Let Me Die in His Footsteps (14 page)

Dropping her bike at the field’s edge and not bothering to lean it against a tree, Annie walks toward the group of men gathered under the oaks. It’s lunchtime, and so they’re pulling sandwiches from their lunch buckets, sipping coffee from the lids of their silver thermoses. The younger ones who have come with their daddies to help in the digging, setting, patting, and watering are jackassing around. That’s what Grandma would call it. Jackassing around. And jackassing around on a Sunday doesn’t much happen.

Annie knows enough to be careful where she walks in a newly plowed field, and had she not found herself getting more and more angry as she pedaled over here—angry about the way Sheriff Fulkerson kept raising his brows as he asked Annie all those questions, angry at Daddy for thinking she lied about the cigarettes, angry at Mama for loving Ellis Baine—she might have taken care not to step in the soft overturned dirt. A few of the older men holler at her for doing just that, which causes all the rest to turn her way. Ryce, who sits off to the side with a few of the other younger fellows, turns too.

At first, Ryce gives her a wave, not bothering to stand from his seat on the ground. He leans against the trunk of one of the elms shielding all the men, his knees bent up, both boots planted flat. He looks at the two fellows sitting next to him and gives a shrug big enough for everyone to see. He’ll be thinking about Lizzy Morris and not wanting any of these fellows to tell her Annie Holleran was visiting him at work.

Ryce has been to Lizzy’s house twice for Sunday supper. Both times he said he went because his folks were invited and so he had to go along. Said it wasn’t so bad because Mrs. Morris glazes a real fine ham but that must be all she can cook because they’ve eaten the same both Sundays. Annie said he’d better brace himself for a lifetime of glazed ham because like mother, like daughter.

Or maybe, as Annie marches in his direction, ignoring the older men who continue to holler at her, Ryce will be thinking she’s come to see Miss Watson, who stands nearby, a basket covered over with a blue-and-yellow kerchief slung from her arm. Ryce glances at Annie again and yet again as she gets closer. When she’s close enough to call his name without shouting, he jumps up like something bit him in the hind end, grabs her by the arms, and pushes her away from the other men.

“What the hell are you doing, Annie?”

Annie jerks away and shoves him in the chest. “What are you doing?”

“Good Lord, Annie.” He slides a step to his left as if trying to hide her. “Look at yourself.”

“Don’t want those fellows telling Lizzy Morris I come to see you, do you?”

“Don’t care about Lizzy, but I do care what these fellows are seeing.”

“My Aunt Juna is back, and I want you to make your daddy do something about it,” Annie says. “He’s the sheriff and he should see to it.”

“I can’t tell my daddy nothing like that,” Ryce says, still shifting about.

Over at the truck where the older men sit, legs stretched out, feet crossed, some with hats yanked down over their eyes, Miss Watson has pulled back the kerchief on her basket and is handing out that cornbread Abraham is all the time complaining about. In between pulling out slices and handing them off to the fellows, she gives Annie a wave.

“You doing all right there, darling?” Miss Watson shouts.

Miss Watson came back to town a few years ago after she finished her schooling and has been the fifth grade teacher ever since. Two months ago, a few weeks after her grandmother died, she got engaged to Abraham Pace. Soon she’ll be Mrs. Pace. She wears a belted, blue cotton dress, the same one she wears most days when she’s teaching arithmetic, and slip-on heels that make her waddle as she walks among the men.

Miss Watson was raised by her grandparents, and her granddaddy died a good many years ago. Folks figured when Miss Watson’s grandmother finally passed, Abraham Pace would have no choice but to propose. Grandma said, upon hearing news of the engagement, that she wasn’t altogether surprised but that didn’t make the news any more agreeable.

Miss Watson is young, too young for Abraham Pace. Grandma says youth generally has a way of making even the most ordinary woman striking, if only for a few years. Youth has not been so kind to Miss Watson. Even at her age—almost twenty years younger than the man she’ll marry in a few weeks—she is ordinary. She doesn’t have the shine, that’s what Grandma says. A person couldn’t say Miss Watson has beautiful hair because it’s thin and wispy and dried out on the ends, and a person couldn’t say she has pretty eyes because they’re small and her lids never quite open all the way, and she’s a worrier, always fussing that the gutters might plug, that the milk might spoil, or that Abraham’s heart might suffer lasting damage from too much salt. That kind of worrying will wear a person down.

