“I’m not upset.”
“You’re shaking.”
Ella looked down at her hands and realized that he was right. To keep her hands from trembling, she clasped them in her lap.
Solly started screeching.
Just like that he took a sudden and violent objection to his shoes. When she finally was able to hold his feet still, she saw that the toe of one had been scuffed. The smudge was barely discernible, but she kept his shoes polished a glossy black. The mark was enough to bring on a fit. He bucked, kicked, flapped his hands, and all the while emitted an ear-shattering squeal.
She removed the offending shoes. He stopped screeching but rocked back and forth so vigorously that his head thumped into the upholstered seat. It seemed not to bother him. On the contrary, it seemed to mollify him, so she didn’t try to stop it.
When the crisis was over, Mr. Rainwater politely asked if she had any other stops to make in town. She made it plain to him that she did not. She only wanted to get home and, with the help of routine chores, put Conrad and the hateful, disgusting things he’d said out of her mind.
Mr. Rainwater appeared unfazed both by Solly’s fit and by the confrontation in the grocery market. His hands were steady on the steering wheel and gearshift as he drove them through town. He even touched the brim of his hat to several people they passed. Ella wished he wouldn’t. She felt conspicuous riding in his car now. Anyone seeing her and Solly with him might give credence to gossip that there was something illicit going on under her roof.
To her knowledge, Conrad had been the only one who’d implied such a thing, and nothing Conrad said could be taken for fact, but the mere idea that she and a male boarder were the subjects of lewd speculation made her ill.
“He’s not worth fretting over,” Mr. Rainwater said quietly.
“His fits are getting worse, not better. More intense.”
“Not Solly. Conrad Ellis.”
“I disagree. Conrad is very much worth fretting over. If you could have heard the ugly things he said about Solly—”
“I did, as I was coming in. The man is a bully, a moron, and if you let him make you angry or upset, you’re giving him exactly what he’s after. Your best defense against him is to ignore him.”
“As you did.” The words came out sharply, almost like a reproof.
He looked at her but replied in his typically calm manner. “I couldn’t ignore the things he said. I simply declined to take issue with them, knowing that’s exactly what he wanted me to do. If I’d challenged what he suggested about us, it would have given him an opportunity to lay into me.”
“He could break you in half.”
He smiled. “Yes. In a fistfight I would most definitely lose. But he didn’t fight me, did he?”
She thought of the steely resolve she’d seen in Mr. Rainwater’s eyes as he stared down Conrad. Apparently Conrad had seen it, too. He had removed his hand from Mr. Rainwater’s shoulder and had even taken a step back. He was aggressive by nature, and his parents had cultivated in him feelings of superiority and entitlement. She didn’t remember a time when Conrad had walked away from a fight.
Could it possibly be that Conrad had been afraid of a quality he’d detected in Mr. Rainwater’s eyes? Perhaps the strength of purpose of a man who had nothing to lose and nothing more to fear? Whatever the reason, Conrad’s brute strength and belligerence had tucked tail and retreated from it.
As soon as Mr. Rainwater brought the car to a stop in front of the house, she scrambled out, pulling Solly along with her. She didn’t want Mr. Rainwater coming around to open the car door for her or doing anything chivalrous that would validate rumors of a romance.
She entered through the front door and didn’t stop her steady march until she reached the kitchen, where Margaret and her son, Jimmy, were unloading the grocery items he’d delivered.
As soon as Margaret saw her, she planted a fist on her jutting hip bone and smacked the back of Jimmy’s head with her other hand. “I done eat him out good for leaving you in the store alone with that white trash. And I can tell by your flushed face that somethin’ bad happened.”
“We’re fine, Margaret.”
“Well, it’s a wonder,” she huffed. “That Ellis boy was born mean, and just got meaner when he had to give you up. He ain’t got over you turnin’ him down flat.”
Hearing motion behind her, Ella turned. Mr. Rainwater had followed her into the kitchen, Solly’s shoes in his hand. He divided a curious look between her and Margaret, landing on her. “You left these in the car, Mrs. Barron.”
She snatched the shoes from him. “Thank you, Mr. Rainwater.”
He looked at her more closely, but she turned away.
Margaret said, “This is my boy, Jimmy. Jimmy, Mr. Rainwater.”
