Mr. Latcher said he suspected all along that Ricky was the father, but Libby had denied it. And in truth, there were a couple of other boys who’d shown an interest in her. But now she was telling everything — that Ricky had forced himself on her, that she didn’t want the baby.
“Do they want us to take it?” my mother asked.
I almost groaned in pain.
“No, I don’t think so,” my father said. “What’s another baby around their house?”
My mother thought the baby deserved a good home. My father said it was out of the question until Ricky said it was his child. Not likely, knowing Ricky.
“Did you see the baby?” my mother asked.
“No.”
“He’s the spittin’ image of Ricky,” she said.
My one recollection of the newest Latcher was that of a small object that reminded me, at the time, of my baseball glove. He barely looked human. But my mother and Gran spent hours analyzing the faces of people to determine who favored whom, and where the eyes came from, and the nose and hair. They’d look at babies at church and say “Oh, he’s definitely a Chisenhall.” Or, “Look at those eyes, got ’em from his grandmother.”
They all looked like little dolls to me.
“So you think he’s a Chandler?” my father said.
“No doubt about it.”
Chapter 18
It was Saturday again, but Saturday without the usual excitement of going to town. I knew we were going because we had never skipped two Saturdays in a row. Gran needed groceries, especially flour and coffee, and my mother needed to go to the drugstore. My father hadn’t been to the Co-op in two weeks. I didn’t have a vote in the matter, but my mother knew how important the Saturday matinee was to the proper development of a child, especially a farm kid with little contact with the rest of the world. Yes, we were going to town, but without the usual enthusiasm.
A new horror was upon us, one that was far more frightening than all this business about Hank Spruill. What if somebody heard what the Latchers were telling? It took just one person, one whisper at one end of Main Street, and the gossip would roar through the town like a wildfire. The ladies in Pop and Pearl’s would drop their baskets and cover their mouths in disbelief. The old farmers hanging around the Co-op would smirk and say, “I’m not surprised.” The older kids from church would point at me as if I were somehow the guilty one. The town would seize the rumor as if it were the gospel truth, and Chandler blood would be forever tainted.
So I didn’t want to go to town. I wanted to stay home and play baseball and maybe go for a walk with Tally.
Little was said over breakfast. We were still very subdued, and I think this was because we all knew the truth. Ricky had left behind a little memory. I wondered to myself if he knew about Libby and the baby, but I wasn’t about to bring up the subject. I’d ask my mother later.
“Carnival’s in town,” Pappy said. Suddenly the day was better. My fork froze in midair.
“What time are we goin’?” I asked.
“The same. Just after lunch,” Pappy said.
“How late can we stay?”
“We’ll see about that,” he said.
The carnival was a wandering band of gypsies with funny accents who lived in Florida during the winter and hit the small farming towns in the fall, when the harvest was in full swing and folks had money in their pockets. They usually arrived abruptly on a Thursday and then set up on the baseball field without permission, and stayed through the weekend. Nothing excited Black Oak like the carnival.
A different one came to town each year. One had an elephant and a giant loggerhead turtle. One had no animals at all but specialized in odd humans — tumbling midgets, the girl with six fingers, the man with an extra leg. But all carnivals had a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and two or three other rides that squeaked and rattled and generally terrified all the mothers. The Slinger had been such a ride, a circle of swings on chains that went faster and faster until the riders were flying parallel to the ground and screaming and begging to stop. A couple of years earlier in Monette, a chain had snapped, and a little girl had been flung across the midway and into the side of a trailer. The next week the Slinger was in Black Oak, with new chains, and folks lined up to ride it.
There were booths where you threw rings and darts and shot pellet pistols to win prizes. Some carnivals had fortune-tellers, others had photo booths, still others had magicians. They were all loud and colorful and filled with excitement. Word would spread quickly through the county, and people would flock in, and in a few hours Black Oak would be packed. I was desperate to go.
Perhaps, I thought, the excitement of the carnival would suppress any curiosity about Libby Latcher. I choked down my biscuits and ran outside.
“The carnival’s in town,” I whispered to Tally when we met at the tractor for the ride to the fields.
“Y’all goin’?” she asked.
“Of course. Nobody misses the carnival.”
“I know a secret,” she whispered, her eyes darting around.
“What is it?”
“Somethin’ I heard last night.”
“Where’d you hear it?”
“By the front porch.”
I didn’t like the way she was stringing me along. “What is it?”
She leaned even closer. “’Bout Ricky and that Latcher girl. Guess you got a new cousin.” Her words were cruel, and her eyes looked mean. This was not the Tally I knew.
“What were you doin’ out there?” I asked.
“None of your business.”
Pappy came from the house and walked to the tractor. “You’d better not tell,” I said through clenched teeth.
“We keep our secrets, remember?” she said, moving away.
“Yeah.”
I ate lunch quickly, then hurried about the task of getting myself scrubbed and bathed. My mother knew I was anxious to get to town, so she wasted no time with her scouring.
All ten Mexicans piled into the back of the truck with me and my father, and we pulled away from our farm. Cowboy had picked cotton all week with broken ribs, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by Pappy and my father. They admired him greatly. “They’re tough people,” Pappy had said.
The Spruills were scurrying about, trying to catch us. Tally had spread the word about the carnival, and even Trot seemed to be moving with a purpose.
When we crossed the river, I looked long and hard down the field road that led to the Latchers’ place, but their little shack was not visible. I glanced at my father. He was looking, too, his eyes hard, almost angry. How could those people have intruded into our lives?
We crept along the gravel road, and soon the Latcher fields were behind us. By the time we stopped at the highway, I was once again dreaming of the carnival.
Our driver, of course, would never get in a hurry. With the truck so loaded with people, I doubted if it would do thirty-seven, and Pappy certainly didn’t push it. It took an hour, it seemed.
Stick’s patrol car was parked by the Baptist church. Traffic on Main was already slow, the sidewalks brimming with activity. We parked, and the Mexicans scattered. Stick appeared from under a shade tree and walked straight for us. Gran and my mother headed for the stores. I hung back with the men, certain that serious matters were about to be discussed.
“Howdy, Eli. Jesse,” Stick said, his hat tilted to one side, a blade of grass in the corner of his mouth.
“Afternoon, Stick,” Pappy said. My father just nodded. They had not come to town to spend time with Stick, and their irritation was just under the surface.
“I’m thinkin’ ’bout arrestin’ that Spruill boy,” he said.