out before dark. Otherwise we'll have to work at night, and I hate to waste the coal oil.'
Roscoe hardly knew what to think. He had never tried to pull up a stump in his life, and didn't want to start. On the other hand he didn't want to sleep in the woods another night if he could help it.
The woman was looking Memphis over while she caught her breath. 'We might could hitch that horse to the team,' she said. 'My mules ain't particular.'
'Why, this horse wouldn't know what to do if it was hitched,' Roscoe said. 'It's a riding horse.'
'Oh, I see,' the woman said. 'You mean it's dumb or too lazy to work.'
It seemed the world was full of outspoken women. The woman farmer reminded Roscoe a little of Peach.
Somewhat reluctantly he got down and tied Memphis to a bush at the edge of the field. The woman was waiting impatiently. She handed Roscoe an ax and he began to cut the thick, tough roots while the woman encouraged the team. The stump edged out of the ground a little farther, but it didn't come loose. Roscoe hadn't handled an ax much in the last few years and was awkward with it. Cutting roots was not like cutting firewood. The roots were so tough the ax tended to bounce unless the hit was perfect. Once he hit a root too close to the stump and the ax bounced out of his hand and nearly hit the woman on the foot.
'Dern, I never meant to let it get loose from me,' Roscoe said.
The woman looked disgusted. 'If I had a piece of rawhide I'd tie it to your hand,' she said. 'Then the two of you could flop around all you wanted to. What town hired you to be deputy sheriff anyway?'
'Why, Fort Smith,' Roscoe said. 'July Johnson's the sheriff.'
'I wish he'd been the one that showed up,' the woman said. 'Maybe he'd know how to chop a root.'
Then she began to pop the mules again and Roscoe continued to whack at the roots, squeezing the ax tightly so it wouldn't slip loose again. In no time he was sweating worse than the woman, sweat dripping into his eyes and off his nose. It had been years since he had sweated much, and he didn't enjoy the sensation.
While he was half blinded by the sweat, the mules gave a big pull and one of the roots that he'd been about to cut suddenly slipped out of the ground, uncurled and lashed at him like a snake. The root hit him just above the knees and knocked him backward, causing him to drop the ax again. He tried to regain his balance but lost it and fell flat on his back. The root was still twitching and curling as if it had a life of its own.
The woman didn't even look around. The mules had the stump moving, and she kept at them, popping them with the reins and yelling at them as if they were deaf, while Roscoe lay there and watched the big stump slowly come out of the hole where it had been for so many years. A couple of small roots still held, but the mules kept going and the stump was soon free.
Roscoe got slowly to his feet, only to realize that he could barely walk.
The woman seemed to derive a certain amusement from the way he hobbled around trying to gain control of his limbs.
'Who did they send you off to catch?' she asked. 'Or did they just decide you wasn't worth your salary and run you out of town?'
Roscoe felt aggrieved. Even strangers didn't seem to think he was worth his salary, and yet in his view he did a fine job of keeping the jail.
'I'm after July Johnson,' he said. 'His wife run off.'
'I wish she'd run this way,' the woman said. 'I'd put her to work helping me clear this field. It's slow work, doing it alone.'
And yet the woman had made progress. At the south edge of the field, where Memphis was tied, forty or fifty stumps were lined up.
'Where's your menfolks?' Roscoe asked.
'Dead or gone,' the woman said. 'I can't find no husband that knows how to stay alive. My boys didn't care for the work, so they left about the time of the war and didn't come back. What's your name, Deputy?'
'Roscoe Brown,' Roscoe said.
'I'm Louisa,' the woman said. 'Louisa Brooks. I was born in Alabama and I wish I'd stayed. Got two husbands buried there and there's another buried on this property here. Right back of the house, he's buried, that was Jim,' she added. 'He was fat and I couldn't get him in the wagon so I dug the hole and there he lies.'
'Well, that's a shame,' Roscoe said.
'No, we didn't get on,' Louisa said. 'He drank whiskey and talked the Bible too, and I like a man that does one thing or the other. I told him once he could fall dead for all I care, and it wasn't three weeks before the fool just did it.'
Though Roscoe had been hopeful of staying the night, he was beginning to lose his inclination. Louisa Brooks was almost as scary as wild pigs, in his view. The mules drug the stump over to where the others were and Roscoe walked over and helped Louisa untie it.
'Roscoe, you're invited to supper,' she said, before he could make up his mind to go. 'I bet you can eat better than you chop.'
'Oh, I ought to get on after July,' Roscoe said, halfheartedly. 'His wife run off.'
'I meant to run off, before Jim went and died,' Louisa said. 'If I had, I wouldn't have had to bury him. Jim was fat. I had to hitch a mule to him to drag him out of the house. Spent all day pulling up stumps and then had to work half the night planting a husband. How old are you getting to be?'
'Why, forty-eight, I guess,' Roscoe said, surprised to be asked.
Louisa took off her hat and fanned herself with it as they followed the mules down one edge of the field. Roscoe led his horse.
'The skinny ones last longer than the fat ones,' Louisa said. 'You'll probably last till you're about sixty.'
'On longer, I hope,' Roscoe said.
'Can you cook?' Louisa asked. She was a fair-looking woman, though large.
'No,' Roscoe admitted. 'I generally eat at the saloon or else go home with July.'
'I can't neither,' Louisa said. 'Never interested me. What I like is farming. I'd farm day and night if it didn't take so much coal oil.'
That seemed curious. Roscoe had never heard of a woman farmer, though plenty of black women picked cotton during the season. They came to a good-sized clearing without a stump in it. There was a large cabin and a rail corral. Louisa unharnessed the mules and put them in the pen.
'I'd leave 'em out but they'd run off,' she said. 'They don't like farming as much as I do. I guess we'll have corn bread for supper. It's about all I eat.'
'Why not bacon?' Roscoe asked. He was quite hungry and would have appreciated a good hunk of bacon or a chop of some kind. Several chickens were scratching around the cabin-any one of them would have made good eating but he didn't feel he ought to mention it, since he was the guest.
'I won't have no pigs around,' Louisa said. 'Too smart. I won't bother with animals I have to outwit. I'd rather just farm.'
True to her word, Louisa served up a meal of corn bread, washed down with well water. The cabin was roomy and clean, but there was not much food in it. Roscoe was puzzled as to how Louisa could keep going with nothing but corn bread in her. It occurred to him that he had not seen a milk cow anywhere, so evidently she had even dispensed with such amenities as milk and butter.
She herself munched a plate of corn bread contentedly, now and then fanning herself. It was hot and still in the cabin.
'I doubt you'll catch that sheriff,' she said, looking Roscoe over.
Roscoe doubted it too, but felt that he had to make a show of trying, at least. What was more likely was that if he rode around long enough July would eventually come and find him.
'Well, he went to Texas,' he said. 'Maybe I'll strike someone that's seen him.'
'Yes, and maybe you'll ride right into a big mess of Comanche Indians,' Louisa said. 'You do that and you'll never enjoy another good plate of corn bread.'
Roscoe let the remark pass. The less said about Indians the better, in his view. He munched corn bread for a while, preferring not to think about any of the various things that might happen to him in Texas.
'Was you ever married?' Louisa asked.
'No, ma'am,' Roscoe said. 'I was never even engaged.'
'In other words you've went to waste,' Louisa said.
'Well, I've been a deputy sheriff for a good spell,' Roscoe said. 'I keep the jail.'
