Losing Battles (14 page)

“Uncle Homer and Auntie Fay and the ice has made it in. And Uncle Homer says for Jack to come hopping, Sister Gloria.” There was Elvie’s little announcing face. She was holding a present tied up in the shape of an owl and another hat for the bed.

Jack still had his weight against Gloria. She straightened him up and led him back into the midst of them.

With only two newcomers, the porch now looked crammed so full that the standing room seemed to reach even beyond the floor’s edge. The only thing that held the reunion from falling off appeared to be the double row of cannas that ran around it.

Aunt Nanny gave a boy’s whistle as Jack walked in again, Gloria at his shoulder. “Whoo-ee! Who you dressed up for?” “Now he looks ready!” came welcoming cries. “Where’d you get that shirt? Who had that waiting for you, how’d she get that paid for?” “Ask her whereabouts is your
big
surprise!”

Auntie Fay, a little woman twice as frail as Miss Lexie and Mr. Renfro, but wearing pink in her cheeks, grabbed Jack with a shriek and with a second shriek let him go as though she’d grabbed the hot stove by mistake.

Uncle Homer Champion clicked across the floor in western boots. He carried his black alpaca coat hanging from his thumb down over the back of his shoulder. He hung it up on the antlers and then took his hat off too and hung it on top. When he turned around, a necktie with green bluejays on it was blazing down his front.

“Jack Renfro! What do you mean by showing up the Sunday before election day?”

“You’ve still got till Tuesday, Uncle Homer,” Jack said, shaking hands. “I just had till today.” His voice still croaked. “Please bring me a swallow,” he told Gloria, and with his starched arm reached for the gourd she carried to him, drank, and handed it back.

“Sit down!” Uncle Homer said.

The whole company, as far as could, sat. Only the school chair was left vacant; Jack sat down in that. Gloria perched just above him on the writing-arm, where she could look down on his face.

“In all this great and sovereign State of Mississippi, how far out of your way did you have to travel today to find you trouble?” Uncle Homer began.

“I thought I was coming in a pretty straight line, sir,” said Jack. When he listened to Uncle Homer it was the same as when he listened to all his family—he leaned forward with his clear eyes fixed on the speaker as though what was now being said would never be said again or repeated by anybody else.

“But you found you a car in the ditch, didn’t you—while you was still a good mile from Banner?”

“Put shoulder to wheel and upped him out,” said Jack. “Is that Buick back in again?”

Auntie Fay drew breath and shrieked, “Willy Trimble, trust him, saw you do it! And declared it to Homer!”

“Just tell, Jack. Who was it at the throttle of that Buick?” asked Uncle Homer. “They might all like to hear it.”

“A stranger for sure. He’d never tumbled in a Boone County ditch before, to judge by the slang it drove him into using,” said Jack. “An old fellow, that couldn’t climb out very fast.”

“Homer, won’t you set and butter you a biscuit?” cried Miss Beulah. She faced him with a plate full.

“Beulah, you’d stop the very preacher about to deliver your own funeral oration to see if you couldn’t make him feel more at home,” said Uncle Homer. He took a biscuit but remained on his feet. “Jack, I’d be more careful before I called that man old. You could call that man more in the prime of life, about like you’d call me. Jack! Did you just get out of the pen today so’s to shoulder the very man that
sent
you there up out of the ditch?” he cried, and slapped butter on his biscuit.

Jack leaped up. He nearly fell backwards, recoiling, over a
basket of dishes and a pillowcase stuffed with knives and spoons. Children ran up and grabbed him.

“It was the Judge?” yelled Etoyle. “O glory.”

“Jack Jordan Renfro,” came a chorus of aunts, as he slowly sat down again under Gloria’s eyes.

“Judge Oscar Moody in the flesh,” said Uncle Homer, and bit in. “That’s exactly who you stopped and acted the Good Samaritan to before you’d so much as got home.”

“Now you better think up a good one,” said Aunt Cleo.

“All my children is too quick,” Miss Beulah said. “Just too quick.”

“Gloria, I think he needs another surprise fast,” said Aunt Beck. But Gloria stayed where she was, peering into Jack’s face.

“Speak, Jack!” cried Uncle Homer.

