The Ghosts of Varner Creek Read online

  Emma jumped in. "He didn't say them things."

  Abram studied her and then glanced at Colby and figured as much. "Yeah, well I heard him say it. He’s been talking to that Mary Jo girl and done told her that Mr. Wilkins hired himself nothing but a bunch of stupid and lazy good for nothing workers this year. He said how we all just like niggers. I heard him say it myself, I did." He had a smug look on his face when the other three men there besides Colby and Abram looked at each other and seemed to share a silent resentment.

  Both Annie and Emma knew Marcus wouldn't have made that type of comment. Marcus was as good as color blind in his ethics. Unlike these men, he didn't care if a man was white, black, pink, or purple. To him, a man either worked hard or was a lazy good for nothing. It was one way or the other and there wasn't anything much else he deemed important in a man. In fact, he had commented more than once on the fact that the coloreds Mr. Wilkins hired on for the harvest were working harder and didn't mess around near as much as this group of slackers. The only one in the bunch who was really working hard was Colby. The rest took every opportunity to slough off, or, when they were working, put in a half-ass effort. Marcus even tried to talk Mr. Wilkins into taking on a colored or two full time, but Mr. Wilkins always seemed to believe in giving a white man a job over a black man, said it was his Christian duty. Marcus thought it backwards thinking, but didn't say as much. Annie had to admit, however, that even though she couldn't see Marcus making that particular reference, she could see him calling these boys stupid and lazy good for nothings. In fact, that's just the language he might use and Mary Jo Greenley was just the person he’d say it to. After all, he took after his father in his work ethic, and he had little respect for anyone who didn't work half as hard has he did. So instead of addressing that portion of things, Annie just responded to the one she knew wasn't true.

  "Well, I've never heard him say such things," she told Abram, "and I'm his sister."

  "Neither have I," supported Emma.

  "What, y’all saying I'm lying?" Abram was ready to cuss them both out. He stood up to give them an earful and much to his surprise Colby, who had previously been leaning against the tin building's back wall, leaned forward and uncrossed his arms. He didn’t do it aggressively, but it didn’t go without notice, either.

  "I didn't say you're lying, just said I've never heard it," said Annie.

  "Maybe he just said that 'bout you because you kept talking to his sister during the harvest when we was working and he got mad," offered Colby, still standing ready to move if events went that way. “That’s probably why y’all had that scuffle in the first place.”

  Abram could feel himself losing ground. Colby was taking the side of the girls and that was swaying the opinion of the other men. If Abram had differences with Marcus because they didn't agree on him talking to Annie, well that was between them, the other men would think. That was different from Marcus talking bad about all of them.

  "Well, I best not hear your brother talking such things about me, or I'll have him answer for it," said one. "But since I don't know what he did and didn't say, I reckon I'll leave it alone."

  Abram knew they wouldn't help him put a beating on Marcus, now. And he didn't want to go up against him alone. As much as Abram hated to admit it, he was scared of Marcus. He thought quickly about what could be salvaged out of the situation, how he could still save some face in front of everyone, "Well, maybe if you was to be a little nicer to me, you know, to make up for your brother sucker-punching me and everything, then I guess I could let him slide." He wanted to play the part of the bigger man looking the other way, "But just this once. You know, if had been anyone but your brother, I'd of already done something bad to 'em." He even tried smiling at her.

  Now it was painfully clear to Colby, even if he was generally considered as slow and dullish as one could be, that Abram lost his nerve when he lost the help of the other three. But in the mind of a fourteen year old girl like Annie, who didn't understand that Abram was just trying to cover up his own cowardice, she thought she had won a victory. Here was this man, older than her brother and who was just a little while ago planning Lord knows what in the way of revenge, offering to let her brother out of a most dangerous situation with the compromise that she just act nice towards him. She took it that he was doing her a considerable favor.

  "Thanks, Abram," she said. "I appreciate it."

