The Sleeping Night (32 page)

“We just have to do more of this, then,” he murmured and kissed her ear.

She giggled suddenly. “Oh, Isaiah, you know what my name’s gonna be?” She collapsed against him, shaking with laughter. “Angel High!”

He laughed with her, then pulled himself upright. “Not until we can get out of here.’’

“It won’t be long now, Isaiah. Somebody’s bound to take this store, now they know I’m willing to just give it over.”

He stood up, visibly wincing as his ankle took his weight. Tugging on his pants, he shook his head. “I don’t think so, not with all that’s gone on.”

Reluctantly, Angel put her slip on. “Maybe you oughta go on to Dallas, wait for me there, and I’ll join you as soon as I get things settled.”

“Please,” he protested. “I’m just gonna walk away and leave you here? That doesn’t even make any sense, Angel. No sense. You shoulda had your behind outta here the first time Edwin smacked you. Maybe you should go on to Mrs. Pierson’s tonight. I’ll take you there.”

She gave him a look. “You can’t even walk across the room, Isaiah. How are you gonna see me over to Mrs. Pierson’s?”

Isaiah sank down on the chair to put on his socks. A mulish expression crossed his brow.

“I’ll be all right here tonight, go to Mrs. Pierson’s in the morning. Everything will work out.”

“That’s what you always think, Angel, but it’s just not always true. Life ain’t a fairy tale, and even God can’t help you if a man’s crazy enough.”

A terrible sorrow weighted his voice. So many things had been torn inside of him—war had torn him in ways not even the death of his daddy and the beating in the woods could do. It would take time for those places to knit, for his faith to come back—if it ever did.

Could even love heal that bitterness?

And yet, what were the odds that they would even be standing together like this, meeting each other’s eyes in love and hope? She disappeared into her dress and shook her hair free. “God can do anything, Isaiah.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’ll get everything together tonight, say my goodbyes to the ladies in the morning.” She held up a finger. “Wait, though. I want you to take something for me.” She opened a drawer and took out the red tin where she’d kept his letters. “I saved every one. Take it with you.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing. I just won’t have room in my suitcase.”

He tucked the tin close. “All right.”

They walked to the back door, where Isaiah paused to kiss her tenderly. “That’s going to have to last, Angel, for both of us. We can’t be taking chances like this. You move to Mrs. Pierson’s tomorrow and we’ll figure out our plan from there.”

“I promise.” She grabbed his hand, lifted it to her lips, kissed the bend of his fingers. “I have never been happier, Isaiah. I mean that.”

“Me, either, Angel. I mean it, too.” Everything in him softened, and he lifted her fingers to his own lips. “I love you, Angel, that’s a fact. I don’t know if it’s the best thing for either one of us, but I’m never going to leave you. Never, you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I had a cane here somewhere.” He picked it up off the floor. “Keep that gun by you, Angel. Right by you.”

“I will. Don’t worry,” She pushed his arm a little. “Get some rest.” She watched his limping figure until it disappeared into the twilight and trees. As the dusty light swallowed him, a sudden sense of foreboding thudded in her belly and she wanted to call him back. Instead, she closed the door, shaking her head.
Just getting jumpy.

A long hot bath and a cup of tea made her feel better. Ebenezer scratched at the window and she let him in, fed him and herself, and then gathered her things into two suitcases. There wasn’t much she had to bring when it came down to it. Her clothes were mostly from before the war, all worn out and ragged. She had three good dresses, a few pairs of panties and slips, photos of her father and the store and a couple of books she had to keep.

Enough, she thought, finally headed to bed. Enough.

June 2, 1946

Dear Angel,

I’m writing this from my bedroom. Must be going on to midnight, and I’m not sleepy, because I’m on fire. Everything in me is lit up like Christmas, twinkling and blinking and dancing around. My little toe is tapping and my earlobes and my eyelashes feel lit up. I close my eyes and think of your mouth and my chest aches. I think of sleeping with you all night long and waking up in the morning and having coffee and I want to get up and dance. I never thought I’d feel this happy, and at the same time, it seems like this was coming for us since we were children. Remember when I brought that snakeskin to you, the night we read together? You were wearing a yellow dress with teeny polka dots on it. Someday, I’d like you have another dress like that.

