Let Me Die in His Footsteps (15 page)

Twice, John hollers at the other men to get along home, and then the doctor comes. He wears a long black coat to fend off the morning chill. The damp wool brings the sour smell of a wet animal into the house. It’s a reminder of the cold Dale suffered in nothing but his undershirt and britches. After removing his coat, the doctor drapes it over my arm and doesn’t bother taking off his hat. His white beard is neatly trimmed and just nips his chest when he nods his thanks. It’s been a good five years since I last saw him, but he’s aged a good many more. Still his eyes are clear, his hands steady. As if to warm himself, he rubs those steady hands and weaves his long, slender fingers together.

“Hell of a fall,” the doctor says, leaning over the bed for a good look at Dale’s twisted leg. He came from twelve miles south and so doesn’t know about Joseph Carl and the things he’s done.

“Wasn’t no fall,” Daddy says, and because he shakes his head and scrunches up his nose like he’s smelling milk gone sour and can’t quite let his eyes settle on his own son, the doctor doesn’t ask after what did happen.

“Which of you will it be?” he asks instead, pulls a cotton kerchief from his front pocket and wipes his hands.

They must know what the doctor means to say, Daddy and John, but I don’t. John gives a nod that sends Daddy out of the room. He’s happy enough to go, doesn’t look back or do any insisting. Juna follows, and I start to dip my rag in the water that’s already gone cold. John shakes his head.

“He’ll not shout out,” John says. “But best you’re not here.”

I drape the rag over the back of my chair. “Did you find cards on Dale?”

John is standing at the end of Dale’s bed, looking down on him. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“The cards Joseph Carl says he gave Dale. I didn’t see them, didn’t find them in his pockets.”

John stretches his head from side to side as if loosening a tired neck. “Probably just washed away. No telling.” Then he presses a hand to my shoulder and turns me toward the door. “Go,” he says. “We need to get on with it.”

From out in the kitchen and through the closed door, I hear them. Hold him here. Brace your feet. Use the wall to steady yourself. Don’t stop. Not even if he wakes. Not even if he cries out. Keep on until it settles in. Juna sits at the table, Daddy stands out on the porch, where he smokes a cigar, and Abraham and Abigail huddle together in the farthest corner, Abigail still hanging on to Abraham’s jacket. And the doctor counts off . . . one, two, three.

By the time John opens the door, the kitchen is as light as it’ll get. The sun has risen full in the sky, but already, we lie in the shadows. The smell of damp wool follows him from the room.

“It’s done,” he says, running a hand through his hair and causing it to bunch up on him.

I cut John’s hair for him once. His mama and daddy had gone to Owensboro, so he came to the house on a Sunday afternoon and asked would I cut it for him. I told him he should wait for his mama, but he said he had no patience for hair that needed cutting and his mama didn’t do such a good job anyway. So I sent him to have a seat out on the porch and rummaged in the kitchen drawer until I found the scissors.

First, I drew my fingers through John’s hair to get the lay of it. I stood close and leaned into him because I knew he was feeling the way Abraham felt to have Juna arch her back and press all of herself against him. As I worked, moving from side to side and front to back, I let the silky part of my arm brush against his rough cheek, let my breasts nudge the back of his head. I stood near enough that my shoulder or hip might brush up against him and so he could smell the gardenia-scented face powder he bought for Juna and me this past Christmas. And all the while, I watched the rise and fall of his chest. It moved faster and faster and never, not once, did he open his eyes.

John is a man built for the country. He is tall, thick-chested, and has sound footing. For the past almost two years, he’s done most of what needs doing around the house. He brings sugar for our coffee when no one, but no one, has sugar. He’ll answer yes ma’am or no sir when asked a question and say just enough to get by when he plays poker with Daddy and the others. He never has stories to tell. Always so quiet. Always so polite.

“It’s straight again,” John says.

Unsure of what he means, Juna and I look at him and then at each other. Daddy is still on the porch with his whiskey and cigar. His chair creaks, and his boots hit the floorboards. He pushes the door open but doesn’t step inside.

“The leg,” John says. “It’s straight again.”

I stand from my seat. John has a kind enough face, pleasant enough to look at. More pleasant as the years have gone by. He’s grown into himself, broadened the way men eventually do. His hair is the oddest thing about him. It’s too thick. On a wet morning like this, it swells up on him, makes me see what a son of his would look like, just stumbling out of bed, eyes swollen with sleep, hair mussed from a restless night. John’s eyes are brown, ordinary brown, and he does too much staring with them, but he’s a good man and I should want him. I brush that brown hair from his brow and lay a hand on his chest.

