VI. A Slip from Grace
Word circulated fast about H.W.'s accident and Eli took full advantage to connect it and Daniel's misconduct with the curse of the first well brought about by his rebuffed blessing. The slander polished his sterling image brighter while he spewed toxin from the new pulpit built on the profits arranged upon sale of the Sunday ranch for construction of the anathema he outspokenly damned. Each mention of evil or sin made in his horatory preaching referenced back to Daniel. Any slight offence or petty fault the prospector exhibited was picked at with zealous glee by the preacher who flapped and waved his arms in motions that, paired with his black clothing, were more corvine than human. He was a malicious raven come to peck at the flesh of a luckless boy and his despairing father.
Mary held her tongue against the urge to shout a demand for him to shut his mouth because her adopted family had endured insurmountable hardship without sending the oil man into another protective rampage. In the pews with her natural family, she bore Eli's ridiculous defamation with a forced smile and clandestine eye rolls, badgered by Rose Monahan who wanted more notes passed to the reverend. The only saving grace was her pending freedom to traverse to the Plainviews afterward. She attended the Church of the Third Revelation because she was forced to but she visited the Plainview cottage because she wanted to and it was always worth the wait. Nothing good ever came without a payment in something bad.
In waiting out the hours, her mind already was at the cottage, not watching H.W., who shamefully wasn't in the picture at all. She was with Daniel, alone, on his lap and in his arms, those warm arms that were an impregnable fort against life's brutality. Her eyes shut, her imagination working so hard that she swore she felt the embrace in reality only it was across her shoulders rather than around her waist. Instead of affection, a sharp cuff to her ear along with an order from father to pay attention jolted her out of her reverie. Twenty minutes later it didn't matter because she was on her way to the cottage, where she wanted to be.
There were no improvements in H.W.'s condition but the boy's attitude was more refractory and defiant. Daniel put him on a steady regimen of the officinal goat's milk and whiskey concoction to keep him pacified and under control, arguing that as much he loved H.W. he could not handle both his business and an infirm son all at once. His otiose, unprofitable attempts at communicating with his progeny, the endless frustration he was rewarded with day in, day out, were difficult for her to watch. His one reprieve was that her visitations enabled him to tend to the business without excessive worry since someone was with the boy. The treacherous strain on Daniel inspired him to resort to complete immersion in whiskey and work, his single profitable venture, for a needed escape. The girl marvelled at her father figure's remarkable sangfroid, his ability to keep things together under the extreme duress of what had to be one of the most difficult trials in his life. New resultant wells were brought in apart from the first one, much to Eli's dismay. Irate because Daniel still owed the $5,000 subvention to the church, the money was as much an idée fixe for Eli as Daniel was to Mary. It was the only thing he talked about, mentioning it whenever the opportunity arose and creating an opportunity when it didn't. Anyone with common sense knew that the prophet was a bull chasing red, heedless of the sword behind the matador's cape. But telling him that was asking for trouble so she let it be.
Little Boston became a seething witch's cauldron ready to boil over, credited to the parsimonious game between preacher and oil tycoon. Eli's relentless castigating words were rocks tactically arranged over Daniel's chest to crush him but H.W.'s predicament overturned some of the town's popular negative opinion of the prospector regardless of how hard Eli tried to send him over the edge. Sight of his weakened prey made Eli a facetious jackal and he applied pressure without mercy. It was his civic responsibility, he insisted, that he exposed Daniel for the hell-bound miscreant that he was. And eventually the weight of Eli's words was heavy, albeit his conscience was empty. The sequacious acolytes of the Church of the Third Revelation backed Eli's muckraking, resting at night with clear conscience that they were aids in winning God's war. Those who attended the church but had no close affiliation with Eli alike with the nonconformists who cared nothing at all for religion considered Eli's name good and believed his verbal assassination of Daniel without trying to disentangle the recondite purpose behind the oil man's erratic, unsociable behaviour. Their blind acceptance of Eli's word without question was deplorable. They knew not the private hell Daniel was trapped in but they were keen to stoke its punishing fires to burn him.
