Man in the Blue Moon (25 page)

Reverend Simpson popped the paper in the air and then smoothed it out against his chest. “After telling me that he felt convicted, Mr. Stillis wrote down the words he uses when he heals. When I read the verses, they caught my eye.” Reverend Simpson held the paper up in front of him and cleared his throat. “‘And when I passed by thee,’” he read, “‘and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.’”

Ella wiped away a tear but kept her eyes on Bonaparte.

“Sixth verse, sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel. Praise be the Word of the Lord,” Reverend Simpson said the way he did every Sunday after Scripture readings. He held up the paper before handing it to the beekeeper for further inspection.

“Praise be to God,” Ella whispered.

After the last pole from Brother Mabry’s tent had been taken down and stored and the last hymnal in Reverend Simpson’s church returned to its place in the back of the pew, the sun rose over Ella Wallace’s property the same way it always had.

Ella sprung out of her bed, holding on to the dream that seemed so real she half expected to see waves from the Gulf of Mexico cresting outside her window. Peering through the open curtain, she noticed the blue and pink colors that swirled together above the oaks around the store. When she stuck her head out the window, she was stung by the heavy heat of just another summer day. Across the road Mr. Pomeroy was opening the pineapple front gate of his yard, about to go around back of his house like he did every morning and pick what vegetables remained. Everything was the same, Ella told herself and pulled her head back inside. She dressed and repeated the reassurance, but nothing in her being would let her accept the words. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The crowds had dissipated. Many had made their way to the county line, to Martin Kessler’s farm, where a calf had been born next to a dried-up well. Three black crosses perfectly blazed on the calf’s side. Martin declared it the sign of the Trinity. His wife claimed that the cross-shaped markings had only appeared after the calf came back to life after being born dead. Even the old man who had stood on a milk crate at the entrance to Ella’s property and held the sign that read
Antichrist
had left. Now they all stood behind the new fence that Martin had painted white and offered to pay good money just to touch the side of the calf.

When Ella stepped outside, she noticed Narsissa sweeping off the stoop of the store the same way she did upon waking every morning. Dust swirled up around Narsissa until she looked like an apparition that might disappear without warning. Pausing, Ella took a step toward the store but then stopped. Fearing that she would be called a fool, Ella decided not to share her dream with Narsissa.

Walking through the obstacle course of tree stumps, those that had gained profit and those that had been destroyed out of greed, Ella let the feeling of melancholy blanket her. She was having a difficult time remembering just how thick the trees on her property had once been. Maybe it was best to forget.

When she got to the edge of the ravine that led to the coveted spring, she noticed Lanier standing by the spring, looking down into the waters the way he might if he could look into his future. It was only when she stepped on a limb and it snapped in two that he looked up. “Morning,” he said.

“You’re up early,” Ella said. “I didn’t expect to find you down here.”

“That barn was starting to feel like a prison. Besides, you know how us serpents like the Garden of Eden.”

Ella laughed. “So you came down here to tempt me?”

Lanier laughed and pulled at his injured ear. When his neck turned red, Ella stammered. “What I meant was . . .”

“So what’s next?” Lanier’s smile never wavered.

“For once I’d like to wake up and not have to think about that question.”

“Then I expect that’s when we’d put you in a pine box. I’m learning life is nothing more than a bunch of ‘what’s nexts.’”

Ella held on to the way he said
we
. “How did you rest last night?” She asked not out of social grace but in desperation to change the course of the conversation.

“Better,” he said, hitting his ear, trying to knock water out. “You?”

“Wonderful,” Ella repeated twice. She pulled at the ends of a red-berry vine, careful not to touch the thorny places. Smiling, she started to speak but then shook her head.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said and shook her head faster.

“You can’t do me like that. What is it?” This time Lanier laughed right along with her. The sound echoed across the swamp and was entangled with the sound of locusts roaring.

