Blue Dress , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Tarpley Smith

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31 pages

English

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Tarpley Smith blends intense emotion with some classy humor and elements of science fiction, as well as scary stories, to create this wonderful book. Each story is not only unique, but absorbing as well. From the intense emotional connection of a disabled child with his puppy, and the powerful story of love and regret of Ben and Jenny, to the supernatural story of Selby and Maria, and the tale of an adventurous and mysterious boy, Makins, this book is sure to keep you glued to it. An extraordinary collection of the best genres of the 21st century, all compiled in one book for an emotional rollercoaster ride that will keep you asking for more. Romance, science fiction, drama, horror and comedy - everything a book reader loves is present in this single book.

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	28 février 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528948159
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Blue Dress
Tarpley Smith
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-28
The Blue Dress About the Author Dedication Copyright Information The Blue Dress Truant Pug’s Place The Rhythm Transition One Blind Mouse
About the Author
Tarpley Smith is from Alabama and a graduate of the University of Missouri. He served three years as an officer in the US Navy and was a sea captain for many years in offshore oil.
He is a widower with three grown-up children and lives in the New Forest in England.
Dedication
To my children, Rebecca, Benjamin and Charlotte
Copyright Information
Copyright © Tarpley Smith (2019)
The right of Tarpley Smith to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788789851 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528948159 (E-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
The Blue Dress
Ben stood in the shadow across the road from the isolated filling station and watched the young man inside. Ben was a big man, with long heavy arms. Forty years of almost fruitless labour on his rocky Tennessee hill farm had stooped his powerful shoulders and thickened and broadened his hands. His homemade flannel shirt was patched at each elbow, and to cover his white ragged cuffs of his faded overalls failed sockless ankles.
The sun would soon be up. The hazy, blue air was tinged with mix pink, and Ben could hear a rooster crowing somewhere down the valley behind him.
When it gets daybreak , Ben thought, he’d have to come out to cut off the lights. I ’ ll get him then . Ben looked again for the hundredth time. The money was still there, bulging in the young man’s shirt pocket. Ben had watched him for two nights; each night planning the two grabby. He had watched the young man service the trucks hauling in to Chattanooga, take their money, put the change in his right-pants pocket and carefully wrap the bills around the roll in his shirt pocket. When the other man came to relieve him in the mornings, he deposited the money in the cash register all at once.
Ben had to go through with it this time. Jenny wasn’t going to last much longer. She had told him last night, before she went to sleep, that she had made her peace with the Lord and she was almost ready. He knew why she had said ‘almost’. Jenny wasn’t sure how she would be buried. “Ben,” she said quietly, “Remember that purty blue dress old man Webb had up in his store window? Wouldn’t that be some fine way to be buried?”
“I’ll get one like it for you, Jenny,” he answered, “Folks’ll see how purty you are.” Her eyes brightened for a moment, like in the old days. Then she smiled sadly and patted his big hand, remembering how impossible it would be.
The young man in the filling station was slouched in a cane-bottomed chair reading a comic book. Ben had moved further back into the shadows. The young man suddenly slapped the comic down on the desk and stood up, rubbing his eyes. He then ambled into the rest room. Ben ran swiftly across the road and crouched behind the cold drink machine. The young man returned and, lighting a cigarette, propped himself against his desk. He reached into his pocket and produced a silver dollar, which he tried to walk across his knuckles. He didn’t seem to be able to get past the third knuckle. He gave it up shortly and began flipping the coin. He would toss it into the air and snare it with a dramatic overhead grab. The fourth time he flipped the dollar, it went a little too close to the map rack and he cracked his knuckles on its edge. He abandoned this sport and, sucking his knuckles, went back to his comic book.
He isn’t little , Ben thought, I’ll have to take him quickly.
A stray hound appeared from behind the building and half-heartedly sniffed Ben’s old brogans. Ben gave him a shove and he sidled to the gasoline pumps, where he began to test his teeth on one of the hoses. The young man looked up from his comic book and immediately bounded from his chair.