“Doing fine, ma’am,” Annie calls back and gives Miss Watson a wave.

Ryce waves too and says no thank you to a piece of cornbread. Then he steps close to Annie, too close. Somewhere along the way, Ryce has done his share of sprouting, and he’s as tall as Annie now, maybe taller. Him standing so close makes her want to close her eyes, though she isn’t sure why. Instead, she gives him another shove, but he’s set on his spot and doesn’t back away.

“Then you tell me what you heard your daddy say,” Annie says.

“What are you talking about?” Ryce looks again at the fellows he was sitting with. “You got to cover yourself over.”

“Tell me. Tell me what you heard.”

Ryce’s eyes drop down again, but this time they linger. He’s standing close enough Annie can feel the heat of his body and smell the dirt he didn’t bother washing from his hands before eating and the toothpaste he dribbled on his shirt this morning.

“Nothing, Annie. I didn’t hear nothing. You got to go.” Ryce reaches for her shoulder as if to send her on home, but as quick as he touches her, he yanks his hand away, making Annie wonder, though she knows better, if Ryce is feeling the same spark in the air she’s been feeling all these many days.

“Everything all right over there?” It’s Miss Watson again. She has hooked one arm through Abraham’s, and both are studying Annie and Ryce. “Ryce, you doing all right there?”

Annie starts to holler out again that she is doing fine but then realizes Miss Watson didn’t ask after Annie. She asked after Ryce. Miss Watson asked after Ryce as if he were in harm’s way.

“Just talking is all,” Ryce shouts. “You go on back to your lunch.”

“Your daddy is asking me all kinds of questions,” Annie says, watching Miss Watson watching her. “And he’s looking at me like I’m a liar when I answer them.”

Ryce leans in again. “You go on home,” he says. “I’ll come over tonight. We’ll talk then.”

“No, tell me now.”

“Ryce Fulkerson.” It’s Abraham this time. “Am I going to have to tell that girl’s daddy to be on the lookout for you?”

Abraham gives a shove to the fellow next to him. They laugh the way older fellows do when younger fellows are trying to get their legs.

“There’s always been a quarrel between the families,” Ryce says, probably already trying to fashion how he’ll explain all of this to Lizzy Morris. “That’s all. And it’s not what my daddy thinks. Just gossip. Folks talking.”

“What else is there, Ryce Fulkerson? You tell me.”

“Ryce, honey,” Miss Watson shouts again. “You get enough to eat? You want to come on over here and have some of Abe’s chicken?”

There she goes again, acting as if Ryce is the one with something to fear.

“Ain’t going to be the one to break your heart,” Ryce says, ignoring Miss Watson.

“You tell me right now. You tell me right now why your daddy would think such a damn fool thing as I would kill Mrs. Baine or I’ll kiss you full on the mouth right here in front of everyone, and what’ll Lizzy Morris think about that?”

Ryce’s face must be burning because it turns bright red. Those eyes of his start jumping around, looking up and down, left and right, like he doesn’t know where to let them settle.

“Your mama ain’t your mama.”

“So?”

“You already know that?”

Annie nods. Can’t say it out loud. Has never said it out loud. Maybe Annie is feeling the anger she’s feeling because Miss Watson is behaving as if Annie is a danger to Ryce, or maybe Annie really is a danger. Either way, she closes her hands into fists and braces herself for a fight.

“You’re halfway to sixteen now,” Ryce says, facing Annie. “Seems strange to some folks.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

The younger fellows have stood up and walked a few steps closer. Ryce turns, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t make a motion of any kind, but something in the way he looks at them is enough to make them drop down on the ground again and go back to eating their sandwiches and cherry tomatoes.

“Some folks think it’s evil when a girl like you turns of age. They believe you favor her . . . Juna Crowley . . . and that’s how old she was when folks most remember the trouble. Some are thinking you got Juna’s ways, and maybe you done something to Mrs. Baine. Think you’re taking revenge now that you’re of age.”

“Revenge for what?”