“I had the most vivid dream.” She looked up at the sunlight, holding the blaze until it was too much and she had to close her eyes. In her mind’s eye she could still see the images that had washed over her last night. The time when Macon was still a toddler and Harlan was still the man she hoped he could be—a sober man who had not yet been blemished by the opium. They had taken the ferry to St. George Island for an Easter afternoon. Emerald waves crashed on the white sand beach while the children tromped through the sand searching for hidden Easter eggs. Ella could still feel the taut muscles of Harlan’s arm as she reclined against him on the blanket. Soft breezes swept through the tops of the trees that lined the shore, and the squeals from her sons, still playful and young, tickled her ears. She held that memory and was grateful for the chance to relive it if only in her sleep. It was too valuable to give away.

“Nothing, nothing.” Ella fluttered her hands like she might be a bird ready to take flight. “I just woke up thinking about St. George Island, just across the bay. There was a time when people were talking about it becoming something big. A resort, you might as well say. A man by the name of Saxon was going to build a club and lease lots on the beach.”

Lanier bent down and scooped up a handful of springwater. He held up the water and let it cascade over his head and down the front of his shirt. Ella turned away from him and watched as a lizard ran round and round up a small oak tree.

“It all sounded so wonderful . . . so magical . . . this resort Mr. Saxon talked of. He wouldn’t sell the land. He wouldn’t hear of it. He would only lease the lots on the island. I wanted one of those lots. Oh, I wanted one like nobody’s business.” Ella laughed, and the lizard seemingly disappeared. “I had notions of having a cottage over there like something I’d seen in
Harper’s Magazine
. I’d paint day in and day out while my boys swam and fished and got tanned as pecans.”

“Sounds nice.”

When Ella turned back to face Lanier, water was dripping from the ends of his hair, and his face seemed to glisten. “It was one of those air castles. Harlan couldn’t come up with the $250 lease, and Mr. Saxon wasn’t interested in handing out credit. At least not to Harlan. But the whole idea, the whole concept, always intrigued me. I’d never heard of people leasing land like that before . . . not the way Mr. Saxon had in mind. You’d have it the same as if it was yours, but it would be leased for ninety-nine years. He would always be the outright owner.”

Lanier planted his hands deeper inside his pockets, and the wet material on his chest spread out wide. A patch of black hair from his chest rose up out of the shirt. “Those eyes of yours are narrowing.”

Ella moved closer to the spring and looked down at the water, wondering if it really was magic after all. “What?”

“Those blue eyes are getting narrower and narrower. I noticed that’s how you look when you work your way around a problem.”

Ella deliberately widened her eyes. “Now if you’d listen, you’d understand what I’m trying to tell you. I think I might have found a way to beat Clive Gillespie at his own game.”

Lanier’s eyes were the ones now narrowed. He tilted his chin back and studied her.

She stepped closer to him, and the branches of a palmetto bush scraped the backs of her legs. “That ninety-nine-year lease idea . . . If Clive is going to fight me in court, I might as well make a little money off the land while I can. I won’t be giving it up. It’ll still be mine. Clive Gillespie knows I’m not worldly, but he doesn’t know that I’m wise.”

“Oh, I know you are. Wise as a serpent.” Lanier chuckled and sat down on the bank of the spring. A sliver of sunlight fell upon him, making his hair seem blonder, more youthful than before. “You’re gonna have that preacher and banker clawing at each other like two trapped rats with one piece of cheese between them.”

“I think I’ll pay Brother Mabry a visit.”

“I’ll drive you.”

Ella held up her hand. “Not today.”

Together they sat on the bank of the spring, side by side, and never even bothered to consider what anyone passing by might think. They watched the water bubble and rise to the surface and scripted a future out of reach of their past. Without ever signing a contract, they outlined a partnership that would never really let him walk away.

After Samuel took Keaton and Macon down to the river to fish like they used to do on carefree days before the note came due, Ella dressed in her Sunday best. Out behind the barn, away from where anyone could see, she tried three times to get the bit in the mule’s mouth before she slapped him on the side of the head. “Now, straighten up,” she yelled. The mule opened his mouth and snorted a stream of mucus that covered Ella’s sleeve. Not bothering to change clothes, she hitched the wagon and popped the reins as hard as she could. When she passed by the parsonage, Ella gripped tighter and kept her eyes on the cows that crossed the road ahead of her.

