The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd Read online

  “If you’re not willing to look into this, I’ll have to talk to someone higher up,” Virgil said.

  The judge agreed to hear the case the next day.

  On Friday afternoon Virgil, Cyrus and the pig all appeared before him in a courtroom that wasn’t actually a courtroom at all. It was a meeting room in the Grange Hall. The judge sat behind a table, and six men from town sat on the right-hand side to serve as jurors.

  Virgil was first to tell his side of the story. He said Cyrus had come looking for his lost pig, and when he didn’t find it he came back and took one of Myrtle’s litter. Twice Cyrus interrupted saying he did no such thing, but the judge told him to be quiet and that he’d get his turn when Virgil finished. Other than Virgil’s claim that his pig disappeared the same night Cyrus came searching for a lost pig, there was no further evidence.

  Cyrus then got his chance. He told how two months earlier Virgil bragged at the feed store saying Myrtle had given birth to seven piglets with only one of them stillborn. Ace Morgan, who was sitting in the audience, nodded and said, “Yep, that’s the God’s-honest truth.”

  That caused an outburst of guffaws, so the judge banged his gavel and asked Ace if he was testifying.

  “No, sir,” Ace answered. “I’m just agreeing with the truth of what was.”

  The judge told Ace he’d have to be quiet or be thrown out of the courtroom.

  Cyrus lifted the pig that now weighed well over forty pounds onto the judge’s table and showed the earmark. Then he pulled his earmark cutter from his pocket and punched the same pattern in a piece of cardboard.

  “See,” he said proudly. “The same.”

  After everything that needed to be said was said, the six jurors went to the back of the room and put their heads together. Three of the men claimed they’d also heard Virgil bragging on his litter of seven with one stillborn, and given what Ace hollered out it was as good as a majority. Olaf Andersen argued they ought to give the pig to Virgil just to keep peace in the county, if for no other reason.

  Since Olaf was the only dissenter, the group decided the pig rightfully belonged to Cyrus. In deference to Olaf, who was deathly afraid of losing Virgil’s water, they told the judge that although the decision wasn’t unanimous they’d found Cyrus innocent of any crime because a man couldn’t steal what was already his.

  The judge dismissed the case.

  The Following Summer

  It would seem the judge’s ruling would have put an end to the issue, but it didn’t. For the first time in longer than anyone could remember, the men had something to razz Virgil Jackson about. For weeks after the trial ended, someone would holler out some sort of pig comment every time Virgil walked into the feed store.

  “How’s that litter of seven doing?” they’d joke.

  Now if there was one thing that riled Virgil more than being bested, it was having people laugh at him. Twice he stomped out of the feed store so red-faced it looked like he’d either explode or fall over dead of a heart attack.

  Cyrus knew he had gone too far this time. He rode over to the Jackson farm and tried to make amends by giving the pig back to Virgil, no strings attached. Weary of being the butt of pig jokes, Virgil looked at Cyrus with his eyes pinched into angry slits.

  “Take your damned pig and get the hell off of my land!” he shouted. When Cyrus argued he was only trying to make peace, Virgil grabbed his shotgun and fired a warning shot.

  As far as Virgil was concerned, the offer simply added insult to injury. That afternoon he pulled two of the farm hands out of the field and had them build a dam. It blocked the flow of pond water going downstream into the brook that crossed Cyrus’s cornfield. Within weeks the brook was a bone-dry gully with nothing but the remains of a few fish scattered about.

  “Now you’ve done it!” Ruth said angrily.

  Cyrus argued most of the harvest was already in and before next spring he’d make things right with Virgil. Although he tried to dissuade Ruth’s fears, the truth was a feeling of apprehension had already settled into his chest. Virgil was not a forgiving man, so Cyrus knew he’d have to sweeten the deal and give up more than was justified.

  In early March, he put two of his fattest pigs in the wagon and headed over to the Jackson farm.