The day the tension culminated, she was keeping vigil over H.W. when the boy grew implacable in his sleep. Moaning, he cried for his father, tossing and turning hysterically and when his eyes opened he went into a violent fit that couldn't be soothed. There was no use: he could not hear her and, in his ire, possessed greater strength. Single-handed because Fletcher, trusting H.W. to her care since there was no past incident, had abandoned his post outside for the drilling site earlier that afternoon, she had no choice but to risk leaving her friend so she could find help.
"I'll get your father!" she tried to tell the boy thrashing wildly on the bed. "Stay here! I'll get him!"
Traversing over the rocky terrain and dodging through a grove of trees, thriving grass and large rocks, she darted posthaste at breakneck speed to the drilling field in search of Daniel. Here the foetid odour of oil, closely resembling the stench of an outhouse, strengthened in potency more than anywhere else and she gagged. Below a pit acted as a reservoir for oil draining from the wells, pooling it into a shiny tenebrous lake of molasses…and on its opposite side Eli approached, heading directly for the same group of men she was on her way to meet. Halting to duck behind a tree, Mary realised that the Gods were on the warpath again and she sought exclusion from it. An incontestable bad moment had been chosen to harass Daniel; the oil man's collective turmoil waited to be unleashed at any given opportunity as it was. Here was the opportunity as the captious glare he seared through Eli went unheeded. She could not decide if she should admire her brother's fortitude or curse his stupidity. A loaded gun with the safety off, Daniel was fine to handle with utmost care untill his trigger point was pressurised. Once pressure was added, the instigator got what he asked for. Eli opted to apply the foolish, temerarious pressure. Again.
He stopped in front of Daniel and mumbled something indistinct but Mary didn't need to hear the words. Whatever they were they combusted Daniel's volatile temper like gunpowder licked by flame and the piercing crack of the oil man's open hand meeting the side of her brother's face resounded to her hiding place. Eli's appalled expression was classic and it was committed to her memory with great satisfaction. However, Daniel was not finished and delivered not only a second debilitating blow that knocked Eli completely to the ground but a third when he tried to stand again. Whereas Eli's had been inaudible, Daniel's anguished voice was prevalent and reached her ears with crystal clarity:
"Aren't you a healer? And a vessel for the Holy Spirit?"
Hatred and rage unadulterated disfigured Daniel's handsome features untill he looked like someone else, someone she did not know. It wasn't far from the truth either. This was a Daniel she did not know. For a split second she feared for Eli's life. Crazed, Daniel hovered over her brother's cowering form in a threatening and more domineering than usual stance, his face reddened and eyes bulged.
"When are you coming over and make my son hear again?" yelled Daniel, practically frothing at the mouth. "Can't you do that?"
"If you had let me bless the well," countered Eli unwisely in a high pitched squeal, "this wouldn't have happened!"
A harder dispensed slap landed Eli on his hands and knees. Mary flinched, wanting to intercept but was afraid for herself if she did. On any other day Daniel was innocuous toward her but in his present state he was not in his right mind and could easily make a mistake. The bond of blood she possessed but abhorred swelled her eyes with tears despite knowing her brother rightfully deserved the cruel manhandling.
"Daniel," caterwauled Eli, "you shouldn't have done that!"
The bleeding young man received another unrestrained smack in answer. Eli crawled away, a worm in the dust, grovelling in a voice typical of the opposite of his sex, Daniel in pursuit, kicking him with his massive boot as he tried to escape the onslaught.
"You owe the Church of the Third Revelation $5,000 as part of the arrangement we made!"
