A Woman on the Place

By Harry Whittington

From the moment Cousin Rosanne and her husband arrived from Alabama, Will Johnson was in for it. Outside, his orange crop was in danger, and now his troubles moved indoors as well.

Death and jealousy stood behind Will’s wife, the law was after Rosanne’s husband, and that unwilling bride herself was a fiery young thing who thus far had resisted gentling. Yet, though Will’s strong back already was heavily burdened, he dared to take on this one more choreeven if it sparked an emotional holocaust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781440544989

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS already after eight and still nobody mentioned going to bed. The night was black midwinter, dark and cold, and people in the scrub country don’t stay up late, even in good weather.

Rhodes was thirteen but he wasn’t going to admit he was sleepy. There was something going on, something none of them talked about. He felt it in the way they sat in the parlor clear after eight o’clock, not talking much, just waiting. Once his mother said, Why do they have to come here? Nobody answered her and she didn’t seem to expect an answer.

Outside the wind was loud, flinging dead leaves across the yard and banging a Chinaberry limb against an upstairs screen. The wind howled right through hallways of the old two-story frame house.

Grandpa moved his rocking chair a little nearer the stone fireplace. Firelight danced on his sparse gray whiskers and in his pale eyes. He shifted his shawl up on his shoulders.

Looks like you could put a leetle more wood on that fire, Will. You know very good and well when a man gits my age, there ain’t a lot of extry blood to keep his veins warmed. Got just enough left to fool my old heart into ticking. A man my age has got to have a lot of heat. He glared at the crackling fire. I swear I think you’re trying to freeze me.

Will put aside the account book and got another log. A tall man, he was as lean as a hound dog that’s been lost in a swamp and comes to your back door, belly hooked to backbone.

He shielded his face from the heat blast when he dropped the log on the fire.

He laughed. We put much more wood on this fire, Gran’pa, we’re going to have to move out of this room.

What you talking about? Grandpa said. I’m sittin’ right here and I can barely feel it. Anyhow my front’s toasting — and my tail is freezing.

Will went back to his account books. Don’t be so all-fired lazy, Gran’pa. Get on your hind legs and turn your tail to the fire.

No, sir. I’m too cold to move. I tell you this here is the coldest February Florida has had since ‘06. I ever tell you people about the freeze of ‘06?

Not tonight anyhow, Gran’pa, Will said. He was bent over the account books.

You tell us about it, Gran’pa, Rhodes’ mother said. A wasted woman in her late thirties, she turned her wheelchair back from the roaring fire. She said, You got no call to talk to Gran’pa like that, Will.

Grandpa was Lena’s father.

Will didn’t look at Lena. He’d been working over those books since supper. What happened in the freeze of ‘06, Gran’pa? he said. There was a kind of edged obedience in his voice that wasn’t even lost on young Rhodes.

Rhodes heard his mother catch her breath slightly but didn’t look at her. He agreed with his step-father. He’d heard this story a lot of times.

Well, sir, you won’t believe it, Gran’pa said, but the water froze in the wells and cisterns all the way from here to Palatka. We went out that day and I tell you the orange trees had turned black in every grove all around the lake. Steam rose from people’s privies so’s it looked like they was afire. This here same house had little teency icicles hanging from the eaves at daybreak. He sighed. It was one pretty sight. I just stood there and watched the sun the way it lighted on them icicles.

What were you doing that far from a fireplace? Will said.

Rhodes laughed and his mother’s head jerked up from her needlework. She said, Will.

It was like the crack of a whip in that room.

Grandpa said, Oh, let him joke, Lena. I don’t mind Will’s teasing. I know how it is. I was young like him once — well, not just like him, either. But don’t you forget, Will Johnson, women turned their heads a-sniffin’ when I walked down the road, too. I was top dog in many a kennel around these parts.

Grandpa, Lena said. You’re forgetting Rhodes.

Will glanced up from the account books. Go up to bed, Rhodes. Pretty late for you.