The two acknowledged the introduction, then Jimmy scuttled out the back door, as though grateful to have escaped his mother’s wrath.
“Margaret,” Mr. Rainwater said, “if I pick the peaches myself, could I bribe you into making a cobbler for dessert tonight?”
“Shoot! You don’t have to bribe me. I’d be pleasured to do it.”
He picked ripe peaches from the tree in the southwest corner of Ella’s yard. Margaret baked the cobbler. But Mr. Rainwater wasn’t there for dessert to eat it.
The phone rang during the dinner hour. Ella answered.
“Ella, it’s Ollie. Let me speak to David, please.”
So it was David now. But sensing urgency, she asked if something was wrong.
“If he’s there, just put him on, please.”
“Hold on.” Mystified, and not a little troubled by the tone of his voice, Ella returned to the dining room, where her boarders were having their main course. “Mr. Rainwater, you have a telephone call.”
He stood immediately and dropped his napkin beside his plate. Excusing himself to the others, he stepped past Ella and into the hallway, walking quickly toward the table beneath the stairs, which the telephone shared with the deposit box for rent money.
“Who is it?” he asked her over his shoulder.
“Ollie Thompson.”
He glanced back at her as he picked up the two components of the telephone. “Ollie?”
He listened for what seemed like an eternity but was actually only a few seconds. “I’ll be right there,” he said into the mouthpiece, then disconnected immediately.
He replaced the earpiece in the hook and returned the telephone to the table. Stepping around Ella again, he headed for the front door.
“What is it? Where are you going? What’s happening?”
“I’ll fill you in when I get back.” He yanked his hat from the hall tree on his way out. He didn’t look back.
Time plodded by.
When she returned to the dining room without him, the Dunne sisters were all aflutter. “Is something wrong?” Miss Violet asked.
“Mr. Rainwater has been called to the home of a friend. Are you ready for your cobbler and cream?” Her calmness was faked, of course, but it allayed the sisters’ concern.
“It’s like him, isn’t it, to rush to the aid of a friend at a moment’s notice,” Miss Pearl said. “He didn’t even wait to finish his dinner. He’s such a nice young man.”
“And smart,” Mr. Hastings said as he helped himself to another ear of corn. “Knows my chess moves before I make them. Pass the butter, please, Miss Pearl.”
As soon as dinner was over, Ella left Margaret to deal with the cleanup and took Solly to their rooms. His fit in the car that afternoon seemed to have sapped him of energy. He was docile when she gave him a sponge bath and dressed him in pajamas. Ordinarily she would have been dodging flailing limbs.
She was relieved to discover that her boarders had retired early, too. The twin parlors were empty and dark by the time she returned to the kitchen, where Margaret was wrapping a rag around her index finger.
“Oh dear, what happened?”
“I cut myself with that blamed ol’ butcher knife.”
“It’s still bleeding. Should you have Dr. Kincaid take a look?”
“Naw, ain’t nothing a little coal oil won’t help. I’ll bandage it soon as I get home.”
“Go on now.”
“The dishes ain’t did.”
“You can’t wash or dry dishes with a bloody finger.”
Margaret put up token protests, but Ella entreated her to leave and see to her injury. Eventually she did, apologizing for leaving Ella with so much work still to be done. Actually, Ella didn’t mind the seclusion. It had been a grueling day. She didn’t want to field any questions from Margaret about the run-in with Conrad, or Mr. Rainwater’s mysterious telephone call, which had brought on his abrupt departure from the house.
She ate her own dinner at the kitchen table, but nervousness robbed her of appetite. Not knowing the reason for Ollie Thompson’s emergency call had left her sick with worry. According to the kitchen clock, Mr. Rainwater had been gone for over two hours. Where was he, where had he gone, and was he in danger?
She was washing dishes when she heard his car coming down the street. Quickly drying her hands, she ran down the central hallway and unlatched the screened door just as he reached it.
He stepped inside, pulled the door closed and locked it again, then switched out the porch light and the light fixture in the hall. Sensing his tension, Ella stayed still and silent as he looked out across the yard and into the street.
After several minutes, he visibly relaxed. The tension went out of him as he removed his hat and hung it on the hall tree, then turned to her. In a low voice, he asked, “Is any of the cobbler left?”
