Lula scraped up her tip, dropped it into her pocket and dumped his coffee cup into a sink beneath the counter. 'Go on, git out o’ here, you two. Ain’t givin’ me no business anyway, sittin’ there soppin’ up coffee.'
'C’mon, Jack, what say we sashay up to the lumber mill, do a little snoopin’ around, see what we can find out.'
Lula glared at him, refusing to break down and ask him to come back and tell her what he learned about the tall, handsome stranger. The town was small enough that it wouldn’t take her long to find out on her own.
By the time he found the Dinsmore place it was evening. He used his green towel to wash in a creek before going up, then hung it on a tree limb and set the fruit jar carefully beneath it. The road-if you could call it that-was steep, rocky and full of washouts. Reaching the top, he found himself sweating again but figured it really didn’t matter; she wouldn’t take him anyway.
He left the road and approached through the woods, standing hidden in the trees, studying the place. It was a mess: chicken dung, piles of rusting machinery, a goat chewing his cud on a back stoop that looked ready to drop off the house, outbuildings peeling, shingles curled, tools left out in the weather, a sagging clothesline with a chipped enamel kettle hanging from one pole, remnants of a weedy garden.
Will Parker felt as if he fit right in.
He stepped into the clearing and waited; it didn’t take too long.
A woman appeared in the doorway of the house, one child on her hip, another burrowing into her skirts with a thumb in its mouth. She was barefoot, her skirt faded, its hem sagging to the right, her blouse the color of muddy water, her entire appearance as shabby as her place.
'What can I do for you?' she called. Her voice sounded flat, wary.
'I’m lookin’ for the Dinsmore place.'
'You found it.'
'I come about the ad.'
She hitched the baby higher onto her hip. 'The ad?' she repeated, squinting for a closer look.
'The one about the husband.' He moved no closer, but stayed where he was at the edge of the clearing.
Eleanor Dinsmore kept a safe distance, unable to make out much of him. He wore a curled cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, stood with his weight-what there was of it-on one bony hip with his thumbs hitched in his back pockets. She made out scuffed cowboy boots, a worn blue cambric shirt with sweat-stained armpits and faded jeans several inches too short for his lanky legs. There was nothing to do, she guessed, but go on out there and take a look at him. Wouldn’t matter anyhow. He wouldn’t stay.
He watched as she picked her way around the goat, down the steps and across the clearing, never taking her eyes off him, that young one still riding her hip, the other one tagging close-barefoot, too. She came slow, ignoring a chicken that squawked and flapped out of her path.
When she stood no more than ten feet before him she let the baby slip down and stand by himself, braced against her knee.
'You applying?' she asked smilelessly.
His eyes dropped to her stomach. She was pregnant as hell.
She watched, waiting for him to turn heel and run. Instead, his eyes returned to her face. At least she thought they did from the slight lifting of his hat brim.
'I reckon I am.' He stood absolutely still, not a nerve flinching.
'I’m the one placed the ad,' she told him, so there’d be no question.
'Figured you were.'
'There’s three of us… nearly four.'
'Figured there were.'
'The place needs work.'
She waited, but he didn’t say he figured it did, didn’t even glance sideways at all the junk in the yard.
'You still interested?' she asked.
She’d never seen anyone could stand so still. 'I reckon so.' His britches were so loose she expected them to drop over his hipbones any second. His gut was hollow. But he had wiry arms, the kind that look as strong relaxed as flexed, with veins standing out in the hollows where the flesh was palest. He might be thin, but he wasn’t puny. He’d be a worker.
'Then take your hat off so’s I can see you one time.'
Will Parker wasn’t fond of removing his hat. When he’d been released from prison his hat and boots were the only things they’d returned to him. The Stetson was oily, misshapen, but an old friend. Without it he felt naked.
Still, he answered politely, 'Yes, ma’am.'
Once the hat was off he stood without fidgeting, letting her get a gander at his face. It was long and lean, like the rest of him, with brown eyes that looked as if he worked hard to keep the expression out of them. Same with his voice; it was respectful but flat. He didn’t smile, but his mouth was good, had a nice shape to the upper lip with two definite peaks, which she liked. His hair was a dirty blond, the color of a collie, shaggy at the back and around his ears. The front was plastered against his brow from his hatband. 'You could use a haircut,' was all she said.
'Yes, ma’am.'
He put his hat back on and it hid his eyes again, while from beneath its shadow he took in the woman’s worn cotton clothes, the sleeves rolled to the elbow, the soiled skirt where her belly was fullest. Her face might have been pretty, but looked old before its time. Maybe it was just the hair, flying around like goose grass from whatever moored it at the back of her neck. He took her for thirty, maybe, but thought if she ever smiled it might take five years off her.
'I’m Eleanor Dinsmore… Mrs. Glendon Dinsmore.'
'Will Parker,' he returned, curling a hand around his hat brim, then catching his thumb in a back pocket again.
She knew right off he was a man of few words; that’d suit her just fine. Even when she gave him the chance he didn’t ask questions like most men would. So she went on asking them herself.
'You been around here long?'
'Four days.'
'Four days where?'
'Been workin’ at the sawmill.'
'Workin’ for Overmire?'
Will nodded.
'He’s no good. You’re better off workin’ here.' She glanced in a semicircle and went on: 'I been here all my life, in Whitney.'
She didn’t sigh, but she didn’t need to. He heard the weariness in her words as she scanned the dismal yard. Her eyes returned to him and she rested one knobby hand on her stomach. When she spoke again her voice held a hint of puzzlement. 'Mister, I’ve had that ad up at the sawmill for over three months now and you’re the first one fool enough to come up that hill and check it out. I know what this place is. I know what I am. Down below they call me crazy.' Her head jutted forward. 'Did you know that?'
'Yes, ma’am,' he answered quietly.
Her face registered surprise, then she chuckled. 'Honest, ain’t you? Well, I’m just wondering why you ain’t run yet, is all.'
He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to the opposite hip. She had the shoe on the wrong foot. Once she found out about his record he’d be marching down that road faster than a roach when the light comes on. Telling her was as good as putting a shotgun in her hands. But she was bound to find out eventually; might as well get it over with.
'Maybe you should be the one runnin’.'
'Why’s that?'
Will Parker looked her square in the eyes. 'I done time in prison. You might’s well know it, right off.'
He expected quick signs of withdrawal. Instead Eleanor Dinsmore pursed her mouth and said in an ornery tone, 'I says to take that hat off so’s I can see what kind of man I’m talkin’ to here.'
