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Sharon Rolens, raised in rural Illimois, is a professional muscian living in Denver, Colorado and author of published short stories and poetry, Worthy's Town is her first novel.

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Worthy's Town

Bridge Works Publishing Company

Chapter One

At age forty-nine, Willa Giberson suddenly found herselfwith her daughter Chastity's newborn to raise. From aninstinct all but forgotten, she put the squalling infant to onethin breast. Like any newborn animal, it knew to suck. Willa'sbreasts began to fill with a colorless fluid, an occurrenceknown as the "wet-nurse phenomenon," and by the end of thefirst week the fluid had turned chalky white. Just as she hadthought she was slowing down, her monthlies coming onlynow and then, she found herself thrust back into mothering.

    "It appears we're in the soup," Worthy said, as hewatched his wife trying to quiet the crying baby. "I figured atour age we was through diapering babies."

    "It must of been God's Will, it sure wasn't mine," Willasaid, still surprised to find a red, wrinkled infant lying in herlap. "But he's here, and I'm already taken with him."

    "I can tell that by just looking at the two of you together."Worthy's usual noncommittal expression began to take onsome of its old youthful pride. He pondered a moment."Who's to say? Maybe having a young one underfoot willkeep us on our toes. Leastwise we won't have time to set androck. I reckon you'll get first turn at the boy, he needs to startout with a mother, and somewhere down the road I'll takeover. I'm game if you are."

    Willa sighed. "I never was good at saying no."

    The baby began to cry louder. Seems he's always hungry,Willa thought as she put him to her breast again. She leanedback in the rocking chair and closed her eyes, allowing randommemories of Chastity to rush over her as they so oftendid these days. Was it only two short years ago that Chastityhad come to her with those first awful fears? She easilyrecalled the incident?still so vivid in her mind.

Willa had been in the cellar, waist high in dirtyclothes, when Chastity approached her. Tears ran down thegirl's face as she stood in front of her mother, and betweensobs began telling what had happened overnight.

    "Ma, there's something bad wrong with me. My sheet?it'scovered with bloody spots and I've got this funny hurtingin my stomach. What do you think's the matter, Ma? Do Ihave to see Doc Potter?" She looked at Willa expectantly,fearing the worst.

    Willa had believed there was plenty of time before hertwelve-year-old daughter would come sick. Girls grow upfaster nowadays, she thought sadly, searching for words toexplain Chastity's malady.

    "It's not so bad as it first seems," Willa said, as she triedto calm her anxious daughter. "It's just another of God'spunishments for women?because of Eve and her sinfulways with Adam. It happens to every girl."

    "But what does it mean?" Chastity sobbed.

    "It means your body's ready to produce babies, but therest of you is barely past playing with dolls."

    "Will it come again, the bleeding?" Chastity asked, hersobs beginning to lessen.

    "Once a moon," Willa had said as she piled a basket highwith wet clothes ready for the line. "And there are some rulesthat go with it. Make sure not to take a bath during yourtime, and especially don't run or jump or wash your head."She handed the girl a gray rag from the rag bag. "Pin this toyour underwear and be sure to rinch it out every night. Otherwiseyou'll be drawing boys."

    "But Ma, there's something else. I get these strange feelingsthat come every night when I'm trying to go to sleep.Even counting sheep won't make them go away." She was onthe verge of tears again.

    Willa knew what was going on with her daughter. Whenshe was a girl herself it had taken all her efforts to suppressthose nightly urgings. "What you're feeling is normal for agirl of twelve," she said, "but you need to curtail such yearningstill your wedding night. Men don't like an easy qualityin a wife." Willa had been surprised to hear her ownmother's words coming out of her mouth.

Willa was not a woman given to looking deep into life.Raised a Hard Shell Baptist, she learned never to questionwhen good or bad came about, God's Great Plan being ofnecessity hidden from mortals, women in particular. Whenshe first learned her daughter, only fourteen years old, waswith child, she accepted it as God's Work, though she couldnot understand His motive. More than once, when Chastitywas carrying the baby but not yet showing, Willa had askedher to name the father, but the girl only shrugged her shouldersand went mute.