I’m thinking tonight of our children and that makes me want to fly. Your babies. Mine. All of us sitting around some big table somewhere, having supper, day after day. That’s not so glamorous, is it, but it sounds like a dream come true. Children, a home, you. And both of us following those old dreams however we can, maybe only in little ways. I can find some work with a builder. Maybe you can go to school. Maybe we both can, I don’t know. I got money saved. A lot. Mrs. Pierson gave me more when I brought Gudren back, so we can figure something out.

I am just so happy, Angel. I want to write it all over the page. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. So many times in my letters I wanted to say something like that and I never could. When you wrote me that letter about the cake . . . .have mercy (ha ha). Someday I want you to read that letter out loud to me.

Now maybe I can go to sleep and get ready to start a new life tomorrow. With my baby. With you, my Angel.

Love,

Isaiah

Somewhere in the deepest part of the night, Angel awakened sharply, sitting bold upright in bed, her mouth dry with fear. She grabbed the gun automatically as she listened to the heavy silence, peering into the dark until dots danced in front of her eyes.

A noise blasted into the quiet—Ebenezer shrieking from the rooms in front of the house. A thud followed the eerie, warlike cry, and Angel realized vaguely he had thrown himself at the window or door. Quietly, she threw the covers from her and crept to the window of her room. Ebenezer cried out again, the sound unlike anything she’d ever heard him make before—almost a human scream.

Bloodcurdling.

From outside came the low sound of voices, and a rumbling chuckle she didn’t recognize. Working sweaty fingers more tightly around the gun, she made sure it was cocked and moved soundlessly to the window to peer into the back yard.

Nothing. At least nothing she could see. A cloud filmed the half-moon and the flickering shadows of trees could have hidden a dozen men. She crept from her room into the hallway that led to the store, then slipped into her daddy’s room, keeping her head low.

Here, the voices were clearer. She counted them: Tom and Jake, a voice she didn’t know, and Edwin. Four. Moving stealthily in a way that was at odds with their previous crashing, crazy vandalism. This was like a mission.

Her heart was pounding so hard it interfered with her hearing and she took a moment to breathe in and out, trying to calm herself. Think clearly. What were they doing? Did she dare break for the woods out the back door?

Ebenezer shrieked again, and she glanced toward the sound. He’d follow her out and they’d know, she thought, grimly. Out the front, or out the back, but if she ran fast enough, she might be able to elude them long enough to get to the tree house.

One of the men shouted, “Ready!”

Angel ducked without really knowing why. She expected shotgun blasts or rocks through the windows. She didn’t expect the roar that blew in from the front of the store, a sudden explosion—and then, the unmistakable scent of gasoline.

“Ebenezer,” she whispered, jumping up to run toward the door. A blast of heat pushed her back almost instantly, and for one single, endless second, she stared in horror at the bright orange flames shooting up the walls, devouring the work of a lifetime.

If Ebenezer had been there, he was gone, sucked into the inferno.

Her heart cracked in two
. Baby!

Sudden hammering blows sounded at the back door and Angel whirled back into her father’s bedroom crouching behind the door, her throat dry, pulse racing. There had to be a way out of here.

Think, Angel.

Overhead, the flames began to lick over the roof, crackling and hissing like an evil serpent.
God, you’re gonna have to deal with this one,
she prayed mindlessly.
Help me, help me, help me.

Have courage.

Swallowing hard, she wiped her fingers, checked the gun again, and heard the back door give way, followed by footsteps and a cry. “Angel Corey!” Edwin bellowed. “You better come out here!”

She didn’t know how he knew where her bedroom was, but she heard him in there, turning things over, swearing. “She ain’t here again, goddamnit!”

