Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(29)

McPherons.

Maggie Jones drove out to the McPherons’ on a cold Saturday afternoon. Seventeen miles southeast of Holt. Beside the blacktop there were patches of snow in the fallow fields, drifts and scallops wind-hardened in the ditches. Black baldy cattle were spread out in the corn stubble, all pointed out of the wind with their heads down, eating steadily. When she turned off onto the gravel road small birds flew up from the roadside in gusts and blew away in the wind. Along the fenceline the snow was brilliant under the sun.

She drove up the track to the old house set back off the road a quarter mile. Beside the house a few low elm trees stood leafless inside the yard that was closed in by wire hogfencing. When she got out of the car a mottled old farm dog scuttled up to her and sniffed her leather boots and she patted his head and went through the wire gate up to the house and knocked on the screen door. Above the steps was a little screened porch, the mesh mended in places with white cotton string where it had been torn or poked through with something sharp. Beyond was the kitchen. She went up the steps onto the porch and knocked again. She looked in, the kitchen was more or less orderly. The table was cleared of dishes and the dishes laid in the sink, but there were stacks of Farm Journals and newspapers loaded up against the far walls, and greasy pieces of machinery—cogwheels, old bearings, shank bolts—were set out on mechanics’ rags on each of the chairs except the two that were placed opposite each other at the pine table. She opened the door and hollered in. Hello? Her voice echoed, it died out in the far room.

She came back off the porch and out to the car. Now there was the far-off sound of a tractor muttering and popping, coming up from the pasture to the south. She walked down to it and stood around the corner of the horse barn out of the wind. She could see them now. Both brothers were on the tractor, Raymond standing up behind Harold, who sat behind the wheel driving an ancient red sun-faded Farmall with the canvas wings of the heat houser bolted over the block onto the fenders for protection from the wind, pulling an empty flatbed hay wagon. They’d been feeding cattle out in the winter pasture, hay bales and pellets of cottonseed cake, scattering the cake in the feed-bunks. They jolted through the gate and stopped and Raymond got off and swung the gate closed and climbed back on, and they came banging and clattering past the corrals and past the loading chute up to the barn. The lid on the tractor’s exhaust stack flapped with bursts of black smoke, then they shut the engine off and the lid dropped shut and suddenly Maggie Jones could hear the wind again.

She stepped away from the barn and stood waiting for them. They got down and approached her slowly, calmly, as deliberately as church deacons, as if they were not at all surprised to see her. They moved heavily in their winter coveralls and they had on thick caps pulled low and cumbersome winter gloves.

You’re going to freeze yourself standing there, Harold said. You better get out of this wind. Are you lost?

Probably, Maggie Jones said. She laughed. But I wanted to talk to you.

Oh oh. I don’t like the sound of that.

Don’t tell me I scared you already, she said.

Why hell, Harold said. You probably want something.

I do, she said.

You better come up to the house, Raymond said.

Thank you, she said. At least one of you is a gentleman.

They went back to the old house across the frozen lot in the wind. The dog came out to meet them and sniffed at her again and retreated once more into the open garage. They mounted the steps to the house. On the little porch the brothers bent over and unbuckled their manure-caked overshoes. Go on in, Raymond said. Don’t wait on us. She opened the door and entered the kitchen. The house was not warm but it felt better out of the wind. They came in after her, closed the door and took their gloves off and set them out on the counter where they looked as stiff as firewood curled open in the permanent shapes of their hands. They unzipped the tops of their coveralls. Underneath they wore black button-up sweaters, flannel shirts and long underwear.

You want any coffee? Raymond said.

Oh, that’s too much trouble, Maggie said.

It’s only what’s left over from noon dinner.

He set a pan on the stove and poured the coffee from the pot into it. Then he removed his cap and the hair stood up in short gray stiff shocks on his round head. She thought his head looked beautiful, had a clean perfect shape. They both looked that way. Harold had removed the greasy pieces of machinery from one of the extra chairs and had dragged it up to the table. He sat down solidly. When they were inside the house the McPheron brothers’ faces turned shiny and red as beets and the tops of their heads steamed in the cool room. They looked like something out of an old painting, of peasants, laborers resting after work.

Maggie Jones unbuttoned her coat and sat down. I came out here to ask you a favor, she said to them.

That so? Harold said. Well, you can always ask anyhow.

What is it? Raymond said.

There is a girl I know who needs some help, Maggie said. She’s a good girl but she’s gotten into trouble. I think you might be able to help her. I would like you to consider it and let me know.

What’s wrong with her? Harold said. She need a donation of money?

No. She needs a lot more than that.

What sort of trouble is she in? Raymond said.

She’s seventeen, Maggie Jones said. She’s four months pregnant and she doesn’t have a husband.

Well yeah, Harold said. I reckon that could amount to trouble.