The Butterfly Read online

  "Two Coca-Colas."

  "Listen, Jess, I want a drink."

  "We're going home."

  "If you don't like it here, you can go home, and I'll stay, and I'm quite sure somebody will take me in for the night."

  So anything that meant she might leave me, that got me, and I shut up. But I was swelling up thick inside.

  In the next booth was a girl and two men, that were mine guards from the way they talked, and when one of them and the girl left, the other one got up and asked Kady to dance. She went off with him, and they went to the music box, and their heads were together while they dropped in their nickel. Then they danced, and when the tune was almost over they danced by the box, stopped, and dropped more money in, at least a dozen nickels, one right after the other. Then when a tune stopped, it would be only a few seconds before another one started, but during that time they didn't stop dancing. They stood there, swinging to the music that wasn't playing any more, and then when it started again they'd go off. About the third tune, they made signs to the bartender, and he made them drinks that they picked up as they went around, and sipped, and left on the bar. About the tenth tune they were dancing with their faces up against each other, and had forgot their drink. Then they stopped and stood there whispering. Then she came over and picked up her handbag. "I won't be long, Jess."

  "Where you going?"

  "Just for a walk. Get a little air."

  "You're coming home."

  "Sure. Soon we'll go."

  "We're going now."

  The man walked over and stepped between us. "Listen, pop, take it easy why don't you? so we don't have any trouble."

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "You're Kady's father, so she says."

  "And I'm taking her home."

  "Not unless she wants to go, pop. Now the way she tells me, she feels like taking a walk, and that's what we're going to do. So sit down. Don't get excited. Have yourself a drink, and when her and me get back you're taking her home. But not before."

  He put on his hat, one of those black felts turned down on one side like a mountain gunman wears, and looked me in the eye. He was tall and thin, and I could have broke him in two, but that gun was what I kept thinking about. A mine guard is never without it, and he knows how to use it, and he will use it. I could feel the blood pounding in my neck, but I sat down. He turned to his booth and sat down.

  While we were having that, she had said something to him about the ladies' room, and gone back there. I sat with my throat pounding heavier all the time, until a door back there opened, and she started walking up to his booth. I don't remember thinking anything about it. But when she was almost to him, I grabbed that booth partition, and pulled, and it crashed down, and there he was, sprawling at my feet. I was on him even before she screamed, and when that gun came out of his pocket, I had it. I brought it down on his head, he crumpled, I aimed, and pulled the trigger. But I had forgot the safety catch, and before I could snap it off, they grabbed me.

  "This court, unless compelled, is not going to make a criminal out of a father defending the honor of a daughter. But is not going to overlook, either, a breach of the peace that could have had the most serious consequences. Tyler, do you realize that if these witnesses hadn't prevented it, you would have killed a man, that you would now stand before me accused of the crime of murder, that it would be my unescapable duty to hold you for the grand jury, and that almost certainly you would in due time be found guilty, sentenced, and hanged?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Do you think that's right?"

  "I guess I don't."

  "How much money is in your pocket?"

  "Fourteen dollars, sir."

  "Then just to impress it on your mind that this is more than a passing matter, you can pay the clerk here a fine of ten dollars and costs for disorderly conduct or perhaps you'd rather spend the next ten days in jail?"

  "I'd rather pay, sir."

  "Young woman, how old are you?"

  "Nineteen, sir."

  "Have you been drinking?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "What do you mean you don't know?"

  "Well, I was drinking Coca-Cola, but you know how it is. Sometimes they put a little something in it, just for fun, but tonight I don't know if they did or not."

  "Lean over here, so I can smell your breath...How can you have the cheek to tell me you don't know if you've been drinking or not, when you're half shot, right now? Aren't you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you realize that I can hold you with no more evidence than that as a wayward minor, and have you committed to a school?"

  "I didn't know it, sir."

  "There are a great many things you don't seem to know, and my advice to you is that you turn over a new leaf, and do it now. I'm remanding you into the custody of your father, and on the first complaint from him, you're up for commitment. Do you understand that, Tyler? If there's any more trouble like what went on in there tonight, you don't grab a gun and start shooting. You come to me, and the proper steps will be taken."

  "Yes, sir, I understand it."

  "Next case."

  Going home she was laughing at how funny it was, that he hadn't asked her how much money she had, because she still had every cent of the hundred and fifty dollars we had got for the liquor, but after we got home and got a fire going and ate something and drunk some coffee, I shut her up. "You want to go to that reform school?"

  "You mean you'd send me?"

  "If you don't shut up, I might."

  "Can't I even laugh?"

  "He was right."

  Then we began to talk, and I tried to tell her how it scared me, that I had almost killed a man. "And you, don't it shame you, you were making up to two men tonight, within ten minutes of each other?"

  "What's to be ashamed of?"

  "It's blood."

  "Listen, if I hear any more of this Morgan stuff —

  "I tell you, it's in-breeding. It's what we both got to be afraid of. It's in us, and we ought to be fighting it. And stead of that —

  "Yeah, tell me."

  "We're not."

  "Well say, that's terrible."

