The Weight of Blood (23 page)

I shook my head. Was it possible she was going to tell me something new after all these years?

“She was attacked, I guess you'd say. Beat up. She got bit, and it got infected. I nursed her, that's how I knew. Nobody said anything. I don't even know if your dad knew about the bite, though I'd guess he would have eventually seen the scar.”

Someone had
bitten
her? “Who was it?”

“I don't know, not for sure. She wouldn't say. Neither would your dad, if he knew. There was talk around town that Joe Bill Sump had been to see her. That was right before he took off, and I considered maybe that was why he left. But the bite … the mark it left … well, this is just a guess on my part, but I always wondered if it was Crete who did that to her.”

I picked at my fingernails, not wanting to look at Birdie. Sarah Cole had claimed my mother wasn't sure who my father was. What if Crete
had
attacked her? What if he was the other man, the one whose child she didn't want?

“I did like she said,” Birdie continued softly. “Kept an eye on you. I always have. I always will. You're like a granddaughter to me, Lucy.” It was strange to hear her say that, yet it made perfect sense. “You grow up feeling the weight of blood, of family. There's no forsaking kin. But you can't help when kin forsakes you or when strangers come to be family. Lila found her home here. She belonged with us. She didn't kill herself, I just can't believe it. I don't have proof of anything, but I've always had my suspicions. Crete loved her or hated her—don't really matter which. Either one'll drive you crazy if you let it. Now, it ain't my place to tell you what to think of your own family, but you've got to look past what you've always been taught and listen to what you know in your bones to be true.”

Jamie

Thirteen-year-old Jamie Petree could work the dogs just as good as his older brothers, and they knew it. They let him go hunting on his own whenever he wanted, so long as he shot something they could eat. Jamie didn't give a lick about playing with other kids, he just wanted to be out in the woods treeing coons, shooting birds, and splashing in the creek. His mama homeschooled him, mostly math and religion, so he had plenty of time outdoors. He had four hunting dogs in his pack: Josh and Calvin's two blue ticks, his little brother Gage's black and tan coonhound, and his own yellow cur, Custard, raised from a pup.

He was wandering the hills around Old Scratch Cavern, even though his mama had told him not to. She said the witch lady haunted that cave. She'd been saying that a good long year—ever since Lila went missing—and that was exactly what drew him here. He
wanted
to see the witch lady again. He remembered vividly the first time he'd seen her over a year ago, in Ralls' grocery, when she'd rescued him from Junior and bought him a candy bar. No one ever looked at him the way Lila had. Her gaze took in everything about him, inside and out, good and bad; she had seen all that and smiled.

To his mama's dismay, Lila had also sparked in him an uncontrollable urge to touch himself. He was hexed, Mama said, bedeviled, and she did her best to whip the evil out of him. But the witch lady had powerful spells. She wouldn't let him be. In his waking dreams, Lila was a seductress. She crept into his sleep as well, though in those dreams, she did nothing more than hold his hand and smile.

It was his favorite time in the woods, near dusk, when everything was still and shadowed and cool, not yet dark enough for the bugs to start singing. It seemed to him the best time for spirits to show themselves. He watched for Lila. Loose rocks and dead leaves covered the ground, and the soles of his boots, worn slick, threatened to slide out from under him if he didn't mind his footing. Some of the ravines here were so steep, they never saw sunlight.

The dogs had moved on ahead, sure-footed and eager. Jamie ran his hand along the bark of a fallen tree and knelt to see if there might be any early morels on the lee side. Then he heard a yelp and its answering chorus of bays and shot up in time to see the ruckus at the top of the rise. He didn't get a look at the quarry, but the blue ticks were on to something, and the other two lit out after them. Was it her? Had she finally come back to him?

By the time he got to the ridge, Custard was hauling ass for Old Scratch, and the others had already disappeared inside its black maw, their howls echoing out into the holler. Jamie wasn't sure what to do, so he waited and watched for Lila. He knew he couldn't catch up. The dogs were smart, too smart, probably, to get themselves lost in the cave, so they might turn around and come back. But they were also determined, single-minded. They might well chase their quarry down the Devil's Throat and never come out again. What were they after, if not a ghost? Something that didn't naturally tree, he guessed. A mountain lion? A bear? He'd never seen one in these parts, though plenty of other folks had. He no longer heard barking.

Tears stung Jamie's eyes, and he rubbed them away with grimy hands. The dogs would be all right. But if they weren't? He'd only turned his attention away for a minute, to look for the mushrooms. He hadn't expected them to go for the cave, and by the time it occurred to him to whistle and call them back, it was too late. He was trying to figure out how to tell his brothers—who'd skin him for sure, and who could blame them?—when the dogs' muted yawps rolled through the holler. The sound wasn't coming from the mouth of the cave, where Jamie stood. It was coming from the other side of the hill.

