One hot afternoon, he got a chance to watch the new man who’d arrived a few days before. He allowed that he was an okay chipper, kind of slow from what he could tell, but something else about him didn’t seem right. The new man was working a drift nearby to his own, so he had a bit of time here and there to study him from a distance. Del pondered on what his situation might be. For one thing, aside from owning a truck, he had on new boots. Everyone here was either barefoot or they might as well have been, because they’d all patched what they had with some variation of Hoover leather. Del had made do recently using newspaper in his own boots since he’d near about worn out the soles. Everyone had a story as to why they were here, he supposed. As the day wore on, their individual drifts led them in separate ways, and now, there was nothing but the bark in front of him and the endless trees.
At quitting time, the wagon came and took everyone back into camp. Del hopped off at the commissary, thinking he’d just as soon settle for opening a couple cans of something. He was too tired to cook. As he entered the store, he blundered into a situation between Otis, his wife, and the new man, Cobb, who looked as hot and sweaty as Del felt. Otis and Cornelia were behind the counter, which wasn’t unusual, but Cobb was back there too, facing Otis, pistol in hand. Cornelia was behind him.
Del stood by the door contemplating walking out, and heard Cobb say, “You best leave her be.”
Cobb glanced at him, then back to Otis. Seeing as how he’d been spotted, he stayed.
Otis, cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips, said to Cobb, “This ain’t none a your concern. She’s my wife. She’ll do as I say. You getting off on the wrong foot, and I don’t take kindly to meddling.”
Cobb said, “She was getting what I needed, you didn’t have to shove her.” He looked back at Cornelia. “You all right?”
Cornelia gave her husband a terrified look before she shifted her attention to the smaller man. Her features smoothed out, hardening like the compacted soil of the much-trampled-on paths between the shacks.
She said, “I ain’t needing you to speak on my behalf with regard to my husband.”
She faltered on the last part of the sentence, raised her chin, and stared down her nose at Cobb. To Del, she looked like she was trying to convince herself she believed what she said.
Cobb said, “Well, he ain’t much of a husband treating you like that. Nobody deserves such.”
Otis moved closer and Cobb stepped back, forcing Cornelia to do the same. Otis pointed his finger close to Cobb’s nose.
He said, “This here’s my store, and how I handle what goes on in here is my business. Ain’t nobody got a damn say in it but us, mainly me. She’s to obey me. Bible says as much. And put that damn gun down.”
Cobb cocked his head as he listened to Otis’s tirade, but he didn’t lower the pistol.
He responded in kind. “Where in the Bible does it say anything about what you done?” He said to Cornelia, “It don’t.”
Cornelia’s face was ashen, and she hesitated before speaking, but when she did, it was to quote Scripture.
“Bible says obey your husband. Says, ‘Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.’”
Cobb’s voice went oddly high. “‘Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ Ephesians.”
Otis stammered a few weak excuses.
“I take care a her . . . she can’t say different . . . hell, she knows it. And she done cost me a purty penny. Done gone off and ordered herself that cloth to make a new dress without my say-so.”
Cornelia stepped around Cobb and tried a different tactic. She started sweet-talking, while gesturing at a folded section of material.
“Otis, honey, I ain’t had me a new dress since ’fore we met. This one’s about to fall to pieces, and so is the other. They’re nigh on indecent. You don’t want me going round looking so poorly, do you? It ain’t good for everybody to see your wife in shabby dresses.”
Otis’s answer was to pull the cigarette out of his mouth and grab her arm.
Del and Cobb both yelled, “Hey!”
Cornelia tugged against his hand, then froze as he hovered the hot end of the cigarette close to her skin. Otis stared at Cobb and Del, as if daring them to speak as he lowered the cigarette until it was within an inch of Cornelia’s skin. Her arm was covered with past puckered, pink scars. This wasn’t the first time the bastard had done this. Otis suddenly stuck the hot, ashy end to the material and ground it out. A tiny wisp of smoke curled up, and Otis let go of her arm and pushed her away.
