She turned on me, bristling like an outraged porcupine. "Over my dead body, she will!" she said, banging one of the stove lids down on top of the wood in the firebox.

"Keep your shirt on," I said, without thinking. "Helen's a good cook and she won't poison us."

"Bob Crane, I don't doubt but what she's a good cook. She's probably the greatest cook in the world, from the way you go on about her." I couldn't recall having even mentioned Helen's name more than twice since we'd been married. "Maybe I'm not so good and I'll poison us, but no woman is going to come in my kitchen and cook! I'll burn the house down first."

"But, Christ," I said, beginning to get sore, "what do you expect Jake and Helen to do? Go into town for their meals? They haven't even got a cookstove over there in that house."

"You're just deliberately trying to misunderstand me. I didn't say they couldn't eat here with us. I said she couldn't run my kitchen. Of course they can eat with us. But if you think for a minute-"

"I don't think for a minute. I guess I haven't thought for years," I said, beginning to see that she was right, as usual. And she looked so small and lovely and belligerent drawn up there for battle I had to grin. I walked in and grabbed her up until her feet were off the floor and kissed her.

"All right, Lady of the Manor, I'll go right over now and murder Jake and Helen in their bed. What do we have for breakfast?"

"Bacon and eggs. Do you love me, Bob? And hot biscuits." Her voice was m.u.f.fled down against my neck.

"Of course I love you and hot biscuits. Now you take one that's cooked right on top of that hot head of yours-"

"I'm sorry," she broke in. "I'm ashamed of myself. But the idea of anybody else coming in my house and cooking for you makes my blood boil."

I laughed. "I know, you little wildcat. Your blood has the lowest boiling point of any fluid known to science."

After I had shaved and dressed I went out on the front porch and saw Helen and Jake come out of the house and start across the road. They saw the Buick parked under the sweet-gum trees and must have noticed the smoke coming out of the kitchen stovepipe, for they turned around after a brief conference and went back inside. I was puzzled by this until they came out again in a few minutes and came on up to the front yard and I saw that Helen had changed into another dress and had put on stockings.

They were glad to see me and we went on back to the dining room, where Angelina had breakfast on the table. She and Jake knew each other, of course, from Jake's foxhunting trips with Sam, but she and Helen hadn't met before.

Breakfast came off successfully. Jake and I did most of the talking at first, but gradually Angelina and Helen got over their polite sparring around and became a little warmer. It would be hard for anyone to resist Helen for long, with her simple and greathearted friendliness, and after Angelina had established her beachhead with several references to "my kitchen" and what she was going to do with the house and had decided that Helen was a very plain girl, pleasant-looking but homely and therefore nice, everything went along all right.

There, was some embarra.s.sment about the cooking arrangements, Jake and Helen insisting after breakfast that they didn't feel they should impose on us now that I was married. I had to return Lee's car, so I said I'd pick up a stove for their house while I was in town.

I went in alone. Angelina said she wanted to unpack the bags and clean up the house, and I didn't much want her to go anyway until I found out what was happening or had happened. It was a little before nine when I stopped under the big oaks in front of the house.

My Ford was parked in the driveway, with one fender knocked off. It hadn't been there last night. I went up on the porch and knocked, but no one came to the door. I knocked again and then tried the door. It wasn't locked and I went in and walked down the dark hallway to the living room, hearing my footsteps echo in the silence.

There were cigarette b.u.t.ts and ashes on the rug in the living room and one of the pillows on the sofa was half burned up and feathers were all over everything. There was a fruit jar sitting on the hearth in front of the fireplace.

I knew then I wouldn't find Mary there, so I went in all the bedrooms looking for Lee. In their room the bed looked as if somebody had been sleeping in it with his shoes on, and there was a girl's coat over a chair, a coat I knew didn't belong to Mary.

I found him in the kitchen. He was sitting in a chair, asleep, with his head and shoulders slumped over the table. Near his arms there was a half-eaten sardine sandwich that a fly was buzzing around, and a cigarette b.u.t.t that had burned a long charred furrow in the top of the table before it had gone out.

I sat down across the table from him and shook him gently by the shoulder. "Wake up, Lee," I said. "It's Bob." It took several shakes to stir him, and when he finally did come to he sat up shakily, pushing himself slowly up with his arms, and stared at me without saying anything. His eyes were shot with red and there were dark circles under them.

"h.e.l.lo," I said.

He looked at me stupidly for a minute. "You sonofab.i.t.c.h," he said.

I got up and went back into the living room and got the fruit jar. There was about an inch of whisky in the bottom of it and I poured it into a water gla.s.s and gave it to him. His hands were trembling badly but he got it up to his mouth and swallowed it and then coughed and retched. He shook his head, but when he looked up at me again I could see the stuff working on him. His eyes began to come alive a little.

"Well," he said, "if it isn't Handsome himself. So you finally came back?"

"Yes. I'm back." I sat down again, across the table, and lit two cigarettes and handed one to him.

