She studied him with a sharp black eye. Her face was grayish as if she was not well, a thin woman wearing a khaki dress almost completely covered by a worn gray apron. Without turning her head she called out, Hankie!
A voice outside the back door called back, Mam?
Come in here.
A skinny man in faded overalls came in carrying a bucket.
Go over yonder and ask Mr. Sterling if he’s going up to Chattanooga this morning.
Yessum.
She said all this without taking her eye off Delvin. You had your breakfast? she said.
Yes I have.
Well you can go wait out behind the store til Hankie gets back. Take your drink.
Delvin exited by the back screen door into a yard that was filled with stacked-up wooden crates of all sizes. On one side a bushy camphor tree with elegant dark leaves. On the other perched above a shallow ravine a small board cabin. He walked to the ravine and looked down into it. Trash of all kinds filled it. A pig tied to a stake ate melon rinds. On the other side two skinny brown dogs glanced up and went back to their meal. Delvin couldn’t see what they were eating. Odd that they didn’t bother the pig. On the far side of the ravine was a wide path bordered by a half-broken-down board fence. Beyond the fence were houses in dirt yards, a few fruit and chinaberry trees. A girl in a pale blue dress walked along the path. She carried a large basket of laundry.
Hope your day’s going well, Delvin said across the divide.
The girl didn’t answer. He watched her continue along the path and turn down a street out of sight.
He finished the drink and put the bottle in the little basket, sat down on a crate and began to make up a story. He hadn’t done much writing work, but he figured his trip would give him many things to write about. He thought about the ex-confederate soldier living in the cottage. He might tell a story about him. This old white man who loved a black woman who had betrayed him with another. And so the man, who was much older than the young black woman, had given her and her husband the farm he owned just to make her stay close to him. He made them sign papers so they wouldn’t move away or throw him off the place. He had even paid them to stay, a salary drawn off his accounts that he had set up from the sale of property he owned here in town. That was why the couple didn’t do too much work. They were on salary. Maybe that was the story. Delvin wished he had a notebook with him. He had left in such a hurry that he hadn’t thought about it. Remembering, his fear came back. Maybe he should stay out of C-town longer. He had been away a few months shy of a year. The police were probably looking for him still — or ready to start again if they caught a lead. They would always be looking for him. A sadness crept in on him. It was like an old unfriendly cat. Just then the girl came back around the corner. She still carried the now empty basket.
That your job? he called, delivering laundry for the neighborhood?
It was a foolish thing to say, he knew, but the girl’s prettiness confused him.
The girl didn’t look at him. Least I got one, she said.
He thought he caught a glimmer of a smile and didn’t feel so alone. His old fantasy of being the intrepid man alone — one of his fantasies — had fallen quickly apart. The morning had a dewy, comfortable feeling to it. Salvia and mexican sage bloomed along the sides of the ravine. He walked along the way the girl had gone — she’d disappeared into one of the yards up ahead, but he didn’t see a way to cross unless he wanted to wade the rusty little stream at the bottom, and he didn’t. He liked wearing clean clothes, liked the feeling of fullness from breakfast. Liked waiting.