  “Let’s let bygones be bygones,” he told Virgil then said he’d brought two of the nearly grown pigs as a peace offering.

  “I ain’t interested,” Virgil snapped. “Now get off my land!”

  “This is double what you wanted,” Cyrus argued. “And these two are almost ready for market!”

  Virgil squared his jaw and gave Cyrus a look that was hard and as unforgiving as the mountain itself.

  “You shamed me,” he snarled, “and that ain’t something I’m willing to forget!”

  Feeling his back was to the wall, Cyrus bowed his head and said humbly, “I’m truly sorry for that. And seeing as how this was all my fault, I’m willing to make it three pigs, plus you get your choice of the litter.”

  “Get off my land!” Virgil repeated.

  “Aw, come on, Virgil, I’m giving you three pigs, and it ain’t gonna cost you nothing. All you gotta do is open up the dam you got blocking my water.”

  Virgil took his time answering.

  “It ain’t your water,” he finally said. “It’s mine. And I ain’t about to give it away for no three pigs. You bring me all nine, and I might be willing to think things over.”

  “Nine?” Cyrus shouted. “You crazy? I ain’t about to give you the whole damn litter just ’cause you got a gripe stuck in your craw.” Before he stopped to think about the consequences he said Virgil could go straight to hell and stomped off.

  Feeling he’d at long last gotten even with Dodd, Virgil stood there laughing. As Cyrus climbed back into his wagon Virgil called out, “You’d better take my offer right now, ’cause when you come back begging I’m gonna want all them pigs and a cow too!”

  Cyrus turned, looked Virgil in the eye then spat on the ground.

  “I’d sooner starve to death than come begging to you!”

  “You just might end up doing that,” Virgil sneered. “Yep, you sure enough might.”

  Later that afternoon Cyrus told Ruth what happened. When she broke down and sobbed, he assured her everything would be okay.

  “We still got the creek up by the ridge. We’ll get by.”

  Ruth pulled a hankie from the pocket of her apron and blew her nose.

  “That land’s no good for planting,” she said as she sniffled.

  Cyrus knew she was right, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.

  “Hush worrying,” he said. “You know I’ll always take care of you.”

  As he spoke the words his heart pumped hard against his chest. In it he was praying the Lord would help him find a way to survive.

  * * *

  That summer one piece of bad luck followed another. The small patch of land by the creek yielded a meager harvest. It was barely enough to feed the two of them throughout the winter, and there was nothing left over to sell. Then two of the four cows wandered off and found a patch of water hemlock growing alongside the creek bed. Within hours of eating it both of them were dead.

  In April Ruth missed her monthly, and then it happened again in May. At first she thought it was due to so much worrying, but by June she knew differently. She’d been sick every morning for almost two months. Her breasts were swollen to half again their normal size, and she had a ravenous craving for rhubarb pie.

  The rhubarb Cyrus planted on the back side of the house didn’t break its bud and start growing until nearly June. When it finally came in, the spindly, colorless stalks were three times more sour than they should have been. Twice Ruth tried making a pie of them, but no matter how much sugar she added the taste remained bitter. When the second pie came out of the oven more bitter than the first she began to sob.

  “Without water nothing will ever grow here,” she said through her tears.
r />   “That’s not true,” Cyrus replied. “Rhubarb doesn’t need a lot of water.”

  He tried to explain the warm winter was to blame because the plants had remained dormant for too long. Ruth was in no mood to listen. She turned her back to him, walked out and sat on the edge of the porch. Looking across at the fallow field she continued to cry.

  In early September Cyrus brought in two baskets of green beans that were skinny and limp as a piece of yarn. That’s when Ruth decided somebody had to do something about the situation. She waited until he left for town then started out walking toward the Jackson place.

  Before all the nastiness got started, she’d sat alongside Bethany Jackson at the spring fair. They’d talked as mothers often talk, about making jam and raising babies. At the time Jeremy was the Jacksons’ only child; now they had two. Ruth had never seen the second boy, but Melanie Ann at the dry goods store told her of him.