  And Abram could see it on her face, she did appreciate it. He felt puffed up knowing he had succeeded in making her see how kind and forgiving he was being. He could feel his confidence rising again. So much so that he thought this whole thing might have even bettered his chances of laying her, "And maybe I can dance with you tonight without being sucker-punched," he quipped. It was awfully bold of him considering, Annie thought, but now she felt obligated. And in addition, she felt such a weight lifted not having to worry about what they might do to Marcus that she almost wanted to dance with Abram just to say thanks. Everything could be smoothed over now. She'd have to make sure Marcus didn't come and start trouble again, though. "Okay, Abram. I think that'd be nice." With that, her, Emma, and Colby went back inside, her to go ask Marcus to let it alone tonight, and Emma and Colby to go dance.

  Everyone agreed it had been a good resolution and Abram felt just like a Saint with his friends telling him how good he was to look the other way for that girl's benefit. “Yeah, that boy just doesn’t know any better, I guess. He’s lucky he’s got his sisters to get him out of trouble,” he told his friends.

  Marcus was none too pleased when Annie told him she had promised to dance with Abram tonight. "What do you want to go and waste your time with that one for?" he asked angrily. "'Specially after you just said he was telling lies on me so he could get others to help him whoop me."

  "I done talked to him about that. He says he heard you talkin' to Mary Jo about Mr. Wilkins hiring good for nothings like them. But he says he ain't going to make no more trouble if'n you leave him be."

  Marcus sucked in his breath and let it out with a bit of a tsk, "Well, they are a bunch of good for nothins, Annie. And here you go wantin' to mess with one of 'em. Too ignorant to know what's good fer yah." He waved her away just like he'd done with Mary Jo's questions earlier. "Go on and do what you want. I don't care if you ain't got better sense."

  Now she was getting upset with him. Here she was smoothing things over for his benefit and he thanks her by calling her ignorant and waving her off like an annoying fly. Well, she would do what she wanted, then. If he couldn't see what she had done for him and how maybe Abram had a right to be mad like he was, she wasn't going to worry herself over it.

  And when Abram and Annie did meet up for a dance, circumstances had conspired just right, or just wrongly enough, that she saw him as being better than he truly was. And he was so full of himself at that moment that he believed himself to be just as good as she thought he was. So they danced and had fun, laughing together and actually enjoying each other's company. And when Mrs. Stotley pulled Emma aside to ask why in the hell Annie was dancing with that man again, Emma told her happily, "Oh, they worked all that out. He's not so bad."

  Mrs. Stotley was just sick with her two oldest girls. Annie was with that drunkard having the time of her life and Emma was joined at the hip with that bushy ogre. She tried to pour out her anxieties and horror to Mr. Stotley, but he was indifferent.

  "Let them enjoy the festival," he said. Let them find someone to marry and go off to live their own lives so I can have mine back, he was probably thinking.

  Chapter 5

  The harvest was over and so the extra hands that had been needed around the various farms were let go. The out-of-towners found their work dried up and most moved on. Abram and Colby didn't, though. Their third housemate, Keller, had joined up with some other men that were headed East where there were more people and more jobs to be had. Louisiana had a lot of farmland that needed extra hands, they’d been told. But Emma had been so quickly infatuated with Col
by that she had gone to various farmers she knew looking for work for him. Mr. Wilkins said he was full up and didn’t seem to think Colby had much in the way of smarts about him, but Mr. Andrew Pyle said he could use a strong hand and took Colby on. Colby didn't want to stay by himself, though, so he asked Abram to stay since Keller had made up his mind to leave. They weren't the best of friends, but they’d walked a lot of roads together, and since Colby offered to pay the rent until Abram got himself a job, too, Abram saw it as a good deal for himself. They stayed in Mr. Wilkins' work shack and Colby paid a meager rent per week while he worked for Mr. Pyle. Abram sold his hemp cigarettes to the other field hands for a little extra spending money that went mostly to whiskey. Both were still convinced that they could get rich off of the marijuana but the selling was few and far between. The only people that would buy any were the laborers like themselves and most of them seemed to prefer a stiff drink to Abram's hemp.