“Revenge for a Baine killing her.”

“A Baine killing who?”

“Juna. Your Aunt Juna . . . your mama.”

Jamming her balled-up fists into her waist so her elbows jut out to the side, Annie takes a giant forward step that nearly knocks Ryce from his feet.

“My Aunt Juna ain’t dead.”

“God damn it, Annie,” Ryce says, grabbing her by the arm. This time he doesn’t let go. Instead, he pulls her close so he can whisper in her ear. His cotton undershirt is damp and still smells the slightest bit like bleach. “I can see your everything. You ought be wearing your underclothes. God damn, Annie. Everyone can see. I can see.”

Annie tries to pull away, but Ryce squeezes tight, doesn’t let go. He holds on so long and so tight her fingers start to tingle. His chest is warm and touches hers every time he inhales. Without looking down, she tugs at her blouse. The thin cotton peels off her skin.

“You shouldn’t be looking there,” she says, barely loud enough to hear the words herself.

“I can’t hardly help it. These other fellows ain’t going to be able to help it either. You need to get yourself out of here. Your daddy will have your hide. Mine too. You get on.”

Ryce’s hand loosens, but the touch of his fingers lingers. Annie crosses her arms over her chest. She can’t hear the rest of them anymore—not Abraham and those fellows laughing, not Miss Watson passing out her cornbread, not Ryce telling her to get on home.

“My Aunt Juna ain’t dead,” she says in little more than a whisper. “We get cards from her. Every Christmas, we get cards, and letters too.”

Ryce draws a hand down over his face and, in one motion, pulls his shirt up and over his head and hands it to Annie.

“Put this on,” he says into her ear. His breath is warm, but the skin on his chest is cool when he brushes up against Annie’s arm.

“Do they really think it?” Annie says, hugging the shirt to her own chest and staring down at her feet. “Who says that? Why do they think Juna’s dead?”

It’s a wicked thought, likely sinful, but Annie would be relieved if Aunt Juna were dead. She’d never again hear a car rolling up the drive and feel the fear that settles in her stomach, always her stomach, when she thinks Aunt Juna has finally come back. Annie has always imagined that living here with Mama and Daddy and Caroline and Grandma has kept her from being all so much like Aunt Juna. But if she were to come for Annie, maybe steal her away in the middle of the night, or maybe Mama would greet Aunt Juna at the front door and pass off Annie and her packed suitcase because she isn’t quite as sweet and kind and generous and abiding as Caroline, Annie would surely slip into being evil just like Aunt Juna.

Over the years, Annie has learned the sound of every truck and car that has reason to park outside their house. She knows Daddy’s and Abraham’s trucks and the cars Grandma’s lady-friends drive. She even knows Miss Watson’s car. She learned them all so she doesn’t have to live through that fear every time a car or truck rolls up the drive. She barely lets herself hope before the hope is gone. The cards have come every Christmas. Aunt Juna can’t be dead.

Standing bare-chested, Ryce lets his arms hang at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“I don’t know nothing else, Annie. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“Stop looking,” Annie says.

Ryce shakes his head. “I ain’t. I ain’t looking. Jesus, Annie, I can’t help myself. I don’t know nothing else about Juna. Just go on. Just go on home.”

“I saw Jacob Riddle down in the well,” Annie says. “He’s the man I’ll marry one day.”

She’s telling Ryce even though he didn’t ask. Something about him looking at her the way he’s looking and the way his chest is pumping up and down and the way she can feel how warm his body is even though it’s cool to the touch makes her want to hurt him because she knows one day he’ll kiss Lizzy Morris and marry her and eat her glazed ham.

“And you tell your daddy that my Aunt Juna ain’t dead and that she’s back. He’s the sheriff and he should do something about it. You tell him that. My Aunt Juna ain’t dead, and she’s come back home.”

1936—SARAH AND JUNA

THE SUN IS
rising, has barely broken the horizon. The light is lifting around me, the room turning from nearly black to gray. The fire was out when Daddy dropped Juna and me at home. Crossing through the doorway into a house where three people now live and not four felt like crossing into a stranger’s house. It was cold like that, cold like a house where you don’t know where to sit until someone pulls out a chair and you fidget because you don’t know what to do with your hands since you’re not the one doing the cooking or the cleaning or the serving. Cold like that.

