Judith Bowen - A Home Of His Own

Ever since Lewis Hardin had gone to jail for rustling cattle the year before, Cal Blake, the rancher who lived up the road a few miles, had kept the Hardins supplied with beef and firewood. He’d promised Lewis they’d be taken care of, according to a neighbor, which was strange, considering it was Cal’s beef that Lewis and a gang of n’er-do-well cowboys had stolen.

“I hear Mercy still keeps a fine garden,” her mother said, from the driver’s seat. “And no one can say they’re afraid of work, the two of them, living like they do.”

“Nan,” her aunt sniffed. “Be sensible. It’s no way to live, two women out here alone. They ought to move to town.”

“Mercy was born on the place and she’d told me once the only way she’ll be leaving is feet first,” replied Phoebe’s mother.

Feet first, Phoebe knew very well, meant dead. Phoebe sat in the back, between two large sacks of used clothing from the parish thrift store, which had been chosen with the Hardin women in mind, and a box of groceries on the floor of the station wagon, which had come from the Glory food bank. Canned goods, mostly—ham and soup and condensed milk—although Phoebe could see several boxes of pasta and, oddly, a flat, paper-wrapped tin of anchovies. Anchovies!

A view of the azure blue Pacific off Peru, silvery with the tiny fish, flashed through Phoebe’s mind…

“And that boy of hers—ooh!” Her aunt shuddered and made a face Phoebe could see in the rearview mirror. “Thank goodness he’s where he belongs—in jail! He’s been nothing but trouble since he was born. Imagine another one coming so long after Billy? It makes a body wonder who the father was…”

“Oh, Catherine,” her mother murmured, driving slowly and carefully. “I don’t suppose anyone cares about all that. Not now. Not after so many years.”

How many years? About nineteen or twenty, Phoebe guessed later when she came across him at the bottom of the orchard—mainly twisted crab apple trees and blighted russet pears. He frightened her, sitting there on a long-downed tree trunk, so still and so alert at the same time. He blended into the dry grass. If she hadn’t smelled the cigarette smoke, she might not have seen him at all. And that thought scared her more.

She’d asked Mercy Hardin if she could go and see the sheep that she’d noticed from the road when they turned into the lane. Since that first long-ago visit, the Hardin women had acquired a scruffy clutch of sheep, black and brown and white, that they kept for who knew what reason. Meat, perhaps. Or wool.

Two of the Hardin dogs, who’d barked madly at the car as they drove up to the house, lay at the man’s feet.

“Come here,” he said quietly. At first she didn’t realize it was Lewis. He was supposed to be in jail. “Are you afraid of me?” His eyes narrowed through the cigarette smoke. He wore an old shirt and jeans, no jacket, even though it was cold enough that Phoebe had worn the new wool coat her mother had bought her for school in September. His boots were black, sturdy and plain. Government issue.

“I’m not afraid,” she said, picking her way toward him through the fallen branches and frozen windfall fruit. It was true; she wasn’t. She stood in front of him. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s a filthy habit.”

He laughed and threw the stub of a cigarette away. It smoldered in the frosty grass. “Who’s up there?” He frowned and hunched one shoulder toward the house.

“And you shouldn’t throw away lighted butts like that. You could start a forest fire.”

“Aw, can it, kid. Who’s up there?” he repeated.

She frowned. “At the house, you mean?”

He nodded impatiently.

“Just my mother. And my aunt Catherine.”

“That’s all?”

She nodded and he patted the log he was sitting on. “Have a seat. I’m not gonna bite you.”

She sat beside him. He edged closer to her, against her, and she realized he was shivering. “How’re Ma and Billy?”

“Why? Haven’t you seen them?” She was thoroughly confused. What was he doing here in the orchard, anyway?

He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the house. “Naw. Not yet. I’m supposed to be in jail, didn’t you know?” He smiled briefly. His features were harsh and pinched. All these years she’d remembered a dark intensity, a passion, to his thin face; what she now saw was hunger and a certain grim determination.

“Well, why aren’t you?” Later, when she thought about it, she wondered at her nerve.

“I left. Got tired of the food they shove at you in there.” He winked and put his arm around her shoulders in a sudden, impulsive gesture, and held her close against him. “Man, it’s cold! I could use a cup of coffee and a bellyful of beef stew. Some nice warm Parker house rolls. Ma done her baking today?” He had a wistful look in his eyes, then came the knowing, self-deprecating laugh again.

Phoebe stared at him. She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She unwrapped the scarf from around her neck, the one her grandmother had knitted, and gave it to him. “Here, this will make you a little warmer.”

He buried his hands in the scarf. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

Phoebe shrugged. “Well, I guess I’d better go back to the house.” She made a move, as though to get up, but he bumped her with his shoulder, on purpose. She could feel her thigh warm against his. Her thigh and her arm and her shoulder.

“You won’t say nothing?” He shot her a penetrating look. “About me down here?”

She hesitated. “They’ll get you, you know. Eventually, you’re going back to jail. For even longer.”

He laughed again. “Yeah, yeah, I know that. I just needed a break, y’know? Little holiday. I wanted to see how Ma and Billy were getting on. When your ma leaves, I’ll go up to the house, say hello.” His face was so close to hers. He hadn’t shaved in a while. She couldn’t think of any of her friends who wouldn’t have been scared to death in her situation. Natasha Jarvis, her best friend, would have died. Imagine—she was talking to an escaped convict!

“I— I hate it there,” he burst out. “You can’t understand, a kid like you, what it’s like to be trapped, spied on—” He clamped his jaws closed, as though he’d stopped himself from admitting something. That he missed home. That he longed to be free. Then he shocked her. “Listen, you ever kiss a man?”

“N-no,” she said slowly, shaking her head. She began to get up. He grabbed her arm and she shook him off.

“Boys? You ever kiss boys?”

Phoebe decided to lie. “A few,” she said airily.

He stood up suddenly and put his arms around her. “Kiss me.”

Then his face was right up against hers, and he nuzzled her nose and forehead, as though she were a kitten. He kissed her, softly at first, and then more and more intensely, and she felt rivulets of something weird shoot through her body, through her legs and arms, through her stomach. His mouth was wet and soft and faintly, disgustingly, smoky from his cigarette. But oh, so warm and exciting! Phoebe kissed him back, as well as she knew how, which wasn’t very well at all.

His arms were tight around her, iron bands. Then she felt his hands, cold and hard, under her coat and slipping up under her sweater against her hot skin. She moaned and shivered and pressed herself against him. Suddenly he released her and she nearly fell backward. His eyes were dark and flat. He pulled her sweater down and fastened her coat. “You’d better go, kid. Before we’re both in trouble.”

She began to make her way, stumbling, across the orchard. He called after her, “Hey, kid!”

She stopped. She needed to, anyway, her heart was pumping so hard.

“What’s your name?”