that cow wants milking.
if that letter ain't urgent, the cow is -- is what i'm saying.
old lady swanger says you need some help. here i am.
what's the rake for?
ain't for gardening, that's for sure. number one -- you got a horse i can plow all day. i'm a worker. number two there's no man better than me cause there's no man around who ain't old or full of mischief. i know your plight.
am i hard to hear cause you keep repeating everything. i'm not looking for money, never cared for it and now it ain't worth nothing. i expect to board and eat at the same table. i'm not a servant. do you get my meaning?
people'll have to empty their own night jars, that's my point.
and i'm not planning to work while you watch neither.
is that a yes or a no?
there's half the day yet. let's make a start. my name's ruby. i know your name.
i despise a flogging rooster. where is he?
let's put him in a pot.
ada? ada? you up?
tell the cows that. it's late.
then you have to get up earlier. what's that?
you want to carry a book carry one you can write in --
-- we got our own story. called black cove farm: a catastrophe.
i can spell it, too. c-a-t-a-s-t-r-o- phe. learned the same place you did, in the schoolroom. that's one of the first words they taught me. ruby thewes, you are a ca-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h- e.
you mucking out?
three years i was in school before my daddy -- saying god rest his soul is like wishing him what he had in life, cause he lived to rest, he was born tired -- before my daddy decided there was better use for my backside than have it sat all day in front of a blackboard.
number one -- layout a winter garden for cool season crops: turnips, onions, cabbage, greens.
number two: patch the shingles on the barn roof. do we have a maul and froe?
m-a-u-l.
number three: clay crocks for preserves. tomatoes. beans. jams.
clear and turn this field. no harm done letting it go fallow, now we'll do well.
number fifteen
number sixteen: let's get a martin colony going in the gourd house. keep away crows. you got one thing in abundance on this farm and that's crows.
there's survival. on them trees. you got a cider press or would that be wishing on a blessing?
morning. pigs: you have any loose in the woods?
there's a world more to a hog than the two hams! lard, for example, we'll need plenty --
the catastrophe of ada monroe's laundry. i can feel you shutting your eyes.
what's this wood?
where's north?
name me three herbs growing wild on this farm.
why?
so you never wrapped your legs around this inman?
which means?
which means? should be the other way round
it's no wonder you're helpless and hopeless if it takes this long to fix your hair. say some more.
it's appalling what's in my head?
well that's surely true even in english.
we can't keep anything.
well that's all. the rest is for trading. else they can bury you in your finery.
good god! okay.
takes two minutes. that's what i like.
how much do you love that piano?
we're careful we'll get through the winter now. i made old man roy give me ten of those sheep on account of i said they were so small put together they were no bigger than six proper sheep.
i'm sorry you had to lose your piano. i cut off my hair once, for money. my daddy got two dollars for it. made a wig for a rich feller in raleigh.
stobrod called himself a musician -- my daddy -- he could play six tune on a fiddle. got himself shot dead at petersburg. i was like his goat or some creature tethered to a post. he left me once, up the mountains. i was eight. he was gone over two weeks.
i was all right! he'd walk forty miles for liquor and not forty inches for kindness.
never met her. we're the same in that regard. he said she was -- he told me a thousand stories -- she was a wolf or an indian or a donkey. don't say much for him, except you know he'd be fast to work up a sweat on a tree if he thought there was pleasure in it.
there's cows to milk.
look at us both what?
we need a scarecrow, birds eating up half our winter garden.
we got something for you.
that's real coffee. it ain't hickory and dirt.
she made it.
i'm still alive.
we'll be getting along.
that strike you as odd?
stood at her front door?
number one -- i know that woman all my life. i never stood outside her house -- she'd invite a wolf inside if it knocked on the door.
number two -- old man swanger was inside that house: i could smell his pipe burning. number three -- look at these fields.
we came by here a week ago, they were waist high in hay.
someone's been in the corncrib.
it's a coon or possum. scratched out a fist hole in the side. this place! i'm telling you -- we grow, others eat. i'll go into town, take the last of the cider and trade for a trap.
what?
we got some critter stealing our corn.
you know it.
i'm not stopping, sally. i'm not snooping neither. just you should know teague and his boys are lurking down by pigeon river, the old mill.
