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Wild Iris

By Mrs. Travers Chapman

Chapter 1

Iris hefted her laundry basket up against her hip, and tossed her head as she carried her wash to the line tied between the two locust trees just beyond the barn. She knew Uriah Hitt was staring at her, but then Uriah always stared at her. She never stared back. Uriah was a well built man, and not too bad to look at. But she mistrusted the look in his eyes. It was a male look, a look of desire, and wanting, and it made her afraid.

Uriah spat in the dirt between his boots. He was seated on an old wooden rocking chair in front of the Bethpage cabin. Woodrow Bethpage, Iris� father, sat in another rocker a few feet from him. Woodrow looked bothered. He was a worn man, maybe in his mid-forties, in a checkered shirt that had seen better days and a pair of old duck trousers, with a straw hat perched on the back of his head. He had the watery look of a man who spends more time drinking than working.

Uriah hawked, and spat again. �You ain�t gonna git no more �shine outta me, old man. You ain�t paid my last gallon, nor the jug I give you afore that. I ain�t got the credit with Paw for that kind of drinkin�.�

Woodrow Bethpage kicked at the dirt with his boot-toe and scratched himself, then readjusted the galluses on his overalls, and scratched again. He was a man in need of strong drink, and his need was powerful.

�Come on, �Riah.� He had the watery eyes and hangdog expression of a coon dog lacking breakfast. �You know my corn didn�t make this year and I had to buy more seed. I jes� ain�t got no cash money.�

Uriah shrugged. He sold liquor for his father, Jedediah, and the two men split the cash. But Jedediah frowned on giving credit, and Uriah was now out of money himself. He had only helped Woodrow out because he liked the look of the man�s daughter.

The two men were silent. Uriah was cradling a quart jar on his lap, but Woodrow did not have the courage to ask for a slug. They both watched Iris working her way along the line, pinning up the old feed sacks she used for her work clothes. Her body moved lithely under the printed muslin - the sack ended just below her knees, and her legs and feet were bare. A battered straw hat covered most of her hair, but Uriah could see the line of her body as it moved under the sacking, and he was filled with desire.

Woodrow swallowed. He knew that Uriah wanted his daughter, but he had kept deferring a decision on her future. She had cleaned and washed for him these last five years, since her mother Amelia had gone to meet her Maker, and he had watched her himself, from time to time. But he had never dared touch her. Now he knew that he must decide, if he wanted the jar Uriah was holding. He thought of the widow Law, living alone on the other side of the hill. Miz Law had hinted at a union, from time to time after chapel on a Sunday, but Woodrow had a fair idea she would curb his drinking. Miz Law supported the Women�s Christian Temperance Union, and excoriated alcohol. But she baked good bread.

�Mebbe we could come to some kinda agreement, Uriah.� Woodrow�s voice was the sound of a coon dog whining. �You know this is my place, don�t you?�

Uriah Hitt continued to watch Iris. He stared at the way her hands moved deftly, and he could see the way her breasts lifted her sacking dress as she reached upwards. He counted in his mind. He had known Woodrow for some years, and reckoned the girl must be coming up thirteen, maybe fourteen. She was moving with the lithe grace of an untamed animal, and he wanted her more than he could say.

�Well,� Woodrow spat in the dirt again. He really needed a slug of the liquor Uriah was holding. �I reckon we can work us a trade. How old are you, boy?�

Uriah looked up at him. He had a fair idea of the way Woodrow was heading, but he would not make it easy for him. �Thirty. Why?�

�You ain�t never married?�

Uriah shook his head. �Never had need to. They�s enough willing women around the holler. I don�t need one of my own.�

Woodrow grinned in male complicity. Now his look was almost one of pleading. �Well, I guess I got one good thing you want, boy.� He gestured down past the laundry line, towards a valley that opened out in front of them. �I got me seventy acres of bottom land down there, boy. It�ll grow a lot of corn, if�n you get it in the ground. You take that girl of mine off�n my hands, and I�ll fix it so this farm goes to you when I pass.�

Uriah was silent for a long moment. Then he spat himself, and held the quart jar out towards his companion, but kept it just out of Woodrow�s reach. He had the chance for a job with the railroad, heaving coal at the depot, and had set his sights on becoming a fireman, perhaps even a brakeman or conductor one day. He fancied the idea of seeing a bit of the world. Farming the Bethpage spread held no attraction for him. But he could see himself putting a couple of sharecroppers to work, raising corn for himself and Paw, maybe shipping out �shine to the cities. He liked that idea.