No, Lena said. Let him sit up a while, Will.

Rhodes had already started to get up from the sofa but sank back.

Will shrugged. After a moment that stub of pencil he worked with was scratching across the ledger and Rhodes saw his head move slowly. Something was worrying Will.

Did you pay the feed bill this month, Will? Lena said.

Will looked up, shook his head. Not yet, Lena. I think Ponds’ll wait for me. People around here know Will Johnson pays his debts.

Grandpa chuckled. "Yep, that there’s one good thing everybody says about Will Johnson."

That isn’t the point, Lena said. Her voice had a sharp whine that had been in it since she’d had her first operation five years ago. I don’t want Mr. Ponds to have to wait. Chris always paid his debts on time. What will people think if we don’t pay our debts on time?

Will looked up again, mouth taut. We’re going to get a chance to find out in the next couple of months, Lena.

Will — I — I won’t have it. Bill collectors coming to the door. People talking about us in town on Saturdays.

Will’s voice was soft. In a couple months, Lena, everything will be fine. If I can just get through the next couple months. I’ve never run from a debt in my fife — I never will. If the frost doesn’t kill the groves, we’ll have one of the best late-orange crops we’ve ever had.

What did the concentrate man say?

He said he’d take the whole crop. Send in his own truck and pickers.

You agreed, didn’t you?

No.

Why not? Lena dropped her needlework. You didn’t even ask me, Will, and you turned down an offer like that.

Didn’t seem anything to ask you, Lena. Their trucks, and their pickers —

Save you labor and hauling cost, Will, just when we need money so bad.

What about next year, Lena? And the year after? Those people don’t care about your trees or your groves. I won’t have people in the groves that I can’t supervise. I don’t expect to let my trees be killed out. If I did, I wouldn’t have spent all day putting out smudge-pots. I don’t think about just this one year. I think about next year —

Lena’s voice was sharp. I may not be here next year.

Will closed the account book, keeping his finger in it. Don’t talk that way, Lena. You’ll be here. You got your boy to live for. And me. And Gran’pa. Everything will be fine.

You’d like it if I wasn’t here, wouldn’t you, Will?

Will’s face got white. Don’t talk like that, Lena.

Oh, you would. You could be top dog in every kennel then, couldn’t you, Will Johnson?

Will swallowed. "Now you’re forgetting Rhodes, Lena."

Her voice rose shrilly. Never you mind Rhodes. You don’t have to tell me how to raise my son. Rhodes is my flesh and blood. I know what’s best for him. You don’t have to tell me how to raise him.

Grandpa turned from the fire. Seems to me you got no call to talk thisaway, Lena. Will has loved that there boy like he was his own. I declare I don’t know what’s got in you tonight, Lena.

I just don’t like people telling me I don’t know how to raise my own flesh and blood. She picked up her needlework.

Rhodes lay still on the sofa, not daring to look at Will. He didn’t want to look at anybody. Lena was his mother, and she’d been bad ill for a long time. But Will had taught him how to hunt and fish and to plow, to milk, to handle a team of contrary mules. You couldn’t forget all that, even if he was just a step-father, and not flesh and blood.

Will, get me a glass of water? Lena said.

I’ll get it, Mama, Rhodes said.

It’s all right, Rhodes. His mother’s voice was like a hand pressing him back on the sofa. I’m sure Will won’t mind. Will you, Will?

Will got her water. A few minutes later she wanted her pillow straightened in her wheelchair. Rhodes would have been glad to do it, but he said nothing. Will put the accounts aside, straightened her pillow. Rhodes waited holding his breath, but Lena didn’t even thank Will.

Rhodes sat up then, ready for bed. He glanced at Grandpa, saw him staring at Mama and Will. There was something odd in Grandpa’s pale eyes. Rhodes didn’t understand what it was, but he felt an emptiness in his stomach.

He was still sitting there when Lena said, You will pay Mr. Ponds the feed bill, won’t you, Will? First thing tomorrow?