Jamie hightailed it through the trees, slipping and skidding and catching himself and pushing on, the barks becoming clearer but less frenzied as he approached the far side of the hill. He still couldn't see the dogs, but he followed their sound down into a gap he hadn't explored, its entrance narrow and cloaked with underbrush. The path was steep, and he clutched roots and vines to slow his descent. When he reached the bottom, he found himself standing in a shallow creek bed. The dogs ran toward him, muzzles frothing, coats filthy, ropes of slobber draped over their snouts. Custard came up to lick his hand as the other dogs lapped the thin stream of water at their feet.

Jamie sank down and clung to Custard, bawling with relief. He wiped his face on the dog's fur and sat back to take in his surroundings. He couldn't see the opening where the dogs had left the cave, though he knew it had to be there, that perhaps this very stream trickled out of it. There was no sign of their quarry, either. “Lila,” he said. She'd protected them, but she wouldn't show herself.

Flowers filled the little glen despite the lack of sunlight, purple and blue and yellow, frilly things Jamie had no names for. He pressed his hands into the stream to rinse them off, rubbing them over the stony bottom to scrape away the dirt. He noticed one rock with a strange shape, like some sort of fossil, and held it up to the fading light. It wasn't a fossil, he decided. A bone. A small one. He lined it up with his own finger and came close to a match. Something panged within him. He didn't know what animal it came from, but it looked different, special. He ran one gentle fingertip over the length of it, examined its delicate contours, considered taking it home to sit on the bedroom windowsill with his other treasures: a four-leaf clover pressed in waxed paper, a shell lined with mother-of-pearl, a Matchbox car he'd stolen from a kid at church.

The dogs whined, anxious to get home and eat. Instead of putting the bone in his pocket, Jamie set it back down in the stream. On his walk home through the darkening woods, he imagined a big rain coming, a good old gully washer. He pictured the underground river in the cave flooding, gushing out into the ravine, and lifting the bone along with it. Who knew how far the bone could go, from the stream to the North Fork, from there to the Mississippi, way down through the port of New Orleans, the Gulf, out to sea. Not that it mattered where the bone went, because he could tell when he held it that the spirit had been washed free.

Lucy

The next day was humid and still. We ate tomato sandwiches for lunch, and Birdie studied her Bible. I sat on the porch for what felt like hours, trying to read the condensed version of
Old Yeller
and wondering how Reader's Digest decided which parts to cut. I had trouble rooting myself in the make-believe world on the page. I was thinking about Crete. I couldn't reconcile the two different images in my head: the uncle who loved me and the man Birdie suspected of attacking my mother. I tried to remember what the noises in his basement had sounded like, but I wasn't sure I could trust my memory not to be overwhelmed by my imagination. Another thought surfaced, over and over, but I did my best to push it back down. I didn't want to think about the possibility that Crete could be my father.

Birdie came out on the porch late in the afternoon and took down her bird feeder. “It's gonna blow later,” she said. “Storm's coming in.” I helped her move the hanging petunia onto the porch floor. We sat down on the steps to watch the clouds bloom in the sky to our west.

“Bess and I were talking about Holly Castle yesterday,” I said. “Remember her?”

“That poor girl.” Birdie shook her head. “Such an earnest little thing. Didn't she win a blue ribbon for one of her rabbits at the fair way back when?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Bess and I didn't even place.”

“I know you didn't,” Birdie said. “You and Bess should've taken lessons from Holly. I always did feel sorry for her, though, having Becky for a mother.”

“Bess said Holly's gone to live with her grandparents. So maybe things'll work out better for her there.”

Birdie fixed her gaze on me. “That girl don't have any grandparents. Becky never knew who the dad was, and her own folks passed a long while back. Your dad buried 'em.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it's some other relatives, then.”

“I thought her other family lived in town.”

“No clue,” I said.

Birdie clicked her tongue, ruminating. “Well, I guess she couldn't do worse than Becky.”

I wondered if it was a relief to Becky, doing whatever she wanted now that Holly was gone … somewhere. It was easy for girls like Cheri or Holly to slip away, to vanish, without anyone asking questions. No one was looking out for them. No one would guess that they might be locked away in a trailer. Or a basement. The noise I heard at Crete's—could it have been Holly pounding on the door with those spindly arms that I still pictured clutching a rabbit cage?

It sounded crazy, and I was probably wrong, but I knew in my heart that it was
possible.
I couldn't keep on doing nothing if there was even the slightest chance that Crete had someone in his basement. If Holly or some other girl were in there, I had to help her. It couldn't wait. She could end up like Cheri if I waited. I needed to call Ray and have him contact the state police. They were more likely to listen to such a bizarre claim coming from him.

