Free Clay's Quilt by Silas House Page A

had been right, imagining her hands. They were as hot as freshly stoked coals. On the dance floor, he put one hand on her waist and took her hand as they began to two-step. The song was a fast two-step, but calm and easy. Clay moved his hand up to the small of her back, where the soft fabric was cool and thin. He could feel her muscles moving there, hard and flat in the palm of his hand. They danced well together, their feet and hips moving in exact time. Alma looked over his shoulder without moving her face, like someone watching a movie and waiting for something to happen.
    â€œYou ought to play that fiddle up here more often,” he said, for lack of anything better to say.
    â€œI wouldn’tve done that a-tall if Evangeline hadn’t begged so. I ain’t much on playing in front of a crowd. Your cousin’s wedding was the first time I ever played anywhere besides on the front porch, or my bedroom.”
    â€œYou’re lying,” he said.
    â€œNo, I swear. That was the very first time, and tonight was the second.”
    â€œWell, I seen your first two performances, then,” Clay said.
    They danced silently for a moment, and Clay breathed her in. He could still smell the Coast soap on her. She smelled clean and soft and made him picture the ocean.
    â€œYour breath smells good,” Alma said suddenly, and laughed with embarrassment. “I love to smell whiskey and cigarette smoke mixed up together.”
    He laughed too loudly, not knowing what to make of her.
    â€œI mean it. You prob’ly think I’m crazy, but I love that smell.”
    â€œWhere you from? I hadn’t never seen you before the wedding, and we look bout the same age. Why didn’t we go to high school together?”
    â€œWe live plumb up on Victory,” she answered. Victory was at the farthest edge of the county, so far away that the students there were bused to school in neighboring Laurel County. Victory was famous for being a strictly religious town, populated solely by members of the same church. Clay knew that Evangeline was the daughter of the well-known Mosley Family and suddenly realized that this meant Alma was, too. He wondered what their father would do if he knew both of his girls were gracing the stage of a place like the Hilltop.
    â€œYou still live at home, with your people?” he asked.
    â€œNaw, I live with Evangeline right now.”
    The song ended, and Clay realized that he hadn’t heard one word Evangeline had sung. He wondered how he and Alma had moved so gracefully around the dance floor, when they had both seemed to live that moment outside of the music.
    Alma let her hand drop out of his. “Thanks for the dance. It was nice.”
    â€œSave another’n for me?” he asked, and heard himself sounding desperate.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I better not.”
    â€œYou be up here next weekend?”
    â€œI sure don’t know,” she said, and started walking away. “Thanks for the dance.”
    Alma moved away and faded into the crowd, not waiting for him to walk her back to her table. When he finally stopped looking for her, he realized that he was standing in the middle of an empty dance floor.

5
    B ACK AT HOME , Clay shoved a John Mellencamp CD into the stereo and began moving around the room to the beat. He closed his eyes, moved up and down, bent his knees, shook his hips, jerked his head to and fro with the rhythm. His arms moved all around him, his sock feet finding their way easily around the kitchen floor.
    Clay was filled with a wild blood that he was always conscious of; he sometimes felt it pulsing through his veins with such fire that he thought it might burst from the tips of his fingers. Maybe it was the mixture of his Irish and Cherokee blood. He was sure of one thing—he came from a long line of lively people. He knew enough about his mother to be sure that she had been one of the wildest women in the