Authors: Gilbert Morris
Hearing the remark, Jenny flushed but knew there was noth~ing she could say to make the woman understand that she was just doing her job.
Later on, when she encountered Jude, he said, “First dance tonight, Jenny, all right?”
“All right, Jude.” She hesitated and then said, “You’re a deacon, aren’t you, at Brother Crutchfield’s church?”
“Not a very good one, but yep, I am.”
“Have you heard any talk about him and me?”
Jude looked uncomfortable at the direct question. “Well,
a little maybe. The deacons are a bunch of knotheads. They confronted the preacher about the two of you.”
“What did he say?”
“He put the run on ’em,” Jude said with a laugh, then quickly sobered. “That ain’t too good, though. In a Baptist church all it takes is a majority of the people to get rid of a preacher. Not like the Methodists or Episcopalians. They can stay on as long as their bishop says so.”
Jenny walked around with Jude until the dancing started. She noticed that as she and Jude approached the dance platform, Clint was playing his harmonica with the musicians. Jude gathered her up in his arms and swept her around the floor, nearly lifting her off her feet. Enjoying the company of the good-natured young giant, Jenny tried to forget about the remarks concerning her and Brother Crutchfield.
Several young men cut in to dance with her, most often a blond man named Lee Foster. He was about twenty-five years old, she guessed, handsome and well dressed. He was witty, and she found herself liking him.
“I see where you caught the prize catch, Jenny.” Jude grinned as he claimed another dance.
“Who’s that, Jude?”
“Why, Lee Foster! Don’t you know who he is?”
“No, who is he?”
“Only the son of the richest man in the county. If you catch him, you won’t have to worry about nothin’ in life. His old man’s got enough money to burn a wet mule!”
Jenny laughed, saying she wasn’t exactly sure how much money that was.
The next time Foster cut in, he leaned close and said, “Why don’t you and I go over to Milton? They got a nice theater there and a cozy café. We could have a good time.”
“You’ll have to ask my father. I only go out with men he approves of.”
Lee grinned at her. “I like old-fashioned girls. I’ll do just that.”
Hannah stood on the other side of the dance floor watching her sister dance with one partner after another.
“I reckon this is my dance, ain’t it?”
She turned her head, startled by the voice, and stared up at a tall man with shoulders as wide as an ax handle. He was pushing his chest out and had obviously been drinking. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I don’t dance.”
Jordan Skinner was a prideful man, and even without any liquor in him, he had a short fuse. “You’re gonna dance with me and make up your mind to it,” he said, whistling the words through his missing front teeth. He grabbed Hannah’s arm and yanked her onto the floor. She was helpless against his strength, although she tried hard to pull away.
“You’re gonna dance, so you might jist as well—”
Suddenly Jordan’s arm was seized, and he was swung around to face a lean, muscular man of his own height. “The lady doesn’t want to dance.”
“Who are you?”
“Clint Longstreet.”
“Well, I’m Jordan Skinner.” Skinner raised his chin high as if he expected the name to mean something. “We’re gettin’ along without your help here, Longstreet.”
Clint was unimpressed. “I said the lady doesn’t want to dance.”
“And I say she does.”
“Then why don’t we go someplace private and settle it?”
Skinner scanned the crowd, seeing that the music had stopped and everybody was watching.
“Fine. You wait here, lady. As soon as I squash this bug, I’ll be back.” He turned and plunged through the crowd with Clint right behind.
In a moment Josh was at his side. “Don’t fight him, Clint. He’s busted up several men around here bad.”
“Have to do it,” Clint said steadily, then turned and eyed Josh with surprise. “You know him?”
Josh hesitated, not sure what to say, and Clint shook his head and left.
Jordan led Clint to an open area he thought was somewhat private, but when he turned to face Clint, he saw that all the men had followed to watch the fight. Not minding an audience, he smiled and looked around. “You watch, boys, I’m gonna bust his teeth till they ain’t nothin’ but snags. Then I’ll bust his nose so he whistles when he breathes.” His boast was meant to catch Clint off guard, but Clint was ready when the first blow was delivered. Had it connected, it might have ended the fight right there. Skinner was as strong as a bull, but he was also no faster. Clint simply moved his head back, and when the blow missed his face, Clint shot his right arm out and caught the big man full in the mouth. It had all of Clint’s one hundred eighty-five pounds behind it and drove Jordan back on his heels.
