Cottonwood Whispers (12 page)

Not one man budged, as though each was waiting for another to move first. The looks of murderous determination had faded only on the faces of Nate and Mr. Dailey, and Mr. Dailey’s had faded only because of the gun at the back of his skull. Sheriff Clancy usually had a fair amount of respect from everybody in town, but on this day, his skills at convincing the men to listen were waning.

“We’d better see Elmer Poe hang for this, is all we’re sayin’,” Clem Spangler argued. “That man don’t hang, you can be sure he ain’t gonna be safe in this town till his dyin’ day.”

From below me, I heard a sob, and I looked down to see Gemma jump from behind the bush for the first time since all the trouble had started. “Leave him alone!” she cried out. “Ain’t one of you here knows what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Gemma!” I was desperate to keep her from going on, knowing full well that prejudice lived on enough in Calloway to cause Gemma all sorts of trouble if anyone found out she was part of what had happened.

Gemma tried to say more, but I leaped over the railing in an unladylike way that would have given Momma a faint and grabbed Gemma by the shoulders, whispering, “Ain’t nothin’ gonna be helped by you sayin’ somethin’ right now, Gemma. You just wait, hear?”

“I gotta tell, Jessie,” she whispered back frantically.

“Not yet. Not here. Not without proof.”

“For pete’s sake, Jessie,” Luke leaned over to whisper. “You brought Gemma in on this, too?”

“I ain’t brought her in on anythin’,” I hissed. “She’s the reason we’re here.”

“Gemma,” Daddy said softly, “everythin’s gonna be all right, honey. You just wait over there, and once this is settled, Luke and I will take you and Jessilyn home.”

“That’s right. This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, Gemma Teague,” Mr. Custis said. “You best keep out of it altogether.”

“But he didn’t do it.”

“Then a judge and jury will see to it he’s let go,” the sheriff said. “We’ll just let things work out the way they should.”

I squeezed Gemma’s arm hard and she turned away from the crowd and said nothing more.

Sheriff Clancy nudged a couple of the men with the barrel of his gun and said, “That’s enough of this now, boys. Everyone move on out before somebody gets hurt.”

Daddy didn’t lower his gun until the crowd was good and scattered. “Where in blazes have you been, Charlie?” he muttered. “You always leave your prisoners unattended while a mob’s out to get ’em?”

“Simmer down. There weren’t no mob when I left. I just ran over to the pharmacy for a minute.”

“A minute? We were holdin’ them off for a good ten, Charlie.”

“What’d you run to the pharmacy for?” Luke asked with a sneer. “Run out of chaw?”

Sheriff Clancy stared at him hard and held up a paper sack. “Matter of fact, I did.”

Daddy sighed and stepped aside as Sheriff Clancy climbed the steps to go into the jail. “Luke, you watch out for the girls while I have a word with the sheriff.”

Luke nodded his reply, but the second the door shut behind them, he vaulted over that railing the same as I had and landed in front of me, his face red with anger. “What the sam hill were you thinkin’ of doin’, Jessie? You tryin’ to get someone killed?”

“It weren’t her fault,” Gemma told him, but I shushed her with one palm in the air.

“Just who do you think you are, Luke Talley?” I demanded.
“You think you got the right to tell me what to do and what not to do?”

“Matter of fact, I do.”

“Then you’d better think twice, ’cause lest you’re my daddy or you got a badge, you ain’t got no right tellin’ me what to do.”

“There ain’t no use arguin’ over nothin’,” Gemma said with a pleading tone. “This ain’t Jessie’s fault. She come on my account.”

“Gemma tells you to jump off Goggins Bridge, you gonna do it, Jessie?”

Luke’s fatherly words made me fume. “Come the day my daddy runs out of lectures to give me, I’ll call on you, but till then, you can leave off tellin’ me things I can hear at home. I swear, you think you can boss me over everythin’.”

“You come on into town when you knew how dangerous things would be, and you think I’m not gonna be upset that you put you and Gemma in a bad spot?”

This time it was Gemma who got tied up in knots, and she stamped a foot. “It weren’t her fault, I told you!”

I put an arm out to keep her back. “Stay out of this, Gemma.”

“Now, listen here,” Gemma said, her senses regained for the first time since she’d told me all. “I got enough on my mind without hearin’ you two argue over nothin’. I’m a grown woman, and I’ve got a right to do as I please, and you ain’t got no say over it. Jessie’s here because I wanted to come and she wouldn’t let me come alone, and that’s all there is to
it.” She brushed past us, charged up the steps, and headed toward the jailhouse door.

