The Old Buzzard Had It Coming (23 page)

“That was a mighty big thing to do.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alafair said. “It’s really a good deal for us. It’s just lucky that it kills a couple of birds with one stone.”

“This is a real good thing for us, too, Miz Tucker,” Mrs. Day interjected, and Alafair turned to face the woman, who was still wiping tears, but bearing up better now. “And I think a good thing for John Lee, too. He’s a hard worker, you’ll see. I think he’ll make something of this farm. He’d take real good care of Phoebe. I’d be proud to see one of my kids happy.”

“Miz Day,” Alafair asked, out of the blue, “what is your Christian name?”

Mrs. Day paused, and her forehead wrinkled, as though she couldn’t quite remember what her name was herself. “Why, it’s Nona,” she said finally.

Alafair nodded. “My name is Alafair,” she informed the woman. “We’ve been neighbors for years, and now we may be kin before long. I think we can call each other by our first names.”

“So do you expect that Phoebe and John Lee will get married now?” Alice asked.

“Not right away,” Alafair assured her. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Alice laughed. “You always do, Mama.” She paused and gazed into the yard at Phoebe and John Lee for a moment. “They do look happy, don’t they?” she observed. “Seems funny, after all these unhappy events. Everything all mixed up together, all this sadness and horror and joy and hope for the future.”

Alafair looked over at her daughter. “Why, that’s the way it always is, sugar,” she said. “That’s how God keeps us on our toes.”

***

It was much later in the day before Alafair and Shaw and the girls began preparing for the trip home. Alafair was heading up the porch steps to take her leave of Nona Day, when Scott called her name. Alafair paused curiously and looked over at him standing at the end of the porch. He beckoned silently for her to join him.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Scott was leaning against the porch rail with his ankles crossed and his arms folded comfortably across his chest. He unfolded his right arm and extended it languidly in her direction, palm up. Lying in his hand was a silver plated, ebony handled derringer. “This yours?” he asked.

Alafair could feel the blood drain from her face. She looked up at him. “What makes you think that?” she wondered.

“Besides the fact that it has the initials
AG
engraved on the stock?” he asked ironically. “Seems that I remember once about a million years ago that Hattie told me you had shown her a little ebony-handled gun your daddy gave you when you were a girl.”

Blame it all, Alafair thought. It was too hard to remember who all you had told things to over the years.

“You know,” Scott continued, “it sure is a good thing that Jim Leonard finally confessed that he had picked up this gun in the woods, because after you told me that you had found it hidden by the still, I sure got to suspecting John Lee had something to do with it getting there.”

Alafair swallowed, mentally girding her loins to come clean. “Do you want to know how that gun got into the woods like it did?”

“No,” Scott said. “I’m guessing it doesn’t have anything to do with the killing of Harley Day.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Alafair assured him.

“I’m also guessing that you had a real good reason for keeping information from me.”

“Well, yes, the best of reasons, to my way of thinking.”

“And I’m further guessing that those reasons may have had something to do with Phoebe.”

Alafair had no answer to this. “Are you going to tell Shaw?”

Scott shrugged. “I don’t see why. You’d better take this and put it back in a hiding place that the kids can’t find. And I don’t think we ought to consider pressing charges against Jim Leonard for stealing it. The fact that he punched you in the face will put him away for awhile.”

Alafair took the gun from him and slipped it into her coat pocket, limp with relief. “You’re a good man, Scott Tucker,” she acknowledged.

Scott refolded his arms across his chest and gave her a sardonic smile. “Just don’t press your luck, Alafair,” he warned.

“Well, Scott,” she asserted, “I don’t know as luck had much to do with it.”

Epilogue

Shaw found Alafair sitting on the stone bench he had installed next to the two little graves. The family had come to his parents’ farm to celebrate his mother’s birthday, and when Alafair had disappeared after the feast, Shaw knew within reason that she had made her way here. His stepfather had donated the land in this beautiful wood on the back section of his farm for a family cemetery when they had first come to Muskogee County almost fifteen years before. The first grave had been for Shaw’s grandfather, who was worn out by the trip. There were a dozen graves, now, including the two enclosed by a little white fence that Alafair was sitting by now.

Shaw sat down next to her, and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. The breeze was fairly warm. It wouldn’t be long until the wild crocuses began to bloom.

“I wish now that we hadn’t just put ‘Baby’ on the one,” Alafair observed, at length. “I know we hadn’t gotten around to naming him official-like when he died, and I was just too sad to think about it at the time, but now it seems too bad that he doesn’t at least have a name.”

“I don’t see why we can’t name him right now,” Shaw said, “even after fourteen years. I can carve another stone.”

Alafair smiled. “Well, thank you, Shaw, I’d like that. If I remember right, we had talked about naming him James, after your father. I always think of him as Jimmy, anyway.”

“James it is, then.”

Alafair fell silent again for a time as she pondered the other small stone. “At least we had Bobby for two years,” she said finally. “He’d be almost nine now.”

“Seems hard to believe.”

“I wonder what kind of a boy he’d be, what he’d look like now?”