  After a few weeks of working like a mule Colby began winning praises from Mr. Pyle. He'd tell the other workers, "Why can't you work like Colby, there?" And brag to other farmers.. "That boy Colby is just like having two men. He's strong as an ox even if he's only as bright as one." Colby could do it all on a farm. Besides plowing and sowing seeds, he knew his way around horses and cattle and he wasn't a half-bad carpenter. He wasn’t nearly as dull as people thought, either. He was just an introvert who wasn’t interested in much more than the simple things in life. Mr. Pyle thanked his good luck on taking a chance on the boy. And so when Colby asked if Mr. Pyle could find a place on his farm for Abram, Mr. Pyle made room for him. He was never as pleased with Abram's work as he was with Colby. It was like night and day watching Colby sweat through the hot day working all the while and watching Abram follow along behind him doing a third of what Colby did. He would have gotten rid of Abram except he didn't want Colby to leave along with him, so he dismissed the nuisance.

  Emma and Annie both walked about a mile and a half over the fields and through the pastures each day to bring lunch to the men. By this point Emma was utterly smitten. She had heard Colby's praises from Mr. Pyle, and in church on Sundays, even though neither Colby nor Abram attended, she held her head a little higher. Annie was happy for her sister. She tried to feel the same way about Abram but she felt she must have inherited her father's indifference on things. She didn't dislike him, but nor was she enamored with him. When folks got to her asking her if he was her beau, she said yes, she supposed so, but it didn't elicit the same warm and tingly feelings inside that Emma had described to her.

  Time went on this way for months. Marcus got his apprenticeship with the blacksmith in town and moved out. He was a spectacular metal worker and besides shoeing the horses and repairing tools, he could also make wrought iron fence work and beautiful ornamentation. He would marry Mary Jo Greenley and they’d leave Varner Creek some years later when word of Marcus' talents spread and he was offered a job making more money than he ever imagined up in Houston working for the railroads.

  But before Marcus had become a metal working marvel, and before he and Mary Jo Greenley left for the city, Emma and Colby had expressed their love for one another, both verbally and physically. Annie and Emma got in the habit of going to visit Colby and Abram sometimes at night. It was a practice Mrs. Stotley was completely against, but since she couldn't get Mr. Stotley to side with her, as he of course was indifferent on the subject, she yet again accepted defeat. Colby and Emma would immediately disappear into the one-room workhouse when they went to visit and it shook with their passion like there was a tornado trapped inside. Neither of them were fragile people, after all.

  It wasn’t long before Abram began pressing for a tornado of his own. He and Annie would take walks sometimes while the other two were engaged in their activities. He was always at her dress trying to get a hand somewhere inside to find a spot of bared skin. She let him kiss on her and press up against her but wouldn't permit the removal of her clothes. And when Abram started pulling out his manhood on a regular basis she'd rub it for him until he got release. It wasn't because of love or lust for him, though. She just wanted to help him get over his urges so he'd stop squirming all over her and dry humping her dress.

  I had often pressed my Aunt Emma in later years about how Mama ended up with Pap, and while she never would give me all the details, I’ve managed to splice together the bits and pieces. Getting Aunt Emma’s recollections was like pulling teeth, but there would be a lot of confusion in my early adulthood that Aunt Emma wanted to help resolve in any way she could. She never came right out and told me I was a child of rape, of course, but all the stories I’ve heard seem to skirt dangerously close to that conclusion. As I came to understand it, things took a serious turn on one of the walks Mama and Pap used to take. They had lain down on a blanket in the grass that they had brought with them. The mosquitoes were biting and Abram had his tongue all over her, down her mouth, in her ear, all down her neck. He had been drinking and was in a foul mood. The rubbing had been holding him off pretty well for a while but tonight when she reached down to rub it for him he moved her hand away.

  "I'm sick of that," he told her. And he clawed at her dress to undo the strings that held it tight.

  She tried to politely deter him, "Abram, I don't think we should."

