Story A Bunch of Wild Thyme
- Thread starter Kathy in FL
- Start date
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you Kathy.
223shootersc
Veteran Member
thanks for the new chapters, good stuff
Siskiyoumom
Veteran Member
It is such a joy to read your stories! It totally destresses me from the daily grind of life and always helps me count my many blessings. Sis
Hickory7
Senior Member
^^^ This for me as well. I totally get lost in your stories. Thank you, Kathy.
DustMusher
Deceased
Ayup! 'though my stress level is a LOT lower than Sis' today. Thanks for the chapters and for leaving Cliff over on the other story.
DM
Chapter XXXI
I quietly went down into the basement and found all six kids sleeping in a puppy pile on the futon. The bottom step squeaked and Paulie forced an eye open. “Is everything OK now Dovie?”
“Right as rain Monkey Man.”
“Jude fixed it?”
I sighed. I sure hope Jude doesn’t do anything to fall off of the pedestal that Paulie is trying to put him on. “Yeah. Jude fixed it.”
“OK. Can we sleep here?”
“Sure.” He let his eye fall closed again and I pulled a couple of quilts out of the cedar chest under the stairs and draped them over the kids as it was turning chilly and they were just getting over their sniffles.
I walked back upstairs and found Jude sitting at the table with his head down. “You OK?”
He gave a muffled snort. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
I sighed. “Jude, maybe there is something wrong with me but after what we went through to get from Phoenix to here? That mess tonight just didn’t really knock me off my pins too much.”
“It didn’t bother you?” he sat up slowly and asked tiredly.
“I .. well … bother me? Yeah, sorta. But I don’t think the way you mean it. If they had come anywhere close to hurting the kids then yeah … then I would have been upset but mostly I’m just sort of … sort of disappointed I guess to find out people are people no matter where you go. Seems it doesn’t matter if it is there or here, there’s always some that want to spoil it for everyone else. I suppose I should have known … but I’m just glad that you were here.”
“You sure? ‘Cause I used to pal around with those a-holes. I used to be one of them.”
“Being around them and being one of them isn’t the same thing Jude. I never heard you ever treat a girl like they were wanting to treat me.”
“Not that of course, but wellll …”
“Deep subject. I’m telling you Jude, you may have made some bad choices on more than one occasion but you were never like those guys were tonight; you were wild, but you weren’t ruint. When you were sober you worked hard. I never heard you sass Aunt Frankie and you never once hit your sisters no matter how many times they egged you on and hit and pinched you. And I never heard that any of your girlfriends complain about you hurting them.”
He hunched his shoulders and if he could have pulled his head in like a turtle I’m pretty sure he would have. “Still …”
“Still nothing. And even so … what you might have been then is not what you are now.”
Quietly he asked, “You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Have you ever known me to not be free with my opinion?” He gave an involuntary
snort of laughter. I told him, “See.? You know it yourself. I promise if I thought you were being a jerk I would be the first one to tell you.”
“Granny,” he muttered.
I turned my nose up and ignored him just to make him smile again and then sat at the table and groaned. He jumped and said, “Are you sure you are ok?”
“I wasn’t groaning because I’m hurt. I’m groaning thinking about how late it is and how early the sun is going to rise.”
He said, “Don’t remind me. It’s not even worth going to bed. I’ll just wake up more tired. And Mr. Carlson said he expects me first thing passed sunrise but to … and I quote … be quiet about it because he is going to have a sleep in since he had to work so late with the posse, end quote.”
“I thought that was him trying to stare through the curtains to see what all was in the house.” Shaking my head I said, “I can’t believe he still expects you to get there that early. Do you have to do this job?”
“Yeah,” he said regretfully. “I do because we need the feed. But I’ll be watching the scales while he is measuring out. I’ll see about bringing back a pumpkin for the kids. It’ll probably have to be one with a couple of bad spots in it but at least they’ll get to carve it.”
“Oh Jude, the kids will love that. I know Uncle Roe never tolerated Halloween but there was always an Autumn harvest festival out at the fairgrounds.”
Regretfully he said, “There won’t be one this year. There was talk about having one but security for it would be too hard. And with the war and all … oh, I guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
Sadly he said, “They’ve started bombing again. It’s all starting back up.”
Slowly I asked, “What … what about the draft? They’d been talking about one when we were back in the facility before they took the TVs away.”
He shook his head. “Too expensive. Can you believe that? How those ijits in DC expect to win a war on the cheap I don’t know. Besides, they’ve got more than enough people enlisting just to get something to eat on a regular basis. Seems the only two places most people can find that anymore is in the military or in the jails. Sad ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” I told him thinking of Dad and Jack and Jay.
“Why don’t you go on to bed. You gotta be tired.”
“Tired but wired. If you aren’t going to sleep then I won’t. I don’t need much sleep anyway. When we were on the road I’d go two or three days between any kind of real sleep.”
Mulishly he said, “Well you ain’t on the road anymore, you’re here.”
I shrugged. “Looks like there is less and less difference except I’m not having to scavenge for fuel to keep the wheels turning.”
He looked at me closely and I realized I must have sounded morose. I shook my head. “Don’t listen to me, just a little reaction is all. Tell you what, how about I dig out the coffee. You haven’t asked for any since that first cup but under the circumstances …”
“You sure Dovie? ‘Cause I could take that to the black market and fetch you just about anything you wanted for it.”
“Black market?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want you fooling with those people but they really aren’t bad all things considered. Rochelle gets her medical supply refills from them on occasion in exchange for some doctoring for free.”
“Is she really that good?”
“Yeah. Some of the real old folks say she is better than what they had when they were growing up. She acts like a bear with a sore head with the family but everyone else she has a real good bedside manner with.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. And if you are serious about that offer of coffee I’ll try not and beg so hard I embarrass you.”
I smiled and made myself get up and make a large pot of coffee … and not the drano tasting vending machine coffee either but the good stuff.
I quietly went down into the basement and found all six kids sleeping in a puppy pile on the futon. The bottom step squeaked and Paulie forced an eye open. “Is everything OK now Dovie?”
“Right as rain Monkey Man.”
“Jude fixed it?”
I sighed. I sure hope Jude doesn’t do anything to fall off of the pedestal that Paulie is trying to put him on. “Yeah. Jude fixed it.”
“OK. Can we sleep here?”
“Sure.” He let his eye fall closed again and I pulled a couple of quilts out of the cedar chest under the stairs and draped them over the kids as it was turning chilly and they were just getting over their sniffles.
I walked back upstairs and found Jude sitting at the table with his head down. “You OK?”
He gave a muffled snort. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
I sighed. “Jude, maybe there is something wrong with me but after what we went through to get from Phoenix to here? That mess tonight just didn’t really knock me off my pins too much.”
“It didn’t bother you?” he sat up slowly and asked tiredly.
“I .. well … bother me? Yeah, sorta. But I don’t think the way you mean it. If they had come anywhere close to hurting the kids then yeah … then I would have been upset but mostly I’m just sort of … sort of disappointed I guess to find out people are people no matter where you go. Seems it doesn’t matter if it is there or here, there’s always some that want to spoil it for everyone else. I suppose I should have known … but I’m just glad that you were here.”
“You sure? ‘Cause I used to pal around with those a-holes. I used to be one of them.”
“Being around them and being one of them isn’t the same thing Jude. I never heard you ever treat a girl like they were wanting to treat me.”
“Not that of course, but wellll …”
“Deep subject. I’m telling you Jude, you may have made some bad choices on more than one occasion but you were never like those guys were tonight; you were wild, but you weren’t ruint. When you were sober you worked hard. I never heard you sass Aunt Frankie and you never once hit your sisters no matter how many times they egged you on and hit and pinched you. And I never heard that any of your girlfriends complain about you hurting them.”
He hunched his shoulders and if he could have pulled his head in like a turtle I’m pretty sure he would have. “Still …”
“Still nothing. And even so … what you might have been then is not what you are now.”
Quietly he asked, “You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Have you ever known me to not be free with my opinion?” He gave an involuntary
snort of laughter. I told him, “See.? You know it yourself. I promise if I thought you were being a jerk I would be the first one to tell you.”
“Granny,” he muttered.
I turned my nose up and ignored him just to make him smile again and then sat at the table and groaned. He jumped and said, “Are you sure you are ok?”
“I wasn’t groaning because I’m hurt. I’m groaning thinking about how late it is and how early the sun is going to rise.”
He said, “Don’t remind me. It’s not even worth going to bed. I’ll just wake up more tired. And Mr. Carlson said he expects me first thing passed sunrise but to … and I quote … be quiet about it because he is going to have a sleep in since he had to work so late with the posse, end quote.”
“I thought that was him trying to stare through the curtains to see what all was in the house.” Shaking my head I said, “I can’t believe he still expects you to get there that early. Do you have to do this job?”
“Yeah,” he said regretfully. “I do because we need the feed. But I’ll be watching the scales while he is measuring out. I’ll see about bringing back a pumpkin for the kids. It’ll probably have to be one with a couple of bad spots in it but at least they’ll get to carve it.”
“Oh Jude, the kids will love that. I know Uncle Roe never tolerated Halloween but there was always an Autumn harvest festival out at the fairgrounds.”
Regretfully he said, “There won’t be one this year. There was talk about having one but security for it would be too hard. And with the war and all … oh, I guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
Sadly he said, “They’ve started bombing again. It’s all starting back up.”
Slowly I asked, “What … what about the draft? They’d been talking about one when we were back in the facility before they took the TVs away.”
He shook his head. “Too expensive. Can you believe that? How those ijits in DC expect to win a war on the cheap I don’t know. Besides, they’ve got more than enough people enlisting just to get something to eat on a regular basis. Seems the only two places most people can find that anymore is in the military or in the jails. Sad ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” I told him thinking of Dad and Jack and Jay.
“Why don’t you go on to bed. You gotta be tired.”
“Tired but wired. If you aren’t going to sleep then I won’t. I don’t need much sleep anyway. When we were on the road I’d go two or three days between any kind of real sleep.”
Mulishly he said, “Well you ain’t on the road anymore, you’re here.”
I shrugged. “Looks like there is less and less difference except I’m not having to scavenge for fuel to keep the wheels turning.”
He looked at me closely and I realized I must have sounded morose. I shook my head. “Don’t listen to me, just a little reaction is all. Tell you what, how about I dig out the coffee. You haven’t asked for any since that first cup but under the circumstances …”
“You sure Dovie? ‘Cause I could take that to the black market and fetch you just about anything you wanted for it.”
“Black market?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want you fooling with those people but they really aren’t bad all things considered. Rochelle gets her medical supply refills from them on occasion in exchange for some doctoring for free.”
“Is she really that good?”
“Yeah. Some of the real old folks say she is better than what they had when they were growing up. She acts like a bear with a sore head with the family but everyone else she has a real good bedside manner with.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. And if you are serious about that offer of coffee I’ll try not and beg so hard I embarrass you.”
I smiled and made myself get up and make a large pot of coffee … and not the drano tasting vending machine coffee either but the good stuff.
Chapter XXXII
I wouldn’t say that Jude danced out the door Thursday morning but I could tell he was loaded for bear with caffeine. After he left I snuck under my bed and pulled out an energy drink and practically chugged it. It tasted disgusting but had the desired effect.
The kids had to make do with oatmeal for breakfast as my motor just refused to fire on all pistons. I was still trying to figure out what I had planned for the day when I heard the wagon creaking into the yard. I stepped out to the porch and saw I wasn’t the only one yawning. Butch, Clewis¸ Faith’s boyfriend who everyone called “Boo,” and Uncle Roe were climbing down and starting to take things out of the back end of the buckboard.”
Feeling stupid I asked, “What’s all this?”
Clewis snorted then asked, “Jude didn’t tell you?”
I sighed. “If he did I was brain drained at the time and didn’t hear it.”
Butch gave an impatient sigh in Clewis’ general direction when he muttered something about it being hard to tell the difference of when I was and wasn’t brain drained before explaining, “The reason why Jude was late last night was because Mr. Schnell’s neighbor had someone put a booby trap in his field and it run a bunch of wire up into the stalk auger before they could get the combine stopped. It was so bad they thought they would have to park the machine and wait until they could afford to have someone from the dealership come out and look at it. Jude started fooling with it and while it took a few hours, managed to clear the auger and even cleared the trailings sieve that was getting messed up.”
Knowing how expensive some of the big farm equipment could be I said, “Bet that man was relieved.”
“Mmm hmmm … and Mr. Schnell too since they use the combine in shares. Mechanical work goes for a good price around here and Mr. Schnell and his neighbor were happy to pay Jude for the work. Jude was going to go pick it up Saturday but Mr. Schnell heard about the ruckus last night and he and his son are down at the house visiting with Dad, using the excuse of delivering things so they could get the news first hand.”
I watched them sit bag upon bag of grain on the porch and then several bushel baskets of potatoes, two of carrots, three big heads of late season cabbage, another bushel of mixed roots with their tops still on, but the most amazing came out of a large picnic basket. “Mrs. Schnell said you should get this down in a cool cellar as soon as possible; that they still needed to age a spell before you use them.”
There were several rounds of hard cheese all waxed and stamped with the Schnell Farm logo and enough butter to fill two butter bells. “Mercy,” I said beneath my breath.
Looking up at Butch who was getting back on Magnolia to follow Clewis, who had turned the wagon and taken off without even giving much more than half a wave, I asked, “Shouldn’t this stuff have stayed down at the house? Jude usually leaves stuff there before he comes back up here.”
“Jude will probably say the same thing but Dad said that this is extra and not part of the agreement he and Jude have to help out the farm. He’ll want Jude to have it. If he stops by the house Dad will tell him, if he doesn’t you’ll have to.”
“Gee. Thanks,” I said imagining how that would probably fly like a lead balloon. Butch gave a half smile reading my mind and agreeing with it before wheeling around with a wave so he could catch up with Clewis.
The kids were peeking from the other end of the porch where they had hidden during the delivery. Paulie would have come out, and the rest of them probably would have if it was only Butch, but Clewis’ uncertain temperament still kept them skittish of his company. I looked at them and said, “Well? Are you going to help me get this in the kitchen are you just going to stand there like a bunch of curious crows?”
It took a lot longer to get everything into the house than it had for Butch and Clewis to deposit it onto the porch. I didn’t move it further than the kitchen because I wanted Jude to see it and to make sure what he wanted me to do with it. The grain stayed right where it was as had it been in fifty pound bags I might have been able to move it but it was in hundred pound grain sacks and there was no way I was hefting that up on my shoulder.
I was beat and the kids seemed content to eat apple and nut butter and crackers for their noonday meal so instead I got started on dinner which would be Cottage Cheese Patties. I had made cottage cheese from the raw milk that Jude had brought home and it needed to be used up before it spoiled since I wouldn’t be able to freeze water for the old antique ice box until the temperature started dropping below freezing at night. I took a cup of cottage cheese and mixed in a cup of bread crumbs (slightly stale as I had found them on the same top shelf of the pantry as the brown sugar), a cup of rolled oats, a couple of scallions chopped fine, two tablespoons of chopped parsley that I got from the herb garden, and then two eggs from those sent up by Uncle Roe. When the mess was well mixed I added some salt and pepper as well.
I took the slightly sticky mess and made it into patties which I then fried up just like I would have a hamburger. When I was finished with that I started on the homemade mushroom soup by chopping up about a half pound of fresh mushrooms from the “forest grocery store” and rinse them real well. In a pan I melted four tablespoons of lard and then added four tablespoons of flour to it, mixing and browning but not letting it burn. To that I added a little minced wild garlic (strong because it was out of season), a little chopped onion, a little chopped parsley and continued to stir til mixed and then added the mushrooms and let it simmer carefully for ten minutes.
When it was simmered all the way through I added some cooked and cubed wild yam, a piece of bay leaf, and a quart and a half of water. As it heated I added a tablespoon of vinegar, a dash of marjoram, and a little salt and pepper. Then I simmered it for a little more than ten minutes.
It was still light but I had heard the first cricket. Jude had said he was only working half a day but I thought something must have happened to make it take longer. I was about to tell the kids to go ahead and wash up when I heard something hit the front porch. Rolling pin in hand I ran that way only to find who I had just been thinking about in a fine snit.
He saw me but didn’t say anything but kept taking his boots off. I knew that look. I had seen it on my dad’s and brothers’ faces enough to know that here was a man that it would be wise to give some space to. I backed up and closed the door quietly and shooed the kids back to the kitchen before they could set off the tinderbox.
Paulie whispered, “What’s wrong with Jude?”
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out. Maybe he just had a bad day at work or something. You know how Dad got sometimes. I think y’all just need to eat and then get scarce until it runs its course.”
I had wanted the supper to be something special even if it was just ordinary food since I had worked hard on it but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I was putting patties on plates with some wilted dandelion greens and friend wild yams – these savory rather than sweet – and giving them a small cup of the mushroom soup when I heard the pump being worked up and down. The kids got real quiet when Jude wrenched the door open and came in. He looked around at the produce sitting around the kitchen and then caught sight of the way the kids were acting. I edged around the table to head him off if he was going to blow up, to make myself a target if need be to keep him from going off at the kids, when he just sort of slumped.
“I’ll eat out on the porch I guess.”
I told him, “Only if you want to or need the quiet.”
“Seems kinda quiet in here,” he muttered.
“You … uh … seem like it’s been a … mmm … a hard day. We thought maybe you would need it.”
“You mean you were worried I’d chew somebody’s head off. I won’t. Already did it.”
Afraid to ask I said, “Clewis?”
“Naw. Hennisey.”
Really worried I said, “But I thought it wasn’t a good idea to get on his bad side. You said …”
“It isn’t a good idea for you.”
“Then … ?”
“Paulie can you keep an eye on things? Tiff you too. I need to talk to Dovie and not all of it is polite talk I want the little kids to hear.”
Paulie looked at Jude cautiously and asked, “You aren’t gonna yell at her are you?”
“Huh?” he asked looking at Paulie and then realizing how it must seem. “Naw. I’m in a foul mood but not at her. OK?”
“Ok Jude.” Paulie would grow out of the hero-worship eventually but it seemed like it was going to take a while. Anything Jude said was fine by Paulie. Once Paulie was satisfied Tiffany nodded as well.
Jude looked me and then jerked his head outside. We stepped off the porch and he started to walk towards the gully. “We won’t go far but I don’t want the kids – any of them – to hear this.”
“Jude, what’s going on?”
“Starting to scare you am I?”
“Not hardly,” I told him with an impatient huff. “But something is going on and you don’t like it which means I probably won’t either. So just spit it out.”
When he deemed us far enough from the house that little ears couldn’t hear he said, “I stopped at the store today. Just to hear the gossip and say hello to a couple of people I thought might be there. I got in there and a few started asking me about what happened last night. It made it all fresh in my head, every word that was said. Then I remembered Caleb’s comment.”
“Which one?”
“The one about you being … being …”
“Slanty-eyed? He’s not the first one to say it Jude,” I told him not sure where he was going with it.
“No, he wasn’t the first. Someone else said it before they did. You remember who?”
I shrugged and then realized what he meant. “Hennisey? Tell me you didn’t get into a fight over that.”
“Not over that exactly but it did get me to thinking. Then who should show up?”
Cursing fate for delivering the obvious I said, “Hennisey.”
“Yeah. And I swear he was actually shaking people down to move their pass applications along a little quicker. I’d heard he took bribes but I didn’t realize he’d gotten so brazen about it. Then … then the peckerwood asked me, ‘How’s that slanty eyed gal working out?’ and gives a nasty laugh. Maybe I wouldn’t have said anything but some others in there snickered too. I couldn’t let it pass Dovie.”
“Oh yes you could have,” I told him. “What do I care what a bunch of brainless wonders think?” That’s what I said but I will admit I was really embarrassed and offended though trying not to show it.
“Oh no, I could not have. Had I let it pass it would have just kept growing and eventually become a real problem. If people didn’t think I respected you, or that the family respected you, then they wouldn’t either and nothing you could do would change it. As it was some of those men in the store are friends of Dad’s. If I let them laugh and didn’t say anything that would be the same thing as saying Dad was … you know … condoning what they think we’re doing. It would eventually get back to him one way or the other. You know how he is.”
“Oh Jude,” I sighed.
“But most of all is that it might not … I mean … what if I’m not here and one of those men suddenly decided that … that it might just be ok to come up here and see for themselves … how you are.”
That stopped me and made me think, but only for a moment. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to be more careful. I’m already disappointed in folks, this shouldn’t surprise me anymore than what happened last night did.”
“Now that ain’t right Dovie. And that’s what I mean. I couldn’t let it pass.”
“I already told you …”
“I know you did but I just couldn’t.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask but … what did you do?”
I wouldn’t say that Jude danced out the door Thursday morning but I could tell he was loaded for bear with caffeine. After he left I snuck under my bed and pulled out an energy drink and practically chugged it. It tasted disgusting but had the desired effect.
The kids had to make do with oatmeal for breakfast as my motor just refused to fire on all pistons. I was still trying to figure out what I had planned for the day when I heard the wagon creaking into the yard. I stepped out to the porch and saw I wasn’t the only one yawning. Butch, Clewis¸ Faith’s boyfriend who everyone called “Boo,” and Uncle Roe were climbing down and starting to take things out of the back end of the buckboard.”
Feeling stupid I asked, “What’s all this?”
Clewis snorted then asked, “Jude didn’t tell you?”
I sighed. “If he did I was brain drained at the time and didn’t hear it.”
Butch gave an impatient sigh in Clewis’ general direction when he muttered something about it being hard to tell the difference of when I was and wasn’t brain drained before explaining, “The reason why Jude was late last night was because Mr. Schnell’s neighbor had someone put a booby trap in his field and it run a bunch of wire up into the stalk auger before they could get the combine stopped. It was so bad they thought they would have to park the machine and wait until they could afford to have someone from the dealership come out and look at it. Jude started fooling with it and while it took a few hours, managed to clear the auger and even cleared the trailings sieve that was getting messed up.”
Knowing how expensive some of the big farm equipment could be I said, “Bet that man was relieved.”
“Mmm hmmm … and Mr. Schnell too since they use the combine in shares. Mechanical work goes for a good price around here and Mr. Schnell and his neighbor were happy to pay Jude for the work. Jude was going to go pick it up Saturday but Mr. Schnell heard about the ruckus last night and he and his son are down at the house visiting with Dad, using the excuse of delivering things so they could get the news first hand.”
I watched them sit bag upon bag of grain on the porch and then several bushel baskets of potatoes, two of carrots, three big heads of late season cabbage, another bushel of mixed roots with their tops still on, but the most amazing came out of a large picnic basket. “Mrs. Schnell said you should get this down in a cool cellar as soon as possible; that they still needed to age a spell before you use them.”
There were several rounds of hard cheese all waxed and stamped with the Schnell Farm logo and enough butter to fill two butter bells. “Mercy,” I said beneath my breath.
Looking up at Butch who was getting back on Magnolia to follow Clewis, who had turned the wagon and taken off without even giving much more than half a wave, I asked, “Shouldn’t this stuff have stayed down at the house? Jude usually leaves stuff there before he comes back up here.”
“Jude will probably say the same thing but Dad said that this is extra and not part of the agreement he and Jude have to help out the farm. He’ll want Jude to have it. If he stops by the house Dad will tell him, if he doesn’t you’ll have to.”
“Gee. Thanks,” I said imagining how that would probably fly like a lead balloon. Butch gave a half smile reading my mind and agreeing with it before wheeling around with a wave so he could catch up with Clewis.
The kids were peeking from the other end of the porch where they had hidden during the delivery. Paulie would have come out, and the rest of them probably would have if it was only Butch, but Clewis’ uncertain temperament still kept them skittish of his company. I looked at them and said, “Well? Are you going to help me get this in the kitchen are you just going to stand there like a bunch of curious crows?”
It took a lot longer to get everything into the house than it had for Butch and Clewis to deposit it onto the porch. I didn’t move it further than the kitchen because I wanted Jude to see it and to make sure what he wanted me to do with it. The grain stayed right where it was as had it been in fifty pound bags I might have been able to move it but it was in hundred pound grain sacks and there was no way I was hefting that up on my shoulder.
I was beat and the kids seemed content to eat apple and nut butter and crackers for their noonday meal so instead I got started on dinner which would be Cottage Cheese Patties. I had made cottage cheese from the raw milk that Jude had brought home and it needed to be used up before it spoiled since I wouldn’t be able to freeze water for the old antique ice box until the temperature started dropping below freezing at night. I took a cup of cottage cheese and mixed in a cup of bread crumbs (slightly stale as I had found them on the same top shelf of the pantry as the brown sugar), a cup of rolled oats, a couple of scallions chopped fine, two tablespoons of chopped parsley that I got from the herb garden, and then two eggs from those sent up by Uncle Roe. When the mess was well mixed I added some salt and pepper as well.
I took the slightly sticky mess and made it into patties which I then fried up just like I would have a hamburger. When I was finished with that I started on the homemade mushroom soup by chopping up about a half pound of fresh mushrooms from the “forest grocery store” and rinse them real well. In a pan I melted four tablespoons of lard and then added four tablespoons of flour to it, mixing and browning but not letting it burn. To that I added a little minced wild garlic (strong because it was out of season), a little chopped onion, a little chopped parsley and continued to stir til mixed and then added the mushrooms and let it simmer carefully for ten minutes.
When it was simmered all the way through I added some cooked and cubed wild yam, a piece of bay leaf, and a quart and a half of water. As it heated I added a tablespoon of vinegar, a dash of marjoram, and a little salt and pepper. Then I simmered it for a little more than ten minutes.
It was still light but I had heard the first cricket. Jude had said he was only working half a day but I thought something must have happened to make it take longer. I was about to tell the kids to go ahead and wash up when I heard something hit the front porch. Rolling pin in hand I ran that way only to find who I had just been thinking about in a fine snit.
He saw me but didn’t say anything but kept taking his boots off. I knew that look. I had seen it on my dad’s and brothers’ faces enough to know that here was a man that it would be wise to give some space to. I backed up and closed the door quietly and shooed the kids back to the kitchen before they could set off the tinderbox.
Paulie whispered, “What’s wrong with Jude?”
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out. Maybe he just had a bad day at work or something. You know how Dad got sometimes. I think y’all just need to eat and then get scarce until it runs its course.”
I had wanted the supper to be something special even if it was just ordinary food since I had worked hard on it but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I was putting patties on plates with some wilted dandelion greens and friend wild yams – these savory rather than sweet – and giving them a small cup of the mushroom soup when I heard the pump being worked up and down. The kids got real quiet when Jude wrenched the door open and came in. He looked around at the produce sitting around the kitchen and then caught sight of the way the kids were acting. I edged around the table to head him off if he was going to blow up, to make myself a target if need be to keep him from going off at the kids, when he just sort of slumped.
“I’ll eat out on the porch I guess.”
I told him, “Only if you want to or need the quiet.”
“Seems kinda quiet in here,” he muttered.
“You … uh … seem like it’s been a … mmm … a hard day. We thought maybe you would need it.”
“You mean you were worried I’d chew somebody’s head off. I won’t. Already did it.”
Afraid to ask I said, “Clewis?”
“Naw. Hennisey.”
