Bent Road (29 page)

 

F
eeling tired, like he might never feel good again, Daniel walks into his classroom, hangs his coat and hat in the closet at the back of the room and sits. Ian is there, teetering on the edge of his seat, waving at Daniel from four rows over. He wants to tell Daniel something but since Mrs. Ellenton separated them on the third week of school, he’ll have to wait until lunch. Daniel waves back and presses a finger to his lips when Mrs. Ellenton walks into the room, her high heels clicking across the tile floor. From the front of the classroom, she smiles at Daniel and tilts her head like people do when they feel sorry for someone.

At noon, Mrs. Ellenton dismisses the class for lunch. Daniel doesn’t wait for Ian like he normally would. Instead, he takes his bag-lunch from the shelf near the door and races through the halls with his head down because every kid in school is staring at him—the kid who saw Julianne Robison dead. He hears Ian calling out but his crooked legs can’t keep up. The cold weather seems to have made Ian stiffer, like every step he takes is painful. If it were possible, Daniel would say Ian looked even smaller, like he shrunk during the snowstorm. Everything except his head. It seems to have grown, and Daniel rubs his own neck thinking how heavy Ian’s head must be to carry around all day. Once inside the cafeteria, Daniel sits at his usual table, which seems to be more crowded today, and opens his lunch. When Ian finally sits, he is panting for air. His eyelids are gray and sunken into his head and a bluish tint surrounds his mouth.

“Hey,” he says, tossing his lunch on the table. “What are you doing?”

All around the cafeteria, kids watch Daniel. Not one of them has been his friend all year, but now they all want to hear about Julianne Robison.

“Doing nothing,” Daniel says. “Eating.”

“So you found her. You really found her.” Ian smiles at the full table and leans forward. “What’d she look like?”

Daniel shrugs. He sees Julianne every time he closes his eyes, but he thinks he’s really seeing only what he imagines. Once Jonathon realized what they were looking at up there on the second story of Norbert Brewster’s house, he grabbed Daniel’s arm and shoved him back into the hallway, telling him to stay put, stay damned well put, until he could figure things out.

“Come on,” Ian says, cupping his mouth with both hands so no one can hear what he’s saying. “You got to tell me.”

“She didn’t look like anything,” Daniel says, taking a bite from his sandwich but thinking if he chews or swallows, he’ll vomit.

“Did it smell bad?” Ian asks, but then answers his own question. “I guess not, because of the cold. Frozen, huh?”

Daniel lifts his eyes, looking out from under his brow without moving his head. “Yeah.”

“You know, most folks say your Uncle Ray did it.” He leans forward and whispers, “But I still say it was Jack Mayer. Swiped her up the second he broke out. Swiped her up and killed her there in Brewster’s old house.”

Ian leans back and studies his lunch like he’s thinking about eating it, but he pushes it farther away instead and closes his eyes. He sits that way, taking in deep breaths for a good long minute before opening his eyes, ready to go again.

“She’s the first person murdered around here in twenty-five years,” Ian says. “The first in twenty-five years.” He waves at two of his brothers sitting at the other end of the table. They both jump up and sit back down next to Ian. Once they are settled, Ian starts talking again. “ ’Course you know who the last person murdered was.”

Daniel shakes his head and keeps eating even though he feels sicker with every bite.

“ ’Course you know.”

Both of Ian’s brothers nod but neither says anything.

“It was your own Aunt Eve. Your dad’s sister. You know that? Murdered right there in your Grandma’s shed. Everyone says your Uncle Ray did it but they couldn’t ever prove it.”

Daniel stops chewing.

“Say he killed her same as Julianne. You know, blond like Julianne. A girl. Older, of course. But blond just the same. Say he couldn’t help himself.” Ian looks at his brothers again, like he’s making sure he’s telling everything right. Both brothers nod. “But I say it was Jack Mayer killed them both. Killed your aunt before they locked him up. And now Julianne, just the same, twenty-five years later.”

“Shut up,” Daniel says, holding half of his sandwich with both hands. “You don’t know anything about my aunt. You shut up.”

“Jacob remembers,” Ian says, talking about his oldest brother who is grown with his own two kids and lives in Colorado. “He remembers when it happened. Told us all everything. Ma told him to hush up about it, but he told us anyway. Says it was exactly like Julianne. Except they found Eve Scott before she rotted all away. All bloodied up between the legs. Just like Julianne Robison. Right?”

Daniel didn’t see much of Julianne, but he saw enough and heard enough from Jonathon to know Julianne didn’t have any legs left to be bloodied up—nothing but bones.

“You knew about her, right?” Ian says. “You knew about Eve Scott?”

Daniel doesn’t answer.

“Everyone else says it was your uncle. But I know it was Jack Mayer. I know it was. He bloodied them both up. Right there between the legs.”

Daniel drops his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, squishing it with his knee as he lunges across the table. He grabs Ian’s collar and punches him square in the nose.

Celia feels Arthur behind her, his body so much broader and taller, shielding her from the northern wind. No snow has fallen in four days, so while Arthur and the other county workers have cleared the roads and driving is easy enough, the temperature has continued to fall and not a flake has melted. Fourteen inches of snow covered the ground by the end of the day that they found Julianne, and the wind has stirred up the landscape, driving the snow into five-foot drifts in some spots and leaving frozen barren ground in others. Inside the cemetery, snow disguises the graves that lie in St. Anthony’s shadow, making them almost beautiful. Someone, probably the two black men standing near the fence line, waiting and smoking, shoveled a path from the gate to Julianne’s gravesite and the area around. Still, Celia’s feet are cold and damp and beside her, tucked under one arm, Evie shivers. Celia pulls her closer, letting Arthur shield them both.

