The door was ajar. He knocked once and a woman opened the door wide, looked at him as if she were deciding whether he deserved her smile. She didn’t smile but turned to someone in the room and said, “It’s somebody.” Counsel found the woman attractive, especially after she moved her head and he saw the way her neck rose up to meet her hair. The beauty was fading and it was doing so at a fast pace. “Who somebody?” a man said.
A boy about twelve years old came to the door and told Counsel to come in. He called the woman “Ma” and told her to close the damn door after Counsel came in and she did so. A man was at a table in an area that passed for the kitchen. The floor was hard-packed earth. The room smelled heavily of smoke and the humidity hung thick. The house was much bigger than it appeared from the outside, but it was not a house of rooms but one giant one and each area seemed to have a function as rooms in a normal house would. Beds far to the right, stove and table in the back to the left, and near the front of the place was a living area where two girls smaller than the boy were playing on the floor with corncob dolls. Counsel could tell by the way one girl was talking that it was not friendly play.
The man was eating at the table and said to Counsel, “I’m Hiram Jinkins.”
Counsel told him who he was and that he was passing through and would appreciate a place to stay for the night, maybe a little something to eat. Jinkins pointed to a chair across the table from him and indicated that Counsel should sit. The chair had one leg shorter than the others and Counsel found it necessary to balance himself the whole time. He had the feeling that the man would not want him to move elsewhere. The only other empty chair was next to the man and the boy sat in that one soon after Counsel sat down.
“That Meg,” Hiram said, pointing to the woman who came up and took away the empty metal pan that Hiram had been eating from. “And this here Hiram number four,” and nodded sideways to the boy. Counsel said good day to them both. “You say you ain’t ate?” Hiram the man said. “That’s right,” Counsel said. “Well…,” and the woman soon returned with the same metal pan, now brimming with a stew that shared the pan with congealed grease. It had generous portions of meat. Counsel was too hungry to ask what the meat was. The woman set a spoon beside the pan. “Biscuits, too,” the boy said to his mother. “Don’t forget the goddamn biscuits.” Meg brought biscuits and Counsel ate. The girls were still playing in a far part of the room and the one girl with the mean talk had quieted.
“Where you from?” the boy said. “You Louisiana stock?” While he looked to be about twelve, his voice was husky and in a dark room he might have gone for a man.
“Georgia,” Counsel said, trying to remember all he could about the Estill farm.
The room was darkening as evening came on and Meg and the girls went about the place, lighting candles and two lanterns. The boy saw one of the girls with a lantern. He turned quickly in his chair and said, “Save the damn lanterns. You know better. Save the damn lanterns.”
“Where he say?” the man asked the boy softly.
“Georgia. Where your damn ears?”
The man touched both his earlobes at once and said, “Where they always been.”
“Well, act like it. He said Georgia clear as the damn day and you didn’t even hear him. You closer to him than I am and you still didn’t hear him.” For the very first time ever, Counsel missed the evenings with his family, Laura playing the piano, Belle reading to the younger children. Make up your mind, God, that’s all I ask.
“You can go eat shit, boy,” the man said. “Pick up your goddamn spoon and eat shit.”
“I’m doing anough of that already.”
Hiram, the man, said, “What you do in Georgia, Mr. Skiffington? I can tell you know your way round books. I can tell that.”
“How can you tell that?” Hiram, the boy, said. “How can you tell anything bout him when all he did was say his name and Georgia and come in here and eat our food? How can you say that, Pa?”
“Easy nough,” the man said. Out of the corner of his eye Counsel could see Meg standing at the window. There was a draft from somewhere and the candle in that part of the room wavered and now and again, with the intermittent light, she seemed to disappear. The girls were talking but he had no idea where in the huge room they were. “What you do in Georgia?” the man said again.
“I did some farming. I even had a little store, sold some dry goods and whatnot.”
“A man of everything,” Hiram, the man, said. “I like men of everything.”
“That ain’t what he said, Pa. He ain’t done everything and I don’t know why you make it out to be so.”
The man yawned. “I had three children die, then you come along,” he said. He crossed his arms and said to Counsel, “We can put you up in the barn. You think you can live with that?”
“Yes,” Counsel said. “And I’m thankful for that.” He stood up.
“I just know you are,” the boy said.
“Hiram,” the father said, “see Mr. Skiffington gets settled in the barn. Show him where the shithouse is.”
The boy said, “You see him get settled in the damn barn.”
The man held a fist out to Counsel. “Three of em went on by.” He opened one, two, three fingers. “Three of em and then he came along. God and his mysteries.” He shook his head. “Meg, see that this man gets settled in the barn.”
Meg had a candle and two blankets in her hands and led the way and Counsel followed to the barn, leading his horse. “You keep the candle,” she said once she had pointed out an agreeable spot for him to bed down, “but please don’t burn the place down. That would not do.” “I’ll be careful,” he said as she left.
He saw that his horse was comfortable and he bedded down across from the mule that seemed to be pacing in its own stall. “Stop,” Counsel said to the mule once he was settled. “Just stop that.” The mule paused, seemed to consider what the man had said and then went back to pacing around. Counsel turned over on his side and pulled the blanket up to his ear. He was well into his sleep when he felt something touch his shoulder. He thought at first that the mule had wandered over and was nuzzling him, but the touching became more insistent and he reached for his pistol. He turned and cocked the gun. “Oh,” Meg said and fell back with the sound of the gun.
“What? What you want?” Counsel said. He tried to make out her face in the dark, tried to remember what little of it he had seen during the evening, but all he could pull forward was the face of a woman in Alabama who passed him in her wagon with her belongings and her family.
Back on her knees, Meg raised the blanket and came in with him and began kissing his face. She pulled up her dress and put his hand between her legs. He wondered if the boy had come out of her. Finally, he laid her down and they continued kissing and he could hear the mule still pacing. His horse was silent. The woman pulled him on top of her and opened her legs wider, never once taking her lips from his. He was surprised to be inside her, as if all the touching and the kissing were not supposed to lead to that but to something quite innocent, something they could do at the table in front of the boy. In all the time she was there, the “Oh” was the only thing she said.
In the morning he lay awake for some time to get himself together. He heard the mule peeing in its stall. He knew right away that Meg coming to him was not a dream. That had sometimes been his problem with events since leaving North Carolina, the sense upon awaking that where he was was no more than a dream, that North Carolina was the real and nothing after that could be trusted. He looked over at his horse. It was staring out the broken barn door. If he lay for a while, Counsel had discovered, the world would right itself and he would know where he was and that it was North Carolina that couldn’t be trusted.