The Storycatcher (22 page)

“We’ll have to drive all the way through.”

“How far is it?” Faith asked.

“Too far, but we have Shelly and no motel will let us stay.” Mrs. Dobbins looked at me in the mirror. “It’s not your fault, Shelly. It’s just the way things are.”

Like that made some kind of excuse. I didn’t say a word.

“If I get tired, I’ll just pull into a parking lot and sleep for a while. We’ll be fine. This is our adventure.” She sang out like everything on the mountain was fine and dandy.

So she drove and drove. The wind blew hot, hotter than I’d ever felt. I could have cut the air with a knife it was so full of rain that wouldn’t let loose. Nada crept into my bones and knotted my stomach. One of Pastor’s hymns about a bright sunny day hummed in my head until I felt more like myself. The road turned long. I could have hugged Mrs. Dobbins when she pulled into a service station. I was about to pop. By the door hung a neatly painted sign:
NO COLORED BATHROOMS HERE. MOVE ON. WHITES ONLY.

“Come on, Faith.” Mrs. Dobbins turned to me. “Shelly, you stay put. Don’t talk to a soul. They eat coloreds for supper down here.”

No matter what skin color, a girl had to relieve herself, but I was left with no choices. There was a good stand of trees out to the side of
the store. I slid out of the car and scooted across the gravel parking lot without a soul noticing. As soon as I was hidden, I hiked up my skirt. It was plain out sinful to treat a person like I was being treated. Nada would say it was just the way things was, but she was wrong. I pulled down my panties, dancing a little to hold back. It wouldn’t do to wet my clothes. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around me.

“You! You!”

I cut the stream off just like a water faucet and yanked up my underclothes.

“What you be doing, girl?”

The voice was coming out of the trees. “I’m sorry. I had to wet.”

A colored woman hobbled out from behind a tree. Her clothes looked like they came from a long time in the past. She reminded me of someone. “Do you know what them white folks in that store will do if they catch you here? They’ll kill you dead, girl.”

“I had to go, ma’am. I couldn’t hold it no longer.”

“Ha. You don’t know nothing about taking your fill of something, child. You be young and weak. You take yourself on back to that white family that brought you here. And girl, things never be what you think. Remember that. You got a journey to take.”

“Who are you?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as the old woman moved close.

“Just when you get soft and easy, something flies at you sideways. I know where you from. Blood be thicker than you think, girl. It flows like that big old river that pulls water out of the land and rushes it to the sea.” The old woman just shook her head and kept on moving. “Go on, now. Go back to them white women.” She laughed. “The child don’t even know what her eyes be telling her half the time. You know me. I’m the one who’s been watching you all the time. Think on it.” And she went so far into the trees I couldn’t see her.

Mrs. Dobbins and Faith came out of the store with green-colored bottles. Faith pushed one at me. “Drink this. It’s got to be the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

Mrs. Dobbins frowned. “Faith, you act like you’ve never drank a Coca-Cola before.”

Faith just grinned at me like we had some big old secret and I guessed we did. “Try it, Shelly.”

The bottle was icy cold, and the brown liquid bubbled in my mouth, turning it both hot and cold at the same time, taking away my breath.

“I told you.” Faith turned her own bottle up and drank the last of it.

We drove and drove and drove. Sometime during the night Mrs. Dobbins pulled the car over on the side of the road. I woke up to them two women’s heavy breathing. At first I thought I was stuck in some crazy dream, but then I saw the stars in the sky. Some old night bird was out there calling and calling. I went back to sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING
as we drove, the clouds changed from white and fluffy to dark layers stacking on top of each other. All the shades of gray showed against the blue sky. At home, clouds sat on top of us like big, heavy blankets that hid the sky for days. Now, the thick air turned so salty I could taste it. Around us the red clay gave way to sand. But mostly it was the long, gray, tangled hairlike stuff hanging in the sprawling oak trees that made me stare. I thought about the old woman spirit back at the store. Maybe she had been a tree come to life.

“How much longer?” Faith asked around a yawn.

“Almost there.” Mrs. Dobbins turned and smiled at Faith. Her look said we was almost free.

The sign to Darien pointed to the left over a bridge. A snaking, wide, calm river came into view. Nothing like Dragonfly River, all in a hurry. No, this river was strong and quiet. The old woman’s words came into my head:
“that pulls water out of the land and rushes it to the sea.”
Nada would say the old woman spirit was an omen of some kind.

There was a bunch of boats at the long dock. “Those are shrimp boats, girls,” Mrs. Dobbins said.

“Where’s the beach? Where’s the ocean? I thought we would be near the ocean.” Faith looked around.

“Your uncle Tyson’s house is on the marsh that opens up to the sea. It is beautiful. I think you’ll both be happy there.”

Faith frowned. “One place is as good as the other.”

The shrimp boats all had names:
Miss Marie, Polly, Anne,
and
Sweet Jesse.
“Why are the boats named after girls?”

“That’s a good question, Shelly. Tyson says it’s because a boat is a thing of grace and beauty.”

A good-size alligator was stretched across a dead log, floating near the bank. It slid off into the water and floated away with a back-and-forth swish. As the road left the river behind, I turned around and got one more look. The boat named
Sweet Jesse
was easing away from the dock.