�You mean, if I take Iris with me, you�ll leave me this place? This an� all?� He curved his arm in a sweeping gesture.

Woodrow nodded. His hand seemed to have crept towards the jar of it�s own volition, and his fingertips brushed the glass lightly. �Take her in front of the preacher, boy, and cut in a gallon of Jed�s best shine each and every month, and you get the place when I�m gone.

Uriah eyed Iris again. Woodrow�s offer was tempting, and more than tempting. He could not deny it. He would have his own woman, for each and every night, and his mother Capitola, would have help. He could count on Iris slaking his lusts, and doing his bidding, and bearing him children when the time came. He would have a son, to take fishing, and maybe a couple. No girls though. They were more trouble than they were worth. Even his Paw said so.

He handed the jar of moonshine to Woodrow almost without thinking, and he watched the older man take it and lift it to his mouth. Woodrow drank the liquor greedily, letting some of it run down the stubble on his chin, until Uriah pulled the jar away from him. A thought nagged his mind. He hawked and spat in the dirt.

�She old enough, now?� He paused. He had bedded grown women, but he had no taste for� young girls.

Woodrow shrugged. �She�s old enough.� He had seem Iris washing blood out of her bedding on a couple of occasions, even though she had tried to hide it. She was old enough for what Uriah wanted of her. �She was ten when her Ma passed over, and that were five years since. She must be fifteen now.�

Uriah lifted the jar of moonshine to his own lips, and in his movement, he sealed a pact. He swallowed a mouthful, and got to his feet, wiping his hands on the seat of his overalls. Iris had finished pegging the clothes up on the clothesline, and was now walking towards the chicken coop. Uriah watched and knew that his need was overpowering.

He spat in his hand and held it out. Woodrow was now also on his feet, and the two men shook. Uriah wiped his hand again, and smiled. But he had a hard look in his eyes, the look of a man who will seek, and be requited.

Uriah Hitt took one last look at the girl as she closed the door to the coop behind her. He spat in his hand, and held it out to Woodrow. �You got yourself a deal, old man. I�ll be over to collect her Sunday morning, before service. See that she�s ready to go.�

Iris watched Uriah and her father from the corner of her eye as she hung her laundry out to dry. She knew the two men were talking about her, and she imagined they might be settling her future. But there was little she could do. She did not much care for the idea of toiling for a man the rest of her days, but it was the way women lived. She was not sure she much liked the idea of having to live with Uriah. But she supposed there might be worse men around. Mostly, she was not sure she liked what Uriah wanted of her. But that was the way men were.

She remembered some of the things her mother had told her, in the last days of her life, before slipping away, about how men behaved on their wedding nights. Amelia Bethpage had warned that it might be a brutal experience, and short, fueled by a compound of lust and alcohol, because men invariably drank themselves silly at their weddings. She had spoken with the bitterness of experience, and betrayal: Woodrow Bethpage was not really Iris� father. Amelia had been wed to his brother, Thomas. But Thomas had taken off for the Black Hills, promising to send back great solid nuggets. He had never sent any gold, and never returned, and Amelia supposed he had died in a mining accident or been killed in a gunfight, because the Bethpages could be quick to temper. Woodrow had taken her in with her baby, and she had lived ten years with him. But Woodrow had never fathered a child of his own.

Iris knew that Woodrow now wanted her out of his cabin. She had seen him eye her covertly many times, and the lust in his eyes had been a reflection of the lust in Uriah�s eyes. But she knew that he would not dare touch her. She suspected that he had set his sights on the widow Law, because she had seen them stand mighty close outside chapel on a Sunday, and Miz Law had carried herself all girlish, smiling and laughing and frisky as a young kitten. But Woodrow was a God-fearing man, and wanted to do things proper. She imagined Uriah might find a dollar or two for a preacher, and haul her up in front of the congregation. She would be doing it proper as well. Not like what the brakeman had wanted.

