The Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards

to his forehead that you would think he had to be hit, and he could feel the tiny scared bits of wood brush his temple.
    But then, as men gathered, as people howled, with Reggie Glidden’s right arm so battered and bloodied it would seem impossible for him to swat away another stick, Camellia jumped in front of him.
    “Please,” she said, “please, I beg you all—stop now please.” Reggie insensible and grinning, the mad crowd howling in joy.
    And Camellia took her man home as he lagged behind in the rainfall, accusing her of sabotaging his good name.
    The next morning after he woke, so ashamed he blurted, “Leave me be, for I am damned,” almost willing it to be, his right arm now scarred to the bone.
    It was at this time Reggie told her he would not be Push for a Jameson.
    “What do you mean?” she said, her eyes startled with tears, her heart pounding like that of a child.
    “Nothing, only I have other things to do,” he said.
    Neighbors could hear them arguing for a day—the name Owen Jameson being mentioned as the dark, metallic fall night came on. Finally Reggie threw a lamp, smashed it against the wall, and left.
    Glidden left town. He told a priest that he would annul the marriage if she wanted and say that he couldn’t have children.
    “When will you come back?” she begged. (For it was Camelliawho needed to prove to everyone that this marriage would work—if for nothing else for her own mother and father.)
    “I will come back when I am myself,” he said.

SEVEN
    On the frozen platform, the hastily arranged celebration for Owen Jameson took place.
    “There’s the man who knows Pythagoras,” his old math teacher yelled, and everyone laughed.
    “We have defeated tyranny,” someone else exclaimed, and none spoiled the moment by saying “no.”
    Owen was brought home in early evening. He was almost falling down drunk, his own mother reprimanding him.
    It was a moment for the great barren house, and its people of the woods. A dozen of them stayed overnight.
    After ten that night Owen was dragged upstairs to bed. There he saw a girl, the one who was once at Lula’s house, and kissed her. The one who had written him a support letter during the war. She was a beautiful woman. He did not know that she was there late, only to give him the letter from Lula. He said: “You deserve a medal for your beauty, I’m going to marry you—what is it, Camellia?—ya, that’s it—we’ll get married tomorrow.” When she began to protest he laughed and said, “I should have married you before the war—don’t tell me you have someone else—well, we’ll take care of him!”
    He swept her hair back with his hand. Her dark eyes looked up at him, a mole on her cheek—her skin was soft brown.
    He laughed and kissed her. She pushed him away in an instant, and told him he was drunk.
    When he woke the next day a teamster said: “Camellia has something for you—” and winked. His intention was to look as if he was pleased for Owen’s sake. A cold wind blew through the opened door, the hallway seemed to regale in morning light that suddenly ebbed by cloud.
    “Who?”
    “The little maid whose panties you was in—”
    “That didn’t happen,” Owen said sternly.
    Two other men looked at each other and laughed, and so did a man at the door, who had come selling apples in a crate.
    It had already spread about the neighborhood, and to the town core—even to one of the town drunks, who happened to be Camellia’s uncle. Two of the Steadfast Few, hearing of it that morning, rushed to tell others in their group. They could suppress neither their dismay nor their eagerness to share it. And what had they heard, which they hoped Lula had not—yet: Owen had said he was going to marry Camellia. Had kissed her, and laughed about it, saying he would “take care” of her husband.
    Now Owen washed and went to see Camellia in the kitchen.
    “You have something for me?” he asked.
    She nodded and handed him the VC he