The man said, “Need’n you a ride somewheres?”
Del said, “I’m heading for that turpentine camp called Swallow Hill. You heard of it?”
The man said, “Sure. Who ain’t? I can take you to the store a couple miles or so down this a way. You won’t have far to go after that. I’d take you all the way, but it’s due west and I ain’t going that direction.”
Del nodded and hopped onto the back end of the wagon.
He said, “Fine by me.”
The boys turned around to stare at him.
The man talked over his shoulder and said, “Name’s Tom. These here are my boys, Tom Jr., Samuel, and the youngest one is Tucker, named after my maw’s side of the family.”
Del raised a hand in a half wave to the boys and got no reaction. They remained silent as clouds passing overhead. Probably taught to be seen, not heard, like him.
He said, “Name’s Del Reese. Pleased to make y’all’s acquaintance.”
He turned back around and faced the direction from which he’d come, watching as the red dirt rolled by under his booted feet, thinking about how lucky a man was to have sons.
Chapter 4
Rae Lynn
It had been raining almost nonstop since the accident with Billy Doyle. The steady downpour from heavy-bottomed clouds to the west created a dreary view out the kitchen window. Rae Lynn and Warren sat holed up in the house, unable to work the crop of trees they’d started with Billy. Butch Crandall, a friend of Warren’s, had stopped by and sat at their table drinking sweet tea, waiting on the rain to let up. He always broke the monotony when he came for a visit and today, what he had to say was particularly interesting, at least to Rae Lynn. He was going on and on about the turpentine work going on in Georgia.
Butch said, “They got several camps down there. S’what I heard ’cording to Lenny Crawford. Said he’s going to go to work at one of’em. So many’s done folded in on their farms and ain’t hardly no mill jobs to be had. Said he can’t make him a living, but he ’spects he can do something, despite the fact he’s one handed.”
Warren said nothing. Lenny had broken his arm real bad while working at Cobb Turpentine Farm and because he hadn’t been able to afford the doctor, it hadn’t healed properly.
Butch went on. “Heard tell they rent out fifty-cent, one-dollar, and two-dollar shacks. Wonder what the difference is?”
Warren said, “Not much, though some might have an extra room, or maybe they’s a tad bigger inside.”
Butch said, “Shoot. Got their own store, juke joint, schoolin’ for the young’uns, churches, just about anything you need’n is right there, and get this. The whole entire shebang can pack up and move when they’s done working a particular area.”
Warren said, “I been in them camps before. It’s some rough living now, mind you. Besides, we doing all right right here, ain’t we, shug?”
He grabbed Rae Lynn’s hand and squeezed. Rae Lynn didn’t answer; she was listening to Butch, an idea forming.
Warren jiggled her hand, waiting on her to agree, but what she did was to turn to him and say, “What if we went there to work for a while, Warren?”
Warren dropped her hand and said, “Why would we want to leave here when we got this house? And we got enough work for everyone in the county who wants a job.”
Exactly, Rae Lynn thought, and only me and you to do it. She pushed her hair back off her forehead, the damp air making it unruly. Butch sat back, ogling her.
He said, “Rae Lynn, I ever tell you what a purty sight you are?”
Rae Lynn said, “Every time you come over, Butch.”
Butch turned to Warren, “Ain’t she, though?”
Warren, still put off by her suggestion, picked at a thread on his shirt.
Rae Lynn said, “What you want’n, Butch? A piece of that pie I made?”
He said, “A piece’ll do.”
He sniggered at his little joke, and when Rae Lynn shot a look at Warren, he now became preoccupied with adjusting the straps to his overalls. She got up to serve Butch his pie. Butch was all right, but he had ways that annoyed her, like staring at her a tad too long while Warren acted like a knot on a log over his obviously rude remarks.
Butch switched to a different subject, to her relief, turning his attention back to Warren.
“How’s ole Eugene doing with that law practice a his in South Carliny?”
“All right, I reckon,” and the conversation went on from there.
When Butch was done eating, he rose from the chair and told them he had to go see about some hogs. The rain came down harder after he left, and the wind picked up. The trees bent this way and that, catching Rae Lynn’s eye as she stirred a pot of stewed okra, the steam flushing her face pink. She was checking on the biscuits in the oven when a loud bang and then part of a limb shot through the roof almost over her head, startling her. Water immediately began dripping inside, hitting the hot stove and making it sizzle.