“I always thought he resembled Gee Dub,” Shaw mused, “but for them green eyes.”

There was a pause before Alafair replied. “He did, didn’t he?” She sighed. “I never thought I’d be able to forgive myself when he sucked in the coal oil that was in the jar behind the stove. I just couldn’t run fast enough to get him to the doctor before his lungs gave out.”

She recounted the tale in an unemotional voice, but she felt Shaw sag on the bench next to her when she brought it up.

“Now, Alafair,” he chided. “There ain’t no use to fret about it after all this time. It was an accident plain and simple. I’ve told you that more times than I can count.”

Alafair placed her hand on his arm. “No, that ain’t what I mean,” she assured him. “I know now that Bobby is happy. He has no hard feelings, Shaw. He still loves us.”

Shaw covered her hand with his. “I’m glad you’ve come to know it,” he said.

She turned on the bench to look Shaw in the face. “You know, it looks like we’re going to be having another little one directly.”

Shaw’s heart leaped so violently that he almost fell off the bench. “I’ll be jigged!” he exclaimed, recovering. “When?”

“Late September, early October, I figure. What do you think? Are you pleased?”

It was a rhetorical question. Shaw’s grin was blinding. “Well, yes, of course,” he assured her. “I was surprised, is all. It’s been a long time since we had a new one. I expected that everyone had come who was going to.” He grabbed Alafair’s hand. “I’ll be switched. Ain’t this fine?”

Alafair chuckled, happy that he was happy. “Don’t get too proud of yourself,” she teased him. “Some folks will probably think we’re long in the tooth for a baby.”

“Oh, not a bit of it. Ma was thirty-nine years old with a bunch of grandchildren when Bill came along. The kids will bust. Just think. A new young’un and a new son-in-law all before the year is out.”

“What do you suppose your folks think of John Lee?” she asked, smiling.

Shaw laughed. “I think Ma and Papa are enjoying tormenting the boy way too much, but he seems to be holding up.”

“Well, we probably should be getting on back before they wonder what happened to us,” Alafair decided. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I’ll be along directly.”

Shaw put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze before he stood and made his way up the path toward the house. Alafair turned back and gazed at Bobby’s stone thoughtfully.

“Thanks for helping me, son,” she murmured.

Alafair never had the dream again.

Alafair’s Recipes

Be forewarned: These are not health foods.

JOSIE’S PEACH COBBLER

Filling:

Dough:

To make the dough, sift together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Combine the milk and egg and stir them into the flour mixture until just moistened.

Pour the peaches (or peaches and sugar) into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with 2 tbs. of flour. Dot the peaches with butter.

With a large spoon, drop the dough in several large mounds over the peaches.

Grate cinnamon over the top of the crust.

Bake in a hot oven (425 degrees) for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden and the peaches are bubbly.

Cobbler should be very runny. Spoon it out into a bowl, making sure that everyone gets some of the dumpling-like crust.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

1. Place a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of hot cobbler.

2. Dot a tablespoon or so of unsalted butter over the top of your bowl.

3. Pour about 1/3 cup of heavy cream over the cobbler.

(For an authentic experience, don’t try this one unless you have a cow and can make your own cream, or you can go back to anytime before 1950 to buy the cream. Cream like Alafair used is very hard to come by in the United States these days.)

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Cut in the shortening with a fork until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk all at once and stir until dough follows the fork around the bowl.

Turn the dough onto a board and knead for 30 seconds. Roll out or pat the dough 1/2 inch thick.

Dip a drinking glass, mouth-side down, about an inch into the flour sack. Cut out the biscuits with the floured mouth of the drinking glass. Press the glass down firmly on the dough and give it a smart twist. Lift the glass, and the biscuit will come up with it. Shake the biscuits loose into your hand and place them on an ungreased baking sheet an inch or two apart.

When you’ve cut out as many biscuits as you can, ball up the dough and roll it out again. When there isn’t enough dough remaining to cut out any more whole biscuits, shape the remainder with your hand into a mini-biscuit and stick it in some likely corner of the baking sheet. This is the “pony.” The pony goes to the youngest child. (A mason jar will do for cutting dough, or a jelly glass if you want petite biscuits.)

Bake on the ungreased baking sheet in a hot oven (450 degrees) until brown on top (12-15 minutes).

Makes 12-14 large biscuits.

A POT OF BEANS

Spread the dried beans out in a single layer over the kitchen table. Pick through the beans carefully to remove all the rocks and pebbles and broken beans.

Rinse the sorted beans well, then leave to soak in clean, cool water for several hours. Discard floaters.

Pour off the soaking water, then refill the pot with 7-8 cups water. Add remaining ingredients.

Heat to boiling, then reduce heat. Cover and simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, until the beans are soft and the stock is dark and soupy.

If using ham hock or joint, scrape the meat off into the soup and remove the bone before serving.

VARIATIONS:

1. Add a bay leaf during cooking. Remove before serving.

2. For a nice kick, cook with several whole peeled cloves of garlic, or 1/4 cup of minced onion. Or, if you are among friends, do both.

