were stone chimneys or the barest glimpses of flower-lined paths to sheds or outhouses that had long since sagged into hillsides.
Driving the county back roads, taking it slow, opening another beer, Lux thought about what it took to hold a homeplace together. Some folks seemed to know more than others about making their way on the land. His dad’s elder brother, Uncle Ron, pushing sixty now, his sons and their kin, they knew. They could cut lumber, mill boards, put up hay. They had it all, right there, a flock of chickens, a cow for milk, they could butcher their own hogs, set out traps or hunt for meat, even a pond for bluegill and bass. If a man wasn’t scared of a little hard work, Lux thought, that man could find himself a piece of land set back on some quiet country lane and have just about everything he needed.
Lux turned down a steep cutoff and wound his way toward his pa’s place, shifting into low to crawl the Jeep across the water bars and head onto an unpaved lane. Once he’d started working full-time, Lux had thought he’d help fix things up, maybe cut some locust posts, pick up slab wood and framing from the mill, and build a garage or at least a tall toolshed with a wide enough roof overhang to park under and keep out of the weather while working on cars, hang shelves for tools, but Everett had shot that idea down, saying, “I don’t want to see a bunch of no-account poles sticking up out of the ground once you figure out you got a real job on your hands,” then adding, “I won’t have you starting nothing you ain’t man enough to finish.”
Lux held his tongue. It was risky to take up for himself. The old man’s gray eyes turned as flat as the heads of steel tacks. He wasn’t above reaching for his belt if he thought he was being crossed. Since Mother died, his old man dug in over the least thing. Well, let him be the ruler over his own sad kingdom. Pa seemed to have let everything go, his tools, his things, his own self. Things don’t need to go like that, Lux thought. He had no one to blame but his own prideful self when rain rotted the handles of the tools left strewn in the yard, or when the tractor brakes rusted and seized to the rotors.
No truck was in the yard. That meant Pa’s old Ford had started, and he’d taken himself to town, stopping at the ABC store for Rebel Yell and a carton of Pall Malls. With a sense of peace that came over him when he had the place to himself, Lux started on evening chores. He fed the two coonhounds, cleaned their runs, and drew fresh water from the spring. Next, he had to fill the wood box with split firewood. All the while his thoughts circled back to Dessie. When she didn’t say no, did that mean yes? What would it take to get her to talk straight to him, he wondered. Usually girls chased him, a working man with money to spend and time to waste. But he was not that man anymore. That man had been staying out too late, wasn’t clearheaded at work, had almost got himself blinded, or worse, killed. That man got schooled, got lucky, got a chance to do it right.
However things worked out with his eye, Lux was pretty sure Bertram would take up for him. Marriage was in the air this spring, and a few school friends had summer weddings planned. In some ways, Lux had a head start as a workingman, not a schoolboy. He’d worked part-time at A-1 for three years; he was full-time since the first of the year. Though some of his salary went to his pa, each week Lux added to a roll of bills stashed in a tobacco tin in the eaves. After his injury, the Workmen’s Comp paid the hospital, and his boss had handed him sixty dollars in cash. If his eye did get better, he wanted to cut the largest trees for veneer wood, where there was some real money to be made. But even if he’d have to work inside at the mill, it would be steady work. Dessie by his side, and a place of their own, he could make it all work out.
In the dim light of dusk, Lux stood back a good thirty feet from the wheelbarrow and tossed splits of stovewood from the log pile. Aiming with one eye he did just fine, hitting his mark with almost every underhand toss. Lux pushed the full wheelbarrow up the muddy path, stacked stovewood in neat piles in the wood box beside the pantry door, and returned to the woodshed for a final load. The moon was rising. The air was still and warm. With luck, he’d be out with his coonhound before Pa got home.
Damn his old man, and damn what he says about Bertram, Lux thought, setting the wheelbarrow back behind the woodshed. Bertram was a pipeline inspector. He had nothing to do with Pennzoil putting in a right-of-way. What man in his right mind would bite the hand that feeds him? The gas company saved his ass by leasing mineral rights, and Pa spent most of his time in a slat-back rocker on the front porch, swigging whiskey, living off royalties. Plus, Bertram was twice Pa’s size and twice as fast. After Pa got up in his face, Bertram pushed him out the backdoor, set him on his ass in a muddy alleyway beside the dumpster, and told Pa that if he didn’t watch himself, the law would show up to keep the peace the next time Pennzoil brought a crew up to check the lines.
Pa wasn’t hurt, but he was sore. He told anyone who would listen that someday he was going to drop a tree across the right-of-way to keep Pennzoil vehicles off his land. The old fool ought to know enough to let go when he was licked. But he held onto that anger, talking about how he sure showed them, didn’t he. When it came to his old man, reason flew out the window. Sooner or later, Pa would find out Lux had his eye on Dessie, but for the time being, the less said, the better. Lux could almost hear his Pa’s voice, raising the stakes, saying, Boy, y’ain’t got no business starting nothing y’ain’t man enough . . . Yes, he’d heard it all before. One thing was certain, he was not about to tell his old man that the steel ammo box had found its way to the Price family. Some things Lux couldn’t control, and some he could.
IT WAS almost too dark to see, but Lux had saved the best chore for last. Passing the corncrib, Lux took a handful of sweet feed as a treat for his mare and put it in his shirt pocket to see if she could smell it out. With a long, loud whistle, he headed to the paddock. When Uncle Ron had offered him Calamity Jane, right off Pa said, “There ain’t no such thing as a free horse,” adding that the only thing more useless and wasteful of money than owning a horse was owning one that was ornery and skittish. “Your uncle’s only giving you the damn thing ’cause he can’t do nothing with her hisself.” Uncle Ron had taken up for Lux, saying since Lux’s mother Aletha had just passed, it would be good for Lux to have the mare to care for, and that he’d take CJ back if it didn’t work out.
That was a couple of years back. At first the mare hung back, hard to catch, and even harder to mount, but she’d just needed some daily attention, and a few treats. Now, one whistle and she came trotting over with her colt Dakota, both of them eating out of his hand. Lux stroked the slender nose of the mare, rubbed her neck under her mane, and gently worked a burdock burr from her forelock. Jealous of the attention, Dakota butted his slim chocolate-brown head between them. Slow and steady, ain’t that the best plan, Lux thought, enjoying the night air, the sweet smell of warm horse.
Lux took a final glance to make sure the horses were safe for the night, and gazed up toward the eastern sky, where Venus shone as bright as a searchlight and the almost full moon had begun to rise above the ridgeline. It all felt so right, like there was a reason he saw Dessie, her smile, her wave that morning after the accident. He’d felt something, like that little tug on the crown of his head, like that sense his mother was beside him. Aletha would tell him to pray for guidance and allow the Lord to help. He needed some time alone with Dessie, not standing- around-being-stared-at-on-the-porch time, not even Sunday dinner time. Just the two of them, do a bit of straight-talking, get her to trust him. It was a matter of timing, of figuring out the right thing to say, the right time and place to say it.
THE NEXT day was clear, with a warm breeze that smelled of the richness of summer. Town boys wore shorts as they raced outside after school. Lux sat on the post-and-rail fence at the edge of the parking lot beside the school buses, waiting for junior and senior dismissal. He took a note out of his pocket, unfolded the lined paper, and reread his own tight scrawl.
Hey Good Lookin’,
It’s past midnight, and I’ve got Hank Williams running through my mind! I couldn’t sleep and I thought about coon hunting but the doc says no shooting, so I went out tonight just to see the moon. It was almost full, there was
