Wild Iris 2

 

Chapter 3

 

The Hitts kept their still on a slope up behind their cabin, maybe a couple of hundred yards back. Up one hill, then halfway down, it was hidden in an old barn that had once been used for keeping livestock, but was now a pretty tumbledown sort of place, hidden in a patch of saw briars and scrub cedar. It was hard to see the barn from the cleared land that lay between it and the Hitts’ cabin, and that was just the way Jedediah had conceived it. Only he and Uriah were allowed near the still. The Hitts delivered all their moonshine by buggy or wagon: Jedediah had heard unpleasant tales of sheriff’s men masquerading as customers, asking to see stills, and smashing them up with axes.

Uriah led Iris round the back of the patch, and pushed his way along a narrow pathway between the briars. The Hitts kept a small space clear in front of the barn; the door was secured with a wooden bar and a large iron padlock.

He lifted his hat to mop his brow. It was still warm, though evening was coming on fast. ‘H’y’are.’ He waved his hat at the door. ‘This is where we brew.’

Iris looked around her with disdain. Itinerant brambles had crept up the barn’s timber walls, and wild hops snaked up onto the tin roof. ‘Kin you git to see inside there?’

Uriah fished a large key from inside his bib-alls. ‘I’ll show you.’

He wrestled for a moment with the bar, and then set it aside, unhooking the door and pushing it open. The barn was darkening inside with the setting light, but Iris could make out a series of what looked like galvanised wash tubs set out in a row, a clear area of timber flooring covered with a kind of furred carpet, a large metal oven with a large copper contraption set on it, with copper tubing climbing away from it in a series of convoluted loops and whorls, and rows of glass jars set out in rows.

‘We’re setting up fer our next run.’ Uriah pointed to the jars proudly. ‘We got people calling for Paw from all around. We kin brew up twenty gallons of ‘shine purty darned quick when the weather is warm, like now, and that makes us five dollars boot when we done paying fer sugar and stuff.’

Iris stepped into the barn, treading carefully. It looked a place that might spell a very comfortable home for snakes, and spiders, and all other kind of varmints, and she was acutely conscious that she had no shoes on her feet. She looked into the wash tubs, and saw that they seemed filled with corn covered with a couple of inches of brownish water.

‘What’s them?’

‘Grain for the mash.’ Uriah bent to lift a handful of grain from the water, and let it pour back in a damp stream. ‘We drop it in water for a week, like to set the kernels plumping up good. Then we drain it out, and set it to sprouting.’ He pointed at the furry carpet. ‘Thet’s grain a-growing. We come up here every day and turn it with wooden shovels until it thickens into a mat, then fork it over, and drop it into a big old iron container that come up from the railroad, to dry it in the oven. Then we grind it up, and set it out with water, and sugar, and yeast, to ferment.’

He pointed to a big grinder in the corner of the barn. ‘Thet’s hard turning work, I’ll tell you.’

Iris was fascinated. She had often heard people talk about brewing up ‘shine, and Woodrow had been more than a little keen on the process. But this was her first sight of a real still. ‘Wh’ar d’ya ferment it?’

Uriah led the way to a second series of tubs filled with dark liquid, and Iris saw that some were starting to foam up. She also noted what looked like an old horse blanket stretched between four posts and sagging a little in the middle.

‘Whassat?’

Uriah grinned. ‘That’s what we use fer straining the mash. It gives the liquor a fine and dandy pink colour, and a rare old flavour.’

Iris stepped a little closer. ‘But ain’t it an old horse blanket?’

Uriah sniggered. ‘That’s why Paw’s sour mash is pink and fine tasting. Ain’t nuthin’ like a bit of old horse shit to flavor ‘shine up. He don’t waste it none on the straight squeezin’s. The pink is how folks hereabouts can tell Paw’s finest from that mule piss Deb Cline and Elloyd Lambert run.’

Iris frowned. She had heard of moonshiners poisoning their customers. Woodrow had gotten a batch of Deb’s stuff one time and had whined like he was dying. Maybe he should have done. ‘And then?’

Uriah pointed at a row of big oak barrels. ‘Then we set the brew to stand in them barrels for a coupla weeks, ‘til it be workin’ good and strong, and heat it in the retort to distill the water outta it. Sometimes, when we got the time and the inclination, we run it through twice to double the strength. Paw kin sometimes get four bits a quart for the best stuff.’