Joseph Carl never told what he did with Dale. By the end, Joseph Carl was crying, and so much had been beat out of him, he didn’t seem altogether sure what he’d done and what he hadn’t done. He pleaded with Daddy to stop and said he would tell Daddy whatever we wanted to hear. Just tell him what to say, and he’d say it. He promised, swore to God almighty, just tell me what to say and I’ll say it. But no matter how much Daddy beat him, Joseph Carl couldn’t tell what he didn’t know, so Daddy and the others are still looking.

I sit at the kitchen table, the doors and windows shut up tight because this is the time of day I hate most. Usually, it’s because sunrise marks the start of another day just like the last. Today, it marks the time Dale has been gone. Out on the porch, the wood is too damp to use in starting another fire. This is how I’d find it if I were to look. Daddy doesn’t stack his wood right, so it rots, and that’s where the snakes take up. The box inside the house is empty, save a few scraps of kindling. It’s Dale’s job, his only job, to fill it every night. So this morning, there will be no fire.

The air is thickest at this hour, so thick and full it nearly drips, weighing heavy on everything. My clothes hang, and my hair wilts and will stick to the sides of my face and the back of my neck until I pin it up. And with the dampness comes a kind of cold that seeps in deeper than most. I’ll be trying all of the morning to warm myself, but even if I step outside, there’ll be no sun because Daddy built this house and Daddy is cursed.

The tapping at the front door is a strange sound. I don’t stand but instead listen, trying to work out what it is. In less than two days’ time, it’s become normal for folks to walk on inside, not bother knocking. They’ve come and gone with their cucumbers and tomatoes, eggs and milk. Not wanting to disturb Juna, not wanting to see her or be seen, they’ve slipped in and out, a few of them stopping long enough to say a hello to me and ask after what they can do. There is another tapping. I push away from the table, glance at Juna’s closed door, and stand.

I’ve seen Juna and Abraham Pace before. When I’ve gone to fetch her for supper because I’ve worried Daddy might find her first, I always know where to look. I’ve seen them on the patch of grass where the trees clear. They never hear me because the sound of the river, lazy as it is, covers over twigs and leaves snapping underfoot. I’ve seen Abraham trailing his fingers over the inside of Juna’s arm, the white part I know must be as soft as it is on me. I’ve seen him fill her mouth with his tongue and the way it makes her arch her back and press herself into him. I’ve heard sounds coming from Abraham, sounds that reached me before the sight of the two of them reached me, and those sounds made me turn away. From down near the river where they’d think I hadn’t seen, I’d call out for Juna to come on home.

These last few hours since Daddy dropped Juna and me back at the house, as I’ve been waiting for the sun to rise and the dampness to burn off, I’ve thought of those days and what I saw. But now, instead of seeing Abraham working his tongue over Juna or hearing the groans that roll up and out of his mouth, I see and hear Ellis Baine. I see his tongue and his fingers trailing across Juna’s body and hear his deep voice rumble through his throat as he calls out her name.

I open the door, and there stands John Holleran holding his hat in one hand, working the other around its brim.

“May I?” he says.

“There’s no fire,” I say, meaning there’s no coffee.

He hands me his hat and walks back to the woodpile. He gathers an armful of the logs stacked on top, sets them on the ground, and gathers another load from the drier wood beneath. He looks each piece over as he loads it in the crook of his arm and then carries it into the house. Inside, he nods at the wood box. Empty, I tell him. Like the flue at the Baines’ place, ours doesn’t draw so well, especially when it’s gone altogether cold. The fire smokes, but John is better at building one than Daddy or me, and soon enough it’s crackling and snapping and wearing off the chill. As John works the fire, I set to work on the coffee.

“I got to wondering,” John says, sitting at the table while I stand over the coffeepot, “if you’re safe here in this house.”

The pot always lets out something of a hiss just before the coffee gets to rolling. There’s no need of me standing over it, watching it, waiting for that hiss. Doesn’t make it come any faster, but I do. I wrap my hand in a scrap like Mrs. Baine did, grab onto the pot, and hold tight like it’ll slip from the stove if I don’t.

