Charles Williams - Hill Girl

“That so? I thought he’d forgotten us, he hasn’t been out in so long.”

“Oh, he comes out every day. I see him on the road out there a lot. I was wonderin’ why you didn’t put him to pickin’. Guess that’s the reason he stays up to the house, though, so you won’t put him to work,” he said, and laughed.

“Yeah,” I said. I was bent over the pile, pushing cotton down into the basket, and I tried to keep it out of my voice. He was above me and couldn’t see my face and by the time I had the basket packed full I had hold of myself and passed it up expressionlessly.

We finished loading the wagon and started up the hillside road toward the house with Jake driving. We stopped in the lot next to the barn and I helped unhitch, working mechanically and only half listening to Jake’s chatter. I could have left the unhitching to him, but I didn’t want him to notice anything unusual.

When we had fed the mules I said, “I’ll see you in the morning, Jake,” and started up to the house.

Angelina was in the dining room, putting the last of supper on the table. I stopped in the door.

“Do you still want to come down in the bottom with us tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sure. Can I, Bob?” she asked eagerly.

“Every day?” I asked.

“Yes. Until we’re through down there.”

“You don’t like to stay up here at the house, do you?”

“No. I hate it when the weather’s so nice.”

“Just on account of the weather?”

She must have noticed something strange about it then, for she looked at me sharply with worry in her eyes.

I came on into the dining room and walked over to her and caught both her arms. “Now tell me. Why do you want to get away from the house?”

“I’ve told you.”

My hands were cutting into her arms and I could hear her indrawn breath as she tried to cover up the pain.

“Tell me.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you, Bob.” I released her arms and she rubbed them where my hands had been. “But, please, you won’t do anything, will you? Promise me you won’t do anything to him.”

“Why? Are you in love with him?” I should have known better than to say that but I wasn’t thinking very clearly.

“What do you think, Bob?” she asked quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I didn’t want to tell you. That’s the reason I wanted to come down there with you, so I wouldn’t have to be here. I guess I could have just gone off and hid in the woods all day, but it seemed kind of crazy to do that. He came out here every day, even during the time he was coming out at night to have supper with us. And he was drinking a lot and lots of times I’d have to fight him off. And that’s the reason he hasn’t been out here at night the last week, because one day I hit him real hard in the face and it gave him a black eye. I guess he didn’t want you to see that. There wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t tell you because I knew how you are and I was afraid of what would happen. He kept begging me to go away with him somewhere and hinting that if I didn’t people might find out about that—that thing that happened and why you and I were married. He didn’t say he would tell anybody, but he said that if I didn’t go with him he couldn’t stand it and drank too much and that he might let things fall when he was drunk. Of course, I didn’t mind that part of it because he was just silly and nobody cares what he says or tells—we don’t, do we?—but when he was drunk and I had to fight with him it was bad.”

When she stopped talking I said, “Is that all?”

“Just about. Except that sometimes when I watched for the car and saw him coming I would run and hide and he would look all over the house and barn until he found me.”

“And he was drunk?”

“Most of the time. Not always. Bob, can’t we sell this place and go somewhere else? I know you want to live on a farm, the way you told me in Galveston that time, but you could buy one somewhere else, away from him.”

“You don’t have to leave the country just because a man won’t leave your wife alone,” I said. “Not this country.”

“Don’t you see that’s the reason I didn’t want to tell you? Can’t you see it, Bob?”

I started toward the front door and she came after me and caught me in the hall.

“Don’t go without promising, Bob,” she said. She couldn’t cry, I guess, the way another girl would. All she could do was to look at me in that awful way and keep asking me over and over. I knew then that I didn’t have any right to do what I was doing to her.

“All right,” I said. “I won’t.”

I didn’t have any idea where I might find him but thought I would try the house first. It was possible he might be there. It was dark when I turned into the driveway off North Elm.

I didn’t knock this time. The door was unlocked and I went on in and walked back to the living room and he was there with a girl I didn’t know. They were sitting on the sofa drinking highballs.

The girl was blonde and about twenty-five, I guess, and looked as if she knew her way around. She gave me a cold stare and said, “Well, of all the nerve!”

“Beat it,” I said.

“Lee, who the hell is this monstrosity?” she said.

“My knuckleheaded brother,” Lee said. “Don’t you ever knock?” This last was for me. His eyes were bright and I knew he’d had at least enough to be nasty.

“Well, suit yourself,” I told the girl. She seemed to want to stay. Lee got up off the sofa and I hit him. He sat back down and a cut place on his lip began to bleed. What with the black eye he already had, he wasn’t going to look like much in a little while. He got back up and I caught hold of his lapel.

“How drunk are you?” I asked.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“I’ve got something to say to you and I want it to soak in. Maybe I’d better sober you up.”

He swung at me and landed on the side of my neck, and then threw two more that I didn’t even bother to knock down. I pushed him back and let go his lapel and hit him over the heart with a right. He started to back up and hit the sofa with the backs of his legs and lost his balance and I caught him again, this time by the arm. I could see he was too drunk to hit a clothing-store dummy, so I shoved him back into the kitchen. The girl was screaming by this time.

He was still trying to hit me and I pushed him hard and he bounced against the wall and sat down. I found a dishpan and stuck it under the faucet in the sink and when it was full I threw it in his face and filled it again. Whenever he got up I hit him and went on with the water treatment.

The girl was standing in the doorway, still screaming, and she got on my nerves. I took a step toward her with a pan full of water and she went out through the living room and I heard her going down the front steps yelling, “Stop him! Stop him!” without ever seeming to pause for breath.

In about five minutes the kitchen was drowned and Lee sat hunkered down against the wall, not trying to get up any more. Water ran out of his suit like a spring branch out of a moss bank and his hair was plastered down in his face. I dropped the dishpan on the floor and went over and squatted down on my heels in front of him.

“You sober?” I asked.

“I can hear you,” he said.

“It won’t take long. I don’t want Angelina to have any more trouble with you.”

He began to be afraid then. I mean, really afraid. There was no doubt now that she’d told me, and maybe before he hadn’t been sure or the liquor had been holding him up. Anyway, he began to look the way he had that night when Sam was after him. He tried to get up and I pinned him down with a hand on his chest.