The light had now faded to the point where Iris had difficulty seeing where to set her feet. She took a final look around, measuring her amazement. ‘Well, ain’t thet a thang. I surely ain’t never seen ‘shine in the making.’

Uriah caught at her hand. ‘Mebbe, gal, you could help it along a bit.’

He was a strong man, and before she knew what was happening, Iris found herself flat on her back in the middle of the sprouting grain. It felt like a carpet under her, soft and yielding, and she could see Uriah standing over her, pulling off his overalls with what seemed an almost indecent haste. She parted her legs obediently, letting her arm lie limply at her side, and then realised that Uriah was still on his feet.

‘Yo’ don’ put much into this business.’ He was staring down at her, as though he expected some response.

Iris sniffed. ‘Yo’ tek what yo’ gits, husband.’

‘Ain’tcha gonna give me nuthin?’

‘Like what?’ Her voice was flat and unyielding.

‘Like kissin’ me and sech?’

‘I ain’t got cause fer no kissin.’ Iris wriggled in the sprouting grain. It was starting to itch, and she wanted out of it. ‘Y’all want to lay me down, and do what comes nach’rl to a man. Well, go, git down, and do it.’

However this time Uriah was less insistent, perhaps less invasive. Iris thought that he was also taking longer, and she felt something start to build within her. But then he was grunting, and panting, and he rolled away from her, just as she was starting to take an interest, and it was all over. She thought of chiding him, but held her tongue. He had done what he had to do, what he had wanted to do, and that was the long and the short of it. Maybe a woman was just something to provide a man with an outlet, a way of setting a child into her. Preacher Conover said a woman was just a vessel for conceiving and bearing a child. Most men seemed to think so, even though some ended up running at their women’s coat-tails. She thought of Woodrow, sitting with Miz Law, and wondered how long it would take for Widow Law to tame him. She certainly did not see him moving in on the widow and setting a tune to his own music.

The next few days proved uneventful. Iris sewed a larger mattress for herself and Uriah and filled it with dried corn husks, and the newlyweds slept decorously side by side. Uriah once woke, deep into the night, and came questing, moving closer to her and touching her body through her shift. But Capitola possessed sharp ears, and immediately exploded into a volley of abuse. After that they slept in silence and unmoving.

However Iris knew trouble was on its way. She did her best to avoid Capitola outside of meal times, and the Hitt mealtimes were quick and practical: biscuits and coffee at daybreak, biscuits and coffee at midday, if the two men were working close by the cabin, hoe cakes and ham and occasionally eggs in the evening times. Capitola cooked nothing at midday if the men were further afield, but Iris mixed up buttermilk and the odd hoecake she could get away from the table, and found the mixture refreshing. She spent as much time away from the cabin as she could, for she had work and enough to keep her busy: she began her day by gathering eggs and milking Daisy, and then might wash some clothing in the boiler behind the house. Capitola would leave dirty clothing in a pile on the cabin step, and Iris would haul water from the creek, then build a fire to get the boiler good and bubbling, and scrub the clothes with a big bar of home-made lye soap she had brought with her from the Bethpage house, working at the rub board as though her life depended on it. She found the work comforting, for it took her mind off other things. She kept her afternoons for work on what she planned as a vegetable patch, digging and turning the dusty soil and pitching stones out of her way. She found some tomato slips, yellow squash and corn seeds, and planted them into neat rows, though she knew that she was rather late in her planting, and hoped that come late summer there would be rain, and she might be able to plant greens into the bargain. The Hitts also had a big old apple tree, already promising a generous yield come fall, and she found a dry dark place in an outbuilding to dry the fruit. She began churning butter from Daisy’s milk, after finding a jar churn tucked away in the barn, and cleaning it up regular, and altogether she reckoned that the Hitts might eat better in the winter ahead than they had eaten for some time in the past.

But it was a bare, animal existence. Uriah took his pleasure of her after eating, when he was close to the house, and after eating again in the evenings. But he did not speak much, and he made no more requests for marital kindness - their encounters were always basic and brutal and short. From time to time Iris sat on the porch of an evening, sewing and mending, and sometimes Uriah and his parents sat with her. But they did not talk, except when the two men discussed their work in brief bitten-off phrases. Capitola never spoke when she was with her menfolk, and never addressed a word to Iris: it was as though she did not register her presence. But once or twice, when Iris had to leave the porch, she would come back to find Capitola whispering to her son, covering her mouth with her hand, as though to keep her words secret, and Iris was sure that Capitola was speaking against her.

