You Live Once Part 32

"If you can call it fighting. Daddy was either yelling at her or not speaking to her. She never seemed to get mad.

She acted as if it was some kind of a joke. I couldn't ever figure out why she didn't go and live alone where she could do as she pleased and Daddy wouldn't know anything about it. That's what I would have done. That's what I will do, the minute I'm old enough. It sometimes seemed to me that she stayed with us just to needle Daddy.

I think there was some legal reason why he had to provide a home for her for as long as she wanted it."

"She needled him?"

"I don't know exactly how she'd do it, but she could sure raise h.e.l.l with him. When he'd be having one of his bad spells over something she had done, or something he thought she'd done, she would find a chance to say something to him. She'd never let any of the rest of us hear what she said. It must have really been something, though. Sometimes Daddy would go and walk for hours after that happened. Or lock himself in his study and we could hear him in there reading the Bible out loud. You know I've always thought she... she told him about.. men."

She was blushing under her tan.

"What?" I said.

"About men. Because Daddy has told me, gosh, dozens of times, not to let Mary talk dirty to me, and come and tell him right away if she did. She never did, of course. But that's the way I think she must have talked to him.

Daddy is strong and he has a terrible temper sometimes.

Like the time he broke Dusty's arm when..." She stopped abruptly.

"That's none of your business. I shouldn't have said it."

"You've said most of it. Maybe it would sound better if you explained it."

"Actually she fell."

"Pushed?"

"Well, yes. But he didn't mean to break her arm. I guess I better tell you. I still don't understand it. It was two years ago. Mary had come home from a trip. It was a warm day in early October and we went up to the lake, the six of us. I guess Dusty thought Daddy and Mother were up at the big house. Jigger and I were still in the water. Mary had gone to the girl's shower room over the boat house. Dusty decided to sneak up into the men's bunk room and look at some cartoons on the wall up there. We're not supposed to look at them or even know they're there. They aren't really dirty, just kind of silly."

"I've seen them."

"Dusty sneaked up and Daddy was up there at the window with a pair of binoculars looking over toward the girls' bunk room. He got angry and chased Dusty down the stairs and pushed her. She fell and broke her arm. She didn't tell us about the binoculars until later. He could have been trying to see Mary get dressed, but that doesn't make much sense. He'd hate anything like that. I've just never been able to figure out what he was doing. I even asked Mary about it one time. She looked startled and then she laughed and laughed. Tears ran down her cheeks she laughed so hard. She wouldn't tell me what was so funny.

At dinner that night she looked at Daddy and started laughing all over again. He got so mad he couldn't eat. He left the table."

I had almost all of it. Nearly everything I needed. The pattern was all too clear. I looked at the snub-nosed healthy girl and pitied her. But maybe she and her sisters would have the strength they would need. Maybe the blood of Myrna was strong enough, clear enough, sane enough. Yet probably nothing would ever keep this girl from hating me.

"It must be pretty tough on your father, with what happened to his sister, and now what's happened to his niece. I understand your father and his sister were very close."

"They were only a year apart. They were inseparable when they were young. I think he nearly died when they had to send her away. I was just a baby, of course. Mother still talks about how sick he was."

"He looks pretty husky now."

"Oh yes. He's very healthy for a man his age. Do you know what he did last fall? All by himself, with an axe, a handsaw, a sledge and wedges, he cut down trees and sawed them up and split over fourteen cords of hardwood.

There was so much more than we needed that John Fidd sold six cords in town for twelve dollars a cord."

"He works out here a lot, I guess."

"Oh, yes."

I braced myself again and made it casual.

"I suppose he was working here the last time I saw you up at the lake.

Was your mother along?"

"Let me think. Yes, she was up there with us but went back early when Daddy phoned about Mary. Daddy doesn't like us to go up alone, even though Mrs. Johannssen and Ruth are there. Mother isn't as strict with us.

Daddy stayed in town. I don't know whether he stayed home or out here. Maybe here."

"And n.o.body went up this weekend."

"No, we all stayed in town."

"Did your father stay out here Friday night?"

"No. He was out here on Friday, but he came home... why are you asking me that?"

"Just making conversation, I guess."

She was looking dubious again. I made my smile as bland as possible.

"You certainly stick to that horse nicely.

He'd scare me."

She slid off the fender.

"He's an old lamb. He's a honey pie, old Simpy is."

She caught him, mounted, waved and rode off. His hooves drummed the May earth. I looked at the tree.

Dodd Raymond had hung there, night dew on his shoulders, on the wavy hair, two hundred pounds at the end of a tow rope, while dawn came and the birds awakened.

I drove the jeep back the way I had come, following my tire tracks in the pasture gra.s.s.

As Toni would say, it was none of my business. But you can't leave a thing like that alone. Not when you're nearly positive.

I waited a full hour before they arrived-Uncle w.i.l.l.y, Aunt Myrna and the other two girls. Skeeter came cantering back to the barn just as their car drove in. The girls got out, gave me a quick unconcerned glance and raced toward the barn. w.i.l.l.y halted them with one short bark. They came back meekly, took the two baskets of food and carried them toward one of the cottages. Myrna Pry or stared at me and followed the girls.

w.i.l.l.y came over toward me. His polished boots gleamed black in the sun. His riding pants were crisp and fresh. His white shirt was unb.u.t.toned, the tails knotted at the waist a la Mexican beach. His hair was almost impossibly white against the tan of him. He was a Hemingway, fifty, taut as drums, resilient, proud of his body.

"h.e.l.lo, Sewell. Something I can do for you?"

The look of defeat he had worn in the jail cell was entirely gone. His eyes were clear, keen.

"Your eldest has been showing me the tree where Dodd was found."