The Butterfly - James M. Cain [21]
"You like Wash?"
"He's a fine boy."
"You coming to see us?"
"Any time I'm asked."
"You will be, because he loves you."
"I want Jane with us."
"Me too."
We went to the window and called, and Jane slipped on a dress and came out, and that was the first it came to us there was no more home in Blount, now that Belle had died and Moke had left it. And then we decided that Jane should move in and live with me, and that made it wonderful. "And specially with me here, because you can have Kady lend us Danny now and then, when she's going up to Philadelphia to visit her rich friends, and I can take care of him and you can teach him how to ride."
She was laughing at me, but I wouldn't have it that way. "It's not on account of Danny at all. It's on account of you, Jane. On account of both of us. We'll be happy."
"But we'll have Danny, sometimes."
"Then all right."
Kady got to laughing by then, and we all started laughing, and then we all got some Coca-Cola and drank it, and held hands.
"And I'm glad of one thing."
"What's that, Kady?"
"That I'm not going to be married in that church up there, where we held the funeral today. That's what I'm trying to get away from. The one I picked out, the Methodist Church in Carbon, is pretty. It's gray stone, with a square tower in front, and it's what I'm going to."
"That's right."
"And I've ordered flowers."
"What kind?"
Jane was so excited we were going to have regular flowers from a florist she had n flutter in her eyes. And when Kady told us how they were going to put lilies and things all around inside, I was glad too, and it seemed to me that was really the right place for her to go, and it was all going to turn out wonderful.
Chapter 9
I was up before dawn, and got all my feeding and milking and cleaning done, and put on my best suit, and we had our breakfast. Then I took a rest while they worked, because they had to get Danny ready and get dressed themselves. Then women began dropping by from all up and down the creek, and they had to have it explained to them all over again, how Wash would come out around noon and take the girls and Danny in, while I would follow along in the truck, so I could take Jane back, while Kady and Wash would go over to the hotel with Danny and change into other clothes, so they could drive off some place. So then there was a lot of talk about the flowers Wash was going to bring, and I had never worn one in my life, but I thought for Kady's wedding I would put one in my buttonhole. So I knew where some wild roses were, down the creek a way, at the edge of a piece of woods, and started down there. But I didn't more than get started when up on the mountainside I saw something move. Now so far as I was concerned, that still up there I knew nothing about, had never seen, and never heard of. But that was so far as I was concerned. So far as an officer was concerned maybe I was the fellow that lived closest to it. Or maybe I had left something up there and forgotten about it. Or maybe when I talked to him I'd have got a funny look on my face. I had to know who it was, because there was no regular business anybody could have up there, fifteen feet from the shaft mouth, but nowhere near anything else.
I crossed the creek on some stones, kept under the cliff so I couldn't be seen, and hit the path that led up to the timbered drift, the one we had used to roll our stuff into after we hauled it up on a block and falls from the road. About a hundred feet inside was a tool chest where I kept extra