Cottonwood Whispers (13 page)

Luke kept giving me that evil eye, but I met it head-on. I wasn’t one to back down from a challenge any time, but when Luke’s eyes were staring me down, I never had any interest in looking away. Even when they were full of anger, those blue eyes were two of my favorite things to look at.

The whine of the screen door broke the spell, and we looked up to find Momma peering out at us.

“Thought we’d make some good ice cream,” she said lightly as though she hadn’t caught the two of us in an angry glare. “You up to crankin’, Luke?”

Luke smiled for the first time in a half hour. “Yes’m. Some ice cream sounds mighty nice about now.”

“It’s hot enough, there’s no doubt,” I said. “I best track down Gemma and see if she wants some.”

“Gemma’s out on a walk, baby. She said she’d be back later on. Seemed she needed some thinkin’ time to herself.” Momma’s face creased a bit in worry, and I understood
how she was feeling. Even though I knew Momma didn’t really know just how much thinking Gemma had to do these days, I knew she had a good idea that Gemma was having a good and hard time. I figured that on her way back to the kitchen, Momma would be whispering a heartfelt prayer for our Gemma, and I hoped it worked. Gemma needed all the help she could get.

Momma came back outside, and while I watched Luke get to work, I had to try hard not to sit and worry. I wondered where Gemma was and why she was out on this hot day taking a walk. Gemma hated hot days, and as long as I’d known her, she’d never liked taking walks on them.

After a while I glanced over at Luke. His face was all red and he raised one hand to wipe his forehead with the back of his wrist. I put aside my worry and went over to see if I could help.

“Here, I’ll do some.”

“It’s all right,” he said pleasantly. “I’m doin’ fine.”

“But you’re all hot and sweaty. I can take a turn.”

“Gonna be hot and sweaty on a day like this any which way, Jessie. I was hot and sweaty playin’ that there game of chess.”

“Well, ain’t no reason for you to keep doin’ it when I can help. You go on and get yourself some sweet tea, and I’ll crank some.” I reached out and put my hands against his, meaning to take over his job, but he pushed my hands away with a sharp quickness that startled me.

“Luke, it’s our ice cream. If I want to crank it, I’m gonna crank it.”

“Don’t need no help,” he said, his ears turning a color that matched his face. His voice took on an agitation I didn’t expect when he finished, “If a man says he don’t need no help, Jessilyn, he don’t need no help.”

I watched him, my stomach in knots because Luke’s voice held a sternness that I wasn’t accustomed to hearing from him. Momma was coming out the door when Luke spoke, and even she stopped short at the sound of his voice.

“I was just tryin’ to be nice,” I said softly. For once, I didn’t feel like arguing back, and I went to the door to take the glasses of sweet tea Momma was carrying.

“You doin’ okay there, Luke?” Momma asked carefully. “I got Harley busy fixin’ the screen on the back door, but he says he’ll be finished in a quick minute, so he can give the crank a turn for you when he’s done.”

“He don’t have to worry,” Luke said in a tone that was much kinder than the one he’d given me. “I’ve got it taken care of.”

Momma gave me an odd look before she disappeared into the house, but I glanced away. I didn’t want to answer the question her eyes asked. The way I figured it, I was only guessing at things, and I didn’t want to say anything to anyone unless I knew for sure. Just for now, whatever was happening between Luke and me could be something special, and I wanted to keep it to ourselves.

Luke wiped his forehead with his wrist again, and I noted that his ears were still that funny pink color.

“Ain’t no woman can figure a man, Jessilyn,” my momma had told me once not long ago. “I guess they’re God’s way of remindin’ us ladies that we can’t know everythin’.”

The way I saw it just then, I wasn’t even close to knowing everything.

But I was starting to learn.

I could hear Daddy’s angry voice all the way upstairs, which worried me since my daddy only yelled when he got good and mad. I could tell as I made my way down the steps that he was yelling at no one in particular. He was just ranting and raving, and when I reached the hallway and peered cautiously into the kitchen, I could see my momma sitting in a chair at the table, her gaze focused on nothing in particular.

“Ain’t no reason I got to crawl on my hands and knees to no man, Sadie. Will you just look at me?” Daddy asked, holding out his calloused and worn hands. “Here I am, forty-three years old, and I got to be bound to a man like Coble Hadley.”

“You ain’t bein’ bound to him,” Momma said softly. “You’re bound by no man, Harley Lassiter, and there ain’t
no reason to lose hope yet. This drought may look bad, but we’ll be able to pay our mortgage somehow.”

“I’m as bound by him as any man. The man can take away my farm, I don’t pay him on time. Ain’t no mornin’ I don’t get up hopin’ I can manage to find the money I need every month.”

“Ain’t never been a time the Lord’s let us fall into hard times we can’t handle. Ain’t never gonna be a time.”