“If a big storm's coming,” I said, “I should get over to the house and make sure all the windows are closed.” I didn't want to explain everything to Ray on the phone with Birdie listening in. It had been hard enough the first time, with Daniel.

“Good idea,” Birdie said. “I'll drive you.”

“The sun's still shining, worrywart. I'll run home and check on things, and as long as the weather stays clear, I'd like to get some work done in the garden. I bet it's already full of weeds. If you want, I'll bring back some zucchini and tomatoes, and we can do some canning later. “

Birdie glanced at the horizon. “Keep your eye on the weather. I expect you back before a drop hits the ground.”

I set off at a jog, taking nothing with me. The humidity sapped my strength, mimicked dreams where I ran in slow motion, the landscape barely moving no matter how hard I pushed myself. What I was about to do could tear my family apart. I wasn't prepared for that. But I knew it had to be done.

Finally, I reached the house. It looked more abandoned than usual, as though the moment we left, paint had sloughed off, dry rot spread, shingles peeled and dropped. Queen Anne's lace had reclaimed the yard, the frilly heads bobbing in the breeze. I walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone to dial Ray. His secretary answered, and I discovered why he hadn't called me back. He'd blown out his knee playing golf in Branson and was staying at his lake house there while he recovered from surgery. “
I'll give you the number
,” she said after I swore it was an emergency. “
But I guarantee he's out on the boat.”
She was right, apparently, because no one answered.

I hunched over the phone, trying to decide whether to call Bess or my dad or Deputy Swicegood, who played poker with Crete once a month.
Lucy.
A voice wavered in the stillness of the empty house. I didn't know whether I'd heard it or if it was only in my head. I turned around, and a shape materialized in the shadows. It was Jamie Petree. Fear tingled across my chest and down my spine as my body prepared to fight or flee. I hadn't seen Jamie since the day at the river when he'd kissed me, but I recalled the crush of his body against mine, the vise of his arms, with clarity.

“I don't mean to scare you,” he said. “I been waiting to get you alone.”

Not the best choice of words if he didn't want to scare me.

“I almost had you yesterday, at Birdie's. In the woods.”

“You've been
watching
me?” I judged the distance between us, weighed it against the number of steps to the gun rack in the hall. Jamie eased closer, and I saw a flash of brushed metal peeking out from the waistband of his jeans. A handgun, the kind I'd seen only on TV.

“We need to go now,” he said.

“I'm not going anywhere with you.” My voice sounded wispy, unconvincing.

Jamie held up his arms like he was surrendering. “I'm not here to hurt you,” he said.

I couldn't take my eyes off the gun, and he realized that I had noticed it. Slowly, he lowered one hand and slid the weapon from his waistband, repositioning it at his back, out of sight, as if that would ease my fears.

“Just listen, okay?” I couldn't do much else; my feet were not convinced that I should run. “I have a business meeting I thought you'd be interested in. You remember the guy I told you about? Well, he decided he wants some of my inventory. And he don't want to pay for it. So he offered up a trade, a pretty little girl with long white hair, all mine for one evening only. Because she's such a prized pussy, she'll soon be moving to larger markets. His words.” He watched for my reaction. Holly had to be that white-haired girl: at fourteen, barely more than a child. “The meeting,” Jamie continued, “is at your uncle's house.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “What do you care about helping that girl?”

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple dipping and rising in slow motion. “It's not her,” he mumbled. “It's
you
.”

“You want to help
me
?”

He looked away uncomfortably. “You ever have the same dream over and over? Like it won't leave you be? Like it's trying to tell you something?”

I watched him expectantly, waiting for more.

“Forget it,” he said. “Just returning a favor, I guess.”

Jamie didn't owe me anything. Our exchange on the riverbank, when we kissed, had been an even one. There was a possibility that he was lying to me, luring me into any number of undesirable situations, but when he met my gaze, I saw something there and knew he was telling the truth.

“Let's go,” he said, and I followed him out the door.

Jamie had left his souped-up Charger just out of sight, around a bend in the road. Save the vinyl upholstery on the seats, the interior of the car was stripped to a bare metal skeleton. The engine roared so lustily that my internal organs buzzed with its vibration, and together Jamie and I sped toward Crete's house beneath rapidly darkening clouds.

I hollered to be heard over the engine. “What do we do when we get there?”

“You don't do anything but stay out of sight. If he leaves me alone with the girl, we throw her in the car and haul ass.”

“And if he doesn't?”

He glanced at me, his hair swirling in his face. “You're smart,” he said. “I figured you'd think of something.”