She smiled to herself. She had a bright shiny dime the brakeman had given her. It was her secret treasure, the memory of a kiss, and two flashing dark eyes, and a strange moment in her life when she had nearly done a wrong thing, a really wicked thing. Sometimes, when she had free time, and she wanted to get away from Woodrow, she walked to the railroad, to watch the trains haul their way slowly up the long incline running into Coates, and sometimes she waved to the crews, and sometimes they waved back at her. Mostly they were ornery men, nothing to recall. But one day a long freight train had been hauling its way up the incline at no better than walking pace, and she had smiled at the brakeman, a real nice looking man, with dark hair and flashing eyes.

Well, the train had slowed to a halt, steaming and puffing, and the brakeman had jumped down from between the cars, right there in front of her, and stared at her, and she had felt herself melting into his eyes. She could not explain why she had felt that, even though she had run the moment through her mind many and many a time since. There had been a magic in his eyes, a temptation, and she had felt herself falling.

�You smiled and waved at me, ma�am.� His voice had been challenging, but not in an aggressive way. It was a voice of wanting, and she knew it. She had blushed, and lowered her violet-blue eyes, blue as wild irises. She had a feeling she might give way to him else ways.

The man had moved closer to her, until their faces were almost touching, and she could feel his breath on her, the breath of a man, warm and demanding.

�Now you have to kiss me.� He had placed one hand under her chin, lifting it towards him, and she had felt his lips brush on hers. But his kiss was not forceful. It was a demand, true enough. But it was not like the kisses Uriah had tried to fumble from her, coarse and insistent. It had been a caress, and in that touch, she had known what it might be to surrender.

She had parted her lips, and the brakeman had kissed her for a long moment, and she had felt his hands cup her breasts, and she had felt the strangest way in all the world, as though she wanted to give this man everything she had to give him. But then the engineer had sounded his steam whistle, and the brakeman had pulled away. Yet he was still looking down at her, and her lips were still parted, and she knew that her own eyes were shining.

He seemed undecided, as though torn. The train whistle sounded again, and he fumbled in the pocket of his overalls, and pressed something into her hand.

�Here�s a token for you.� He kissed Iris again gently. �My name is Jackson, Jackson Grant, from Louisville. I�ll be back.�

Then he was gone, running with the train that had begun to move again, and Iris had stood there, in the cinders at the side of the track, and had watched the train creep past her, and had felt she had been caught up in a dream. Later, as the train had chugged its way steadily around a bend further up the track, she had opened her hand, and found herself looking down at a bright shiny new� dime. But she had never seen her brakeman again.

�� She had stowed her dime in a little envelope, of the kind Doc Carter used to dispense his powders, and tucked it safely deep inside her Bible, right in between First and Second Kings. It was a keepsake, and a token of love. She had never been in love before, but now she knew how it felt to love, and it was the best way any girl could ever feel. She knew that she would never part with the coin, come what might, and she would hold it forever, along with the memory of her first kiss, and it would stay with her forever as a very secret treasure.

Once, on her way to the store with a basket of new-laid eggs, she had stopped by the rail yard and asked after him shyly. The railroad foreman, or bull, had given her a strange look, as though she might be the bearer of some kind of trouble, and called to a second man. The second man had stared at her boldly, too boldly, and laughed in her face.

�Jackson�s GTT, darlin�.� She had stared at him blankly, and he had explained. �Gone to Texas. Some trouble over a woman, folks did say. Some man�s wife.�

He had spat on the ground, a sight too close to Iris� bare feet for comfort, and she had turned and walked away proudly. But that night she had wept softly to herself before sleeping.

She finished collecting the eggs, dividing them in her basket: some for their own eating, more for Mr. Whiteside�s store, set the basket down on one of the rocking chairs, and walked towards the barn. The cow needed milking, and then she would make corn bread. She would take her time, because she had a feeling Woodrow was storing up some bad news for her.

She was right. Woodrow Bethpage started yelling at her while she was still on her way out of the barn with two pails filled with frothing milk. �Woodrow yelling meant real bad news ahead.

