I reckon I was more smitten with her than I thought, ‘cause before I knew it we was married and I hadn’t even told her how much I hated children. Of course, she never brought it up that she wanted a few of ‘em either. I just guessed she wasn’t the motherin’ type.
For a few years all went well. We were happy together and she was a willin’ partner. But one day she got all sick and got to tossin’ her lunch for a couple hours. It’s just the flu bug I told her when she said somethin’ about seeing Doc Holloway in town. Then I noticed somethin’ all wrong about her. She had gotten a little fat in the stomach—not that doughy weight like Barb, but more firm and in one area.
A couple days later she came back from in town. I should have known better than to let her go by herself. She rubbed her belly like it was somethin’ special and she had a glow about her. Then she said them words.
“Today’s Mother’s Day.”
“Really? I didn’t know. My momma’s dead.”
I stared at her a minute, tryin’ to read what was on her face, in them eyes. They were different. She bit her bottom lip and said, “Cyrus, yah gonna be a poppa and I’m gonna be a momma.”
We had been standin’ on the porch when she said them words. It wraps around the side of the house and there are twelve steps that run from ground to the landin’. I ain’t never showed an ounce of anger toward Mae—not once since the day I met her in the feed store and my heart went all a flutter—but I felt my face get hot and it happened too damn quick for me to think about it.
I leveled a fist into her stomach. She doubled over and fell to her knees, clutchin’ her gut, her mouth open like she was a fish out of water tryin’ to breathe. I reckon I could have stopped there, that I could have gotten hold of myself and helped her up. But, I didn’t do that. Instead, I grabbed her by that long blond hair and shoved her as hard as I could off of the porch. She rolled down the steps and landed on the ground. One arm sat at a bent angle and there was a nasty gash in her forehead.
I went down the steps after her and planted my boot into her stomach, you know, just to be certain that baby wasn’t a comin’ out alive. I got on my knees and lifted her head so she could look right on up at me. “We ain’t havin’ no kids.”
There was a moment where I thought about takin’ her out to the barn and stringin’ her up just like I did Barb, but then my heart went all a flutter again and I felt bad for what I had done. I helped her up, even carried her up the steps and into the house. I bandaged her arm—it was broke pretty bad and I guess I should have taken her to see Doc Holloway, but this wasn’t between us and him. No sir.
Shortly after that Mae got to bleedin’ between her legs and she passed that baby out. I was there as she screamed and cried and that deformed lookin’ thing come out from her body. I snipped that chord with my knife and left the house to the sound of her weeping. Down at Lehman’s pond I tossed that bloody sack of nothin’ into the water, watched it sink like Wade had and made my way home.
It was a while before Mae talked to me again and she acted strange for long spells during the day, takin’ long walks and comin’ back with dirt on her clothes, like she had been wallerin’ around in the mud. She was a country girl so I thought nothin’ of it—them girls have been known to climb trees and go skinny dippin’ and get down and work right alongside the men out in the fields. She wasn’t the dainty type for sure, but she had changed.
There was no touchin’ her and that made me ache inside. After a while of this I got to where when I saw her my heart didn’t flutter and I stopped gettin’ sad at what I had done. And you see, I’m a man and a man has his needs and if she wasn’t gonna give it to me, well then I just as soon take it from her. She put up a holy fight the first few times, scratchin’ at me like she was a cat cornered by a big ol’ dog. A few knocks to her head took the fight out of her and I would take care of myself and be done with her for a while.
If Mae would have had some place to go, I think she’d have left me and that would have been that and none of this other stuff would’ve happened. But her Ma and Pa had nothin’ to do with her after she went up and married me. They said I was no good for her. Turns out, they was probably right.
The two of us went about our lives, sharin’ a roof and a bed, but not much more than that. I cooked my own meals and tended to the farmin’ and animals. She wandered about in the woods, I reckon becomin’ one with nature or tryin’ to find herself like them city girls do when they don’t know nothin’ else.
It was a Tuesday when she started to vomit again. It had been a little under a year since the first time she got all sick with them flu like symptoms. I knew it wasn’t no bug in her stomach causin’ them heavin’s. She had that look women get when their bodies are a changin’ with a child inside of ‘em.
That anger, it’s a mighty mean thing and it hopped on my back and steered me toward her while she made her way into the woods to do whatever it was she did. I came up on her, rope in hand and slapped the back of her head with an open hand. She tipped forward, landing in the tangle of some bushes. Before she could get herself out I pulled her free and roped her hands together, tyin’ her to a tall oak. She screamed and yelped like a wounded dog. A few slaps to the side of her head ended that nonsense.
I pulled her breeches off and tossed them aside. She struggled and her eyes said everything. She was scared of what I was going to do. I looked around the woods until I found a fallen branch, thick and sturdy enough. I didn’t mind with her screams when I shoved the tip of that thing straight between her legs and inside her. I moved it around, shovin’ it a good foot up inside her. I pulled it out and stuck it back in, roughin’ up her hole and insides and puttin’ an end to her baby havin’ abilities.
When I was done, bark and blood caked the inside of her legs. Mae sagged against the tree, her arms still tied tight around it. I grabbed her face, squeezed her cheeks tight. “We ain’t havin’ no damn kids. Yah hear me?”
I cut the rope and she fell to the ground. Mae closed her legs up and curled into a ball, her arms around her knees. And she cried. The anger flared up again, but I ain’t had it in me to kill her. I could have just drug her down to the pond and ended it right there, but I didn’t. I walked off, crashin’ through the woods like an angry grizzly bear.
Mae didn’t come home that night. Or the next. I went out to the woods, found the rope and the branch I had used on her. The ground was damp where she had bled onto it. But, there was no Mae in sight. I hadn’t seen her in, I reckon six weeks.
I had seen shadows move in the night, heard her howling at the moon like a rabid wolf or coyote. I went out looking for her several times, but never could find her. I could hear her all right, but it was like she was a ghost hauntin’ the woods and tryin’ to scare me away. That wasn’t gonna happen.
This mornin’ I got up and headed out, shotgun in hand. I wasn’t huntin’ no food. Not this time. I spent the better part of the day rootin’ around in the woods. There were some small tracks, like a woman’s, and then I found what looked like a small grass hut—mostly twigs, branches, and leaves, just large enough for someone to sleep in, but not much else. The shirt and breeches Mae had been wearin’ the last time I saw her was in there, layin’ in a heap in one corner.
There was a smell, like somethin’ had died. I followed it to the clothes. They wasn’t in a heap after all. They was folded over on top of somethin’. When I pulled the shirt free, somethin’ brown and skeletal fell out. It was small enough to fit in my hand. I looked a bit closer and that’s when I backed on out of there, my heart in my throat and the feelin’ like the devil was right behind me.