Really worried I said, “But I thought it wasn’t a good idea to get on his bad side. You said …”
“It isn’t a good idea for you.”
“Then … ?”
“Paulie can you keep an eye on things? Tiff you too. I need to talk to Dovie and not all of it is polite talk I want the little kids to hear.”
Paulie looked at Jude cautiously and asked, “You aren’t gonna yell at her are you?”
“Huh?” he asked looking at Paulie and then realizing how it must seem. “Naw. I’m in a foul mood but not at her. OK?”
“Ok Jude.” Paulie would grow out of the hero-worship eventually but it seemed like it was going to take a while. Anything Jude said was fine by Paulie. Once Paulie was satisfied Tiffany nodded as well.
Jude looked me and then jerked his head outside. We stepped off the porch and he started to walk towards the gully. “We won’t go far but I don’t want the kids – any of them – to hear this.”
“Jude, what’s going on?”
“Starting to scare you am I?”
“Not hardly,” I told him with an impatient huff. “But something is going on and you don’t like it which means I probably won’t either. So just spit it out.”
When he deemed us far enough from the house that little ears couldn’t hear he said, “I stopped at the store today. Just to hear the gossip and say hello to a couple of people I thought might be there. I got in there and a few started asking me about what happened last night. It made it all fresh in my head, every word that was said. Then I remembered Caleb’s comment.”
“Which one?”
“The one about you being … being …”
“Slanty-eyed? He’s not the first one to say it Jude,” I told him not sure where he was going with it.
“No, he wasn’t the first. Someone else said it before they did. You remember who?”
I shrugged and then realized what he meant. “Hennisey? Tell me you didn’t get into a fight over that.”
“Not over that exactly but it did get me to thinking. Then who should show up?”
Cursing fate for delivering the obvious I said, “Hennisey.”
“Yeah. And I swear he was actually shaking people down to move their pass applications along a little quicker. I’d heard he took bribes but I didn’t realize he’d gotten so brazen about it. Then … then the peckerwood asked me, ‘How’s that slanty eyed gal working out?’ and gives a nasty laugh. Maybe I wouldn’t have said anything but some others in there snickered too. I couldn’t let it pass Dovie.”
“Oh yes you could have,” I told him. “What do I care what a bunch of brainless wonders think?” That’s what I said but I will admit I was really embarrassed and offended though trying not to show it.
“Oh no, I could not have. Had I let it pass it would have just kept growing and eventually become a real problem. If people didn’t think I respected you, or that the family respected you, then they wouldn’t either and nothing you could do would change it. As it was some of those men in the store are friends of Dad’s. If I let them laugh and didn’t say anything that would be the same thing as saying Dad was … you know … condoning what they think we’re doing. It would eventually get back to him one way or the other. You know how he is.”
“Oh Jude,” I sighed.
“But most of all is that it might not … I mean … what if I’m not here and one of those men suddenly decided that … that it might just be ok to come up here and see for themselves … how you are.”
That stopped me and made me think, but only for a moment. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to be more careful. I’m already disappointed in folks, this shouldn’t surprise me anymore than what happened last night did.”
“Now that ain’t right Dovie. And that’s what I mean. I couldn’t let it pass.”
“I already told you …”
“I know you did but I just couldn’t.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask but … what did you do?”
Chapter XXXIII
“You did what?!!”
“I said I flat out asked him if he had been the one to tell Caleb that you were back in town because he had used the exact same words when he and Jinx tried to attack you.”
“Oh my Lord Jude! Did you get dropped on your head as a baby or were you born this way?!”
“Depends on who you talk to,” he smarted back at me.
“Jude! This isn’t anything to fool around about,” I snapped, worried now that I knew Hennisey was somehow at the root of it.
Jude shook his head. “I swear you sound just like Granny. And no, I refuse to be sorry. Especially not after ol’ Buttface started with ‘you going to have a hard time proving that’ and that as a so-called duly deputized blah-blah-blah that he was thinking about checking into certain rumors.”
Alarmed I asked, “What rumors?!”
“That’s what I asked him. He said that we were rumored to be protecting possible illegals and that it would be a shame if word got to his superiors and that the hypothetical illegals got thrown into the work camp until someone had time to verify the paperwork that might accidentally get lost along the way.”
“He … did … not! I’ll die before I let them put my kids in some kind of camp Jude. I’ll …”
“Ease up Dovie. Ease up,” he said after he realized I was border line panicking. “I told you I wasn’t going to let him get away with what I was beginning to suspect. He’s been looking for a way to get at Dad for a while now because Dad don’t think squat of him and sure as hell … uh, heck … ain’t afraid of him.”
“I will not …”
“Listen to me Dovie. I didn’t mean to send you into a tail spin … just hear me out.” I wasn’t all that calm but I shut up to hear the rest of the bad news. “Ol’ Buttface messed up this time. They might allow as how he was a big man and could shake a few folks down for some perks but some folks started understanding he was talking about something that went way beyond a shake down. Those work camps … they are no place for a female of any age or type; especially not for children. They might be segregated by gender at night but they ain’t separated by much and riots are almost a weekly thing and what happens during those riots from what I hear …”
He petered off and I said, “I’m sure I can guess. That’s why I’ll do everything in my power to keep the kids from it … even if it means dying. And I’m not just playing Jude”
Jude looked at me and said quietly, “I know you’re not.” He reached out to do something but drew his hand back thinking better of it. “That’s when maybe I got stupid. I saw red and after what happened with Caleb and Jinx I was still on edge and would have taken him out by his throat but a bunch of men got between us. We still made a little bit of a mess in the store and somebody must have gone to tattle to the local commander’s office … who just happens to be Buttface’s boss. The man himself came over because he’d just been across the street at the fuel depot. We got escorted to his office and we had to give statements. They took statements at the store too because of the position Buttface has … and people were allowed to give them anonymously.”
“Oh Jude …”
“It’ll be all right Dovie.” He sighed then swallowed. “Thing is Commander Blankenship is a fair man … but more than a little hard too. We were there a couple of hours and enough evidence came against Buttface that he’s been relieved of duty. He’s also got about two hundred community service hours he is going to have to serve at the commander’s pleasure for abusing his power. He may face criminal charges if some of the statements that were given are proven to be true. He didn’t let me go scott-free either because I was going to fight Buttface while he was still carrying his badge … causing a public ruckus basically with a side of don’t-embarrass-this-office-again-boy.”
“Oh Jude.”
“You keep saying that like it’s going to change the way I am,” he said in a huff.
“I don’t want you to be anyone other than yourself. What I don’t want is for yourself to get into so much trouble over me. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
His ruff went back down. “Wellll … if it was just me I wouldn’t feel so bad. But they want you …”
“Me what?” I asked in alarm all over again.
“I have to go give the commander five hours community service at the fuel depot; I’ll probably be working on fixin’ pumps. But you gotta come with me.”
“What do I know about pumps? I … I suppose I could hand you tools and stuff.”
“Not for that. You … uh …” He stopped and sighed. “Dad has done tore a strip off of me so if you are going to do it be gentle if you please ‘cause I’m tender in spots.” My heart was beating so hard it hurt. “You gotta bring your papers and any papers you have for the kids. The Commander wants to see them personally and hear your story. I’m … I’m sorry Dovie. I didn’t mean to … to …”
“This man have a lot of power Jude?”
“He’s appointed by the governor’s office but also has the seal of approval from the military and DHS. So yeah, he’s got power. And he ain’t sloppy about wielding it either. Like I said, I suppose he is fair for a man in his position when he doesn’t really have to be … but he’s not someone you cross either.”
I swallowed. “When?”
“Saturday.”
“Well, I guess that gives me a day to get all the papers together. Do … do you think someone would … would look after the kids?”
“Of course … wait … you ain’t meaning permanently?”
“I have to plan for that Jude,” I said starting to really get agitated. “I didn’t let myself on the road, at least not much, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But … but …”
“Now you listen here, I’m not going to let …”
I put a hand over his mouth to stop him. He jumped like he’d been stung. Quietly I told him, “We don’t always get what we want in life. Things … things happen. To … to people. We …”
I was crying without really meaning to. I suppose I was scared but it was also the idea that Jude and all of them would try and protect me and if it was bad I couldn’t let them. Jude always melted when Aunt Frankie or his sisters started up the waterworks and he did the same thing with me. He was patting my back and saying, “Nothing bad is going to happen Dovie. I won’t let it. Dad won’t let it. Butch won’t let it. Not even Clewis would just stand by and let you disappear like that.”
I swiped at the offending tears that didn’t seem to understand that I had vowed not to let anyone see me cry ever again. “Don’t make promises like that Jude. I know you’d … you’d try; all of you would. But … but I’m sure Dad and Jack and Jay didn’t mean to die and leave Mom and us alone. I’m sure Mom didn’t mean to … to let go the way she did. I know she didn’t mean to die and leave us even more alone. But they did; they all did. And I don’t blame them for it, but it makes me understand that there are some promises or intentions you just don’t get allowed to keep no matter how much you want to. I can’t let you all put everyone else at risk like that. If … if it looks like it is going bad, just the only promise I want is that someone will be there for the kids and keep them all together.”
Jude refused to even entertain the thought. “It’s gonna be all right Dovie. You’ll see.”
“You did what?!!”
“I said I flat out asked him if he had been the one to tell Caleb that you were back in town because he had used the exact same words when he and Jinx tried to attack you.”
“Oh my Lord Jude! Did you get dropped on your head as a baby or were you born this way?!”
“Depends on who you talk to,” he smarted back at me.
“Jude! This isn’t anything to fool around about,” I snapped, worried now that I knew Hennisey was somehow at the root of it.
Jude shook his head. “I swear you sound just like Granny. And no, I refuse to be sorry. Especially not after ol’ Buttface started with ‘you going to have a hard time proving that’ and that as a so-called duly deputized blah-blah-blah that he was thinking about checking into certain rumors.”
Alarmed I asked, “What rumors?!”
“That’s what I asked him. He said that we were rumored to be protecting possible illegals and that it would be a shame if word got to his superiors and that the hypothetical illegals got thrown into the work camp until someone had time to verify the paperwork that might accidentally get lost along the way.”
“He … did … not! I’ll die before I let them put my kids in some kind of camp Jude. I’ll …”
“Ease up Dovie. Ease up,” he said after he realized I was border line panicking. “I told you I wasn’t going to let him get away with what I was beginning to suspect. He’s been looking for a way to get at Dad for a while now because Dad don’t think squat of him and sure as hell … uh, heck … ain’t afraid of him.”
“I will not …”
“Listen to me Dovie. I didn’t mean to send you into a tail spin … just hear me out.” I wasn’t all that calm but I shut up to hear the rest of the bad news. “Ol’ Buttface messed up this time. They might allow as how he was a big man and could shake a few folks down for some perks but some folks started understanding he was talking about something that went way beyond a shake down. Those work camps … they are no place for a female of any age or type; especially not for children. They might be segregated by gender at night but they ain’t separated by much and riots are almost a weekly thing and what happens during those riots from what I hear …”
He petered off and I said, “I’m sure I can guess. That’s why I’ll do everything in my power to keep the kids from it … even if it means dying. And I’m not just playing Jude”
Jude looked at me and said quietly, “I know you’re not.” He reached out to do something but drew his hand back thinking better of it. “That’s when maybe I got stupid. I saw red and after what happened with Caleb and Jinx I was still on edge and would have taken him out by his throat but a bunch of men got between us. We still made a little bit of a mess in the store and somebody must have gone to tattle to the local commander’s office … who just happens to be Buttface’s boss. The man himself came over because he’d just been across the street at the fuel depot. We got escorted to his office and we had to give statements. They took statements at the store too because of the position Buttface has … and people were allowed to give them anonymously.”
“Oh Jude …”
“It’ll be all right Dovie.” He sighed then swallowed. “Thing is Commander Blankenship is a fair man … but more than a little hard too. We were there a couple of hours and enough evidence came against Buttface that he’s been relieved of duty. He’s also got about two hundred community service hours he is going to have to serve at the commander’s pleasure for abusing his power. He may face criminal charges if some of the statements that were given are proven to be true. He didn’t let me go scott-free either because I was going to fight Buttface while he was still carrying his badge … causing a public ruckus basically with a side of don’t-embarrass-this-office-again-boy.”
“Oh Jude.”
“You keep saying that like it’s going to change the way I am,” he said in a huff.
“I don’t want you to be anyone other than yourself. What I don’t want is for yourself to get into so much trouble over me. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
His ruff went back down. “Wellll … if it was just me I wouldn’t feel so bad. But they want you …”
“Me what?” I asked in alarm all over again.
“I have to go give the commander five hours community service at the fuel depot; I’ll probably be working on fixin’ pumps. But you gotta come with me.”
“What do I know about pumps? I … I suppose I could hand you tools and stuff.”
“Not for that. You … uh …” He stopped and sighed. “Dad has done tore a strip off of me so if you are going to do it be gentle if you please ‘cause I’m tender in spots.” My heart was beating so hard it hurt. “You gotta bring your papers and any papers you have for the kids. The Commander wants to see them personally and hear your story. I’m … I’m sorry Dovie. I didn’t mean to … to …”
“This man have a lot of power Jude?”
“He’s appointed by the governor’s office but also has the seal of approval from the military and DHS. So yeah, he’s got power. And he ain’t sloppy about wielding it either. Like I said, I suppose he is fair for a man in his position when he doesn’t really have to be … but he’s not someone you cross either.”
I swallowed. “When?”
“Saturday.”
“Well, I guess that gives me a day to get all the papers together. Do … do you think someone would … would look after the kids?”
“Of course … wait … you ain’t meaning permanently?”
“I have to plan for that Jude,” I said starting to really get agitated. “I didn’t let myself on the road, at least not much, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But … but …”
“Now you listen here, I’m not going to let …”
I put a hand over his mouth to stop him. He jumped like he’d been stung. Quietly I told him, “We don’t always get what we want in life. Things … things happen. To … to people. We …”
I was crying without really meaning to. I suppose I was scared but it was also the idea that Jude and all of them would try and protect me and if it was bad I couldn’t let them. Jude always melted when Aunt Frankie or his sisters started up the waterworks and he did the same thing with me. He was patting my back and saying, “Nothing bad is going to happen Dovie. I won’t let it. Dad won’t let it. Butch won’t let it. Not even Clewis would just stand by and let you disappear like that.”
I swiped at the offending tears that didn’t seem to understand that I had vowed not to let anyone see me cry ever again. “Don’t make promises like that Jude. I know you’d … you’d try; all of you would. But … but I’m sure Dad and Jack and Jay didn’t mean to die and leave Mom and us alone. I’m sure Mom didn’t mean to … to let go the way she did. I know she didn’t mean to die and leave us even more alone. But they did; they all did. And I don’t blame them for it, but it makes me understand that there are some promises or intentions you just don’t get allowed to keep no matter how much you want to. I can’t let you all put everyone else at risk like that. If … if it looks like it is going bad, just the only promise I want is that someone will be there for the kids and keep them all together.”
Jude refused to even entertain the thought. “It’s gonna be all right Dovie. You’ll see.”
Chapter XXXIV
Trying to explain what I had to do to Paulie and Tiffany and the other kids was not fun. Paulie and Tiff had an idea of what could happen. Bobby nearly came unglued that I’d be further away than someplace he could run to. The others only grasped that this was something out of the ordinary and that it could be bad.
“Jude won’t let anything happen,” Paulie said forcefully.
“Paulie … don’t put that kind of pressure on Jude. It’s not fair.”
“He won’t,” he still insisted.
I let it go because the more I tried to reason with them the more upset they became. Sometimes little kids just have to believe what they need to believe. Friday morning Jude regretfully said, “I gotta still go work at Carlson’s. I’m not much in the mood to listen to him but I made a contract – verbal but still a man’s gotta keep his word – and I don’t like to break my word.”
Handing him a nosebag I said, “I know you don’t. While you’re gone what do you want me to do with all of your stuff?” I looked a little helplessly at the produce that still littered the kitchen.
“Ain’t mine … did it to feed the kids so do with it what you need to. Dad wouldn’t take the feed either, the hard head, so I’ll have to find some kind of barrel to put it in for storage or we’ll have mice and squirrels all over the place. Now I gotta go but I’ll take care of the feed tonight, just have Paulie keep an eye on it through the day, maybe cover it if it looks like it is going to rain.”
“Ok.” As he walked away I said, “Will you ask up at the house if someone will … will …”
“Dovie, nothing is going to happen.” But he sighed and said, “I’ll ask River. I know her and Butch want kids but she’s never been around them much until she moved here with him and all she’s had are those hellions of my sisters. Maybe if she compares those to this bunch it will give her a chance to fix her mind on it one way or the other.”
I nodded then added, “Tell Uncle Roe …”
He turned and started walking again while saying, “I ain’t in the mood to talk to him right now.”
“Oh Jude.”
He sighed again and turned around and told me, “Don’t start that again. This ain’t the first time Dad has ripped a strip off me but it’s one of the few I didn’t deserve. It’ll be fine, I’m just not ready to kiss and make up.”
“We don’t always get another chance,” I told him sadly.
He didn’t take kindly to the reminder and stomped away.
I went back to the house and the rest of the morning felt like a funeral. I tried not to show worry to the kids but they couldn’t help but see it. Every step I took whether I was putting stuff in the root cellar, canning, or anything else it was like trying to wade through hungry puppies. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without little eyes peeping under the door asking what I was doing.
I can’t even remember what we ate at the noonday meal. About three o’clock Jude came back and he was driving the wagon and at first it looked like there was a patch work quilt in the back but then he got closer I realized it was full of melons and colorful winter squash … and up on the front seat with Jude was a large pumpkin.
“Who wants to help me with this thing?” he asked the kids in a big jovial voice. They blinked at him for a couple of minutes and then ran for the wagon. I just shook my head thinking of pedestals and heroes.
I walked over and didn’t know what to say. He looked at me and his smile faltered a bit. “I’m worse that a bear with a sore head when Dad and I are on the outs.”
“Is it better now?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Dad insisted on riding to Carlson’s with me and we talked it out. Worked a few things out too. Mom’s back – got in this morning nearly at daybreak – escaping from her sister and brother’s place from what she said. I don’t think her visit was good for her or Reynolds either. Her nerves are shot and Reynolds is as wild as he has been for a while … until Rochelle made him drink what he calls his tea. I don’t know if it is really doing something or is a what-a-ya-call-it … a placebo … but he calmed right down and then sat and played with my sisters’ kids like nothing was wrong. Rochelle said she is going to keep Mom and Reynolds at the house tomorrow. River is going to come up here and watch the kids and Butch is going to come up here and watch her and move some of the stuff out of their smokehouse into this one as they had to put down a hog that broke its leg so it will go into theirs.”
“Not Crystal?”
He cleared his throat. “Seems she and Clewis are … uh … not seeing eye to eye on a couple of things and Dad thinks it better if they don’t carry it to the kids if they are already upset.”
I nodded in relief. “Ok.”
“Uh … look, about me being sour …”
“You explained it and I can’t blame you.”
“Soooo … you and me, we’re not fighting?”
I looked around. “I don’t see any fighting. What about you?”
He gave a small grin in relief then turned to Paulie who had asked, “Which ones do we take inside Jude?”
“The ones that are X’d with a red grease pencil. All the rest I’m taking back down to the main house so they can have the wagon back. And don’t squash my bag Monkey, I’ve got a surprise in there for Dovie.”
“Better not be another snake,” I muttered.
“Nope, it is green but it’s not a snake.” At my still distrustful look he tried to look innocent and said, “Tomatoes.”
Being as it was a completely unexpected answer I squeaked, “What?!”
He gave me a huge grin. “I remembered how much you like fried green tomatoes when I saw Carlson’s wife just throw a bunch of plants in their gully because the trunk of the plants got broke off when their dogs got loose and started fighting in the garden.”
“And she just threw them away?” I asked thinking the woman must be crazy or wasteful or both.
“I know. If Carlson had known he would have been fit to be tied, the old skinflint. But maybe that’s why she did it. She can be like that just to get back at him for pinching pennies. They can be bad nasty to each other and still smile like nothing is wrong. I got as many out as I could. Some of ‘em are bruised but not as many as I expected.”
I left one melon upstairs but everything else went down into the basement. The wagon still looked full when Jude turned it to take it back down to the main house. I was putting things away while the kids ate supper when Jude came back.
“Come up and eat supper Dovie; I’m hungry.”
“Then eat.”
“I’m not playin’ Dovie.”
I turned to look to see what he wasn’t playin’ at and realized he meant he wanted me to come upstairs and eat. “I’m not hungry Jude.”
“I know you’re not but you’re gonna eat anyway even if I have to feed it to you. At the very least you’ll eat some of that melon you cut up for dessert.”
“Jude …”
“Don’t make me boss you Dovie.”
I snorted. “Isn’t that what you’re doing already?”
“No … not really.”
I heaved a sigh and went to eat if for no other reason than I got the feeling that Jude would be just muleheaded enough to refuse to eat unless I did.
I put a piece of melon on a plate and then sighed in exasperation when Jude put two more on top of it. “That’s enough,” I told him meaning more than just what the words said.
“Depends on whether you eat that or pick at it,” he responded right back with the same undercurrent of meaning as I had.
Almost in the mood to be spiteful and sit there staring at him I instead decided to try and not cause yet another brangle and save my energy for what I knew would be coming tomorrow.
Jude made me almost rethink my choice when he said, “Saints be praised, the girl is eating.”
“Enough Jude. I’m sitting. I’m eating. Now stuff you own face and be quiet,” I snapped.
“That was the plan all along.” After we’d been eating silently for a couple of minutes Jude asked quietly, “They been doing that all day?”
I turned to look and see what he was talking about and five heads disappeared from around the edge of the door and then Corey got pulled backwards and then I heard feet rushing up the stairwell. Sighing I turned back around and told him, “Yeah. They’re upset. We haven’t been apart in … in months and months.”
“But it is only going to be for part of a day and you need to tell them that.”
“I’m not going to say it and have it be a lie Jude.”
“It’s not going to be a lie.”
“It could be and I won’t take the risk.”
He shook his head. “It’s not going to be a lie Dovie. And either way sometimes a lie is better than the truth. Tell them it’s going to be ok at least.”
“I’ve already told them that.”
“But they can sense you don’t believe it.”
Closing my eyes for a minute and trying to hold in the acid belch that threatened to rise up I finally said, “I’m trying to Jude. There just hasn’t been a lot of … of reason to believe in good stuff for a while.”
“You’re here aren’t you? You got them kids you wanted haven’t you?”
I blinked at him in surprise. He was one of the last people I would have ever expected to be lecturing on the art of believing the glass was half full. He snorted, “I know. I’m one to talk right? But this time even I can see it. Don’t let the long, hard rough patch you went through start making you automatically think your whole life is going to stay like that. It took me getting sober before I could see that for myself. You ain’t a drunk or addict so you don’t have an excuse. And what happened to all that church believing you have? Think it only works when things are going good?”
That made me stop and think. I tried to let go of the bad feelings but I could still feel them pressing in from all sides. “Jude … I’m … I’m scared. Not for me, I kinda don’t feel anything for me right now. But what if I can prove who I am and that I belong but then they …” It felt like something huge and heavy was sitting on my chest. Quietly I leaned over and whispered, “What if they take the kids away?”
“That ain’t gonna happen Dovie. They don’t have any place to take them to.”
“Child and Family will …”
“Won’t do squat. One of the few good things to come out of martial law around here is that the jackasses in the county got their fangs pulled. You might have to provide some type of educational plan but then again maybe not. They still haven’t gotten the school system back up and running when it got shut down because of the virus. They just don’t have any place to take the kids to and provide them with anything. Even if they say something I doubt they’ll do anything.” Some of me was relieved but I wasn’t going to take it as a fact until I knew for sure.
Jude helped me to wrangle the kids to bed with a story of him and Jack and Jay’s first hunting trip; they had been as close to a serious fuss as I’d ever had to deal with because I told them they couldn’t come to my appointment with me. After they were actually asleep he said, “You need a story to get you to sleep?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got stories already.”
“That why you’re so quiet?”
“Just thinking.”
“Don’t do that. You’ll start worrying again.”
I looked at him and admitted, “Haven’t really stopped … just stopped acting like I was.”
“Well that ain’t helpful.”
“It let the kids think what they wanted to so it was helpful,” I contradicted.
“OK, so what are you thinking?”
I looked at him to see if he really wanted to know. I saw that he really thought he did anyway. “About some of the things I saw on the road.”
“What kind of things?”
I shrugged, “The kinds of things you wished you never had. You know I can’t even count the number of DBs – that’s what we called dead bodies – that I saw? It was awful.”
He looked alarmed. “Hey … pick something else to think about.”
“I wish I could. I just keep seeing all of these faces … or what used to be faces after nature got through with them … staring at me. I keep seeing and hearing the people that died in the medical facilities, how freaked out even the upper muckety muck doctors and staff were. I remember what was left of Uncle James and how I had to … to bend him … it … to fit in the hole that I dug. I remember the nasty look in the eyes of the woman that gave me Mom’s ashes. I just can’t get away from it Jude. It’s never been like this before. It feels like I’m being attacked. It won’t stop.”
He got up and came to sit close beside me on the sofa and whispered, “It gets like that when I need a drink real bad Dovie. It seems like it won’t ever stop but I’ve learned that if I fight it eventually does. You just gotta believe that it will stop and it will.”
I was shaking in a way I never had … not even when I had shot and killed those men which for some reason wasn’t part of the bad stuff coming at me. That in itself bothered me making me wonder what kind of person I was.
Trying to explain what I had to do to Paulie and Tiffany and the other kids was not fun. Paulie and Tiff had an idea of what could happen. Bobby nearly came unglued that I’d be further away than someplace he could run to. The others only grasped that this was something out of the ordinary and that it could be bad.
“Jude won’t let anything happen,” Paulie said forcefully.
“Paulie … don’t put that kind of pressure on Jude. It’s not fair.”
“He won’t,” he still insisted.
I let it go because the more I tried to reason with them the more upset they became. Sometimes little kids just have to believe what they need to believe. Friday morning Jude regretfully said, “I gotta still go work at Carlson’s. I’m not much in the mood to listen to him but I made a contract – verbal but still a man’s gotta keep his word – and I don’t like to break my word.”
Handing him a nosebag I said, “I know you don’t. While you’re gone what do you want me to do with all of your stuff?” I looked a little helplessly at the produce that still littered the kitchen.
“Ain’t mine … did it to feed the kids so do with it what you need to. Dad wouldn’t take the feed either, the hard head, so I’ll have to find some kind of barrel to put it in for storage or we’ll have mice and squirrels all over the place. Now I gotta go but I’ll take care of the feed tonight, just have Paulie keep an eye on it through the day, maybe cover it if it looks like it is going to rain.”
“Ok.” As he walked away I said, “Will you ask up at the house if someone will … will …”
“Dovie, nothing is going to happen.” But he sighed and said, “I’ll ask River. I know her and Butch want kids but she’s never been around them much until she moved here with him and all she’s had are those hellions of my sisters. Maybe if she compares those to this bunch it will give her a chance to fix her mind on it one way or the other.”