Footfalls rattled along the hall way and the bathroom door slammed open, a closet opened, and they finally made their way toward her hiding place. As they approached, Angel ran across the room to the window, throwing it open, unmindful of the noise. She scrambled over the sill and fell to the ground outside, gun still in hand. As her bare feet hit the dirt, she started running. The sound of the flames was turning to a roar and she could hear shouts coming from inside, but she ran like hell, rounding the back of the house for the woods—

And slammed hard into a solid wall of man. Bobby Grover, the voice she hadn’t placed. He grabbed her, and with a cry, Angel stomped on the arch of his food.

With a cry of surprise, he held her arm and backhanded her across the mouth. Angel tasted blood, but behind her, she could hear shouts.

They would kill her. Without hesitation, she lifted her hand and fired the pistol into Bobby Grover’s soft gut.

He made a grunt of surprise then fell away from her. Angel felt his blood on her hand, but her adrenaline was so high that she nearly couldn’t think.

A voice screamed in her mind—
run! Run!

She tore through the trees, hearing shouts and a cat call behind her. The fire roared high into the night sky, full of light and sound, like a celebration, an inferno.

She ran. Her feet, even leathery as they were, took a beating, tearing on hidden rocks and thorns and tree roots. Branches beat her face, caught her eyes and hair. She heard a sob and realized it was her own.

Behind her came the sound of other feet, following the sound of her own. Edwin cried, “Here I come, honey!”

He crashed through the trees behind her, and she could hear the others coming, too, making noise, crying out. Behind her, Edwin cackled, only a few feet away. “Here I come!” he shouted. He crashed through the trees behind her.

Angel could hear the others coming, too, making sounds of glee that sent an almost supernatural wave of horror washing through her.

Her foot caught in a tangle of vines, and she went flying. She felt it in slow motion, felt the earth rise up and then slam into her chin and breasts. The gun flew out of her hand, discharging as it landed. She coughed, the wind knocked out of her, and scrambled to her feet, wiping blood off her mouth. In the darkness, she kicked leaves and patted the earth frantically, trying to find the gun. Nothing. “
Please, please, please
,” she panted, like an animal, her voice coming in sobs.

Right behind her, she heard twigs snapping, feet crashing, and there was no time left. She sprang up and hurtled through the trees. A stitch caught her side and she stumbled, and scrambled again.

“I’m coming, honey! I know you’re waiting!” Edwin cried, and it was close, so close.

Dear God.

His hand snagged her hair and Angel screamed. She swung her fists toward his face, catching the edge of his chin. He laughed. “Angel, I had no idea you were such a wildcat.” She cried out, clawing for him, kicking, and he grabbed her close to him, her arms pinned against her sides. “I got her, boys.” His hand was threaded painfully through her hair and he snapped her neck back, “Don’t I, sugar? I got you now.”

Angel stared at him and swallowed. Fear made her very cold.

“Isaiah!” There was such urgency
in Geraldine’s tone that Isaiah sprung awake, but not without a shaft of pain shooting through his eyes.

He groaned softly.

“’Saiah! Get up! The Corey place is on fire.”

He bolted awake.

Have mercy.
He struggled into his clothes, firing questions. “When you see it? How long? You hear anything else?”

“It woke me up just now.” She pointed to the window. Above the trees shot brilliant orange flames. A sense of rage and helplessness flooded through him. Panic. “Where’s your God now, Mama? Huh?”

Grabbing his mother’s shotgun, he hobbled out the backyard. Already the bank was lined with the curious and horrified, who watched with sober eyes as the store burned and burned and burned—

He crashed through the river, cursing the weakness of his body—a body that had always stood up to the pressures he inflicted, could go the distance of any punishment, and now failed him with its slowness.

Thick, acrid smoke billowed through the trees, and he felt breathless with pain and fear. In spite of his curses, he couldn’t stop the prayer that formed in his mind, “Oh, God—she loves you. Keep her safe. Keep her safe.”

