Between the Flowers: A Novel

Chapter 3

· 3 · THE FIRST week of September came. Marsh as he hauled nitroglycerin to the wells in the high back hills found signs of fall in the blood red leaves ofblack gum bush, and a few slender fingers of flowering goldenrod. The hazelnuts were ripening , and he would sometimes hear the falling thud of a worm-bitten hickory nut. He would listen intently, and then drive on; his thoughts not on the nut that fell but of the winter that seemed gathered in the sound. And as always there was the wonder of where he would be. His work by the Little South Fork Country was mostly done. There were days when he did not have to touch the nitroglycerin, and though he hated the loss from his wages, he now looked forward to such times. Once, free days had meant only that for a little while he could be free of the long fear and the long wonder that had like slowly revolving screws twisted deeper year by year into all his conscious thought. But now they were given an added brightness; if he managed just right he could maybe see Delph. On the mornings of such days he fed his horses first as always, but different from other times he remained a while and watched them eat. Sometimes he quarreled a bit withJude. He was certain thatJude had not forgotten the big barn and the river valley farm on the Cumberland that had been his home until last spring. Jude was always, especially in the mornings, a bit remorseful, a bit disdainful of his pole and pine bough stable with living pine trunks for its corners. "I'll sell you in th' late fall," Marsh said one morning when there was no work to do. "You're not th' oil fields kind anyhow. Luke 33 BETWEEN THE FLOWERS there he'd soon spend his days haulin' nitroglycerin as plowin' corn, but you, you fool, you're different," and he talked on so for a moment, softly, leaning against the poles, looking sometimes at the horses, now and then glancing away at the rising sun that hung like a red enameled pie pan against a gold and purple wall of early morning cloud. The big horses ate quietly of the oats he had given them, lifting their heads at times to glance at him. And in the red sunrise light their eyes, he thought, were kinder, more filled with understanding than at other times. When he had cooked and eaten his breakfast which, no matter what time and care he gave to its preparation, never seemed either better or worse, he returned and curried his horses, slowly and with particular pains as if he might that day take them to a fair. It was some little time before the horses were finished to his liking, and even then he must stand a time and study his work and try once more to subdue an especially unruly patch of hair on jude's left hock. It wasJude, the unruly, scornful one, that he always rode, for he, unlike Luke, could not be led to graze in the woods. In the last two or three weeks the horses had grown more or less accustomed to his far flung search for a grazing ground when there were grass filled open pine woods within a stone's throw of the cabin. Today they followed much the same route they had followed on other days, keeping clear of roads, fording the creek, and wandering with apparent aimlessness until they came to a stretch of burned over ridge side where the purple blossoming beggar lice and a variety of wild yellow -flowered sweet clover grew lush and thick. He hobbledJude and left Luke free, and Jude as always showed signs of surliness at the ways of a world that hobbled its leaders. He left the.horses to graze and went to sit by the roots of a thick black oak tree, a distance down the hill side. He drew a government bulletin from his pocket, smiled in a sheepish sort of way at the title and began to read. His reading, however, went slowly. Sometimes he paused to look at his horses, but most often he would turn about and look toward the faint trace of an old ridge road that twisted between the pines on the ridge top. The morning lengthened, the dew dried, and in the heat the pine smell came strong and sharp...