She led him into the kitchen, realizing as she walked past the staircase that she did so on tiptoe. They didn’t speak until the kitchen door had closed behind them. “There’s plenty of food left. I can fix you a plate.”
He shook his head. “Just the cobbler. After Margaret went to the trouble of making it, I really should eat some. I expected her to still be here.”
She told him about the cut finger. “I sent her home. Coffee?”
“Definitely.” He hesitated, then said, “I don’t suppose you have a secret bottle of …”
She shook her head.
“Straight coffee then.”
She served him a mug of coffee and a dish of cobbler with a liberal helping of cream, then sat down at the table across from him. “Where did you go? Why did Ollie call?”
“It seemed worse than it turned out to be.”
“What happened?”
“They attacked his house. When he called me, it was surrounded by several vehicles. Pickups mostly. He couldn’t make out anything except the headlights. They were driving fast and recklessly, round and round the house, knocking down fence posts and Lola’s clothesline. One drove into the hog pen, flattened one side of it. The hog got out. It’s still missing.”
“Who was it?”
“I think we can guess.”
“Conrad?”
He blew on his coffee and took a sip. “It was a warning, I think. To Ollie and me and the others. They must’ve got wind of our organization and the reason for it.”
“Or else …”
When she paused, he raised his head. “Or else?”
“This is retaliation over our encounter in the store today.”
Mr. Rainwater dismissed her concern with a shake of his head. “This had nothing to do with you. Recently, we’ve had indications that they’re onto us. Several times this week, a rancher or farmer got a call that the cattle buyers would be there to evaluate their herd. They were given a day and time. The word was passed, as planned. We assembled. The buyers never showed up.”
“The calls were phony.”
“But effective.” He took another sip of coffee. “Because now, when someone gets a call that the government is ready to do business with him, he doesn’t know if it’s a false alarm or the real thing.”
“Why not call the government office for verification?”
“We tried that, but nothing happens fast in a bureaucracy, especially one in which large sums of Uncle Sam’s money are being dispensed. By the time we’d get word that it was a false alarm, men had already wasted hours. My guess is that Conrad and his friends hope to wear us down. They think we’ll soon tire of leaving our homes and businesses on the spur of the moment and will give up our plan to protect each other.”
“Will you?”
“No.” He scraped up the last bit of cream with his spoon, then pushed aside the empty dish. “And if anyone’s resolve was wavering, it was reinforced by what those thugs did tonight. When I got there, the pickups were still circling the house. They were throwing bottles at it. I could hear Ollie’s kids screaming in fear. All that breaking glass, it sounded like the end of the world. As I said, it seemed worse than it was, but tell that to those frightened kids.”
“They must have been terrified.”
“Which was the point. But our communication system worked. Angry men began to converge. When Conrad’s gang saw they were about to become outnumbered, they struck out across the pasture. A few of our group went after them, but Conrad’s bunch turned off their headlights, making it dangerous to follow them. They got away. Is there any coffee left?”
He got up and went to the stove himself, returning with his mug refilled.
“What about Lola and the children? Was anyone hurt?”
“No, thank God. They were just scared half to death. Ollie’s father-in-law came and got Lola and the kids. Lola begged Ollie to leave with them, but he stayed. He was afraid those guys might come back, set fire to his barn. Something. A couple of men volunteered to stay with him. Which is noble, but in the meantime their homes and families are left unprotected tonight.”
“Where will it end? How?”
Holding her eyes, he said earnestly, “I don’t know. But I’m afraid it might get worse before it gets better.”
She was afraid of that, too, but she didn’t want to admit it, even to herself. “Why do you think that?”
“The line has been drawn in the sand. There are two opposing sides. These things have a way of coming to a head. Especially when the law enforcement agency is indifferent, inept, or flat-out corrupt.”
She left the table and went to the sink. The dishwater had grown cold. She drained it and replaced it with hot water, but after turning off the faucet, she curved her hands over the edge of the drainboard, bracing herself against it.
He brought his dessert dish and coffee mug and added them to the stack of dishes to be washed, then slid his hands into his pants pockets. Feeling his gaze on her profile, she turned her head toward him. “I’m afraid.”