Clay's Quilt Read Online Free Page B

the men, and Don Williams sang softly from the stereo. Gabe shuffled the deck of cards several times before Clay crossed the kitchen and set down his plate.
    â€œHidy, stranger. I’ve bout forgot what you looked like,” Gabe said.
    â€œI was here a week ago.”
    â€œToo long,” Gabe said. “But it’s been bout too hot to get out.”
    â€œThat’s the damn truth,” one of the men offered. The other one said, “You’re exactly right.”
    â€œBoys, if I’d knowed you all was over here, I’d brought you all a plate, too,” Clay lied.
    â€œHell, Clay, we fixing to get drunk. Have too much food in your belly and it’ll eat your liquor up. You going out tonight?”
    â€œNaw, we’ll probably go up the Hilltop tomorrow night, though.”
    Gabe dealt the cards, and the men stared at their hands. There was a long silence before Gabe said, “Your birthday today, ain’t it?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œLook there,” Gabe said, and nodded to the edge of the table, where a small leather holster lay.
    Clay picked it up and reached in to find a little pistol.
    Gabe grinned. “Happy birthday, then.”
    Clay ran his fingers down the warm handle, stroking the cold silver of the barrel. Even if he didn’t set much store by hunting, he loved guns. He loved their cool solidity in his hand. “I been dead for a pearl-handled pistol,” he said. “It’s a twenty-two, hain’t it?”
    â€œYeah. Snub-nose. That was your granddaddy’s. I took it to the gun shop and had that new handle put on it, though. Don’t go packing it in no honky-tonk just cause it’s little. Little gun like that’ll get a man kilt.”
    The men laughed drunkenly.
    Gabe wanted to get back to his card game. “Go on, now, buddy.”
    Clay held the gun on his palm for a long time. He turned it over and over again without saying a word.
    â€œWhere’s Dreama at?” Clay asked.
    â€œBack in that bedroom, only place she ever is.” Gabe didn’t take his eyes from his cards. “Might as well not even live with me, cause she sure as hell ain’t no company, always locked up in that room.”
    The double-wide was the kind of clean that only a bachelor and his eighteen-year-old daughter could achieve: it appeared to be clean only because things had been pushed behind other things. A new, obese sectional couch sat in a U in the living room, a tall Pioneer stereo system had several dozen loose cassette tapes stacked haphazardly inside the glass, a gun rack on the paneled wall held the rifles and shotguns. On the walls were pictures of Dreama and Clay in various states of growing up, blown-up snapshots of Anneth that they had had made after her death. A framed picture of Gabe and Dreama with OLAN MILLS stamped in silver in the corner. There were no photographs of Dreama’s mother in the house; she had left when Dreama was just a few months old, and Gabe wouldn’t even speak of her. There were a few pictures from Home Interiors that Lolie, Gabe’s girlfriend, had put on the walls to make the place look more homey.
    Clay could remember so many nights spent here, so many nights when he had been awakened by men singing Loretta Lynn songs, stumbling up to the back door to buy a pint of whiskey or a half case of Blue Ribbon. Easter had raised him, but he had lived at Gabe’s. Sometimes Gabe would tell the men to hush, that he had children in the house. Other times Gabe would invite them on in and they would play poker and get drunk. Gabe loved to drink, and he loved to have a big crowd around all the time. When he had a party, people came from everywhere to attend.
    Several times Easter had burst in to grab up Clay and Dreama, her voice thunder when she shouted that Gabe was going to kill himself drinking and drive everyone else crazy in the meantime. But when Easter was gone to tent meetings or