Macon didn’t show it, but he loved Myra from far off about as much as I did close up. He was always leaving gifts on her pillow, like that red ribbon she wore all the time. When she found it she took it right to the mirror and tied up her hair. Then she ran to find Macon smoking by the stove. He stood there pretending not to wait for her. She throwed herself at his legs and asked, “Am I pretty?” He stroked her head and said, “That red suits you, Myra Jean.” Times like that, I wanted to bust, seeing how much Macon loved to please our grandbaby. He’d stand in the kitchen door while I cooked supper and watch her play in the yard, letting in flies to pester me. In the summertime it was hotter than a firecracker in here, with grease popping and splattering on my arms. I’d finally get plumb ill and say, “Macon, let that youngun alone. How’s she ever going to grow up with you stifling her down?” But I never could get Macon to give that child rest. I knowed what it was. We’d lost so many, he was scared to let the last one left out of his sight. If Macon was out of the bed at night, I knowed he was standing over Myra watching her breathe.
I struggled with them same old demons. It was hard to let Myra loose when I wanted to keep her with me every minute. She was wild, but not as bad as her mama. Sometimes the schoolteacher would send home a note saying Myra wouldn’t set down at her desk. She’d stand up to do her lessons, or wander over to the window and stare out. But she settled down in the later grades. The most trouble we had out of Myra was when she took it in her head to climb to the top of the mountain. She’d slip off and Macon would have to go find her. He’d pepper her legs with a switch but she’d head right back out. Thank goodness she quit doing that, but she never did lose that old restless nature. She didn’t run off once she got bigger, but she’d set on the back steps and chew her fingernails to the bloody quick, looking off in the woods like she didn’t even know she was doing it. I’d feel like squalling, watching her gnaw at herself that way, because I knowed what it meant. Still, Myra was a good girl. She didn’t give me too much grief, but I made up plenty for myself to worry about. If I found a tick in her ear I’d mark the date on the calendar and watch her real close for that spotted fever I’d heard tell of. First sign of a sniffle and I’d have to go off somewhere and collect myself before I let Myra see my nerves all tore up. Only thing that got me through her childhood, with all them croups and stomach bugs and sore throats, was going to the good Lord daily in prayer.
Sometimes Myra tried to tear away from me when I held her, but she’d always come back to be petted and loved on because she knowed how bad I needed to do it. But Macon showed his love in different ways than mine, like buying them trinkets to leave on her pillow and whittling things for her. He carved up a whole set of animals for her to play with, and brung her home I don’t know how many puppies and kittens over the years. I’d get mad enough to wring his neck when I’d see him carrying another mutt up the hill. Sometimes people would set out a dog or cat at the filling station just because they knowed he’d take it home if he found it hanging around the pumps looking hungry.
In 1969, the summer Myra turned twelve, me and her left Macon working in the yard one day and walked up to the Cotters. Oleta Cotter had had female surgery and was laid up for several weeks, so me and Margaret Barnett took turns going up yonder to see about her. The Cotters live the furthest up the mountain and keep the most to theirselves. They don’t poke their nose in nobody’s business, but they’d give you the shirt off of their back if they knowed you was in trouble. I learnt that after Clio got killed. Oleta came down the mountain every day to cook for Macon and take care of Myra until I could stand to get out of the bed. That’s how come I didn’t care a bit to see to her worshing and make sure them boys was fed when she was laid up. It was hot that day and I had sweat dripping in my eyes by the time me and Myra got halfway up to the house. Them two youngest Cotter boys, Douglas and Mark, ran out of the woods to meet us like wild Indians. They stopped in the middle of the road plumb out of breath.
“Hidee, Miss Lamb,” Mark said, pushing his shaggy hair out of his eyes. I don’t believe I ever seen them two that they didn’t need a haircut. Mark was the only one of them boys that’d talk. I don’t reckon I ever heard Douglas say a word. Myra said he knowed how to talk, he was just real quiet. Douglas was in Myra’s class and Mark was two years ahead of her. Both of them boys was struck on Myra and tried to court her all through school, but she never would go with either one of them. Mark and Douglas was nice-looking fellers, even when they was little, had big old brown eyes and gold hair, but I reckon they seemed like brothers to Myra. They was always into something. That day it wasn’t even dinnertime yet and looked like they’d already been rolling in mud. Myra always kept right up with them, climbing trees and shooting marbles and whatever else it was they done. Mark held out his BB gun to show Myra and said, “Let’s go shoot cans.” Then they tore off up the hill ahead of me like their britches was on fire.
I took my time following them on towards the house. Bill and Oleta have a tiny little place with a stone foundation and a covered porch. Not too long ago Bill had put on some cheap gray cardboard siding, supposed to look like brick. He’d poured a cement walk up to the porch, too, but grass had growed over most of it. There was trees and bushes crowded against the house and a line of fence posts sticking up behind it where Bill kept a few cows.
Bill gets rid of his cows every few years, until he takes a notion to buy up some more, but he never does get tired of that horse he bought from a man in Dalton, Georgia. I swear that’s the orneriest creature I ever seen, but Bill loves her like somebody. Now, she’s beautiful, I can’t deny that, and you can see her spirit burning like fire in them blue eyes. She’s a paint mare, and the first time I seen them eyes I liked to jumped out of my skin. I never knowed a horse could have eyes like that. They was just like Myra’s, and that might be why my grandbaby was so fixed on her from the beginning. I knowed that was why she always wanted to go up to the Cotters’ with me, to see Wild Rose. That’s the name the horse had when Bill bought her, and it suits her. His old fence never could keep her in. I don’t know how many times Rose came tearing down the mountain with her tail up, trampling through our garden and leaving manure in the yard. Sometimes I wondered if she was looking for Myra. It was eerie seeing them together. Myra would stand at the fence and Wild Rose kept her distance, but she’d stare Myra straight in the eye, neither one of them moving a muscle. Then Rose’d take off like she was spooked across the hills. Wild as Myra was, I guess in a way them two was sisters.
When I got up to the house I could hear Douglas and Mark and Myra at the barn calling for Wild Rose, but I couldn’t see them. As I was walking up on the porch Bill Cotter opened the front door and came out. I said, “Hidee, Bill.” He tipped his cap at me and went on down the steps to his truck. Bill don’t say much, but he’s a good man.
I went in the front room and seen the linoleum needed mopping. Bill or them boys had tracked mud in. Oleta was laying on the couch and her head nearly wringing wet with sweat. Poor thing looked like she was roasting so I opened some windows for her.
“Where’s that Bill headed off to?” I asked, gathering up some pieces of newspaper he’d left by his chair.
“Laws, I don’t know. He don’t never tell me nothing. Why, he don’t even tell me bye no more when he leaves the house. Does Macon do you thataway?”