Jordan touched his mouth, then looked at the blood on his fingers, enraged by the sight. “I’ll kill you!” he yelled, throwing himself forward.
Longstreet wasn’t worried. He believed he could beat most of the people he’d seen duking it out at the fights he’d watched. He did not try to put the man down, just moved around lightly, shooting lefts and rights and dodging the return blows. He soon had Skinner’s face looking as if he had run into a meat grinder.
In his fury Jordan caught Clint with a surprise blow in the chest. The man’s phenomenal strength drove him backward to the ground. Jordan ran forward and kicked him in the side, driving any remaining breath out of Longstreet. He rolled over quickly to avoid more, and several of the men rushed forward to hold Jordan off until Clint could regain his breath. He staggered to his feet, and the men backed off, allowing the fight to continue. Clint, even with his speed, could no longer avoid all the blows. He took a lot of punishment, but he still gave out even more. He saw that the more Jordan moved, the more out of breath he got, so Clint changed his
strategy to try to wear him out. As he moved away, his opponent followed him every time, swinging wildly, and was soon snorting for lack of breath. He threw a punch at Clint, which missed; then Clint drove his fist deep into the man’s stomach. Such a blow would have destroyed any other man, but it did not put Skinner down.
The two men were moving slower now, but Clint was still fast enough to avoid most of Jordan’s blows and deliver a few of his own. At one point Skinner’s brother, Billy Roy, stepped forward intending to drive a blow into Clint’s face from the side. But Billy Roy felt himself suddenly immobilized by a huge arm, and he squirmed to get loose. He turned around to see the face of Jude Tanner. Tanner simply squeezed harder, and Billy Roy gasped with pain. “You’re crushin’ my ribs!”
“You behave yourself, little man, or I’ll break every rib you own.”
The spectators stared in amazement. Many of them had seen Jordan Skinner demolish his opponents easily, and now they were watching him stagger around, his face bloody and his blows losing their power.
Clint drove another right into Skinner’s face, and this time he felt the nose give. The man uttered a short cry and fell backward, wallowing on the ground. Clint stood over him and said, “Had enough?”
While Jordan struggled to his feet, Jude Tanner released Billy Roy and said, “You two get out of here.”
Through bloody lips and eyes swollen almost shut, Jordan Skinner whispered huskily, “This ain’t the end of it, Longstreet.”
At that moment Sheriff Noel Beauchamp stepped forward. “I’d better not hear any more of this, Skinner. Now get on outta here.”
He turned and said to Clint, “You’d better go on home too and soak in some water, as hot as you can stand it.”
“I guess you’re right, Sheriff.” Clint smiled through a haze of pain.
Lewis Winslow, who had felt helpless at his inability to stop the fight, came forward and said to Josh, “Go get the others. We’re going home.”
Lewis turned to Beauchamp and said sternly, “Why didn’t you stop it, Sheriff?”
“Because I wanted to see Jordan Skinner get what he deserved. I thought Longstreet looked like he might could do him in. I seen Skinner beat up a lot of decent men who did him no wrong. Good to see justice done once in a while.”
“It was pretty hard on Clint too,” Lewis said angrily.
“Yes, it was. Maybe I was wrong. Those Skinners don’t forget things like this. You might keep that in mind, Clint.”
****
Clint settled carefully into a big tub of hot water. Hannah had directed the operation, organizing the family to heat the water and bring the big tub into the kitchen, where she’d then hung up blankets around it for privacy.
Relaxing in the soothing water, Clint was feeling the blows now. He soaked until the water started feeling cool, then got out, dried off, and painfully put on his clothes. When he stepped outside the blanket curtain, he found Jenny waiting for him.
“I’m glad you did that, Clint,” she said. “I hate fights, but he deserved it after what he did to Hannah.” She reached up and gently pulled his head down, then very lightly kissed his cheek before turning and hurrying away.
Hannah had been standing in the doorway watching, although neither Jenny nor Clint had seen her. She now stepped back out of sight and leaned against the wall, feeling a strange tugging inside. No man had ever fought for her before, and she was very grateful to him. But seeing Jenny kiss him had made her lose her courage. Jenny was so beautiful and so winsome. . . . Hannah couldn’t help her jealous thoughts as she turned away.
She can have any man she wants!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Taste of Honey
The July heat of the Deep South was more oppressive than Lewis Winslow could have imagined. He moved down the rows of the garden with a hoe, chopping the weeds, trying to remember if summers in New York had ever been this hot. From time to time he paused to pull his bandanna from the hip pocket of his overalls and mop his forehead. “Don’t think it was ever this hot,” he muttered, “but then, I was usually inside, not out in the sun chopping weeds.”