�Iris, girl! Get your worthless ass in here.�

His voice was raucous with moonshine, and she knew he meant trouble. She quickened her pace a little, only to hear him yell a second time.

�Iris! You don�t get in here, there�s gonna be hell to pay. You see if there�s not.�

She set the two pails down, and straightened to look at him. Woodrow was a mean, scrawny piece of a man, filled with a sense of his own importance and a need for cheap whisky. But Iris knew how to manage him. They had been together, alone under the same roof, for five years, and five years makes for a lot of lessons. She supposed living with Uriah would bring the same kind of days. She would learn how to manage him. She supposed she would learn how to manage being wed. People get accustomed to things. She thought of the brakeman, and pushed him quickly from her mind.

�I still got to turn Daisy out, Pap. Then I got to strain the milk, and set it to separate. Then I got to bake some pone, just the way you like it.� She paused, staring him full in the face. �If you want to eat, that is.�

Woodrow was silent. He spat a stream of tobacco juice on the ground, and turned back into the cabin, slamming the wood door closed behind him. Iris smiled faintly. She guessed he had gone to take solace in a jar.

She worked though her chores methodically. She had learned farm work well from her mother and step-father, and she moved with practiced ease. She planned to put by the best of the butter for Mr. Whiteside, and trade it for white flour. That way she would have enough for baking biscuits for a few weeks ahead.

Woodrow came out of the cabin to watch her. He made no offer to help. Straining milk into crocks was no work for a man. When Iris had covered the crocks with cheesecloth to keep out the critters, he followed her back inside, and took one of the two chairs, pulling it up to the big table. He cleared his throat, hawking as though to spit again, thought better of it, and slammed down his fist on the tabletop. Iris looked up at him quickly. It was plain he was spoiling for some kind of announcement.

�I got me some news, girl.� Woodrow plainly aimed to look fierce, but Iris knew she could out-stare him. He hesitated, and his voice shed some of its aggression. �Sit yourself down and listen.�

Iris wiped her hands on her apron and took a chair facing him. It was the only free chair - she stood in the background, when folks came to call, or sat in the dirt. �I�m listening, Pap.� She had a fair idea of what was coming, but she would show no weakness.

�I got you a man, girl.� Woodrow leered at her. �Uriah and me been talking. We done settled your future. I want company, now that I�m growing older. You ain�t the right kind.�

Iris did not speak.

�Uriah�s gonna come callin� Sunday, bright and early. He�s gonna take you afore the preacher, jes� afore Sunday service. You�ll go with him after that.�

�You done traded me for moonshine.� Iris� voice was hard.

Woodrow pulled himself to his feet. He was a little unsteady from the �shine he had drunk, but he would brook no challenge to his authority. He turned to take a leather razor strop hanging on the cabin wall, and when he turned back his eyes were angry. He raised the strop and brought it hard down on the table.

�You�re gonna take that boy fer your man come Sunday.�

Iris did not flinch. The leather caught the side of her face on his next swing, and she swayed slightly, but she did not make a sound.

Woodrow made to swing the belt again and she got to her feet, turning towards the door. She returned a moment later, carrying a big three-pronged potato fork, holding it out in front of here. Her eyes were hard chips of black ice.

Woodrow lowered his hand and stared at her.

�Drop that strop.� Iris gestured with the fork. She watched Woodrow drop the leather strop to the ground, then lowered the fork in her turn. But she kept it in both hands, and it was plain she was ready to use it. �Don�t you ever raise your hand against me again.�

They were both silent, standing on either side of the table.

Woodrow stared at her, and shifted indecisively, then sat down again. �He�ll be good to you, girl. He�s gonna get hisself work on the railroad; he�ll be working for cash money.� Now his tone was placatory.

Iris waited.

�I cut a deal with him.� Woodrow�s voice took on a whining note. �He�s gonna take over the bottom land and grow corn on it.�

�An� you give me to him?�

�Best way for you can be.�

Iris thought for a moment. She could handle Uriah Hitt, she was sure of that. He was not the best man in the world, but she was sure there were worse, and the brakeman had long since flown her hopes. She nodded slowly.

