James Gunn: Wherever you may be

He grudgingly slowed, then angrily backed up and skidded to a stop beside the girl.

"Get in," he said.

Trying to keep the car out of the ruts was trouble enough, but the girl jumped up and down on the seat beside him, squealing happily.

"Careful of those notes," he said, indicating the bulging manila folders on the seat between them. "There’s over a year’s work in those."

Her eyes were wide as she watched him place the folders in the back seat on top of the portable typewriter that rested between the twenty-pound sack of flour and the case of eggs.

"A year’s work?" she echoed wonderingly.

"Notes. For the thesis I’m going to write."

"You write stories?"

"A research paper I have to do to get my degree." He glanced at her blank expression and then looked back at the road. "It’s called," he said with a nasty superior smile, " The psychodynamics of Witchcraft, with Special Reference to the Salem Trials of 1692. "

"Oh," she said wisely. "Witches." As if she knew all about witches.

Matt felt unreasonably annoyed. "All right, where do you live?"

She stopped bouncing and got very quiet. "I cain’t go home."

"Why not?" he demanded. "And don’t tell me I run away, " he imitated nasally.

"Paw’d beat me again. He’d purty nigh skin me alive, I guess."

"You mean he hits you?"

"He don’t use his fists — not often. He uses his belt mostly. Look." She pulled up the hem of her dress and the leg of a pair of baggy drawers that appeared to be made from some kind of sacking.

Matt looked quickly and glanced away. Across the back of one thigh was an ugly dark bruise. But the leg seemed unusually well rounded for a girl so small and young. Matt frowned thoughtfully. Did girls in the hills mature that early?

He cleared his throat. "Why does he do that?"

"He’s just mean."

"He must have some reason."

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "he beats me when he’s drunk 'cause he’s drunk, and he beats me when he’s sober 'cause he ain’t drunk. That covers it mostly."

"But what does he say?"

She glanced at him shyly. "Oh, I cain’t repeat it."

"I mean what does he want you to do?"

"Oh, that!" She brooded over it. "He thinks I ought to get married. He wants me to catch some strong young feller who’ll do the work when he moves in with us. A gal don’t bring in no money, he says, leastwise not a good one. That kind only eats and wants things."

"Married?" Matt said. "But you’re much too young to get married."

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "I’m sixteen," she said. "Most girls my age got a couple of young uns. One, anyways."

Matt looked at her sharply. Sixteen? It seemed impossible. The dress was shapeless enough to hide almost anything — but sixteen! Then he remembered the thigh.

She frowned. "Get married, get married! You’d think I didn’t want to get married. 'Tain’t my fault no feller wants me."

"I can’t understand that," Matt said sarcastically.

She smiled at him. "You’re nice."

She looked almost pretty when she smiled. For a hill girl.

"What seems to be the trouble?" Matt asked hurriedly.

"Partly Paw," she said. "No one’d want to have him around. But mostly I guess I’m just unlucky." She sighed. "One feller I went with purty near a year. He busted his leg. Another nigh drownded when he fell in the lake. Don’t seem right they should blame me, even if we did have words ."

"Blame you?"

She nodded vigorously. "Them as don’t hate me say it’s courtin' disaster stead of a gal. The others weren’t so nice. Fellers stopped comin . One of 'em said he’d rather marry up with a catamount. You married, Mister — , Mister — ?"

"Matthew Wright. No, I’m not married."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Wright. Abigail Wright. That’s purty."

"Abigail Wright ?"

"Did I say that? Now, ain’t that funny? My name’s Jenkins."

Matt gulped. "You’re going home," he said with unshakable conviction. "You can tell me how to get there or you can climb out of the car right now."

"But Paw — "

"Where the devil did you think I was taking you?"

"Wherever you’re going," she said, wide-eyed.

"For God’s sake, you can’t go with me! It wouldn’t be decent."

"Why not?" she asked innocently.

In silence, Matt began to apply the brakes.

"All right," she sighed. She wore an expression the early Christians must have worn before they were marched into the arena. "Turn right at the next crossroad."

Chickens scattered in front of the wheels, fluttering and squawking; pigs squealed in a pen beside the house. Matt stopped in front of the shanty, appalled. If the two rooms and sagging porch had ever known paint, they had enjoyed only a nodding acquaintance, and that a generation before.

A large brooding figure sat on the porch, rocking slowly in a rickety chair. He was dark, with a full black beard and a tall head of hair.

"That’s Paw," Abigail whispered in fright.

Matt waited uneasily, but the broad figure of her father kept on rocking as if strangers brought back his daughter every day. Maybe they do, Matt thought with irritation.

"Well," he said nervously, '~here you are."

"I cain’t get out," Abigail said. "Not till I find out if Paw’s goin' to whale me. Go talk to him. See if he’s mad at me."

"Not me," Matt stated with certainty, glancing again at the big, black figure rocking slowly, ominously silent. "I’ve done my duty in bringing you home. Good-by. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure knowing you."

"You’re nice and mighty handsome. I’d hate to tell Paw you’d taken advantage of me. He’s a terror when he’s riled."

For one horrified moment, Matt stared at Abigail. Then, as she opened her mouth, he opened the door and stepped out. Slowly he walked up to the porch and put one foot on its uneven edge.

"Uh," he said. "I met your daughter on the road."

Jenkins kept on rocking.

"She’d run away," Matt went on.

Jenkins was silent. Matt studied the portion of Jenkins' face that wasn’t covered with hair. There wasn’t much of it, but what there was Matt didn’t like.

"I brought her back," Matt finished desperately.

Jenkins rocked and said nothing. Matt spun around and walked quickly back to the car. He went around to the window where Abigail sat. He reached through the window, opened the glove compartment, and drew out a full pint bottle.

"Remind me," he said, "never to see you again." He marched back to the porch. "Care for a little drink?"

One large hand reached out, smothered the pint, and brought it close to faded blue overalls. The cap was twisted off by the other hand. The bottle was tilted toward the unpainted porch ceiling as soon as the neck disappeared into the matted whiskers. The bottle gurgled. When it was lowered, it was only half full.

"Weak," the beard said. But the hand that held the bottle held it tight.

"I brought your daughter back," Matt said, starting again.

"Why?" he asked.

"She had no place to go. I mean — after all, this is her home."

"She run away," the beard said. Matt found the experience extremely unnerving.

"Look, Mr. Jenkins, I realize that teen-age daughters can be a nuisance, and after meeting your daughter I think I can understand how you feel. Still in all, she is your daughter."

"Got my doubts."

Matt gulped and tried once more. "A happy family demands a lot of compromise, give-and-take on both sides. Your daughter may have given you good cause to lose your temper, but beating a child is never sound psychology, Now if you — "

"Beat her?" Jenkins rose from his chair. It was an awesome thing, like Neptune rising out of the sea in all his majesty, gigantic, bearded, and powerful. Even subtracting the height of the porch, Jenkins loomed several inches over Matt’s near six feet. "Never laid a hand to her. Dassn’t."