He moved steadily down the row, conscious that his hands were no longer blistered. He had worked up a set of callouses of which he was secretly proud. He still had not adjusted to a life of poverty and had lost several pounds. His skin had turned to tan under the hot Georgia skies, and he felt strong physically, but the shock of losing everything still felt like a fresh wound, and every day he had to wake up to his new life as a poor man.
A toad looked up at him with its jeweled eyes and lifted itself slightly, as if to hop away, then sat back down. Lewis tapped him with the blade of the hoe, but the toad merely uttered a raucous grunt, then settled down stubbornly in the shade of a pepper plant. Lewis smiled faintly, then moved on down the row, leaving the creature to its solitude.
The vegetables were coming in abundantly now, and the fresh produce was a welcome addition to the family’s meals. They had a plentiful supply of meat with the boar they had butchered and fish from the river, and Clint had been
gathering edible plants in the woods. Tennie Sharp and her grandson had also given them some of the excess from their excursions into the woods to gather plants. The old woman seemed hungry for friendship, and her grandson had begun to speak more now. He had been silent as the sphinx at first, but Lewis smiled at how he and Kat now roamed the hills together looking for herbs and edible plants. “Strange pair,” he muttered.
Getting to the end of the row, he cast his eyes back over the garden with a surge of pride. It was the one thing that gave his new life some order and meaning. Money was almost nonexistent, so the garden was a vital means of providing for his family now. True enough Jenny earned a little working for Brother Crutchfield, and Josh seemed to have found a source of ready cash in hauling things with the truck. But aside from that, the Winslows had to live on what they could grow or shoot in the woods. Lewis himself had become a better hunter of wild game than he would have thought possible, and now as he finished his gardening for the day, he was taken with an urge to go out and try his luck.
“Some squirrel and dumplings would go down pretty well,” he told himself, and shouldering his hoe, he walked back to the house. When he went inside, he found Hannah alone patching a shirt. “I think I’ll go out and see if I can bring in some squirrels, Hannah.”
Hannah looked up and smiled. “That would be good, Father. We haven’t had squirrel now in a couple of weeks.”
“Where’s Clint?”
“He went over to the Cannons’ to see if they’d lend us a little sugar.”
“I feel bad about having to borrow, don’t you, Hannah?”
“We won’t have to do it much longer. We’ll have plenty of sorghum after that big field Clint planted comes in. We’re lucky to have that old sorghum mill here. I’m looking forward to having our own sorghum for biscuits and pancakes.”
“Still, you can’t sweeten coffee with sorghum.”
“It’ll be all right, Father. Don’t worry.”
“All right. I won’t be late. If I don’t bag any squirrels, I’ll just come home by suppertime.”
“Which way will you hunt?”
“I believe I’ll go south toward Tennie’s place.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” Lewis picked up the twenty-two rifle and the box of shells. He carefully counted out the expensive shells, knowing he couldn’t afford to waste them. He put twelve in his pocket and then left the house. When he reached the river, a whim took him to head the other direction. He turned and moved along the riverbank toward Dog Town instead. He had been there only once and had been shocked at how primitive the conditions were.
Don’t guess I’ll be visiting anyone there, but hopefully the squirrels will be plentiful.
The path along the river was well traveled, and from time to time he noted fishing lines tied out; some of them had been put there by Clint and Kat, he knew. Those two had become the fishermen of the family—running trotlines, putting out set hooks, and simply sitting on the bank waiting for a big one.
After some time he saw that the woods had grown thicker over to his right. The trees there were a mixture of pine and oak, probably first-growth timber, for they towered high in the sky. “Some logging operation will find this someday and clear it all out,” he muttered. “That’ll be a sad day.” Leaving the river, he followed a path deep into the woods, moving quietly through the brush. He stopped several times, as he had discovered on past outings that sitting still was a better way to catch squirrels than moving around. He was rewarded by getting two plump gray squirrels and one smaller red squirrel by two o’clock. Jamming them into the canvas bag he wore at his side, suspended by a strap over his neck, he pondered whether to go back or to go a little deeper. Knowing he did not have enough to feed the whole family yet, he looked up at the sky and chewed his lower lip. “I’ll go on another hour,”
he said. “If I don’t get a bagful, we’ll stretch these three by making a stew.”