“Where you goin’?” I asked.

“To see Mr. Poe.”

“Gemma,” I said, reaching through the rail to touch her hand, “it’s gonna be okay.”

She studied my face for a minute before nodding, her weary eyes piercing my heart.

We watched her enter the building, and then I sank down into the dirt, my knees suddenly feeling like jelly. I sat there for a few moments just waiting for Luke to start in on me again. But I wasn’t there long before the sound of a ruckus reached my ears, and I jerked my head around toward the jailhouse, where Gemma was being escorted out by Sheriff Clancy. Daddy was beside the sheriff, talking animatedly. I hopped up, and Luke and I walked quickly toward them, my stride outdone by Luke’s, two to one.

“What’s goin’ on?” Luke asked all three of them at once.

“He won’t let me see Mr. Poe,” Gemma answered.

“I got enough trouble round here right now, Gemma,” Sheriff Clancy said. “I need to lock down the place till I get some more help. I ain’t got but two deputies today, and the one inside ain’t worth a hoot. The other one’s on a call. I got some help comin’ in from Spokeet County that’ll be here tomorrow. You come on back then.”

“We’re here now, Charlie,” Daddy said. “Luke and me can help you keep watch while Gemma goes in for a few minutes. You can see the girl’s got a real itch to see the man.”

“Harley, I got ways of doin’ things, and I got to follow my own rules. If I let you in now and then somethin’ happens to Elmer, I’ll have heck to pay.”

Daddy dropped his chin to his chest in resignation; then he reached out and put a hand on Gemma’s back. “Looks like we’ll have to come back tomorrow, Gemma,” he said, his voice filled with compassion. “I’ll drive you in whenever you like, all right?”

I knew Gemma appreciated Daddy’s promise, but I also knew that it didn’t satisfy her much. The poor thing was pure and simple dying to see Mr. Poe. I figured she wanted to see with her own eyes that he was alive and well. She just walked down the steps like she was walking to her own death. I scurried over to her and took her arm, helping her to a bench under an oak tree and settling her there until Daddy and Luke were done talking to Sheriff Clancy. When they were through, the two men walked to where we sat and eyed us both.

“Everyone okay over here?” Daddy asked. His arms were folded tightly against his chest, and I could tell by his body language that he was angry. I waited for him to lecture us, but he obviously decided against it. “Guess we’d better head on home,” he said without waiting for us to answer his previous question. “I gotta get some wood to fix the shed before we go. Luke, you want to come over and give me a hand loadin’ up?”

Luke bobbed his head in agreement, though I could see he was reluctant to leave the two of us alone. Apparently Daddy
was too, because he pointed a stern finger at us and said, “Don’t you two go wanderin’ off or nothin’. I expect to find you here when we come back in about fifteen minutes.”

We didn’t say anything, but he took our silence as an answer that we would and strode off with Luke in tow. Gemma watched them as they walked down the sidewalk, and the second they turned the corner out of sight, she was off the bench like a shot.

“Where in God’s green earth are you goin’?” I called after her.

She said nothing, and with a long sigh, I heaved myself off the bench and followed after her, fairly well knowing what she was planning without her telling me. I followed her to the back of the jailhouse and down the hill that dipped to the basement floor, where the cells were. I caught sight of the metal bars across the windows and had a fearful feeling that they might not be good enough to protect a man from an angry crowd like I’d seen that day. I bent over low to keep from being seen by anyone while we peered into the windows looking for Mr. Poe’s cell.

He was sitting on his cot, his knees tucked up under his chin, arms wrapped around his legs. I had a fleeting thought that he was good and limber for a man in his late sixties, but I doubted his ability to ever defend himself against any capable man.

Gemma sat on the ground and peered into the long, narrow window, tapping against one of the bars.

Mr. Poe looked up quickly, fear in his eyes, but the fear melted when he recognized us.

Gemma lay down on her stomach and put her face to the bars. “You okay in there, Mr. Poe?” she asked, her words slow and deliberate to keep from sounding upset.

Mr. Poe jumped up from his cot and moved to the window as fast as his legs would carry him. “That you, Miss Gemma Teague?”

“Yes’r, Mr. Poe. And Jessilyn too.”

“Hey there, Miss Jessie,” he said with a nod in my direction.