�Mebbe I�ll go. But I want Daisy to come with me, and I want all the fowl.�

Woodrow scowled. He had a feeling he was heading for a kind of defeat. �You�re taking any cash money I could have coming to me.�

�Go live with Miz Law.� Iris� voice was implacable. �She won�t hold with you drinkin� hard liquor. You can sell that. Uriah can put sharecroppers on your land while you�re livin�, and you won�t raise corn for his Paw, he�ll crop for you while you�re living. You won�t need no land when you�re gone.�

She turned her back on him, and went to put the fork back outside. She knew Woodrow would be no more bother to her, though now he might set and drink a sight more than he could handle. She began preparing their evening meal: she wanted him eating before he was too far gone to shovel food into his mouth.

Sunday morning found her sitting on one of the old chairs out front of the cabin, clutching a bundle of clothes in one hand and her mother�s worn Bible in the other. She was dressed in her one good cotton dress, and she was wearing her bonnet and her one pair of boots. Both dress and bonnet were old and faded, but both were clean, and she had bathed herself in the creek and washed her hair, combing it out as best she could. A girl does not get herself a husband every day of the week. She had also completed all her chores, milking Daisy before tethering the cow to a locust tree, and cooped all the chickens up in their coop, where they were making a deal of clucking at not being let to roam freely. She had driven the rooster into a hutch of his own, and he was now letting rip with a deal of bad language.

She heard Woodrow moving about inside the cabin, and then the door slammed open. Her step-father came out wearing his long-handle drawers, scratching himself. He had red eyes, and his face was puffy. Iris could see that he had drunk a sight too much the previous evening. She wondered, with a touch of humor, how he would fare at the hands of the widow Law. She imagined totally abandoning drink from one day to another might prove a hard row to hoe. But he would always be able to sell what Uriah gave him, and maybe the cash he made from trading moonshine would buy him new clothing. Miz Law liked to cut a fine dash at Sunday services in her shiny black bombazine. Iris tried to picture Woodrow in a stiff new black ditto suit, with new boots and a clean shirt and tie and a derby hat to match. But the picturing was too much a strain on her thinking.

Woodrow stared at her. �Where the hell�s my breakfast, girl?�

Iris did not turn round. �Didn�t make you any.� She snapped her words out hard. She was on her way to being a grown woman now. This man was part of her past.

�What the hell do you mean you didn�t make me any?� Now Woodrow was whining. �You know I like my breakfast first thing.�

�You told me to be ready bright and early for Uriah to come fetch me. So I�m ready.� Now she turned her chair, inspecting her step-father with distaste. �We�re going to service, and I�m gonna be wed. You go down the creek and wash yourself, and then you put on your Sunday clothes, so you look as respectable as you can. You�re gonna have to look good, if you want to be fed today. I�ll sit on here and wait fer my husband to come collect me. Mebbe Widder Law kep� you some of her corn bread. Folks do say it�s purty good.�

Woodrow glowered at her. But he knew he was beaten. He could see the big fork, leaning against the cabin step where Iris had placed it, and it was close enough to her hand for her to take it before he could reach her. But he was a persistent man, and he was hungry.

�Mebbe you could fix me just something quick, while I�m down to the creek?� Now he was speaking like a poor man begging for a handout.

Iris smiled, a hard thin smile, and shook her head. �I ain�t fixing you nothing, old man. You�ll find some stale cornbread set out for the chickens when you�re done cleaning yoursel�. Go peck on that.�

Uriah brought his wagon up half an hour later. Woodrow was somewhat cleaner, and had shaved himself. He was dressed in his old black suit, and he looked ill at ease as he chewed on day-old corn bread.

Uriah tipped his hat to Iris, and nodded to Woodrow. He noted the cow tethered to the locust tree, the hens raising Cain in their crate, and the angry rooster, and suddenly grinned. They were not sights he had expected, but they raised Iris a couple of notches in his thinking. The girl was spunky, there was no denying that. He would take his pleasure of her, and he would gain a handy asset. He reckoned he had got the better deal with the old man. He picked up the rooster in its crate.

�This going too?�

Iris had dropped her bundle of clothing and her Bible on the driver�s seat of the wagon, and was already untethering the cow. Woodrow avoided Uriah�s eyes, and shuffled his boots.

