A Gathering of Old Men Read Free

little pointed nose and a little red mouth and gray eyes. She looked like a owl more than anything else, and that’s what the people in the quarters called her behind her back—Miss Owl.
    “Something the matter?” she asked again. She looked at the Major all curled up in the swing. “Jack drunk,” she said. She looked at the gold watch on her short, fat arm. “Not even twelve-thirty yet,” she said.
    “I been calling and calling your house,” I told her.
    “I was on my way over here,” she said. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
    “Candy,” I said.
    “What about Candy?”
    “They been a killing,” I said.
    “What?” she said. Her gray eyes looked hard at me, but behind all that hardness I could see she was scared. “Candy?” she said.
    “No’m. Beau,” I said.
    “Beau?” she said. “Candy? Beau? What happened?”
    “Beau dead,” I said.
    “Candy?” she said.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Where’s Candy?”
    “In the quarters,” I said.
    “What’s she doing down there?”
    “That’s where it happened,” I said. “Mathu’s house.”
    “Oh, my God, my God,” she said, and throwed her hand up to her mouth. She looked toward the garry where the Major was curled up in the swing sleeping. “Jack?” she called to him. “Jack? Jack?”
    “He can’t hear you,” I said.
    “Where’s Bea?” Miss Merle asked me.
    “In the back yard looking for pecans,” I said. “Miss Merle, Candy want you down the quarters right away.”
    “Who else know about this?” Miss Merle asked.
    “Just the people in the quarters,” I said. “She wanted me to notify you and Mr. Lou, but nobody else.”
    “You got Lou?” she asked me.
    “He’s at dinner,” I told her.
    “Oh, shit,” she said, and looked toward the garry again. “Jack? Jack?” she called.
    “He don’t hear you,” I said. “He’s been like that since ’leven o’clock.”
    “I better get down there,” Miss Merle said.
    She got back in the car. She was so fat she had a hard time doing it.
    “Pray,” she said. “Pray, Janey.”
    I knowed she was talking about Fix and his drove.
    “Pray, Janey,” she said, swinging that car around. She was backing over flowers, over little bushes, little trees, spraying gravel all over the place, all over me, too. “Pray,” she said, going out the yard. “Pray.”
    I went back in the house. She didn’t have to tell me to pray. I was doing that long ’fore she got there.

Myrtle Bouchard

aka

Miss Merle
    I had Lucy bake me an apple pie, because I knew how much Jack just liked his apple pie. I told Lucy when she came to work that morning if she baked me the best apple pie she ever baked in her life I would give her half the day off. She told me don’t worry. And I’ll be darn if she didn’t bake the best one I had ever seen or tasted. Golden brown and sweet, but not too sweet—just sweet enough. I told her, at twelve o’clock sharp, she could take off because I am a woman of my word. She said, “Don’t I already know that, Miss Merle?” Bless her heart. She said, “Why you think I baked the best apple pie I ever baked in my life? And the next one go’n be twice as good.”
    We both left the house at the same time, she going to her place at Medlow, and I on my way to Marshall to see Jack and Bea. The pie was for Jack—and, Lord, I wished he liked me much as he did apple pie. But I had been saying that for years and years now.
    When I drove into the yard, I saw Janey coming out of the house in a hurry. I knew something was wrong, and whenshe came out into the yard I could see that she had been crying.
    Then she told me. And I thought to myself, My Lord, my Lord. I looked at Jack asleep there in the swing, and I thought to myself, My Lord, my Lord.
    I forgot all about the apple pie. I hurried back into the car and sped out of the yard. Turning down into the quarters, I could see the tractor in the middle of the road, and I could see Candy’s black LTD parked in the