Beside Evie, Daniel stands with his hands folded and his head lowered. The entire town is here, a sea of dark coats and hats that surround a tiny grave, lying in the shade thrown by three large pine trees. The pines’ branches are thick and white and clumps of snow drip when the wind blows. Celia tries to think it is a lovely spot for Julianne, so much nicer with the trees and the view of the church than the newer section of the cemetery where Mrs. Minken was recently buried. Here, Julianne lies near the grandparents she never met. Here, she lies in a grave that was probably meant for her mother.

From their spot near the back of the crowd, Father Flannery’s voice, fighting with the heavy wind, is no more than a broken few words. “Tender young life . . . accept God’s will . . . forbidden . . . we powerless sinners . . .”

Arthur touches Celia’s arm and points to a closer spot, but Celia shakes her head and squeezes Evie. She is afraid to go closer, afraid that whatever took Julianne might find its way to her family. After a brief silence, the mourners around Julianne’s grave say “Amen” in tandem and, following their lead, though she can’t hear Father Flannery, Celia makes the sign of the cross, nudging Evie to do the same.

Behind her, Celia feels Arthur make the sign across his chest and his deep voice echoes “Amen.” She leans into him, letting the sound of him comfort her. As everyone parts, filtering down the narrow shoveled path toward the gate, Evie tugs on Celia’s sleeve. In a whisper, she asks to go to Elaine, who is standing a few rows up with Jonathon, Ruth and Reesa. Celia nods, and watching until Elaine has wrapped both arms around Evie, she turns toward Arthur. He is gone.

D
aniel offers his arm to Mama because when Dad slipped behind him and started to walk away, he whispered for Daniel to take care of her. Mama takes Daniel’s arm and smiles up at him. She does that now, smiles every time she has to crane her neck to see into his eyes, as if she’s proud that he’s finally become a man. Except maybe taller doesn’t really mean he’s a man yet. He hasn’t fired a shotgun. He’s still afraid of Jack Mayer and Uncle Ray, and he cries when he has to be alone at night and remember Julianne Robison lying under that white quilt. Being taller isn’t all it takes to be a man. A man doesn’t hit a crippled kid square in the nose. Only a boy does that, no matter how tall he is.

Watching the others leave, Daniel wonders if Ian told yet and if his pa will see Daniel standing there by Julianne’s grave and come punch Daniel in the face for doing the same to Ian. Ian’s brothers had picked him up from the ground after Daniel punched him, and one of them shoved a napkin under Ian’s nose. Then they both looked at Daniel like they had never seen him before and dragged Ian, only his one good leg able to keep up, to the bathroom, where they cleaned him up so not even Mrs. Ellenton knew anything happened. Daniel doesn’t see either of those brothers walking away from Julianne’s grave. In fact, he doesn’t see any Bucher brother, or Mr. or Mrs. Bucher or Ian. Maybe he should tell first. Maybe he won’t get in as much trouble if he tells what Ian said about Aunt Eve getting bloodied between her legs and murdered in Grandma Reesa’s shed. Watching Dad walk away from Julianne’s grave, Daniel decides to tell because that’s probably what a man would do.

R
uth reaches for Evie, but she slips into Elaine’s arms instead and buries her face in Elaine’s wool coat. Jonathon begins to say something, probably words of comfort. Ruth pats his hand, silencing him, and nods as if she understands why Evie can’t love her right now. Then she steps away from the crowd, not liking the feeling that everyone is leaving Julianne cold and alone, not liking the feeling that everyone is leaving her. Many of these mourners for Julianne have come from the country—farmers who have probably checked every abandoned barn and deserted tractor, fearing that another tiny body will turn up. Some of them stare at Ruth, at the swell she can’t hide beneath her coat anymore, because they haven’t seen her, only heard. They look at her as if they think Ruth should be with a husband. They stare as if she is sinning against poor little Julianne and her parents. Orville and Mary wouldn’t squabble. Mary wouldn’t keep her baby from Orville. Orville and Mary have to witness their baby in a casket, withered away to nothing but bones. Orville and Mary, standing at their daughter’s graveside, withered away themselves, the life gone out of them, two people as dead as the daughter they’re burying. They wouldn’t waste time thinking a beating was so bad. Ruth closes her eyes and lifts her face into the icy wind, hoping it will be easier to breathe, and when she opens her eyes, she sees Arthur wading through the deep snow, away from Julianne’s grave. She holds one hand over her baby girl and follows.

Ruth has come here every week for twenty-five years, and she’s watched the pines grow, first standing with them to her back on the day they buried Eve. They were green then, not snow-covered, and thin and widely spaced. Now they’ve filled in and grown tall, their branches tangling together. The pines have always marked the way—two headstones to the north of the biggest pine, which was bigger than the rest even twenty-five years ago, and three headstones east. She doesn’t have to count anymore, never really had to. Arthur must remember, too, or maybe he’s been here to visit Eve since he came home. Maybe every week like Ruth. He seems to know the way as he steps through the smooth, clean snow and stops directly in front of Eve’s grave. He looks back when he hears Ruth behind him and takes her hand. On the ground, a few feet ahead, stands a gray stone. EVE SCOTT. OUR DAUGHTER. OUR SISTER. OUR LOVED ONE. Ruth pulls off one of her brown gloves and reaches into her coat pocket. Pulling out two smooth rocks, she sidesteps along Eve’s grave, through the snow, and lays them on top of the headstone.