“F
AITH, YOU BE CAREFUL
about them plants. Give them plenty of water. We’re going to have us a drought,” Amanda warned.

So I listened. I tried to listen to everything Amanda said, like how I needed to give Will some room for working and thinking.

“Pastor don’t take kindly to him. You don’t need to be causing him trouble. It wouldn’t take much to get your daddy building stories in his head.”

Heat spread up my neck into my face. “I don’t want to hurt Will.” My voice broke.

Amanda looked up from slicing the fatback for the green beans. “Child, I know that, but you don’t understand that Pastor’s thinking is different than all of us. He be a one and only, that’s for sure. When we look at Will, we see a fine young man. When Pastor looks at him, he sees a back to break and the color of his skin. He don’t care much for mens,
especially if they be colored. He likes to be boss, and he loves to be the boss of women. If he figures out you care about Will, God help you both. See what I’m talking about?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

AMANDA HAD FORBIDDEN ME
to go in the woods near her cabin, but I went there all the time. I was fifteen, not some old baby who would get lost. When I stepped into the trees, a calm spread over me. The whole place was a bright green with vines and flowering bushes here and there. Miss Tuggle had taught me a lot of names, but I couldn’t seem to hold them in my mind as long as I could the names of birds. A little of the blue sky showed through the thick trees. I found the big oak and sat down just to think, just to be quiet. The wind was hot. The heat had turned worse when Arleen was buried, like the mountain was angry. That’s what Amanda believed.

A branch broke somewhere nearby. The tops of the trees moved back and forth. The bird songs lulled me into a deep, quiet place. The intruders crashing through the woods were on me before I understood what was going on. Will stumbled out of the thick brush. At first I thought he was playing some dumb trick on me for being in the woods. But his face was a mask of rage, and right behind him charged Daddy. I crawled behind the large tree trunk and flattened my body against the bark.

“I don’t know who you think you are, boy, but what you insinuated back there I take as fighting words.” Daddy stepped closer to Will. “Why are you running? Because you know you’re a liar, that’s why. See, I think you were that baby’s father. Arleen was trash and we both know it.”

I couldn’t see Will’s face but I could hear him breathing, and I could see him opening and closing one hand in a fist.

“I was Arleen’s pastor. I knew her better than her mother did. I saw just what she could do from the beginning.”

“She wasn’t like that and you know it! You’re the liar.”

“What did I do, boy?” Daddy boomed. I could only imagine how red his face had turned. Will was a brave, good person and no match for Daddy.

“I want to know exactly what I did, boy!”

There were scuffling and grunting sounds. Daddy would kill Will over Arleen. I’d seen her on the edge of the woods talking to Will more than one time. When I asked him about their conversations, he told me Arleen was upset and in need of someone to talk to. I believed him. Will was not a liar. He was my best friend and told me everything.

“Tell me, you sorry ass!” Daddy yelled. “You abomination! You make me sick!”

“You’re the one.” Will gasped the words. “You put your baby in her. You forced her to do things she didn’t want to do. I seen you follow her through the graveyard into the woods. She told me what you did. If she had lived, she was going to tell the church.”

The sound of a fist breaking a nose is a horrible crack. I ran out from behind the tree and flew into Daddy with my fists. I hit him in the back. Will’s face was covered with blood.

“You hurt him! Look what you did!” I hit him harder. “You’re supposed to be a pastor but you hurt Will!”

Daddy swung around and grabbed my arms. “Get out of here, Faith. This isn’t any of your business.”

“Why? Why should I listen to you? I won’t go. You can’t make me. Hit me. I don’t care. I won’t leave him. I won’t let you hurt Will.”

A dark shadow moved through Daddy. “What did I tell you, Faith?”

“I’ll tell the church what I know. I promise if you hurt Will, I’ll tell, and they will make you leave the mountain.” I was crying but it didn’t matter. I would take the next blow for Will if I had to.

Will stood up. “I know a lot more. I know what happened before Faith was born. I bet these folks here would like to know too. They’d like to know about all your lies and not just about Arleen.” Will stepped closer to Daddy, who was still watching me. “See, Pastor, I got something that would put you in jail.”

Daddy turned and grabbed Will’s throat. “You think that you’re anything to me? Nothing, boy! Nothing.”

“I’m going after Mama.” I turned my head and screamed, “Mama!”

Daddy continued to hold Will by the throat. “See, I’ve decided not to hurt you right now. No. But if you don’t leave this mountain for good, I’ll kill your mama and that little sister of yours too. Then who is going to tell what? If you’re still here by sunup, I’ll keep my promise.” He shoved Will back into the brush and stomped off through the woods without saying another word to me.

I ran to Will. Some of what he said began to sink into my bones, aching. Don’t get me wrong. I had always known Daddy was capable of bad things, but still the thought of him with Arleen sickened me. “Daddy would have killed you if I wasn’t here.”

He touched my shoulder. “You shouldn’t be in these woods.”

“Well, good thing I was.” I folded my arms across my chest.

“I’m glad you was here,” he admitted.

“Daddy had his way with Arleen Brown?”

His expression turned into a gray shadow. “She told me that story, and she told the truth.”

The words I wanted to scream were rocks in my chest, sobs in my mind.

“I got to leave, Faith. But first we have to have a long talk. You got to know the whole story. Everything. Then I’m leaving.”