Charles Williams - Hill Girl

We went back up the beach to the fire, which had burned down to a bed of red coals. The big log I had put across the middle of it was burned in two and I piled the ends on the embers and the wind fanned them into flame. We got out the rolls and wieners and the long-handled wire fork I had bought at the five-and-ten-cent store, and roasted the wieners over the coals. Afterward we lay back on the yellow robe and watched the wind searching among the embers and sending the sparks flying out across the empty dunes. The beach was dark for miles and we were the only people on a black, wild continent. She had the bathing cap off and the glow of the dying fire highlighted the curls and warmed the smooth lines of her body.

“I wonder if we’ll ever come back to Galveston again, Bob,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “We can come back.”

“I don’t know whether I want to or not,” she said slowly. “Maybe we oughtn’t. Somehow it couldn’t ever be like this again, because nothing could be, and it would be better if we could always remember it like this.”

I didn’t say anything and we turned from looking at the fire, and it was the way it had been that morning at the river when we couldn’t get enough of seeing each other, only this time there was no Lee or the thought of Lee, and after a long time I kissed her and there was a wildness in her like that of the sea running out there in the darkness, a wildness and a fierce urgency that was like nothing I had ever known before. The booming of the surf was a sound we would both hear as long as we lived.

We left at noon the next day and as I drove the car across the causeway she was quiet. She looked back once and when she caught my glance on her she smiled a little but didn’t say anything.

Twenty

It was about ten P.M. When we arrived back in town. Our reception was anything but heartening. When we rolled up to the stop line going into the square, Grady Butler, one of the sheriff's deputies, flagged me. He came over and put his foot on the running board.

“Bob,” he said, “I wish you and that wild-haired brother of yours would get together about this car.”

“What’s the trouble?” I asked.

“Trouble? Why, he comes in the office in the courthouse about three days ago and reports his car stolen. We get the license number and everything and put out pickup notices on it, and then I find out from somebody else that it’s not stolen at all and that you’ve got it. So I jump him about it and he says he don’t remember it, he must have been drunk.”

“Was he?” I asked.

“Drunk? Sure he was. He was drunk both times. I wish you birds would get together. There’s enough headaches in this business without guys like Lee Crane makin’ it worse.”

“O.K.,” I said. “I’m taking the car back to him now and I’ll see if I can’t straighten him out. You haven’t seen him around the last hour or so, have you?”

“No, thank God.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, he’s been on a ring-tailed tear for the past week and I get tired of keeping him out of trouble.”

Somebody behind us began blasting his horn impatiently, so Butler stepped back and waved and we drove on. I was worried as we went out North Elm and didn’t feel any better when we pulled up in front of the old house and found it dark. There was nobody home at all and I wondered where Mary was.

There wasn’t any use in wasting any more time tonight, I thought, so we drove on out to the farm. There was no light in the house across the road when we turned into the driveway, but I hadn’t expected any because it was past Jake’s and Helen’s bedtime.

We stopped under the sweet-gum trees and I turned to Angelina and said, “This is it. We’re home.” She had been very quiet since we had left town. We went up on the porch and when I had opened the door I picked her up and carried her through.

“I’ve been hoping all the way that you’d do that, Bob,” she said simply.

I walked down the hall, still carrying her, feeling my way, and went into the back bedroom. It was hot inside the closed house and absolutely still and the blackness seemed to press in on us.

“Hold me, Bob,” she whispered. “Don’t put me down. I’m scared.”

I could feel her trembling. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said.

“I know it. I’m just nervous, I guess. But something scares me.”

I sat down on the bed and held onto her for a while until the shaking subsided. Then I got up and opened the back door and raised the windows and lit, one of the lamps. She smiled at me, a little shamefaced.

“I don’t know what was the matter. I must be crazy. I won’t be like that any more.”

We went around to all the rooms so she could see them. She had seen the place before, of course, having lived all her life across the Black Creek bottom, but she’d never been inside it. She liked it and was pleased with the furniture I had collected, but there was something subdued in her manner.

When we came to the kitchen she examined everything thoroughly, even looking at the cooking utensils and into the cupboards where the food was kept.

“Don’t worry about the kitchen now,” I said. “Helen will be over in the morning and cook breakfast for us.” I had already told her about our arrangement, of course.

I thought she looked at me queerly, but she didn’t say anything, and I forgot it. Mary and Lee were on my mind anyway and I was too preoccupied to notice much.

The next morning when I opened my eyes it was just becoming light. It was too early to get up, at least for this time of year when the crops were laid by and there wasn’t much to do, so I started to go back to sleep when I noticed she wasn’t there with me. Then I heard stove lids clattering out in the kitchen.

I crossed the dining-room linoleum on my bare feet and looked in. She was fully dressed and was building a fire in the cookstove. There was such deadly seriousness in her face and she was so oblivious to everything else that I grinned. She hadn’t even heard me get up.

“What’s all this activity?” I asked. “Come on to bed and relax. Helen’ll be over pretty soon and cook breakfast for all of us.”

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 muffled down against my neck.