By now, I was lying on my stomach next to Gemma, tears building in my eyes to once again see that man, sweet as honey, sitting behind bars.

“Cain’t look at muh Injun pennies,” he said in his usual mumbled speech. “Cain’t look at muh bottle tops or muh skippin’ stones or muh butterflies.”

“Sheriff won’t let you keep any of your collections here, Mr. Poe?” I asked. “Did you ask him if you could?”

“He says ah cain’t.” He began to pull at his earlobe nervously. “Them’s all by their lonesome, all muh things. Sure ’nough, they’s alone.”

Mr. Poe had always been “special,” according to Momma, and I’d always known him to talk a little funny and be hard to rouse once focused on something, but he was smart as a whip in his own way. Just now, though, his senses seemed dulled, and he was far more anxious and distracted than I’d
ever seen him before. I was worried for his mind as well as his body.

“I think I’ll have my daddy talk with Sheriff Clancy, Mr. Poe,” I told him. “Maybe he can convince the sheriff to let you have a collection or two to look at.”

Mr. Poe’s face broke into a smile full of such hope that I was terribly afraid of what he would feel like if Daddy didn’t manage to talk the sheriff into it. I hoped I wouldn’t regret making the offer.

“Sure’d be nice, Miss Jessie,” he said, the
s
sound whistling through the empty space where his two front teeth had been. “Indeedy, it’d be nice. I ain’t got nuthin’ in here to c’llect.”

We left him with smiles that were much lighter than our hearts, and I put a hand on Gemma’s shoulder as we went. It was as though I could feel the weight resting there, and I wished I could carry some of it for her. But sometimes, there just isn’t much a person can do no matter how much they wish they could. Daddy had told me before that sometimes the Lord lets us feel the weight of the world so we figure out how to let Him carry it for us. I reckoned then that this was Gemma’s turn, but I hoped good and hard that she’d figure it out fast.

I woke up the next day to find Gemma’s bed empty. She’d been up at the crack of dawn for the past two mornings, and I hadn’t seen her much at all. I decided to make sure I spent time with her that day, so I pinned my hair up quickly, put on one of my light dresses, and ran downstairs to the breakfast table.

“You seen Gemma this morning, Momma?” I asked as I buttered a biscuit with quick strokes.

“She ran off for church about fifteen minutes ago now, I guess. Suppose she wanted to make Sunday school this morning. Didn’t eat any breakfast, but I saw her fill her pockets with a plum and two biscuits. Seems that girl’s not eatin’ her fill these days,” she murmured, staring out the window at nothing. “Girl’s got me worried.”

I didn’t tell her I felt the same. Momma seemed preoccupied,
absentmindedly tapping a finger on the counter while she gazed outside, so I didn’t say anything to her in reply. I just stuffed my biscuit down and grabbed another plum to put in my own pocket. Even though it was hot already at this early hour, I knew where Gemma had gone with her pockets full, and I was determined to join her.

“Maybe I’ll catch up and walk her to church, Momma. She could use some company now, I think.”

“That’s a nice idea, Jessilyn. Maybe she’ll confide in you. Daddy and I will pick you up at the colored church.”

“Oh no, that’s okay,” I replied almost too quickly, knowing full well church was not where Gemma was heading with that food in her pockets. “I’ll walk. I can cut through the woods and make it on time.”

“You’ll get your dress all in tatters.”

“I’ll be careful. And anyways, if Gemma decides to talk about somethin’ important, won’t it be strange if you and Daddy come ridin’ up in the middle of it?” I could feel my right eyelid twitch a bit under the strain of stretching the truth to my momma, but I tried to console myself that it was for Gemma’s sake. “It ain’t a long walk, Momma. I’ll be fine.”

Momma bit her lower lip for a moment in consideration before relenting. “All right, honey. We’ll see you at the church.”

I grabbed another biscuit and scurried out the door before she could reconsider. The sun was already beating down something fierce, but I made my way along the road,
humming a bit to make the time go faster. I was sweating from top to toe by the time I reached town. I figured it didn’t matter too much since I didn’t plan on seeing anyone but Mr. Poe and Gemma. When I came near the jail, Sheriff Clancy was on the stoop peering at the sun and smoking a cigarette. He flicked some ash over the side rail, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief to see it land on ground that was no longer cluttered with angry men. The sheriff must have made his threats worthwhile enough to keep them away for the time being, but I wasn’t so sure it would last.

