(This is the continuation of last week’s story titled “From Dust Thou Art”.)

It was after Bella had put the little Mosley aunts to bed and had turned in herself before Mother Maggie returned. She talked quietly to Pa Fain, so quietly that Bella tiptoed out of her bed and hid behind the living room door to hear what was being said. Bella was so curious to know what had happened to Della that she felt she could not sleep if she didn’t know. Sneaking like this was dangerous, for if Pa Fain had caught her, his belt strap would have given her backside a reminder not to snoop that would have lasted for at least a week.
Bella heard a story that night that would remain with her the rest of her life, long after every adult involved was clothed with the dust of the earth from which they had been made. The story was all the more terrible because Bella knew it was true, as she had been a character in its early part. The story was made all the more poignant as the only light in the room came from the fireplace. Bella found this a most ghostly scene, and it remained so for the remainder of her life.
“Oh, Fain, I never felt so helpless as I’ve felt today. That poor, poor child.”
“Dellie sure was in a bad way, that’s for sure.”
“When I got there Lizie was already takin’ care of Dellie’s baby. Poor little thing was just about dead from the cold, but Lizie kept it from dyin’. If Bellie hadn’t been there to come get you I believe that baby would’ve froze to death ‘afore we could have walked either here or to Dellie’s. It wouldn’t have mattered nohow, because Dellie was passed out cold on the ground, and there’s no way we could have carried both her and the baby, and one of them would have died for sure. I doubt we could’ve lifted Dellie. She ain’t as big as a speck but she was dead weight passed out like she was.”
“Eh, I ought to beat Fletch half to death. He oughtn’t married the girl if he wouldn’t gonna take care of her. And now four young’uns, five countin’ the one born today, if it lives, and all he wants to do is drink all the time. I don’t hold it agin’ a man for wantin’ a swaller ever now and then, even goin’ on a good drunk once in a while, but even the Book says a man that won’t take care of his own is worse then a infidel.”
“God knows, Fain, I tried to raise that boy right. Maybe I doted on him too much after what happened to his older brother Finn. Fletch sure thought the world of Finn—I don’t think he ever got over him gettin’ stomped by that half-wild horse you bought that time.” Mother Maggie looked sorrowfully at the picture of her oldest son Finn that hung on the wall next to the front door. He was lying in his pine coffin. Bella had always found that picture frightening and never went close to that door when she was alone in the house. At those times, she always went out the back door.
“I never did fergive myself for not watching Finn better,” Pa Fain mused. “I ought to have knowed that a seven year old wouldn’t have any sense when it come to wild horses.”
“It wouldn’t your fault, and at least Finn is with his Lord. The ones of us left here sure do live up to the Scriptures—man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. Fletch never did get over Finn, and his half-brothers wouldn’t any help when it come to that.”
“Yeah, I reckon my first set of young’uns wouldn’t much to help my second set. Lu married and moved off, Em married your sister Lizie and prob’bly ‘cause of her he has the most good to do with ‘em, ‘specially since Lizie and him don’t have kids of their own. T. J. moved off to Californie after the war, and I don’t guess we’ll ever see him agin’. I guess the most he learned from Tob, Reg and Ang was how to hit the bottle.”
“I can’t say in that respect you’ve been much better, making that bootleg whiskey like you do. It shamed me to no end that you were churched out of Brown Fork Church.”
“That may be so, but you’ll have to say I don’t lay around drunk like them three boys of mine. And I always tried to make Fletch walk a straight line.”
“Well,” Mother Maggie sighed. “At least we have been able to keep a roof over Fletch and his wife and young’uns heads.”
“Dang good thing we have, ‘cause it sure ain’t in Fletch. He’s the best worker of any kid I raised, but he just wastes it on whiskey and ‘shine.”
“It was so sad today.” Mother Maggie was beautiful to Bella in a homely way as the flickering flames from the fireplace cast its glow on her saintly face. Bella knew, even at her young age, that as Mother Maggie looked into the fire she was seeing the stressful events of the day.
“There was Evelyn, just six years old, tryin’ to play momma to the other three kids. It’s a wonder she didn’t burn the house down. But somehow she managed to keep the fire going and feed the other three.”