“You safe here, Sarah?”

The one lantern is still lit, the one Daddy always insists on so he never wakes to the dark, but the light in the room has lifted enough that the lantern does no good. I drop the handle on the coffeepot, walk to the lantern, and put out the flame.

It’s a disturbing thing to know someone loves you. It makes a person wonder why. That’s the first disturbing thing. But putting that aside, it makes the future spring up in a person’s mind. It makes a person see a house, a bedroom, a kitchen table, and boots at the door. It makes a person see the children that will tie her to that house. It makes a person see the garden she’ll tend, the sopping clothes she’ll wring dry and hang on the line, the beans she’ll snap and the canning she’ll do. Having someone love you gives the future its footing.

“They’ll hang him, won’t they?” I say, staring down into the dark lantern. “A man who does those things, the things Juna says . . . they’ll hang him for it.”

“Not until they find Dale,” John says. “You have an answer for me? You safe here?”

There’s shame in the question. Even though the answer is yes, I’m safe here, Daddy doesn’t do those things Juna said, the question still sticks to me, probably always will. It’s what Juna does. Ever so slightly, she turns folks in the direction of her liking. The voices save me from answering John Holleran.

They are men’s voices, several. They’re not hollering, just talking. Talking among themselves and getting louder and closer. Footsteps hit the front porch and the door swings open. Buell Fulkerson leans into the house. He’s Sheriff Irlene’s oldest and will likely be the next sheriff.

“Found him,” he says. “Found your boy. Your daddy says make a spot for him. He’ll be right along.”

•   •   •

ABRAHAM PACE IS
the first man through the door. Abigail trails close behind. Traipsing through the hills all night isn’t a proper thing for a young lady, but she’ll have been with Abraham and so she’ll have been safe. It’s as if Abraham has told her to latch onto him so she won’t get herself taken like Dale, because as she had in Juna’s bedroom, Abigail clings to the tail of Abraham’s jacket with one hand.

The kitchen soon fills with other men, all of them tracking dirt. Their hemlines are heavy with mud, their shirts are left untucked, and their faces and hands are smudged with black. Their pants hang loose around their waists, some so loose they’ve been tied off with thin strips of leather or lengths of rope. They’ve been worn down, all of them, not so much by the search for Dale as by life. As the other men filter through the door, Abraham and Abigail are pushed to the back, though because Abraham is tallest, he isn’t lost. One of the men tells me to gather dry clothes, blankets, and the heaviest socks I can manage.

The room is so thick with the men and their wet clothes and their sour smells, I barely see Daddy when he walks through the door. The shuffling feet go still and the men stop midsentence to let Daddy pass. I can’t see anything of Dale, but I can tell by the way Daddy carries himself and the cadence of his footsteps that he is cradling Dale in his arms.

I push through the men to get to the back room. Inside, Juna is already out of the bed and standing in the far corner. She has brushed her hair and dressed herself in one of my dresses, which I can see straight off because it hangs down her shoulders and the neckline sags.

“I fixed it up,” she says of the bed.

And she has. She has pulled the sheets taut and folded the blue blanket twice over and draped it across the end of the bed. The lantern is lit, and the shutter over the window has been lowered and locked in place.

When Daddy steps into the bedroom and before the door has closed, the men in the kitchen get back to talking. The house still has that feeling of belonging to someone else. Someone, a stranger, is opening and closing the coffeepot. He doesn’t use a rag, and he shouts God damn, and the lid bounces off the counter and onto the ground. With the toe of a boot, I suppose, someone kicks closed a cupboard, and chairs scoot across my floor. Someone tosses more wood on the fire. Someone else dips up water for more coffee. A few engines fire up, and tailgates rattle as trucks pull away.

Standing with his feet planted wide and leaning back to brace himself for the weight in his arms, Daddy looks to me. I wave at the bed, tell him it’s fine, it’ll be best for Dale. He stares down on it, thinking, wondering if he should lay his boy there in the bed where Juna and I usually sleep. His hat has been knocked about and sits too low on the back of his head. His brow is white against his dark-red cheeks and nose. They’ll blister, both of them, in a few days’ time. He shuffles up to the bed, slides one foot in front of the other, lowers himself, and lets Dale slip from his arms.

