Jane said, “He knows plenty.”
Momma pinched the skin on Jane’s arm. “Don’t sass.”
Jane pulled her arm away, rubbing the red spot. “Daddy won’t like it.”
There’d be a blowup, everybody talking—white trash Hoppers, all that, and the thing with Leroy.
Uno set the basket and jar in his Ford’s front seat, and he and Momma went back in the tent, so Jane started unloading what they’d packed, even the mattress, almost everything but the hope chest, making a pile on the dirt.
It was her job to keep the family together, stealing money from Momma’s bean can when Daddy asked her to, though never as much as he wanted. She bought him whiskey from the Watkins tent down the levee with the bean-can money, topping off a three-quarter jug with water. She lied for him about how he lost the Studebaker, keeping the card game a secret. And the personal stuff with Elthea and the others before her.
She protected herself and Daddy from Momma’s knowing the details of his behavior. Any kind of family was better than none. Her parents required a lot of managing so as not to botch up her life entirely, beyond what was already messed up by nature, economics, and ruinous government policy, but Jane was optimistic and liked to control what she could, believing her effort would make a difference.
When Momma and Uno came out of the tent again, carrying stools, Momma’s eyes bugged at her daughter’s boldness. She threw her stool down, crossing the space between them, gripped both sides of Jane’s jaw with one hand and squeezed hard. She was small but bulldog sturdy.
She let go, and Jane rubbed her second red spot. “We can find some place better.”
Daddy wouldn’t move back to a camp Uno’d kicked them out of for no good reason. Not even for hot showers and an outhouse.
“Give us a minute, Uno.” Momma tilted her head toward the levee, and he put down two stools and walked off in the dark, lighting a cigarette. She waited until the glowing tip was a distance off. “I won’t drop this baby on dirt. Daddy’ll risk it, but I won’t.”
Jane looked toward a rustling in the bushes. Must have been the collie dog.
“You owe me,” Momma said, for the millionth time, rolling both fists into her lower back. “We’re moving to Tumbleweed, the doctor’ll come, and he’ll get this baby out of me, live. Uno —Mister Jeffers—fixed it.”
Maybe this would make up for her brother Benjamin. Maybe this was something. But still, people would talk if this happened. And Jane was too low around here already to get the things she wanted. And Uno. They couldn’t go through all this for the prize of Uno.
Momma wiped the palms of both hands against the feed-sack dress stretched over her middle. “Moving back to Tumbleweed’ll put us ahead.”
“Won’t put Daddy ahead.” She didn’t mention herself.
“He won’t be around forever, Jane.”
This was something she said when it would further her argument, when it was more useful to be alone than leashed to Daddy, who did lurch after every fresh scent. It was true he wandered in and out, but he’d never crossed the line to hurt Jane in a way she wouldn’t forgive. She was a practical girl, knew what mattered and what didn’t. He wasn’t good, but he was good enough.
The bushes parted on the other side of the car, and Daddy came around it into the light—thatch of blond hair, tiny-lined, sunburnt face with a scar on his left upper cheek matching the curve of another guy’s shovel. The air buzzed when he stepped into their circle, the smell of beer steaming all around him.
“Don’t act like I wouldn’t give you no license. You never wanted it. Not from day one. Day one! It’d interfere with your plans.”
Momma’s face brightened. “You wanna be tied down? Ha!” Her belly jutted between them. “If you won’t provide, I’ll find a way.” Her eyes sparkled.
“What way is that?”
“I got us another cabin.”
“How’d you get it? What’d you have to sell?” His mouth twisted up, contemptuous.
Jane’s hands opened and closed, blood flooding her extremities.
“Well, it wasn’t the car. I believe you sold that cheap for town tail.”
“Got yourself a scheme? Working with Uno?”
“Least he works. Like a man.”
“You ain’t too big to slap.”
Jane’s head rattled, thoughts boiling. She’d heard this talk before but never heard it escalate so quickly. She scanned the campsite for options.
Momma laughed, like she didn’t know how he’d react, or like she was ignoring that knowledge. Or counting on it.
“You’re a disrespectful woman.”
“Man’s got to earn respect.”
Earn money is what she means, Jane thought.
Uno stepped back from the dark, into the headlights, next to Momma.
“Get back to town, Abraham.” Time slowed, Uno’s words drawn out— towwwwwn, Abrahaaaaaam. He inched up taller. “I’m driving their things to Tumbleweed.”
She couldn’t believe he’d step up against Daddy. Stupid. Momma didn’t need him.
Daddy pointed his long arm at her. “You think I’ll let you steal from me? My woman? My girl?”
“They don’t belong to you—you ain’t got the papers. Kate wants someone who can provide. I’ll give her the papers.” He said it like papers were cash.
“You?”
Uno puffed up, a barrel-chested Chihuahua. “You think you’re a musician? Haw! Show me two dimes you ever earned by music!”
That did it.
Both Daddy’s clenched fists exploded, punching right, straight at Uno’s head, left and right again, knocking him to the ground, silent, bleeding, like a dog dead in the road, though he wasn’t dead—his chest shivered up and down.
Later, some people would claim about this night that Jane hadn’t any heart. But that wasn’t true. At the sight of a man her daddy felled, even though it was Uno Jeffers, her heart rose in her throat, blocking her breath, threatening to jump out her mouth before she swallowed it back down again. She thought, It’s okay. We’ll get him to a doctor. I can fix this.
But that wasn’t how it would go.
Momma, in her eighth month, came at Daddy with a stool —lifted it up and cracked it on his back, like in the movies, brought it down hard enough to burst it into tinder all around him.
Daddy turned, roaring, and shoved Momma to the ground with two hands.
Everything stopped, Jane’s feet, hands, and head still. She’d worked hard for so long to keep something like this from happening, but now she couldn’t see a path.
“Come on then! Finish us off! Don’t starve us to death. Do it fast, like a man!”
“Momma, stop!” She had to pull things back.
“Shut up, Kate! Have you got to always push?”
“Do it! Such a man! If you’re such a man, do it!”
He unbuckled his belt, removed it.
“Daddy, no!” Jane yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
Momma was still on the ground, propped up on her hands, her knees wide, yelling.
Jane cried, “Momma! Why?”
He flicked his belt back and forth, walking circles around her.