Have mercy.

He stumbled out of the water, and up the bank. But at the edge of the woods that circled the store, he stopped, heart plummeting. The worn wood burned with abandon, every single inch of it hellishly alight. Nothing in there had survived.

He staggered forward, pierced with grief, unmindful of the searing heat of the fire. He stared at the porch and the step where Angel had sat eating cake .
 . . where she had kissed him . . . where they had played as children.

As he stared, a plank of pine broke free and sailed outward, landing on what Isaiah had thought to be a pile of discarded clothes. The flames caught, showing instead the body of a man. Isaiah hurried forward.

Bobby Grover. Shot at close range by the look of the hole in his belly.

Good girl.

He whirled, headed for the woods, knowing Angel would have made for the tree house, her refuge. Now stealth would be his ally, not speed. If she was alive, he knew where to find her.

Moving slowly, looking through the smoke and night for something, anything, he crept along the path. The fire roared, drowning even the omniscient sound of the river. He pressed on, listening so hard he thought his ears might bleed.

Faintly came the sound of a voice—and with sick certainty, Isaiah knew where they were. A palpable, physical dread filled him, weighted his limbs and organs for a minute, paralyzing him beneath the trees. The horrors of war and Texas and all the imagined cruelty Edwin could conjure filled him.

Again the dread washed over him, solid as earth, but he had learned as a soldier in battle how to move against it, how to creep through the dark toward the sound of voices coming from the hollow. Arguing men’s voices. His flesh rippled. Quietly, he moved, his bare feet making little sound in the undergrowth.

The night grew blacker as he moved deeper into the forest, away from the sound and light of the all-consuming fire. As the light faded, the dread he felt grew until he felt nearly smothered. He had to push and push against the almost supernatural sense of horror.

And in that terrible darkness, under the weight of his strangling fear for Angel, Isaiah had no choice but to pray. He used the words as he would any weapon at hand—prayed anything, recited words from verses learned in childhood, from songs, from the shouted, rising and falling words of preachers in the pulpit. As he crept through the woods, he chanted the old words as if they had power, like a spell.

In the hollow, a small fire burned. An ordinary campfire, yellow and cheery against the night. Isaiah hid himself and peered through the undergrowth, gun poised. He didn’t see Angel immediately. Tom’s back blocked her from view. A harsh, murmured argument was going on. Tom was disgusted with something Edwin had said.

Isaiah’s dread evaporated. The soldier he was took control. He raised the shotgun and aimed at the burly back of the man in front of him. Tom moved suddenly, shifting a gun from his left hand to his right. Isaiah held off, waiting.

And there was Edwin, crouched on the far side of the fire, Angel gripped in his arms. Her face was streaked and filthy, her hair a tangle, and she wore only a nightgown that was torn and dirty. As Isaiah watched, she licked a bloody cut on her lip, and jerked away from Edwin, who pulled her back with a cackle.

The expression on Edwin’s face renewed Isaiah’s dread. The chuckle was edged with hysteria, and his strange eyes were wild and leaping. He lifted his gun toward Tom. “None o’ this is yours, man,” he said, his voice carrying clearly.

Isaiah sighted again, waiting for a clear shot. An instant later, Edwin loosened his hold to grab a bottle by his feet, and Isaiah fired, diving into the undergrowth for cover. Through a tangle of leaves, he saw Edwin spin sideways, taking the bullet too high.

Angel tore away from him, stumbling in the dirt, scrambling as Tom and Jake whirled, looking for the source of fire. Jake fired wildly into the undergrowth, as if there was a platoon in the woods. Tom bolted for the edge of the clearing, and Isaiah fired cleanly, catching him full in the chest. That one hadn’t been too high, he thought as he ducked to his right through the trees, moving noiselessly as a snake. Another shot sailed wild over his head.

Angel screamed and Isaiah lifted his head to see Edwin, bloodied but still moving, grab her by the hair and head for the opposite side of the clearing.