She took the older woman’s enmity as proof that her hard work was starting to create an impression, and one fine morning talked Uriah into riding with her into Coates, to renew acquaintance with Mr. Whiteside, the proprietor of the general goods store, but now as a respectably married woman. Mr. Whiteside seemed pleased to see her, and paid her cash for her butter and eggs and fresh milk, though Iris noted with a wrench in her heart that one of the coins he gave her was a bright shining silver dime. But Uriah was not pleased at seeing her speak with another man, and pulled her away roughly out of the store when her business talk with Mr. Whiteside turned to small pleasantries, and Mrs. Whiteside came in from out back to offer them both a Hire’s Root Beer.

He was sulky as he drove the buggy back, and it was a little while before he spoke. ‘Yo’ don’ hev no call talkin’ to that man.’

Iris shrugged. ‘It warn’t no account. He was jes’ bein’ sociable.’

‘It warn’t proper.’

Iris was silent as the gelding in the buggy traces plodded on steadily.

Uriah turned in his seat to look at her. ‘Yo’ don’ do it agin. Yo’ hear me?’

Iris shrugged again, and her movement seemed to infuriate him. He pulled the horse up, and seized her by the hair at the nape of her neck, forcing her to face him. ‘I tol’ yo, gal. Yo’ ain’t socialisin’ with no other man.’

Iris’ eyes hardened. ‘I gotta talk with him if I’m dealin’ business with him.’

Uriah raised his left hand, and slapped her across the side of her face, glowering at her. ‘Yo’ don’ socialise.’

Iris put her hand to her face. She felt her humiliation more than her pain. Perhaps Uriah’s mother had put him up to this kind of behavior, to treat her like a dog of some kind. She edged away along the seat and turned to get down, but Uriah fastened his hand on the back of her dress.

‘What’re yo’ thinkin’ of doin’, woman?’

‘I’m gonna walk.’

‘Yo’re gonna nothin’.’ Uriah pulled her back up towards him. ‘My folks reckon yo’ ain’t respectin’ ‘em like yo’ should. They figger yo’ should larn behavin’ proper.’

Now Iris knew that Capitola was poisoning her son’s mind, and she was silent as the horse plodded onwards again. Then the animal slowed, and she realized that they had reached the glade where Uriah had so forcibly taken her virginity. He pulled the horse to a halt, and spoke without looking at her.

‘Get down.’

Iris climbed down from the buggy, and saw that he had also climbed down and was unbuttoning his bib-alls. Then he reached back into the buggy for its whip, and she felt a tremor of fear. Woodrow had beaten her when she had been younger, perhaps to distract himself from more sinful desires. Perhaps it had been to punish her for engendering those desires in him. She well remembered the hatred she had seen on his face as he had raised his belt to her. Violence transformed men into devils, intent only on crushing and destroying. She knew that she had come to a moment of truth, and that she must choose between pain and her pride.

She stood facing her husband, and slowly slipped her dress from her shoulders, so that her breasts raised towards him, challenging him. Uriah hesitated, raising the buggy whip, and curled it at her. But he aimed low, and there was no great force in his blow, so that it caught across her legs, still covered by her dress.

Iris let her dress fall further, so that she was now wholly naked in the glade, and she stared at Uriah, challenging him again.

‘Yo’ gotta kneel to me.’ He raised his arm again threateningly.

Iris knelt.

‘Now yo’ kiss me.’

She stared at him, and his manhood raised towards her, rampant a few inches from her face. She had heard tell of what he sought from her, but she also knew that what he was seeking was unnatural.

Uriah thrust his hand into her hair, forcing her towards him, but she knew that she would not do what he wanted. His second blow with the buggy whip caught her across her shoulders, and she winced, and then bent forward so that her head was resting against his shins. He hit her again. ‘Are yo’ gonna do as I tell yo?’

Iris was mute.