  He pushed himself up a bit to look her in her face, "To hell with that. Every night y’all come by Colby's in there getting done right by your sister and here you are won't even let me see you without all these damned clothes on yah. I'm sick of hearing him tell how good it feels and then all I can say is you givin' me a hand job.” It was highly unlikely Colby ever talked about his intimacy with Emma, but Abram knew a good pressure tactic when he saw one. “I can do that myself. What do I need you to do that for me, for?" And he went back to kissing her neck and trying to find the right button to push to get her excited. He lunged up her dress and had invaded her petticoat to find the waist strings in her cotton long pants.

  "Abram, stop!" she cried in surprise. He pulled so hard on the cotton underpants that the waist gave out and snapped. He felt them give and began pulling them down with a forceful zest. “Abram, quit it! What are you doing?”

  Annie could suddenly feel his hands on her bare skin and the evening air drifting along her pubic hairs. He quickly pulled them down as far as they would go and slid himself between her legs. He was so heavy Annie couldn't move out from under him. She urgently tried to reason with him, "Abram, stop. I'm not rea . . ." but it was too late.

  She closed her eyes with the pain. It hurt so bad that it was like a hot poker had just been pushed inside of her. She let out a pitiful moan but it seemed to only stir him on. He grunted and groaned centered solely around his own pleasure. Annie couldn’t believe this was happening. She didn’t want this to happen. She wasn’t ready for this. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as the pain coursed through her. She wanted to be some place else. In her mind she imagined being back at home cuddled up with Candace on some cold winter night. They'd giggle and cause a ruckus until Marcus would tell them to shut up so he could get some sleep. She wondered where he was at right now. Probably at home with Candace or maybe out walking with Mary Jo Greenley. Maybe they were doing the same thing she was doing, except that Mary Jo wasn't hurting and it was a pretty thing instead of this nightmare. She bet not, though. They were really in love and Marcus and Mary Jo were both proper and good people who would wait for marriage. Not like Annie, who was dirty and shameful.

  She wanted Marcus to come and rescue her, to pull Abram off and punch his lights out again. But Marcus wasn't there and wouldn't be pulling him off of her this time. 'If you ain't got better sense . . .' she remembered him saying. Nobody came except Abram, who didn't even bother to pull himself out first. Instead he spent himself inside of her and then stayed laying on her breathing hard and blowing his whiskey breath in her face. She felt the tears roll down her cheek and didn't know if they were from the pain or the humiliation. The first time she
ever made love she felt like a whore.

  On their way back home Annie had to stop and take off her cotton underpants, which were soiled and discard them. When she stood up again she tried to explain to Emma what had happened with tears in her eyes.

  Emma put her arm around her shoulder, "It hurts the first time but then it's not so bad," she told her.

  Annie sniffed up her nose drips and wiped away the tears, "That's not what hurts so much, Emma. I didn't want to. I wasn't ready and I told him I wasn't and he didn't care. He just did what he wanted and didn‘t even care."

  Emma tried to console her but she didn't understand just how things had happened. In her mind it was natural that Abram and Annie had done what they did. She had always had a rebellious nature herself and figured Annie was just having regrets, knowing what a religious violation it was, and all, and how their Mama would condemn them both if she knew. Emma also thought Annie was really upset because it hadn't been as sweet and nice as she had imagined. "Some men just aren't sensitive in that way," she told her little sister, "Colby's not. He doesn't have hardly any sense of romance but I know that inside he‘s real sweet and kind. I know he loves me and I’m going to marry that man, you just see." She seemed to be missing how traumatic the night’s events had been on Annie. She was blinded by the rose colored glass that was her and Colby’s blossoming relationship, and too lost in her dreams of the future to see exactly what was going on in the present.

  They walked on as the remaining light slowly left them. They were supposed to be home before dark but Annie was happy to see the evening shadow swallow them up. Emma walked as though she were a flame in the night immune to the darkness spreading around her, but Annie felt it creeping inside of her. She wanted to disappear into the night, to crawl under a rock and hide. Abram's not sweet and kind, she thought to herself, not a bit.