Parts of the Whole

"Fish, I tell you! Even the fish!" The one man, seated in a Windsor chair near the fire, pounded his stout hickory cane on the broad planks of the floor. "Every last -- hell, I mean from whales bigger 'n this house to the littlest damn minnie. He got every last one in mind and you think you can sneak around past Him, outa his sight? There ain't nothin' dumber'n a fish dn He can use any one He wants any time He wants, and if He can make a fish swaller Jonah what makes you think He couldn't open up the earth and swaller you?"

Laughter from the round table nearest Cal rose over the general hum of voices.

"Amen, Cal!"

"Tell it, brother!"

"Every time Cal drowns in his cup he starts hollerin' 'bout fishes." Tucker Schultz belched gently and raised his glass mug. "Two more over here, Mattie."

The cane pounded again, and Cal was on his feet. "I said, gal, you think yer invisible? You think He don't see? Go on ahead, act like you don't hear me, someday too late you'll remember every word, too late though, I say!"

"Here now!" Tucker's brother Warren leaned back his chair and shouted right at Cal's dusty black coat. "Unhand her, Cal, I ain't fixin' to fetch my own ale, now."

The girl twisted out of Cal's reach, collected the two tall glasses and moved on, pausing at another table to nod at an order for soup.

"You best go easy, Cal," Tucker said. "That young'un's the only thing between you and ruin."

"Ruin?" the old man stormed. "Ruin? She's ruin, she is. I'll keep her to the path, I will, long as I can raise an arm. But it's a heavy cross for an old man, I tell you."

Warren guffawed. "Not as heavy as buyin' your help, I'll wager."

"Damnation, you think she don't cost me? Who's raised her then, these fifteen years?"

Though her expression didn't change as she set down the drinks and took Tucker's four bits, Mattie was grateful for the men's interference. Both Tucker and Warren had come between her and Cal before, not so her grandfather noticed, but she did. Younger, she used to pretend that Tucker was her father; for all his reputation of fiery temper, he was always gentle toward her. Warren, who was leaner and quieter, actually resembled more her own dark scrawniness, and was in most ways a more appealing parent, but somehow she rather leaned toward Tucker. She knew all the while she was being as dumb as her grandfather said she was, to look in that corner. There was no father, and that was that. And her mother, who'd died ten years ago, was growing dim and soon would not be, either, in spite of Mattie's desperate morning ritual to call up her face.

Warren stood, stretched, and left, standing aside at the door to let three younger men in. They shook a little, dripping, glancing gladly at the fire, their bodies expanding almost visibly in her heat: the Kane brothers, and David Brown, the new fellow, who looked around the room to find Mattie, to smile at her. Mattie scowled down at the empty bowls she was clearing, but knew her grandfather would have seen the blush she could not stop.

The first thunderstorm was early in June, and sudden. Tucker Schultz came into the tavern to wait it out, which wasn't unusual; he was a carpenter and seemed always to be coming into Potter's Corner for something or other. But Forrest Miller came in right behind him, which was unusual. He farmed on a ridge way west of the village, further out than Mattie had ever been. He'd be one day, folks said, the biggest farmer in the county if he didn't lose too much putting everything in fruit trees.

"Got coffee, Mattie?" Tucker called to her, and she nodded and went into the kitchen. When she came out with the mugs, she realized they were talking about David.

"He ain't been here long enough to know it all, I guess," Tucker was saying.

Forrest laughed, a nice sort of rolling laugh. He had six young'uns already, Mattie thought wistfully, and she'd heard his wife Hazel was carrying again, and all those children knew their daddy, and could hear him laugh like that, maybe every day or so. "Maybe he's smart enough not to pay too much attention," he said, and Mattie's thoughts went back to David.

"You don't think that hill's hainted? How come you ain't bought the farm your own self, then? It's practically next door to you."

"The farm I got is making an old man of me, what I want with another?"

Tucker shook his head, his ruddy face looking mournful. "My daddy used to say that was a good farm, once."

"Well then, why shouldn't Brown have it?"

"Say what you want, that mountain's full of some strange goings on. I'm a Christian, and I ain't saying I believe it all. But I ain't saying I know everything, neither."

"There's no sign of ghosts on my place."

"Well, sir, that's your place and not that other. The shadow of that mountain don't fall your way."

Mattie had to leave to take bread out of the oven. The kitchen was steamy with heat, and she propped the back door open, stood watching the slanting rain. It was Saturday, and the loaves and biscuits, along with the two kettles of soup, would be crumbs and dirty bowls by midnight. All week she had made strawberry and rhubarb pies. Whole families would stop, sometimes, on their way home from shopping, and Mattie was both eager for the evening and already weary. To make for my own, she thought, and her stomach twisted with yearning just as the heavy cane thumped against her upper arm. She gasped but didn't cry out, a habit learned early to protect her privacy.

"Git on in there!" Cal's whisper was a snarl. "You know I can't carry them mugs no more, didn't you hear me callin'?"

What if David was just fooling -- she blinked back the sudden tears and ran past her grandfather into the big room, hurried to the group of men settled along the long table under the windows, then down the stairs to draw two big pitchers from the barrels in the cool cellar. He said he was serious, he would get that farm and take her away if she wanted. Oh yes, she wanted. But what did he want with her, when he could go anywhere, see anyone? Oh, David. Mattie's knees buckled on the steps but she caught herself in time, her arms aching from the heavy beer, the blow, and the need to reach out to the thick curly black hair and merry, loving eyes.