Cobb, voice tight, pointed to the material and said, “How much?”
Otis said, “Huh?”
Cobb repeated himself. “How much did that dress material cost?”
“More’n you got, I can assure you!”
The kid pulled some cash from his overalls and waited. Otis’s eyes grew big at the site of a fistful of paper money, and so did Del’s.
Deceitful, calculating, Otis said, “Three dollars.”
Cobb thumbed through the bills. Del couldn’t believe it as he counted out three one-dollar bills and laid them in a row on the counter in front of Otis. Three whole dollars and then some riding around in his pocket. How did anybody come to have that kind a money when nobody around here hardly had two nickels to rub together? Cobb pocketed the gun along with the rest of the money.
He said, “She can make her dress now, if she’s able to after you done gone and ruined perfectly good material. It sure don’t seem real smart since it was costing you. We got a witness you been paid.”
Del said, “That’s right.”
He sure was impressed with the kid, curious too. Cornelia eyed Cobb with distrust. Cobb’s own back was rigid, eyes narrowed at Otis, not paying her any mind, waiting to see what Otis aimed to do.
Otis said, “Well, ain’t you Mr. High-and-Mighty?”
Even as he said it, he scraped the bills off the counter faster than a robber holding up a bank.
He stuffed them into his front pocket and said, “Now, get the hell out of my store.” To Cornelia, “And you. You get on to the house and you best be getting me my supper, and be quick about it, or else.”
Cornelia moved toward the material, and Otis snatched her arm when she was close enough.
Cobb said, “Hey!”
Otis ignored him and said, “And don’t you go getting all highfalutin ’cause a this.”
He let her go, and Cornelia carefully gathered the cloth and held on to it, shivering like she had a small earthquake going on from within. It was so pronounced, her teeth chattered. Clutching the material, she carefully made her way out of the store.
Cobb followed her out, and while Del needed to get what he came for, he didn’t feel like hearing Otis run his mouth. He left too, Otis’s taunt trailing after them all.
“Yeah, y’all go on and get the hell out.”
Outside, the day was ending at Swallow Hill. Greetings were shouted, and there was even laughter. Mixed in came the thunk of wood being chopped, the scent of supper pots simmering where maybe a bit of meat had been tossed in, if one was lucky. Someone sang a song. Soon the juke joint would get to going. To Del, the sights and sound of the camp appeared innocuous, nonthreatening, but he was becoming aware of an undercurrent, more apparent the longer he was there. It was all a smokescreen, like stepping in quicksand. That was what the camp was, quicksand. The more you struggled to free yourself, the deeper you went. Like the grain bin.
Disconcerted by his thoughts, Del turned his attention to Cobb and Cornelia, who’d crossed her arms and was in the process of confronting the small man.
She said, “I reckon you think I owe you now. If you think that’s the case, you can forget it.”
Cobb said, “What? No!”
Del frowned. Cobb’s voice had changed again. He’d bet he wasn’t more than sixteen, could be younger. He didn’t even have any whiskers yet; his face was smooth as warm butter.
Cornelia said, “I’m paying you back. I take in some outside work now and again, sewing and whatnot, so it might take a while, but I ain’t looking to be indebted to nobody else. Just don’t be getting no ideas my debt will be paid off in some other form.”
Cobb said, “You ain’t got to pay me back. You don’t owe me nothing.”
Cornelia sniffed, disbelief showing in how she rolled her eyes, and with her arms still filled with the pretty dress material, she made her way toward her small house.
Del stared after her, before turning to Cobb. “Where’d you say you’re from?”
Cobb mumbled, “South Carolina.”
“What did you do before here?”
“Turpentining.”
“In a camp?”
Cobb stared off into the distance as if he didn’t want to answer.
Finally, he said, “It was a small operation.”