He said, “By the way, how about the others who work for me?”
Otis flipped the pages with irritation, like it irked him to have to provide Del the information, but he read through the list one by one, and all of them owed at least five dollars or more. By the time they got their pay for a week and bought what they needed for the next week, it might fluctuate a few cents here and there, but they’d always owe. It was a vicious cycle, one his pap had worked hard to avoid, but still had, at one point or another, been indebted to some camp.
Del said, “Thanks,” and he and Peewee made their way back outside. The sun was down, and Del was drained. It had been a hard first day.
Peewee said, “Mrs. Ballard and them kids left this morning. She’s going to her sister’s. The place is yours if you want it. Can’t say it’s completely varmint free, but it’s definitely a step up from what you’re in now.” Peewee clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad you decided on being one of the boss men. We need more like Ballard. He knew how to get along and didn’t get worked up over things. I asked Ballard once how he got his men to do as good as them what got beat regular-like. He said, ‘They’re willing to work. They have to eat and provide for their families, no different than any other man. They’s God’s creatures too.’ I ain’t ever forgot that.”
Del was encouraged and began to believe he could possibly count on Peewee as an ally.
Peewee went on. “It don’t surprise me, not with Ballard, not considering his background ’fore he come here.”
“What was that?”
Peewee said, “He was a preacher who liked his liquor a bit too much, ’til one of his young’uns drowned in a river. Lost a bit of his religion afterward. He come here needing work, another chance. I said fine, gave him that chance.”
Del wished Ballard had lived and that he’d got to know him better. He might’ve told him about what he’d experienced in the grain bin. Maybe he could’ve made some sense out of it.
Peewee said, “Well, I’m calling it a day.”
He waved his hand, and Del went to where he’d left Ruby.
He tugged the reins gently and said, “Come on, old girl. Time for us to call it a day too.”
He took her to the barn, gave her plenty of water and feed, fastened the stall gate, and went out. It was a twilit evening with the first stars flickering, tiny pinpoints against a deep purple sky. Once he was at number forty-two, he considered Cobb’s little cabin, sitting silent and dark. The thought of the kid gone made him a bit glum. Though they hadn’t got to know each other well, he’d liked him just fine. The kid had standards, so to speak, and stood by them, an admirable trait. He’d shown no fear toward Otis, a much bigger man, and older. He wished he’d stuck around. He could’ve helped him with a couple techniques, maybe showed him a way to improve his tally.
Del had been thinking about that, and it’s what made him decide he wasn’t going to let someone like Crow keep him from improving conditions for himself. He gathered his few things and made his way back across the camp to the woods riders’ section. Crow was sitting on his steps as he was wont to do, dragging the tip of his knife under his nails. The sight brought back when Del first set eyes on him, only weeks ago, eating an apple, with that same wily look. Del had got used to the perpetual mockery that shaped the man’s features, but tonight, he believed there was a touch of scheming.
Crow said, “Hell. Ain’t this a hoot? Neighbors now.”
The stuffy little shack with its nightly scurrying, slithering visitors had suddenly grown more appealing, but if he changed his mind now, Crow wouldn’t never let him forget it.
Del said, “Appears so.”
Crow kept scraping at his nails.
Del said, “Word gets round in this camp, so I’ve learned, and I ’spect you’ve heard about Cobb.”
Del watched him carefully. Crow paused in his nail cleaning and stared off into the distance.
“What about him?”
“You ain’t heard?”
Crow returned his gaze to his knife, applied it to his nails again.
“I been a little busy.”
“He’s not around. Ain’t no one seen him all day.”
“That right?”
His lack of reaction was peculiar. Matter of fact, his attitude was downright dull, and what Del had expected him to do, he didn’t. No talk of Woodall and his pack a hounds. No cussing, or comments about whippings, or the box. Nothing. Crow’s front door opened and the woman Del had seen earlier glanced at him, barely. She didn’t speak to either of them, and Crow remained as still as she was, as if one waited on the other to do something.
Del said, “Well. Good night.”
He shoved the front door open, went inside, and shut it. You couldn’t never tell with some. He’d met a lot of different kinds of people in his life, but he’d never met anyone like Crow. Maybe he’d come by his ways honestly, because his mama sure was a strange one. He moved about in the murky interior, feeling his way until his fingertips encountered the edge of a table and a lantern in the middle of it. He brushed his hands over the surface and found a small box of matches. He struck the match, lit the wick, and adjusted it. He then walked around the main room, pleased to see he had a small bedroom with a bed off to the right. How about that, a real bed, nothing like what he’d been sleeping on. It almost brought a smile to his face.
Back in the main room against one wall was a crudely built frame holding a wash pan like what he carried his things in. There was a wooden cabinet beside it for keeping flour, sugar, and such. He had two window openings at the front, and one on each side too. He went to the one at the front, pushed it from the bottom, and propped the stick left on the sill against the edge to hold it open. There was no breeze, but letting the night air in gave him the notion of it being cooler. He untied his belongings, such as they were.
As he was settling in, a barely discernible thumping came to him, and at first he paid it no mind, but then he did. It came from Crow’s house. He went over and stood by the side window, listening, and began to question what he was hearing. If it was what it sounded like, it didn’t make no sense. Del eased the shutter open. He should mind his own business, but he couldn’t hardly believe his ears. He glanced over to Crow’s, where the side window was open as well. The lantern’s glow cast a torrid scene before him, and Del backed away from the window, accidentally stumbling over one of the chairs set at the little table.
“Damn,” he said.
Suddenly, the window next door slammed shut and was so loud it echoed through the woods. Del stood in the middle of the room, replaying the snippet of what he’d witnessed over and over in his head. Crow and his mama? It was then he began to understand, perhaps a bit, what made the man the way he was.
Chapter 18
Rae Lynn
She wanted to call out for help, only she didn’t have it in her, and if she had, who would hear? She’d overheard the work hands say the box held nothing but sorrow, and all the tears and sweat of the suffering, as well as a bit of each soul who’d fled from it to the Great Beyond. If they did have to go by it, and they certainly had when the crop they were working happened to be beyond it, they’d turned their eyes away, some believing by looking at it, the sorrow it held would jump on to them.