Tomorrow River (30 page)

When I lift the fort hatch, Woody whimpers, whispers,
“Hushacat
.”

“Amen,” I say, even though I don’t believe for one second that everything’ll be all right no matter how bad it looks at the present time. And neither does Saint Jude. Over my sister’s shoulder, I can see the plastic statue of the granter of hope for the hopeless. He’s lying facedown on the rusty coffee can altar.

C
hapter Twenty-nine

M
y arm may be broken.

Grampa practically ripped it out of its socket when I came down out of the fort. “Smile!” he shouted, so he would know which twin I was.

The lights are down low in the kitchen. Just the one above the stove top and the brass lamp on the counter are lit. A half-empty bottle of Maker’s is standing in the middle of the round kitchen table. The Carmody men have been interrogating me. Gramma has wandered off somewhere.

Brave Beezy came pounding plaintively at the door a little while ago. “I know what you’re tryin’ to do to my boy, Gus, and ya ain’t gonna get away with it. Bring me those girls. Show me my babies.” Her cries were no more important to them than the owl hooting in the backyard tree.

Grampa’s wearing brown trousers and a tan sport shirt stretched across his belly. Below the pocket is a speck of barbeque sauce, or it could be my blood. His crew cut is buzzed down to his sunburned skull, his hands are tantrum red and within reach of his double-barrel shotgun. The usual Lucky Strike cigarette is stuck in the corner of his mouth, so wisps of smoke are hanging over us.

Papa leans forward in his chair and says, “I’m only going to ask you one more time, Shenandoah. Where is Jane Woodrow?”

I can’t hardly talk because my lip is so swollen. “I already told you, sir, I . . . I don’t know. I wish I did.”

Bare-chested Blackie raises his hand again, but Grampa says, “Don’t mark up her face anymore. We got the festivities to think of.” He pours himself a couple of fingers out of the bottle. “What difference does it make where Janie is, anyhoo? Now that she’s admitted it’s her we saw that night in the fort even if she could talk, who’d believe her? All that flappin’ and eye blinkin’. Anybody can see the girl’s got bats in the belfry.” He downs the whiskey and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “We can look for her later. When we find her, Shenny will help us impress upon her twin the importance of keepin’ her mouth shut, won’t ya, honey?”

“I sure will, Grampa,” I say. If they knew it was me that promised my father to keep quiet and not Woody . . . I can’t think what they’d do to me.

Uncle Blackie says, “Gus is right.” His sons have always called their father Gus because he doesn’t like to be called Daddy or Papa. He thinks it’s sissy. “We’ll go lookin’ for Janie later. I’ve been hankering for a game of hide-’n’-seek,” he says, giving me a playful smile.

“Speakin’ of mental cases, where’s that woman gone off to? Ruth Love, get in here.” Grampa leans back and bellows. “Bring me a piece of that pie.”

The lemon meringue is setting on the kitchen counter not a foot away from him, right below the radio, which is playing something low and bluesy. The three of them are so drunk, they’re swaying to the drumbeat and don’t even know it.

Grampa burps and says, “Time to get to the business at hand. Go ahead, Wally.” He doesn’t respect him, but he knows that my first-in-his-law-school-class father is far more skilled than a horse farrier or a land baron at posing probing questions.

Papa rolls up the sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt and says to me, “Remmy Hawkins told me that he saw you and your sister over at the Triple S the other day visiting with Sam Moody. Is that true?”

“I . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you about that, sir. Woody . . . I mean Jane Woodrow . . . ran over there and I went to fetch her. I know how much you don’t like Sam Moody, Your Honor. Me neither. I despise that man.”

“You’re lying,” Papa says. “I know Mother had been visiting with Moody on Tuesdays and that you girls went along with her in the rowboat. Maybe that’s why your sister ran off to the Triple S. Do you think that could be why, Shenandoah?” He asks that like he really does wonder why his wife sought comfort with another man and why his children liked spending time with him, too.

“That’s not true,” I say. “I think you got wrong information, Your Honor.”

“No, I didn’t.” Grampa and Uncle Blackie are smirking at me from across the table. Papa says, “I dropped a cuff link . . . I found your mother’s diary hidden beneath the bedroom floor. Did you know that she kept one?”

I lower my eyes, not able to stand the pain that I’m seeing in his. “Of course, you knew,” Papa says, so disappointed. “That’s what you were doing the other day up in my room, wasn’t it? Looking for her diary?”