“You’re a good man, John Holleran,” I say, and there, in front of Daddy and Juna, Abraham Pace and Abigail, and the few other men who have lingered, I touch John’s chin with two fingers, lift onto my toes, and kiss him.

His lips are stiff in the beginning, and when he shifts, ever so slightly as if to pull away, with only the tips of my fingers, I hold him to me. I hold him until his lips soften and one hand slips around my waist, cinching me in. Behind us, one fellow slaps another on the back. John’s tongue presses into my mouth as he rolls his head from one side to the other. Someone says it’s a damn good day. First the boy is found, is going to be fine, and now this. John’s other hand presses into the spot between my shoulder blades. Daddy’s rocker creaks as he settles in again. Abraham Pace and Abigail follow Daddy out the door, and then a truck engine starts up and tires roll across the gravel. Juna watches them through the front window.

My first kiss is with John Holleran.

1952—ANNIE

WHEN ANNIE NEARS
her house, she tosses Ryce’s shirt in the ditch, drops her bike at the roadside, and walks toward her drive but doesn’t cross over. Two slender lengths of wood six feet tall, three inches wide, and two inches thick, and both appearing to have come from Daddy’s shed because they have been sanded smooth, stand on either side of her. A half dozen limp milk snakes have been strung up on each. They’ve been nailed to the posts. Some are more shriveled than others, meaning some have been dead longer than others.

Most of the snakes are of the reddish-brown variety and are covered with white blotches trimmed in black. Annie might wonder who helped Grandma pound those stakes in the ground, but they both stand at an awkward sort of angle and Grandma does have a way of getting things done herself, so it’s likely she had no help at all. It’s also likely, because there’s still plenty of room on those pieces of wood, she plans to string up more snakes.

Grandma has never talked about stringing up milk snakes, but it’s definitely her work and it’s definitely meant to keep evil from crossing onto the Hollerans’ place. She must have been searching for those snakes since they first discovered Mrs. Baine. Closing her eyes and holding her breath, though she isn’t sure why except maybe she’s the kind of evil those snakes are meant to keep at bay, Annie steps from the road onto the drive. After a half dozen steps, she opens her eyes. Nothing is changed. Annie doesn’t want to be near when Mama sees what Grandma has done or when Daddy discovers what has become of his perfectly fine pieces of wood.

The moment Annie steps inside the house, Caroline grabs her by both hands and begs Annie to tell every single thing about Ellis Baine. Caroline wants to know what he looked like. Was he as handsome as they say? Where has he been living? What did he say? Is it true he came to see Annie? Why would he do that? Why would he come just for Annie?

Before Annie can answer, Grandma walks into the kitchen. Caroline drops Annie’s hands and lowers her eyes as if that’ll stop Grandma from seeing what Caroline was up to. But like Annie always knows a thing before it has come, Grandma knows, and she gives Caroline a look that means she’d best mind her own business. Then Grandma cocks her mouth off to one side and leans in close to look Annie in the eyes.

“Where you been?” she asks. “Did you go off somewhere? Why’s your hair all wet?”

“Been out talking to Daddy and Sheriff Fulkerson,” Annie says, which is partly true but not altogether true. After Annie crossed through the snakes and made her way up to the house, she did see Daddy and the sheriff again. She leaves out the part where she rode her bike to the fields.

“Well, see that you stay put,” Grandma says, poking a melon baller at Annie so she’ll know it’s serious business.

Annie nods, says, “Yes, ma’am,” and Grandma digs her baller into the half watermelon sitting on the kitchen table.

“I strung up snakes,” she says, scooping up a round chuck of melon and dropping it in a glass bowl. “Did you see?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We’ll string more, the most we can find. You keep an eye out. Under things that are dead. That’s where you’ll find them. And we’ll string more.”

Walking with rounded shoulders and doing her best to hide her chest, Annie climbs the steps that will lead to her bedroom and thinks maybe she’ll find enough snakes to hang some outside her windows. As she passes Mama’s bedroom, Annie looks inside. Mama is sitting alone on the edge of her bed, her feet bare, her dress no longer belted. She’s pulled the tie from her hair, leaving it to hang down her face, and she’s staring out her window. She’ll be seeing the tobacco barn at the top of the hill. Maybe she’s waiting and watching for Aunt Juna.

Hearing Annie in the hallway, Mama turns. Her eyes widen, and her back straightens. She inhales sharply as if at first seeing someone unexpected, and then she realizes it’s just Annie.

“You’re the spitting image . . .” Mama says but stops short of saying Aunt Juna’s name. “I’ve such a headache. I’m going to rest just a bit. Can you help Grandma?”