I nodded then added, “Tell Uncle Roe …”
He turned and started walking again while saying, “I ain’t in the mood to talk to him right now.”
“Oh Jude.”
He sighed again and turned around and told me, “Don’t start that again. This ain’t the first time Dad has ripped a strip off me but it’s one of the few I didn’t deserve. It’ll be fine, I’m just not ready to kiss and make up.”
“We don’t always get another chance,” I told him sadly.
He didn’t take kindly to the reminder and stomped away.
I went back to the house and the rest of the morning felt like a funeral. I tried not to show worry to the kids but they couldn’t help but see it. Every step I took whether I was putting stuff in the root cellar, canning, or anything else it was like trying to wade through hungry puppies. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without little eyes peeping under the door asking what I was doing.
I can’t even remember what we ate at the noonday meal. About three o’clock Jude came back and he was driving the wagon and at first it looked like there was a patch work quilt in the back but then he got closer I realized it was full of melons and colorful winter squash … and up on the front seat with Jude was a large pumpkin.
“Who wants to help me with this thing?” he asked the kids in a big jovial voice. They blinked at him for a couple of minutes and then ran for the wagon. I just shook my head thinking of pedestals and heroes.
I walked over and didn’t know what to say. He looked at me and his smile faltered a bit. “I’m worse that a bear with a sore head when Dad and I are on the outs.”
“Is it better now?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Dad insisted on riding to Carlson’s with me and we talked it out. Worked a few things out too. Mom’s back – got in this morning nearly at daybreak – escaping from her sister and brother’s place from what she said. I don’t think her visit was good for her or Reynolds either. Her nerves are shot and Reynolds is as wild as he has been for a while … until Rochelle made him drink what he calls his tea. I don’t know if it is really doing something or is a what-a-ya-call-it … a placebo … but he calmed right down and then sat and played with my sisters’ kids like nothing was wrong. Rochelle said she is going to keep Mom and Reynolds at the house tomorrow. River is going to come up here and watch the kids and Butch is going to come up here and watch her and move some of the stuff out of their smokehouse into this one as they had to put down a hog that broke its leg so it will go into theirs.”
“Not Crystal?”
He cleared his throat. “Seems she and Clewis are … uh … not seeing eye to eye on a couple of things and Dad thinks it better if they don’t carry it to the kids if they are already upset.”
I nodded in relief. “Ok.”
“Uh … look, about me being sour …”
“You explained it and I can’t blame you.”
“Soooo … you and me, we’re not fighting?”
I looked around. “I don’t see any fighting. What about you?”
He gave a small grin in relief then turned to Paulie who had asked, “Which ones do we take inside Jude?”
“The ones that are X’d with a red grease pencil. All the rest I’m taking back down to the main house so they can have the wagon back. And don’t squash my bag Monkey, I’ve got a surprise in there for Dovie.”
“Better not be another snake,” I muttered.
“Nope, it is green but it’s not a snake.” At my still distrustful look he tried to look innocent and said, “Tomatoes.”
Being as it was a completely unexpected answer I squeaked, “What?!”
He gave me a huge grin. “I remembered how much you like fried green tomatoes when I saw Carlson’s wife just throw a bunch of plants in their gully because the trunk of the plants got broke off when their dogs got loose and started fighting in the garden.”
“And she just threw them away?” I asked thinking the woman must be crazy or wasteful or both.
“I know. If Carlson had known he would have been fit to be tied, the old skinflint. But maybe that’s why she did it. She can be like that just to get back at him for pinching pennies. They can be bad nasty to each other and still smile like nothing is wrong. I got as many out as I could. Some of ‘em are bruised but not as many as I expected.”
I left one melon upstairs but everything else went down into the basement. The wagon still looked full when Jude turned it to take it back down to the main house. I was putting things away while the kids ate supper when Jude came back.
“Come up and eat supper Dovie; I’m hungry.”
“Then eat.”
“I’m not playin’ Dovie.”
I turned to look to see what he wasn’t playin’ at and realized he meant he wanted me to come upstairs and eat. “I’m not hungry Jude.”
“I know you’re not but you’re gonna eat anyway even if I have to feed it to you. At the very least you’ll eat some of that melon you cut up for dessert.”
“Jude …”
“Don’t make me boss you Dovie.”
I snorted. “Isn’t that what you’re doing already?”
“No … not really.”
I heaved a sigh and went to eat if for no other reason than I got the feeling that Jude would be just muleheaded enough to refuse to eat unless I did.
I put a piece of melon on a plate and then sighed in exasperation when Jude put two more on top of it. “That’s enough,” I told him meaning more than just what the words said.
“Depends on whether you eat that or pick at it,” he responded right back with the same undercurrent of meaning as I had.
Almost in the mood to be spiteful and sit there staring at him I instead decided to try and not cause yet another brangle and save my energy for what I knew would be coming tomorrow.
Jude made me almost rethink my choice when he said, “Saints be praised, the girl is eating.”
“Enough Jude. I’m sitting. I’m eating. Now stuff you own face and be quiet,” I snapped.
“That was the plan all along.” After we’d been eating silently for a couple of minutes Jude asked quietly, “They been doing that all day?”
I turned to look and see what he was talking about and five heads disappeared from around the edge of the door and then Corey got pulled backwards and then I heard feet rushing up the stairwell. Sighing I turned back around and told him, “Yeah. They’re upset. We haven’t been apart in … in months and months.”
“But it is only going to be for part of a day and you need to tell them that.”
“I’m not going to say it and have it be a lie Jude.”
“It’s not going to be a lie.”
“It could be and I won’t take the risk.”
He shook his head. “It’s not going to be a lie Dovie. And either way sometimes a lie is better than the truth. Tell them it’s going to be ok at least.”
“I’ve already told them that.”
“But they can sense you don’t believe it.”
Closing my eyes for a minute and trying to hold in the acid belch that threatened to rise up I finally said, “I’m trying to Jude. There just hasn’t been a lot of … of reason to believe in good stuff for a while.”
“You’re here aren’t you? You got them kids you wanted haven’t you?”
I blinked at him in surprise. He was one of the last people I would have ever expected to be lecturing on the art of believing the glass was half full. He snorted, “I know. I’m one to talk right? But this time even I can see it. Don’t let the long, hard rough patch you went through start making you automatically think your whole life is going to stay like that. It took me getting sober before I could see that for myself. You ain’t a drunk or addict so you don’t have an excuse. And what happened to all that church believing you have? Think it only works when things are going good?”
That made me stop and think. I tried to let go of the bad feelings but I could still feel them pressing in from all sides. “Jude … I’m … I’m scared. Not for me, I kinda don’t feel anything for me right now. But what if I can prove who I am and that I belong but then they …” It felt like something huge and heavy was sitting on my chest. Quietly I leaned over and whispered, “What if they take the kids away?”
“That ain’t gonna happen Dovie. They don’t have any place to take them to.”
“Child and Family will …”
“Won’t do squat. One of the few good things to come out of martial law around here is that the jackasses in the county got their fangs pulled. You might have to provide some type of educational plan but then again maybe not. They still haven’t gotten the school system back up and running when it got shut down because of the virus. They just don’t have any place to take the kids to and provide them with anything. Even if they say something I doubt they’ll do anything.” Some of me was relieved but I wasn’t going to take it as a fact until I knew for sure.
Jude helped me to wrangle the kids to bed with a story of him and Jack and Jay’s first hunting trip; they had been as close to a serious fuss as I’d ever had to deal with because I told them they couldn’t come to my appointment with me. After they were actually asleep he said, “You need a story to get you to sleep?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got stories already.”
“That why you’re so quiet?”
“Just thinking.”
“Don’t do that. You’ll start worrying again.”
I looked at him and admitted, “Haven’t really stopped … just stopped acting like I was.”
“Well that ain’t helpful.”
“It let the kids think what they wanted to so it was helpful,” I contradicted.
“OK, so what are you thinking?”
I looked at him to see if he really wanted to know. I saw that he really thought he did anyway. “About some of the things I saw on the road.”
“What kind of things?”
I shrugged, “The kinds of things you wished you never had. You know I can’t even count the number of DBs – that’s what we called dead bodies – that I saw? It was awful.”
He looked alarmed. “Hey … pick something else to think about.”
“I wish I could. I just keep seeing all of these faces … or what used to be faces after nature got through with them … staring at me. I keep seeing and hearing the people that died in the medical facilities, how freaked out even the upper muckety muck doctors and staff were. I remember what was left of Uncle James and how I had to … to bend him … it … to fit in the hole that I dug. I remember the nasty look in the eyes of the woman that gave me Mom’s ashes. I just can’t get away from it Jude. It’s never been like this before. It feels like I’m being attacked. It won’t stop.”
He got up and came to sit close beside me on the sofa and whispered, “It gets like that when I need a drink real bad Dovie. It seems like it won’t ever stop but I’ve learned that if I fight it eventually does. You just gotta believe that it will stop and it will.”
I was shaking in a way I never had … not even when I had shot and killed those men which for some reason wasn’t part of the bad stuff coming at me. That in itself bothered me making me wonder what kind of person I was.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I could just keep reading and reading lol, thank you.
223shootersc
Veteran Member
thanks for the chapters, good stuff
Catshooter
Contributing Member
Damn girl, you are one smooth writter. I've read alot of your work and it's like a fine wine: better and better with experience. Oh no, that's supposed to be age, isn't it? 
Thanks for your hard work.
Cat
Thanks for your hard work.
Cat
Chapter XXXV
“What in Sam Hill are you doing Boy?”
“Trying to figure out how to get me, Dovie, and that box of papers onto Grits so we can get going.”
“You do it by hitching that fool horse to the little wagon.”
Jude shook his head. “Clewis needs the wagon to move hay.”
“Clewis can use the sled and like it. Now hurry up Boy before things get in a worse fix.”
It was still dark and so was Uncle Roe’s mood. I stayed out of the way in the corner until Jude was finished and then watched a strange thing. Jude bent down and picked up the file box of records that I was taking and as he walked by Uncle Roe silently reached out and stopped him, gripped his stiff shoulder and then patted it twice before saying, “Things will be all right. No need to worry.” He sniffed and nodded twice almost as if he was talking to himself.
Almost like it was dance steps Jude hefted the box into the wagon and then turned and gave Uncle Roe a quick one armed hug and said, “Yes sir. From your lips to God’s ears. It’ll be just fine.”
The two men looked at each other, nodded, then beckoned me over. Not sure of my reception as Uncle Roe was not fond of being put in a position to worry I sidled over and made to go climb in the wagon without a word. Before I could I was enveloped in a big hug and admonished to mind my p’s and q’s and follow Jude’s directions. All I did was whisper a quiet, “Yes sir.”
“It’ll be ok Sister.”
“That’s what Jude keeps telling me.”
Uncle Roe nodded and then wiped his nose on his bandana before clapping the side of the wagon which seemed to be Jude’s signal to pull out.
We were going down the road slowly due to the fact the sun seemed to be lagging behind times. I turned to Jude and said, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For … you know … Uncle Roe being … being …”
“Sour as an ex-girlfriend’s glare?”
The simile gave me pause but I answered, “Uh … Yeah, pretty much.”
Jude sighed. “That’s not your fault. Not mine either for that matter. Mom came back from her sister’s place in a foul mood. It’ll take a couple of days for her to get her fidgets out. Her sister married money and normally when she goes she’s treated real good but this time apparently they treated her more like a hired hand and expected her to do a lot of stuff their ‘staff’ used to do for them … the ones they had to let go because they couldn’t pay them. Uncle Martin’s practice is in the toilet and he thought he was a shoe in for a position out at the hospital where they are sending home soldiers that need psychiatric help but they said he wasn’t qualified and didn’t have the training to treat battle fatigue and the like … or so Wendalene whispered to me while you were telling River and Butch about the kids.”
“I … uh … didn’t see Clewis or Crystal this morning.”
“Nope. Clewis built them a little camp off on the other side of the tractor barn.”
Surprised I said, “Crystal likes camping? She doesn’t seem the type.”
“What type is that?” he asked and then ignored his own question. “Actually they were real adventurous before they settled down in Dakota for a while so Clewis could earn more money for more adventuring. Butch got him a job on his crew and River got Crystal a job at a local private school. They had it good for a while, were real happy according to Butch and River, now … not so much.”
“Where’s Crystal’s family? Is that what is pinching at her?”
“She’s from upstate New York and as I understand it she was raised by a couple of old maid aunts that passed her first year in college. If she has other family she ain’t ever been interested in talking about them.”
“Weird. Clewis hasn’t ever said anything?”
“If he has it ain’t to me. In case you didn’t notice we don’t exactly go outta our way to spend time with one another.”
I shrugged. “You both have reason to feel the way you do.”
“Hey … you on my side or his?”
“Neither, I’m on mine,” I said bumping into him on purpose to take the sting out of what was actually the truth. “You both were a couple of stinkers and you know it. You just had the misfortune of getting caught more often than Clewis did. Butch covered for him a lot more than he should have, or so said my father.”
He gave a surprised bark of laughter. “I take it that was likely said during a lecture to Jack and Jay.”
“Why however did you guess?”
He gave another laugh and we were both companionably silent, ignoring what we were sent to face, until the sun came up and I could see that we were getting close to the area that was close to the checkpoint. He turned to me and asked, “You brought your picture IDs?”
“Of course I did. Do I look stupid?” I heard how it came out and flinched. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“Don’t be. You’re just nervous. Just take it easy, do as they tell you and everything will be all right. I won’t let it be anything else than that.”
“Jude …”
“Just listen Dovie. If … if it looks like there might be trouble, you do what you have to do to get to me at the fuel depot. That’s right next door to the Commander’s office building. That’s all you need to know.”
“Jude …”
“I mean it Dovie. Just do as I tell you. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I didn’t know what kind of heroics he was planning but I wasn’t going to let him go through with it. There wasn’t time to argue about it however as people started materializing everywhere and we had to wait in line to get through the checkpoint and then show our IDs and then got an escort because of what our business was.
They told Jude where he could park the wagon and corral Grits but there was a woman there to escort me away before he finished. “Wait! I was going to take her over there,” he said surprised.
“You’re going to be late for your community service. For every five minutes late they’ll tack on an extra hour.”
Getting more nervous by the second I told him, “Jude, just get over there. It’s already my fault you have five hours, don’t let them make it more.”
“But …”
The woman said, “She’ll be fine Mr. Killarney. If you finish before she does you can wait for her in the annex wing. If she finishes she will wait there for you.”
“Dovie, you remember what I said?”
“Yes Jude, do as I’m told and everything will be OK.”
The woman was growing impatient so I took the file box from Jude and turned to follow her. My arms were shaking by the time I was escorted down a long hall and told to sit at a table; the box was heavy.
About fifteen long minutes later a man walked in and sat down in front of me. He looked me over but didn’t say anything. I knew that game and kept my mouth shut. Then another man walked in, this one looked nicer only I knew if this was the game I thought it was he was actually the nastier of the two.”
“Welcome to the District Commander’s Office Miss Doherty,” he said beaming.
I told him, “Thank you.”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“Yes sir.”
He just looked at me and then was forced to say, “And that is?”
“Mr. Hennisey, the man from the checkpoint where I came in at, made some threats against me and my kids and did some lying to try and scare my cousin – Jude Killarney – into forgetting what these guys that had attacked my Uncle Roe’s farm had said because it was the exact same words that Mr. Hennisey had said to me a couple of times. Jude … he’s real protective … didn’t care for Mr. Hennisey’s threats and insinuations and would have gotten into a fight with him only some other men there in the store stopped them both from brawling. The Commander got involved because some other people said some things that showed Mr. Hennisey had been taking advantage of his position but because of the things that got said I was asked to come in and verify that I wasn’t doing fraud or something like that.”
The two men looked at each but didn’t say anything. I asked, “Did I say too much?”
The one playing the “good cop” gave me a sincere but fake smile and said, “Oh no, not at all. We did ask you.”
“Yes sir but Jude already got in trouble because he caused a ruckus trying to protect me and my kids. I just don’t want to make it worse.”
“And just what were the comments that Mr. Hennisey is alleged to have made that … er … caused your cousin concern?”
“Well it started off with the slanty-eyed comment.”
“Uh … slanty-eyed?”
I shrugged. “I’ve got a mirror. It’s not like people haven’t said it before. After the news people got ahold of some facts about the virus people said some prejudice stuff. It is just a plain fact that I can’t deny that I’m a throw back.”
I had used the throw-everything-and-nothing-at-them-when-they-ask routine with the medical staff when they started to get nasty. They usually wound up with the same cautiously confused look the two men were starting to wear. “A throwback?”
“Yes sir. My great great great grandmother was Hawaiian.”
The “bad cop” asked roughly, “Do you really expect us to believe that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t but I brought the family Bible just in case.” I stood up and took the large, antique book out of the file box and opened it to the front where old cribbed up writing filled almost every page there. I also took out the photo album that Jack and Jay had made for one of their Boy Scout merit badges. “Ok, see this first page? That’s the marriage license of my great great great grandparents. They were married by the captain of the ship my great great great grandfather signed on to. He was a red-headed Irishman named O’Daugherty and she was an orphan whose parents had died in the leper colony and was working as a maid for one of the hotels on the island. They had a little boy – that would be my great great grandfather – but she got sick right after that and died. My great great great grandfather took his son and immigrated to the US and changed his name first to O’Doherty and then his son changed it to just plain Doherty. Here’s the pictures that go with the names. All the Doherty men in my family since then are either red headed, auburn or strawberry blondes … I’m the first girl born into the family for a two generations and somehow or other I got stuck not only with the dark Hawaiian looks but the blasted Irish freckles on top of it and it’s a bad combination that has caused me endless grief. I used to live in Florida and I had to wear a hat and 50 spf sunblock all the time … not because I burn but because of the freckle factor.”
I looked up and the two men were just sort of staring at me like they’d been hit in the face with a pie. “Uh … sorry. Did I not answer your question?”
The “good cop” forgot which one he was supposed to be and snapped, “And just how does Killarney come into it?”
“That’s my mother’s maiden name. I’ve got that over here and …”
The other guy said, “No! No, that’s … that’s all right. Let’s stick to this generation. We need to see your birth certificate and any other documentation you have that can prove your identity.”
“Let’s see … driver’s license, passport, shot records from the military …”
“You were not in the military,” they both said.
“Of course I wasn’t. Dad was. So were both my big brothers.”
“What branch?” one of them asked, scribbling for dear life.
“Dad was in the Air Force. Jack and Jay were in the Army and Navy but they’re all gone now.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “All three were killed in the first weeks of the war. And before you ask where and what unit they were in at the time I don’t know because when they sent their papers in when they gave us back their bodies it was all blacked out. That’s part of the reason why Mom never got the benefits that were due her and why we left Tampa, moved around a couple of times and then wound up in Phoenix which is where she caught the virus. Paulie … that’s my little brother … and I are both Double Negatives.”
I pulled up my sleeve and said, “If you have one of those reader thingies I’m chipped and it should give you everything you need to know.”
They both got up quickly at that and left. I sat there for another thirty minutes looking at the family Bible and then two new people came in; one was a woman and the other was the Commander if the tag on his shirt front was to be believed. I saw that the woman had a chip reader in her hand so I automatically stuck my arm out and told her, “You’ll have to press down a little because they attached it to the bone.”
The woman gave me a prune face and said, “That is a non-standard placement.”
I shrugged. “Too many adults and older teens kept digging them out and crushing them and the medical staff got hacked off so they started gluing it to bone. They glued it to the skull area behind the ear for trouble makers, the rest of us just had it done to our arms. You still get a reading, you just need to hold it still and …” She was still giving me prune face. “You want me to show you?” I asked helpfully.
I really don’t think she expected to find anything but when I put my hand on hers to show her how hard she needed to push the ding of a connect made her jump. “You … you were in the Phoenix facility,” she stuttered when the number came up.
“Yep.” I was beginning to think the woman was dense. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
She turned to look at the man who then introduced himself. “I’m Commander Blankenship.”
“How do you do,” I told him politely like my parents raised me to. Then I turned to the woman and told her, “You can stop pressing now that you’ve got a connect. Just push that little button there and …”
She flared her nostrils but didn’t say anything. At least she stopped pressing before she left an imprint. She stuck the USB plug from the reader into a laptop and after a couple of minutes it started making more noise that a hen with hemorrhoids trying to lay an egg. I leaned over trying to see what was on the screen but she turned it so I couldn’t. Then she turned it so that the Commander could.
He looked at it a moment, nodded, and said, “That will be all. Send in Mr. Billings.”
The woman didn’t look happy at being dismissed but the Commander didn’t give off the aura of someone that you told no to unless that was the answer he was looking for.
“What in Sam Hill are you doing Boy?”
“Trying to figure out how to get me, Dovie, and that box of papers onto Grits so we can get going.”
“You do it by hitching that fool horse to the little wagon.”
Jude shook his head. “Clewis needs the wagon to move hay.”
“Clewis can use the sled and like it. Now hurry up Boy before things get in a worse fix.”
It was still dark and so was Uncle Roe’s mood. I stayed out of the way in the corner until Jude was finished and then watched a strange thing. Jude bent down and picked up the file box of records that I was taking and as he walked by Uncle Roe silently reached out and stopped him, gripped his stiff shoulder and then patted it twice before saying, “Things will be all right. No need to worry.” He sniffed and nodded twice almost as if he was talking to himself.
Almost like it was dance steps Jude hefted the box into the wagon and then turned and gave Uncle Roe a quick one armed hug and said, “Yes sir. From your lips to God’s ears. It’ll be just fine.”
The two men looked at each other, nodded, then beckoned me over. Not sure of my reception as Uncle Roe was not fond of being put in a position to worry I sidled over and made to go climb in the wagon without a word. Before I could I was enveloped in a big hug and admonished to mind my p’s and q’s and follow Jude’s directions. All I did was whisper a quiet, “Yes sir.”
“It’ll be ok Sister.”
“That’s what Jude keeps telling me.”
Uncle Roe nodded and then wiped his nose on his bandana before clapping the side of the wagon which seemed to be Jude’s signal to pull out.
We were going down the road slowly due to the fact the sun seemed to be lagging behind times. I turned to Jude and said, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For … you know … Uncle Roe being … being …”
“Sour as an ex-girlfriend’s glare?”
The simile gave me pause but I answered, “Uh … Yeah, pretty much.”
Jude sighed. “That’s not your fault. Not mine either for that matter. Mom came back from her sister’s place in a foul mood. It’ll take a couple of days for her to get her fidgets out. Her sister married money and normally when she goes she’s treated real good but this time apparently they treated her more like a hired hand and expected her to do a lot of stuff their ‘staff’ used to do for them … the ones they had to let go because they couldn’t pay them. Uncle Martin’s practice is in the toilet and he thought he was a shoe in for a position out at the hospital where they are sending home soldiers that need psychiatric help but they said he wasn’t qualified and didn’t have the training to treat battle fatigue and the like … or so Wendalene whispered to me while you were telling River and Butch about the kids.”
“I … uh … didn’t see Clewis or Crystal this morning.”
“Nope. Clewis built them a little camp off on the other side of the tractor barn.”
Surprised I said, “Crystal likes camping? She doesn’t seem the type.”
“What type is that?” he asked and then ignored his own question. “Actually they were real adventurous before they settled down in Dakota for a while so Clewis could earn more money for more adventuring. Butch got him a job on his crew and River got Crystal a job at a local private school. They had it good for a while, were real happy according to Butch and River, now … not so much.”
“Where’s Crystal’s family? Is that what is pinching at her?”
“She’s from upstate New York and as I understand it she was raised by a couple of old maid aunts that passed her first year in college. If she has other family she ain’t ever been interested in talking about them.”
“Weird. Clewis hasn’t ever said anything?”
“If he has it ain’t to me. In case you didn’t notice we don’t exactly go outta our way to spend time with one another.”
I shrugged. “You both have reason to feel the way you do.”
“Hey … you on my side or his?”
“Neither, I’m on mine,” I said bumping into him on purpose to take the sting out of what was actually the truth. “You both were a couple of stinkers and you know it. You just had the misfortune of getting caught more often than Clewis did. Butch covered for him a lot more than he should have, or so said my father.”
He gave a surprised bark of laughter. “I take it that was likely said during a lecture to Jack and Jay.”
“Why however did you guess?”
He gave another laugh and we were both companionably silent, ignoring what we were sent to face, until the sun came up and I could see that we were getting close to the area that was close to the checkpoint. He turned to me and asked, “You brought your picture IDs?”
“Of course I did. Do I look stupid?” I heard how it came out and flinched. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“Don’t be. You’re just nervous. Just take it easy, do as they tell you and everything will be all right. I won’t let it be anything else than that.”
“Jude …”
“Just listen Dovie. If … if it looks like there might be trouble, you do what you have to do to get to me at the fuel depot. That’s right next door to the Commander’s office building. That’s all you need to know.”
“Jude …”
“I mean it Dovie. Just do as I tell you. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I didn’t know what kind of heroics he was planning but I wasn’t going to let him go through with it. There wasn’t time to argue about it however as people started materializing everywhere and we had to wait in line to get through the checkpoint and then show our IDs and then got an escort because of what our business was.
They told Jude where he could park the wagon and corral Grits but there was a woman there to escort me away before he finished. “Wait! I was going to take her over there,” he said surprised.
“You’re going to be late for your community service. For every five minutes late they’ll tack on an extra hour.”
Getting more nervous by the second I told him, “Jude, just get over there. It’s already my fault you have five hours, don’t let them make it more.”
“But …”
The woman said, “She’ll be fine Mr. Killarney. If you finish before she does you can wait for her in the annex wing. If she finishes she will wait there for you.”
“Dovie, you remember what I said?”
“Yes Jude, do as I’m told and everything will be OK.”
The woman was growing impatient so I took the file box from Jude and turned to follow her. My arms were shaking by the time I was escorted down a long hall and told to sit at a table; the box was heavy.
About fifteen long minutes later a man walked in and sat down in front of me. He looked me over but didn’t say anything. I knew that game and kept my mouth shut. Then another man walked in, this one looked nicer only I knew if this was the game I thought it was he was actually the nastier of the two.”
“Welcome to the District Commander’s Office Miss Doherty,” he said beaming.
I told him, “Thank you.”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“Yes sir.”
He just looked at me and then was forced to say, “And that is?”
“Mr. Hennisey, the man from the checkpoint where I came in at, made some threats against me and my kids and did some lying to try and scare my cousin – Jude Killarney – into forgetting what these guys that had attacked my Uncle Roe’s farm had said because it was the exact same words that Mr. Hennisey had said to me a couple of times. Jude … he’s real protective … didn’t care for Mr. Hennisey’s threats and insinuations and would have gotten into a fight with him only some other men there in the store stopped them both from brawling. The Commander got involved because some other people said some things that showed Mr. Hennisey had been taking advantage of his position but because of the things that got said I was asked to come in and verify that I wasn’t doing fraud or something like that.”
The two men looked at each but didn’t say anything. I asked, “Did I say too much?”
The one playing the “good cop” gave me a sincere but fake smile and said, “Oh no, not at all. We did ask you.”
“Yes sir but Jude already got in trouble because he caused a ruckus trying to protect me and my kids. I just don’t want to make it worse.”