Uriah raised his arm again, and hit her again, and then again and again. His blows rained in on her, searing her back and her shoulders, and she crumpled herself into a foetal ball, curling in on herself for protection. The pain he was inflicting was immense, and at times more than she thought she could bear, but she did not utter a sound. She was certain that he could not continue forever, and that this ordeal must at some time come to an end, and she knew that she would not let him break her.

After a while his attack slowed, and then halted. Iris could feel a stickiness on her back, where he had drawn blood, but she tested her muscles, and she was able to stand. She bent to retrieve her dress, and her muscles screamed against her bending, but she was able to move, even though stiffly. But Uriah pushed at her, sending her onto her back in the grass. He was standing over her, his eyes empty, hard black little balls of glass, and he was breathing hard.

‘Now yo’ gonna do it?’

Iris parted her legs without replying.

Later, when he was done, he got to his feet, dressed himself, and got back into the buggy. He jerked at the mule’s reins, hawked, and spat at the ground.

‘Yo’ want to walk, yo’ walk.’

Iris wept softly to herself as she pulled her dress over the pain in her shoulders. But her mind also filled with anger as she began to walk back towards the Hitt cabin. Uriah had beaten her, but he would not beat her again so easily.

She found the Hitts eating at the cabin table. Capitola watched her with a look akin to triumph as she limped through the door, but Iris kept her eyes downcast. She meant to even the score with this woman and her son, and she would wreak her vengeance in her so doing. But she would choose her time carefully. She helped herself to a leftover hoe cake, and took it out to the porch.

She did not have to wait long for company. Capitola came out of the cabin a few moments later in a fury.

‘Wha’re yo’ doin’ out heah, missy?’ Her voice rose threateningly, and she slapped Iris’ hand, sending the half-eaten hoecake flying.

Iris pulled herself painfully to her feet. She could see a potato fork resting against cabin porch wall, where she had left it after tending her vegetable patch the previous day. She summoned all her energy, and moved quickly, pushing Capitola aside and snatching up the fork.

For a moment the two women glowered each at the other. Then Capitola screamed. It was a long, ululating scream, summoned from some primeval source within her, and it brought Uriah and his father running.

‘Yo’ woman done come at me, ‘Riah.’ Capitola pointed at Iris as though at some kind of demon.

Uriah and Jedediah Hitt moved in unison, Uriah snatching the fork from Iris’ hands, his father pinioning Iris’ hands behind her back. Capitola waited for them to secure Iris, and then launched herself at her daughter-in-law, screaming abuse and scratching with her grimy fingernails at Iris’ face. But Jedediah pushed her roughly aside.

‘Have done, woman.’

He pushed his wife aside, and slapped Iris hard across her face, and then again, before taking a step back to stare at her. ‘Why yo’ done a fool thang like thet?’

Iris did not reply. Jedediah was breathing heavily, and he raised his hand again. ‘I ain’t gonna have no dumb rebellion in this house, woman. D’yo unnerstand thet?’ He slapped Iris again.

Iris raised her hands and pushed her dress back off her shoulders, half turning away from him to expose the weals she had taken in the whipping Uriah had given her earlier in the day.

Jedediah let his hand fall. ‘’Riah done thet?’ He looked at his son. ‘Yo’ done thet, boy?’

Uriah nodded. He was still holding the potato fork, and it was as though Capitola had been forgotten. ‘She’s ma wife, Paw.’

Jedediah seemed to think for a long moment, and then he nodded. ‘Guess so.’ He was silent again for a moment, and then drew in a deep breath. ‘Ya’ll did what yo’ had to do.’

He turned, and went back into the cabin, leaving Capitola, Uriah and Iris in a kind of tableau on the porch step. Uriah looked at his mother. ‘Yo’ go back with Paw.’

Capitola nodded.

Uriah stepped close to Iris, and his voice filled with anger as he spoke. ‘Yo’ gone and done a rash thang, woman. Yo’ tried to show me up in front of ma folks. I give yo’ a hidin’ earlier today, to teach yo’ a lesson. But yo’ ain’t done learn nuthin’. Now I’m gonna teach yo’.’

He turned away, striding across the open ground between the cabin and the barn to return with the buggy whip. Then he raised his arm to strike her, and struck her again, and again and again, and was unpityingly heavy and severe in his teaching, whipping Iris until she was sobbing for mercy, and then again, and again, as though she were no more than a mere beast, to be kicked into a whimpering heap on the ground. She folded herself into the same foetal position as she had taken in the grass as his blows rained down on her, and prayed for death to free her, but death refused her mercy, and her deliverance came only with darkness.

