BAD BLOOD
I hung the dishpan on its wall peg and carried the rinse pan outside to empty it. Blissie and Daddy come up from the woods, and Blissie toted her armful of wood inside. Daddy dropped his on the ground by the woodpile and called me over.
He used his angry voice, even though he hadn’t had a drink since last night. “Didn’t I tell ya never to talk to Royce Grayson?”
My voice come out quiet. “Yes, Daddy.”
“The Shortwell boy said ya was talking to Grayson when he found ya last night.”
My voice gathered some steam. “I didn’t talk to the man, Daddy. Honest. He talked to me, but I didn’t say nothing back.”
“What did he say to ya?”
“He offered me a ride home. He was jist standing there when me and Corky pulled up. But I wasn’t goin’ go with him. I swear I wasn’t.” I was afeared Daddy would ask where I’d been with Corky, but his mind was stuck on Grayson.
“He was already there?” Daddy looked away for a minute, and I could see he was thinking. “The day ya run into him at the cemetery, was you there first? Or him?”
I thunk back. “I didn’t see him when I got there, but when I was at Papaw Pickens’s grave, there he was—behind me. Scared me the way he come up quiet like that.”
Daddy shook his head fierce and doubled his fists, but I knew he wasn’t riled with me. “He must’a follered ya there.”
“But why, Daddy? Why would he do that?” I knew he didn’t foller me from Harlan, but if he’d been lurking and seen me leave with Corky, he had’a know we’d come back sooner or later. Thinking that a growed man slunk around, watching and follering, give me shivers that sent ice clear to my bones.
Daddy clenched and unclenched his hands. “I don’t trust that man any further’n I could fling a mule in full harness. You jist keep away from him.”
I nodded so hard my teeth rattled. “Yes, Daddy.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, and I felt its warmth right through my dress. “You ain’t at fault, Adabel. There’s been bad blood betwixt me and Royce Grayson for near-about twenty years. But I didn’t think he’d carry his grudge to my family.”
“Twenty years?”
“Near-about. He was checkweighman back then, and shorted me on my tonnage time and again. When I could prove it, I reported him to Putney and got him fired. A miner’s got to be able to trust the man who weighs the cars.”
Daddy give my shoulder a pat afore he moved away and turned to the woodpile. “You run along inside, Adabel, and don’t worry none. I think me and Royce needs to talk.”
Don’t worry none? I hoped Daddy wouldn’t git all liquored up afore he talked to Grayson. I wondered if Norris telling him about Grayson was what brung on Daddy’s binge last night.
I didn’t recollect Mr. Grayson being weighman, but it wasn’t like I forgot. Twenty years ago I wasn’t even born yet. It was hard to picture someone else doing Mr. Fraley’s job. Fraley was the only checkweighman I knew.
As I carried the empty pan inside, I remembered talk of another weighman. Reaching to hang the pan on the wall, the jumbled thoughts of two weighmen fell clearly into place. The pan slipped from my fingers and clanged to the floor. I gathered it up quick and ignored Raynelle’s scolding look.
Daddy’d said Mr. Grayson was the checkweighman twenty years ago. And Miz Bailey’d said Mamaw Pickens wanted Mama to marry a checkweighman!