    Willa had dreaded telling Worthy, but on hearing of theirdaughter's predicament he merely said, "Now don't that capall!"?the only words passed between them on the subject.(When it was time to name the baby, those words returned toWilla. "Cap Giberson, he'll be called, Cappy for short." Sherepeated the name until it felt natural to her tongue.)

    Neither Willa nor Worthy had known how desperatelyChastity tried to discourage the unwanted thing growinginside her: spreading her legs and poking with Willa's numbernine knitting needle; swallowing salts laced with a pinchof arsenic; pushing and prodding at her round little bellyhoping to expel the squirmy growth. But Cappy would notbe dissuaded. In spite of repeated affronts from sharp objectsand bitter poisons, after eight long months inside Chastity'shostile body, he weighed eight pounds. On the morning ofApril 1, 1925, one well-placed kick sent Chastity's waterspilling across the kitchen floor.

    Willa called for Aunt Pearl, a self-taught midwife wholived in a lean-to near Coal Hollow. By the time the oldwoman arrived at the Giberson house with her bag of crudeinstruments and homemade potions, Chastity was screamingand thrashing in the bloody bed. Finally, after ten hoursof birthing misery, one of Cappy's feet popped out. AuntPearl reached in with both grimy hands and pulled.

    Chastity had taken one look at the wriggling baby andsaid to Willa, "You can have it."

    Following the birth, Chastity lay in oblivion, her feverrising. On the third day Worthy sent for Doc Potter, but bythen the child-bed fever had a firm hold. When her son wasonly three days old, Chastity died.

    At the funeral, Brother Beams kept the mourners twohours. He expounded on God's Mercy and God's Love,and he even brought in the story of the Three Wise Menand the Prodigal Son. Chastity having been called homeearly was God's Will, he said, and therefore not to beargued with. She was no doubt looking down from Heavenat that very moment, wishing the entire family would soonjoin her.

    Cappy, asleep in Willa's arms, loudly filled his diaper.

That night, as the mourning family was preparing for bed,a car drove up the lane and parked in front of the house. Thedriver impatiently honked the horn.

    Worthy raised the window and yelled. "Who is it andwhat do you want at this ungodly hour?"

    "Drayton R. Hunt. There's a matter that needs tendingto."

    "Can't it wait till daylight?"

    "It sure as hell can't."

    Generally, Worthy avoided Drayton Hunt, a bully byreputation and a bootlegger. As a boy, long before prohibition,Drayton had been hired by his uncle to deliver bootlegliquor in townships that temperance advocates had alreadyturned "dry", and after his uncle's death, he took over thelucrative business. By 1925, scotch was selling for $45 a case,beer for $30.

    By the time Worthy was dressed and out the front door,Drayton was standing next to his elegant 1924 Moon; itsidling engine emitted a low growl, its headlamps glowed likean alley cat's eyes. Drayton rested a hand on the open door, alighted cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, hiseyes defiant. Worthy noted Drayton's acne-scarred face, histall, skinny frame.

    "This better be good," Worthy said, as he approachedDrayton. "I ain't in the best of moods after the day I've beenthrough."

    "Your recent grief is mainly why I'm here," Drayton said,snuffing out his cigarette and tossing it away. "It just may be Ican ease your burden somewhat. You not being so young asyou once was, or your good wife either, I've come to take thatbaby off your hands."

    "Why in God's name would you offer such a thing? Youain't knowed for your kind works."

    "Because that baby might just have some of my red bloodrunning through his veins."

    "What are you hinting at?" A chill went down Worthy'sback.

    "I ain't hinting at nothing, I'm stating a fact. I was wellacquainted with that girl of yours, and now I've come toclaim what's mine."

    Worthy moved closer to Drayton and shouted directly inhis face. "Get out of here, you son of a bitch, before I claimyour hide! Am I getting through to you?"

    Drayton spat close to Worthy's bare feet and wiped hismouth on his sleeve. "Sounds to me like you don't believe aword I said."

    "You're damned right I don't, you bastard!"