Uriah placed the rooster carefully in the wagon and spat a long stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. �What�re you counting for vittles?�

Iris took a rope to fasten Daisy�s halter to the back of the wagon. �Mebbe he�s counting on a new woman.�

Uriah pushed his hat onto the back of his head, and laughed out loud. He eyed the hen coop, but it was awkward for a man to lift on his own. �Miz Law don�t admit of no �shine.�

�He can trade it for a new suit.� Iris walked round to the other side of the coop, but it was heavy for her. She straightened, to stare hard at Woodrow. �Come and give me a hand, old man. Me and my man need help.�

The three of them lifted the heavy crate between them. The chickens were now clucking more quietly, curious about what was happening. Uriah reached past the crate for a large carton with �Ball Jars� stenciled on the side, eyeing Woodrow as he pulled the case to the tailboard.

�This is your�n, Woodrow.� He paused. �You still want it, if you�re countin� on the widder woman?�

Woodrow nodded and set the case on the porch. Iris imagined he would have to sneak back to the cabin to sell it, because there was no way Widow Law would allow hard liquor around her place, neither drop nor smell. She pictured Woodrow facing temptation, and having to pass up on drinking in order to be able to pocket a few clinking coins, and smiled tightly to herself. She wondered whether her step-father might come to rue the exchange.

None of the three spoke on the ride to the Baptist chapel in Coates, some eight miles distant. A fair-sized congregation had already assembled, because word had spread, and it was not every day that a couple came to be churched. The men were gathered in one group, all in their black Sunday suits, kicking the dirt with the toes of their boots and spitting long streams of tobacco juice, whilst the women had gathered a little way away. The widow Law formed a kind of outcrop on the edge of the women, standing with a couple of her friends. She was dressed in her best black bombazine, and she had an expectant look about her, as though fortune was about to make her a gift.

Iris dismounted. She felt shabby in this company, but she held herself proudly. She was as good as any of them. She could sow, and till, and reap, and then go back gleaning, with the best of them, and she knew some stitching as well. She knew how to churn good butter, and she had sometimes made cheese. Woodrow had taught her to tend Daisy, and the hens, and in winter she chopped firewood. Maybe one day she would learn her letters good and proper - she could read her Bible, but she was slow, having to spell words out one by one, and she had no head for writing. Maybe one day she would even have a store-bought dress of her own. She counted on Uriah going to work for the railroad, and bringing home some cash money, and she reckoned �shine might also pay in a bit. She reckoned she might put Uriah into a new suit one day, and then ally herself with Capitola to pay for a couple of new dresses. Good solid store wear, nothing too fancy.

Preacher Conover came out of the chapel, and the men all doffed their hats. He looked at Iris and Uriah with Jedediah and Capitola Hitt now standing to one side of them, and Woodrow Bethpage standing awkwardly on the other, and beamed. It was not every day he made five silver dollars for a wedding. He wondered whether the Hitts would be providing any breakfast after the service, and then pushed the thought reluctantly from his mind. The Hitts might brew up a nice drop of liquor, but they kept their hands closed. He had already dismissed Woodrow Bethpage from his calculations. Woodrow was a Godfearing man, but he drank what money he made.

Half an hour later Iris and Uriah were lawfully man and wife. The service continued for a further hour after that, because Preacher Conover like the sound of his own voice, and his congregation liked a hymn or two. But Uriah was fidgeting as the last strains of �Amazing Grace� died away. He was going to have Iris now, and he knew she could not refuse him.

He waited impatiently as the women led the way out of the chapel and gathered outside to congratulate Iris, and noted wryly that the widow Law had corralled Woodrow Bethpage all to herself. He imagined Woodrow�s destiny was also being settled. Capitola Hitt made a great show of embracing Iris, whilst her husband Jedediah stood gruffly behind her. Uriah saw his father�s eyes gleam for a moment as he stepped forward to shake hands with the new Mrs. Hitt, and felt a sharp momentary spur of jealousy. But he knew that he would be having the girl for himself, and other men might think as they pleased.

Then the gathering began to break up. Uriah saw his mother speak quickly to his father, and saw his father nod. Jedediah walked slowly towards him.

