Part 24 (1/2)
”Well, send little Joe over, if he ain't busy,” Roscoe said. ”We'll play some dominoes.”
”It's milking time,” July said. ”He's got to milk. Anyway, Ellie don't like him playing dominoes with you. She thinks it'll make him lazy.”
”Why, it ain't made me lazy, and I've played dominoes all my life,” Roscoe said.
July knew the statement was absurd. Roscoe was only a deputy because he was lazy. But if there was one thing he didn't want to get into, it was an argument over whether Roscoe was lazy, so he gave him a wave and walked on off.
27.
WHEN JULY GOT HOME it was nearly dusk. Home was just a cabin on the edge of town. As he pa.s.sed the horse pen he saw that little Joe had roped the milk-pen calf again-it was easy to do, for the calf seldom moved.
”You've got that calf broke,” July said. ”You could probably saddle him and ride him if you wanted to.”
”I milked,” Joe said. He got the pail, and the two walked to the cabin together. It was a fairly good cabin, although it didn't yet have a wood floor-just well-packed dirt. July felt bad about bringing his bride to a cabin without a wood floor, but being sheriff didn't pay much and it was the best he could do.
It was a high cabin with a little sleeping loft in it. July had initially supposed that was where they would put the boy, but, in fact, Elmira had put them them in the sleeping loft and a.s.signed the boy a pallet on the floor. in the sleeping loft and a.s.signed the boy a pallet on the floor.
When they got there she had already cooked the supper-just bacon and cornbread-and was sitting up in the loft with her feet dangling. She liked to sit and let her feet dangle down into the cabin. Elmira liked being alone and spent most of her time in the loft, occasionally doing a little sewing.
”Don't you slosh that milk,” she said, when Joe came in with the pail.
”Ain't much to slosh,” Joe said.
It was true-the milk cow was playing out. Joe put his rope over by his pallet. It was his most prized possession. He had found it in the street one morning, after some cowboys had pa.s.sed through. He didn't dare use it for several days, a.s.suming the cowboy who had lost it would come back and look for it. But none did, so gradually he began to practice on the milk-pen calf. If he had had a horse, he would have thought seriously of leaving and trying to get on with a cow outfit, but they only had two horses and July needed both of those.
”The food's on,” Elmira said, but she made no move to come down from the loft and eat it with them.
She seldom did eat with them. It bothered July a good deal, though he made no complaint. Since their little table was almost under the loft he could look up and see Elmira's bare legs as he ate. It didn't seem normal to him. His mother had died when he was six, yet he could remember that she always ate with the family; she would never have sat with her legs dangling practically over her husband's head. He had been at supper at many cabins in his life, but in none of them had the wife sat in the loft while the meal was eaten. It was a thing out of the ordinary, and July didn't like for things to be out of the ordinary in his life. It seemed to him it was better to do as other people did-if society at large did things a certain way it had to be for a good reason, and he looked upon common practices as rules that should be obeyed. After all, his job was to see that common practices were honored-that citizens weren't shot, or banks robbed.
He had arrested plenty of people who misbehaved, yet he could not bring himself to say a word to his wife about her own unusual behavior.
Joe didn't share July's discomfort with the fact that his mother seldom came to the table. When she did come it was usually to scold him, and he got scolded enough as it was-besides, he liked eating with July, or doing anything else with July. So far as he was concerned, marrying July was the best thing his mother had ever done. She scolded July as freely as she scolded him, which didn't seem right to Joe. But then July accepted it and never scolded back, so perhaps that was the way of the world: women scolded, and men kept quiet and stayed out of the way as much as possible.
”Want some b.u.t.termilk?” July asked, going to the crock.
”No, sir,” Joe said. He hated b.u.t.termilk, but July loved it so that he always asked anyway.
”You ask him that every night,” Elmira said from the edge of the loft. It irritated her that July came home and did exactly the same things day after day.
”Stop asking him,” she said sharply. ”Let him get his own b.u.t.termilk if he wants any. It's been four months now and he ain't drunk a drop-looks like you'd let it go.”