Sneaking around a big oak tree, I paused as Sheriff Clancy dropped his gaze to squash his cigarette under his shoe. Then, when he turned to go inside, I rushed around the corner of the building to the back, where Mr. Poe’s window was.

I wasn’t surprised to see Gemma there, lying on her stomach with no thought for the dust she was collecting on her skirt front. She had her chin resting on her folded arms, a cockeyed smile on her face.

“There you are, Mr. Poe,” she was saying. “That works, sure enough.”

Once I crept up behind her, I saw for myself what she was talking about. Mr. Poe had a long, narrow wooden box that he was carefully maneuvering through the small spaces between the bars in his window, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

“Sure ’nough, it done fit, Miss Gemma,” he said in his lazy drawl. Then he got an awkward, childlike expression
on his face and looked behind him nervously. “Don’t know ’bout what the sheriff would think, though. Might say ah cain’t have it.”

“But that’s what I brought the box for, Mr. Poe. It’s our special secret. Don’t the sheriff or nobody got to know.”

“Ah don’t know, Miss Gemma,” he said, scuffing one shoe noisily on the cement floor. “Don’t know if ah should be keepin’ secrets.”

“It’s not so much a secret, Mr. Poe,” I said softly, sneaking up to join Gemma at the window. “It’s just friends sharin’ a memory, is all. You know how you showed me your secret berry-pickin’ spot when I was little? It’s like that. Don’t hurt nobody. It’s just a special bit of happiness that friends share.”

Gemma peered at me over her shoulder and gave me a soft, grateful smile. I smiled back and lowered myself onto my stomach beside her.

But Mr. Poe still looked conflicted, and I saw him wince and blink hard twice, trying to make up his mind.

I didn’t know what was in the box, but I could guess. “Got some special things in there, Mr. Poe?”

“Yes’m. Got me some mighty good coins in there and five good stones.” He nodded and repeated, “Yep. Five good ones. Miss Gemma, she know how tuh find good smooth stones. Five good ones too.”

“Gemma’s always been good at pickin’ stones,” I said, though I’d never seen her pick up a stone to do anything more than chase a raccoon away. I moved a little closer to
the window and whispered, “Seems she’s gone to a right bit of trouble to bring you some little happiness. Maybe you best keep this little old secret so’s she won’t be feelin’ sad and hurt. You think maybe so?”

Mr. Poe’s brow wrinkled up even more, and after he finished blinking several times fast, he said, “Reckon yer right, Miss Jessie. Reckon muh momma always told me tuh show proper thanks when friends treat a body kindly.” He looked expectantly at me. “You reckon muh momma would think so now?”

“I think she would, Mr. Poe. Ain’t no harm in this here little secret. None at all that I can see.”

Mr. Poe thought for a moment and then smiled at Gemma. “Mighty nice of you, Miss Gemma. Mighty nice.”

“No trouble at all, Mr. Poe,” she said, relief written all over her sleep-deprived face. “Now, that box should fit nice under your cot, I think. If you just slide it under and all the way into the corner, I think it’ll stay our secret.”

“Seems you could use some refreshment, Mr. Poe,” I told him. “Want some of this here plum?”

“Mighty kind of you, Miss Jessie, but Miss Gemma here, she done already bring me biscuits and a plum.” He rubbed his thin stomach. “Don’t think ah could take another bite jest yet. And you be sure tuh thank yer momma fer the good suppers she’s bringin’. Sure makes a body feel cared fer.”

“Sure enough, Mr. Poe. You sure you don’t need anythin’, then?”

“Miss Jessilyn, I got muh Bible and muh prayers, so ah got me all ah need.”

The smile he gave me was worn and not at all like the bright, innocent smiles I’d always seen on his face. For the first time in his many years on this earth, Mr. Poe was learning what it was like to have the world come against him, and I was sad to see his carefree face so changed.

For all that I hated some of how the world had treated me, just then I would have wished Mr. Poe’s grief were mine.

Luke watched me impatiently over the chessboard, his chin resting on the edge of the table. “A man can only stare at them squares on the board for so long, Jessie, before it all just starts to mix together. I’m gettin’ cross-eyed.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Luke, I ain’t never buggin’ you to hurry on your turns.”

“That’s because I don’t take twenty minutes to do it.”

“If I’m so tiresome, then I don’t know why you even bother playin’ with me.”

“Ain’t no one else around here who likes chess.”