Honeysuckle bushes crowded the narrow road as we neared the turnoff to Crete's. He would be heading home from Dane's soon, if he were on his normal schedule. My nerves jangled, but Jamie maintained the drowsy expression he always wore, like he wasn't the least bit scared by what we were about to do.

“You should get down,” he said. “Stay hid unless I need you.”

I crouched on the floorboards, wondering how I'd know if he needed me and what I would do if he did. I had nothing prepared, no magic spells, no plans. Jamie parked the car and unloaded something from the trunk. Emory greeted him—I recognized the voice from the time he'd yelled at me and Daniel by Mrs. Stoddard's trailer—and Jamie, not much for social graces, moved right into negotiations.

“It's a lot of product,” he said. “You know it's worth more than a fuck.”

“You'll change your mind when you see her,” Emory said. “Besides, it's in your interest for us to develop a working relationship. There's give and take, but you gotta consider the long term. What's in it for you.”

Silence while Jamie pretended to think about it. “So how does this work?”

Emory laughed, a harsh scraping sound. “Don't tell me you never had a whore, boy. I can see that's a lie.”

Jamie, unruffled: “I just meant, do we trade up front? You take the stuff, and I take the girl to my place for a few hours?”

“Well, no.” Emory's laugh dried up. “You're not taking her anywhere. You come in and do your business, and I'll be here, making sure you mind your manners.”

“How do I know I can trust you once I hand over my part and walk into that house? No offense, you understand. But I could be walking into a bullet.”

“Trust takes time, son, I get that. Trust'll come from working together for our mutual benefit. But right now we both need what the other's got. So what can I do to put you at ease and get this deal done?”

“I wanna see her,” Jamie said. “The girl. Bring her out so I know she's really in there. That she's everything you said.”

Emory groaned. Plainly, he wasn't used to accommodating demands. “All right,” he said. “I'll give you an eyeful. And you can give me a sample of your wares there. Insurance for both of us.”

I heard the door to the house open and close. Jamie stepped back and leaned against the car. “Get ready,” he murmured. The gun was nestled in his waistband at the small of his back, hidden by his shirt. I hadn't gotten a look at Emory, but he surely had a weapon, too.

The door slammed again. Emory's voice, off to the side: “I'll help myself to that sample now. Go on and have your look.”

“Jesus,” Jamie muttered. “She even old enough for titties?”

I raised my head high enough to peer out the window, and there she was, behind the screen door, real and not real, Holly and not Holly. She swayed like a puppet on a string. I threw open the car door and sprinted toward the house.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Emory howled, registering who I was.

If Holly was confused or scared or grateful when I yanked open the screen door, I couldn't tell. Her eyes rolled, and she slumped against me as I reached for her, her body light and malleable. I locked my arms around her rib cage and pulled her out of the house. When I turned around, Emory stood in my way. Behind him, Jamie had drawn his gun, but he held it at his side, waiting to see what I would do.

“What the hell, little girl?” Emory said. “Crete know you're out here?”

Wind gathered in the surrounding trees, shuffling the leaves and building into a low mournful keening. It swept over us with an unexpected chill. “I called the state troopers,” I lied. “You want to clear out, go now.”

His eyes narrowed, nearly hidden by tufted gray brows. “You wouldn't turn in your own uncle.”

“Not without warning,” I said. “He's already left town.” I didn't know the strength of their bond, didn't know if he'd believe his partner would turn on him to survive. With each passing moment, Crete drove closer. If his truck pulled into the driveway, everything would fall apart.

Emory's arm sliced through the air and dealt a backhand smack to my face, his knuckles smashing into my cheekbone. My grip faltered, and Holly sagged to the ground, a pale puddle at my feet. Jamie lunged toward us, but Emory was already on the run, slowing down just enough to grab the box Jamie had brought and toss it into the van. He peeled out, heading for the compound at Caney Mountain, I guessed, or maybe straight out of town. I wondered how much time we had before he called my uncle.

We had to go. Jamie and I hustled Holly to the car and laid her in the backseat. Her lips moved as though speaking, but not in a voice we could hear. Likewise, her eyes flitted to things we couldn't see. She was drugged, adrift, her hair sliding across her face like a veil.

“Shit,” Jamie hissed as we piled into the front seat. “She's a fucking
kid
, for Christ's sake!”

Lightning stripped the world of color in one vivid pop. If thunder followed, it was lost in the rev of the engine as Jamie launched us down the road. Rain pecked the windshield, slow at first, then relentless, a barrage of firecrackers. We rolled up the windows.

“She should see a doctor,” I said.

“We'll take her to Birdie's.”

“No.” There was a good chance Crete would find out what had happened from Emory, or that he'd piece things together on his own, and I didn't want anyone else to get hurt when he came for me. “The hospital in Mountain Home.”