I’ve always known Dale would turn out looking like Daddy. Even starting out as sweet as he has, as pink and soft and kind, I knew time would rub against those things until they wore off. Looking down on Dale sinking into the feather ticking same as Juna did, I see Daddy looking back at me. The soft round cheeks have caved, already, in such a short time, and the left side of his face is swollen and black with bruising. One eye is closed from the swelling, and his bottom lip is split, though it’s crusted over. He’s been beaten. And he’s wet, all of him, and he smells of the river, like the moss that grows up between the rocks and the thick black silt the floods left behind. His skin’s fresh pink color is gone, replaced by something pale, something waterlogged and nearly dead.

I start with his shirt, unbuttoning each button and pulling his arms through one at a time. His skin is cool, and it’s like working stubborn hinges as I try to bend his arm and twist it, slowly, tenderly, and peel the damp shirt away. Daddy leans over me, pointing when I’ve missed a button, using his one long fingernail, the one on the pointer of his right hand, to scratch at a leaf stuck to Dale’s chest. Juna keeps her place in the corner, hands clasping under her belly, her long yellow hair hanging over her shoulders, hiding the oversize neckline that sags.

Someone hands me another shirt, a dry one. It’s Daddy’s—flannel, soft from all the wear. I work Dale’s arms again and thread them through each sleeve. I don’t bother with the buttons, but instead, because it’s so big on him, I tuck the shirt around him, swaddle him. With the same rag I used to dab at Juna’s burned skin, I clean Dale’s face, arms, and hands, being careful of the swelling and bruising. Next, I grab at the snaps on his britches, but John Holleran takes Daddy’s place over my shoulder and gathers my hands with both of his.

“Better not,” he says, and with a knife cuts a half dozen inches into the fabric, and with both hands pulls until the pant leg has torn through. He does the same on the other side, and then I see.

Dale’s left leg is broke such that the bone has popped right through the skin, and his foot is twisted at an ungodly angle. I had worried when Dale wouldn’t open his eyes. Not once as I pulled off his shirt and cleaned his face and neck with a damp cloth and laid a towel under his head did he open his eyes. I’m glad of it now.

“What do we do?” I say.

“Doctor’ll be here shortly,” John says. “Clean him. He should be clean. And keep him warm.”

I stay far from the jagged tip that sticks out of Dale’s right shin. It’s like a twig, a slender branch whittled straight and smooth. The skin is puckered where it tore through and red with smears of blood, but not as much as I’d have thought. He was in the river. Somewhere, all this time, he’s been in the river. I know the leg will be tender to the touch. Someone sits a pan of warm water next to me. I turn to thank Juna, but she still stands in her corner, hands still clasped like she’s cradling a basket. Abigail brought the water. She stands next to me, staring down on Dale. Her eyes first land on his face, but they slowly slide over his body and stop at his leg. I wave for one of the men to take her away even though she cries out for me to let her stay. When she has gone and the room is quiet again, I soak the rag, wring it good, and wipe it across Dale’s sunken cheeks, over his small mouth, along his neck and up under his chin. I follow behind with a dry towel, blotting the damp skin. Two, three times, I clean him.

“Where was he?” I ask. “How did you find him?”

“Joseph Carl,” John says.

He pauses, stares at the ground like he’s thinking what to say next and how he ought tell me.

“He told Sheriff Irlene. Finally told where we’d find Dale.”

But Juna’s story. It hadn’t been right. Joseph Carl wouldn’t have asked after fresh, cool water deep enough to wade in. He would have smiled at Dale like all folks did. Juna’s story hadn’t been right.

“He done it, Sarah,” John says, staring down on Dale’s tiny, beaten body. “Joseph Carl done this.”

“I don’t believe it,” I say. “I know Joseph Carl. Known him all my life. I don’t believe it for a minute. It was someone else. Someone else did this to Dale.”

John steps close, leans in, and talks in a low voice no one else will hear. “Only way we found Dale was because Joseph Carl told us where he’d be. Ain’t no way Joseph Carl would know unless he done it. I’m sorry, Sarah. Don’t know what possessed the man, but he done it.”