27.
The Reverend Pomeroy, before his sermon that Sunday at the First Methodist Church of Hawley, announced that Francine Latham’s funeral would be Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. at the First Christian Church. She would be at the Redwine Funeral Home for those who wished to pay their respects. He then preached a blood-and-thunder sermon about Godly retribution and the demons of Satan. Though he made great use of circumlocution, allegory, and parable, with especially heavy emphasis on fallen angels and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, no one in the congregation had any doubt that he was talking about the tent show and the fire that destroyed it. They knew their pastor and were expecting something along those lines. Some of the more worldly in Reverend Pomeroy’s flock commented that they were indeed fortunate that God was keeping such a close watch on Hawley, Kansas.
When services were over, Rose Willet went ahead, leaving the judge, her mother, Lilah, Grace Elizabeth, and Wash Peacock to their weekly after-services chat with the pastor. Wash was a new addition to the group. He wouldn’t say anything unless asked a direct question, but would motionlessly fidget to get it over with, then get Sunday dinner at the Willets’ over with and get back to Miller’s Corners and chores that had to be done. The judge would invite the pastor to Sunday dinner, as the pastor expected; the pastor would gracefully decline, as the judge expected, and it would be over.
Rose was almost the only one to leave the church. There was far too much to talk about that Sunday morning. The tent show was the major topic, but the performance itself had been eclipsed by the fire and the deaths of all those people. The number varied from conversation to conversation. And there was also the storm and, of course, poor Francine.
Rose had been deep in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard much of the sermon, but what she had heard only stirred up memories she was trying to forget. She had never had trouble pushing unpleasant memories into dark corners where they could be successfully ignored, but this was different. The memories were not unpleasant. They burned with a clear, hot fire that made her ache with pleasure. But the terrible consequences of discovery canceled the enjoyment of the memory. If only she could rid herself of the thought of the consequences and continue to bathe in the flame of the memory, but she couldn’t. They were inexorably linked. The only solution was to banish them both, rid herself of both the pleasure and the pain.
She walked down the shaded street, her Bible and gloves clutched in her hand, not really seeing where she was going, aware of her movements just enough to avoid stepping in the shrinking puddles. She sensed him before he spoke; his presence tingled along her spine.
“Rose,” he said.
She stopped, frozen. A roar began in her head, growing louder until she could hear nothing else. She looked up. A whimper caught in her throat. She wanted to say a thousand things, scream at him to leave her alone, beg him to touch her, but nothing she could say would be heard over the roar.
“Rose,” he said again. She was surprised that she could hear with the noise in her head. He stood behind a clump of lilac bushes, looking tired and needing a shave.
She could feel people in the street behind her, coming from the church. She forced her legs to move. He stepped back, farther behind the bushes.
“The same place,” he said. “I’ll wait for you.”
She took a step, then another, forcing one foot in front of the other until she was home. She changed clothes and sat on the bottom step of the stairs while Grace Elizabeth and Lilah helped her mother put the food on the table. When her mother called her, she went into the dining room, but she couldn’t eat. The judge grumbled at her and her mother fidgeted around her and she excused herself, mumbling that she wasn’t hungry and was going for a walk. She went in the opposite direction of the gin, but found herself standing outside it anyway. She went inside and he put his arms around her and kissed her and led her into the room piled with soft cottonseed. She clutched at him, running her hands roughly over his chest and shoulders. He kissed her again and unfastened her clothes. Her dress slipped to her feet and she kept touching him. When all her clothes were off, scattered around them, he undressed himself. She touched each new part of his body as he uncovered it. When he was naked, she tried to touch all of him at once and wanted to scream because she couldn’t.
She lay on the cottonseed, her body half-buried by her movements. He sat beside her, grinning at her and smoking a cigarette. He arrogantly blew a smoke ring at her, then leaned over and kissed her, putting his hand on her breast. She put her arms around his neck and held him to her until he laughed and pulled away.
She trembled and shrank from his power.
Kelsey stretched his arms over his head, then rolled his shoulders and made a lazy noise in his throat. He stood up and went to the door, brushing off cottonseed that clung to his buttocks, as unconcerned with his nakedness as a lion. He opened the door a few inches, squinting at the sudden light, and flicked the cigarette butt outside. He looked out for a moment, then pulled the door shut. He came back to her and dropped to his knees beside her.
“What’re we gonna do, Rose?” he said.
She looked away from him and followed a thin ray of sunlight coming through a nail hole in the tin wall. Finally she said, “Why didn’t you go?”
He sighed and let his shoulders slump. “I almost did. After I talked to you last night, I went to the tracks intending to hop the first freight. I sat there in the ditch two hours waiting.” He snorted and grinned. “When it finally came, it was going so damn fast I woulda broke my neck if I’d tried it. So I came back here. Oh, Rose,” he said, putting his hand on her stomach, “I love you and I think you love me. We’re right together. After the other night and just now, you can’t deny we’re right together.”
She turned her head toward him. “I’m not running off with you, so don’t go on about it.”
“Well, then,” he said, “I’ll stay here.”
Suddenly his hand weighed a ton, it crushed the breath from her body. She sat up, brushing his hand away. “I don’t want you to stay. I won’t run off with you and I don’t want you to stay here.” She lurched unsteadily to her feet.
He looked down at his hands. “Don’t say that, Rose.”
She began gathering her clothes. “Go away, Kelsey. Go away and leave me alone.” She dressed quickly, as if his power over her body would vanish if he could no longer see it. Her words tumbled from her mouth with matter-of-fact precision. “I have plans for my life, Kelsey. My life will be secure and comfortable and respectable. I will marry a man who has a place in this town, who will give me all the things I want. I’m not going to marry some fiddle-foot who’ll have to get a job as a field hand or loading sacks at the feed store. I won’t live in some two-room shack, taking in washing so I can have a new dress once a year. There’s too many poor people around here, and I won’t be one of them, not for you, not for anybody. I don’t want to see you anymore, Kelsey. Go away and leave me alone.” She looked away from him, adjusting her dress.
“If that’s true, Rose,” he said softly, “why did you come to me today?”
She paused, then looked at him. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“It has everything to do with it. Don’t you see? Those things you want are not important if you’re with someone you love, if you’re happy. Besides, who says I can’t get all those things for you?”
“Kelsey, go away and leave me alone.”
“No,” he said and grinned. “You don’t really believe all that stuff, or you wouldn’t have come. I’ll stay here and make you change your mind.”