He raced outside and hurled two empty motor oil cans at the dog. Ben started from his hiding place, but the young man wheeled around and went inside.
What if he doesn’t cut out the lights till the other fellow comes, Ben thought. That just can’t happen. I got a have that money.
Forty-seven dollars. Ben had sold his bony mule to Stick Foster for twenty-two dollars three weeks ago, and he had spent all but four of that on medicine for Jenny. He still owed Doc. Sutton $20.00, but Doc said he could take all the time he needed to pay when he lost his crop to the rains again that year; it meant he owned for seed for two years planting.
Clyde Liddell at the feed store told Ben he couldn’t carry him through planting again this year. When it was plain that Jenny wouldn’t last, and when Ben realized that he was going to get her the blue dress, he begged around the little town for work. But it seemed like he owed everybody in town and nobody would let him work, unless he applied it on his bill. Mrs Liggett offered him $0.45 an hour chopping kindling, but he saw the woodpile and knew he couldn’t possibly make more than eight or nine dollars, no matter how fast he worked.
Ben knew he couldn’t tell anybody why he wanted the money and not expect more smearing advice. He couldn’t explain why after crippling Jenny’s youth into a bent back and calloused hands, he wanted to make her such a gift now. He couldn’t tell himself how he had to try, with this one extravagant gesture to pay it all back to her.
I can’t recollect the last time I gave her cause to say thank you, Ben thought.
Ben hadn’t known until too late, after the coughing had started, what was happening. He hadn’t known the work was killing her. They had to work hard to grub a living out of the rocky soil. But, she never complained and Ben never realized that he was asking a strong man labour of a fragile woman, meant for an easier life. During the first years, she had worked with her eyes to the top of the mountains.
“We’ll have an extra good crop this year, Ben, and the sow looks like a mighty big litter. Maybe we can get a little piece of that valley land.”
But it never happened. During their good years, they had little more than enough to buy feed and seed for the next. Slowly, she began to change, too slowly for Ben to notice until it was too late. While their desperate struggle to force a living from the earth only hardened and toughened Ben, it seemed to find all of Jenny’s weak spots. She began to cough almost constantly, and he suddenly realized she was an old woman, unable to carry her burden, which had always been too heavy for her.
Behind the drink machine, Ben leaned forward on his hands to take some of the weight off his tight leg muscles.
I plain worked her to death, he thought of, She isn’t old in years. Only worn out. Working like a slave every day of the year. Lugging tot in and ploughing in like a man. All the time wishing I’d go into Chattanooga and get a job in the mills and me blind stubborn, jus’ cause pappy farmed the same land. I ought to know she wasn’t strong like the other wimmin. I got to get her that blue dress—I got to do something special for her this once.
The young man rose from his can-bottomed chair and stood staring out the front window of the station. He tipped his way through the door. The sun was warm on Ben’s back as he crept around the cold drink machine. He ran silently on the cement driveway behind the young man and raising both hands above his head, swinging them like an axe onto the red insignias between the young man’s shoulders. With a hoarse, on the ground stumbled forward two steps and fell to his knees, unable to breathe.
Ben darted around him and smashed a big, work-worn hand into his face. The young man fell backward, senseless. The wad of greenbacks bulged in his shirt pocket, as he lay awkwardly arched over his still bent legs. Ben anxiously grasped the young man’s throat, and feeling the reassuring pulse there, grasped the money from his pocket. He then bent and scooped the limp figure up in his arms. He carried him across the road and into the woods, where he propped him in a sitting position against a pine sapling.
Ben produced a short plough-line from his overall pocket, and kneeling securely lashed his wrists to the small tree at his back. He rose and looked down at the crumpled man.
“I’m sorry I had to hurt you, young feller.” He bent once more, felt the young man’s throat and began to walk the mile to Haleyville. He kept in the woods, parallel to the road until he got to town. The stores were still closed from the night, so he crossed the square to the Court House, where he sat down leaning against the wall, facing old man Webb’s store. He pulled his hat over his face and pretended he was asleep.
Ben could see the blue dress still there in the window.