“Yeah, Maggie, all of ‘em dressed in rags, dirty as a dishrag, and havin’ to see that awful sight when we brought their poor momma and baby brother in. It was pitiful to see how happy they seemed when they heard they had a new baby brother, not knowin’ it just means another mouth to feed when they ain’t enough for the mouths already there. And what’s Fletch doin’ about it? Just comin’ home long enough to start another ‘un, then going off on another spree, doin’ God knows what where.”
“At least being happy about the baby brother kept ‘em from being so scared when they looked at their momma. She never did come to the whole time I was there. Lizie and me’ll take turns stayin’ with ‘em until Dellie gets back on her feet.”
“That’ll take weeks. Good thing Bellie’s here to help out here while you’re down there.”
“Bellie did so good today. She wouldn’t a bit ‘friad, seemed like.” Bella was proud to her her grandmother’s words of praise, but if only she knew how afraid Bella really was of that picture and the shadowy walls in the flickering fire in the deep, dark hollow.
“Ah, Bellie’s too little to be ‘fraid,” Pa Fain said. Bella could not have quite put into words her thoughts at that particular moment, but later she would say that her grandfather was a hard man with a tendency to look on the dark side of things, never offering words of praise, only correction or criticism.
“I’m glad she wouldn’t there when Fletch come in, half drunk. He was cussin’ to beat the wind, half drunk. When we told him he had a new baby boy, he started cussin’ even harder. I wish I could put out of my mind the awful things he said about Dellie, in front of them kids, and her just laying there, out of this world, so to speak. He never said one word, good or bad, to any of his young’uns, not a one of ‘em, even little Bobby Henry. He just ranted and raved ‘bout why there wouldn’t anythang to eat, then went out behind the house a while, I know to drink some more rot gut. Then we heard him screamin’ and ‘hollerin, then he shot what seemed like a whole gun full of lead. It wouldn’t a’sprised me if he’d come back in there and shot ever one of us dead on the spot. Them poor young’uns, bundled up in the corner, holdin’ on to each other, terrified. Then he come back in, and I’ll swear if he didn’t start preachin’.”
“Preachin’! Woman, you’ve got to be out of your dad-blamed mind!”
“It’s the truth if I ever told it. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but at least it did give me a feelin’ that God was trying to break in on the mess. He wound down after ‘bout thirty minutes, I guess, then he mumbled and grumbled some more, then laid down right next to Dellie and passed out, drunk.”
“I hate to say it, Maggie, but our son is one sorry man, about the worst I ever seen. I’ve almost had to fight more than once, especially Dellie’s people, them Tatums, for mouthin’ off ‘bout him, but it’s the dad-blamed truth how sorry he is, and they know it, and they know I know it, so what’s a man to do?”
“I just keep prayin’ for him. Bad or not, he’s my own, and he’s the Lord’s, he just ain’t figgered it out yit.”
“I’m ‘fraid he’s just a bad seed—our’n or not—and we just have to do the best we can to keep him from killin’ Dellie and them kids.”
Bella crept back to her bed. She was shivering and cold, and the feather mattress stuffed with down from her grandmother’s geese swallowed her little body in its comfort. Bella was troubled—she had never known that her uncle Fletch could be such a dangerous man. It wasn’t only the five quilts that pressed down on her chest like a flat rock from Brown’s Fork Creek—it was the new found fear of her uncle. She fell into a restless sleep. In her dreams she saw her uncle Fletch coming toward her with a gun. Behind him lay her dead aunt and cousins, still and bleeding in ragged heaps on the floor of their rundown cabin. She could smell the smoke from the burning cabin, and it’s red glow made Uncle Fletch look black as coal. He was staring straight into her eyes, walking slowly toward her. His eyes were red like fire. He was saying something that Bella couldn’t hear, but as he got closer she recognized it was words she’d heard the preacher say in church. Bella tried to turn and run, but fear froze her to the ground. The black gun came closer and closer, until all Bella could see was the open end of the barrel.
Bella awoke from her dream with a scream, and only seconds later Mother Maggie’s arms were hugging her, shushing her, telling her it was only a dream. Mother Maggie climbed under the quilts with Bella and held her close. Bella went to sleep listening to her grandmother tell her about a place called Heaven. The last thing Bella remembered was Mother Maggie singing softly, “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be.”

A NOTE TO THE READER: Would you like to know what the new baby was named? Did he live or die? Did things get better for the Mosleys? Join in next week and perhaps some of these questions will be answered. Until then, I leave you with this blurb from my world of email:

He was only a whiskey maker, but she loved him still.