Will’s voice was harsh. No. I won’t.

Will!

Will said, Look, Lena. If I paid him, I’d have to borrow the money to do it. What’s the sense of getting deeper all the time? If I’m going to run things, I’ve got to run them. Old Man Pond won’t starve if he waits a couple months —

A couple months — !

Yes. A couple months. Will’s laugh was empty. If I have luck. Longer if I don’t. If it don’t freeze tonight —

If it don’t freeze? Grandpa said. It’s already freezing.

All right. If the freeze don’t kill the orange crop, we’ll be all right in a couple months at the latest. I can pay Ponds and — he figured a moment in the book, and I ought to be able to make last month’s installment to Darl Hollister.

Last month’s? Lena’s voice cracked. You’re overdue a month on the payment to Mr. Hollister? After his kindness? Lena pressed both hands against her face. Oh, Will, I don’t see how you can do such a thing.

Grandpa said, Now stop that there carrying on, Lena. Debt ain’t the worst crime a man can commit. Sometimes things get to crowdin’ in, and a man is forced back to the wall.

Will’s laugh was sharp. And that’s the way it is. If we didn’t owe this big debt to Hollister, we could have made it through the winter in fine shape. But when we had to pay the gin money from the cotton —

Lena sat up straight in her wheelchair. Why don’t you just blame me out loud, Will?

I’m not blaming you. I’m just telling you the way it is.

And it’s my fault. If you hadn’t had to borrow the money from Mr. Hollister for me —

It don’t matter who we borrowed it from, Will said. Borrowing it was easy. It’s the paying it back that’s so Godfired tough. But I’ll make it, Lena. I’ll be all right if you’ll just give me a couple months and stop worrying about that damned feed bill.

Lena pushed her hand through her hair. Oh, I’m not worried about the feed bill any more. Not now that I know about what you owe poor Mr. Hollister who was so kind and you’re not even making any effort to —

God’s fires, Lena. I —

Another log, Will, Grandpa said. Couldn’t you put one more log on the fire?

Lena was crying and pressing the backs of her hands against her mouth. Oh, God, she kept saying. If poor Chris just knew what I was going through, what hell I was going through. She spread her arms heavenward imploringly. Come and get me, Chris.

Grandpa laughed. You’re talking in the wrong direction, Lena. That first husband of yours never went thataway.

Lena sobbed. There never was a better man in this world than Chris Bums.

There was, Grandpa mumbled. You just ain’t got sense enough to realize it.

Will threw another log on the fire. He turned and stood with his back to the fire a moment. Rhodes stared up at him, frightened. In that second Will looked like a man searching for a way out, a man who sees the door and knows the doors are not the way, who sees the walls, and not the windows or the doors any more, but just the walls.

Rhodes felt cold. He wanted to say something to Will, but didn’t know what to say. What could a kid of thirteen say?

Will’s gray eyes settled on Rhodes. A smile twisted his mouth. You better run up to bed now, Rhodes. His voice was soft.

All right, Will.

Rhodes saw his mother start to speak, change her mind. Rhodes started from the room.

Rhodes, she said. Aren’t you going to kiss mother goodnight? I might die during the night. I might not be here when you wake up in the morning.

Rhodes went slowly back to her and kissed her and smoothed her hair from her temples. He was just crossing the hall when the knocking started at the front door.

CHAPTER TWO

WHO IN the world can this be, out here at this hour? Rhodes heard his mother whine in the parlor.

I’ll answer it, Rhodes called. He suddenly forgot his sleepiness. He hurried to the front door but they were already banging on it again.

Rhodes opened the door and the cold caught him in an embrace. He shivered, staring at the two people, a man as tall as Will, but much stouter carried a suitcase that looked small in his big hands. Beside him was a woman in a cheap cloth coat. She carried her belongings wrapped in checked table cotton.

That you, Rhodes? The big man’s voice struck at him, louder than the wind. "Come in, Rosanne. Come in. Come in out of