“And just what were the comments that Mr. Hennisey is alleged to have made that … er … caused your cousin concern?”
“Well it started off with the slanty-eyed comment.”
“Uh … slanty-eyed?”
I shrugged. “I’ve got a mirror. It’s not like people haven’t said it before. After the news people got ahold of some facts about the virus people said some prejudice stuff. It is just a plain fact that I can’t deny that I’m a throw back.”
I had used the throw-everything-and-nothing-at-them-when-they-ask routine with the medical staff when they started to get nasty. They usually wound up with the same cautiously confused look the two men were starting to wear. “A throwback?”
“Yes sir. My great great great grandmother was Hawaiian.”
The “bad cop” asked roughly, “Do you really expect us to believe that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t but I brought the family Bible just in case.” I stood up and took the large, antique book out of the file box and opened it to the front where old cribbed up writing filled almost every page there. I also took out the photo album that Jack and Jay had made for one of their Boy Scout merit badges. “Ok, see this first page? That’s the marriage license of my great great great grandparents. They were married by the captain of the ship my great great great grandfather signed on to. He was a red-headed Irishman named O’Daugherty and she was an orphan whose parents had died in the leper colony and was working as a maid for one of the hotels on the island. They had a little boy – that would be my great great grandfather – but she got sick right after that and died. My great great great grandfather took his son and immigrated to the US and changed his name first to O’Doherty and then his son changed it to just plain Doherty. Here’s the pictures that go with the names. All the Doherty men in my family since then are either red headed, auburn or strawberry blondes … I’m the first girl born into the family for a two generations and somehow or other I got stuck not only with the dark Hawaiian looks but the blasted Irish freckles on top of it and it’s a bad combination that has caused me endless grief. I used to live in Florida and I had to wear a hat and 50 spf sunblock all the time … not because I burn but because of the freckle factor.”
I looked up and the two men were just sort of staring at me like they’d been hit in the face with a pie. “Uh … sorry. Did I not answer your question?”
The “good cop” forgot which one he was supposed to be and snapped, “And just how does Killarney come into it?”
“That’s my mother’s maiden name. I’ve got that over here and …”
The other guy said, “No! No, that’s … that’s all right. Let’s stick to this generation. We need to see your birth certificate and any other documentation you have that can prove your identity.”
“Let’s see … driver’s license, passport, shot records from the military …”
“You were not in the military,” they both said.
“Of course I wasn’t. Dad was. So were both my big brothers.”
“What branch?” one of them asked, scribbling for dear life.
“Dad was in the Air Force. Jack and Jay were in the Army and Navy but they’re all gone now.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “All three were killed in the first weeks of the war. And before you ask where and what unit they were in at the time I don’t know because when they sent their papers in when they gave us back their bodies it was all blacked out. That’s part of the reason why Mom never got the benefits that were due her and why we left Tampa, moved around a couple of times and then wound up in Phoenix which is where she caught the virus. Paulie … that’s my little brother … and I are both Double Negatives.”
I pulled up my sleeve and said, “If you have one of those reader thingies I’m chipped and it should give you everything you need to know.”
They both got up quickly at that and left. I sat there for another thirty minutes looking at the family Bible and then two new people came in; one was a woman and the other was the Commander if the tag on his shirt front was to be believed. I saw that the woman had a chip reader in her hand so I automatically stuck my arm out and told her, “You’ll have to press down a little because they attached it to the bone.”
The woman gave me a prune face and said, “That is a non-standard placement.”
I shrugged. “Too many adults and older teens kept digging them out and crushing them and the medical staff got hacked off so they started gluing it to bone. They glued it to the skull area behind the ear for trouble makers, the rest of us just had it done to our arms. You still get a reading, you just need to hold it still and …” She was still giving me prune face. “You want me to show you?” I asked helpfully.
I really don’t think she expected to find anything but when I put my hand on hers to show her how hard she needed to push the ding of a connect made her jump. “You … you were in the Phoenix facility,” she stuttered when the number came up.
“Yep.” I was beginning to think the woman was dense. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
She turned to look at the man who then introduced himself. “I’m Commander Blankenship.”
“How do you do,” I told him politely like my parents raised me to. Then I turned to the woman and told her, “You can stop pressing now that you’ve got a connect. Just push that little button there and …”
She flared her nostrils but didn’t say anything. At least she stopped pressing before she left an imprint. She stuck the USB plug from the reader into a laptop and after a couple of minutes it started making more noise that a hen with hemorrhoids trying to lay an egg. I leaned over trying to see what was on the screen but she turned it so I couldn’t. Then she turned it so that the Commander could.
He looked at it a moment, nodded, and said, “That will be all. Send in Mr. Billings.”
The woman didn’t look happy at being dismissed but the Commander didn’t give off the aura of someone that you told no to unless that was the answer he was looking for.
Chapter XXXVI
A short, roundish man came in and from the way his body quivered I could tell he used to be a lot more roundish than he was at that moment. The Commander nodded but it was Mr. Billings who talked. “Well Miss Doherty … or do you prefer Miz?” he asked with a smile he must have thought was funny cute.
“Miss is fine sir,” I told him.
“Well Miss Doherty, it appears everything is in order. I had quite a time tracking all of your paperwork last night I tell you. I haven’t had such an interesting assignment in quite some time. It is so novel when people actually tell the truth.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that so I kept my mouth shut but I was beginning to get hopeful. “Now what I need you to do is stand against that white wall over there so I can get a recent picture – the one on your passport is too out of date and you were under sixteen at the time anyway – and we’ll get you an ID.”
“You … you mean …” I stopped and swallowed. “Is … is everything ok now?”
“Why yes it is. Did you not understand that this was all just a formality? Now come along, I want to get this filed properly. I cannot stand to have all the loose ends that I’ve had to tie up going through your file.”
I moved over to the wall as directed. “I have a file?” At the same time I was thinking that for a formality they had sure seemed to prize scaring the bejeebers out of me and actually hadn’t stopped.
“Why yes. Everyone in the protected zones has a file. One was started on you as soon as you crossed into this part of the state from Arkansas. I then connected you into the checkpoints in Arizona, Idaho, and Colorado. There was a gap of information between there and your entry into Tennessee but based on your statements at the state line I believe I’ve filled that gap adequately. Your file is a little larger than most of those in this area but, like I said, I like nice and tidy ends.”
“Why is mine … uh … larger?”
“Well, I like to be thorough and had to really dig but I attached your medical files both from your father’s time in the military and your time in the various quarantine and medical facilities. Old school records as well that were part of the national education system.” Tapping on the laptop that was still on the table faster than I’ve ever seen a human type he frowned and then smiled. “There we are, all set.” He attached another device to the laptop and then out of the new device several cards were spit out. “All right then, first off, this is your new ID. You must carry it on your person at all times. Hmmm. You did say that all of the children were under the age of twelve did you not?”
“Uh … I don’t … I mean … I didn’t say anything about that here.”
“No, not here,” he said impatiently. “When you came into the protection zone.”
Knowing I was caught I said, “They’re all ten and under.”
“Even better. At thirteen they would need a picture ID of their own but these will suffice. However, if you have other papers for them I would not get rid of them.”
“Er … yes sir. I mean I won’t sir.”
“Very good. Now sign for all of these.” I placed my signature where he told me to but my hand was shaking so bad I was afraid my handwriting looked like a first grader’s. “Now, I have two other cards here; one for you and one for your younger brother, Paulson Doherty. These will allow you access once per month into a special branch of the Exchange. You will be the primary cardholder, your brother’s is merely one that will allow him to enter since he is under age. I’ve loaded yours with this month’s benefits as well as the benefits that would have been due to you up to this point; however, due to rationing you will only be able to use a portion of what is on the card. Every six months you will also be put on a list that will allow you to purchase from the Bx.”
Not quite willing to believe what I was being told I asked, “What’s the difference between the two?”
“Good question. The Bx is primarily clothing and footwear. The Exchange is more like a grocery store.”
I had to remember to shut my mouth but my eyes still felt like they were about to fall out and roll around on the floor like a dropped coin. Mr. Billings, his business finished to his liking, packed up and left. The Commander remained and I looked at him.
Knowing people called commander didn’t just stand around for no reason I asked, “Am I still in some kind of trouble?”
“No. However, I would like for you to deliver a piece of advice to Mr. Killarney.” At my nod he said, “While I appreciate how … unusual … the circumstances are in this situation it would be unwise were I to need to see him in my office any time in the near future.”
I gulped and nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Good. You may leave.” I knew an order when I heard it. I shoved the ID cards in my pocket, tossed all of my papers and such in the file box, and got out of there while the getting was good.
A short, roundish man came in and from the way his body quivered I could tell he used to be a lot more roundish than he was at that moment. The Commander nodded but it was Mr. Billings who talked. “Well Miss Doherty … or do you prefer Miz?” he asked with a smile he must have thought was funny cute.
“Miss is fine sir,” I told him.
“Well Miss Doherty, it appears everything is in order. I had quite a time tracking all of your paperwork last night I tell you. I haven’t had such an interesting assignment in quite some time. It is so novel when people actually tell the truth.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that so I kept my mouth shut but I was beginning to get hopeful. “Now what I need you to do is stand against that white wall over there so I can get a recent picture – the one on your passport is too out of date and you were under sixteen at the time anyway – and we’ll get you an ID.”
“You … you mean …” I stopped and swallowed. “Is … is everything ok now?”
“Why yes it is. Did you not understand that this was all just a formality? Now come along, I want to get this filed properly. I cannot stand to have all the loose ends that I’ve had to tie up going through your file.”
I moved over to the wall as directed. “I have a file?” At the same time I was thinking that for a formality they had sure seemed to prize scaring the bejeebers out of me and actually hadn’t stopped.
“Why yes. Everyone in the protected zones has a file. One was started on you as soon as you crossed into this part of the state from Arkansas. I then connected you into the checkpoints in Arizona, Idaho, and Colorado. There was a gap of information between there and your entry into Tennessee but based on your statements at the state line I believe I’ve filled that gap adequately. Your file is a little larger than most of those in this area but, like I said, I like nice and tidy ends.”
“Why is mine … uh … larger?”
“Well, I like to be thorough and had to really dig but I attached your medical files both from your father’s time in the military and your time in the various quarantine and medical facilities. Old school records as well that were part of the national education system.” Tapping on the laptop that was still on the table faster than I’ve ever seen a human type he frowned and then smiled. “There we are, all set.” He attached another device to the laptop and then out of the new device several cards were spit out. “All right then, first off, this is your new ID. You must carry it on your person at all times. Hmmm. You did say that all of the children were under the age of twelve did you not?”
“Uh … I don’t … I mean … I didn’t say anything about that here.”
“No, not here,” he said impatiently. “When you came into the protection zone.”
Knowing I was caught I said, “They’re all ten and under.”
“Even better. At thirteen they would need a picture ID of their own but these will suffice. However, if you have other papers for them I would not get rid of them.”
“Er … yes sir. I mean I won’t sir.”
“Very good. Now sign for all of these.” I placed my signature where he told me to but my hand was shaking so bad I was afraid my handwriting looked like a first grader’s. “Now, I have two other cards here; one for you and one for your younger brother, Paulson Doherty. These will allow you access once per month into a special branch of the Exchange. You will be the primary cardholder, your brother’s is merely one that will allow him to enter since he is under age. I’ve loaded yours with this month’s benefits as well as the benefits that would have been due to you up to this point; however, due to rationing you will only be able to use a portion of what is on the card. Every six months you will also be put on a list that will allow you to purchase from the Bx.”
Not quite willing to believe what I was being told I asked, “What’s the difference between the two?”
“Good question. The Bx is primarily clothing and footwear. The Exchange is more like a grocery store.”
I had to remember to shut my mouth but my eyes still felt like they were about to fall out and roll around on the floor like a dropped coin. Mr. Billings, his business finished to his liking, packed up and left. The Commander remained and I looked at him.
Knowing people called commander didn’t just stand around for no reason I asked, “Am I still in some kind of trouble?”
“No. However, I would like for you to deliver a piece of advice to Mr. Killarney.” At my nod he said, “While I appreciate how … unusual … the circumstances are in this situation it would be unwise were I to need to see him in my office any time in the near future.”
I gulped and nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Good. You may leave.” I knew an order when I heard it. I shoved the ID cards in my pocket, tossed all of my papers and such in the file box, and got out of there while the getting was good.
Chapter XXXVII
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed but I knew it was too early for Jude to be off work so I asked a man behind one of those glass windows like they used to have at the pharmacies, “Excuse me, could you please tell me where the annex waiting room is? I’m supposed to wait for my cousin there.” I got turned around twice until I figured out what the colored stripes on the floor were for. If he had just told me to follow the blue line I wouldn’t have gotten lost and embarrassed by running into a man in a hospital gown getting a shot … well, you can just guess where as I noticed right off the gown wasn’t tied in the back.
When I finally found where I was supposed to be I realized it must be some type of public area because there were people piled up all over the place. They all had numbers and when their number was called they jumped up and hit the call window like they’d won the lottery; reminded me an awful lot of the DMV and waiting to be called to get my driver’s license. A seat in the back of the room finally came open and I took it gratefully and sat with my box in my lap. To give myself something to do besides wonder what on earth they needed a file on every person in the Protection Zones, I pulled out the IDs and looked them over.
They were pretty ordinary although they did have one of those embedded magnetic strips that were supposed to be fraud proof. Mine were the only ones with a picture. I was turning it over to get a good look at everything when the lady beside me said, “Are you here for the sale as well?”
“Uh …”
Another woman said, “Look at the card, it looks hot off the presses. I bet you’ve never even used it.”
“Um …”
A third, more kindly woman asked, “Did you just get it?”
That one I could answer in one syllable or less. “Yes.”
The first woman asked, “Are you here alone?”
“I’m waiting for my cousin to get off work. They told him to meet me here.”
“Well, let me tell you how it works. You take that card – and your cousin – and you go around back of this building. They only let about a dozen or so people in at a time so you’ll likely have to wait in a fairly long line. But I’d still go today as they are having a really good sale and it will be another month until they open again. So long as you have the points you can fill a push cart full.”
The women all nodded like this was a really big deal.
“It isn’t normally like that?”
“Oh no, almost never. First time in the six months since my husband was stationed here.”
One of the women said knowledgeably, “Last one was nine months ago.”
Another woman leaned over to enter the conversation and said, “That long? Really? I hadn’t realized but I guess you’re right.” She turned to me and said, “Usually they give you a tote bag and you are only allowed to use that but they’ve been clearing up the beneficiary rosters and the role has really dropped, at least around here; so much so that they need to rotate things before they go out of date because you know what happens then.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry I don’t.”
They all looked at me like I must have been living under a rock. “They have to donate it. Even the chocolate and coffee which are really good items to …” The woman looked around and whispered, “They make great items to barter for things on the black market.” She winked at me like it was a big secret that she was imparting.
Ignoring her wink I said, “And that donating is a bad thing.”
“It means less for us!” One of the other woman said, raising her voice a little too much so that the others winced and tried to hush her. “It is bad enough that they aren’t excusing beneficiaries from paying taxes but then they take food away from us and give it to people that don’t have to pay any taxes … or anything else for that matter. It just makes me sick. I have to work and scrimp and save just to keep food on the table for my kids while my husband is off fighting God only knows where, and I’ve had to take my brother’s kids in too because his wife ran off and he’s off flying helicopters, and it is an outrage that those … those … people … they don’t have to do anything but make some noise and the government is right there giving them everything they want.”
Her words were making the other women uncomfortable but then the lady’s number was called and she left so that the rest of them relaxed. Suddenly one of them got a real knowing look on her face and said, “She better turn her volume down or those kids aren’t going to have anyone to look after them.”
The other women all nodded in agreement while another said, “I’ve heard some stories I tell you. While some people might be able to get away with that most others can’t and I’m sure you know what I mean.”
One by one the women left as their numbers were called and others took their place but no one else seemed interested in striking up a conversation. I looked up as the door opened for the eleventy-dozenth time and there was Jude looking around anxiously. I stood up and nearly ran to him … would have if there wasn’t such a danger of tripping over so many feet in the aisle between the chairs. He took the box from me and got me out of the door and then asked, “How did it go? Are you ok?”
I was fumbling in my pocket and then showed him the IDs. “And … and guess what Jude … guess what?!”
“What?” he asked, a little alarmed at how hyper I was getting.
“Look!” I showed him the benefits card and he nearly dropped the box on our feet.
He asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
I laughed. “Here,” I said and tried to hand it to him.
He backed up and my smile drooped. He shook his head and told me, “That’s yours.”
“Oh. But … but some ladies in there said there is a sale today and that the last one like it was nine months ago. They said the store is behind this building and that we should go.”
Still cautious he told me, “Well that explains all the people coming to the fuel depot with gas cans. They must have bought fuel cards at the Exchange.”
“Yes!” I said startling him with my excitement. “That’s what those ladies called it.”
He agreed to walk with me around to the back of the building and I was surprised there were only a few people in line. Feeling a little disturbed I muttered, “They said there would be a long line. I wonder if they were yanking my chain about everything else too.”
The man in front of us said, “About the sale?” At my nod he said, “Oh it’s real, just most people have already come and gone. The line this morning was down to the other end of the building and around the corner.”
Jude stretched his neck and looked and then said, “Which is why we didn’t see it from our end.” He looked at me and then said, “I’ll walk you up to the front and then wait for you to come out. You’ll need someone to watch this box anyway.”
“But …”
“I don’t have one of those cards Dovie; they aren’t going to let me in.”
Disappointed I stood silently beside him; I also was concerned that I would somehow blow an opportunity by not knowing what I was doing. It was only a couple of minutes later that I was at the front of the line. I handed the man there my ID and he said, “You’re only sixteen. You have to have someone twenty-one or older go in with you.”
I grabbed Jude’s arm but he said, “Dovie I told you I don’t have a benefits card.”
“If you are acting as her chaperone you don’t need one. You’ll have to sign here and wear this badge while in the store and then return it here. You can put your box over there.” He pointed to a couple of tables that had lots of other personal items on it. “No heavy coats, no baggy pants, no purses or bags allowed inside. They’ll provide you with paper bags to carry your items home in if you didn’t bring your own; it will get deducted from your card.”
Soon enough, despite the grumbling of the people behind us, we were walking through the doors of the Exchange. I’m not sure if it was a disappointment or not. The place was slightly run down in appearance and the shelves had big empty gaps all over the place. The shelves themselves could have used a serious dusting and the acoustic ceiling tiles had obvious water stains where the roof had leaked at some point.
A cart was thrust at me by an impatient looking clerk and we were told brusquely not to hold the line up. I was nearly frozen in place but one look at Jude’s face and it reminded me of the look he’d worn at the church picnic and I was very glad he was there; he was working out a battle plan. “C’mon.” He led me in one spin around the entire store and then asked, “You trust me?”
Without hesitation I answered, “Sure.”
“OK, I checked your card with that machine and you’ve got enough points to make Midas jealous but you won’t be able to use them all for a long time, if ever, with the way this looks set up. Since we don’t know if there will be anything here next month or how much you’ll be able to get I say we fill this cart like a jigsaw puzzle and get everything we … I mean you … can. You with me so far?” All I could do was nod and follow his lead. “Don’t take anything that we can get for ourselves. I wouldn’t do any of the meats, vegetables or grains. Some of the off-season fruit maybe. Don’t do the sugar because Boo is getting a huge payment in molasses for helping this guy rebuild his grandfather’s sorghum mill and we’ll get a share of it just like I’m giving them a share of whatever I bring in from working. I know you might be tempted to get candy for the kids but I’m going to stand against it. There are too many of ‘em – not just yours but you’d have to add in Reynolds and my nephews and nieces – and it wouldn’t be worth it this time around.” He looked to see if I was going to argue the point and when I didn’t he nodded. “Now what kinda other things do you know you need.”
“Soap,” was the first word out of my mouth because the stuff that I had scavenged from the rest stops was running out.
“Nope. I can barter with the Mennonites for that.”
“Toilet paper.”
“Nope, waste of money. We’ve still got all those telephone books, magazines, and catalogs if we need them.”
Feeling frustrated and racking my brains I said slowly, “Vinegar and … and a couple of other seasonings like whole mustard seed. Salt too.”
“Vinegar and salt are good ideas. I don’t know squat about seasonings so I’ll leave that up to you. What about kotex or feminine pads?”
I have no idea why I was so immediately outraged. “Jude!”
“What?!” he said moving to avoid the slap on the arm that I almost gave him.
“That’s … that’s women’s stuff,” I said in a hissing whisper.
“Yeah, and?” I could feel myself turning red from the top of my head to the bottom of my
feet. Not even Jack – who loved to embarrass the living daylights out of me – would have talked about that particular topic so boldly. He asked again, “So do you need them or not? If you don’t I know the women up at the house probably do … all of ‘em except Mom and Crystal anyway. They’ve both had hysterectomies.”
He just kept blathering on and I could have dropped him with a sledge hammer like he was a watermelon right there. He reached over on a shelf and started putting feminine products in the cart, fitting them in like Legos, until I slapped his hands away. “Just … just go. Go … I don’t know … get a gallon or two of the vinegar.”
“Well make sure you get enough of those things,” he said pointing. “With all you females needing them it can’t be too comfortable to run out. We’ll put something heavy on top of them to squish them down if we have to.”
I swear I could have just died. All the women in the store were snickering and all the men were looking at him like he had sprouted a great big boogery horn in the middle of his forehead. I had filled one corner of the cart with feminine stuff but when he came back he rearranged them, added two more large packages, then set a heavy bag of salt and five gallons of vinegar on top of them to “squish them down.”
“Ok, what else?”
I was really tempted to tell him a ticket to the insane asylum for himself but instead stopped and looked over the spices. Pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, whole cloves, garlic and whole mustard seed were the only things available that appealed to my idea of what a necessity might be … until I saw the pickling salt and pickling spices. Then I spotted the baking soda, baking powder, and jars of yeast.
I didn’t look at the cart, just handed the stuff off to Jude who wedged it in where it would fit. Jude reached over my head and plucked down a couple of big boxes of powdered milk then asked, “Mind if I put in some of these razors for the girls? It might sweeten their disposition some.”
“Be my guest. I’ve got the straight razor and it works fine … at least when my hand doesn’t slip. After what Uncle Roe has done for me I’ll do anything for him and his.”
“Yeah, well … you just go easy on that idea. Dad would never take advantage of you but Rochelle and Wendalene might take you up on it and you’ll never get done ‘doing’ for them.”
Next I threw in cornstarch and unflavored gelatin and then I saw the rennet tablets and put in a bunch of boxes of that. I almost cleared the shelf of toothbrushes we needed so many but I didn’t get any toothpaste because I could make homemade tooth powder sans the fluoride which had had a tendency to freak Mom out over its potential danger for little kids who swallowed it rather than spit it out.
We were at the fruit section and canned fruit cocktail and maraschino cherries tempted me but I stuck to canned pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, and some fresh lemons and limes that I planned to preserve the old fashioned way. I threw in a bag of dried banana chips as well as another one of dried fruit bits. I got two large bottles of lemon juice, added a third, handed back a large can of olive oil, grabbed a bunch of little cans of tomato paste, and then looked to find Jude trying to quickly rearrange things in the cart yet again. “It’s full,” I said in regret watching him juggle trying to make it all work out right.
He said, “Not quite it’s not; if I could just get these stupid things to stop rolling away from where I put them. Let’s take one more turn and see if we can squeeze anything else in.” He found a dusty box of waterproof matches pushed way back on the top shelf, a box of borax, a small jug of bleach, and a long thin box of heavy duty aluminum foil and another of plastic wrap to fill the few remaining, oddly-shaped spaces.
When we got in line we were one of only three carts that didn’t have to back up and rearrange our cart so that nothing stood above the top edge per the rules of the sale before being allowed to proceed to the registers. More than a few people were trying to argue that a full cart was one piled as high as you could get it so long as nothing fell off but that wasn’t flying with the security people. I didn’t look at the total, didn’t care, since I didn’t assume that I’d be coming back and would need the points we were spending then. I treated it as a one off that was more like finding Pirate Jim’s treasure than something I’d be able to count on on a regular basis.
Jude however did and he got cross-eyed and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe … maybe you should get something for the kids. And you didn’t get anything for yourself. I can put back …”
I ignored him, as did the cashier in relief, and handed over my benefits card. We pushed the cart over to a table where we had to fit all of our purchases into paper grocery bags and cardboard boxes stacked there for that purpose; and then we went out and I waited while Jude ran to get Grits and the wagon after turning in his chaperone badge. I was just starting to get a little edgy – there were some people protesting or something against the Exchange – when Jude came back.
“I’ll put these in. You get your box. Let’s get out of here. There’s some kind of ruckus up the street.”
“Which reminds me …” and I proceeded to tell him what the Commander had told me.
He snorted. “Like I needed someone to explain that; I’m not an idiot. Once in that man’s office was enough thank you very much. Here, up you go.”
He helped me onto the wagon seat – the people behind him were getting a little impatient for us to get out of their way so they could do their own loading – and we slowly turned the wagon and got on the road to the checkpoint and then out of town as quickly as traffic would allow us.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed but I knew it was too early for Jude to be off work so I asked a man behind one of those glass windows like they used to have at the pharmacies, “Excuse me, could you please tell me where the annex waiting room is? I’m supposed to wait for my cousin there.” I got turned around twice until I figured out what the colored stripes on the floor were for. If he had just told me to follow the blue line I wouldn’t have gotten lost and embarrassed by running into a man in a hospital gown getting a shot … well, you can just guess where as I noticed right off the gown wasn’t tied in the back.
When I finally found where I was supposed to be I realized it must be some type of public area because there were people piled up all over the place. They all had numbers and when their number was called they jumped up and hit the call window like they’d won the lottery; reminded me an awful lot of the DMV and waiting to be called to get my driver’s license. A seat in the back of the room finally came open and I took it gratefully and sat with my box in my lap. To give myself something to do besides wonder what on earth they needed a file on every person in the Protection Zones, I pulled out the IDs and looked them over.
They were pretty ordinary although they did have one of those embedded magnetic strips that were supposed to be fraud proof. Mine were the only ones with a picture. I was turning it over to get a good look at everything when the lady beside me said, “Are you here for the sale as well?”
“Uh …”
Another woman said, “Look at the card, it looks hot off the presses. I bet you’ve never even used it.”
“Um …”
A third, more kindly woman asked, “Did you just get it?”
That one I could answer in one syllable or less. “Yes.”
The first woman asked, “Are you here alone?”
“I’m waiting for my cousin to get off work. They told him to meet me here.”
“Well, let me tell you how it works. You take that card – and your cousin – and you go around back of this building. They only let about a dozen or so people in at a time so you’ll likely have to wait in a fairly long line. But I’d still go today as they are having a really good sale and it will be another month until they open again. So long as you have the points you can fill a push cart full.”
The women all nodded like this was a really big deal.
“It isn’t normally like that?”
“Oh no, almost never. First time in the six months since my husband was stationed here.”
One of the women said knowledgeably, “Last one was nine months ago.”