the hat's a nice touch.
you're quiet.
well now you did.
i bargained like lucifer. we can make all kinds of good eating.
cabbage. slaw, sauerkraut, cabbage soup, fried cabbage, stuffed cabbage.
what's that?
i can't get this damn thing off her.
ada, i can't get this off her!
what darling? what?
she's saying don't bother.
this world won't stand long. god won't let it stand this way long.
it's a man.
raiding our corn. got him in the trap. that's him yelping.
i don't want him to shoot me. can you fire this thing?
listen up -- you got a barrel trained on your rear-end.
you got a weapon?
unbelievable! stobrod thewes.
that's my daddy.
just so's you know -- you're not eating inside. number one -- they hang people round here for taking in deserters. number two -- even if they gave out prizes -- you'd still eat outside.
i'm what?
you'd be scarred. you'd be really scarred if i hadn't wrapped them trap teeth in sacking. which was her idea.
good god!
hey! let's agree: you beat me, you abandoned me, you ignored me, you beat me some more -- all of that is better than ruby with the eyes that sparkle!
you were an asshole.
get him out of here!
you're all set.
ain't you got a proper coat?
nobody. i'll make up food for you, you come sundays before it's light, i'll leave it behind the old frazier mill.
he is so full of manure, that man, we could lay him on the dirt and grow another one just like him.
it is and that's the last you'll see of him.
get on back where you came from!
she ain't gonna marry linton, is she? she said -- whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same. you can't say that and then marry linton.
okay.
i'm not waiting until tomorrow.
little visible delight, but necessary. i like that.
don't sleep here.
they stop one night, they'll want to stop two.
maybe.
he said that a month ago.
what kind of name's georgia?
i know that's meant to be the ugliest state under the heavens.
what's that cluster of stars?
what about them shaped like a wishbone?
listen to her, sal. she's turned into a highland girl.
it's sad, sal. it's a c-a-t-a-s-t-r- o-p-h-e.
who?
bad news is girls get working. i'm going to round up the animals. this'll settle.
he can milk the cows. i was worrying about that. it'll be dark in a couple of hours. i's ten hours climb from here. he's drawn a map.
you know these fools stayed the night in the mill? that's stobrod -- he can't do one good thing without adding the bad. left tracks in the snow all the way up for them home guards to follow. that's a sign says shoot me!
we should get going.
every piece of this is a man's bullshit. they call this a war a cloud over the land, but they made the weather. then they stand in the rain and say: shit! it's raining! if i cry one tear for my daddy i stole it off a crocodile.
maybe teague's took him. they did that with the swanger boys -- didn't, they? -- dragged them into town, then strung them up as warning.  it's snowed since, so i can't read the story on the ground.
let's dig.
he's still breathing! god damn! daddy; daddy -- it's ruby. don't you die on me again. he's still breathing!
pack a pan full of snow. i need good clean water, boiled up.
he'll die first. he's got hardly no blood left in him.
there's a place further on up. used to be. old cherokee place. there's good water right by it.
yes, it do, country girl.
congratulations, i should send you out with a shotgun more often. he looks as he needs sleep.
be my guest. you shot or something?
hungry? he woke up.
said -- your mommy's name was grace then closed his eyes again.
i'm not surprised. your man looks played out.
saw him when?
well there you are.
you probably don't remember it right.
better get a fire going. i've got big plans for that farm. got a vision in my mind of how that cove needs to be.
there's not a thing we can't do ourselves.
number one -- shut this door, it's freezing. number two -- shut that door, it's freezing. i'm laying on my back, with my fingers poked in my ears trying to shut out who's got a bag of diamonds and who's got boots needs polishing, if you want to get three feet up a bull's ass listen to what sweethearts whisper to each other.
in fact, if you're going to wimble all night i'm going to sleep in with him.
he's right.
you'd have found some other fool to rescue you.
if you say a thing and then cough it's a lie. daddy, stay on that horse, and don't lose him or sell him. we'll need him on the farm.
i hope that georgia boy's been seeing to the animals.
i was not. i was thinking on swollen udders -- and before you say same difference.
miss lovey-dovey!