Mary's eyes gaped with unabashed horror as her mercurial angel usurped Eli by either fistfuls of hair or collar and dragged him kicking and screaming to a large mud puddle. Eli fought with all of his might but Daniel sat on his chest to pin him down, incapacitating him in the filth and nearly drowning him in it. An unexpected lump of emotion rose in her throat at witnessing this timely affray and her tears burst free. Daniel was supposed to be her protector, a benign champion, not a maniacal berserker! She wanted Eli penalised, not killed! He was still her brother and no amount of abuse he gave would ever dispel that fact. It was quite clear that Daniel was no saviour after all but a villain wearing a different mask. She hated him and she hated that she was tricked into believing he was good despite the copious dreadfull things she heard about him.
The contention lasted only a good solid minute yet it stretched on forever untill Daniel rose off of his impuissant prey and walked off, leaving Eli flat on his back in the pit and wearing his sin on the outside just as plainly as his rival did. Honestly thinking him dead, Mary strained to check for signs of life in her brother, finding them when he wallowed in the mud of his defeat, struggling to get up. Then her betrayed eyes rested on Daniel who'd just reached the audience of men…and his gaze met hers. His expression instantly metamorphosised from satisfied superiority to one of bottomless regret, not regret for what he had done but for that he'd been caught doing it.
"Mary!" he called, his voice softened again. "Mary, wait!"
But she didn't. Visceral self-preservation instinct sent the mortified girl into a daunted run like a jack rabbit out of the copse of trees where she had been hiding and he was the bloodthirsty coyote giving earnest chase. He shouted after her, pleading for her to stop so he could explain, but she couldn't stop running. Untill the exertion of the chase was too much and he staggered and hit the ground. Things changed abruptly when she heard him cuss after the sound of impact. She halted and whirled around, seeing him struggle to get back on his feet. On bended knee, he cradled his bad leg, which she guessed was the one he'd put his weight on in the fall. Sympathy for the demonic fiend was refreshed and, though her heart softened, terror still wore on her face.
"Don't run away from me, my sweet. Why are you running from me?" he asked. He knew why and he knew that she was aware of his knowledge.
Refusing him an answer, she stepped backwards when he reached out for her. It was impossible to unsee what he did to her brother and what she saw when she looked at him now was the irrevocable image of Eli drowning in mud. Every bit of it hurt. A crash like glass shattering resounded in her ears only it was the sound of her destroyed hope.
"You're not upset about Eli, are you? You shouldn't be. Not after everything he's done to you. You know he got what was coming to him."
Daniel at last stood on wobbly legs.
"He's still my brother," she reminded, voice unsteady and saturated with emotion.
"No. He's nothing to you any more. Your rightfull place is with H.W. and me."
He tried to take her hand but she abstained, retracting as if his grasp would induce death itself.
"So you're afraid of me now? Don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of, I won't hurt you. You know me better than that."
Dispute that she thought she knew him better wanted to be screamed at him but the words were formless on her tongue. Nor would the angelic simulacrum ever be what it once was. Everything she built in him altered, this moment etched in the back of her mind forever. An innocence had been lost.
"Mary, please. Eli had it coming. You know in your heart that I'm right. You know that I would never lay a hand against you and that I love you. Be a good girl. Come to me. Come to your daddy, my sweet."
Rather than trying to grab her again, he let her come to him freely, keeping his hand extended in kindness the way one would do with a beaten animal. Carefull hesitation ruled her because she desired to trust and love him wholly but the brutality she inadvertently viewed had exposed an insensate monster inside him that could be released as easily as the compassionate father figure she idolised. With more time and cajoling, he finally won her over and she propelled into his arms with such force that he nearly toppled backwards.
"That's it," cooed Daniel in her ear as he enfolded her tightly against him. "That's a girl. I'm so sorry you saw that. You weren't meant to see it."
Body quaking, she sobbed against his chest. Heaven help her, he was irresistible and she meant to stay with him for the rest of her life in one way or another!
"You have no reason to be afraid of me," he insisted, his voice mellifluous and soothing. "None whatsoever. I'm sorry. Everything's going to be fine."