  "Shining, shooting, and shivareeing their kin, that's what they say of people that live too long on one creek. I thought I was too good for that. But today, right up in that mine, I ran off five gallons of liquor that's against the law. This evening I almost killed a man."

  "And tonight you'd like to have me."

  "Stop talking like that!"

  "What were you shooting him for?"

  "You ought to know."

  "You must be loving me plenty."

  "I told you, quit that!"

  "Have a drink with me?"

  "No!"

  "How about you going to reform school?"

  Chapter 5

  One night when I got through the run I took a walk up the creek, and when I came to the church I kept on up the hollow, and pretty soon sat down by a tree and tried to think. We had had some trouble that day. Now the money was coming in she kept buying clothes, blue and yellow and green dresses, and red coats, and hats with ribbons hanging down the side, and every night we'd drive in town to the White Horse, and they wouldn't serve her liquor any more but we'd have some Cokes, and then she'd dance and carry on with whoever was there, and then I'd take her home. But in the daytime she got sloppier and sloppier, and one day when it got hot she took off her shoes. And this day she said it was so hot by the still she couldn't stand it, and slipped off her dress so she was in nothing but underwear and hardly any of that, and began dancing to the radio, swaying with the music with one hand on her hip and looking me in the eye. Well, in the first place, in a coal mine it's the same temperature all the year round, and that little bit of fire I had in there, what with the ventilation we had, didn't make any difference at all. So we had an argument about it, and I made her put her clothes on and cut off the music. Then she said: "Jess, did it ever strike you funny, one thing about this pla
ce?"

  "What's that?"

  "If a woman was attacked in here, there's nothing at all she could do about it."

  "Couldn't she bite? Or kick? Or scratch?"

  "What good would it do her?"

  "Might help quite a lot."

  "Not if the man was at all strong. She could scream her head off, and not one person on earth would hear her. I've often thought about it."

  I made her get out of there and go down to the cabin and catch up on some of the work. But I was hanging on by my teeth by that time, and I was a lot nearer giving up the fight, and going along with her on whatever she felt like doing, even getting drunk, than I wanted her to know. That was when I took this walk up the creek, and past the church, and through Tulip, trying to get control of myself, and maybe pray a little, for some more strength.

  And then, from up among the trees, I heard something that sounded like a wail. Then here it came again, closer. Then I could make out it was a man, calling somebody named Danny. And then all of a sudden a prickle went up my back, because I knew that voice, from the million times I had heard it at the company store and around the camp and in my own home. It was Moke, but he wasn't singing comical stuff to a banjo now. He was scared to death, and slobbering at the mouth as he called, and in between moaning and whispering to himself. He went stumbling along to his cabin, and I followed along after him, and watched while he stood in the door, a candle in his hand, and called some more. Then when he went inside I crept up and peeped through a chink in the logs. He was a little man, but I never saw him look so little as he looked now. He was sitting on the clay floor, in one corner, the banjo leaning against the wall beside him, his head on his arms, and shaking with sobs so bad you thought they were going to tear him apart.

  I was shook up plenty myself, because if there was one person in this world I hated it was him, and after all Kady had said, and all I knew from before, I couldn't help wondering what he was doing here, and I knew it had to be something that meant me. So I could feel some connection when I came to my cabin, and from the back room I could hear a baby crying. I went inside, and at the sound of the door, a woman called to know if it was Kady. I said it was Kady's father. She came out then, and from the tall, thin shape she had, and the look of her face and color of her eyes, I knew she was a Tyler. "I think you're my girl Jane."

  "And you're my father."

  We shook hands, and I patted her hand, and then we sat down, and both of us wanted to give each other a kiss but were too bashful. "Can I call you Father?"

  "I don't mind."

  "I used to call you Pappy."

  "You remember that?"

  "I remember a lot, and how sweet you was to me, and how much I loved you, and how tall you was."

  "Why not call me Jess?"

  "Isn't that fresh?"

  "Kady does, but of course she is fresh."

  "It's so wonderful about her."

  "...What about her?"

  "Everything."

  She looked down at the floor, and you could see she was awful happy about something, and then she said: "You know about Danny?"

  "Who's Danny?"

  "Didn't she tell you?"

  "Is that Danny in there crying?"

  "He won't cry after he's fed. Kady took the truck and ran into town for a lot of things he's got to have, because all you've got here, that he can have, is milk. But she'll be back soon. And as soon as he gets a little something in his stomach he'll be sweeter than sugar."

  "What's Moke got to do with him?"

  "Have you see Moke?"

  I told her what had gone on in the hollow, and she doubled up her fists and said: "I hope I don't see him. I might kill him."

  "Hey, hey, none of that kind of talk."

  "Moke took Danny."

  "First my wife, then my grandson."

  "Say that again, Jess."

  "He is, isn't he?"

  "I wasn't sure you'd remember it."

  "I don't forget much."

  "What Moke did, and how today I caught up with him, that's part of what's so wonderful. Last week, on account of Kady being gone and my mother not much caring one way or the other, little Danny was mine, and it was heavenly, because maybe I'll never get married, but still I had one of my own. Then when I came home from the store one day he was gone, and Moke was gone, and I went almost crazy, but I knew it had to be Moke that took him, because he was so crazy about him."