    "It appears I ain't the only bastard you're dealing withthese days!"

    Worthy's bowels turned to water as he pictured Draytonwith his young daughter. Surely she wouldn't have willinglybedded with this piece of shit, he thought, but there's no wayof knowing the truth.

    "Believe what you want, it don't matter to me," Draytonsaid, "but that high and mighty daughter of yours was as hotfor my pecker as a common whore. Dwell on that every timeyou look at her bastard baby!"

    Worthy could have killed Drayton Hunt without a secondthought, but he would not dishonor his daughter bydropping to Drayton's level. All he wanted was to end thistalk and fall into bed. He took a step back. "You've said whatyou come to say, now get off my land."

    "That suits me, but I'll be back." Drayton got into hismotor car and roared out the lane, covering Worthy with hisdust.

    Worthy walked toward the well, sick with grief. After sittingthrough his daughter's funeral, he had thought the daycouldn't get any worse. He dipped cold water from the bucketand drank slowly, feeling the cold go all the way down. Hepoured what was left in the dipper on top of his head.

    Although Worthy did not want to believe Drayton's disturbingstory, the implications were enough to ruin manynights of sleep. He would not add to Willa's sorrow by tellingher the purpose of Hunt's visit. Worthy walked slowly backto the house, tired as if he had spent the day walking behinda plow.

In the days after the funeral, Worthy and Willa triedto make sense of their daughter's death. They each hadregrets, even feelings of guilt, but neither blamed the other.After supper they sat together near the heating stove reminiscingabout Chastity. Cappy, lying in his basket at Willa'sfeet, made small noises.

    "What on earth did we do to earn such harsh judgmentfrom God?" Willa asked, her face a constant frown thesedays. "I hardly ever raised my voice at her."

    "Hell, Willa, we didn't watch her careful enough andsome young buck coaxed her to lay with him. If that God ofyours was paying attention, He would of stopped the actbefore it begun!"

    "She sure was smart when it came to books," Willa said,not addressing Worthy's bitter remarks. "Remember how shewanted to be a schoolteacher?"

    "I put the quietus to that notion. I blame that pinchy-facedold maid teacher for planting such lofty ideas in herhead."

    "She was always a Daddy's girl," Willa said, her memoriesof Chastity jumping from one incident to another."Remember, Worthy, how you couldn't sit down without herclimbing on your lap begging for a story?"

    Worthy did remember. As a little girl Chastity had trailedafter him while he fed the stock and did the milking. And ona hot summer evening when he went to the outhouse to sit,she would follow as far as the hollyhocks and wait patientlyfor him to finish so he could tell again her favorite story.

    But he also remembered how overnight their relationshipchanged. When she had taken on the scent of a womanat only age twelve, he became embarrassed by any show ofaffection from her. He assumed a gruffness that neitherfather nor daughter understood, causing a growing distancebetween them.

    The September that Chastity was to enter eighth grade,Worthy widened the gap further. He brought up the matterwith Willa, certain she would agree with him as she did withall of his ideas.

    "I've been thinking about the girl," he said. "She's alreadygot as much schooling as you or me, and if she stays here tohome, you could make good use of the help around thehouse and garden."

    Willa remembered when her own mother had made thesame decision, and how devastated she had been at beingforced to leave school and her friends behind. She knewChastity would feel the same. In that brief instant, Willa'shopes for her daughter went up in Worthy's smoke. "Are youthinking she should quit going?"

    "That's what I'm thinking."

    "She's awful smart, Worthy. She never brings home agrade under 95. Seems a pity somehow."

    "I ain't arguing but what she's smart, but that don't changemy thinking. You know as well as I do that females belong inthe home, raising babies and cooking meals. The world wouldbe in a sorry state of affairs if females forgot their place."

    "I'll call her and see what she has to say about it," Willasaid.

    When Chastity heard her name being called, she reluctantlyput aside her book and went downstairs. "Now what?"she asked through the screen door.

    "Your ma and me has been thinking about your schooling,"Worthy said, getting right to the matter, "and howyou've had enough. More than likely you'll be a wife and masomeday, like your own ma, and it's time you stayed homeand learned how to do womanly work."