For several long minutes he cradled her, waiting for her nerves to calm with a father's infinite patience. When her composure was gathered and the ephemeral fear gone, he looked at her with the gleam of genuine remorse in his eyes.
"Feel better?"
She shrugged.
"Why were you down here any way?" Daniel's voice switched from consoling mansuetude to parental sternness. "Aren't you supposed to be watching over H.W.?"
New purpose caused Mary's heart to pound hard once more. H.W.! In stumbling upon Ell's demeaning battering, she had forgotten why she sought Daniel in the first place.
"Oh no! H.W.! He needs you! He's going crazy!""
There was no greater exigency for Daniel than the welfare of his son. Nothing else was required for him to grasp her hand and head toward the cottage like an arrow, suddenly adroit despite his fall and more agile than expected with his deterrent leg and her straggling, significantly shorter gait. By the time they reached home, he was sweating and ragged of breath in the fraught effort to arrive much sooner.
The irrational H.W., who was expected to be in hysterics, was reconciled, curled up and asleep on the floor with his blankets strewn about and a few things upturned or out of place. Daniel's terror expired as he gazed upon the stationary form of his son.
"He must've tired himself back out," he spoke his thought aloud. "Look at the mess he made."
"I'll clean it up," she volunteered.
He smiled warmly at her. "Thank you, Mary. Your help is always appreciated."
She granted him a wide berth as he hoisted H.W. into his arms and settled him back into bed with tender care, restoring a fraction of her lost confidence in him. H.W. stirred and moaned when he felt the indent of Daniel's body as he sat at the foot of the bed and reached over to smooth the boy's hair from his sweaty brow. Then he motioned for Mary to join, which she did without the prior faltering.
"You don't have to be here if you'd rather not be," he told her. "You can stay away for as long as you need to come to your senses. You're welcome here at any time, day or night, because you are a part of this family. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't want you to ever do anything you don't feel comfortable doing so take your time. I won't force you."
"Yes, sir."
"Are you over being afraid of me?"
She nodded, ignoring the lingering fear of his virulent unpredictability. Mary was not thoroughly ready to disclaim the new insight based on her first hand account. It was like having an irrational yet entrenched fear of someone who hurt her in a bad dream.
"Good," he murmured softly, "because you have nothing to fear in me."
The smile he produced was sentimental when he caressed her face and kissed her cheek. The affectionate gestures helped her feel better and leant his oath plausibility. Before he returned to the fields, he provided a light repast of fruit and porridge for her then another overcompensating kiss on the cheek.
The sense of being at home in the Plainview homestead gradually returned.
Twilight became denser and the return home was bedeviled by subdued dread of the pending conflict from Eli, but he was nowhere to be found when she arrived, remaining absent even while the table was set for supper. For this she was ecstatic and busied herself beyond the usual to alleviate the apparent unnecessary tension she created for herself. Supper passed with few spoken words when Eli finally sauntered in, hackles raised and still caked in the head-to-toe muddiness of his distastefull timing. He resembled a clay golem in appearance and in the stiff, aloof manner that he marched to his chair at the foot of the table.
Everyone tried their best to ignore the emasculated fanatic and the bilious force his company descended upon the house. He glowered at father through slitted predatory eyes but Abel did not acknowledge the vexation. Mother and Ruth's faces were taut and remote, feigning disinterest in the inevitable skirmish when in fact it was the most interesting thing ever to happen to the family. Mary, who had closer proximity to father than with Eli, swore a growl emitted from her brother's throat before he spoke.
"You are a stupid man, Abel," he hissed with vehemence. "You've let someone come in here and walk all over us."
The female trio braced themselves yet remained detached and deaf to the chastisement.
"You let him in and do his work here," Eli fomented, "and you are a stupid man for what we could have had."
The wearisome father was appalled not only by his own foolhardiness and realisation that his son's indictments were right but because the last thing he wanted was confrontation about his blind ignorance to Daniel Plainview's treachery. The old man wanted to lick his wounds in peace.