Myer Simpson was sweeping off her porch stoop when Ella passed. Myer stopped her chore long enough to shade her eyes with her twisted, arthritic fingers. “After everything that’s happened, I’d think your man friend could at least drive you to town,” Myer said. Her voice trailed behind the wagon. “Ella, I’m worried about you. Where are you going?”

Ella popped the reins, the bridle jingled, and the mule trotted faster. Neither Ella nor the animal looked away from the road before them.

By the time Ella made it to the city limits of Apalachicola, the town had come to life. A line of elementary-age schoolgirls, dressed in their uniforms of matching navy dresses, walked out of Miss Wayne’s school and down the sidewalk to the library. A black dog with white paws trotted across the street and in front of Gillespie Savings and Loan. The bank clerk with red hair and a ruddy complexion paused to look at Ella before turning away as if he had never known her.

Tying the wagon to the hitching post at the corner of the Franklin Inn, Ella straightened the best hat that she could find in her closet and dabbed perspiration from her lip. Inhaling as deep as she could manage, she walked inside the mahogany-paneled lobby and placed her arm on the reception desk.

A woman with a crooked nose and tiny slits for eyes greeted her. “Mrs. Wallace.”

Ella blinked and tried not to show her surprise that the woman should know her name.

“Good morning,” Ella said with all the confidence she could manage. “I need to get a message to Brother Mabry.”

“Brother Mabry?” The woman dropped her chin and her eyes looked bigger. A breeze came in through the open door of the inn, and the pages of the newspaper on the counter ruffled.

“He’s your guest, isn’t he? I’d like to speak with him, please.”

“Do you have an appointment? I mean, Mrs. Mercile, our manager, has been taking care of them personally.”

“He’ll want to see me. Take my word for it,” Ella said, trying to hide her dress sleeve soiled with mule mucus underneath the counter.

That evening Clive Gillespie stood on his front porch, leaning against one of the stone pillars that was shaped like a pyramid. He bit the end of a cigar, spat the tip at a rose bed below the porch, and stared off toward the bay. He watched as the string of lights on the bow of a steamboat grew stronger as the boat made its way to port. The sound of the boat’s whistle momentarily interrupted the symphony of the crickets, locusts, and bullfrogs that filled the night air. Reaching down to the porch rail, Clive picked up the crystal tumbler he had filled and finished it off in one sip.

The water near the dock bathed in the blue light of the moon. The oyster cannery building at the corner of the dock blocked Clive’s view of the passengers who were disembarking from their journey. He could hear the sound of the colored men who unloaded the cargo and called out the names of the passengers whose bags were being tossed to the deck for retrieval. He heard the name Troxler but paid about as much attention to it as he did the name Smith.

The Troxler brothers and their hired man had taken the train as far as they could and then picked up the steamboat to Apalachicola. J.D. Troxler was never one for boat travel and arrived in ill humor.

Clive kept his watch on the dock, seemingly hypnotized by the people who moved along the dock as shadows. Clive struck a match against one of the stones on his porch and cupped his hand to light the cigar. He studied the cigar like he might a lover. He was too preoccupied in his visions of tourists flocking to the spring that would soon be his to glance across the street at the park where children had played earlier that day. If he had, he might have seen Ruby’s father, Earl, crouching behind an oak tree or the barrel of the rifle he held that was aimed straight at the cigar Clive held close to his chest.

The sound of heavy breathing caused Clive to look up. Brother Mabry, dressed in sweat-drenched linen pants that bunched in thick folds around his thighs, paused at the corner to catch his breath. “Gillespie,” he yelled with one big exhale.

Tossing the cigar to the rose garden below the porch, Clive slicked down his hair with his hand. “Brother Mabry. What a pleasant surprise. What has you out this time of night?”

Brother Mabry grunted as he pulled himself up one step and then another by gripping the porch rail. His face was reddened with anger as much as from physical strain.

Clive slicked down his hair one more time and reached out to help Brother Mabry.

“Get inside the house,” Brother Mabry shouted like he might to a misbehaving child. “It’s time for an altar call.”