Page 9

"Am I doing the right thing, Grandmere?" I whispered. I heard only silence and then Pearl smacking her lips.

I fed her, but her appetite was as curtailed as mine. She really only sucked a little of her bottle, and as she did so, she kept closing her eyes. It was as if she were just as emotionally exhausted as I was, as if every feeling, every emotion, went from me to her over the invisible wires that bound mother and child. I decided I would take her upstairs and put her to bed, and had just gotten up to do so when I heard a car approaching. Its headlights washed over the house and then it came to a stop and I heard a car door open and slam. Had Paul come back with new arguments? Even if he did, I thought, I couldn't weaken my resolve.

But the heaviness of the footsteps on the floor of the gallery told me it was someone else. There was a loud rapping at the door, making the entire shack shake on its toothpick legs. I walked slowly from the kitchen, my heart beginning to pound almost as hard as that rapping.

"Who is it?" I asked. Pearl gazed curiously toward the door as well. Instead of replying, the visitor pulled the door open so roughly, he almost lifted it off its hinges. I saw this hulk of a man enter, his messy brown hair long and straggly to his dirty thick neck. He had hands as big as mallets, the thick fingers caked with grease and grime. When he stepped into the light of the butane lantern, I gasped.

Although I had met him only once and seen him only a few times before, Buster Trahaw's face loomed in my memory beside my worst nightmares. He was even uglier than he was the day he had come to the house with Grandpere Jack to solidify their agreement that I would marry him if he would give Grandpere as much as a thousand dollars. What was even worse was, Grandpere was going to let him sleep with me beforehand, to test me as if I were some kind of merchandise.

I remembered him then as a man in his midthirties, tall and stout with a circle of fat around his stomach and sides that made it look as if he wore an inner tube under his shirt. He had added to that girth since, and his facial features, distorted by his weight, were now so bloated, he looked like a cross between a pig and a man. Only now he had a stringy beard, untrimmed around the chin, with hairs curling off his neck and joining to make it seem as if he were part ape, too.

When he smiled, his thick lips practically disappeared under the mustache and chin hairs, revealing the loss of most of his front teeth. The ones that remained were stained with tobacco juice, making his mouth resemble some cavernous charred oven. The skin on the exposed parts of his cheeks was flaked and peeling, reminding me of a snake shedding. There were thin, wiry hairs emerging from his huge nostrils, and his eyebrows joined to form a thick, dark line over his bulging dull brown eyes.

"It is true," he said. "You're back. The Slaters told me when I brought my wagon in to be repaired."

He leaned back, opened the door a bit, and spit out a wad of chewing tobacco. Then he returned his gaze, his smile wide.

"What do you want?" I demanded. Pearl held tightly to me. She began to whimper like a puppy at the sight of him.

His smile evaporated quickly. "What do I want? Don't you know who I am? I'm Buster Trahaw and I want what's comin' to me, is what I want," he said, and stepped forward. I retreated as many steps. "That your new baby there? She's a honey child, all right. Been makin' babies without me, have you?" he said, and laughed. "Well, that's over."

I felt the blood drain down to my feet as his intentions became clear.

"What are you talking about? Get out of here. I didn't invite you into my house. Leave or--"

"Hey now, whoa horse. You forgettin' what's coming to me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talkin ,,bout the deal I made with your grandpere Jack, the money I gave him the night before you run off. I let him keep it 'cause he said you was comin' back. Course, I knew he was an old liar, but I figured the money was well spent. I said to myself, Buster, your time will come, and here it has, ain't it?"

"No," I said. "I made no agreements with you. Now, get out."

"I ain't gettin' out till I get what's comin' to me. What's the difference to you anyway? You make babies without a husband at your side, don'tcha?" He flashed that toothless smile at me again.

"Get out!" I screamed. Pearl started to cry. I started to turn away, but Buster moved quickly to seize my wrist.

"Here now, be careful you don't drop the baby," he said with a threat in his voice. I tried to keep my face turned away from him. His breath and the odor from his clothes and body was enough to turn my stomach. He started to pry my arms from Pearl.

"No!" I cried, but I didn't want the baby hurt. She was screaming hysterically when he put his big, dirty hands around her waist.

"Let me just hold her a moment, will ya? I got babies of my own. I know what to do."

Rather than pull and tug with Pearl between us, I had to release her.

"Don't hurt her," I begged. She cried and waved her arms toward me.

"Hey, now, hey. . . it's your. . . uncle Buster," he said. "She's a pretty one. Goin' to break someone's heart, too, I betcha."

"Please, give her back to me," I pleaded.

"Sure. Buster Trahaw don't hurt babies. Buster Trahaw makes babies," he said, and laughed at his own joke.

I took Pearl back and stepped away.

"Put her to bed," he ordered. "We got business to conduct."

"Please, leave us alone . . . ple