"I followed His word, Eli. I tried."
Mary flinched when father admitted that he trusted that this man Plainview was a prophet who hailed from the Church of the World, come to rescue them from poverty just like she believed he was an angel sent from Signal Hill by Paul. Everyone had their own ideas about what Daniel was and in the end it appeared that they had universally been duped by a smooth talking politician. No complaint could be made on Mary's part since either way she acquired something more precious than an angelic guardian in him: a father figure, however flawed he may have been. The chauvinistic Sunday men clashed with a reputable enemy who possessed fortitude of steel and shared not her sentiments. But father's mea culpa about a lack of common sense was an unprecedented miracle. So shocked were the women that they set aside their forks and listened intently to the pugnacious opposition.
"You didn't do anything but sit down," bemoaned Eli. "You're lazy and you're stupid. Do you think God is going to save you for being stupid? He doesn't save stupid people, Abel."
A brief, troubling pause stifled the room before, in one swift motion, Eli rose from his chair, knocking it over as he leapt atop the table and lurched across its surface to oust father from where he sat. A black raven cawing the old man's doom, Eli swooped down upon father, sending him crashing backwards to the floor with his unfettered son on top of him, screaming: "I will tear you apart for what you've done, you stupid man!" Mary, Ruth and mother flew up with equal celerity and, to the young girl's expected dissatisfaction, were ushered into the next room, out of the way of men's business. Once the door separated them from the men, she grimaced and shook her head in frustration. She wanted to have within eyesight what was within tempting earshot. Ruth was content in her removal from the fray altogether and mother went back to monitor the men. The youngest Sunday could not comprehend how her sister restrained the curiosity that ran feral in her.
"How did he come here?" jeered Eli, the Devil in his voice. "Do you really know? I know!"
"Son!" beseeched father. "Don't do this, please!"
"Be quiet!" repudiated Eli. "Shut your mouth, Abel! It was your stupid son! It was Paul who told him to come here! I know it!"
Paul's name wafted its way to Mary's ears, quickening her pulse. Was there missed correspondence from her estranged brother? Had it been addressed to her and Eli's interference prevented her from receiving it? How else would Eli know that Paul sent Daniel? Was he aware that the prospector was sent to protect her? She listened intently to learn more.
"He went to him," Eli bellowed in highhanded harangue, "and he said, 'My stupid weak father will give away his lots. Go and take them.' And you let it happen! A stupid father to a stupid son!"
Mary turned away from the vociferous quarrel when Ruth nudged her and suggested that she come to bed. Reluctant, she adjourned from the altercation and followed her sister into the bedroom. They changed into their pyjamas, skipped their prayers and slipped inconspicuously into their beds.
The interminable clamour from the other room was blocked out of her ears by oneiric preoccupation. The peculiar stench of oil and the mechanical whine of the drill snaked in from beyond the window and she wondered if she would ever be able to acclimate to either. The smell functioned jointly as a bane and a comfort, unearthing fond memories of Daniel upon whose skin it was fragrant and good. Snuggling into her blankets against the night's chill, her thoughts depicted his warm, oil-scented flesh pressed against hers in a protective embrace as he nestled against her ear, murmuring a lullaby to obstruct the bad sounds.
The racket of the busy drill made itself usefull then, too, obnubilating the tussle outside the door and earning its right to be compared with what was happening within the Sunday walls. Her mind wandered from subject to subject, landing again on the male members of her family. Eli bullying father was abuse too and she did not condone to the abuse of anyone, not even the perpetrators of her personal abuse. While a majority of those who grew up in a violent home repeated the vicious circle in one way or another, she was a rare gem in the reverse affect violence had on her. Violence for whatever reason was unjustifiable in her eyes. An all too familiar personal experience, it was forever disturbing that her angel was equally capable of it.
