Chapters (12)
She walked from the heart of the village out to the house, running the last of the way. The children were playing with chicken feathers in the sandy yard. Lige was lying awake in bed, smoking his pipe. He put his arm over his face in mock shame.
“Say it, Drenna,” he grinned. “I got it comin’. Your ol’ man’s disgraced you, like I tol’ you. But dog take it”—she sat on the bed, and he reached out his arms for her—“it was fine! Jest to turn that ol’ quart bottle topside down an’ let ’er drip!”
She had to laugh at him. They wouldn’t say any more about it. She had very nearly done as wrong as he. She had been wilder, crazier.
She was cooking dinner when the ice-truck lumbered up to the gate. Tim ran up the walk and into the house.
“Drenna! The Pondland bank’s closed down! No more’n a good hour after you-all put your money in. Tainter jest brought the word. Ever’body’s caught.”
He mopped his face and started away again.
“I got to go out back o’ the Creek an’ tell the Philbins.”
At the gate he waved his hand to her and called:
“Tell Lige ever’body says they bet he’ll wish he’d got twicet as drunk!”
He rattled off.
She watched the truck out of sight. She was not astonished. She had not been brought up to consider a bank the place for money.
Her father had always said, “Nothin’ ain’t safe nor sartin excusin’ a iron pot o’ gold or siller, put deep in a place where nobody else cain’t find hit.”
She went into the bedroom to Lige. He was getting his wracked body into clean clothes.
“I heerd him! Oh my God, Drenna!”
Sweat rolled into his bloodshot eyes.
“I’ll kill somebody for this——”
He was unsteady on his feet. He picked up his shotgun from behind the head of the bed.
“Philbin’s ’ll go. Buckshot’s too good for that bank president.”
“Lige,” she said gently.
He stopped. His eyes softened.
“No need to take on so. Banks closes and you cain’t blame nobody special.”
She drew out the fifty dollars from her blouse. The stiff paper was warm from the skin of her breast. He stared. The money was real and tangible.
“Reckon I was jest led to keep it out in cash-money. It’ll git us seed for fall.”
“But, Drenna—all that other gone like as if ’twas stole——”
“Don’t study that-a-way. I figger, we jest lost another bean-crop.”
He replaced the shotgun slowly. He sat down on the side of the bed, his muscular hands closing and unclosing. He pondered. At last he nodded gravely.
“Jest done lost us another crop o’ beans.”