myself a few months ago; that it has a kind of flower that grows in it. I doubt if there is many people knows this, but it is true. “Jenny,” I said, “that oak tree is practically as big as any I ever seen.”

  Jenny looked. “It is quite a ways off the road,” she said.

  “It is bright as daylight,” I said. “It is early.”

  Jenny looked up at the moon. It was pretty high. “We had better get back pretty soon,” she said.

  “It has sure got a lot of Spanish moss on it,” I said.

  “It sure has,” Jenny said.

  There was a little ditch by the side of the road and we jumped it and walked through the grass until we come to the oak tree. It was a big old tree, all right. Branches as big around as trees themselves stood out straight from the sides of it farther than you would think they ever could and not bust. We walked in under one of those low branches and both of us reached up and touched it, and then we was in under the tree, and the moonlight come down through it in big spots here and there, but except for that and some Spanish moss hanging down it was clear all around.

  “It’s like a room,” I said.

  “Except there is no place to sit,” Jenny said.

  I looked around and she was right so for a while we just stood there. Then I noticed some of the Spanish moss hanging down and I said, “Jenny, I bet I can show you something you never knowed,” and I reached up and pulled down some of the moss. I started looking through it and I seen I couldn’t see it where I was so I took it over to where some moonlight was coming down and looked at it there. Then I looked back and Jenny was just standing there. I couldn’t see her face, just the white of her dress, and yet the feeling come to me that maybe I had done something wrong again. “Jenny?” I said.