    "But Pa, I was counting on being a schoolteacher!" shecried. "Like Miss Self! She says I'm smart enough to gothrough high school, even college. I don't want to be a wifeand ma!"

    "You're too comely to wind up an old-maid schoolteacher?"But before he could finish his thought, she hadstormed back up the stairs.

    "I sure as hell wasn't expecting that!" Worthy said toWilla.

    "I was, but you had to hear it for yourself." It won't seemright this September not buying her school shoes and books,Willa thought. Growing up a female wasn't easy.

When chastity didn't answer roll call the first day ofschool, Miss Self dropped in on the Gibersons. ThinkingChastity might be ill, she had brought along some books tooccupy the girl's time. She slowed the car to make the sharpturn into the Giberson lane, carefully picking her waybetween the ducks and guinea hens, and coasted to a stopdirectly in front of the two-story, red tile farmhouse.

    Worthy was sitting on the front stoop sharpening hisknife, preparing to rid the late-summer lambs of their tails.He was not happy to see Miss Self. Not only had she disobeyedthe laws of nature by not having a man to look afterher, damned if she didn't drive a Model T Ford!

    "Good afternoon, Mr. Giberson," she said. She tried tosmile.

    "Afternoon." Worthy did not look up from his work, hisattention on drawing a fine edge to his blade.

    "I noticed Chastity wasn't in school this morning. Is shesick?"

    "No, she ain't sick."

    "Then why was she absent?"

    "Her ma and me figured she's had enough schooling. Fora female," he added.

    "But Mr. Giberson, she's my best pupil, especially in English.The stories she hands in show so much imagination andher grammar is flawless. I'm certain she would make a fineEnglish teacher." She looked expectantly at Worthy.

    "Meaning no disrespect, but women belong in the home,and if I have any say-so, that's where she'll stay."

    "But a student like your daughter seldom comes along.She can answer a question before I finish asking?"

    "I've spoke my piece." Worthy had run out of arguments,and was ready to end the conversation.

    "Mr. Giberson, you aren't the first ignorant man I've hadto confront, and you probably won't be the last," Miss Selfsaid, her voice suddenly sharp. "Denying Chastity theopportunity to fulfill her God-given gift of intelligence isnothing short of criminal!"

Even now, two years later, Worthy remembered theinsult with anger. He had not been accustomed to hearing awoman raise her voice at him, and he had no intention thatday of allowing Miss Self to get the better of him.

    He stirred the dwindling fire and sat back in his easychair, recalling the rest of the confrontation.

    "Now you're getting to the crux of the matter," he hadsaid to Miss Self, "placing the blame square where it belongs,direct on God's shoulders. That `gift' as you call it should ofbeen give to my thick-headed boy where it could of been putto good use. A man needs all the brains he can get if he aimsto prosper in this world and take care of his womenfolk.Getting back to God, I ain't strong for the Bible, but I doknow this much?God made females to be helpmates tomen. Now if them females is off teaching school or the like,men come up suffering. And we both know that ain't whatGod had in mind." He stood. "My lambs is waiting."

    "Here are some books I brought for Chastity," Miss Selfsaid. "They're hers to keep." Her hands shook with anger asshe put them on the porch steps.

    "Self-righteous old maid," Worthy muttered, as hewatched Miss Self crank the Model T and drive away.

    Worthy did not waver from his decision. Chastityremained home where she learned to bake crusty bread andsew a fine hem and push the carpet sweeper and stretch lacecurtains. But in the privacy of her room, she read the booksMiss Self had brought until they fell apart.

    Over the years, Worthy had not allowed himself to considerhow her life might have turned out had he not interfered.

Cappy stirred in his basket. Willa picked him up and puthim over her shoulder; she hummed softly.

    "Time we was going to bed," Worthy said, standing upand stretching. "The fire's about out?I don't want Cappygetting the croup." He banked the fire for the night, andclosed the damper.

    "I'll be along shortly," Willa said. She rocked for anotherfive minutes, and then slowly climbed the stairs to bed.