3. Cooking with one whole raw carrot or one 1" piece of raw peeled ginger is purported to make the beans more digestible. Neither seems to affect the taste of the beans to any degree.

FRIED HAM AND GRAVY

HAM

Slice six thick slabs of ham (at least 1/4") off the bone and fry over medium high heat until heated through and browning on both sides.

Remove from skillet and pile on a serving plate. There should be two or three tablespoons of drippings, along with scrapings, left in the skillet.

GRAVY

Blend the flour into the drippings in the skillet. Cook over low heat, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan frequently, until smooth and bubbly.

Stir in the milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly, until gravy thickens, a minute or two.

NOTE:
There is a lot of controversy over the correct method for making lumpless pan gravy. Conventional wisdom says to add the milk to the flour mixture all at once. Some swear by adding the milk a bit at a time, making a roux first, then thinning it gradually with a thin stream of milk.

CORNBREAD

Cornbread is beautiful thing. Three recipes are included here, any or all of which Alafair would have used, depending on the ingredients she had on hand. Please note that cornbread is bread. It is not cake. Sweet cornbread is very tasty, but it is not true cornbread.

RECIPE 1

Vigorously beat all ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. Pour into a greased 8" x 8" x 2" baking pan. Bake in a hot oven (425 degrees) for 20-25 minutes, until top begins to crack and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

RECIPE 2

Follow baking instructions above. This cornbread is heavier and more everyday than the one above, but holds up very well to being crumbled into soup or buttermilk.

RECIPE 3

Combine ingredients and bake as above. This cornbread has the inestimable flavor that only buttermilk can impart.

ALAFAIR’S MEATLOAF

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Squish together with your hands until thoroughly mixed. (This is a disgusting process, unless the cook needs to deal with unresolved aggression or can delegate the task to an eight-year-old assistant, who will probably enjoy it very much.) Pat into an ungreased loaf pan. Bake in a fast oven (425 degrees) for 1 hour for a drier meatloaf, or in a medium oven (350 degrees) for 1 1/2 hours for a juicier one.

VARIATION:
Substitute 1 cup milk for tomatoes and 1 cup dry bread cubes for corn flakes.

SHAW’S FAVORITE MEATLOAF SANDWICH

Assemble sandwich thus: On one slice of bread spread one or two tablespoons of yellow mustard. Arrange slabs of meatloaf on top of mustard. Press the onion into the meatloaf so it won’t fall off. Pour two or three glugs of ketchup over all. Top with a final slice of bread, pressing it down firmly with the heel of your hand to glue into place. For best results, eat over a bucket to catch the drips.

MOLASSES PIE

Filling for One Pie:

Beat all ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour into a partially baked pie shell and bake in a medium oven (350 degrees) until set (30-45 minutes).

PECAN PIE

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Pour into an unbaked 9-inch pie shell and bake for 45 minutes in a 400-degree oven. Miraculously, the pecans will rise to the top to form a spectacular crunchy layer. Don’t even ask about calories.

ALAFAIR’S NEVER-FAIL PIE CRUST

Pour the boiling water over the shortening and mix until melted and creamy. Sift together flour and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed shortening and mix together to form dough. The dough will be rather crumbly. Add the milk and knead briefly to make the dough easier to handle.

Flour the counter top and your rolling pin well before rolling out the dough. This recipe makes enough dough for two crusts. If you are making a single-crust pie such as the molasses pie above, the remaining dough can be frozen and will still be easy to work with when thawed. Of course, Alafair would have had no way to freeze the remaining dough unless it were the middle of winter, but then with nine children she wouldn’t have had any remaining crust to worry about.

This particular recipe makes what Alafair would have called a very short (flaky) crust.

The Drippings Jar

Alafair and all her female relations would have been unable to cook without the drippings jar, which was kept within arm’s reach of the stove. Into this jar was poured the grease that was left in the skillet after frying any piece of meat. Bacon grease was especially desirable for both its quantity and taste.

This grease, which was semiliquid in summer and semisolid in winter, was used to fry anything that needed to be fried, such as vegetables, eggs, pancakes, and johnnycakes. It was also used as a tasty flavoring when cooking savory dishes. Alafair could tell by the smell if the fat was going rancid, which it sometimes did in hot weather. She would then throw it out and start over. It never took too long to collect another jar full.

Alafair and other farm wives had no idea about calories or cholesterol, so they never put them in their cooking. One could tell this was true just by seeing how thin these farm people were. They only knew that they craved fat after carrying yearling calves, buckets of milk and small children around under their arms all day long.

Coffee

Alafair made coffee by putting 1/4 cup of ground coffee in the bottom of a tin coffee pot, filling the pot with water, and boiling it furiously for ten or fifteen minutes. She knew the coffee was ready when a spoon stood up in the cup. Coffee was usually drunk with two or three spoonfuls of sugar. Cream was a matter of taste. After drinking a cup of Alafair’s coffee, one could go out and happily plow the south forty. Sometimes one didn’t even need a horse.