�Son, yer maw minds we should take your wagon back to the cabin for you.�

Uriah waited, and his father looked a little embarrassed. �Mother reckons you should take the buggy. You might want to stop by the way.�

He nodded. The Hitt cabin was but one big open space, with a table in the middle, and some chairs his father had built, on long winter nights. There was a big cast iron stove at one end, that Capitola used for cooking, and two corn shuck mattresses against the front wall, where the Hitts slept. Occasionally Uriah heard his parents in the night, when Jed�s need overcame him, and he insisted on Capitola allowing him his marital rights in the dark, grunting and groaning on her like a boar in full rut. But Uriah was accustomed to the muffled sounds, and would turn over and return to sleep. Capitola also insisted on Uriah getting up early to see to his needs every morning, and he imagined his parents used that brief space of morning time for a hasty coupling.

He touched Iris� arm. �Daddy says we take the buggy.� He knew of a cedar glade in the woods, not far from the track to the Hitt cabin, that would suit his purpose nicely. His parents would pass the buggy, but they would not pause. A married man must have some privacy on his wedding day.

Iris bent her head in assent. She knew that she would now learn what a woman felt when she changed from a maiden to a wife, and she feared the change a little. But fear would help her none. Her mind momentarily pictured the brakeman, and for a moment she wished it might have been otherwise. But wishing never brought comfort. She walked towards the buggy, holding herself straight, and climbed up into the seat.

Uriah drove for a little above twenty minutes, along a rough rutted track through a patch of woodland, and then reined the buggy to a halt. Iris saw a patch of grass a little way into the trees, and knew that this would be the place.

�Get down, wife.� He gestured with his whip, pointing towards the grass.

Iris climbed down, waiting by the side of the buggy. Uriah jumped down to join her, and took her by the arm. He was holding a pair of tow sacks in his free hand. He half led her, half pulled her towards the patch of grass, and dropped both sacks.

�Make a bed of them.�

For a moment Iris bridled. She could stand up to Woodrow; she reckoned she could stand up to this man as well. But then she knelt, and smoothed the rough sacks down on the grass. She was curious to know how it would be, what was about to happen to her, and perhaps a little expectant as well.

Uriah stood above her and dropped his trousers. �Lay them out and hike up yer dress.�

Iris lay obediently, pulling her dress up around her hips. She wondered whether Uriah would kiss her, or cup his hands under her breasts the way her brakeman had. She thought he would not. She looked at him, with his britches about his ankles and his long johns unbuttoned, and was minded of a stallion preparing to mount a mare. He seemed made like a giant, and she was not sure how she would accommodate him

Now he was kneeling between her legs, and she could feel him pushing against her. Pushing hard up against her, and then driving hard into her, and her body contorted with the pain of his entry. She bit her lip, to prevent herself screaming out loud, and felt Uriah�s mouth bearing down on hers, and his tongue forcing its way into her mouth, and he was rocking himself on her body, and her whole being was filled with pain and disillusion. Now she knew the meaning of rape and violation, because Uriah was violating her. He had taken, without asking, and stolen her innocence from her.

Afterwards, when he had slaked his lust, he rolled sideways away from her, and got to his feet, and looked down on her, much like a man might look down on a sheep he had slaughtered. �I figger �I�m gonna have to teach you some.�

Iris stared up at him silhouetted above her against the sky. What this man had done to her had been brutal and painful and short. She imagined that she would have to go through the experience again and again, barring only the weeks when she bled, and she had heard tell that some men refused any respite. She sat up, looking down at the blood that stained her thighs.

Uriah reached down to pull her to her feet. �Don�t fret �bout that, you can wash it out when we get home.� He laughed, and his laugh held no sympathy. �Mebbe I�ll take you again this evening, out in the barn. We got some real nice hay in there.� He waited for her to get back up into the buggy, and set the horse to moving. �Meantimes you can cook me some side meat and beans. Lovin� sure puts an appetite into a man.�

Iris did not reply. She felt half sick. There had been no loving in what had just happened, and she imagined there might never be, short of this man mending his ways. She wondered bleakly what the future held for her.

Chapter 2