  "Moke loves somebody?"

  "Oh, he gets lonely too. And there I was, fit to be tied. Because Kady, that was my whole life before, was gone I had no idea where, and now with Danny stolen it was more than I could stand. But my mother said if Moke took him, he had to have some place to bring him to, and he still had his shack up in the hollow, and maybe it was there. So she drew it out for me how to get there, and I took the bus over from Blount, and even before I got to it I could hear Danny laughing and Moke playing to him on the banjo. So I wasn't going to take any chance on a fight with Moke. Maybe he wouldn't let me have Danny, but then he'd know I was around, and might run off again, somewhere else. So he said something to Danny about a drink, but I noticed there was no well out back."

  "He gets water from a neighbor."

  "I thought he might, and right away he came out with a pail and started across the clearing. I went in and grabbed Danny and ran down the path, and when I got to the road I made a man with a wagon give me a ride, because he said he was going as far as the bus line. But then, as we passed this cabin, who should I see but Kady put back, hanging out clothes! Jess, I jumped down, and ran over to her, and I wasn't crazy any more, I was the happiest person on earth, because I had my two darlings back, my little baby, and my sister that I'd loved ever since I could remember."

  "How does Kady feel about it?"

  "She loves it."

  I didn't love it, and if Kady did, that wasn't how she told it to me, the last time she had mentioned Danny. But when she came in with the stuff she'd bought, her eyes were like stars, and she went in the back room with Jane without even a hello to me. I sat there trying to tell myself it was all right, it was just what I'd been praying for. If she could love her child, and stop all this drinking and dancing and carrying on, it was the best thing all around, and I could get some peace from her, and not be teased into having thoughts about her that made me so ashamed I hated to own up to myself they were there. It didn't do me any good. If she'd had a child, and she hated it, that squared it up, and I didn't have to remember it. But if she didn't hate him, it was between me and her, and would be, always. I sat there, while out back Jane explained how to mix this and how to cook that, and pretty soon they began feeding the baby, and his crying stopped and Jane began talking to him and telling him how pretty he was, and all of a sudden Kady was sitting beside me and picking up my hand.

  "Want to see my baby, Jess?"

  "I guess not."

  "He's a pretty baby."

  "So I hear."

  "And he's your grandson."

  "I know."

  "It would make me happy, Jess."

  "It wouldn't me."

  "Then if that's how you feel about it, I won't try to change you. I'll take him away. There's a reason I can't go back to Blount just yet, but he and Jane and I can stay in a hotel at Carbon and you won't be bothered."

  "I didn't ask you to leave."

  "If my baby's not welcome, I'm not."

  "You've changed a lot, that's all I can say."

  "Didn't Jane tell you why?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Didn't she tell you why Moke took him?"

  "She said he was lonesome."

  "He loved Danny, and specially after the way Belle began fighting with him, just before I left. He was crazy about him, and then when he found out he was to be taken away, he went off with him."

  "Who was going to take him away?"

  "Jane ran into Wash."

  "The father?"

  "Yes."

  "Or it might be shorter just to s
ay rat."

  "He's no rat."

  "He skipped like a rat."

  "His father made him. And then, a week ago, Jane ran into him on the street, in Blount. And he asked about me, and Danny, and was friendly, and pretty soon Jane came right out with it and asked why he didn't marry me, and give his little boy a name, and stop being —

  "A rat."

  "Anyway, Jess, what he said was wonderful."

  "What was it he said?"

  "He said he was always going to, soon as he was twenty-one, whether his family liked it or not. He's only twenty, Jess, one year older than I am. But now, he said they would give their consent too, before he was twenty-one. Because an awful thing happened to them. His sister, the one that married into the coal family in Philadelphia, had to have an operation, and now she can't have any children any more. And now they know if they're to have grandchildren, it's got to be through Wash. And now they feel different about Danny. And so do I. I'm so ashamed how I treated him before."

  "Well, it's all fine."

  "Are you glad at all, Jess?"

  "To me, a rat's a rat."

  "Not even for my sake you don't feel glad?"

  "I rather not say."

  Tears came in her eyes and she sat there making little creases in her dress. It wasn't one of those she'd been buying, but a quiet little blue one, that made her look smaller and younger and sweeter. I said she should stay on till it suited her to go and I'd go to Carbon, but she said she'd go, and I hated it, the way I was acting, and yet I couldn't help how I felt. And then Jane was there, putting something in my lap, and looking up at me was the cutest little child I ever saw, all pink and soft and warm, with nothing on him but a clean white diaper. Kady reached over to take him, but I grabbed him and went over to one of the settles by the fire and sat there and held him close. And for a long time something kept stabbing into my heart, and I'd look at him and feel so glad he was partly mine that I wanted to sing. His diaper slipped down a little and I almost died when I saw a brown bug on his stomach, or what I thought was a brown bug, just below the navel. I reached for it with my fingers, but Jane laughed.