“No . . . I . . .” His Honor holds up his hand in a stop, just stop, I-can’t-take-anymore-of-your-lies way. Sadness is tugging at the skin around his eyes, his mouth. He truly doesn’t understand. He bought all Mama’s clothes. Never let her out of his sight. Held her so tight.

Seeing him so dejected makes me want to brush the lock of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead back where it belongs. To kiss his tears away. How devastated Papa’s going to be when I testify at his trial. “Sam Moody did not murder my mother,” I’ll tell the court. “He couldn’t have. I was over at his place that night and he was there and not in the clearing behind our house where my mother was last seen alive. I don’t know why, but my father is lying, trying to make Sam seem guilty when he isn’t.” The family attorney, Bobby Rudd, will jump up and protest, but it’ll be too late. I will have done irreparable damage to my father. No matter what I told Curry earlier, I can feel my feet growing cold. I don’t think I can go through with it. As wrong as it would be to let Sam take the blame for something he didn’t do—I can’t betray my father. This little man, no matter what awful things he’s done, this runt of the litter is my papa.

“Pay attention.” Grampa taps the back of my head, hard. “Sam Moody’s been arrested for murderin’ your mother in the first degree.”

He was trying to catch me off guard, but I’m too practiced to let him. I feign shock and make myself say what he expects to hear. “He . . . he . . . that nigger killed Mama?”

Grampa smiles, showing teeth that are as beautiful and bright as Sam’s, and just for a moment in all that radiance, I can imagine how Beezy let herself fall in love with the richest boy in the county all those years ago.

“Shenandoah.” Papa isn’t sad sounding anymore. He talks to me in the same judgmental voice that he would a prisoner that’s just been found guilty in his courtroom. “You’ve done a bad thing. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Your Honor, I do. And . . . I’m begging for mercy. I should’ve told you that Mama was going over to visit with Sam Moody at the Triple S. I realize that now.”

“You need to make things right.”

“Yes, sir. I will do anything I can.”

“When . . . when the sheriff questions you in this matter I want you to tell him how your mother was so kind.” Papa looks at Grampa for his approval. “And how she was going over to the gas station to help Moody out of the goodness of her heart. And . . . how you heard him threaten to kill her when she shunned his advances and—”

“Cuckold,” Grampa barks out.

Blackie sneers and says, “Your woman was steppin’ out with your own father’s bastard. Ya pussy.”

They will call each other names into the night. Grampa and Blackie ganging up on Papa.

When my father drops his head into his hands and starts bawling, Grampa Gus says, so repulsed, “For Chrissakes. No wonder your wife went lookin’ for some
real
male companionship.”

“Go ahead and tell Shenny the good news, why don’t you,” Blackie says slyly to his little brother. “Go on, Wally.”

“I have to get remarried,” Papa says. “To . . . Abigail Hawkins.”

Even though I’m not supposed to ask questions in these interrogation sessions, I can’t help myself. “You
have
to get married to her?”

Grampa snorts out, “He damn well does. ’Bout time he made up to all of us for the years of trouble he caused marryin’ that Northern bitch.”

When he mentions Mama, I start to cry along with my father and it makes my lip bleed harder.

“Awww . . . let me help you with that,” my uncle says. He steps over to the freezer and removes a bag of peas. All I can think of is Woody. I hope she made it to the other side of the creek into the loving arms of E. J. and isn’t wandering around in the woods, not sure what she should do next. “Here you go.” Blackie sits back down and places the cold bag against my mouth, presses down too hard.

“We’ll be heading over to the carnival tomorrow evenin’,” Grampa says, taking a long draw and blowing the most perfect smoke ring. “I bet you’re excited, Shenny. Ya always have loved that freak show.”

I reply exactly how he expects me to. “I’m more excited than a banty rooster in a henhouse, Grampa.”

“Thatta girl,” he says, phlegmy. “Now get me a fresh bottle of bourbon from the dinin’ room cabinet and don’t forget a glass for yourself.”

Grampa and Blackie like to get Woody and me inebriated. They think that’s
hardy har har
funny.

“You heard your grandfather,” Blackie says, tipping my chair backwards until I have no choice but to do what he asks.