Another woman leaned over to enter the conversation and said, “That long? Really? I hadn’t realized but I guess you’re right.” She turned to me and said, “Usually they give you a tote bag and you are only allowed to use that but they’ve been clearing up the beneficiary rosters and the role has really dropped, at least around here; so much so that they need to rotate things before they go out of date because you know what happens then.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry I don’t.”
They all looked at me like I must have been living under a rock. “They have to donate it. Even the chocolate and coffee which are really good items to …” The woman looked around and whispered, “They make great items to barter for things on the black market.” She winked at me like it was a big secret that she was imparting.
Ignoring her wink I said, “And that donating is a bad thing.”
“It means less for us!” One of the other woman said, raising her voice a little too much so that the others winced and tried to hush her. “It is bad enough that they aren’t excusing beneficiaries from paying taxes but then they take food away from us and give it to people that don’t have to pay any taxes … or anything else for that matter. It just makes me sick. I have to work and scrimp and save just to keep food on the table for my kids while my husband is off fighting God only knows where, and I’ve had to take my brother’s kids in too because his wife ran off and he’s off flying helicopters, and it is an outrage that those … those … people … they don’t have to do anything but make some noise and the government is right there giving them everything they want.”
Her words were making the other women uncomfortable but then the lady’s number was called and she left so that the rest of them relaxed. Suddenly one of them got a real knowing look on her face and said, “She better turn her volume down or those kids aren’t going to have anyone to look after them.”
The other women all nodded in agreement while another said, “I’ve heard some stories I tell you. While some people might be able to get away with that most others can’t and I’m sure you know what I mean.”
One by one the women left as their numbers were called and others took their place but no one else seemed interested in striking up a conversation. I looked up as the door opened for the eleventy-dozenth time and there was Jude looking around anxiously. I stood up and nearly ran to him … would have if there wasn’t such a danger of tripping over so many feet in the aisle between the chairs. He took the box from me and got me out of the door and then asked, “How did it go? Are you ok?”
I was fumbling in my pocket and then showed him the IDs. “And … and guess what Jude … guess what?!”
“What?” he asked, a little alarmed at how hyper I was getting.
“Look!” I showed him the benefits card and he nearly dropped the box on our feet.
He asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
I laughed. “Here,” I said and tried to hand it to him.
He backed up and my smile drooped. He shook his head and told me, “That’s yours.”
“Oh. But … but some ladies in there said there is a sale today and that the last one like it was nine months ago. They said the store is behind this building and that we should go.”
Still cautious he told me, “Well that explains all the people coming to the fuel depot with gas cans. They must have bought fuel cards at the Exchange.”
“Yes!” I said startling him with my excitement. “That’s what those ladies called it.”
He agreed to walk with me around to the back of the building and I was surprised there were only a few people in line. Feeling a little disturbed I muttered, “They said there would be a long line. I wonder if they were yanking my chain about everything else too.”
The man in front of us said, “About the sale?” At my nod he said, “Oh it’s real, just most people have already come and gone. The line this morning was down to the other end of the building and around the corner.”
Jude stretched his neck and looked and then said, “Which is why we didn’t see it from our end.” He looked at me and then said, “I’ll walk you up to the front and then wait for you to come out. You’ll need someone to watch this box anyway.”
“But …”
“I don’t have one of those cards Dovie; they aren’t going to let me in.”
Disappointed I stood silently beside him; I also was concerned that I would somehow blow an opportunity by not knowing what I was doing. It was only a couple of minutes later that I was at the front of the line. I handed the man there my ID and he said, “You’re only sixteen. You have to have someone twenty-one or older go in with you.”
I grabbed Jude’s arm but he said, “Dovie I told you I don’t have a benefits card.”
“If you are acting as her chaperone you don’t need one. You’ll have to sign here and wear this badge while in the store and then return it here. You can put your box over there.” He pointed to a couple of tables that had lots of other personal items on it. “No heavy coats, no baggy pants, no purses or bags allowed inside. They’ll provide you with paper bags to carry your items home in if you didn’t bring your own; it will get deducted from your card.”
Soon enough, despite the grumbling of the people behind us, we were walking through the doors of the Exchange. I’m not sure if it was a disappointment or not. The place was slightly run down in appearance and the shelves had big empty gaps all over the place. The shelves themselves could have used a serious dusting and the acoustic ceiling tiles had obvious water stains where the roof had leaked at some point.
A cart was thrust at me by an impatient looking clerk and we were told brusquely not to hold the line up. I was nearly frozen in place but one look at Jude’s face and it reminded me of the look he’d worn at the church picnic and I was very glad he was there; he was working out a battle plan. “C’mon.” He led me in one spin around the entire store and then asked, “You trust me?”
Without hesitation I answered, “Sure.”
“OK, I checked your card with that machine and you’ve got enough points to make Midas jealous but you won’t be able to use them all for a long time, if ever, with the way this looks set up. Since we don’t know if there will be anything here next month or how much you’ll be able to get I say we fill this cart like a jigsaw puzzle and get everything we … I mean you … can. You with me so far?” All I could do was nod and follow his lead. “Don’t take anything that we can get for ourselves. I wouldn’t do any of the meats, vegetables or grains. Some of the off-season fruit maybe. Don’t do the sugar because Boo is getting a huge payment in molasses for helping this guy rebuild his grandfather’s sorghum mill and we’ll get a share of it just like I’m giving them a share of whatever I bring in from working. I know you might be tempted to get candy for the kids but I’m going to stand against it. There are too many of ‘em – not just yours but you’d have to add in Reynolds and my nephews and nieces – and it wouldn’t be worth it this time around.” He looked to see if I was going to argue the point and when I didn’t he nodded. “Now what kinda other things do you know you need.”
“Soap,” was the first word out of my mouth because the stuff that I had scavenged from the rest stops was running out.
“Nope. I can barter with the Mennonites for that.”
“Toilet paper.”
“Nope, waste of money. We’ve still got all those telephone books, magazines, and catalogs if we need them.”
Feeling frustrated and racking my brains I said slowly, “Vinegar and … and a couple of other seasonings like whole mustard seed. Salt too.”
“Vinegar and salt are good ideas. I don’t know squat about seasonings so I’ll leave that up to you. What about kotex or feminine pads?”
I have no idea why I was so immediately outraged. “Jude!”
“What?!” he said moving to avoid the slap on the arm that I almost gave him.
“That’s … that’s women’s stuff,” I said in a hissing whisper.
“Yeah, and?” I could feel myself turning red from the top of my head to the bottom of my
feet. Not even Jack – who loved to embarrass the living daylights out of me – would have talked about that particular topic so boldly. He asked again, “So do you need them or not? If you don’t I know the women up at the house probably do … all of ‘em except Mom and Crystal anyway. They’ve both had hysterectomies.”
He just kept blathering on and I could have dropped him with a sledge hammer like he was a watermelon right there. He reached over on a shelf and started putting feminine products in the cart, fitting them in like Legos, until I slapped his hands away. “Just … just go. Go … I don’t know … get a gallon or two of the vinegar.”
“Well make sure you get enough of those things,” he said pointing. “With all you females needing them it can’t be too comfortable to run out. We’ll put something heavy on top of them to squish them down if we have to.”
I swear I could have just died. All the women in the store were snickering and all the men were looking at him like he had sprouted a great big boogery horn in the middle of his forehead. I had filled one corner of the cart with feminine stuff but when he came back he rearranged them, added two more large packages, then set a heavy bag of salt and five gallons of vinegar on top of them to “squish them down.”
“Ok, what else?”
I was really tempted to tell him a ticket to the insane asylum for himself but instead stopped and looked over the spices. Pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, whole cloves, garlic and whole mustard seed were the only things available that appealed to my idea of what a necessity might be … until I saw the pickling salt and pickling spices. Then I spotted the baking soda, baking powder, and jars of yeast.
I didn’t look at the cart, just handed the stuff off to Jude who wedged it in where it would fit. Jude reached over my head and plucked down a couple of big boxes of powdered milk then asked, “Mind if I put in some of these razors for the girls? It might sweeten their disposition some.”
“Be my guest. I’ve got the straight razor and it works fine … at least when my hand doesn’t slip. After what Uncle Roe has done for me I’ll do anything for him and his.”
“Yeah, well … you just go easy on that idea. Dad would never take advantage of you but Rochelle and Wendalene might take you up on it and you’ll never get done ‘doing’ for them.”
Next I threw in cornstarch and unflavored gelatin and then I saw the rennet tablets and put in a bunch of boxes of that. I almost cleared the shelf of toothbrushes we needed so many but I didn’t get any toothpaste because I could make homemade tooth powder sans the fluoride which had had a tendency to freak Mom out over its potential danger for little kids who swallowed it rather than spit it out.
We were at the fruit section and canned fruit cocktail and maraschino cherries tempted me but I stuck to canned pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, and some fresh lemons and limes that I planned to preserve the old fashioned way. I threw in a bag of dried banana chips as well as another one of dried fruit bits. I got two large bottles of lemon juice, added a third, handed back a large can of olive oil, grabbed a bunch of little cans of tomato paste, and then looked to find Jude trying to quickly rearrange things in the cart yet again. “It’s full,” I said in regret watching him juggle trying to make it all work out right.
He said, “Not quite it’s not; if I could just get these stupid things to stop rolling away from where I put them. Let’s take one more turn and see if we can squeeze anything else in.” He found a dusty box of waterproof matches pushed way back on the top shelf, a box of borax, a small jug of bleach, and a long thin box of heavy duty aluminum foil and another of plastic wrap to fill the few remaining, oddly-shaped spaces.
When we got in line we were one of only three carts that didn’t have to back up and rearrange our cart so that nothing stood above the top edge per the rules of the sale before being allowed to proceed to the registers. More than a few people were trying to argue that a full cart was one piled as high as you could get it so long as nothing fell off but that wasn’t flying with the security people. I didn’t look at the total, didn’t care, since I didn’t assume that I’d be coming back and would need the points we were spending then. I treated it as a one off that was more like finding Pirate Jim’s treasure than something I’d be able to count on on a regular basis.
Jude however did and he got cross-eyed and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe … maybe you should get something for the kids. And you didn’t get anything for yourself. I can put back …”
I ignored him, as did the cashier in relief, and handed over my benefits card. We pushed the cart over to a table where we had to fit all of our purchases into paper grocery bags and cardboard boxes stacked there for that purpose; and then we went out and I waited while Jude ran to get Grits and the wagon after turning in his chaperone badge. I was just starting to get a little edgy – there were some people protesting or something against the Exchange – when Jude came back.
“I’ll put these in. You get your box. Let’s get out of here. There’s some kind of ruckus up the street.”
“Which reminds me …” and I proceeded to tell him what the Commander had told me.
He snorted. “Like I needed someone to explain that; I’m not an idiot. Once in that man’s office was enough thank you very much. Here, up you go.”
He helped me onto the wagon seat – the people behind him were getting a little impatient for us to get out of their way so they could do their own loading – and we slowly turned the wagon and got on the road to the checkpoint and then out of town as quickly as traffic would allow us.
Chapter XXXVIII
We were finally out of the last checkpoint and heading home when out of nowhere Jude said, “You sure are squeamish.”
“Am not,” I said automatically before thinking to ask, “What do you mean I’m squeamish?”
“You claim to be grown but say one word about anything personal and you come all unglued. You act like your parents haven’t had ‘the talk’ with you.”
Outraged that he’d bring it up so boldly again I said, “Of course they have! Honest to pete Jude, what is your problem?!”
“I haven’t got a problem. I was just … I don’t know …”
Kurfluffled and out of sorts I stammered, “It just isn’t … isn’t proper is all. You’re a guy.”
He snorted. “Naw, really? You just now figuring that out?” He saw I was getting hot under the collar and said, “I didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities Granny so get your underdrawers unbunched. Just if you are going to claim to be grown you need to act like it.”
“I do act like it. You’re the one acting like a dork. I suppose since you’ve had a gazillion girlfriends you think you are an expert and qualified to speak on all subjects female.”
“I have had a few, I grant you that, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m mean … oh hell … you got me so turned around I don’t know what I mean now. I lost my train of thought.”
“That particular train never seems to run on time from what I can tell.”
He turned and gave me the eye and said, “All right there Granny, you putting your toes awful close to the line. All I meant to say was that you don’t go sticking your head in the sand about the important stuff and that if you did need to talk to someone just to make sure it isn’t Rochelle or Wendalene. They’ll give you nightmares.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Rochelle is older than Butch and Wendalene just a shy bit younger and they still don’t seem to know where babies come from … or don’t care … as you can see they have five between ‘em and none of the kids’ fathers are in the picture. They’re more level headed lately but … you don’t need them to tell you anything. They nearly ruint me for life.”
“You?!” I laughed. “You went to your sisters for ‘the talk’? How old were you?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t ask them for nuthin’, they took it on themselves to spread the word to me. Mom had just had the talk with them … guess I was eight. The way she put things … well … I suppose the girls got the idea to make sure I didn’t grow up and get some girl in trouble. Well, by the time they were done educating me I was convinced even looking at a girl would do the deed. I got so twitchy the teachers at school called Dad and Mom in and recommended that I get evaluated for Tourette’s Syndrome. Dad thought I was fooling around and took me out to the barn. By the time he got the whole story out of me I thought he was gonna have a heart attack from laughing so hard, which I could have lived with compared to what he did next.”
“I’m … I’m afraid to ask,” I said having a hard time not laughing myself.
“By way of straightening out my confusion he took me to Mr. Schnell’s farm and had me watch them artificially inseminating the cows. I swear, all of it nearly turned me off females for good.”
I wound up laughing so hard that I almost fell off the wagon seat and then suddenly I needed to throw up so bad I could barely get Jude to understand that he had to stop the wagon before I was jumping off and running for the ditch. I puked until nothing would come up – not that there was much to begin with – and then kept heaving and gagging until I saw stars from lack of oxygen.
“Dovie! What is it girl?! Talk to me!”
And then I was crying - great big gulping, runny nose causing, hiccup inducing, brays. It took me a few minutes to stop enough to moan, “I was so scared … I was soooooo scared Jude.”
He was holding me much like I had held Reynolds the second time he had come to the house unannounced. “I know,” Jude told me patty my back. “I know. But everything is ok now and it’s gonna stay ok. It’s ok Dovie, it’s ok. I wouldn’t let nothin’ happen to you. Dad and I had it planned out. It’s ok now. Shhhh.”
I finally stopped completely and pushed away from Jude, beyond ashamed that he had seen me breakdown like I had. “Oh God Jude … don’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone that I cried like a baby.”
“You weren’t crying like a baby … it was a scary situation and you’re a girl. Girl’s are allowed to cry. Heck, I’ve seen grown men breakdown over quite a bit less than what you’ve been through.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a girl, there’s still rules.”
He shook his head. “Oh Lord, you and your rules. What’s this one?”
“Yes, girls are allowed to cry sometimes – like at weddings and baby dedications – and there’s times when they are expected to cry – like at funerals and stuff. But there are also times that maybe they can get away with crying but when they do people see them as weak … like if something scary happens. And Jude, the last thing I can do is have people see me as weak. They already think it, I can’t have them knowing it. They … they’ll … they’ll maybe not think I should be taking care of the kids.”
“Nobody is going to do that Dovie.”
“You don’t know that for sure. You heard what Crystal said. And while Clewis doesn’t count it’s pretty much a given that Rochelle doesn’t have much confidence in me either and her opinion does count. Even Uncle Roe set you to keep an eye on me as much as you living there is to take some pressure off at the main house.” Quietly I looked at him and said, “‘Cause … ‘cause sometimes they’re right.”
“What do you think you mean, that they’re right?”
“Sometimes even I wish … oh, never mind. I just … I thought you might understand because you get the sweats too.”
He got me up out of the dirt, grass, and gravel then brushed me off and helped me back over to the wagon and put me up on the seat. With more than a little concern Jude asked, “What do you mean you get the sweats? Please don’t tell me that at your age you got into anything that got ahold of you that hard.”
“No … I mean … look I’ve seen you. Even today. You walked by that shelf with those liquor bottles on it and every time you flinched like someone was going to reach out and pinch you. All that temptation sitting right there and I could tell you wanted it. But I watched you conquer it, push on through, and the sweat dried off your forehead and you were fine. Well, I sweat sometimes because I wish Dad and Mom were here … because sometimes it feels like I just can’t do it, live without out them and Jack and Jay, help Paulie and the other kids grow up right, the cooking, the cleaning, hunting for food, having to … to live with what I did out on the road, acting like everything is ok when sometimes it feels like nothing is ever going to be ok again. I’m so tired of it all Jude … sometimes I want to … to be Mimi’s age again and not have to worry about anything. Sometimes it feels like doing the right thing is going to kill me. But then I know that’s stupid and that things are what they are and that no one was breaking my arm to take on the kids and that I could have chosen a different path … and that I have to push on through the sweats and just pray I’ve got what it takes not to make mistakes that are so big it hurts the kids or anyone else.”
Jude was quiet while he walked around and then got up on the wagon seat himself. I thought I had really misspoke but then he looked at me and said, “Dang Dovie, sometimes you say things so right that it makes my head hurt. I do know what you mean I just didn’t know that’s how you felt.”
Quietly I told him, “I don’t feel that way all the time. Most of the time, really, it’s ok … just … just sometimes I get the sweats too.”
He thought about it then sighed. “OK, I won’t say anything about you crying … on one condition.”
Apprehensively I asked, “What?”
“When you get the sweats you come talk to me. If I learned nothing else from being such an idiot I learned you can’t do it all by yourself.”
Curious I asked, “Who do you talk to?”
“Dad,” he told me before adding bluntly, “I was a rotten kid. You don’t know half how rotten I was. I was three-quarters down the road to ruin and hadn’t even thought of hitting the brakes yet. Then that blow up with Mom … I hit rock bottom and … and it was bad; I was drunk for two weeks straight, got alcohol poisoning for the first time in my life and it nearly killed me. Dad didn’t have much reason to have any kind of confidence in me but he held out his hand anyway and it was like a lifeline. He picked me up and got me going. First thing he did was insist I start going to church again. Even if I got a serious drunk on Saturday night he expected me to be in a pew on Sunday morning. He said that he wouldn’t help me unless I was willing to give that much on my end. Only had to do that twice before I learned that Brother Shirley liked to hit that podium awful hard to make a point and it was easier to handle if I didn’t have a hangover. When I realized I could give up going out on Saturday nights it was like a lightbulb went on and I decided to quit cold turkey and never look back … but Dovie I’ll be honest, I like the taste. A good drink is a good drink to me. And I like how it makes me feel while I’m drinking … ten foot tall and bullet proof and all my troubles fuzzy and far away. I ain’t a bad drunk, not mean or destructive and I kept enough sense to never drive while I was drunk; I’m just a useless drunk ‘cause I lose my motivation to do much of anything but get more drunk and stay that way. I never even really got into drugs ‘cause they made me nauseous like I’d just ate a big meal and then got on a roller coaster. I do miss some of my friends … or think I do. Run into them from time to time and realize I don’t miss some of them as much as I thought I would. But the thing is, for me there isn’t any such thing as one drink or a little drunk. I had to decide; I could either drink and continue to be an ass, or I could give it up and try and make something of myself. I picked giving it up. But I don’t know if I will ever get rid of that craving that comes on me when I least expect it.”
Realizing he had to trust me to be telling me this part of the way things were I felt complimented in a way I never had before, somehow more grown despite my recent outburst and other life experiences. I asked, “Uncle Roe really listens to you? He helps?”
Jude shrugged. “In his own way. He don’t always understand and he don’t always like what he learns when I gotta talk, but he always listens and most of the time that’s all I really need … someone to be there, listen to me, and help me stay away from the hard stuff when a real fit hits me.”
I shook my head pretty strongly. “I can’t talk to Uncle Roe about this.”
“I’m not saying you have to. I’m saying you can talk to me … if you want. If not me, you need to find someone. You’ve been through a lot in just a small amount of time … you’re lucky you ain’t as screwy as a squirrel hopped up on locoweed seed. And that’s my condition same as Dad gave me one. Can you abide by it?” I nodded and he reached in his pocket and handed me his handkerchief. As I wiped my nose he said, “You ok for us to get on? Dad is going to be itching to find out what’s happened.”
I nodded and he clucked to Grits who gave us an “about time” roll from his horse eye before starting off.
We were finally out of the last checkpoint and heading home when out of nowhere Jude said, “You sure are squeamish.”
“Am not,” I said automatically before thinking to ask, “What do you mean I’m squeamish?”
“You claim to be grown but say one word about anything personal and you come all unglued. You act like your parents haven’t had ‘the talk’ with you.”
Outraged that he’d bring it up so boldly again I said, “Of course they have! Honest to pete Jude, what is your problem?!”
“I haven’t got a problem. I was just … I don’t know …”
Kurfluffled and out of sorts I stammered, “It just isn’t … isn’t proper is all. You’re a guy.”
He snorted. “Naw, really? You just now figuring that out?” He saw I was getting hot under the collar and said, “I didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities Granny so get your underdrawers unbunched. Just if you are going to claim to be grown you need to act like it.”
“I do act like it. You’re the one acting like a dork. I suppose since you’ve had a gazillion girlfriends you think you are an expert and qualified to speak on all subjects female.”
“I have had a few, I grant you that, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m mean … oh hell … you got me so turned around I don’t know what I mean now. I lost my train of thought.”
“That particular train never seems to run on time from what I can tell.”
He turned and gave me the eye and said, “All right there Granny, you putting your toes awful close to the line. All I meant to say was that you don’t go sticking your head in the sand about the important stuff and that if you did need to talk to someone just to make sure it isn’t Rochelle or Wendalene. They’ll give you nightmares.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Rochelle is older than Butch and Wendalene just a shy bit younger and they still don’t seem to know where babies come from … or don’t care … as you can see they have five between ‘em and none of the kids’ fathers are in the picture. They’re more level headed lately but … you don’t need them to tell you anything. They nearly ruint me for life.”
“You?!” I laughed. “You went to your sisters for ‘the talk’? How old were you?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t ask them for nuthin’, they took it on themselves to spread the word to me. Mom had just had the talk with them … guess I was eight. The way she put things … well … I suppose the girls got the idea to make sure I didn’t grow up and get some girl in trouble. Well, by the time they were done educating me I was convinced even looking at a girl would do the deed. I got so twitchy the teachers at school called Dad and Mom in and recommended that I get evaluated for Tourette’s Syndrome. Dad thought I was fooling around and took me out to the barn. By the time he got the whole story out of me I thought he was gonna have a heart attack from laughing so hard, which I could have lived with compared to what he did next.”
“I’m … I’m afraid to ask,” I said having a hard time not laughing myself.
“By way of straightening out my confusion he took me to Mr. Schnell’s farm and had me watch them artificially inseminating the cows. I swear, all of it nearly turned me off females for good.”
I wound up laughing so hard that I almost fell off the wagon seat and then suddenly I needed to throw up so bad I could barely get Jude to understand that he had to stop the wagon before I was jumping off and running for the ditch. I puked until nothing would come up – not that there was much to begin with – and then kept heaving and gagging until I saw stars from lack of oxygen.
“Dovie! What is it girl?! Talk to me!”
And then I was crying - great big gulping, runny nose causing, hiccup inducing, brays. It took me a few minutes to stop enough to moan, “I was so scared … I was soooooo scared Jude.”
He was holding me much like I had held Reynolds the second time he had come to the house unannounced. “I know,” Jude told me patty my back. “I know. But everything is ok now and it’s gonna stay ok. It’s ok Dovie, it’s ok. I wouldn’t let nothin’ happen to you. Dad and I had it planned out. It’s ok now. Shhhh.”
I finally stopped completely and pushed away from Jude, beyond ashamed that he had seen me breakdown like I had. “Oh God Jude … don’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone that I cried like a baby.”
“You weren’t crying like a baby … it was a scary situation and you’re a girl. Girl’s are allowed to cry. Heck, I’ve seen grown men breakdown over quite a bit less than what you’ve been through.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a girl, there’s still rules.”
He shook his head. “Oh Lord, you and your rules. What’s this one?”
“Yes, girls are allowed to cry sometimes – like at weddings and baby dedications – and there’s times when they are expected to cry – like at funerals and stuff. But there are also times that maybe they can get away with crying but when they do people see them as weak … like if something scary happens. And Jude, the last thing I can do is have people see me as weak. They already think it, I can’t have them knowing it. They … they’ll … they’ll maybe not think I should be taking care of the kids.”
“Nobody is going to do that Dovie.”
“You don’t know that for sure. You heard what Crystal said. And while Clewis doesn’t count it’s pretty much a given that Rochelle doesn’t have much confidence in me either and her opinion does count. Even Uncle Roe set you to keep an eye on me as much as you living there is to take some pressure off at the main house.” Quietly I looked at him and said, “‘Cause … ‘cause sometimes they’re right.”
“What do you think you mean, that they’re right?”
“Sometimes even I wish … oh, never mind. I just … I thought you might understand because you get the sweats too.”
He got me up out of the dirt, grass, and gravel then brushed me off and helped me back over to the wagon and put me up on the seat. With more than a little concern Jude asked, “What do you mean you get the sweats? Please don’t tell me that at your age you got into anything that got ahold of you that hard.”
“No … I mean … look I’ve seen you. Even today. You walked by that shelf with those liquor bottles on it and every time you flinched like someone was going to reach out and pinch you. All that temptation sitting right there and I could tell you wanted it. But I watched you conquer it, push on through, and the sweat dried off your forehead and you were fine. Well, I sweat sometimes because I wish Dad and Mom were here … because sometimes it feels like I just can’t do it, live without out them and Jack and Jay, help Paulie and the other kids grow up right, the cooking, the cleaning, hunting for food, having to … to live with what I did out on the road, acting like everything is ok when sometimes it feels like nothing is ever going to be ok again. I’m so tired of it all Jude … sometimes I want to … to be Mimi’s age again and not have to worry about anything. Sometimes it feels like doing the right thing is going to kill me. But then I know that’s stupid and that things are what they are and that no one was breaking my arm to take on the kids and that I could have chosen a different path … and that I have to push on through the sweats and just pray I’ve got what it takes not to make mistakes that are so big it hurts the kids or anyone else.”
Jude was quiet while he walked around and then got up on the wagon seat himself. I thought I had really misspoke but then he looked at me and said, “Dang Dovie, sometimes you say things so right that it makes my head hurt. I do know what you mean I just didn’t know that’s how you felt.”
Quietly I told him, “I don’t feel that way all the time. Most of the time, really, it’s ok … just … just sometimes I get the sweats too.”
He thought about it then sighed. “OK, I won’t say anything about you crying … on one condition.”
Apprehensively I asked, “What?”
“When you get the sweats you come talk to me. If I learned nothing else from being such an idiot I learned you can’t do it all by yourself.”
Curious I asked, “Who do you talk to?”