  Ruth reasoned that once she and Bethany were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, they could have a cup of coffee and talk things over. She’d explain this whole hullabaloo was nothing but two grown men arguing like boys. Bethany was a sensible woman with a good head on her shoulders. She’d talk Virgil into accepting some kind of a peace offering, and then they could all get back to life as it had been. As Ruth pushed her way through the overgrown pathway she thought, One day Cyrus will thank me for doing this.

  It was a seven-mile trek to the Jackson farm, and that day the sun was like a ball of fire beating down on Ruth’s back. Twice she had to sit and rest for a while, but each time she continued. When she finally staggered into Bethany Jackson’s front yard, her face was red as a beet and her dress soaked through with perspiration. It clung to her swollen stomach like a wet dishcloth draped over a ripe melon.

  Bethany was shelling peas on the front porch when she looked up and saw Ruth.

  “Good Lord,” she exclaimed then darted over and took hold of Ruth’s arm. As she helped Ruth into to the shade of the porch she asked, “How’d you get here?”

  “Walked,” Ruth wheezed.

  “You shouldn’t have.” Bethany shook her head woefully. “Not in your condition.”

  “I had to. Cyrus would never have allowed it if I’d told him.” She explained that she was hoping they could put an end to all the foolishness.

  “How can I hope to care for this baby when nothing will grow without water?”

  Again Bethany shook her head with that same sorrowful expression.

  “I wish there were something I could do,” she said, “but Virgil won’t even talk about it.”

  “Maybe if you told him we’re willing to do whatever he wants?”

  “I’ve tried,” Bethany answered. “I said his acting like this was about as unchristian as you can get, but you know Virgil. He wasn’t the least bit interested in my opinion and claimed if he wanted my say-so he’d ask for it.”

  “There must be some way…”

  Bethany gave a helpless looking shrug. “I doubt it.”

  As they sat there talking Bethany spotted Virgil coming in from the field. She gave a worrisome sigh and asked Ruth not to mention what they’d been talking about.

  It’s hard to say whether Virgil saw Ruth sitting there, because he didn’t say anything until he was almost to the porch. Then he eyed the two women sitting side by side and pinched his brows in an angry looking grimace.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked Ruth.

  “I came to get Bethany’s recipe for blackberry jam,” she replied pleasantly.

  Giving her the same squint-eyed look he’d given Cyrus, he said, “You’ve got no business here, so get it and go.”

  “Stop acting so nasty,” Bethany snapped. “Ruth walked over here, and she needs to rest a while. In her condition she’s not able—”

  The expression on Virgil’s face didn’t change one iota.

  “If she walked over here then she’s able to walk back!” he said then turned and strode off.

  “No, she’s not!” Bethany shouted after him. “If you want her to go home right now, then you’re gonna have to take her!”

  He turned back to her with the whites of his eyes showing. “There ain’t a chance in hell I’m going anywhere near Dodd’s place!”

  “If you won’t take her home then I will!” Bethany grabbed hold of Ruth’s hand, called to the two boys playing in the front yard and headed for the barn.

  “Is he gonna let you do this?” Ruth asked. Her voice had a tremor in it.

  Bethany gave another shrug, but this time she didn’t look quite so helpless.

  * * *

  Cyrus was walking back from the creek when he saw Ruth climb down from the wagon. By the time he reached the house, Bethany and the boys were gone.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “I went to see Bethany Jackson.”

  “Bethany Jackson?” he repeated angrily. “Why?”

  “I hoped she could talk Virgil into—”

  “Dammit, Ruth! You have no right—”

  “I have every right,” she replied wearily. “You can’t make a living on a farm with no water.” She sat on the porch step, dropped her face into her hands and whimpered. “What kind of a life will it be?”

  Cyrus sat next to her, bent forward with his hands hanging down between his bony knees.