Annie steps into the room and pulls back the blue-and-yellow patchwork quilt. From Mama’s bedside table, Annie pulls out the witch-hazel-and-lavender spray Grandma makes certain is kept at everyone’s bedside and gives three squirts to each of Mama’s two pillows. Not believing in the know-how or the goodness of the lavender or the sweet dreams it’ll surely deliver, Mama shakes her head as Annie pumps the small bottle, but smiles all the while. Then Mama slides between the sheets, lays her head back, and rolls on her side.

Taking Mama’s seat on the edge of the mattress, Annie looks out the window where Mama had been looking. Daddy and the sheriff are out there again. They’ve reached the top of the hill and are walking along the rock fence that separates the Baines from the Hollerans. They’ll be talking about the cigarettes they don’t believe Annie ever saw and the odd coincidence that Mrs. Baine would die on Annie’s day and isn’t it strange that a girl so fair as Annie would have those black eyes.

After a few minutes, Mama’s breathing turns heavy and slow. Leaning toward Mama’s nightstand but not lifting her weight from the mattress so as to not disturb Mama, Annie pulls open the small drawer. Inside is Mama’s copy of the Bible, its binding split, an embroidered kerchief Mama’s mama made, and a stack of envelopes tied off with a piece of white string.

When Annie was in third grade, her teacher visited the house on a Tuesday afternoon, and that’s when Mama and Daddy told Annie about Aunt Juna. The teacher, Mrs. Johansson, visited because Annie had been skipping rope and singing about Juna Crowley with eyes black as coal and counting how many Baines would die this day. Annie hadn’t known Juna Crowley was her Aunt Juna. Caroline was too young yet to hear these things, but Annie had to know. Their own Aunt Juna was the one with evil living in her eyes, the one who turned fields to dust. She was the one all the folks of Hayden County feared. But Aunt Juna loved her family all those years ago, Mama had said. She didn’t want to leave, but she did, packed up her bags and left so peace could be made. It wasn’t like people say. She was peculiar, is all. She was good, and she is your aunt, and one day she’ll come back because she loves us all.

After that day, the girls kept on singing about Juna Crowley and twirling their ropes and telling their tales, but Annie never again joined in. The other girls learned too. They learned Juna was Annie’s aunt, and when they grew older, they learned Juna was Annie’s mama and that Annie had her black eyes and evil ways. Lastly they learned Joseph Carl Baine, the man who lies at the crossroad into town, was her daddy. Annie listened with a different ear after that Tuesday afternoon, and every story she heard, every tale she was told, made her worry more about the last thing Mama said the day Mrs. Johansson visited: Aunt Juna loves you, and one day she’ll come home.

Annie slides a finger under the twine tied loosely around the envelopes, looks down at Mama to see that she’s still sleeping, lifts the stack of envelopes, pushes the drawer closed, and walks from the room.

•   •   •

DOWN IN THE
kitchen, the watermelon has been cleaned out and the smell of cloves and cinnamon has faded, though Annie’s cake still sits in the middle of the table. Or, more likely, the spicy smell has been crowded out by the lavender that always swells when the clouds burn off. Now that the sun has returned, the day will be particularly unpleasant. The air will be thicker, enough to catch in a person’s throat. Grandma will walk around the rest of the afternoon, patting at her chest with a kerchief; Daddy will strip down to his undershirt; and Mama will pin up her hair and fan the back of her neck with last week’s church bulletin.

“What are you thinking, child?” Grandma says when Annie walks into the kitchen.

Using a dish towel instead of her kerchief, Grandma blots the crease where the two sides of her large chest press up against each other.

“Ma’am?” Annie says, slipping into a chair at the kitchen table, her arms still crossed tight over her chest. For the third, maybe fourth time today, her face turns hot and surely red too. Grandma has a way of knowing things, and her asking Annie such a question means Grandma knows Annie stole those letters.

From out on the porch comes a laugh, a giggle really. It’s Caroline, and from the sounds of the other voice, she is out there with Jacob Riddle. Annie stretches to the right until she can see them through the back door. They’re sipping tea, Grandma’s sweet lavender tea. Caroline is sitting on the bench swing, while Jacob Riddle is leaned up against the railing, one leg draped over the other. He’s looking at Caroline like most fellows look at Caroline, like he can’t quite believe she’s sitting right there in front of him, close enough he could reach out and touch her. Annie grabs the bottom of her chair with both hands and scoots back to the table, where she won’t have to see that look on Jacob Riddle’s face.

“What are you thinking wearing that heavy sweater on this Godforsaken muggy day?”

“Rain left me with a chill,” Annie says, the sounds of Jacob and Caroline laughing together on the porch dousing any relief she might have felt because Grandma didn’t know about the letters.

