Power in the Blood by Greg Matthews Read Free Book Online Page B

need me at home,” and walked out.
    Explaining himself to his father was another matter. Edwin Delaney owned ninety-eight acres west of Tamsen, Missouri, and considered himself something of a gentleman fanner. He was educated, erudite, no friend of fools.
    “Why,” he asked Clay, “did you do this thing?”
    “I don’t like it there.”
    “Because they mock your height?”
    “Yes!”
    “Please moderate your voice. The measure of a man is often the limits to which he allows himself to be pushed. I find it hard to believe a flock of schoolchildren has pushed you to your limit, Clayton.”
    “Well, they did. Them and the teacher.”
    “You don’t think you’ve taken their name calling too hard?”
    “No.”
    “Observe my nose. Do you see its distinct leaning to the left?”
    “Yes.”
    “In school I was made fun of for that small defect. I rose above it, and I recommend you do the same. An unlettered boy becomes an ignorant man, or do you disagree?”
    “No, I just … I can read books by myself. I don’t need school to learn things anymore. I don’t like it there. I like helping you here.”
    Edwin had noticed Clay’s preference for farmwork over study. The boy’s hands and feet were huge; he was lantern-jawed, and his ears stood out like jug handles. He already looked like a farmer.
    “A lifetime of physical labor is your ambition?”
    “No. I don’t know yet. For now … yes. Labor.”
    “If I beat you, would you return to school?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes.”
    Edwin Delaney stared for some time at his son by adoption. The act had officially been recorded at the county seat, and Delaney was proud, in an undemonstrative way, of the boy he had brought into his home. There were, however, aspects to Clayton’s character that puzzled him. The boy’s phenomenal growth was to be marveled at, the manifestation of an unusual physical condition, but it was the stealthy workings of Clay’s mind that prompted a subtle disquiet in the man.
    “Very well. I intend working you hard. If you find you’ve had your fill, you will return to school. The choice will be yours, do you understand?”
    “Yessir. Thank you.”
    “I wonder, Clayton, if you’ll thank me a week from now.” The boy had always been willing to help in the fields but, apart from extended assistance at harvest times, had never truly been pushed. Edwin employed a man named Chaffey to work the farm with him, and Clay was handed into his care for a tough assignment. “Don’t give him any slack,” Edwin ordered. “Use him hard.”
    “I will, Mr. Delaney, you can bet on it.”
    “See that you do.”
    Clay was introduced to the new regimen by being ordered to dig postholes for a new fence. He made no complaint at all, even when his hands began to blister. Next, Chaffey and Clay began felling trees on land Edwin had recently purchased, thirty-three acres adjacent to his own. The former owner, a keen hunter, had left an extensive section timbered for game cover, but Edwin had no need of sport. The trees were all to go, and Clay was to perform more than his share of the work required to be rid of them.
    Chaffey reasoned that anyone so tall and skinny wouldn’t have the muscle necessary for reducing woodland to farmland, but the boy surprised him, chopping with a will, manhandling the mule team with a natural talent Chaffey found intimidating. No one should work that hard, or make it look that easy. The boy was showing him up, obliging him—in the beginning anyway—to work beyond the usual parameters simply to maintain his pride. He began to resent Edwin for having placed Clay in his charge.
    “Heard you never wanted no more schooling,” Chaffey said, as they shared lunch. Conversation between them was stilted, engaged in only during the daily half hour when both stopped working to eat.
    “That’s right.”
    “Never felt the need for it either. Had a cousin went to school, though. Fell in a horse trough drunk one time.