Swamp Sister

here.'

'Don't go to no bother.'

'Tain't no bother.'

She dished up the mustard greens and passed him the vinegar, and then she sat down across the table from him. Shad ate, keeping his eyes on the food. He knew something was wrong – different somehow. There was a mouse in the meal, somewhere.

'Where do you usually go at in that swamp, Shad?' she asked.

'Up Breakneck way.'

'Tain't much up thataway. Rival says Breakneck's all played out fen skins.'

Shad talked around a mouthful of pone. 'I try some other creeks too.'

'Oh. Which ones?'

'I disremember.'

He knows I'm fishing him, she thought desperately. And he's going mean overn hit. But she had to take the plunge for Rival's sake, hers too, because what belonged to Rival belonged to her – problems, pain, security, and a cussed little of that they'd ever had to share.

'I was wondering, Shad, if'n you wouldn't want somebody to go along with you in there next time; it so big and lonely and dangerous-some and all fer one man.'

Shad looked at her.

'What I was thinking was that now Rival's got the manure started out in the south ploughing and has got him all the pullets weeded and is nearly done ditching that waste piece-' She couldn't seem to control her volubility now that she had started, and was aware that she wasn't really saying anything, but was only racing word after word in a frantic effort to screen her purpose, and was aware too that Shad realized it, and so she finished with a rush, '- he thought he'd go at that swamp fen a spell, too.' Shad said nothing.

'And git him some skins,' she added lamely.

Shad went tsk at his chipped tooth and looked at his plate again.

Why don't he say something? she asked. Why do he just sit there statue-dumb? 'Rival's powerful good with traps, you know, Shad. Kin build him a deadfall like nobody – and he's handysome in the swamp too. A man like Rival would be a big help to you, Shad, and company as well, and – and we thought on him going with you because Rival says they ain't nobody knows the hide-holes of mink and otter and coon like you, and – and we could shore use that money, Shad – the pelt money, I mean.'

Why cain't I shet up? Why cain't I just sit here and keep my big mouth shet and stop a-hammerin him with words? And why do Rival got to stand in there like a shaky hant just a-pantin over ever word I say, and me knowin hit, and Shad gittin all mean, and me feelin like a ma to him and wantin to mama him, but got to be a wife to Rival and stand by him and do what he says because he's the man of the family and hit's his job to do to support us, and the pore old fella all saddled with debt at Sutt's, and the land all fallow and not fit for raisin nothin except rocks?

Shad put down his fork and stood up.

'Yeah,' he said stiffly. 'I know what you mean.' He looked at her. 'But I ain't fixing to take me no partner.'

She watched her fat fingers work along the apron hem.

'Well, I just thought it – being so lonely and all – Rival needing some work and -' Her voice went off somewhere by itself and she abjectly let it go. The sowbelly and mustard green water went ploop! in the pot and she looked at it because it was something to do.

Shad dug into his jeans and brought out a fifty-cent piece and put it on the table by his unfinished plate. She looked at the money as though it were a slap in the face.

'I tolt you yesterday I didn't want no money fer breakfast.'

Everything about him was still ramrod-stiff. 'That was yesterday,' he said. 'Today I'm paying. See you.'

But she couldn't let him go like that. She stood up quickly, letting the apron unravel out of her pudgy hand 'Shad -'

He looked back at her, his eyes as friendly as two knotholes in a planed board.

'Take care, Shad,' she murmured.

'I aim to.' And then he was gone and all she heard was his boots clumping down the steps, and then nothing.

She touched the table with the tips of three fingers, holding them there, as if her equilibrium demanded the tactile awareness of material things.

Rival Taylor opened the fan door and came into the room. He was a rawboned man with a kinked up back from too many years of stooping; his hands were wide, brown and like scuffed leather, made for holding tools, for gripping plough shafts, and they were too big and spare for his wrists. He scowled at his wife. 'Why you done let him git away like that?' he wanted to know.

'I done said just as much as I could,' she said, but not defensively. She was staring at the fifty-cent piece.

Rival put his oversized hands together and worked the palms one against the other. 'Thought he was a friend of yourn?'

'I reckon he thought so too,' she said softly. 'But not now.'

And then he went on the defensive.

'Well, damn-hit-all, hit seemed like a good idee, didn't it? Him having all that money out there, and us down to beans, and him being a good friend of yourn. Seems to me like if you'd tried, he'd a took me along and let me help him and give me a share. I ain't greedy. I don't want much. Just a little piece of her would a done. If mebbe you'd just gone about hit a little diff -'

'You goan plough that south field today?' she cut in.

He blinked, then did something with his head and face as though saying 'Aw, what the hell.' He nodded. 'Yeah.'

'Best git at it then.'

He said 'Yeah' again and turned away. He knew it wouldn't do any good to pick at her now. She'd freeze up and he might just as well go out and address himself to the privy door. He tramped on out with his back in a stoop, his big tool-holding hands open and hanging at his sides like an old pair of stiff working gloves waiting to be fitted to the next job.

Mrs. Taylor roused herself and went over to the south window, stood looking out at the fields. He'll make it yield, she thought, something, somehow, because it's a pant of him. And it's a part of me, too, because he's my man. Mebbe that's wrong, mebbe we're a part of it; mebbe we're its property. And I reckon that ain't saying much -to belong to the land instead of the land belonging to you. Because, God, it's such pore, pore land.

14

Shad left the road and cut off through the shrub. He started walking faster and faster, not really watching too much at what might be ahead but at his boots swinging out rhythmically one beyond the other.

A root in the ground came at him fast, and he snagged his foot on it, went lurching ahead for two-three yards trying to get his balance and finally gave his ankle a good twist. The pain shot into his stomach like sickness, and he looked back, shouting, 'You goddam son-o-bitch!' and felt like going oven and giving the root a kick, only his ankle hurt too much.

He gingerly put down his foot and tested it on the ground, pressed hard and grunted. It held.

'What surprises me is I didn't tear hit clean off, and it standing over there in the root and me standing here onefooted.'

He went on, favouring the twisted foot some, and he thought about Mrs. Taylor, and the thinking left a bitter, ash taste in his mouth. Didn't think she'd go to do like that at me. Thought she liked me fer what I am and not fer what I might have hid away. Yes, oh my yes; he could see himself lugging old Rival around the swamp like a third leg with a clubfoot. He needed him like nothing. He didn't need anyone -except maybe Dorry.