But were angels not violent creatures, created to execute violent acts? Stories of angelic conduct she had spent her entire life hearing about were recalled: Michael battled Lucifer and drove Adam and Eve from Eden, angels levelled Gomorrah and reduced Lot's wife to a pillar of salt, angels were responsible for the destruction of the thousands-strong Assyrian army and annihilated enemy tribes who pursued the Jews in their exodus. Angels, in hindsight, were not saintly creatures but instead were ones that kept their wing tips dipped in the blood of mankind. They did God's dirty work, things that the Almighty wouldn't bother soiling His own hands with. After her observation of Daniel's unhinged actions, she had to reassess the nature of such fierce creatures, and the outright carnage she may have doomed the town to by calling one down. Proof supporting the adage to be carefull what you wish for was the irony: she had longed for Daniel to force-feed Eli a taste of his own wicked medicine yet was sympathetic for the ambitious preacher when he finally received his just desserts. Now there was an ensuing, unstoppable domino effect rippling through the Sunday family tree.
A consanguineous noose strangled her heart with no other option but to side with her disillusioned brother as he fumed in anger, debased before the people who practically worshipped him. How the congregation or the other Sundays would feel hereafter was critical to Eli's livelihood. When all one had were the dreams of a better future through that livelihood then it was a thing too valuable to lose. Plus wounded pride would never let this humiliation go unavenged.
A residual awkwardness was brought to the breakfast table as the silent family ate with seldom a fleeting glance at each other except when passing things that were requested. Eli's chair was notably vacant again in his newly habitual absence since the ranch had exchanged owners and this time remained so for the entire meal. Prescient experience sourced from a lifetime of knowing him enabled Mary to predict that Eli's conceit would hole him up from sight for a few days. Eli's vicious cavilling accused the oil man of wheedling the land from its rightfull owners without fair recompense and that father, like everyone who had leased their land to Daniel, easily capitulated their most valuable asset without wit or foresight. Eli's curse was he had known ahead but everyone had been too greedy to listen where he had been too greedy to not. Injured pride was a near mortal blow to him. Pride was deadly indeed.
But the hope of sunnier, Eli-free times was too good to be true, as the girl discovered during her daily trek to the Plainview cottage. Midway en route, at the isolated spot between where neither household was in sight, a freshly washed Eli sprang out of the grass and trees to barricade her path, startling and terrifying her to the extent of putting her life before eyes.
"Off to see the backsliders so soon?" he sneered in a tetchy way that implied risk in answering.
"Leave me alone, Eli," she demanded, lacing her words with vehemence. Facial bruises left in the wake of Daniel's molestation were coincidentally not unlike the ones Daniel had seen on her face. "I'm not bothering you."
"I know you saw what he did to me yesterday. You saw and you did nothing to prevent it."
"What could I do? I'm just a kid."
How great was it that the twin's usual effrontery had returned!
"He loves you. He's taken you under his wing and favours you above everyone else. He dotes on you like you're his own daughter. How lucky you are to escape the devil's cruelty. What will you do when he is crushed by the Lord's fist? Do you think that the Church of the Third Revelation will welcome you back into its fold after you've rejected your blood kin for a hellion and his black army?"
Mary's frustration seethed. "What did you say to him to ask for what you got?"
A consummate coward who could not risk vengeance against Daniel face to face like a man and fearing exposure of his secret nature to light for Little Boston, he raised an open hand to take it out on his little sister where his malice went unseen. Gasping, she flinched, and it was enough to certify that he continued to wield some power. When the blow did not come and Eli's hand rested back at his side, outrage poured from her.
"If you hit me, he'll know," she warned. "And he won't let you get away with it."
"He bullied me. He told me that he was going to bury me underground. Do you believe that excusable? Do you want to see your brother, your own flesh and blood, exterminated like a common cockroach?"
"I don't know, Eli. He's my friend. You always tell others about being washed in the blood of the Lamb. Well now you've been washed in the mud of Daniel Plainview. Doesn't feel very nice when you don't want it, does it?"