At five o'clock the next morning, the alarm rang, butWilla burrowed deeper under the covers. Just a few minutesmore, she thought, recalling the recent sad days, anticipatingwhat lay ahead. Now the only female in a family of males,the care of the house and Cappy would be totally hers, atleast while he was too young to help around the farm.

    Feeling her forty-nine years, Willa crawled out of bed,tired from tending the colicky baby through the night. Asbabies will, at first light Cappy had fallen asleep. She bentover the crib railing and kissed his head; it smelled of babypowder and sleep.

    Her black mourning dress was still lying across the backof the chair. Years before she had made the dress for theinevitable day she would become a widow, never dreamingshe would wear it to her daughter's funeral. She shook out thewrinkles and hung it out of sight in the back of the closet.

    Worthy and Tick, their eleven-year-old son, already upand halfway through chores, would be coming in soonexpecting breakfast. But Willa was in no hurry to start cooking.She fluffed the duck-feather pillows and pulled up thefaded "double wedding ring" quilt. For a moment she thoughtshe heard Chastity's step in the hallway coming to help. Butthose sharing times were gone, she thought sadly?not partof God's scheme or He would not have taken her daughterfrom her after only fourteen short years. Of all the troublesWilla had experienced, losing Chastity was the most painfuland the most puzzling. I may need some help getting throughthis tribulation, Willa said to God.

    Keeping her back to the mirror, she took off her longflannel nightgown. She believed a woman's naked body wasnot meant to be looked at, even by her own eyes. In twenty-fiveyears of marriage, Worthy had not once seen her naked.

    Unlike most farm women, who bathed only on Saturdayin preparation for the Saturday night picture show and Sundaymorning worship, Willa performed her toilet daily. Shepoured cold water into a pan and quickly washed her body.After drying herself, she dusted talcum under her arms, andrubbed some between her legs for good measure. She put ona dress made from flowered feed sacks, and a clean apron oflike material, black shoes that laced, and heavy cotton stockings.The stockings were too hot for spring wear, but theyhelped hide the bulging veins in her thick legs.

    Willa stood back and studied her reflection in the mirror.A plump, plain woman with deep frown lines, and pale blueeyes that held no hint of humor, stared back at her. Even as ababy she hadn't been pretty, her mother had told her oftenenough. But pretty isn't everything, Willa thought in herown defense. (Had she told her own daughter that she waspretty? She couldn't remember.)

    Willa smoothed her sparse gray hair into a tight bun andpinned in a matching net, giving her hair the look of dustycobwebs. Once her hair had been like Chastity's, the color ofgolden corn shucks, and had been instrumental in drawingWorthy's first look. She recalled the play party where theyhad met and how they danced every reel, her long hairbouncing with each step. Worthy was still the best dancer inGreene County, though lately there had been neither timenor spirit for dancing.

    Cappy was awake again and fussing. Willa changed hisdiaper and wrapped him in a light blanket against the earlymorning coolness. Balancing him on one shoulder, she carriedhim gingerly down the steep steps. "Twelve," she saidout loud as she reached the bottom step. "Now what do yousuppose caused that to come out of my mouth?"

    Willa put Cappy in his basket and started breakfast. Shestood at the cookstove frying fresh side meat and eggs, stillpuzzling over the number she had spoken for no apparentreason. She set the hot food on the table just as Worthy andTick came in from the barn.

    "One," Willa said, as they sat down to eat.

    "One what?" Worthy asked. "Pass the side meat, Tick."

    She thought for a minute. "One week since the funeral, Isuppose."

After breakfast was over and the last dish washed andput away, Willa glanced at the kitchen curtains. The backgroundwas white, sprinkled with tiny pink flowers, butsmoke from the cookstove had turned the white gray. Theseare due for the wash, she thought. "Fifty-six." Her hand flewto her mouth. "Land, what's happening to me?"