“Dad,” he told me before adding bluntly, “I was a rotten kid. You don’t know half how rotten I was. I was three-quarters down the road to ruin and hadn’t even thought of hitting the brakes yet. Then that blow up with Mom … I hit rock bottom and … and it was bad; I was drunk for two weeks straight, got alcohol poisoning for the first time in my life and it nearly killed me. Dad didn’t have much reason to have any kind of confidence in me but he held out his hand anyway and it was like a lifeline. He picked me up and got me going. First thing he did was insist I start going to church again. Even if I got a serious drunk on Saturday night he expected me to be in a pew on Sunday morning. He said that he wouldn’t help me unless I was willing to give that much on my end. Only had to do that twice before I learned that Brother Shirley liked to hit that podium awful hard to make a point and it was easier to handle if I didn’t have a hangover. When I realized I could give up going out on Saturday nights it was like a lightbulb went on and I decided to quit cold turkey and never look back … but Dovie I’ll be honest, I like the taste. A good drink is a good drink to me. And I like how it makes me feel while I’m drinking … ten foot tall and bullet proof and all my troubles fuzzy and far away. I ain’t a bad drunk, not mean or destructive and I kept enough sense to never drive while I was drunk; I’m just a useless drunk ‘cause I lose my motivation to do much of anything but get more drunk and stay that way. I never even really got into drugs ‘cause they made me nauseous like I’d just ate a big meal and then got on a roller coaster. I do miss some of my friends … or think I do. Run into them from time to time and realize I don’t miss some of them as much as I thought I would. But the thing is, for me there isn’t any such thing as one drink or a little drunk. I had to decide; I could either drink and continue to be an ass, or I could give it up and try and make something of myself. I picked giving it up. But I don’t know if I will ever get rid of that craving that comes on me when I least expect it.”
Realizing he had to trust me to be telling me this part of the way things were I felt complimented in a way I never had before, somehow more grown despite my recent outburst and other life experiences. I asked, “Uncle Roe really listens to you? He helps?”
Jude shrugged. “In his own way. He don’t always understand and he don’t always like what he learns when I gotta talk, but he always listens and most of the time that’s all I really need … someone to be there, listen to me, and help me stay away from the hard stuff when a real fit hits me.”
I shook my head pretty strongly. “I can’t talk to Uncle Roe about this.”
“I’m not saying you have to. I’m saying you can talk to me … if you want. If not me, you need to find someone. You’ve been through a lot in just a small amount of time … you’re lucky you ain’t as screwy as a squirrel hopped up on locoweed seed. And that’s my condition same as Dad gave me one. Can you abide by it?” I nodded and he reached in his pocket and handed me his handkerchief. As I wiped my nose he said, “You ok for us to get on? Dad is going to be itching to find out what’s happened.”
I nodded and he clucked to Grits who gave us an “about time” roll from his horse eye before starting off.
Jeepcats 3
Contributing Member
How you can write a picture!
Scared to death to Treasure time, its amazing how smoothly you change the pace!
Thanks for the new chapters!
Jeepcats3
Scared to death to Treasure time, its amazing how smoothly you change the pace!
Thanks for the new chapters!
Jeepcats3
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
There it goes again I was reading along just fine; well inbetween going out to pick raspberries before it got to hot, come back in read some more go shower and read the rest and BAM the chapters ended. 
Hickory7
Senior Member
LOL @ Sara. I feel the same way. I am totally thankful that she is posting 4 chapters a day and I know it is only 4, but somehow my mind goes into it's story drugged state and I forget and then have the letdown at the end.
Kathy, thank you for more story. I am still amazed at how fast I get totally drawn into your stories and start almost praying for the ppl in them and then remember they are not real.
Kathy, thank you for more story. I am still amazed at how fast I get totally drawn into your stories and start almost praying for the ppl in them and then remember they are not real.
Facing a group that produces the likes of a Hennisey would be a scary thing. Smart strategy, Dovie kind of drew a Hennisey line for them, are you or aren't you.
Bureaucrats can be bad enough in normal times, I can only imagine how bad it would actually be under Martial Law. Living where I do, every time I have to deal with a local public servant, I know I should have moved a long time ago.
Anyway, love the story and the turn it took. Thanks Kathy.
Bureaucrats can be bad enough in normal times, I can only imagine how bad it would actually be under Martial Law. Living where I do, every time I have to deal with a local public servant, I know I should have moved a long time ago.
Anyway, love the story and the turn it took. Thanks Kathy.
I can't say for sure, but it looks like I am going to be major swamped tomorrow with work so I'm going to go ahead and post tomorrow's four chapters tonight. That means I won't get to post any tomorrow so I hope y'all don't mind.
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Chapter XXXIX
I was tired and had a lot on my mind so I wasn’t paying too much attention to the scenery when Jude nudged my arm and said, “Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee.”
I looked up and standing at the main gate of the front acreage I saw several men, Uncle Roe and Butch a head taller than the rest of them. I jumped out of the wagon while it was still moving causing Jude to shout, “Blast it Dovie! Break your fool neck next time!!”
But I didn’t care, there was nothing but air under my feet as I ran the last several yards and then plowed on through to wind up in Uncle Roe’s arms. “Dovie girl! What’s wrong?!”
I reached into my pocket, ignoring the others standing there, and pulled out all the cards. “Look Uncle Roe! Look! I got my ID card and they gave me cards for the kids too!!”
Uncle Roe turned his head toward the heavens and said, “Praise the Lord!” Several others there said the same thing and that’s when I realized Mr. Schnell was there and some other men from church. I was worried that I’d made a spectacle of myself but Butch took his turn and literally picked me off the ground and hugged me as well. “Hmmph,” he said after a tight hug. “Jude said we needed to have faith. Ain’t that a kick, him lecturing us on faith?” But he said it with a grin that I realized was meant for Jude who had just then driven up.
Jude looked uncomfortably embarrassed but did return my grin with a wink. But I also saw caution in his eyes that told me to keep my mouth shut about the rest of it while there were non-family around even if they were Uncle Roe’s pew buddies. Looking around apologetically I said, “I need to see the kids. I … I need …”
Uncle Roe looked at Jude and told him, “Take her on to the house. River brought them down to help with some chores to keep their mind off things. Butch and I will be there directly.”
“Yes sir,” Jude answered obediently.
Butch helped me to get over the wagon wheel and we were on our way.
Jude snorted a small laugh that was still half irritated. “Bouncing on the seat won’t get us there faster Granny.”
“Oh hush,” I told him refusing to take umbrage at his teasing even though I could have. “I don’t feel like I ever want to leave again.”
“Well you’ll need to for church tomorrow.”
“That’s not really leaving. I just mean I don’t need to see town again ever.”
Sighing he replied, “I would give it up myself if I could.”
I heard something in his voice and it made me anxious. “Something is up. What is it?”
“Easy,” he said gently. “Nothin’ bad. Just think I might have found a way to help Dad out with the taxes that will be due the first of the year. The people in charge have decided it is too risky to use unvaccinated work gangs – they are at the bottom of the pile for the vaccination lottery – do some road work along the check point route. Guy today said that since I have so much experience working on big engines that he’d be willing to recommend me for the temp position they are going to have in two weeks if I’d be willing to commit in writing that I’d work from start up until at least the first snow and provide my own tools. It’s only twenty hours a week plus travel time to and from but it pays cash which means that Dad wouldn’t have to worry about trading anything out to barter the taxes with.”
Riding quietly I asked, “What if you didn’t have to do that?”
“Dad would have to come up with quite a bit of …”
“No. I mean what if you didn’t have to work and Uncle Roe didn’t have to barter for the taxes.”
“That ain’t happening.”
I sighed. “Jude …”
“Dovie, they won’t take benefit points. It’s against federal law to trade them. You could get in serious trouble just mentioning that.”
“Well fine, but … but that’s not what I’m talking about anyway.”
He briefly pulled to a stop and told me to, “Spit it out.”
Hesitantly I said, “Welllll, what if … er … coffee and sodas weren’t the only thing I collected as we … er … made our way here?”
Jude looked at me. Blinked a couple of times then said, “Hold that thought ‘cause I suspect it is going to take a lot of talking about and we’re almost to the house and they must have heard us already because I hear your jaybirds coming around the bend and probably at full tilt.”
Two seconds later I heard, “Dovie!” and saw Paulie pelting in our direction, running so fast he was creating dust. Jude put the wagon break on and got a good gripe on Grits. I jumped down and ran to meet my little brother and the others that were trying to catch up behind him.
After they made sure I was really back and not leaving again I walked to the house with the kids ringed around me – except for Corey who I couldn’t detach from my neck after his little legs finally got him to me – while Jude followed behind us and then pulled off to the side of the yard. There was so much excitement and I was trying to answer everyone’s questions that I didn’t notice that Jude had been talking with Uncle Roe until the man bellowed, “Frances! Come over here and see what your niece brung ya!”
I turned towards his voice and saw Jude and Butch up in the wagon with Uncle Roe and Clewis standing at the open end gate. There was a rush of bodies that swept me along like the tide but when I got to the wagon I felt compelled to say, “Jude did a lot of the picking.”
He said, “Did not, just packed the stuff down.”
I put my hands on my hips and said, “Did too.”
He shook his head and denied it by saying, “I picked a few things but not a lot of them.”
I started to open my mouth when Aunt Frankie said, “Will you two stop already? You give me a headache. I swear you didn’t bicker this much when you were little and had more reason to.” Turning to Jude she said, “And are you just going to stand there or are you going to help your mother get up in that wagon?”
“Uh …” Poor Jude. Aunt Frankie hadn’t talked to him directly in so long he didn’t know what to do when she did. “I don’t want you to get hurt Mother. Tell me what you want and I will …”
“Are you saying I’m too old to do a simple thing like climb in a wagon?” she asked him, clearly daring him to say any such thing.
“Of course not,” he denied quickly. “I just thought …”
“Well stop thinking, stop dawdling, and help me in here before I have to get your father to do it.”
Jude scrambled out of the wagon, almost falling in his haste, and then hoisted Aunt Frankie up so she could climb in; no small feat of strength as she and the girls are built on the tall and … uh … voluptuous side. And no, I’m not jealous. I know I’ve got a fair figure but compared to Aunt Frankie and Jude’s sisters I’m flat as a pancake on both ends. For instance, were I to try and wear one of Rochelle’s old shirts the thing would gape open down to my belly button. They weren’t quite so … curvy … as they used to be, but losing weight hadn’t done much but make their assets stand out more and better.
When Aunt Frankie got up there and actually looked at what Jude was taking out of the sacks she demanded, “Where did this come from?”
I swallowed and explained. She just continued to stare at me and I was beginning to wonder if I should duck and cover. Jude must have sensed it and tried to head it off by putting several packages of feminine hygiene items in her arms. “Here Mother.”
Aunt Frankie’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline and she turned to give Jude a scowl before saying, “Boy, you’ve got absolutely no sensibilities. For heaven’s sake, hand me that sack before you go spilling things every which way.” Jude sighed but complied. Aunt Frankie looked up and called, “Girls! Come help with this before Jude does who knows what else.”
Faith hung back but came forward when Jude told her, “Catch!”
She just caught the package of razors and then had to scramble forward into the protection of her mother’s presence when her sisters spotted what she had. Rochelle said, “You’re gonna share those Faith.”
She muttered something under her breath and Rochelle asked, “What was that?”
Jude, seeing the direction things were taking, quickly reached into another bag and said, “Hang on, no need to have a cat fight. There’s a package of ‘em for each of you … Rochelle, here are yours, Wendalene there’s a package for you, Crystal … catch, and River … heads up.”
Aunt Frankie said, “Alright, that’s enough. We’ll cart the rest of this in and your father will have a say over it and I don’t want a single complaint. Have I made myself understood?”
I don’t know what put Aunt Frankie in that mood but it sure put a goofy looking grin on Uncle Roe’s face. He said, “We’ll get ‘r done Frances but I expect to see you get your share too.” She sidled over to him and I turned away not wanting to see what was likely taking place. I noticed most the rest of us were studiously ignoring the pair as well.
Clewis came over and needled me by saying, “You’ve got too much luck Dovie Doherty. Look at this stuff … someone might think you are trying to buy our affection with it.”
I’ll admit it, his words stung because I hadn’t thought of anyone thinking that at all. But it also reminded me, and rightfully so, why I could do what I did. I looked at him quietly, “I’d give it all back if it meant I could have my parents and brothers here.” I turned away, my feelings still too raw and close to the surface after my recent crying fit. I didn’t want him to see how his words had affected me. I was squeezing Corey a little harder than I had meant to and he squawked.
Suddenly there was a hand in front of my face. “Here, give me him.”
I felt Corey taken from my arms, saw Jude put him in the wagon bottom, then reach back down and pick me up and I let out a squawk about like Corey had as my feet left the ground. Once I was standing in the wagon Jude told me, “Don’t let him steal all your fun. You did a good thing Dovie; it helped the family.”
“I’m fine … just … just a little tired I guess. It’s been a funky day.”
He nodded then gave a sharp whistle. “Paulie! Gather up the troops and get ‘em over here; we need to get back up to the house.” He jumped out of the wagon and as the kids lined up post haste he put them in the back with me. “I need to talk to Dad for a sec then we’ll go.”
I answered more questions from the kids and those that stood around the wagon. Butch got out of the wagon with the last item – one of the bottles of lemon juice – and told me, “Jude’s right. Clew is … well … he’s having a hard time right now.”
I nodded and quietly I replied, “He and Crystal are brangling a little bit.”
“Nah, no more than they normally do now that they have a place of their own for privacy. More like Clew isn’t used to staying in one place very long and wants to go but he’s afraid if he does he is somehow going to be left out of all that is going on here. And Crystal isn’t up to traveling right now.”
“She can’t get pregnant … Jude mentioned she’d had a … uh …”
“Yeah, a hysterectomy,” he acknowledged. “But that ain’t the problem. She wound up being allergic to something in the T-vaccine and was sick for a while last year. Every once in a while she has a relapse. Guess you can see she ain’t her normal self.”
“I thought that was just because they were fussing.”
“Nah, like I said, neither one of them are easy to live with but they can’t seem to live without each other either. They fight hard, they make up fast. Irritating as hell to be around when they really go on a tear and all you want is some peace. I’ll talk to Clewis.”
I shook my head. “No Butch. You gotta stop trying to make things easy for him. And I need to grow a thicker skin. For one, I’m no angel. And for two, if Clewis is all I have to worry about in this life I’d be a lucky girl. He’s the least of my worries; I should be able to ignore him.”
He leaned over the wall of the wagon and patted my arm and then walked towards Uncle Roe who stood there shaking his head while Jude came to take the reins. I asked, “Is he upset?”
“No … not about any of it so stop trying to make a problem when there is none. He’s more worried that I’m getting into more than I can handle going to work in town … old friends, easy temptation, that sort of thing. He won’t ask me to stop because he’s a realist but it hurts him a little that it is something I gotta do because he can’t get the farm to pay the taxes right now.”
Paulie asked, “Jude, can I ride on the wagon seat with you?”
“’Nother time little man. Keep your sister company, she’s had a rough day. She’s not used to being away from you guys and she fretted quite a bit.”
“Aw Dovie … we did OK. River can’t cook though.”
Shocked I said, “I hope you didn’t tell her that Paulie.”
“Naw, didn’t have to. Butch’s eyes started watering when he tasted the grits she made for noonday and she’d put honey in it thinking it would cover up the crunch where she didn’t cook ‘em enough. He started laughing like it was funny … not mean, but funny. That’s when we walked down to Uncle Roe’s. Gosh I’m glad you’re home.”
I tried not to smile because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but a grin popped out anyway and I told him, “I’m glad I’m home too.”
-----------------------------
Chapter XXXIX
I was tired and had a lot on my mind so I wasn’t paying too much attention to the scenery when Jude nudged my arm and said, “Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee.”
I looked up and standing at the main gate of the front acreage I saw several men, Uncle Roe and Butch a head taller than the rest of them. I jumped out of the wagon while it was still moving causing Jude to shout, “Blast it Dovie! Break your fool neck next time!!”
But I didn’t care, there was nothing but air under my feet as I ran the last several yards and then plowed on through to wind up in Uncle Roe’s arms. “Dovie girl! What’s wrong?!”
I reached into my pocket, ignoring the others standing there, and pulled out all the cards. “Look Uncle Roe! Look! I got my ID card and they gave me cards for the kids too!!”
Uncle Roe turned his head toward the heavens and said, “Praise the Lord!” Several others there said the same thing and that’s when I realized Mr. Schnell was there and some other men from church. I was worried that I’d made a spectacle of myself but Butch took his turn and literally picked me off the ground and hugged me as well. “Hmmph,” he said after a tight hug. “Jude said we needed to have faith. Ain’t that a kick, him lecturing us on faith?” But he said it with a grin that I realized was meant for Jude who had just then driven up.
Jude looked uncomfortably embarrassed but did return my grin with a wink. But I also saw caution in his eyes that told me to keep my mouth shut about the rest of it while there were non-family around even if they were Uncle Roe’s pew buddies. Looking around apologetically I said, “I need to see the kids. I … I need …”
Uncle Roe looked at Jude and told him, “Take her on to the house. River brought them down to help with some chores to keep their mind off things. Butch and I will be there directly.”
“Yes sir,” Jude answered obediently.
Butch helped me to get over the wagon wheel and we were on our way.
Jude snorted a small laugh that was still half irritated. “Bouncing on the seat won’t get us there faster Granny.”
“Oh hush,” I told him refusing to take umbrage at his teasing even though I could have. “I don’t feel like I ever want to leave again.”
“Well you’ll need to for church tomorrow.”
“That’s not really leaving. I just mean I don’t need to see town again ever.”
Sighing he replied, “I would give it up myself if I could.”
I heard something in his voice and it made me anxious. “Something is up. What is it?”
“Easy,” he said gently. “Nothin’ bad. Just think I might have found a way to help Dad out with the taxes that will be due the first of the year. The people in charge have decided it is too risky to use unvaccinated work gangs – they are at the bottom of the pile for the vaccination lottery – do some road work along the check point route. Guy today said that since I have so much experience working on big engines that he’d be willing to recommend me for the temp position they are going to have in two weeks if I’d be willing to commit in writing that I’d work from start up until at least the first snow and provide my own tools. It’s only twenty hours a week plus travel time to and from but it pays cash which means that Dad wouldn’t have to worry about trading anything out to barter the taxes with.”
Riding quietly I asked, “What if you didn’t have to do that?”
“Dad would have to come up with quite a bit of …”
“No. I mean what if you didn’t have to work and Uncle Roe didn’t have to barter for the taxes.”
“That ain’t happening.”
I sighed. “Jude …”
“Dovie, they won’t take benefit points. It’s against federal law to trade them. You could get in serious trouble just mentioning that.”
“Well fine, but … but that’s not what I’m talking about anyway.”
He briefly pulled to a stop and told me to, “Spit it out.”
Hesitantly I said, “Welllll, what if … er … coffee and sodas weren’t the only thing I collected as we … er … made our way here?”
Jude looked at me. Blinked a couple of times then said, “Hold that thought ‘cause I suspect it is going to take a lot of talking about and we’re almost to the house and they must have heard us already because I hear your jaybirds coming around the bend and probably at full tilt.”
Two seconds later I heard, “Dovie!” and saw Paulie pelting in our direction, running so fast he was creating dust. Jude put the wagon break on and got a good gripe on Grits. I jumped down and ran to meet my little brother and the others that were trying to catch up behind him.
After they made sure I was really back and not leaving again I walked to the house with the kids ringed around me – except for Corey who I couldn’t detach from my neck after his little legs finally got him to me – while Jude followed behind us and then pulled off to the side of the yard. There was so much excitement and I was trying to answer everyone’s questions that I didn’t notice that Jude had been talking with Uncle Roe until the man bellowed, “Frances! Come over here and see what your niece brung ya!”
I turned towards his voice and saw Jude and Butch up in the wagon with Uncle Roe and Clewis standing at the open end gate. There was a rush of bodies that swept me along like the tide but when I got to the wagon I felt compelled to say, “Jude did a lot of the picking.”
He said, “Did not, just packed the stuff down.”
I put my hands on my hips and said, “Did too.”
He shook his head and denied it by saying, “I picked a few things but not a lot of them.”
I started to open my mouth when Aunt Frankie said, “Will you two stop already? You give me a headache. I swear you didn’t bicker this much when you were little and had more reason to.” Turning to Jude she said, “And are you just going to stand there or are you going to help your mother get up in that wagon?”
“Uh …” Poor Jude. Aunt Frankie hadn’t talked to him directly in so long he didn’t know what to do when she did. “I don’t want you to get hurt Mother. Tell me what you want and I will …”
“Are you saying I’m too old to do a simple thing like climb in a wagon?” she asked him, clearly daring him to say any such thing.
“Of course not,” he denied quickly. “I just thought …”
“Well stop thinking, stop dawdling, and help me in here before I have to get your father to do it.”
Jude scrambled out of the wagon, almost falling in his haste, and then hoisted Aunt Frankie up so she could climb in; no small feat of strength as she and the girls are built on the tall and … uh … voluptuous side. And no, I’m not jealous. I know I’ve got a fair figure but compared to Aunt Frankie and Jude’s sisters I’m flat as a pancake on both ends. For instance, were I to try and wear one of Rochelle’s old shirts the thing would gape open down to my belly button. They weren’t quite so … curvy … as they used to be, but losing weight hadn’t done much but make their assets stand out more and better.
When Aunt Frankie got up there and actually looked at what Jude was taking out of the sacks she demanded, “Where did this come from?”
I swallowed and explained. She just continued to stare at me and I was beginning to wonder if I should duck and cover. Jude must have sensed it and tried to head it off by putting several packages of feminine hygiene items in her arms. “Here Mother.”
Aunt Frankie’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline and she turned to give Jude a scowl before saying, “Boy, you’ve got absolutely no sensibilities. For heaven’s sake, hand me that sack before you go spilling things every which way.” Jude sighed but complied. Aunt Frankie looked up and called, “Girls! Come help with this before Jude does who knows what else.”
Faith hung back but came forward when Jude told her, “Catch!”
She just caught the package of razors and then had to scramble forward into the protection of her mother’s presence when her sisters spotted what she had. Rochelle said, “You’re gonna share those Faith.”
She muttered something under her breath and Rochelle asked, “What was that?”
Jude, seeing the direction things were taking, quickly reached into another bag and said, “Hang on, no need to have a cat fight. There’s a package of ‘em for each of you … Rochelle, here are yours, Wendalene there’s a package for you, Crystal … catch, and River … heads up.”
Aunt Frankie said, “Alright, that’s enough. We’ll cart the rest of this in and your father will have a say over it and I don’t want a single complaint. Have I made myself understood?”
I don’t know what put Aunt Frankie in that mood but it sure put a goofy looking grin on Uncle Roe’s face. He said, “We’ll get ‘r done Frances but I expect to see you get your share too.” She sidled over to him and I turned away not wanting to see what was likely taking place. I noticed most the rest of us were studiously ignoring the pair as well.
Clewis came over and needled me by saying, “You’ve got too much luck Dovie Doherty. Look at this stuff … someone might think you are trying to buy our affection with it.”
I’ll admit it, his words stung because I hadn’t thought of anyone thinking that at all. But it also reminded me, and rightfully so, why I could do what I did. I looked at him quietly, “I’d give it all back if it meant I could have my parents and brothers here.” I turned away, my feelings still too raw and close to the surface after my recent crying fit. I didn’t want him to see how his words had affected me. I was squeezing Corey a little harder than I had meant to and he squawked.
Suddenly there was a hand in front of my face. “Here, give me him.”
I felt Corey taken from my arms, saw Jude put him in the wagon bottom, then reach back down and pick me up and I let out a squawk about like Corey had as my feet left the ground. Once I was standing in the wagon Jude told me, “Don’t let him steal all your fun. You did a good thing Dovie; it helped the family.”
“I’m fine … just … just a little tired I guess. It’s been a funky day.”
He nodded then gave a sharp whistle. “Paulie! Gather up the troops and get ‘em over here; we need to get back up to the house.” He jumped out of the wagon and as the kids lined up post haste he put them in the back with me. “I need to talk to Dad for a sec then we’ll go.”
I answered more questions from the kids and those that stood around the wagon. Butch got out of the wagon with the last item – one of the bottles of lemon juice – and told me, “Jude’s right. Clew is … well … he’s having a hard time right now.”
I nodded and quietly I replied, “He and Crystal are brangling a little bit.”
“Nah, no more than they normally do now that they have a place of their own for privacy. More like Clew isn’t used to staying in one place very long and wants to go but he’s afraid if he does he is somehow going to be left out of all that is going on here. And Crystal isn’t up to traveling right now.”
“She can’t get pregnant … Jude mentioned she’d had a … uh …”
“Yeah, a hysterectomy,” he acknowledged. “But that ain’t the problem. She wound up being allergic to something in the T-vaccine and was sick for a while last year. Every once in a while she has a relapse. Guess you can see she ain’t her normal self.”
“I thought that was just because they were fussing.”
“Nah, like I said, neither one of them are easy to live with but they can’t seem to live without each other either. They fight hard, they make up fast. Irritating as hell to be around when they really go on a tear and all you want is some peace. I’ll talk to Clewis.”
I shook my head. “No Butch. You gotta stop trying to make things easy for him. And I need to grow a thicker skin. For one, I’m no angel. And for two, if Clewis is all I have to worry about in this life I’d be a lucky girl. He’s the least of my worries; I should be able to ignore him.”
He leaned over the wall of the wagon and patted my arm and then walked towards Uncle Roe who stood there shaking his head while Jude came to take the reins. I asked, “Is he upset?”
“No … not about any of it so stop trying to make a problem when there is none. He’s more worried that I’m getting into more than I can handle going to work in town … old friends, easy temptation, that sort of thing. He won’t ask me to stop because he’s a realist but it hurts him a little that it is something I gotta do because he can’t get the farm to pay the taxes right now.”
Paulie asked, “Jude, can I ride on the wagon seat with you?”
“’Nother time little man. Keep your sister company, she’s had a rough day. She’s not used to being away from you guys and she fretted quite a bit.”
“Aw Dovie … we did OK. River can’t cook though.”
Shocked I said, “I hope you didn’t tell her that Paulie.”
“Naw, didn’t have to. Butch’s eyes started watering when he tasted the grits she made for noonday and she’d put honey in it thinking it would cover up the crunch where she didn’t cook ‘em enough. He started laughing like it was funny … not mean, but funny. That’s when we walked down to Uncle Roe’s. Gosh I’m glad you’re home.”
I tried not to smile because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but a grin popped out anyway and I told him, “I’m glad I’m home too.”
Chapter XL
“Corn pones, greens, ham and red eye gravy, and fried apples. That sound ok?” Everyone nodded their head so hard I could hear their marbles rattling. “OK, then help Jude get everything into the house. After that Paulie you and Bobby do whatever Jude tells you to do next. Lonnie, you help Tiff set the table and corral the terrible duo. What’s with the crankies?”
Tiffany said quietly, “They’re hungry. Paulie wasn’t kidding about the grits tasting nasty.”
“You didn’t get anything at Uncle Roe’s?”
She nodded, “Apples, but we had a lot of chores to do too.”
I sighed. “OK, I’ll get everything going as quick as I can. Jude?”
“Huh?” he answered from where he was dropping the back end on the wagon.
“It might be dark before I can get everything finished. Will that give you time to get Grits and the wagon back to Uncle Roe and then come back for supper?”
“I’ll be back before it’s dark but whenever you finish is fine. My cooking isn’t much better than River’s is so you won’t hear me complaining.”