Shoving passed her unreconstructed sibling, she resumed her walk to the cottage. The insubordination did not deter Eli's aim to drive his point through her heart like a stake.
"He is not your father, Mary!" the dejected young man shouted after her. "That boy is not your brother! I am! I am your brother and you are obliged to keep your loyalties to me!"
Snubbing him with unsurpassable pleasure, she kept an obstinate pace untill he either gave up and went away or at least shut his mouth. She promised no such loyalties to an artificial person.
By the time she reached the cottage, she was breathless with fright to the point of asthmatic that she prevented Eli from seeing. Paranoid of bumping into him for a second round, her eyes roved the countryside and, not minding where she was walking, crashed directly into Daniel's spindly legs. A startled whimper escaped her throat but he had a hand on her shoulder, stabilising her before she refrained.
"Mary!" he exclaimed, surprised. "What's wrong? You're as pale as a ghost."
The handsome, rugged face of the man she adored was a sight for sore eyes and she shook her head.
"I saw a wildcat," she fibbed, glancing over her shoulder to check if she had been chased.
One to not shirk his tutelary duties, however voluntary for a child not his own, and set on edge by her lie, Daniel scanned the premises for the fabricated cat, drawing her tightly against him with a defensive swipe of his arm.
"I don't see one," he assured softly, squinting in the already bright sun to better see. Completing his surveillance and at ease again, he asked, "Did you eat anything yet?"
"I had breakfast with my family."
A disconcerting growl escaped his throat, imitating that old lion again, this time defending its young.
"H.W. is asleep," he informed her. "I would be ever so gratefull if you sat with me for a minute or two, all right?"
"OK."
He led her by the hand to the couple of chairs out on the porch and gestured for her to sit. After she chose the one just outside the opened door, he took his seat next to her. Captivated as always, she watched him light the pipe she had not been aware he'd held in his hand and puff away on it. Her eyes closed and she breathed in the rich scent of the smoke, wondering why it wasn't as offensive as the cigarettes that sometimes took its place. During this brief intermission, he inhaled a few long drags, tangled in thought while he stared into the desert with only the crepitation of the ancient chair beneath him audible. Perhaps he was searching for the wildcat but she did not think so. Other matters troubled him, read in the lines of his face.
At length, he cleared his throat and, not looking at her, confided with defeated glumness, "I don't know what to do with H.W. I don't want to send my son away. I don't know what I would do without him."
She stared at her feet, hooked together and swinging like a pendulum beneath the chair. Quietly waiting for his next sentence, she watched him smoke and thought of how the habit befit him much better than the flask kept filled with rank liquid in his breast or back pocket.
"You have me," she stated simply, testing her waters with him.
His eyes shifted from the arid landscape before him to her freckled face. In the second prolonged recess she forced herself to return his intense gaze, still determined to verify that she could handle it and finding it easier this time.
"So I do," he consented then grinned. "Thank you, Mary Sunday."
Smiling, she corrected, "Mary Plainview."
Daniel could not suppress a light chuckle for her risible adjustment. His smile broadened in Cheshire cat fashion and was as sunny as the California horizon.
"H.W. will be glad to hear it," he told her. "I think he's smitten by you."
"Not H.W.," she returned sombrely, besotted by her hero.
A twinkle was in his eyes that she had never seen before. Enlivened from head to toe by it, her feet swung higher, faster in immature adoration. Rising from the chair, he administered a tender kiss to each of her cheeks then to her forehead, she trying to not wince at the sharp grazing of his bristly moustache. The smell of the sweet tobacco clung to his clothing and she detected the dirt beneath the nails of his unwashed hands. Emptying the pipe out by tapping it against the sole of his boot heel, he straightened with a pandiculated stretch that cracked his back before recommencing his kingly stature.
"I need to get to work now," he informed. "I'll be back to check on you later."
Mary's heart fluttered as fast as a hummingbird's wings as she watched him walk away.