"Where'd you leave her?" he demanded. He leaned across the table and took hold of my arm and I could feel him shaking.

"Leave who?"

"You know who I mean. Where'd you leave her? Jesus Christ, I've almost gone nuts the past ten days, thinking about you off in a hotel room somewhere with that."

"Take it easy," I said, but he began talking louder. He looked like a madman.

"h.e.l.l, haven't you been with her? What've you been doing all this time? If you've been with her this long, what's holding you up? I don't see how you'd be able to walk."

I picked up the half-eaten sandwich off the table and shoved it into his mouth, all the way in, to the last quarter inch of it, and held my hand over his face. He choked and tried to pull back and hit at my arm, but I grabbed him by the collar with the other hand and held him still. The gla.s.s bounced off the table and broke on the floor.

"Chew on that," I said. "That'll give you something to do with your G.o.dd.a.m.ned mouth. And keep it shut."

My hands were shaking as badly as his had been now and I could feel the fluttering in my stomach and the dry stickiness in my mouth from my breath going through it. Take it easy. Take it easy. He's drunk and doesn't know what he's doing. And how does he know what's happened since that morning you left? How could he know?

His eyes were fixed on my face, and it must have been tough to look at, for I could see the fear in them. I let go and he spat out the bread and took a deep breath and tried to push back from the table and get up, all at the same time, and he fell over backward with the chair under him. When he untangled himself he stood up and stared at me with his mouth open.

"What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?" he asked, still trying to get his breath back. "You're absolutely nuts."

"Pick up your chair, Lee," I said. "And sit down." I had hold of myself now. "Let's just forget the whole thing and start over. I came to town to tell you and Mary that Angelina and I were back from our trip and to ask you to come out and see us."

"You mean you brought her back with you? She's out there? You must be nuts."

"You still hungry? There's some more of that sandwich," I said.

He sat down and stopped talking.

"Where's Mary?" I asked.

"How the h.e.l.l do I know where she is? At her grandmother's, I guess."

"She's left you?"

"Yes. What of it?"

"When?"

"About two days after you left. She found out about that Angelina business somehow. I guess I spilled it when I was drunk. She was suspicious anyway, because she couldn't quite swallow that story about you bein' mixed up in it. I guess she always thought you were some kind of a fair-haired boy or something. Anyway, she found out the whole thing and said she was going to leave me. I'd been drinking and was still half nutty over this Angelina deal, so I told her I didn't care, to go ahead."

"Didn't you even go over there afterward and try to smooth things over?"

His face was surly and he looked away. "It wouldn't have done any good. Not after what happened. The second night her grandmother must have promoted her into coming back over to have a talk about it, because she did come back and she got here at the wrong time. I had called up an old girl I used to run around with at Rice, who was here visiting in town, and she was here when Mary came in. This babe had on one of Mary's nightgowns and was drunker than a preacher's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, and in our bed, and you think I ought to go over and smooth things out, do you? Not that I give a d.a.m.n. We were washed up anyway."

I got up to go. There wasn't anything to be gained by sticking around. "I'm sorry, Lee," I said.

"Oh, to h.e.l.l with it," he said. "Did you bring my car back?"

"Yes, it's out there." I dropped the keys on the table.

"Well, that's nice of you. I'm always glad to have my car when you're not using it."

I didn't say anything. When I started out of the kitchen, he said, "I almost decided to report it stolen, so you'd be picked up."

"You almost did?" I said, and went on out through the living room. When I looked back he was still sitting there at the table.

Twenty-one

The next week Lee was sentenced to sixty days in the county jail for drunk driving. He was going through the square at about forty late one night and crashed into a parked car and almost demolished it. It cost him nearly four hundred dollars to have the two cars repaired and he couldn't get off with merely a fine this time. He'd been fined and warned too many times. He went to jail for the full two months.

Mary had filed suit for divorce. I went to see her, knowing it wasn't any of my business and that it wouldn't do any good. She listened to me patiently and never once told me not to b.u.t.t in, but her mind was made up. She didn't seem to blame Lee and she wasn't bitter about it; it was just that she was through. I tried to get her to go around to the jail with me to see him, but she shook her head.

We were sitting in a booth in Gordon's cafe. She toyed with the two straws that came with the c.o.kes.

"I'm sorry, Bob," she said. "But what's the use? The thing is over and done, so why prolong the agony? It just makes me feel bad to see him because I always get to thinking of how it could have been with us. It isn't a lot of fun to look at him and think what a man he could have been if he'd ever grown up."

"I guess so," I said. "I always had hopes that with you he'd settle down and quit raising so much h.e.l.l, but I guess that never really happens, does it?"

Her eyes were a little amused. "No, I don't think there's any such thing as a woman making a man out of anybody. You never heard of a man making a woman out of anybody, did you? She can take a man and make a civilized man-that is, a married one-out of him, but she has to have a man to begin with."