The lights that hang above the pictures of past Carmodys are the only illumination in the dining room. Hiram Carmody. Elsie Carmody. All of them. These black-and-white people dotting our walls are the ones to blame for creating a line of men so mean that they think nothing of framing an innocent man for murder or getting a kid drunk on whiskey or treating women like . . . I’m going to run out the front door. Make a break for it. Join up with E. J. and Woody over at the Tittles’. I take a step towards the foyer.

“Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!” my uncle says, sneaking up behind me.

When I jump and turn to fend him off, something in the corner of the room catches my eye. Behind the potted plant, I can see my grandmother peeking out from the bushy leaves in her creamy nightie. She’s been eavesdropping on their manly conversation. I step in front of the highboy so Blackie can’t see his mother hiding. The open chest door is now perfectly covering her up. If Gramma gets found, she’ll be in as much trouble as me.

“Don’t forget your glass,” Blackie says. He smells of some musky scent I don’t recognize. “Looked to me like you were headin’ towards the front door. You weren’t thinking of goin’ for a stroll, were you? Why, the fun’s just begun.” He pinches the flesh under my arm and leads me back to the rest of them.

Papa and Grampa have taken their shirts off. They’re comparing muscles. My father doesn’t have any.

“Sit back down, Shenandoah,” Grampa says. When I do, it’s to the sound of a long pass of gas. He’s put his whoopee cushion beneath the kitchen chair pad. He and Blackie burst into cackles.

“Sounds like you need some of them Rolaids ya like so much,” my uncle laughs out. “Say ‘excuse me,’ Shen.”

“Excuse me.”

He slides the empty shot glass down in front of me and fills it over the brim. “Let’s toast Founders Weekend. And the weddin’.”

I only want to pretend to take a sip, but Blackie fingers the bottom of the glass, tips it until I can feel the bourbon burning in my mouth and down my throat. I look over at Papa and plead with my eyes:
Please. I need you to come to my rescue. To scoop me up in your arms and take me someplace safe.

Blackie refills my shot glass. “C’mon, drink up. You’re way behind,” he says, poking me in the ribs.

A back porch step creaks. Grampa Gus reaches for his shotgun and shouts, “Who’s out there?”

It might be Woody not able to leave me behind. I open my mouth, ready to shout,
“Cantaboo! Cantaboo! Run! Run!”
I don’t care how bad they beat me.

“It’s just me,” Lou Jackson says, slipping through the squeaky screen door. “I heard y’all from the cottage. Stopped in to see if you needed me to cook ya up something.”

Light-on-her-feet Gramma enters the kitchen from behind me and says, “That won’t be necessary, Louise. I’ve brought pie.”

Grampa and Blackie look at each other and break into raucous laughter. Barely able to speak, my grandfather says, “It ain’t one of your special pies, is it, Ruth Love? Old Clive never saw that comin’,” and then he smacks his hand down on the table so hard that the salt shaker tips over. That’s bad luck. Superstitious Lou reaches for it and Blackie gets ahold of her. Kisses the inside of her wrist, runs his tongue up the inside of her arm with the most sickening look on his face.

Grampa grunts and says, “Likin’ the dark meat must run in this family.
Hardy har har.
”

My gramma smiles, and says, “If you’re through visiting with Shenandoah, I’d like to take her upstairs now, if that’s all right with you, Gus.”

Grampa doesn’t answer. His eyes are glued to Lou, who looks pretty in a pink shift. Her toffee skin glistening.

Lou looks around and asks, “Where’s Woody?”

I can’t let things get stirred up again. I can’t let myself get thrown into the root cellar. My twin needs me. I answer as casual as I can, “Oh, she’ll be home any minute, I’m sure. She’s gonna need her beauty rest. We got the Parade of Princesses early tomorrow morning. I know
Woody
is really looking forward to that.
E. J. Tittle
is real happy about that parade, too. He probably can’t even
sleep over at his place
for all the excitement he’s feelin’.” By putting special emphasis on the words, I’m trying the only way I can think of to tell Lou where Woody is and that I want her to go check on her right away. I’m sending her a hoodoo mind message.

Grampa Gus mumbles, “Tittles? Minin’ sludge.” He’s still eyeing Lou in a very hungry way. Uncle Blackie is looking at her like a starved dog, too.

Lou nods and says, “Well, long as there ain’t nothin’ ya need from me, best be gettin’ back to the cottage.” Ripping her arm from Blackie’s grasp, she heads towards the screen door. She stops as she opens it and says boldly to me, and only me, “Just wanted to make sure you was all right.”