  “You’ve gotta trust me,” he said. “I promised I’d provide for you and the baby, and I will. I swear I will.”

  She looked up, tears running down both cheeks and nodded. Cyrus gathered her into his arms.

  “Please, Ruth,” he begged. “Just be patient for a while. I’ll work this out. I’ll find a way. I promise.”

  Again she nodded but said nothing.

  For the rest of the day she sat on the front porch creaking back and forth in the rocker, singing a lullaby as she cradled her stomach in her arms. The baby, a boy she thought, had kicked at her ribs all afternoon, but now he’d become surprisingly still.

  Perhaps, like her, he’d simply grown weary.

  For two days Ruth waited to feel the kick of a tiny foot against her stomach, but there was nothing. She felt the roundness of his head below her right breast, but there was no movement in places where last week she’d felt a heel or an elbow. On the second day she began to worry.

  “I’ll get Emma Mae to come and sit with you for a few days,” Cyrus offered.

  “I think it can wait a while,” Ruth replied.

  She knew it was too soon for the midwife. The baby wasn’t due until the middle of November. At a time when there was no money from crops, every dime counted.

  That evening she fixed Cyrus a supper of bacon and biscuits, but she turned away from it herself.

  “Perhaps after a good night’s sleep I’ll have more of an appetite,” she said and crawled into bed early.

  The first pain came shortly after the sky turned dark. It was sharp and sudden. It passed quickly and she thought that was the end of it, but minutes later it was back and worse than before. By the time Ruth called out for Cyrus, there were only brief seconds between the end of one pain and the start of another.

  “I’ll get Emma Mae and be back in an hour,” he said.

  Another sharp pain slammed into Ruth’s back, and she dug her nails into his arm.

  “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “Please don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t,” he said and stayed.

  The sun was just starting to show on the horizon when the baby finally came. It was a boy, fully formed but born blue as indigo with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not an ounce of breath in his tiny little body. When Ruth realized her baby had come into the world dead, she let out a scream that could be heard at the far end of Kanawha County.

  “Lord God,” she cried, “what have I done that you should punish me so?”

  Cyrus went into the kitchen and came back with a small glass of whiskey poured from the bottle he kept on the back shelf of the cupboard.


  “Drink this,” he said. “It’ll dull the pain.”

  He pushed the glass into her hands and guided it to her mouth. Then he sat on the bed and held her in his arms as she continued to sob. In time the weariness of such heartache overcame her, and she closed her eyes. Once she was asleep, Cyrus swaddled the infant in a square of cloth and carried the bundle to the barn.

  That afternoon he took the pine he’d cut for the baby’s cradle and fashioned it into a box for burial. In one board he’d already carved a small heart. That piece he placed facing in so the boy would know he was loved. As he worked, a stream of tears rolled down his face and disappeared into the thick of his beard.

  When the box was ready, Cyrus spread a layer of soft hay across the bottom and placed the baby on top of it. He stood there for several moments stroking the infant with his roughened finger; then he gently folded the cloth across the child’s face and nailed the coffin closed. On the outside of the box he wrote, Matthew Dodd, boy child of Ruth and Cyrus Dodd. Born dead, September 29, 1930.

  Matthew was the name they had planned for the child.

  It was two days before Ruth was strong enough to climb out of bed. By then Cyrus had already buried the small box on the high ridge. To mark the spot, he planted a small elderberry bush.

  Cyrus Dodd

  Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. This is what it says in the Bible. Pastor Ames has stood at the pulpit and preached this a dozen or more times, and each time I bowed my head and gave an amen the same as everybody else.

  Church words are easy to say, but they’re not so easy to live by.

  When I took the pig out of Virgil’s pen it was the same as spitting in the face of trouble, but I didn’t care. The only thing on my mind was how I was right and he was wrong. I went straight past any thoughts of turning the other cheek and stuck to the righteousness of having good reason to do what I did. If that’s not a haughty spirit, then I don’t know what is.