“Well, I’m flattered I’m only good as a last choice. Maybe if you teach Duke, he’ll play better’n me.”

Our basset hound picked his head up and gave me a mournful look before dropping his head back down under the table.

“Guess he don’t want to play chess with you,” I told Luke,
my mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Maybe you’re not so good a chess partner as you think.”

“I never claimed to be a good chess partner,” he said, leaning back in his chair to catch the slight breeze that had kicked up. “I only claimed to be able to finish makin’ up my ever-lovin’ mind in less than an hour.”

I glared at him for a minute, but he just kept his face pointed upward into that breeze. I went back to staring at the board even though I wasn’t thinking a bit about chess. I was thinking about Gemma and Mr. Poe and trying to figure out any way I could do something but sit around waiting for things to get better. Luke’s porch rocker creaked as he began to stir back and forth.

“I’m tryin’ to think over here,” I said.

“Well, I’m trying not to fall asleep over here.”

“You play the game like you’re sleepwalkin’ anyhow. What’s the difference?”

Through the open windows I could hear Daddy sigh all the way from his chair in the den. “Can’t we never have a quiet Sunday afternoon without you two arguin’ about somethin’?” he muttered. “I swear you spat like a married couple.”

The very mention of me and Luke in the same sentence with the word
married
made my heart flutter, but I just fingered one of my knights and tapped my foot a little to ease my nerves.

Momma was sweeping the porch, and she stopped and peered through the window screen. “You makin’ a point
about married people, Harley Lassiter?” she asked sharply. “You sayin’ we argue all the time?”

“Now, Sadie, don’t let’s start. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“Why shouldn’t I start somethin’? That’s the way married couples are, ain’t it?” She propped her broom against the wall and made her way inside. “S’pose we best be like all them other quarrelin’ married folks.”

Daddy’s sigh was louder and longer this time, and I fought off a smile as best I could. I peered at Luke to share my amusement with him, but he was staring hard at his hands resting on the table, his cheeks red as beets.

Now, I’d seen Luke Talley happy, sad, angry, irritated—any which way you could think, I’d seen him. But I’d never once seen him as uncomfortable as I saw him now. His toe tapped so much my king wobbled from the vibration and he squinted hard at the board like he was losing his sight.

But I was enough of a woman to guess at what was going on inside his head. I hadn’t missed that it was Daddy’s mention of marriage that had set those cheeks on fire. There’d been a glimmer of hope of late that I’d finally started to get his attention after four long years, and I wasn’t made up of the stuff that would keep me from making him suffer . . . just a little.

“You feelin’ sick or somethin’?” I asked after a minute, one corner of my mouth twitching in an attempt to keep from smiling.

He jerked like I’d pinched him. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“I said, are you sick or somethin’? You got red cheeks like you been sunburnt.”

He squinted at me. “Well, maybe I’m sunburnt.”

“You sayin’ you done got sunburnt sittin’ on this here covered porch for forty-five minutes? ’Cause you weren’t sunburnt when you got here.”

“Jessie, you tryin’ to be ornery or somethin’?” he asked, his tone harsh.

My mouth finally slipped up into a half smile, but I narrowed my eyes to compensate. “I’m just bein’ concerned for you, is all.”

“Well, seems to me you worry too much.”

For the next twenty minutes Luke hardly even looked at me, and once he started to squirm like there were ants in his pants, I felt a twinge of shame for making him so nervous. I purposefully put my queen in danger as my way of apology, but Luke missed the chance twice. It was like playing chess with a statue, and as the game went on in uncomfortable silence, I started to get annoyed at his failure.

“What in tarnation,” I finally cried. “You got sense in your head or not?”

“What are you talkin’ about?” he asked, his brow wrinkled like an old hound dog.

“I just gave you the game, and you ain’t even got the sense to see it.”

“Well, what’d you give me the game for? I ain’t no charity case.”

“I was just tryin’ to be nice, is all.”

Under his long, dark lashes, Luke gave me that “evil eye” that Daddy was always saying Momma gave him when he got ornery. “Fine!” he snapped. “If you don’t want to play, you don’t have to cheat. You can just say so.”

“Fine! I say so. I quit! You can play chess with someone else from now on if you’re goin’ to sit there and daydream the whole time.” My words came out with conviction, but I didn’t mean them. The way I saw things, if he was daydreaming about me, he could play me in a bad game of chess anytime he wanted. But I was just stubborn enough to want the last word.