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Mr. Lester came out twice. He tried to badger us, but he had nothing to badger with, and he must have known it, because he was looking pretty harried that July. I imagine his bosses were badgering him, and he was only passing it along. Or trying to. The first time, he asked a lot of questions that really weren’t questions at all, but insinuations. Did I think my wife had had an accident? She must have, didn’t I think, or she would either have contacted him in order to make a cash settlement on those 100 acres or just crept back to the farm with her (metaphorical) tail between her legs. Or did I think she had fallen afoul of some bad actor while on the road? Such things did happen, didn’t they, from time to time? And it would certainly be convenient for me, wouldn’t it?
The second time he showed up, he looked desperate as well as harried, and came right out with it: had my wife had an accident right there on the farm? Was that what had happened? Was it why she hadn’t turned up either alive or dead?
“Mr. Lester, if you’re asking me if I murdered my wife, the answer is no.”
“Well of course you’d say so, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s your last question to me, sir. Get in yonder truck, drive away, and don’t come back here. If you do, I’ll take an axe-handle to you.”
“You’d go to jail for assault!” He was wearing a celluloid collar that day, and it had come all askew. It was almost possible to feel sorry for him as he stood there with that collar poking into the underside of his chin and sweat cutting lines through the dust on his chubby face, his lips twitching and his eyes bulging.
“No such thing. I have warned you off my property, as is my right, and I intend to send a registered letter to your firm stating that very thing. Come back again and that’s trespassing and I will beat you. Take warning, sir.” Lars Olsen, who had brought Lester out again in his Red Baby, had all but cupped his hands around his ears to hear better.
When Lester reached the doorless passenger side of the truck, he whirled with an arm outstretched and a finger pointing, like a courtroom lawyer with a bent for the theatrical. “I think you killed her! And sooner or later, murder will out!”
Henry-or Hank, as he now preferred to be called-came out of the barn. He had been pitching hay and he held the pitchfork across his chest like a rifle at port arms. “What I think is you better get out of here before you start bleeding,” he said. The kind and rather timid boy I had known until the summer of ’22 would never have said such a thing, but this one did, and Lester saw that he meant it. He got in. With no door to slam, he settled for crossing his arms over his chest.
“Come back anytime, Lars,” I said pleasantly, “but don’t bring him, no matter how much he offers you to cart his useless ass.”
“No, sir, Mr. James,” Lars said, and off they went.
I turned to Henry. “Would you have stuck him with that pitchfork?”
“Yessir. Made him squeal.” Then, unsmiling, he went back into the barn.
But he wasn’t always unsmiling that summer, and Sha
Generous was the word for Sha
One hot Tuesday afternoon she came early. Her father was out in our North Field on his harvester, Henry riding with him, a little crew of Indians from the Shoshone reservation in Lyme Biska walking along behind… and behind them, Old Pie driving the gather-truck. Sha
“Mr. James, is Henry sick?”
“Sick? Why, no. Healthy as a horse, I’d say. And eats like one, too. You’ve seen that for yourself. Although I think even a man who was sick would have trouble saying no to your cooking, Sha
That earned me a smile, but it was of the distracted variety. “He’s different this summer. I always used to know what he was thinking, but now I don’t. He broods.”
“Does he?” I asked (too heartily).
“You haven’t seen it?”
“No, ma’am.” (I had.) “He seems like his old self to me. But he cares for you an awful lot, Shan. Maybe what looks like brooding to you feels like the lovesicks to him.”
I thought that would get me a real smile, but no. She touched my wrist. Her hand was cool from the dipper handle. “I’ve thought of that, but…” The rest she blurted out. “Mr. James, if he was sweet on someone else-one of the girls from school-you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t try to… to spare my feelings?”
I laughed at that, and I could see her pretty face lighten with relief. “Shan, listen to me. Because I am your friend. Summer’s always a hardworking time, and with Arlette gone, Hank and I have been busier than one-armed paperhangers. When we come in at night, we eat a meal-a fine one, if you happen to show up-and then read for an hour. Sometimes he talks about how he misses his mama. After that we go to bed, and the next day we get up and do it all again. He barely has time to spark you, let alone another girl.”
“He’s sparked me, all right,” she said, and looked off to where her father’s harvester was chugging along the skyline.
“Well… that’s good, isn’t it?”
“I just thought… he’s so quiet now… so moody… sometimes he looks off into the distance and I have to say his name twice or three times before he hears me and answers.” She blushed fiercely. “Even his kisses seem different. I don’t know how to explain it, but they do. And if you ever tell him I said that, I’ll die. I will just die.”
“I never would,” I said. “Friends don’t peach on friends.”
“I guess I’m being a silly-billy. And of course he misses his mama, I know he does. But so many of the girls at school are prettier than me… prettier than me…”
I tilted her chin up so she was looking at me. “Sha