lolling, watery eyes glistening with anticipation.
“C’mon, boy,” he said quietly as the dog bounded at his knee. Titus scratched at its ears, patted the top of its short-haired head. “We gotta go see us what Amy wants—besides her getting me in a whole lot of hot water with them back there.”
By the time he reached the game trail that wound through the woods toward the Whistler place, Titus grew even angrier. But this time he was mad at himself. Able at last to admit that this was not Amy’s fault, he realized he had gotten himself into hot water all on his own. Oh, sure and certain she had smelled good and felt soft and appealing, and damn well was the prettiest girl he’d ever laid eyes on in Boone County—but a fella ought not be so weak he couldn’t keep himself out of trouble with a girl.
Tink bolted away with a sudden burst of youthful energy, bounding through the matting of red-and-white trillium undergrowth as a fat gray rabbit exploded out of the brush.
What an exquisite mess he’d made of things. About to be a father, get himself married, and start farming for the rest of his life—when he knew well enough that he was nothing more than a boy who loved the woods and had a hankering to see what waited in that country on down the Ohio.
The hound bayed from deep in the timber, the faint echo a mournful, plaintive call with night coming down as it was.
Never to chance riding one of those big Pittsburgh keelboats, even a Kentucky flatboat, down the river. No more use of dreaming he would ever see St. Lou, that city Levi Gamble spoke of where a man could jump off into the unknown. Hell, anything beyond ten miles downriver was as good as unknown to him. And as bleak as things looked from where he stood, he was bound to stay ignorant of the whole rest of the world from now on, knowing nothing more than the village of Rabbit Hash here in Boone County, Kentucky.
She sat at the edge of the plank porch as twilight squeezed itself through the clouds in the autumn sky, watching her younger brothers and sisters at play in the yard. Smoke curled up from the stone chimney. Titus sighed in looking at her, sensing that this was how things would be for the two of them soon enough. Their own place, a passel of children too. His young life over before he ever really had a chance to live it.
As he strode into the yard, Titus gazed at the swirl of her long dress billowing up at her calves as Amy swung her legs back and forth, ankles wrapped one over the other. Upon seeing him she leaped to the ground, snugging her shawl about her shoulders.
“Titus!”
He sighed, drinking in the delicate fragrance of honey-suckle on the breeze. “Heard you was wanting to see me. I come right over.”
Flicking her eyes toward the cabin, Amy stopped right in front of him. “I got … news. We’re needing to talk.”
“News?”
“Sort of bad news.”
He swallowed hard, gazing into her eyes, hoping to read something there. Hell, how much worse could things get?
Titus asked, “Can you go down to the swimming hole with me?”
With a shake of her head Amy replied, “Better not. Mama asked me watch the other’ns for her till bedtime so she can get some work done inside. Maybeso we go over by the big elm there. You can help me watch ’em from there—and there ain’t nobody hear us talking.”
He watched her settle at the base of the great, old gnarled trunk, curling her legs up at her side and snugging the dress down over her bare feet. She adjusted the shawl on her shoulders and smiled up at him, patting the grass beside her. For the longest time after he got comfortable on the ground, Amy didn’t say anything. They both sat in silence, looking after the Whistler brood scampering back and forth among a new litter of pups all ear and tail and tiny, exuberant yelps as the animals loped after the children zigging this way, zagging that.
“It happened yesterday—but I waited till today to come look you up. Since it was bad news.”
Bad news, he thought, not yet looking at her, knowing she was looking at him. Just how bad did bad news have to get? What with her having his baby in her belly, their folks already laying plans to get them married off, and his father poised to have him settle in being a farmer for the rest of his natural life?
Something eventually tugged at him, and he turned to her, their eyes only inches apart. He slid an arm over her shoulder, wondering at the thinness of her at that moment. Both times he had skinned her out of her clothes, she had seemed so rounded and fleshy. But right now she felt frail, downright bony, beneath his grip.
As brave as he could make it sound, Titus said, “I’m here with you now. S’pose you tell me your news.”
In one great gush it came spilling forth. “I got my visit yesterday. Didn’t wanna come to tell you till this morning.”
“Your visit.”
“Remember I told you ’bout women, and them carrying their man’s baby.”
He nodded. “When she starts missing her visits—yeah. She’s gonna have …” Then it struck him like a slap across his cheek. “B-but … you just said you got your visit?”
“Started bleeding yesterday.”
Anxious, scared as all get-out, afraid to be relieved just yet—he sensed his hand tightening on her shoulder. “Means you ain’t carrying my baby?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. Instead she reached over and took hold of his free hand and pulled it into her lap, squeezing it between both of hers as she stared down at it. When she finally spoke, her voice croaked with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Titus. I know we was counting on getting our family started. After all the times we … the times we done what it takes to make a baby—I was hoping.”
“You wasn’t gonna have a child all along?” he asked, trying to make sense of it.
“I missed my bleeding twice’t, I did. But it come yesterday, and mama says there’s no mistake when I asked her. I ain’t with child. So that’s when I figured I oughtta come tell you—come to look you up at school.”
He swallowed hard, sensing what was to come.
“You wasn’t there, so I figured your pa had you stay home to give him a hand this morning. I headed over to your place from school—but your mama got worried: said you took off for school with the others after breakfast.”
Turning to her anxiously, he asked, “You tell my mam you didn’t find me at school?”
Wagging her head, Amy said, “Nothing of the kind, Titus.” She stroked the back of his hand. “I know you’d get in a bunch of trouble if your pa finds out you been staying off from school—so I’d never say nothing about it.”
Relieved, Titus leaned back against the tree, sorting through the jumble of it all. She wasn’t carrying his child. After all these weeks of having others make their own plans for him, he suddenly felt like a man freed from the gallows.
She laid her head against his shoulder. “Why didn’t you go to school today?”
He set his chin atop her head and said, “Truth is, I ain’t been going last few days.”
“If you weren’t helping your pa, and you wasn’t in school—what you been doing?”
“Nothing much,” he admitted.
“We talked about this,” she said, lifting her head to look at him disapprovingly. “You needing to finish your schooling so we get married come spring.”
“We talked,” he agreed. “Just seemed to me like it was everyone else making up their minds for me.”
“Don’t you wanna finish your school?”
“Don’t see no need in it.”
“Can’t you see no need in reading and writing, in knowing your ciphers?”
“I know me a little. Cain’t see how it’s ever gonna help me, Amy.”
She squeezed his hand. “We get married and you work the farm—all that schooling’s gonna help a whole lot, Titus.”
“I ain’t figuring on working a farm.”
With a hint of a smile that told Titus she did not quite believe him, Amy said, “Just what you gonna do to support us, you don’t finish school and work on your pa’s farm?”
“Haven’t thought that far ahead on it.”
Wagging her head as she would at one of her errant siblings, Amy scolded, “You got to finish school. You don’t—why, I can’t marry you, Titus Bass.”