She spoke with a heat that surprised July. Elmira could get angry about almost anything, it seemed. Why would it matter if he invited the boy to have a drink of b.u.t.termilk? All he had to do was say no, which he had.
”Well, it's good,” he said quietly.
Joe almost wished he had taken a gla.s.s, since it would have kept July out of trouble. But it was too late.
After that one remark the meal went smoothly, mainly because no one said another word. Joe and July ate their cornbread and bacon, and Elmira hung her feet in the air.
”You take that medicine,” she said to July, as soon as he had finished. ”If you don't, I guess you'll be yellow the rest of your life.”
”He ain't as yellow as he was,” Joe said, feeling that it was inc.u.mbent on him to take up for July a little bit, since July would never take up for himself. He had no real fear of his mother-she whipped him plenty, but her anger never lasted long, and if she was really mad he could always outrun her.
”He's too yellow for me,” Elmira said. ”If I'd wanted a yellow husband I'd have married a Chinaman.”
”What's a Chinaman?” Joe asked.
”Go get a bucket of water,” Elmira said.
July sat at the table, feeling a little sad, while the boy drew a bucket of water. At least they had a well-the river was nearly a mile away, which would have been a long carry.
Joe brought the bucket in and went back outside. It was stuffy in the small cabin. There were a lot of fireflies out. For amus.e.m.e.nt he caught a few and let them flicker in his hand.
”Want a bath?” July asked his wife. ”I'll fetch some more water if you do.”
Elmira didn't answer because she didn't really hear him. It was peculiar, but July almost never said anything that she did hear anymore. It seemed to her that the last thing she heard were their marriage vows. After that, though she heard his voice, she didn't really hear his words. Certainly he was nothing like Dee Boot when it came to conversation. Dee could talk all week and never say the same thing twice, whereas it seemed to her July had never said anything different since they'd married.
That in itself didn't bother her, though. If there was one thing she didn't need to do, it was to talk to a man.
”I been thinking I might better go on and catch Jake Spoon,” July said. He said everything in the same tone of voice, making it doubly difficult to pay attention to him, but Elmira caught his meaning.
”Do what?” she asked.
”Go get Jake Spoon,” July said. ”I'm over my jaundice enough to ride.”
”Let him go,” Elmira said. ”Who wants him, anyway?”
July was not about to tell her Peach wanted him. ”Well, he killed Benny,” he said.
”I say let him go,” Elmira said. ”That was an accident.”
She came downstairs and dipped her face in the cool water, then wiped it on an old piece of sacking they used for a towel.
”He shouldn't have run,” July said. ”He might have got off.”
”No, Peach would have shot him,” Elmira said. ”She's the one don't care about the law.”
That was a possibility. Peach had an uncontrollable temper.
”Well, I've got to catch him-it's my job,” he said.
Elmira felt like laughing. July was flattering himself if he thought he could catch a man like Jake Spoon. But then, if she laughed she would be giving herself away. July had no idea that she knew Jake Spoon, but she had known Jake even before she knew Dee. He and Dee had been buddies up in Kansas. Jake even asked her to marry him once, in a joking way-for Jake was not the marrying kind and she hadn't been then, either. He had always kidded her, in the days when she was a sporting girl in Dodge, that she would end up respectable, though even he couldn't have guessed that she'd marry a sheriff. It amused him no end when he found out. She had seen him twice in the street after he came to Fort Smith, and she could tell by the way he grinned and tipped his hat to her that he thought it one of the world's finest jokes. If he had ever come to the cabin and seen that it had a dirt floor, he would have realized it was one of those jokes that aren't funny.
And yet she had not hesitated when July proposed, though she had only known him three days. It was the buffalo hunters who convinced her she had better change her way of life. One had taken a fancy to her, a man so big and rough that she feared to refuse him, though she should have-in all her days she had never been used so hard. And the buffalo hunters were numerous. Had it not been for Dee, they might have finished her. But Dee had always been partial to her and loaned her enough money to make a start in a town where she had no reputation: St. Jo, Missouri, which was where July came to testify. She met him in court, for she had no job at the time and was watching the trial to pa.s.s the hours.