Emmett & Gentry by John Locke

Author:John Locke [Locke, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781937698348
Amazon: 1937698343
Publisher: Bill
Published: 0101-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

20.

BY TEN O’CLOCK the women have stacked enough wood at Tom’s fire pit to last a full day. I thank ’em, and they peel off one-by-one to go back to their houses and farms to do chores. By ten-thirty Jim’s got the poker white-hot, and he starts in on my leg iron again, workin’ that same spot we burned yesterday. Tom comes out to watch us awhile, but the heat chases him back inside. Now that Jim and I are alone, he says, “Nice haircut.”

I look up and notice he’s grinnin’.

He says, “Accordin’ to Clara, May hasn’t been with a man since the night she and Earl conceived the baby.”

I shake my head, thinkin’ how everyone always knows everyone else’s business in Dodge. It’s always been that way. Still, I wonder how May would feel if she knew her private business about Earl was known and discussed by everyone she knows. Because if Jim knows, everyone knows. I’ve always liked Jim’s wife, Clara, and she’s one of May’s best friends, if not her very best friend. But apparently Clara ain’t so good at keepin’ secrets. Seein’ Jim grinnin’ at me makes me wonder if May told Clara what happened between her and me last night. That’d be awful embarrassin’, ’specially if it ever got back to Gentry.

Jim appears to be expectin’ a comment. Normally I wouldn’t respond to such talk, but he’s been workin’ hard to help me, so I say “I wouldn’t know about May and Earl, or what they did behind closed doors.”

Jim don’t let it end that easy. He says, “May’s a comely woman. What is she, thirty-five?”

“Probably.”

“If it’s true she ain’t been ridden’ all these years, she’d probably have a lot of buckin’ to do.”

He winks at me.

I frown.

He removes the poker, and takes a cloth and wipes away the ash and shakes his head.

“We haven’t made the first dent,” he says.

“Let’s try again,” I say.

He stokes the fire and sets the tip of the poker in the flames and stands back from the heat. He wipes his brow with his shirt tail.

“Must be a million degrees,” he says.

“Feels like it,” I say. “Especially the circle around my ankle.”

I dip some water onto my leg and let it run down so it can soak the cloth between my ankle and the leg iron. I’ve learned this is the best way to keep the cloth in place. Yesterday I dipped the water directly onto the cloth cuff and it moved the cloth and I had the dickens of a time tryin’ to get it back where it needed to be. It were a painful lesson.

After ten minutes, Jim retrieves the poker and presses it against the burn spot that ain’t made a dent yet. While he does that I think about how town gossip is a lot like leg irons. There’s always someone stokin’ the fire and pokin’ at someone else, and the person gettin’ poked has to go through a lot of pain. Gettin’ others to stop talkin’ about your business is probably as hard as gettin’ shed of leg irons.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.