“All I need to tell is a Buick pleasure car only about five years old was spinning nice and pretty towards Banner crossroads, and Mr. Willy Trimble entered the story,” said Jack.

“So Mr. Willy turned right across its path,” said Uncle Curtis.

“Who
is
Willy Trimble?” asked Aunt Cleo.

“He’s such an old bachelor that the way he cleans out his fireplace is to carry the ashes through the house, shovel-load at a time, and dump ’em out through the front door,” said Miss Lexie Renfro. “That answer your question?”

“His ditch is pretty well all cinders,” said Jack. “And that’s the one that Buick went in.”

“And when the fella saw where he was put—” Uncle Percy prompted.

“The same as any mortal that fell in the ditch, he hollers get-me-out, and the same as any Good Samaritan alive, Jack done it,” cried Miss Beulah. “He can’t help it. We make no secret of it.”

“How did a man of Judge Moody’s reputation find help so quick? To be right particular, how did he find Jack?” asked Uncle Curtis.

“You was riding on his tire,” Vaughn said.

“I don’t know how a little schoolboy like you would know that,” cried Jack. “We was, though. Me and Aycock had caught on behind that Buick between Peerless and Harmony. It was heading right for Banner.”

“But son, was that becoming?” cried Miss Beulah.

Jack told her, “Mama, we’d already covered ground with
three preachers, and we’d sat up front and heard ’em out for miles, and been invited to three sermons and three Sunday dinners and one river baptizing, and then I reasoned we’d get home faster if we caught on with somebody with more of their mind on the road. And when we did, that’s the very fellow that before you could turn around twice was in the ditch.”

“But then what?” cried Aunt Birdie.

“He was glad to have help offered!” Jack cried.

“If Willy Trimble’s ditch is the ditch I’m thinking about, that Judge might’ve been glad to have help offered from Lucifer himself,” said Aunt Nanny.

“It didn’t take me but a minute to up him,” said Jack.

“And wasn’t you sorry then?” Aunt Birdie reproached him.

“I didn’t know who it was!” cried Jack.

“Willy Trimble must have spread it like only he knows how. Everybody knew it at the ice house. Laughed!” Uncle Homer said.

“And Homer didn’t dream, till he heard about that, that Jack would even get turned loose today!” Auntie Fay told them.

“Jack, you ought to be examined,” said Uncle Homer. Elvie, making a sorrowful face, brought him a glass of buttermilk with a piece of his own ice in it.

“Why didn’t that miserable Aycock warn you what you was doing? What was you carrying
him
along for?” Aunt Nanny cried.

“I believe when we hit the bottom of the ditch is right exactly when Aycock said ‘Good evening,’ Aunt Nanny, and struck off home to his mama,” said Jack. “He was just about as close home as he could get.”

“If we’d just been there, coming in the road behind you!” cried Uncle Dolphus.

“We’d hollered quick.
‘Watch out who you’re saving, Jack!
’ ” cried Aunt Birdie.

“Beulah, that boy’s led a sheltered life,” said Uncle Homer in a heavy voice. “And it don’t seem to me now that he’s remedied that a
great
deal where he’s been.”

“Some day it’ll happen,” Aunt Nanny cried. “He’ll have a jolt and an awakening.”

“Why can’t Jack ever look and see where he’s headed?” Uncle Homer pointed a buttery finger at Jack. “Couldn’t you even spare a glance through the window into that car to see who might be driving?”

“We was riding back there with most of the dust for company, Uncle Homer,” said Jack. “I did see as far as a cake I’m pretty sure was a chocolate, riding under a napkin in the back seat. I don’t know where it went when we hit. Mr. Willy’s team broke aloose and split up and they went on to Banner. The white one climbed to Better Friendship Church and the black one got all the way down under the bridge. I shouldered the Buick up onto the road. And on it went without me. Caught and brought both mules back and got Mr. Willy hitched up again. Then I come running on home and never thought about a one of ’em again.”

“Judge Moody might even have made you his passenger and rode you home for your trouble, put you out right here at your door, and let you thank him in front of the whole reunion, and you
still
wouldn’t have caught on!” Uncle Homer said. “That’s what I believe of you.”