Dinner was over and clean up finished. The kids washed up and off to bed, albeit reluctantly. The stuff from the Exchange taken down to the basement but it wasn’t put away yet as I as waiting for daylight to come through the basement windows so I wouldn’t have to use the lamp. I was taking a last swipe at the table when there was a knock on the door. “Jude, it’s me.” Clewis.
Pulling his hand back from the rifle he’d been reaching for Jude stepped out onto the porch. I heard them talking. “No church tomorrow. Military is out and about in force.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“Preacher sent runners out and it’s been spreading that way. There’s a curfew of dusk to dawn that stretches outside town. Everybody is to stay home and off the roads. There was some kind of riot that started in Clarksville and it’s been sending sparks out in every direction. Mr. Schnell was here earlier telling Dad he’d heard things on the radio; that it had gone into Hopkinsville too. Dover’s mess is small compared to Hoptown and Clarksville but that’s where some of the Protection Zone’s administrative offices are so they are going to come down just as hard in this area as in the bigger cities.”
“Dad mentioned it. OK, thanks for letting us know.”
“Dovie around?”
He knew good and well I was, he could see me through the screen door. Jude shrugged and called inside, “Dovie?”
As I came out he went in, but he didn’t go far. Clewis scratched his nose and said, “You know I didn’t mean it. About you buying any of us. I … I didn’t mean to make you grieve for your folks.”
“OK.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well … Ok then. And Crystal said thank you … for thinking of us.”
I asked, “How is she? Butch said she isn’t feeling good.”
He seemed to wilt in relief. “She isn’t and I was wondering … that tea you give to Reynolds is like a miracle drug … you got anything like that for Crystal?”
“I don’t know. What’s wrong with her?”
“Real run down … tired … get’s a cold real easy ... gets depressed for no reason … loses her appetite … she’ll sleep for a couple of days and then get up tired but almost all better.”
“Has Aunt Frankie made her any rose hip tea? It has a lot of Vitamin C in it. And she should eat a lot of greens.”
“She don’t like greens very much.”
“Too bad,” I told him ruthlessly. “They’re high in iron and calcium as well as vitamins A and C. If she is run down she needs all that. If she absolutely will not eat greens you need to get her to drink green broth soup made from dandelion greens, collards, and things like that … it would be better though if she would eat the greens too. Hang on, I’ll give you the rose hips but you need to get her to eat the other too. If this doesn’t work – the rose hips and greens – we’ll try some of Granny Cherry’s other receipts.”
After I gave him a handful of hips to put in his pocket he lit off the porch and rushed back the way he came.
I watched him as far as I could in the moonlight in case he tripped at the gully. Jude said from where he was sitting, “You make it too easy for people Dovie.”
I turned to look at him. “Huh?”
“To … to … aw forget it, I’m the last person to talk about taking advantage. I’m as bad as Clewis. Now come sit down, I don’t know about you but my butt is dragging and I can’t sit comfortable until you get off your feet too.”
“Hang on,” I told him and then slipped into my bedroom, reached under my bed and pulled up the loose floorboard and pulled out what I had hidden there. I walked back in, dropped the bag in his lap and then flopped on the other end of the sofa from him.
Holding the heavy bag in his hand he asked cautiously, “What’s this?”
“What you said we’d talk about later.”
He opened the bag – it was really an old shaving kit – like a snake was going to jump out of it. The bag was filled with other bags. Some of them held stones, some cold globs of cold metal, a few held really expensive looking pieces of jewelry. “What in the Sam Hill?”
I sighed. “Remember I told you about them guys … the ones that … where I … “
“The men that tried to talk you into giving it up without a fight,” he said so I wouldn’t have to.
“Yeah, them. Anyway … spoils of battle or whatever you want to call it. I didn’t touch the drugs they had but I took this and hid it under the spare tire in case I needed it to bribe my way out of another situation like that.”
Grumbling he said, “This would more than likely get you into a worse one you knuckle head.” Scooting down closer to me he added, “This is dangerous stuff Dovie … men … men would kill for this.”
“Yeah, well I got news for you Jude … men will kill for any reason and for no reason at all, it’s the way some of them seem to be born.”
He looked at me and said, “You’re too young to be that cynical.”
I asked, “You telling me it isn’t true?”
“I didn’t say it isn’t true. I said you are too young to have to know it.” He sighed and shook his head. “You really expect me to just waltz up to Dad and say ‘Here … use this to pay the taxes.’?”
“I don’t know what I expect Jude, that’s why I’m asking.”
He shook his head. “Maybe last year this would have paid a king’s ransom but the price of gold and silver is in the toilet right now. You can’t eat gold, you can’t eat silver, and there’s nothing to really spend this on. And the government point blank won’t accept it for payment of taxes or anything because the exchange rate is too volatile right now and most of it down. If no one is taking it in trade, not even the government, the average man ain’t interested in it. If the average man ain’t interested in it, it’s just a pretty toy to play with. I can take these dollar bills … they look like they’re out of someone’s coin collection and won’t raise too many questions … and use it to pay some of it but the rest of it …” He thought before saying, “You’re better off hiding this stuff again and maybe some place down the road, if gold and silver are worth something again, you can trade them for something then.”
“So it won’t help?” I said dejectedly.
“Hey, get rid of the long face. You helped today … everyone has to pitch in around here, not just one person. Since I’ve got work, Butch and Clewis, Rick and Lorn, can help Dad around the farm. Boo has got another job – he’s really getting good at smithing and one of the Mennonite elders is more than happy to have the help and teach him more at the same time – River can’t cook but she has the green touch and is helping Mom with the tail end of the garden down there. Crystal gives the kids lessons; at least when she feels better she does.”
“And I get to come late to the game and benefit from all their hard work.”
He caught me off guard and swatted me with a little, poofy sofa cushion. “Stop being a hard head. You are doing stuff up here for these kids and reminding everyone that groceries don’t have to come on shelves or out of the kitchen garden. You know that kudzu dish has already spread far and wide by word of mouth and there’s a lot of people with full bellies, that were going hungry before, because of it. The stuff just hangs everywhere and people look at it every day … but hardly anyone remembered you could eat the stuff. Now that’s something right there,” he said, popping me again with the pillow. “And deerberries and hawberries … people have forgotten the old ways; even the old folks have forgotten them because they didn’t need ‘em anymore. You’re reminding people of them. And that’s your contribution … so stop your fidgeting over it.”
I sighed. “But that’s nothing. That’s … that’s just stuff I learned from Mom.”
“Maybe it’s nothing to you but I can guarantee that a lot of people think it is something. And I’m wondering what else you have rattling around up there.”
He popped me again … or tried to. I grabbed the pillow from him and scowled. Yeah, like that was going to make him repentant.
“Look Dovie, don’t worry it so much. It’ll come. But right now I want to lock down the house and get to bed. I don’t know if Dad is going to want to break the Sabbath tomorrow with work or not but either way I’m tired and we need to rest.”
He was bossing me again … but he was right, so that’s what we did.
“Corn pones, greens, ham and red eye gravy, and fried apples. That sound ok?” Everyone nodded their head so hard I could hear their marbles rattling. “OK, then help Jude get everything into the house. After that Paulie you and Bobby do whatever Jude tells you to do next. Lonnie, you help Tiff set the table and corral the terrible duo. What’s with the crankies?”
Tiffany said quietly, “They’re hungry. Paulie wasn’t kidding about the grits tasting nasty.”
“You didn’t get anything at Uncle Roe’s?”
She nodded, “Apples, but we had a lot of chores to do too.”
I sighed. “OK, I’ll get everything going as quick as I can. Jude?”
“Huh?” he answered from where he was dropping the back end on the wagon.
“It might be dark before I can get everything finished. Will that give you time to get Grits and the wagon back to Uncle Roe and then come back for supper?”
“I’ll be back before it’s dark but whenever you finish is fine. My cooking isn’t much better than River’s is so you won’t hear me complaining.”
Dinner was over and clean up finished. The kids washed up and off to bed, albeit reluctantly. The stuff from the Exchange taken down to the basement but it wasn’t put away yet as I as waiting for daylight to come through the basement windows so I wouldn’t have to use the lamp. I was taking a last swipe at the table when there was a knock on the door. “Jude, it’s me.” Clewis.
Pulling his hand back from the rifle he’d been reaching for Jude stepped out onto the porch. I heard them talking. “No church tomorrow. Military is out and about in force.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“Preacher sent runners out and it’s been spreading that way. There’s a curfew of dusk to dawn that stretches outside town. Everybody is to stay home and off the roads. There was some kind of riot that started in Clarksville and it’s been sending sparks out in every direction. Mr. Schnell was here earlier telling Dad he’d heard things on the radio; that it had gone into Hopkinsville too. Dover’s mess is small compared to Hoptown and Clarksville but that’s where some of the Protection Zone’s administrative offices are so they are going to come down just as hard in this area as in the bigger cities.”
“Dad mentioned it. OK, thanks for letting us know.”
“Dovie around?”
He knew good and well I was, he could see me through the screen door. Jude shrugged and called inside, “Dovie?”
As I came out he went in, but he didn’t go far. Clewis scratched his nose and said, “You know I didn’t mean it. About you buying any of us. I … I didn’t mean to make you grieve for your folks.”
“OK.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well … Ok then. And Crystal said thank you … for thinking of us.”
I asked, “How is she? Butch said she isn’t feeling good.”
He seemed to wilt in relief. “She isn’t and I was wondering … that tea you give to Reynolds is like a miracle drug … you got anything like that for Crystal?”
“I don’t know. What’s wrong with her?”
“Real run down … tired … get’s a cold real easy ... gets depressed for no reason … loses her appetite … she’ll sleep for a couple of days and then get up tired but almost all better.”
“Has Aunt Frankie made her any rose hip tea? It has a lot of Vitamin C in it. And she should eat a lot of greens.”
“She don’t like greens very much.”
“Too bad,” I told him ruthlessly. “They’re high in iron and calcium as well as vitamins A and C. If she is run down she needs all that. If she absolutely will not eat greens you need to get her to drink green broth soup made from dandelion greens, collards, and things like that … it would be better though if she would eat the greens too. Hang on, I’ll give you the rose hips but you need to get her to eat the other too. If this doesn’t work – the rose hips and greens – we’ll try some of Granny Cherry’s other receipts.”
After I gave him a handful of hips to put in his pocket he lit off the porch and rushed back the way he came.
I watched him as far as I could in the moonlight in case he tripped at the gully. Jude said from where he was sitting, “You make it too easy for people Dovie.”
I turned to look at him. “Huh?”
“To … to … aw forget it, I’m the last person to talk about taking advantage. I’m as bad as Clewis. Now come sit down, I don’t know about you but my butt is dragging and I can’t sit comfortable until you get off your feet too.”
“Hang on,” I told him and then slipped into my bedroom, reached under my bed and pulled up the loose floorboard and pulled out what I had hidden there. I walked back in, dropped the bag in his lap and then flopped on the other end of the sofa from him.
Holding the heavy bag in his hand he asked cautiously, “What’s this?”
“What you said we’d talk about later.”
He opened the bag – it was really an old shaving kit – like a snake was going to jump out of it. The bag was filled with other bags. Some of them held stones, some cold globs of cold metal, a few held really expensive looking pieces of jewelry. “What in the Sam Hill?”
I sighed. “Remember I told you about them guys … the ones that … where I … “
“The men that tried to talk you into giving it up without a fight,” he said so I wouldn’t have to.
“Yeah, them. Anyway … spoils of battle or whatever you want to call it. I didn’t touch the drugs they had but I took this and hid it under the spare tire in case I needed it to bribe my way out of another situation like that.”
Grumbling he said, “This would more than likely get you into a worse one you knuckle head.” Scooting down closer to me he added, “This is dangerous stuff Dovie … men … men would kill for this.”
“Yeah, well I got news for you Jude … men will kill for any reason and for no reason at all, it’s the way some of them seem to be born.”
He looked at me and said, “You’re too young to be that cynical.”
I asked, “You telling me it isn’t true?”
“I didn’t say it isn’t true. I said you are too young to have to know it.” He sighed and shook his head. “You really expect me to just waltz up to Dad and say ‘Here … use this to pay the taxes.’?”
“I don’t know what I expect Jude, that’s why I’m asking.”
He shook his head. “Maybe last year this would have paid a king’s ransom but the price of gold and silver is in the toilet right now. You can’t eat gold, you can’t eat silver, and there’s nothing to really spend this on. And the government point blank won’t accept it for payment of taxes or anything because the exchange rate is too volatile right now and most of it down. If no one is taking it in trade, not even the government, the average man ain’t interested in it. If the average man ain’t interested in it, it’s just a pretty toy to play with. I can take these dollar bills … they look like they’re out of someone’s coin collection and won’t raise too many questions … and use it to pay some of it but the rest of it …” He thought before saying, “You’re better off hiding this stuff again and maybe some place down the road, if gold and silver are worth something again, you can trade them for something then.”
“So it won’t help?” I said dejectedly.
“Hey, get rid of the long face. You helped today … everyone has to pitch in around here, not just one person. Since I’ve got work, Butch and Clewis, Rick and Lorn, can help Dad around the farm. Boo has got another job – he’s really getting good at smithing and one of the Mennonite elders is more than happy to have the help and teach him more at the same time – River can’t cook but she has the green touch and is helping Mom with the tail end of the garden down there. Crystal gives the kids lessons; at least when she feels better she does.”
“And I get to come late to the game and benefit from all their hard work.”
He caught me off guard and swatted me with a little, poofy sofa cushion. “Stop being a hard head. You are doing stuff up here for these kids and reminding everyone that groceries don’t have to come on shelves or out of the kitchen garden. You know that kudzu dish has already spread far and wide by word of mouth and there’s a lot of people with full bellies, that were going hungry before, because of it. The stuff just hangs everywhere and people look at it every day … but hardly anyone remembered you could eat the stuff. Now that’s something right there,” he said, popping me again with the pillow. “And deerberries and hawberries … people have forgotten the old ways; even the old folks have forgotten them because they didn’t need ‘em anymore. You’re reminding people of them. And that’s your contribution … so stop your fidgeting over it.”
I sighed. “But that’s nothing. That’s … that’s just stuff I learned from Mom.”
“Maybe it’s nothing to you but I can guarantee that a lot of people think it is something. And I’m wondering what else you have rattling around up there.”
He popped me again … or tried to. I grabbed the pillow from him and scowled. Yeah, like that was going to make him repentant.
“Look Dovie, don’t worry it so much. It’ll come. But right now I want to lock down the house and get to bed. I don’t know if Dad is going to want to break the Sabbath tomorrow with work or not but either way I’m tired and we need to rest.”
He was bossing me again … but he was right, so that’s what we did.
Chapter XLI
Uncle Roe wanted a quiet day so he could think and pray on his thinking so everyone complied by doing their own thing. After a breakfast where I made Eggless Doughnuts – which tickled the kids to pieces, not to mention Jude got his fair share – I organized down in the basement until the dew dried up outside.
The Eggless Doughnuts were a treat that mom had made up when we all thought Jack had developed an allergy to eggs. You take a cup of hot plain mashed potatoes … except I was saving the few potatoes that we had so I used hot mashed Chinese yam … and mix in two tablespoons of butter, one and a half cup of sugar (I mixed half sugar and half honey), and one and a half cup of room temperature milk (except I used have sweet milk and have buttermilk because that is what I had to work with). I then sifted together four cups of flour and four heaping teaspoons of baking powder. I beat the flour into gooey stuff to make a stiff but pliable dough that I then rolled out onto a floured counter to half an inch thickness. I used an old doughnut cutter that my parents had gotten as a wedding present to cut doughnut shapes that I then put into hot lard to cook. When I was done with the doughnuts I also friend the doughnut holes for Mimi and Corey. I warmed and thinned out some honey and then brushed the top of the still warm doughnuts instead of sprinkling them with more white sugar like Mom would have … again because that is what I had to work with.
They weren’t exactly like momma fixed ‘em but on the other hand there was stone cold silence around the table except for the occasional moan when someone had realized they’d eaten their last bite.
I had one more tower of boxes to empty and move to get to the pantry cabinets when Jude called down the stairs, “You want me to help you get more kudzu or not?”
Brushing off what dust would come off I came up the stairs and asked him, “Who burnt your biscuits in the last half hour? If you’re feeling sour go do something else.”
He turned around and I saw a huge goose egg bump on his forehead. “What on earth?! Jude!”
“Don’t get you knickers in a knot Granny. Wind caught the smokehouse door when I was carrying wood in there and smacked me.”
“Smacked you? It looks like it tried to kill you! Are you all right?!”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. Then grumbling some more, “Didn’t mean to snap at you. Just feel stupid and my head hurts.”
I was wetting a dishcloth with some cool water from the pitcher and folding it into a compress and looked out to see the kids running around like wild Indians out in the yard. I told him, “Stupid because the door slammed? No. Not too smart about letting the kids play instead of helping you then yes. I left them up here to help you, not for you to do all the work for them.”
“Now you really do sound like Granny,” he said beginning to grin.
“It’s not funny Jude.”
“Yeah, it is. Now that I can see it anyway. I must have looked like a cartoon. And besides, it’s Sunday, the kids work every day, let ‘em have Sunday off.”
“Jude …”
“C’mon … let ‘em,” he cajoled. “I’ll help you get the kudzu and they can stay here at the house and watch Corey and Mimi. It isn’t going to hurt anything Dovie and it might help. You said yourself they haven’t put on any weight since you got off the road.”
“Oh … oh fine. Just stop making me feel like a monster,” I huffed, embarrassed.
“You’re no monster Dovie,” he told me kindly. “You work hard and the kids kinda get dragged along for the ride.”
“I don’t have any choice but to work hard.”
“I know and that’s what I’m here for … to help. Let the kids have most of the day off. I’ll help you with your gathering.
I’ll read to ‘em or something tonight while you do what you gotta do and they’ll be out from under your feet.”
“I don’t mind them under my feet.”
“I know … but you still need a break from it every now and again. Mom always made sure she got breaks from us; said it kept her sane and from killing us.” Then he said in consternation, “Assuming nothing comes up and Dad doesn’t need me for something.”
“You’ve got that look on your face again.”
“Huh? What look?”
“That look you get when you are planning something out in your head. I’ve seen you do it twice … in the buffet line at church and then at the Exchange. You look like you are mapping out battle plans.”
He rolled his eyes but then shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like that. Just want to get as much done in as little time as possible before something has the chance of interrupting. I find that if I work things out in my head first it means fewer mistakes on the backend that I have to fix. And them clouds tell me a front is going to move through here directly, though probably not before tonight. If they don’t get some outdoor time and sun today it may be a while before they do.”
I turned to see where he was looking and sighed. “Doggone it. I was hoping for a few more clear days. You know, getting that stuff from the Exchange was nice, made me feel good for a little while, but after really looking at what was left once we’d split it with the main house … it really isn’t going to go all that far.”
“Ease up Dovie, it’ll help to piece things out and it was more than we had before. Don’t get so down. Besides, won’t be much rain I don’t think, but it will be cool and damp behind the squall line.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “Because that’s the way they look.”
I looked back at the clouds and they just looked like a front to me but I decided to take Jude’s word for it.
A couple of hours later as I was snipping kudzu tips I felt the first cool breeze against the back of my neck where I had pinned up my braid. “Brrr.”
“Yep,” Jude sad nodding. “First week of November. ‘Bout time we got some cooler weather. You better get all the kudzu you can this time Dovie because there’s frost in that front. If it is a hard frost it likely won’t warm back up enough to keep the kudzu growing.”
“Fun, fun, fun,” I muttered.
We had brought the wheelbarrow and whenever we had enough baskets filled Jude would sit them in the barrow and trundle them back to the house and set them in the kitchen. Many bushels of kudzu later we switched to something else; a large tote full of kudzu roots and Chinese yams.
“Whoooweee, you get a work out doing this doncha,” Jude muttered. “I’ll be ready for supper. Good thing you put them beans to cook in the ground before we came out here ‘cause I don’t reckon you’re going to feel up to cooking after this.”
“You’re silly,” I told him. “Somebody has to cook unless we all want to go hungry; might as well be me.”
“Don’t you miss just being able to run out and get a bucket of chicken or sammich from the deli?”
I shrugged. “We only did that when Dad was home. Mom was very anti-fast food.”
“The deli wasn’t really fast food … just sammiches and pickles and that sort of thing; sometimes you could get potato salad or macaroni salad with it if you had the time to eat it. I miss the thick slice bologna. You could get it on any bread you wanted, maybe fry the bologna if you wanted, choose from a buncha different cheeses, get fresh lettuce and tomato … Lordy that was good after a long morning on the tractor. And then wash it down with a big glass of sweet tea.” He shook off the memories and then said, “You know, I don’t remember Aunt Malissa ever having a thing against fast food. She’d eat it when she was here.”
Shrugging noncommittally I said, “But you never heard her bring the idea up on her own.”
“I …” He stopped and thought about it. “Huh, you’re right. So you didn’t get any Happy Meals when you were little?”
“Mom thought it was spending money wastefully. About the only two things she would occasionally get a taste for would be pizza and Chinese food. When I came home from girl scouts one time and showed her I had learned to make thin crust, veggie pizza going to the pizza parlor went away.”
“What about Chinese food?”
“She took a class and learned to fix it herself. And then insisted that I learn too. I can rock a wok.”
He laughed, “A what?”
“A wok,” I told him smiling. “It’s that round pan that you make stir fry in.”
He just shook his head. “If you say so.”
I was gathering some mushrooms I had spotted on a fallen tree while Jude used a fork and spade to lever up several roots for harvesting. “Jude?”
“Hmmm?”
“Who owns that land?”
He stopped and looked at me with a silly look and then said, “Need you to be a little more specific. In case you haven’t noticed we are standing in the middle of a whole bunch of land surrounded by a whole bunch more land. What land in particular are you talking about?”
“Oh … uh … that land just on the other side of Uncle Roe’s fenceline … has a really old and fallen down cabin on it. I picked crabapples near the cabin but as far as I could see the land was all fallow.”
“Oh! I know where you talking about now. For a long time it belonged to these people called MacRae but they were old, old … like ancient old … and they were living in town even before Mom and Dad got married. They died and their estate would lease the fields out but mostly for hunting. Eventually it just got to be too much for their people to keep up with so the land got put it up for auction. These folks named Hamner from out of state bought it … five, six years ago mebbe … but they never did anything with it. I think they had some idea of coming up and building a vacation home or some such eventually. We’d see the husband around a couple times a year, riding around on a four-wheeler and drawing like he was surveying the place. Wife came once a year to camp with their kids. It was listed on the tax sale last year but as far as I know no one ever bought it.”
“So those crabapples aren’t going to come back to haunt me?”
“Nope … unless maybe you eat too many little green ones and get a belly ache.” He got a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, there’s a grove of persimmons a little way on the other side of that cabin. Mr. Hamner had me trim the deadwood out of them the last time he was up here. Might still be some fruit on ‘em.”
Remembering an incident from my childhood I told him, “If you’re thinking about tricking me with an unripe persimmon …”
He laughed. “I’ll admit I thought about it but actually I was remembering those persimmon bars your mother used to make. I remember Dad and Aunt Malissa having one of their discussions about whether persimmons needed a frost to sweeten up but I can’t remember what the outcome was.”
“They don’t,” I said remembering Mom’s lecture after I was foolish enough to fall for my cousins asking me to try how good the persimmons were. They ate the ones that were ripened and gave me one that was less so. I shuddered remembering the taste. “It won’t hurt them though if I can’t get to them today.”
“Well, I’m ready for a break. Let’s go look for the heck of it.”
I looked towards the house even though I couldn’t see it. “Let me go tell …”
“They’re fine. I gave Paulie a whistle in case of trouble and told him if I caught him blowing it without there being an emergency it’d be the last time he saw a horse for a while.”
“You’ve got his number all right.”
He nodded. “Thought I did. So do you want to go or not?”
Throwing caution to the wind since I was in the mood for a change as well I said, “Sure. Why not?”
The walk wasn’t all that far but it was a little arduous as the way was all uphill; the Ridge rose steeply where that land and Uncle Roe’s met. And old path through the cedars and other trees meant we didn’t have to cut out way but I was still glad Jude refilled our canteen each time he went back to the house because by the time we got where we were going I was parched. “Easy, you’re going to make yourself sick,” he told me.
“I’m out of shape. I remember being able to run up here with Jack and Jay and not even break a sweat. Now I’m gasping like I really am a granny.”
“You’ll get it back, it’s just going to take time. So what do you think? Are these ripe?”
I looked at the fruit hanging on the tree and all the fallen fruit on the ground.”
“I’m surprised there’s any left on the tree with as many as have dropped. I’m even more surprised there hasn’t been something up here eating them … look at all this squished fruit on the ground. I’m also surprised someone hasn’t gotten to these before us. I know this isn’t exactly close to the highway but still, if people are that hard up you’d think they’d be out here foraging all they could.”
“Probably would if they knew about it; remember this land ain’t been farmed or even lived on in quite a few years and on top of that most of those it was leased to since then were from out of town. Mr. Hamner used to complain about how standoffish the people around here are but to be honest he didn’t make much effort to be friendly either. Didn’t shop local very much and when he did, always complained about the prices and selection. Didn’t want people on their land when they weren’t around yet people had seen them hunting across other people’s property. My guess is that people just kinda forgot about ‘em … kinda sorta on purpose. Like I said, the reason I know about these trees is because he hired me to prune ‘em up. And let me tell you, he was a worse skinflint that Carlson is. He tried to pay minimum wage by the hour instead of paying me simply by the job like most people with sense would have. Had I been the type I could have milked him dry by dragging the job out. Should have though; we had an agreement and he still tried to deduct from what we’d agreed on because he thought I was going to haul the brush off and take it to the dump.”
“But the dump doesn’t take yard debris out here in the county.”
“You know that. I know that. Hamner wouldn’t believe it until he called and found out for himself and even then he grumbled that someone needed to come in and ‘fix’ the way they did things around here. Made me want to ask him if he didn’t like it so much then why he’d bought land here in the first place.”
“People are weird.”
“Now that’s a mouthful right there,” Jude agreed.
Uncle Roe wanted a quiet day so he could think and pray on his thinking so everyone complied by doing their own thing. After a breakfast where I made Eggless Doughnuts – which tickled the kids to pieces, not to mention Jude got his fair share – I organized down in the basement until the dew dried up outside.
The Eggless Doughnuts were a treat that mom had made up when we all thought Jack had developed an allergy to eggs. You take a cup of hot plain mashed potatoes … except I was saving the few potatoes that we had so I used hot mashed Chinese yam … and mix in two tablespoons of butter, one and a half cup of sugar (I mixed half sugar and half honey), and one and a half cup of room temperature milk (except I used have sweet milk and have buttermilk because that is what I had to work with). I then sifted together four cups of flour and four heaping teaspoons of baking powder. I beat the flour into gooey stuff to make a stiff but pliable dough that I then rolled out onto a floured counter to half an inch thickness. I used an old doughnut cutter that my parents had gotten as a wedding present to cut doughnut shapes that I then put into hot lard to cook. When I was done with the doughnuts I also friend the doughnut holes for Mimi and Corey. I warmed and thinned out some honey and then brushed the top of the still warm doughnuts instead of sprinkling them with more white sugar like Mom would have … again because that is what I had to work with.