She crept away when he had finished with her, like a dumb beast to shelter in the barn, cradling herself up against Daisy in her pain and suffering, and it was as though she had crossed a threshold into a world where a woman could only suffer and count out her days to her deliverance.

Yet time is a healer. Iris slept that night in the barn, and wondered whether she had a whole bone in her body when she woke the next morning. But she managed to milk Daisy, and feed the chickens, and start churning some butter from the previous day’s milking, and her tasks pushed the pains still present in her muscles into the background. Fifteen is a sturdy age, capable of taking a good deal more punishment than more advanced years, and though Iris suffered, she remained unbroken. She wept, and her tears carried a hard bitterness. She knew that she had suffered. But she also knew that with time she would both cauterize her wounds, and burn out the source of her pain.

Uriah came to her again in the middle of the next day, seeking his satisfaction, but  now she repelled him.

‘I’m unclean.’ Her voice was sharp with her refusal.

‘Whass’at?’ He stared at her. He was fresh in from cutting and hauling wood, and he felt a need for relief.

‘Yo’ gotta stay ‘way from me. It be ma time.’

Uriah shifted uneasily. He knew Iris’ meaning, but he also knew that such a time of the month was nothing to some women, and saw no reason why it should be any cause to his woman. ‘Yo’re ma wife.’

‘Yo’ touch me, an’ I’ll hev Preacher Conover haul you out in front of the congregation for ungodliness.’

Uriah scowled. He knew Preacher Conover for a man much given to marking lines and setting boundaries, and a particular fondness for retailing individual moral failings amongst his flock for general discussion. ‘How long yo’ gonna be like thet?’

Iris smiled faintly. ‘I’m jes’ a woman. I cain’t tell the Lord how to rule me.’

Her victory was a small one. But it was a victory nonetheless. Uriah circled her like a hound dog sniffing around a bitch on heat during the next few days, but he refrained from forcing himself on her, and Iris watched her weals healing. She returned to the cabin table to eat her meals, but her presence was grudging: she sat when Uriah and his father sat, and left the table immediately the two men finished eating. She ignored Capitola completely, and the two women were united in their mutual disdain.

Life crept on slowly, and they were four people living under the same roof, but living separate lives that only converged when convenient. Jedediah and Uriah brewed up batches of moonshine, and hid their takings in a jar buried in a corner of the cabin.  Iris milked Daisy, and fed the chickens, and tilled her vegetable patch, where rows of fresh green shoots were now starting to push through the surface soil. Capitola cooked indifferent meals, and spent the rest of her time dipping snuff, spending long hours staring vacantly out over the hills. The tobacco smelled strangely, unlike the Bruton everyone else used. There was a sweetish odor, but Iris did not let her mother-in-law’s idleness concern her, for now she worked for two people, herself and the child she knew she bore within her.

She had made her discovery almost accidentally, on a day when she had expected to refuse Uriah, except that her reason for refusal failed her. She had come up from the creek after hauling water for laundry to the wash boiler behind the house, and Uriah had come up on her unawares. He had sought to take her, and she had been quick in her refusal - for it was now accepted between them that he foreswore his rights from the time she started her monthly bleeding. But she had not bled, and in this failing she began to suspect that she might have conceived. She did not want to broach the matter with Capitola, for she knew her mother-in-law would take pleasure in attempting to destroy any such momentous event. But she managed to talk briefly to Mrs Whiteside, the storekeeper’s wife, and she knew from the certainty in the eyes of the older woman that she was destined to become a mother.

Her breasts began to fill out and grow heavy, and she grew lethargic in her lying at midday with Uriah, even to the point where she folded her arms around him on one occasion - for a mother must seek support and consolation where she can. The gesture surprised Uriah, and he kissed her tentatively, and was astonished when she kissed him in reply.

‘Wha’ wassat fer?’ He lifted himself up from her: they were lying in a patch of hay in the barn that they kept for their trysting.

Iris smiled. ‘I’m with child.’

Uriah stared at her, and her words seemed to take time to sink in. Then he sat up in the hay, looking down at her, and grinned. ‘I’m gonna be a daddy?’