“Yes, you’d have just thanked him for the ride,” said Aunt Beck sadly. “You’re the densest thing sometimes. Oh, I take that back!”

“Just let Moody dare to come up in my yard!” shrieked Miss Beulah. “Just let him show his Moody face at this reunion. He’ll hear
me
tell him who he is!”

“Mama, I saw his face when he climbed out of his car, to get a look at the damage. I don’t believe there was a
whiff
of the courthouse clinging to him,” said Jack.

“Well, who did he look like?”

“He looked more like a bank robber than any judge. He had a white handkerchief tied across his nose and hanging down over his chin,” said Jack.

“I guess he don’t care for your dust,” said Aunt Cleo.

“It was Judge Oscar Moody in the flesh, and you saved him,” Uncle Homer said. “Wait till the rest of the voters hears about it.”

“And they will,” said Auntie Fay. “I’ve learned that much just putting up with Homer.”

“Jack, you did Judge Moody a favor in return for him sending you to the pen. That’s what it adds up to,” Uncle Homer said.

“And it wasn’t even hard!” Jack said. “Ditch was powder dry! Looks to me like Banner ain’t had rain in a hundred years!”

“Now all it lacks is for
Curly
to tell me about it. How much notice do you think that gives me, Jack, to think up an answer and get it back to the population?” asked Uncle Homer.

“Sir Pizen Ivy is what me and Aycock called that Judge every day alive at Parchman!” said Jack in a hoarse voice.

“Then didn’t know him when you met him in the road,” said Aunt Cleo. “Sounds to me like a joke on
you
.”

“Leave him alone!” every one of them hollered at her, all except Uncle Homer and Gloria.

“I think it’s a joke on the whole reunion,” said Aunt Cleo.

“Who’s that?” asked Uncle Homer. He told Aunt Cleo, “Lady, you don’t vote around here.”

“She’s a Stovall’s widow. That’s a shock, ain’t it?” Aunt Nanny said to Uncle Homer.

“No, Nanny Broadwee. Even a Stovall in with this reunion today don’t surprise me a whit.” Uncle Homer told Aunt Cleo, “And you’re about what I’d expect at this stage of the game.”

Jack crouched forward in the chair, hands on his knees. Miss Lexie studied him. “Brother,” she said to Mr. Renfro, who stood with his chin in his hand, contemplating Jack too, “these children of yours are the least prepared to be
corrected
of any I ever ran up against. How they’ll conduct themselves on the Day of Judgment I find it hard to imagine.”

“All I can say is, Jack, I’m glad you ain’t old enough to vote,” said Uncle Homer. “Or I believe you’d vote against me.”

“Homer! That’s a terrible thing to say!” cried Auntie Fay. “Vote against his own family?”

“And
for Curly?”
Uncle Dolphus cried.

“Homer Champion, my boy would do anything for his family, anything in the world!” cried Miss Beulah.
“Look
at him! He’d vote for you if that’s what’s asked of him, and not even stop there!”

“If it hadn’t been for this family,” Uncle Homer said, glaring around at the reunion, “I’d been no telling how high up now. Maybe even sheriff.”

“Perish the day!” cried Miss Beulah. “Mr. Renfro, if you don’t find something to say to this boy, you’re going to have him feeling ashamed of himself in a mighty few minutes! Look at him biting his lip!”

“Judge Moody didn’t make a single mistake to give himself away?” asked Aunt Beck, as if it might even then not be too late.

“He just showed himself for a stranger,” said Jack. “Offered to pay me for my help. I told him I
lived
around here and it would vex me pretty hard to have to take his money.”

“Oh, my boy sounds pitiful,” said Miss Beulah. “Pitiful!” She stamped her foot.

“Mama!” cried Jack. “Listen: if that was the Judge and he’s so smart, how come
he
didn’t know
me?
”

“That’s my boy!” shouted Uncle Noah Webster, and his brothers said, “He’s right!”

“What good did it do him to make a living example out of me if he wasn’t going to know me the next time he saw me?” Jack cried.

“And what business did he have in our part of the world anyway?” cried Miss Beulah. “Homer Champion, tell me that! What you need is a little more buttermilk to wash those crumbs down with!”