They weren’t exactly like momma fixed ‘em but on the other hand there was stone cold silence around the table except for the occasional moan when someone had realized they’d eaten their last bite.
I had one more tower of boxes to empty and move to get to the pantry cabinets when Jude called down the stairs, “You want me to help you get more kudzu or not?”
Brushing off what dust would come off I came up the stairs and asked him, “Who burnt your biscuits in the last half hour? If you’re feeling sour go do something else.”
He turned around and I saw a huge goose egg bump on his forehead. “What on earth?! Jude!”
“Don’t get you knickers in a knot Granny. Wind caught the smokehouse door when I was carrying wood in there and smacked me.”
“Smacked you? It looks like it tried to kill you! Are you all right?!”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. Then grumbling some more, “Didn’t mean to snap at you. Just feel stupid and my head hurts.”
I was wetting a dishcloth with some cool water from the pitcher and folding it into a compress and looked out to see the kids running around like wild Indians out in the yard. I told him, “Stupid because the door slammed? No. Not too smart about letting the kids play instead of helping you then yes. I left them up here to help you, not for you to do all the work for them.”
“Now you really do sound like Granny,” he said beginning to grin.
“It’s not funny Jude.”
“Yeah, it is. Now that I can see it anyway. I must have looked like a cartoon. And besides, it’s Sunday, the kids work every day, let ‘em have Sunday off.”
“Jude …”
“C’mon … let ‘em,” he cajoled. “I’ll help you get the kudzu and they can stay here at the house and watch Corey and Mimi. It isn’t going to hurt anything Dovie and it might help. You said yourself they haven’t put on any weight since you got off the road.”
“Oh … oh fine. Just stop making me feel like a monster,” I huffed, embarrassed.
“You’re no monster Dovie,” he told me kindly. “You work hard and the kids kinda get dragged along for the ride.”
“I don’t have any choice but to work hard.”
“I know and that’s what I’m here for … to help. Let the kids have most of the day off. I’ll help you with your gathering.
I’ll read to ‘em or something tonight while you do what you gotta do and they’ll be out from under your feet.”
“I don’t mind them under my feet.”
“I know … but you still need a break from it every now and again. Mom always made sure she got breaks from us; said it kept her sane and from killing us.” Then he said in consternation, “Assuming nothing comes up and Dad doesn’t need me for something.”
“You’ve got that look on your face again.”
“Huh? What look?”
“That look you get when you are planning something out in your head. I’ve seen you do it twice … in the buffet line at church and then at the Exchange. You look like you are mapping out battle plans.”
He rolled his eyes but then shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like that. Just want to get as much done in as little time as possible before something has the chance of interrupting. I find that if I work things out in my head first it means fewer mistakes on the backend that I have to fix. And them clouds tell me a front is going to move through here directly, though probably not before tonight. If they don’t get some outdoor time and sun today it may be a while before they do.”
I turned to see where he was looking and sighed. “Doggone it. I was hoping for a few more clear days. You know, getting that stuff from the Exchange was nice, made me feel good for a little while, but after really looking at what was left once we’d split it with the main house … it really isn’t going to go all that far.”
“Ease up Dovie, it’ll help to piece things out and it was more than we had before. Don’t get so down. Besides, won’t be much rain I don’t think, but it will be cool and damp behind the squall line.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “Because that’s the way they look.”
I looked back at the clouds and they just looked like a front to me but I decided to take Jude’s word for it.
A couple of hours later as I was snipping kudzu tips I felt the first cool breeze against the back of my neck where I had pinned up my braid. “Brrr.”
“Yep,” Jude sad nodding. “First week of November. ‘Bout time we got some cooler weather. You better get all the kudzu you can this time Dovie because there’s frost in that front. If it is a hard frost it likely won’t warm back up enough to keep the kudzu growing.”
“Fun, fun, fun,” I muttered.
We had brought the wheelbarrow and whenever we had enough baskets filled Jude would sit them in the barrow and trundle them back to the house and set them in the kitchen. Many bushels of kudzu later we switched to something else; a large tote full of kudzu roots and Chinese yams.
“Whoooweee, you get a work out doing this doncha,” Jude muttered. “I’ll be ready for supper. Good thing you put them beans to cook in the ground before we came out here ‘cause I don’t reckon you’re going to feel up to cooking after this.”
“You’re silly,” I told him. “Somebody has to cook unless we all want to go hungry; might as well be me.”
“Don’t you miss just being able to run out and get a bucket of chicken or sammich from the deli?”
I shrugged. “We only did that when Dad was home. Mom was very anti-fast food.”
“The deli wasn’t really fast food … just sammiches and pickles and that sort of thing; sometimes you could get potato salad or macaroni salad with it if you had the time to eat it. I miss the thick slice bologna. You could get it on any bread you wanted, maybe fry the bologna if you wanted, choose from a buncha different cheeses, get fresh lettuce and tomato … Lordy that was good after a long morning on the tractor. And then wash it down with a big glass of sweet tea.” He shook off the memories and then said, “You know, I don’t remember Aunt Malissa ever having a thing against fast food. She’d eat it when she was here.”
Shrugging noncommittally I said, “But you never heard her bring the idea up on her own.”
“I …” He stopped and thought about it. “Huh, you’re right. So you didn’t get any Happy Meals when you were little?”
“Mom thought it was spending money wastefully. About the only two things she would occasionally get a taste for would be pizza and Chinese food. When I came home from girl scouts one time and showed her I had learned to make thin crust, veggie pizza going to the pizza parlor went away.”
“What about Chinese food?”
“She took a class and learned to fix it herself. And then insisted that I learn too. I can rock a wok.”
He laughed, “A what?”
“A wok,” I told him smiling. “It’s that round pan that you make stir fry in.”
He just shook his head. “If you say so.”
I was gathering some mushrooms I had spotted on a fallen tree while Jude used a fork and spade to lever up several roots for harvesting. “Jude?”
“Hmmm?”
“Who owns that land?”
He stopped and looked at me with a silly look and then said, “Need you to be a little more specific. In case you haven’t noticed we are standing in the middle of a whole bunch of land surrounded by a whole bunch more land. What land in particular are you talking about?”
“Oh … uh … that land just on the other side of Uncle Roe’s fenceline … has a really old and fallen down cabin on it. I picked crabapples near the cabin but as far as I could see the land was all fallow.”
“Oh! I know where you talking about now. For a long time it belonged to these people called MacRae but they were old, old … like ancient old … and they were living in town even before Mom and Dad got married. They died and their estate would lease the fields out but mostly for hunting. Eventually it just got to be too much for their people to keep up with so the land got put it up for auction. These folks named Hamner from out of state bought it … five, six years ago mebbe … but they never did anything with it. I think they had some idea of coming up and building a vacation home or some such eventually. We’d see the husband around a couple times a year, riding around on a four-wheeler and drawing like he was surveying the place. Wife came once a year to camp with their kids. It was listed on the tax sale last year but as far as I know no one ever bought it.”
“So those crabapples aren’t going to come back to haunt me?”
“Nope … unless maybe you eat too many little green ones and get a belly ache.” He got a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, there’s a grove of persimmons a little way on the other side of that cabin. Mr. Hamner had me trim the deadwood out of them the last time he was up here. Might still be some fruit on ‘em.”
Remembering an incident from my childhood I told him, “If you’re thinking about tricking me with an unripe persimmon …”
He laughed. “I’ll admit I thought about it but actually I was remembering those persimmon bars your mother used to make. I remember Dad and Aunt Malissa having one of their discussions about whether persimmons needed a frost to sweeten up but I can’t remember what the outcome was.”
“They don’t,” I said remembering Mom’s lecture after I was foolish enough to fall for my cousins asking me to try how good the persimmons were. They ate the ones that were ripened and gave me one that was less so. I shuddered remembering the taste. “It won’t hurt them though if I can’t get to them today.”
“Well, I’m ready for a break. Let’s go look for the heck of it.”
I looked towards the house even though I couldn’t see it. “Let me go tell …”
“They’re fine. I gave Paulie a whistle in case of trouble and told him if I caught him blowing it without there being an emergency it’d be the last time he saw a horse for a while.”
“You’ve got his number all right.”
He nodded. “Thought I did. So do you want to go or not?”
Throwing caution to the wind since I was in the mood for a change as well I said, “Sure. Why not?”
The walk wasn’t all that far but it was a little arduous as the way was all uphill; the Ridge rose steeply where that land and Uncle Roe’s met. And old path through the cedars and other trees meant we didn’t have to cut out way but I was still glad Jude refilled our canteen each time he went back to the house because by the time we got where we were going I was parched. “Easy, you’re going to make yourself sick,” he told me.
“I’m out of shape. I remember being able to run up here with Jack and Jay and not even break a sweat. Now I’m gasping like I really am a granny.”
“You’ll get it back, it’s just going to take time. So what do you think? Are these ripe?”
I looked at the fruit hanging on the tree and all the fallen fruit on the ground.”
“I’m surprised there’s any left on the tree with as many as have dropped. I’m even more surprised there hasn’t been something up here eating them … look at all this squished fruit on the ground. I’m also surprised someone hasn’t gotten to these before us. I know this isn’t exactly close to the highway but still, if people are that hard up you’d think they’d be out here foraging all they could.”
“Probably would if they knew about it; remember this land ain’t been farmed or even lived on in quite a few years and on top of that most of those it was leased to since then were from out of town. Mr. Hamner used to complain about how standoffish the people around here are but to be honest he didn’t make much effort to be friendly either. Didn’t shop local very much and when he did, always complained about the prices and selection. Didn’t want people on their land when they weren’t around yet people had seen them hunting across other people’s property. My guess is that people just kinda forgot about ‘em … kinda sorta on purpose. Like I said, the reason I know about these trees is because he hired me to prune ‘em up. And let me tell you, he was a worse skinflint that Carlson is. He tried to pay minimum wage by the hour instead of paying me simply by the job like most people with sense would have. Had I been the type I could have milked him dry by dragging the job out. Should have though; we had an agreement and he still tried to deduct from what we’d agreed on because he thought I was going to haul the brush off and take it to the dump.”
“But the dump doesn’t take yard debris out here in the county.”
“You know that. I know that. Hamner wouldn’t believe it until he called and found out for himself and even then he grumbled that someone needed to come in and ‘fix’ the way they did things around here. Made me want to ask him if he didn’t like it so much then why he’d bought land here in the first place.”
“People are weird.”
“Now that’s a mouthful right there,” Jude agreed.
Chapter XLII
Granny Cherry’s Persimmon Butter
3 cups of persimmon pulp
¾ cup apple cider
1 ¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Put everything in a heavy bottom cooking pot that has a lid. Cook it on medium to medium-low, stirring often to keep the mess from scorching or burning. Continue cooking until mixture darkens and gets thick. Take lid off to cook it down to butter consistency. Spoon into hot, sterilized jars, seal, and then process in a boiling water bath.
My first batch of persimmon butter never even made it into jars but covered the corn dodgers that I had made to go with the fried ham slices and beans that I had cooked for supper. I had to switch to sorghum molasses (courtesy of Boo’s bring home pay being shared around) after that batch otherwise I would have to use up all the brown sugar in the house and that just wouldn’t do.
I was up late into Sunday night cooking down the kudzu and getting it canned up. I didn’t mind though because as Jude had predicted the front brought a little rain and then a damp cold that if you stood still long enough wanted to seep into your bones. I had opted to use the old woodstove to cook with and the heat from the kitchen would rise and go up into the bedroom the kids were using right above me. Eventually however I did give out and go to bed.
Monday morning was not just cool but cold, even in the house. There was frost on the ground as well though not a really heavy frost and it melted as soon as the sun was up a couple of hours.
“Jude, where is your coat?!”
“Relax Granny, on the porch airing out. It smells like a cross between tobacco smoke and moth balls.”
“Ew. You don’t even smoke.”
He laughed. “Old pack of cigs in the inside pocket – probably someone stuck them in there to hide them at the house but then forgot about ‘em when I brought my stuff up here; it’s Rochelle’s ex’s brand, Lorne don’t smoke. Mothballs in the front pockets were likely put there by the girls before it was packed away last winter. Ew don’t even start to describe it … try wearing the thing. When it warms back up you think you can wash it?”
“Sure. But until then I’ll spritz it with some stuff that …”
“No … no perfume … that’s all I need. Besides it will mess up going hunting and Butch and I are going in the morning if the creek don’t rise. I hope by then the mothball smell is gone.”
Tiff had walked into the kitchen right on the tail end of Jude’s sentence and she asked with huge eyes, “It’s gonna flood?”
I grinned and gave her a hug. “No Tiff, that’s just an old timey saying. If the creek don’t rise means that if nothing else gets in the way of what was originally planned.”
“Oh. You sure have a lot of funny sayings that don’t mean what they sound like they mean.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I spotted her feet which were bare inside the house slippers that I had found for her to wear. “Girl go get some socks on! You want to get a cold? You haven’t been over the sniffles all that long.”
After she’d left – hopefully to share the wisdom of wearing socks with the rest of the kids – I turned to Jude and told him, “No perfume … water and baking soda.”
It took him a minute to backtrack and then he said, “Oh … ok. Just no perfume. The coat stinks bad enough as it is.”
After breakfast Jude took off to help cut wood down at the main house and I got back to making preserves and going through boxes … this time with the help of the kids which got some of it done quicker.
In a voice loud enough to rattle crockery Paulie called from the basement, “Dovie! We got the boxes emptied that were in front of the pantry!”
Stepping over to the stairs and looking down I told him, “Geez, you don’t need to bellow at the top of your lungs like that.”
I could see him shrug from the bottom of the stairwell. “I wanted to make sure you heard me all the way up the stairs.”
“Ever thought of walking up the stairs?”
Another careless shrug was followed by, “Yeah, but I’d just have to walk back down again when you gave me something else to do.”
Well, it was the truth but I was beginning to understand why Mom
sometimes looked cross eyed at us and warned us not to sass even though we hadn’t really meant it the way she took it. I took the last jar of pickled apples out of the canner and then replaced them all with more persimmon butter, put the lid on so that it would come back up to a boil and could process the jars, and then went down the basement stairs to see what, if anything, was in the cabinets.
A few cobwebs and a lot of dust was all I noticed at first. All I could do was sneeze and cough when I opened the cabinet door and a stack of vinyl placemats fell from the top.
“Here … (sneeze) … Tiff. Take these … (cough) … up stairs and put them in the … (sneeze, sneeze, hack) … sink so I can wash them. I was wondering where they had all gone. Using them will keep the tablecloth and table beneath it cleaner and we won’t have to keep changing the linens out.”
I sniffed some more and then rubbed the dust out of my eyes and took a good look and started smiling. “Yay Mom,” I said quietly.
There were several different homemade condiments in there just like I had remembered … grape catsup, mushroom catsup, green tomato catsup, apple catsup, blueberry catsup, peach catsup, walnut catsup, cherry catsup, banana catsup, blueberries pickled in molasses. Then there were other things like her homemade cordials and liqueurs which gave me a small pause for Jude’s sake, and some “exotic” jams and jellies from the fruits so easy to obtain when we lived in Florida, but nothing that really added a whole lot of meat and potatoes to our food supplies. Don’t get me wrong, something was certainly better than nothing, but a girl can hope. And then I realized on the bottom were glass gallon jugs of dried beans and several jugs of vinegar.
“Yahoo!”
“What?” the kids wanted to know.
“Beans, dried beans. They might take forever and a day to cook soft but they’re still good to eat. And the vinegar has a mother in it.”
When the kids asked Paulie what I meant he said, “You don’t want to know; it’s gross looking.” I closed the cabinet up and then had the kids start carting stuff from the boxes upstairs and putting it away where it made the best sense to. Most of it was sewing and craft stuff and some more books. After that the only unpacked things down in the basement was all of Mom’s gazillion empty canning jars that she had been collecting over the years from yard and estate sales. Dad had surprised her a couple of years ago with a large bulk order of tattler reusable rings and lids and spare rubber rings since he’d had to miss her birthday for the third year in a row but Mom hadn’t gotten a chance to use many of them. I also knew for a fact there were slightly under a freakton of traditional rings and lids in some sealed up five gallon buckets over in the corner because I had carried them down myself after we left Florida. Having something to store food in is not the problem, having food to store is.
I knew the frost, mild though it was, pretty much heralded the beginning of the end of harvest season for field crops. It gave me the shakes to think about it. There would still be a few things in the “forest grocery store” but the colder it got the less there would be and I needed to be careful not to over harvest the wild stuff or there wouldn’t be anything come spring time. I looked around and the piles of things that I still needed to do something with. It was comforting but at the same time I knew that the cooked and canned up results wouldn’t take up nearly the room that the uncooked, unpreserved originals did and as such wouldn’t look like near as much food.
I hauled up another basket of persimmons and then went down for a basket of small green Granny Smith apples and had Paulie and Bobby bring up the other speckleware water bath canner from where it hung on a nail. If I was going to use the wood stove to cook on then I might as well make use all the burners and not waste the wood.
Apple Pickles Made With Honey
10 cups of quartered firm apples with the skins still on
1 cup of mint vinegar (or plain vinegar, mint just adds another layer of flavor)
2 inches of stick cinnamon
2 cups of honey
6 whole cloves
Combine honey, vinegar, and spices and heat to boiling. Cook two to three cups of apple at a time, handling them gently. When they are transparent lift them out and put them in a bowl. Continue until all apples are cooked. Remove spices but keep liquid hot. Place cooked apples in prepared jars and then cover with the boiling vinegar and honey mixture. Seal and process like you would for apples at your elevation.
After the noon meal I told the kids to get out of the house while the getting was good or I would put them back to work. An hour later when I was beginning to wonder what they were up to because it had gotten too quiet I hear a bunch of screaming and hollering. I nearly broke my neck on the stoop trying to run outside thinking that the bear had come back but then stopped and wondered why on earth Paulie was running around with a fishing net laughing like a loon.
“Dang it! Give me a heart attack why don’t you Paulson Doherty! What are you all doing out here?!”
Tiff, much calmer than the rest of them walked over to me and said, “They’ve been hunting squirrels.”
Momentarily speechless I finally realized that there was indeed something caught in the net. “Are you telling me they actually caught one with that old fishing net?”
“They caught three in one swoop. Only they don’t know what to do with them now.”
I looked to the heavens for guidance because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them either but Jude and Clewis picked that moment to drive up in the wagon. I took one look at them and being purely inspired I called, “You deal with it!” before walking back in the house.
It was a few moments before I heard both Clewis and Jude laughing as hard as the kids had been if not worse. A few minutes after that I heard, “Gross!” “Ew!” And Bobby’s, “How fast can we cook ‘em? I’m hungry.”
Granny Cherry’s Persimmon Butter
3 cups of persimmon pulp
¾ cup apple cider
1 ¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Put everything in a heavy bottom cooking pot that has a lid. Cook it on medium to medium-low, stirring often to keep the mess from scorching or burning. Continue cooking until mixture darkens and gets thick. Take lid off to cook it down to butter consistency. Spoon into hot, sterilized jars, seal, and then process in a boiling water bath.
My first batch of persimmon butter never even made it into jars but covered the corn dodgers that I had made to go with the fried ham slices and beans that I had cooked for supper. I had to switch to sorghum molasses (courtesy of Boo’s bring home pay being shared around) after that batch otherwise I would have to use up all the brown sugar in the house and that just wouldn’t do.
I was up late into Sunday night cooking down the kudzu and getting it canned up. I didn’t mind though because as Jude had predicted the front brought a little rain and then a damp cold that if you stood still long enough wanted to seep into your bones. I had opted to use the old woodstove to cook with and the heat from the kitchen would rise and go up into the bedroom the kids were using right above me. Eventually however I did give out and go to bed.
Monday morning was not just cool but cold, even in the house. There was frost on the ground as well though not a really heavy frost and it melted as soon as the sun was up a couple of hours.
“Jude, where is your coat?!”
“Relax Granny, on the porch airing out. It smells like a cross between tobacco smoke and moth balls.”
“Ew. You don’t even smoke.”
He laughed. “Old pack of cigs in the inside pocket – probably someone stuck them in there to hide them at the house but then forgot about ‘em when I brought my stuff up here; it’s Rochelle’s ex’s brand, Lorne don’t smoke. Mothballs in the front pockets were likely put there by the girls before it was packed away last winter. Ew don’t even start to describe it … try wearing the thing. When it warms back up you think you can wash it?”
“Sure. But until then I’ll spritz it with some stuff that …”
“No … no perfume … that’s all I need. Besides it will mess up going hunting and Butch and I are going in the morning if the creek don’t rise. I hope by then the mothball smell is gone.”
Tiff had walked into the kitchen right on the tail end of Jude’s sentence and she asked with huge eyes, “It’s gonna flood?”
I grinned and gave her a hug. “No Tiff, that’s just an old timey saying. If the creek don’t rise means that if nothing else gets in the way of what was originally planned.”
“Oh. You sure have a lot of funny sayings that don’t mean what they sound like they mean.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I spotted her feet which were bare inside the house slippers that I had found for her to wear. “Girl go get some socks on! You want to get a cold? You haven’t been over the sniffles all that long.”
After she’d left – hopefully to share the wisdom of wearing socks with the rest of the kids – I turned to Jude and told him, “No perfume … water and baking soda.”
It took him a minute to backtrack and then he said, “Oh … ok. Just no perfume. The coat stinks bad enough as it is.”
After breakfast Jude took off to help cut wood down at the main house and I got back to making preserves and going through boxes … this time with the help of the kids which got some of it done quicker.
In a voice loud enough to rattle crockery Paulie called from the basement, “Dovie! We got the boxes emptied that were in front of the pantry!”
Stepping over to the stairs and looking down I told him, “Geez, you don’t need to bellow at the top of your lungs like that.”
I could see him shrug from the bottom of the stairwell. “I wanted to make sure you heard me all the way up the stairs.”
“Ever thought of walking up the stairs?”
Another careless shrug was followed by, “Yeah, but I’d just have to walk back down again when you gave me something else to do.”
Well, it was the truth but I was beginning to understand why Mom
sometimes looked cross eyed at us and warned us not to sass even though we hadn’t really meant it the way she took it. I took the last jar of pickled apples out of the canner and then replaced them all with more persimmon butter, put the lid on so that it would come back up to a boil and could process the jars, and then went down the basement stairs to see what, if anything, was in the cabinets.
A few cobwebs and a lot of dust was all I noticed at first. All I could do was sneeze and cough when I opened the cabinet door and a stack of vinyl placemats fell from the top.
“Here … (sneeze) … Tiff. Take these … (cough) … up stairs and put them in the … (sneeze, sneeze, hack) … sink so I can wash them. I was wondering where they had all gone. Using them will keep the tablecloth and table beneath it cleaner and we won’t have to keep changing the linens out.”
I sniffed some more and then rubbed the dust out of my eyes and took a good look and started smiling. “Yay Mom,” I said quietly.
There were several different homemade condiments in there just like I had remembered … grape catsup, mushroom catsup, green tomato catsup, apple catsup, blueberry catsup, peach catsup, walnut catsup, cherry catsup, banana catsup, blueberries pickled in molasses. Then there were other things like her homemade cordials and liqueurs which gave me a small pause for Jude’s sake, and some “exotic” jams and jellies from the fruits so easy to obtain when we lived in Florida, but nothing that really added a whole lot of meat and potatoes to our food supplies. Don’t get me wrong, something was certainly better than nothing, but a girl can hope. And then I realized on the bottom were glass gallon jugs of dried beans and several jugs of vinegar.
“Yahoo!”
“What?” the kids wanted to know.
“Beans, dried beans. They might take forever and a day to cook soft but they’re still good to eat. And the vinegar has a mother in it.”
When the kids asked Paulie what I meant he said, “You don’t want to know; it’s gross looking.” I closed the cabinet up and then had the kids start carting stuff from the boxes upstairs and putting it away where it made the best sense to. Most of it was sewing and craft stuff and some more books. After that the only unpacked things down in the basement was all of Mom’s gazillion empty canning jars that she had been collecting over the years from yard and estate sales. Dad had surprised her a couple of years ago with a large bulk order of tattler reusable rings and lids and spare rubber rings since he’d had to miss her birthday for the third year in a row but Mom hadn’t gotten a chance to use many of them. I also knew for a fact there were slightly under a freakton of traditional rings and lids in some sealed up five gallon buckets over in the corner because I had carried them down myself after we left Florida. Having something to store food in is not the problem, having food to store is.
I knew the frost, mild though it was, pretty much heralded the beginning of the end of harvest season for field crops. It gave me the shakes to think about it. There would still be a few things in the “forest grocery store” but the colder it got the less there would be and I needed to be careful not to over harvest the wild stuff or there wouldn’t be anything come spring time. I looked around and the piles of things that I still needed to do something with. It was comforting but at the same time I knew that the cooked and canned up results wouldn’t take up nearly the room that the uncooked, unpreserved originals did and as such wouldn’t look like near as much food.
I hauled up another basket of persimmons and then went down for a basket of small green Granny Smith apples and had Paulie and Bobby bring up the other speckleware water bath canner from where it hung on a nail. If I was going to use the wood stove to cook on then I might as well make use all the burners and not waste the wood.
Apple Pickles Made With Honey
10 cups of quartered firm apples with the skins still on
1 cup of mint vinegar (or plain vinegar, mint just adds another layer of flavor)
2 inches of stick cinnamon
2 cups of honey
6 whole cloves
Combine honey, vinegar, and spices and heat to boiling. Cook two to three cups of apple at a time, handling them gently. When they are transparent lift them out and put them in a bowl. Continue until all apples are cooked. Remove spices but keep liquid hot. Place cooked apples in prepared jars and then cover with the boiling vinegar and honey mixture. Seal and process like you would for apples at your elevation.
After the noon meal I told the kids to get out of the house while the getting was good or I would put them back to work. An hour later when I was beginning to wonder what they were up to because it had gotten too quiet I hear a bunch of screaming and hollering. I nearly broke my neck on the stoop trying to run outside thinking that the bear had come back but then stopped and wondered why on earth Paulie was running around with a fishing net laughing like a loon.
“Dang it! Give me a heart attack why don’t you Paulson Doherty! What are you all doing out here?!”
Tiff, much calmer than the rest of them walked over to me and said, “They’ve been hunting squirrels.”
Momentarily speechless I finally realized that there was indeed something caught in the net. “Are you telling me they actually caught one with that old fishing net?”
“They caught three in one swoop. Only they don’t know what to do with them now.”
I looked to the heavens for guidance because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them either but Jude and Clewis picked that moment to drive up in the wagon. I took one look at them and being purely inspired I called, “You deal with it!” before walking back in the house.
It was a few moments before I heard both Clewis and Jude laughing as hard as the kids had been if not worse. A few minutes after that I heard, “Gross!” “Ew!” And Bobby’s, “How fast can we cook ‘em? I’m hungry.”
goinpostal
Contributing Member
Another great tale Kathy!
Thank you for sharing.
Matt
Thank you for sharing.
Matt
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you and good luck.