Daddy rested his hands on the kitchen table and looked Momma square in the eye. “I’ll tell you somethin’, Sadie Louise,” he said with a face so earnest it made my stomach tie up into a big, painful knot. “Ain’t never been a time my faith’s been tested like it is now. Some days, I don’t know where God is. Sure don’t feel like He’s right here.”

I didn’t know much about faith, but I knew that whatever it was, my daddy had it, and it had always given me peace. To see and hear him in this way, doubting what he’d always held so strongly to, turned my world upside down.

Momma reached out and grabbed Daddy’s hands so tightly, her own hands shook. “Ain’t nothin’ in this world that’ll ruin us besides losin’ our faith, Harley. There ain’t nothin’! You hear? We can lose everythin’ and still make it by, but if you start losin’ that solid faith that makes you who you are, we may as well drop dead here and now. ’Cause there ain’t no livin’ like that.”

Daddy’s head drooped and then slowly, wearily descended onto Momma’s hands. I watched guiltily as Momma put her head down onto his, and when I realized they were
both crying softly, I ran off, feeling like a traitorous sneak. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my daddy cry.

We were in more trouble than I’d realized, that summer on the Lassiter farm, and I was filled with rage toward the Hadleys. After all, they were the reason my daddy was feeling so distraught. They were the reason my Gemma was suffering. And they were the reason Mr. Poe was sitting, disillusioned and heartbroken, in a dirty jail cell. Anger started to creep into my heart like the ivy that choked the trees in the cemetery, and I started to head instinctively toward the meadow, desperate to see Luke.

But it struck me that Luke would be at the factory this Monday morning, and I made my way down the road at a much slower pace, thinking too much for my own good and wondering where I would go now. I was angry and sullen, and I wanted to take my anger out on something, anything.

It was unfortunate that Joel Hadley’s car came down the road at that moment.

It was unfortunate because I could feel the heat creep up the back of my neck, and I knew that I was about to say a lot of things I would later regret. I may have grown up some bit in the last years, but I was still not so smart about taking stock of things before I said them.

“You seen Gemma?” he asked me as he pulled his car to the side of the road without any sort of greeting. “Ain’t seen her for work today.”

“I don’t need to talk to nobody about Gemma. Gemma can do her own talkin’.”

“Seems to me you can do plenty of talkin’. I ain’t never known you to shut up.”

“I
said
I ain’t gonna do no talkin’ about Gemma. You want to ask her somethin’, you ask her yourself.”

“Well, that’s gonna be kind of hard seein’ as how she ain’t around.” He opened the door of his fancy car and stood up to lean on it all cool and casual, and I was certain he’d gotten that pose from the cigarette ad hanging in Parker Hayes’s tobacco shop. “Now, here’s what I want you to do,” he said like he was talking to a three-year-old. “You go on home like a good little girl, and you find Gemma, and you tell her we’re waitin’ for her to get on down to work.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “You think you can do that all by yourself?”

“There’ll be snowballs in hades before I do anythin’ you tell me, Joel Hadley,” I spat back.

“Funny you should mention hell, seein’ as how you’ll fit in right nice there.”

I had a sore spot about hell because I was afraid I’d end up there since I’d never really believed in God and the Scriptures like my momma, daddy, and Gemma did. I didn’t want to end up in the burning hellfire Pastor had preached about, and I didn’t take kindly to hearing a man like Joel predicting I’d spend eternity there.

I stared at him for a good thirty seconds and then eased up alongside his car, running my hand along the back of it. “This sure is a pretty car,” I said slowly. “It’s a good thing you didn’t kill Callie Colby with this one. Would’ve been a shame to mess up a treasure like this.”

The minute I said it, my heart started to flutter like it had wings. Only it didn’t feel anything like it did when I was with Luke.

Joel Hadley pulled his cigarette away in mid-drag and clapped eyes on me that were filled with a mixture of fear and hatred. I watched him toss the rest of his cigarette onto the ground with one fierce motion and strut toward me like a prowling lion. “What did you say?” he asked in just above a whisper.

I didn’t say anything in reply, and all I could wonder was why, if I was to lose my ability to speak, I had to wait until after I’d let Joel Hadley know that I knew what horrible thing he’d done. I was sure Gemma was going to kill me.

If Joel didn’t finish the job for her first.

He came to a stop only when his toes touched mine, and though I was gripped by a sudden fear, I forced myself to meet his enraged gaze.

“You accusin’ me of somethin’, girl?”

The very nearness of him infuriated me. I didn’t like to be put upon by anyone, especially not arrogant men with big heads and nasty reputations, and my anger overtook my fear in one fell swoop.

“Dang right I’m accusin’ you,” I said hoarsely. “I’m accusin’ you of plenty. And I’m tellin’ you right now, Joel Hadley, if the both of us are gonna end up in hell, I’ll take comfort knowin’ you’ll make it there first, hangin’ from the end of a rope.”

