Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page B

down and bring him up.”
    “Is he all right, Clay? Did you get him well?”
    “Who? Vearl? Well, I reckon he’s all right. If he’s not, I’ll take him to see the doctor in town the first thing tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t worry about him none now.”
    Lorene released Clay and started towards the cabins. She went as far as the middle of the road and stopped. Clay went to bring her back.
    “It won’t do no good to take on about him like that,” he said. “The little fellow’s all right. I’ll bring him up for you to see the first thing in the morning.”
    He had barely finished speaking when he thought he detected a familiar odor about Lorene. He bent closer, lowering his nostrils to the collar of her dress. After that he straightened up.
    “Looks like you and Tom have been at that jug of his,” he said accusingly. “Now, Tom promised me and Semon the rest of it. It wasn’t fair for you to take it.”
    She laughed at him and threw her arms around his neck again. He could not protest any more after that.
    “I was just dying for a drink,” she said. “Tom said it was all right.”
    “You dying for a drink?”
    “Sure.”
    “I didn’t know you’d taken to drinking the dew, Lorene. You didn’t use to do it. When did you start that?”
    “Oh, some time ago. I got so I liked it.”
    “I reckon you did. Most everybody likes it, but I didn’t know you would. You didn’t use to take it.”
    “I’ve been drinking Georgia corn for the past year or more, Clay.”
    “In Jacksonville?”
    “Yes, in Jacksonville. Why?”
    “I didn’t know they’d have it down that far.”
    Tom came between them, pulling Semon with him. Clay stepped back and went to the car to look at the jug.
    “This is the preacher I’ve been telling you about, Lorene,” he said. “I didn’t lie about it, now, did I?”
    “Are you a preacher?” she asked, looking up at Semon’s great height.
    “I am, I am,” Semon replied sternly.
    “He sounds like it,” Lorene said, turning to Tom. “Let’s go in the house so I can see him better in the light.”
    Clay ran between them and the gate.
    “Now, doggone it all, Dene’s in there,” he said.
    No one paid any attention to him. They pushed past him and went up the path to the house. He ran to stop them, but each time he tried to block the path either Semon or Tom pushed him aside.
    “Now, wait a minute, you folks,” he cried at them, standing on the steps and thrusting his arms at them. “Dene’s in there, now, and you folks wait a minute.”
    Lorene and Tom laughed at him. Semon acted as if he had taken sides with them and was intending to follow them. He hung at Lorene’s side.
    “Wait a minute,” Tom said. “Wait just a minute.”
    Clay thought at first that Tom had sided with him, but when he saw Tom running down the path to the car, he was not certain what Tom had meant. He got the jug from the back seat and ran to the porch with it.
    “There’s enough to let everybody get a sniff,” he said, pulling the cork.
    He handed the jug first to Lorene. She took a drink, making a face at the jug when she finished. Tom handed it next to Semon, and Clay had to jerk it away from him because he was afraid Semon was going to take it all. There was only one swallow left when it got back to Tom. He finished it and threw the jug on the ground.
    Lorene ran into the house ahead of them. The others were only a few steps behind her. The lamp on the table in Dene and Clay’s room was lit, and Dene was standing beside it. She had heard the commotion in the yard when they had first arrived, and she had been watching them from the front window.
    “It’s been a long time since I saw you last, Dene,” Lorene said. “You’ve grown up since then.”
    “I didn’t know you were coming back,” Dene said, looking at Clay. “I thought you—”
    “It’s just a visit, Dene,” Tom said, breaking in. “She just came back for a few days to see the folks.”
    “Vearl’s down at