"Oh, I think he's man enough to come out of it," I protested. "I know he's crazy as h.e.l.l and wilder than a March hare, but I wouldn't call him a weakling."

She shook her head with what seemed like exasperation. "There goes the professional male speaking again. A man is something that has a lot of hair on its chest, isn't it, and a deep voice that rumbles down in its belly, and goes around trampling on its hairy brothers with cleats."

"O.K.," I said. "Maybe you're right."

When we got up to go she said something that puzzled me, and it wasn't until long afterward that I figured it out.

"Bob, why don't you go away from this country? I don't think Lee ever will."

"You mean, on account of that business? I don't think it's necessary. It was pretty rough at first sometimes, but I've about got it out of my system now."

She gathered up her purse and I picked up the check. "Yes, I know you have. I suspect you of growing up. You've got over it. But has Lee?"

She wouldn't say any more and she was quiet as I drove her back to her grandmother's.

"Good-by, Bob," she said. "I'll be out to see you one of these days."

August was beautiful. I almost forgot Lee entirely in my preoccupation with Angelina and the task I had undertaken in attempting to teach her to like the country the way I did. I went to see him once a week and took him cigarettes and some books, but he was surly most of the time and didn't seem to care whether I came or not.

One afternoon when Angelina and I were swimming down at Black Creek, Sam came up on us, appearing out of the heavy timber with his shotgun. He was hunting squirrels and had two of them, big fox squirrels.

We hadn't seen him since our return. Twice we had gone to visit Mrs. Harley and had taken some presents Angelina had brought back from Galveston, but both times he had been away from the house and I was pretty sure she had known he would be.

He grinned and seemed embarra.s.sed, as though he had caught us undressed or something. "Howdy, Bob," he said, shifting his gun to the other hand. "Howdy, Angelina."

Angelina's "h.e.l.lo, Papa," was as impersonal as death. I asked him how the crops were and how the hunting had been and if he'd been fishing for white perch lately, but Angelina never said another word. I felt sorry for him, the way he was standing there and not wanting to look at her, half naked as she seemed to him in her scanty bathing suit, and still wanting to look at her because she was his oldest daughter and the prettiest one and he loved her. He was talking to me but it was easy to see he was hoping she would say something to him, perhaps some word of our trip, or when she expected to be over to visit them again, or whether she was happy and liked her new home, or some question about his health, or anything at all, but no word came from her.

"We'll be over to see you soon, Sam," I said, as he half turned to go.

"Yes, you-all do that. We'll be lookin' for you. Good-by. Good-by, Angelina."

Angelina looked up briefly and said, "Good-by, Papa."

When he had gone, I asked, "I haven't been mean to you in a long time, have I?"

"Of course not. Why ask such a silly thing?"

"Don't let me, ever. I never want to have to listen to you say, 'Good-by, Bob,' the way you said that. The poor devil."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't help it, I guess."

We went to all the dances, the ones in town and the little country dances that were held now and then on Sat.u.r.day nights in the surrounding communities, and I took her to the movies about twice a week. I had never cared a lot for pictures, but she liked them and we went. A lot of times all this going seemed a little silly and it would have been much more fun to stay at home, but always I guess there was a fear in the back of my mind that she wouldn't like living out here if there were too much to remind her of her previous unhappiness. I didn't want her to continue a.s.sociating that unhappiness with country life when the truth was that the mere fact that her father was a farmer had had nothing to do with it I wanted her to learn that a girl could live on a farm without being imprisoned and cut off from other people her age and having to wear clothes she hated.

One night after supper, when I suggested a ride into town for a movie, Angelina surprised me by asking if we couldn't stay at home instead.

"There's a full moon tonight," she said. "Let's stay here on the back porch and just look at it."

I agreed quickly. "Sounds like a lot more fun to me," I said. We sat down on the top step and she leaned her head against my shoulder. The moon hadn't come up yet over the timbered ridge to the east across the bottom, but already we could see the glow of it looking like a far-off forest fire.

"Are you happy, Angelina?" I asked.

"You know I am. More than there's any way to say."

"You don't feel that living on a farm is like being in jail any more?"

"No. I never did, except over there." She was looking across the bottom toward the glow. "I've never felt like that here with you."

In a moment she laughed a little and said, "You're funny, Bob, aren't you? You've courted me so hard ever since we've been back here that sometimes I wondered if you'd forgotten we're already married. Goin' to movies and dances, and swimmin'. It's sweet of you, but you don't have to work so hard at it."

"Well, I didn't want you ever to feel about this place the way you did over there."

"I won't. Even if you'd made a jail out of it. There's such a thing as still liking the jailer."

"Fine," I said. "All this foolishness stops right now. Tomorrow morning I take your shoes away from you and you go out and hoe cotton."

"You don't hoe cotton after it's laid by, silly. You can't fool a country girl."

"You see what I mean, Angelina?" I said. "A few months ago you'd have been as sore as a boil if anybody'd called you a country girl. You'd have thought it was an insult."