Already Grandma is boiling potatoes for her potato salad, and soon enough she’ll mix up the cream and sugar Daddy will freeze out on the porch. Since it’s a special occasion, Mama will have invited Abraham Pace to join them for supper, and he is almost certain to bring Miss Watson. All of it to celebrate Annie finally becoming a woman.

“Is Mr. Pace coming tonight?” Annie asks, tugging and fanning the sweater and wishing she hadn’t scooted away from the open door.

He’ll tease Annie, Abraham will. He’s always teasing her for being faster and taller and stronger than most any boy in the county, but tonight he’ll tease because Annie doesn’t look like the one who has crossed over to being a woman. It’ll be Caroline who he says has sprouted such that Daddy ought have a shotgun at the ready for all the boys who linger past their welcome.

“And Miss Watson too?” Annie says. “Will she be coming too?”

Annie expects it to happen when she goes into town or at Sunday morning services. Some folks will choose a different pew or cross from one side of the road to the other when they see Annie. They don’t mean to be nasty, just figure better safe than sorry. Now Miss Watson has become one of those people. She was worried for Ryce when he stood out in that field with Annie, and now Annie will have to sit across the table from Miss Watson and wonder why she’s so afraid.

“Oh, sure,” Grandma says. “Both of them, I expect. We’ve certainly enough food.”

After leaving Mama to her nap, Annie had changed into the dark undershirt she wears now and pulled on her gray sweater, and not even in the privacy of her own bedroom could she look down on what Ryce Fulkerson had seen. She tried. She stood in front of the mirror where Caroline stands each morning before school or before church to smooth her skirt and twirl side to side to study every angle. Annie looked at herself in the blouse that was still damp, wanted to see exactly what Ryce Fulkerson had seen, what he couldn’t hardly stop himself from staring at. She saw the same girl she’d have seen a week ago or a month ago. Her hair hung in knotted strands, her face was shiny was sweat and rain, and her clothes were wrinkled. Feeling not one bit smarter or older or more certain than she had before looking into that well, she turned her back on the mirror, yanked the blouse overhead, pulled on a dark undershirt that may well have been Daddy’s but ended up in her drawer by mistake, and slipped into her gray sweater.

Tiptoeing past Mama’s room, her arms crossed to keep the sweater closed good and tight, Annie couldn’t help but think of Emily Anne Tylerson and the day all the boys ran from her. Emily Anne’s half birthday fell on a Friday, so all week, the girls had helped Emily Anne plan what she would wear and asked her to promise she’d make the trip, even if she had to go alone. Everyone knew Emily Anne’s daddy overindulged and her mama was too busy with the young ones who couldn’t yet tend themselves, which left Emily Anne to tend her own self most days.

When Friday came, Emily Anne, wearing the same blue dress she wore to church every Sunday, came to school with a smile on her face. She smiled until the first boy ran away. He startled like she was a rat snake slithering underfoot, and then another ran and another, and the girls laughed, though they tried to hide it by turning their backs on Emily Anne. When one of the girls finally asked who Emily Anne had seen down in the well—it was most likely Lizzy Morris, though Annie couldn’t remember for sure—Emily Anne said she didn’t go because it was all foolishness anyway.

If it weren’t for a dead Mrs. Baine, Annie could have told everyone she didn’t go to the well either, but they all know she went, and by the time another day or two passes, they’ll all think Annie’s the one who did the killing too. The more Annie thinks about it, the more she’s certain it was Lizzy Morris who was so nasty to Emily Anne.

“You ought be the girl out there on that porch,” Grandma says, elbow deep in a sink of hot, soapy water. The backs of her arms jiggle as she works the tip of a nylon brush around a mason jar’s insides.

Standing from her seat at the table, her sweater still buttoned top to bottom, Annie starts to dry the jars as Grandma washes them. Most of the jars are clear, a few tinted blue, a few green.

Though Annie can’t see her, Caroline will have drawn her dark hair over one shoulder and will be petting it hand over hand. She’ll be blinking slowly so the light glitters in her long, dark lashes and smiling at Jacob Riddle.

Caroline is younger than Annie by a scant twelve months, but a person looking at the sisters side by side would never think such a thing. It isn’t only Caroline’s body that would deceive a person, though it would surely be enough. She would never make the mistake of leaving the house without the proper undergarments. The weight of her bosom wouldn’t let her forget. Caroline takes up more space than most. That’s what Grandma says. Caroline’s cheeks glow, her lips shine, and she carries herself with a straight back, chin lifted, head tilted ever so slightly to the side as if she’s all the time seeing a friend who’s been long lost to her and is so very happy to see her again.