‘That’s right, husband.’

‘Well, hellfire and goddam.’ He thought on it some more, and then got to his feet and pranced around as he buttoned his bib-alls.   Paternity is the validation of a man, his promise of succession and continuation, and he would have a son to take fishing. ‘I better go tell ma folks.’

Iris’ smile faded, and she shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

Her denial made Uriah frown. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’ think yo’ Maw might take kindly to havin’ a baby aroun’ her home. ‘Sides, it be bad luck to tell too soon. Gotta wait till I’m gone at least four months gone. Otherwise, the angels get jealous and take the baby. ’

This thought stopped him in his tracks. Uriah and Jedediah now both kept as much out of Capitola’s way as they could, for the older woman had withdrawn increasingly into herself since her confrontation with Iris on the cabin porch - though from time to time she flared up in occasional sudden, unexpected outbursts of rage, like some quiescent simmering volcano spewing molten lava.  She still cooked, after a fashion, and gathered eggs occasionally. Mostly though she made forays into the woods up behind the still to return with strange plants concealed in a tow sack, and would go into a huddle with some of the other older women after Sunday morning service. Some whispered that she knew how to brew up love potions. Some said she could brew up far worse.

Iris watched him carefully. ‘I thenk we might find a place of our own.’ Woodrow had moved in with Widow Law some time since, leaving the Bethpage cabin empty, and she liked the idea of securing a familiar home of her own. Uriah had not whipped her again since the cabin porch confrontation, but he was a changeable man, with some of the simmering volcanic nature of his mother, and she wanted a peaceful setting for her pregnancy.

He scuffed his toe in the hay. ‘She won’ tek to thet.’

Iris sniffed. ‘Yo’re a man, ain’t ya’?’

Uriah was silent for a long moment. Iris knew better than to try and hurry him, because both the Hitt menfolk liked to chew over important decisions in their minds, much as they chawed their ‘baccy of an evening, before spitting it out into the dirt. He scratched himself through his bib-alls, and it was another sign of the depth of his thinking. When he spoke, he spoke slowly, with all the graveness of a man shaping his life for the future.

‘We got corn to pull soon up at Woodrow’s place. Is thet whar you got in mind?’

Iris nodded, clasping her hands over her belly. She watched Uriah’s eyes focus on her action, and knew that he was traveling the path she had chosen for him.

‘We’d hev our own place.’

‘We c’ld sleep more comfortable…’

‘Yo’re Maw couldn’t holler at you, if you turned in the night.’

‘Thet’s a true word.’ Uriah savored the thought, and she could see that it pleased him.

‘Better vittles, mebbe.’ Iris smiled slowly up at her husband. ‘We got a good ol’ apple tree up there, better than this ‘un here. I could trade butter into sugar and white flour, and ketch up on ma bakin’.

Uriah nodded. ‘Woodrow’s place ‘ld be handy for Coates, it ain’t far from the depot. Ah bin waitin’ on them hirin’, ah c’ld get me some cash money.’

Iris knew that she had won. She had already spoken to Widow Law briefly, after congregation the previous Sunday, and knew the widow wanted to keep Woodrow away from his former home, suspecting that he kept a hidden supply of shine stacked away somewhere. She would be able to take Daisy home: there would be no mules kicking her, better grazing than the Hitts could offer, and she would have her chickens around her. Moving would mean abandoning her hard-won vegetable patch, because she doubted that Capitola would even so much as hoe weeds. But the soil up the ridge was more fertile, she could transplant the tomato plants, and she would soon have her old patch trim and prim and back in order. Perhaps she would be able to talk Uriah into lending a hand, because she knew her husband for a man who aspired to better things than greasy hoe cakes, and suspected that fresh corn and tomatoes and greens on his plate at regular mealtimes might motivate him powerfully. She would also have him away from the influence of his mother, and that would be no mean achievement. A job on the railroad would guarantee security for her unborn child, because Joe Wilkes, the sheriff in Coates, had talked the town into hiring him two deputies and begun sniffing in the hills for illegal liquor.

She smiled up at her husband in her satisfaction. But Uriah mistook her signal, for his bib-alls were immediately down around his ankles. Or perhaps he was not mistaken, because this time Iris put her arms around his neck, and they kissed as they moved together.

 

 

Wild Iris 4