“No, you haven’t.”
“That still and all.”
“That still, so far as I’m concerned, it’s not even up there. We took in some money, a lot more than we spent. I blew out a lot of stumps, to put more corn in, and they were on my own land, and now I’ve got the new clearing, and I can grow more on it. I can put in more stock any time I want, and I got the cash to buy it. So stop talking about costing me money, or saying any more about it. We broke the law, but nobody’s the worse off, and it all worked in together to bring us both a whole lot more happiness than we were ever going to have if we’d never met up and did like we did.”
“You like Wash?”
“He’s a fine boy.”
“You coming to see us?”
“Any time I’m asked.”
“You will be, because he loves you.”
“I want Jane with us.”
“Me too.”
We went to the window and called, and Jane slipped on a dress and came out, and that was the first it came to us there was no more home in Blount, now that Belle had died and Moke had left it. And then we decided that Jane should move in and live with me, and that made it wonderful. “And specially with me here, because you can have Kady lend us Danny now and then, when she’s going up to Philadelphia to visit her rich friends, and I can take care of him and you can teach him how to ride.”
She was laughing at me, but I wouldn’t have it that way. “It’s not on account of Danny at all. It’s on account of you, Jane. On account of both of us. We’ll be happy.”
“But we’ll have Danny, sometimes.”
“Then all right.”
Kady got to laughing by then, and we all started laughing, and then we all got some Coca-Cola and drank it, and held hands.
“And I’m glad of one thing.”
“What’s that, Kady?”
“That I’m not going to be married in that church up there, where we held the funeral today. That’s what I’m trying to get away from. The one I picked out, the Methodist Church in Carbon, is pretty. It’s gray stone, with a square tower in front, and it’s what I’m going to.”
“That’s right.”
“And I’ve ordered flowers.”
“What kind?”
Jane was so excited we were going to have regular flowers from a florist she had a flutter in her eyes. And when Kady told us how they were going to put lilies and things all around inside, I was glad too, and it seemed to me that was really the right place for her to go, and it was all going to turn out wonderful.
Chapter 9
I was up before dawn, and got all my feeding and milking and cleaning done, and put on my best suit, and we had our breakfast. Then I took a rest while they worked, because they had to get Danny ready and get dressed themselves. Then women began dropping by from all up and down the creek, and they had to have it explained to them all over again, how Wash would come out around noon and take the girls and Danny in, while I would follow along in the truck, so I could take Jane back, while Kady and Wash would go over to the hotel with Danny and change into other clothes, so they could drive off some place. So then there was a lot of talk about the flowers Wash was going to bring, and I had never worn one in my life, but I thought for Kady’s wedding I would put one in my buttonhole. So I knew where some wild roses were, down the creek a way, at the edge of a piece of woods, and started down there. But I didn’t more than get started when up on the mountainside I saw something move. Now so far as I was concerned, that still up there I knew nothing about, had never seen, and never heard of. But that was so far as I was concerned. So far as an officer was concerned maybe I was the fellow that lived closest to it. Or maybe I had left something up there and forgotten about it.Or maybe when I talked to him I’d have got a funny look on my face. I had to know who it was, because there was no regular business anybody could have up there, fifteen feet from the shaft mouth, but nowhere near anything else.
I crossed the creek on some stones, kept under the cliff so I couldn’t be seen, and hit the path that led up to the timbered drift, the one we had used to roll our stuff into after we hauled it up on a block and falls from the road. About a hundred feet inside was a tool chest where I kept extra lamps, water, carbide, canned beans, and some dynamite, in case I had to shoot the tunnel down and get out quick through the shaft. It was the first I had been there since Jane came with Danny, and already I hated it that I had ever had anything to do with the liquor. Because the mash I had left fermenting was so high it turned your stomach to smell it, and the rats that had come in for our grain almost knocked me down jumping off the bins to get out of my way. You don’t kill rats in a mine, because if something’s going to happen they know it before God knows it, and the way they run out with men right on their tail, they’re called the miner’s best friend. Just the same, they turned my stomach worse than the smell.
I watched for a minute, but I didn’t see anything so I started up the ladder, first putting out the light. Then I came down and took off my shoes. Then I went up again, and when I got to the top I raised my head easy, because if a deputy marshal would have me covered, or what would be there, I didn’t exactly know. But it was no officer. It was Moke, and across his knees was the same Winchester Ed Blue had thrown on me the day before, when he wouldn’t let me in the church. And where he was sitting was the one spot on the mountainside where he could cover a sharp bend in the road, where I’d have to come almost to a stop, on my way in to the wedding. I held my breath, because if he ever saw me I’d never make it down the ladder before he stepped over and plugged me. And then my heart stopped beating, and I almost fell down the shaft. Because it was hot, and he had taken off the jumper of his denims, so he was bare from the waist up. And I could see why Belle had fought with him over Danny, why he had kidnapped the boy, why he hated Wash, and all the rest of it, or thought I could.
By his navel was the butterfly.
When I got back to the cabin both girls were up the road with Danny, saying good-by to a woman that lived up the creek. Jane had on a dress, but Kady had on nothing but shoes and stockings and pants, with nothing over them but a blue checked apron she had slipped on to go out in. I waited while the woman, that was named Liza Minden, told it how she had known all the Blounts before Wash’s father had owned a mine or anything, and how they were wonderful people, and Kady was going to like them fine. And the more she went on, the crazier I got. I took down my rifle and loaded it, and waited some more. Then I went to the window — and leveled it, and drew a bead on her. I meant to shoot her through the heart for what she was, a rotten little slut that would even go to bed with her own father if he would let her, and that had already gone to bed with her mother’s lover, and was getting ready to marry a boy that was no more relation to the child she said was his than a possum was. But when I sighted the gun I couldn’t pull the trigger. I went outside, so I wouldn’t see her any more, and my feet lifted high off the ground when I walked, like I had just been hung and was dancing on air.
“Jess, you’re crazy.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Everybody’s got birthmarks.”
“Wash, if the birthmark was all, I might not pay any attention to it either. But it’s not. Ever since Jane got here and found the boy in his shack, I’ve been trying to figure out why he kidnapped him, and so have you and so has everybody. Ever since Belle came in that night, I’ve been trying to figure out what she was doing there, and since she tried to kill Moke, I’ve been trying to figure out why. So have you, so has Jane, so has everybody. All right, now we know. He kidnapped Danny because Danny’s his child, and he knew it from the birthmark and so did Belle, and so did Kady. But Jane got him back, and then Kady had the chance to marry you, if she could ever keep it dark about this other thing. But Belle knew Moke better than anybody else knew him. She knew if it was the last chance he had, Moke would spill it. And she didn’t have much longer to live anyhow, so she came up here to stop him, the only way she knew. And what the hell do you mean, everybody has birthmarks? How could a baby and a man have a birthmark like that and it not mean anything?”