    She looked again at the curtains and one by one countedthe flowers. Fifty-six. Willa was worried; she was notinclined to talking to herself, as many lonely farm wives did.And how could she have known there were fifty-six flowersbefore she counted them? She sat at the kitchen table andread through the Farmer's Almanac to see if mention wasmade of the ailment. Two paragraphs were devoted to dropsy(acute and regular), and female complaints took severalpages on both sides, but she found nothing that mentionedcalling out numbers. I must be the only one with this problem,she thought, wondering why God had singled her outonce again.

    Finally she settled on a reason based on her Baptist background.God wants everything in His Kingdom to becounted, she thought, and He wants me to help with thecounting. In exchange, He won't call me home before mytime like He did Chastity. With Baptists all over the worldtalking to God, I'd best count out loud so He'll be sure tohear me.

    Though not aware of it, Willa had been counting to herselffor years. She could have recited the number of buds onthe rose trellis the previous summer, or how many stitcheswere in her "double wedding ring" quilt, or the number ofsteps the mule took from home to town. The ritual hadbegun with her first pregnancy; counting the days until shewould be delivered, counting the days until Worthy wouldagain intrude himself into her body.

    In her depression over losing Chastity, Willa's need tocount became vocal. Now, not only did she know she wascounting, so did Worthy and Tick.

"God, doesn't expect stars and blades of grass to becounted," she explained to Cappy, as she oiled him fromhead to toe with fresh-rendered lard. "And dove droppings,they can't be counted. Eye blinks can be counted. But notgnats." At nighttime, her day's work done, she would tiptoethrough the house counting heads on pillows: Tick madeone, Worthy two, Cappy's towhead made three, and her ownhead would make four when she could find time to lay itdown. Sometimes she counted Chastity's empty pillow, saying"five" in a low voice to keep from waking Worthy.

At harvest time that year and with extra farmhands tocook for, Willa turned the care of the baby over to Tick.Every morning she pumped her breasts dry and filled twobottles with the warm, rich milk. She showed Tick how toprop the bottle so Cappy wouldn't suck air and get colic, andhow to change his diaper without sticking the wrigglingbaby's bottom with a pin. Cappy soon learned that one loudcry would bring Tick running to his side.

    Tick was happy with his new duties; they beat workingin the fields hearing his pa yell orders at him like he was agoat. He didn't even mind changing the urine-smelling,soggy diapers. When he would accidentally touch Cappy'stiny penis, it would grow as straight and stiff as a tenpennynail.

    To feed the hungry farmhands coming in at noontime,Willa baked four pies?two fresh peach, two wild blackberry.She scrubbed seventy-two new red potatoes for boiling,fried five young roosters and opened two jars of lastyear's Country Gentleman sweet corn; four hundred and thirteentiny white kernels were packed inside each blue jar.

    One hundred eighty-three days since the funeral.

Even after Cappy outgrew diapers, Tick, who had quitschool after the fourth grade, continued caring for the boy.When Cappy began to walk, the two became inseparable, inspite of eleven years' difference. The first thing every morning,Cappy would set out looking for Tick, and once hefound him, he would not leave his side until bedtime.

    As soon as he could put words together, Cappy beganasking questions. Worthy and Willa were too busy to attendto his growing curiosity, but Tick always had time. ThoughWorthy found his older son backward, Cappy believed thathis big brother knew the answer to everything. In return,Tick reveled in the admiring attention from the boy, the onlyperson in the house to give him credit. Teacher and pupil. Asatisfying arrangement. Neither cared that Tick's answersusually missed the mark.

    When Cappy was almost six, he and Tick were walkingthrough the south pasture, and came upon the old ram matingwith a ewe. Although Tick had witnessed such scenesmany times, it was Cappy's first.

    "Tick, look at that! What's Old Rammy doing?"

    "He's fornicating."

    "What's that?"

    "It's when he pokes his peter inside her. That's whatpeters are for, to poke into something."

    "I use mine for peeing out of," Cappy said.

    "Someday you'll find something you want to poke itinto."

    "You're the smartest brother in the whole world," Cappysaid, as they walked toward the woods, hand in hand.



Continues...

Excerpted from Worthy's Townby Sharon Rolens Copyright © 2002 by Sharon Rolens. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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