The image of him swinging from his neck made him sick
inside. I could see it in his eyes that were only inches away from my own. But he grabbed my arm in a grip that was stronger than I’d ever imagined and returned my stare, looking angry enough to kill. Despite the possibility that he might be inclined to do just that, I hadn’t the sense to shut up.

“You may think you’ve got one on me and Gemma, but evil deeds are always found out, and someday you’re gonna pay for killin’ that little girl.” I dug a finger into his chest because I knew it was just the kind of thing that infuriated my daddy, and I wanted nothing more than to push every button in Joel Hadley’s body. “You best look over your shoulder every minute of every day, because one day, when you least expect it, they’re gonna come lookin’ for you. One day you’ll hear loud voices, and you’ll look behind you and see a crowd of men comin’ toward you. Angry men. Carryin’ ropes and guns and lookin’ for blood to pay for Callie’s that was spilled all over the road that night. They’ll be comin’ for you. And they won’t be listenin’ to pretty excuses and angry denials. All they’ll be comin’ for is to break your skinny little neck.”

All of the rage I’d felt over the past week had come pouring out in that one reckless speech, and despite the fact that I knew I could face desperate consequences for it, I felt a giant weight lifted from my shoulders. Just then, I didn’t care what happened to me, so long as Joel Hadley paid for what he’d done.

“I ought to kill you,” he whispered loudly, the break in
his voice betraying his fear. He put a hand up to my neck. “I ought to squeeze the life right out of you.”

Joel’s sweaty hand flooded my mind with memories of that horrifying day four years ago when I’d felt Walt Blevins’s hand on my neck because he hated me and my family for taking in Gemma. I knew what it was like to have someone squeezing the life out of me, and I never wanted to feel like that again. Walt Blevins had tried to kill me because I’d accused him of being the bigoted coward that he was, and here I was being threatened again for accusing another coward.

In my head, I could hear my mother saying, “Jessilyn Lassiter, one day that blunt tongue of yours is gonna break your momma’s heart.” I knew what she’d meant when she’d said it. She was afraid I’d pay a terrible price for confronting people to their faces, but the way I saw it, an evil man ought to be told that’s what he is. I figured maybe God had given me just the sort of words to do it.

I stared right at Joel even though my heart pounded into my throat. “Then you’ll swing for two killin’s,” I managed to say without my voice shaking.

Joel hesitated and then pulled his nervous hand back, his entire face and body betraying the fear my accusations had raised in him. He turned away from me, and I used the chance to bend over slightly, hoping a good strong breath would make my knees stop shaking. When he turned around, he was tugging at the open collar of his shirt, sweat beading
on his forehead. I stood up straight to face him and watched as he methodically raised his hand and pointed at me.

“You think you’re gonna go around town makin’ wrong accusations against me, Jessilyn Lassiter, you got another think comin’.”

“I ain’t makin’
wrong
accusations.”

“You think you’re all smart and know more’n everybody else.
But you ain’t
,” he said, using that pointing finger of his to jab in my direction with each word. “And I’m tellin’ you, if you start spreadin’ rumors, I’ll make good and sure you pay.”

“You threatenin’ me again?”

He took a few steps closer and it was all I could do to keep from taking a few steps back. But I stood my ground as he moved within five feet of me and put his hands firmly onto his hips.

“Seems to me your daddy’s got some accounts to settle,” he said.

The mention of my daddy made my blood run cold. “You leave my daddy out of this,” I demanded. “This is between you and me.”

“No you don’t, girl. You don’t get to make all the rules.” He raised that active finger of his again and jabbed it in the air toward me. “Now you listen here. I got me more power than you think I got, and I’m tellin’ you right now, you best think twice if you want your daddy keepin’ that farm of his.”

“I said you leave my daddy out of this.” My mouth was
dry, every muscle in my body tensed, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

Joel ignored me with a shrug and made his way back to his car with a forced swagger. “Ain’t me who’s bringin’ him into it; it’s you and all your crazy talk.” He climbed back into that car of his and flashed me a Cheshire cat grin. “You have a good day now, you hear?”

I watched him drive off, my eyes watering from the dust he kicked up in my direction, and I knew from my fingers to my toes that bad things were right around the corner. One more time I’d gone and opened my mouth when I should have kept it sewn up, and now I’d stepped in it something good.

I let my weak knees buckle now that Joel couldn’t see and leaned against a nearby aspen. Sliding down onto my backside, I tucked my knees up against my chest and stared at the silvery leaves above my head. A steady breeze had picked up, shaking those leaves into a whispery chorus, almost as though they were talking to me. They’d be telling me I was stupid, I figured, and whispering warnings of the bad things that were in store for my family. Because there was no doubt that I’d brought ruin to us all with my loose lips.

Even the trees knew it was true.