True Fires (11 page)

23

After reassuring Franklin Dare—“This school board’s nothin’ but a bunch of fools. They won’t get away with this, I promise you!”—Lila Hightower strides down the hall and mounts the stairs, two at a time, to the second-floor office of District Attorney Wade Hampton Berry.

Just outside his open doorway, where a rectangle of light planes across the wooden floor, Lila stops short.
How the hell am
I going to do this?
she wonders. Ever since she returned to Lake Esther, she’d been avoiding him, sidestepping all but the most formal of exchanges.
Now, I’m going to waltz in unannounced? As if I had the right? As if all that went wrong between
us . . .
Lila shudders. In the after-hours hallway, memories creep forward, call out like street beggars for her heart’s spare change.
Stop it! This isn’t about us. It’s about those children, and
the school board’s ridiculous, closed-door charade tonight. Hamp will
understand that. He’s got to!

Lila, struggling, straightens her shoulders, levels her chin. And with as much confidence as she can muster, steps into the light and calls through the small reception room, “Too late for cocktails?”

In his office, Wade Hampton Berry reclines, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up above his wrists, the soles of his Florsheim Imperials crossed on top of his desk. He looks up from a cut-glass tumbler of amber liquid and, after the briefest pause, smiles—eyes brightening, mouth curling slowly into Hamp’s old, gotta-great-joke-to-tell-ya grin.

As if my walking in here was just the most natural thing in the
world,
Lila thinks.

Berry shifts his feet to the right and, with the lazy grace of the gifted dancer she knows him to be, slides open the drawer on his left, extracts another glass and a half-empty bottle of rich gold liquid. Squinting at the familiar black-and-white label, he drawls, “Whadya say, Jack? Bar still open for the prettiest girl in the county?”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Lila says. As Hamp pours, she leans in, tips the bottleneck a little steeper, for three fingers’ worth instead of two.

“Rumor is you do quite well.” Berry salutes her with his drink. He’d been a handsome young man—trim, sandy-haired, athletic—but the years of rural lawyering, buoyed, no doubt, by a sea of Jack Daniel’s, had begun to blur the fine chisel of his cheeks and chin, round out his waist and ribs.

“You know better than to lay stock in rumors around here, Counselor.” Lila takes a seat in one of the two leather chairs facing his desk.

“Shall we call it conventional wisdom then, Judge?”

God, how quickly we fall into the old ways—he the charming
lawyer, me the ever-evasive judge,
Lila thinks, embarrassed by her slip into the intimate banter of their college years.

“More like massive stupidity, if you ask me,” she tells him tartly, sucking in the bracing burn of Tennessee’s finest whiskey. They’d been best friends in high school, eager but awkward lovers in college.
If we’d married, as everyone expected, would
we still be together by now?

“Hmmm.” Hamp eyes her over the rim of his glass. “Shall we get down to whatever business brought you here, or shall I torture myself with the fantasy that you’ve come to see me?”

“Oh, Hamp, I am not the girl you remember.”

“Obviously not, my dear. You’re a gorgeous, full-grown woman now, with a slew of many starred-and-striped pelts on your belt. Or do my sources misspeak?”

“You have no sources on my love life, Hamp.”

“None but my own eyes and an abiding, bayonet-sharp understanding of the male animal in the presence of such a desirable female.”

Lila inhales raggedly. The air had gotten too close to carve out a proper breath. “Oh, Hamp, I’m not here to joust. You’re too good at it and we both know I hate to lose.”

“Better to leave the worthy adversary choking in your dust, right?”

The whiskey is working against her resolve. “Okay, Hamp.” She surrenders wearily. “You deserve your pound of flesh. I was an ass. And I am truly sorry.”

“Sorry is as sorry does, my dear.” Abruptly, he swings his feet onto the floor, leans forward and, now all business, asks her, “How can I help? That what you’re here for . . . help with the ignorant masses?”

“That and a certain imbecilic Kiss Ass.”

ONE HOUR and the rest of the Jack Daniel’s later, Lila emerges from Hamp’s office with her marching orders in hand. First up is a personal appeal to Tallahassee, aimed at getting the Governor to direct Hamp’s office to investigate the Dare children’s appropriate legal classification, their denial of due process.

“The statutes are extremely clear,” Hamp had said. “If those kids are not one-eighth or more Negro, they’re entitled to attend the white school. What kind of proof do they have?”

“Birth certificates, marriage license, the Family Bible. Far as I can see, the whole family’s Blue Ridge Scotch-Irish except for Old Granpap.”

“A great-grandfather? And he’s . . .”

“Part Indian, Croatan, descended from Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony, fought for the Confederacy.”

“In a white regiment or colored?”

“I don’t know, Hamp.”

“Find out. While you’re at it, why not contact one of your four-star swains in Washington and suggest the F.B.I. investigate possible violations of the family’s federal rights? That’ll set Kick Ass’s bacon to burnin’.”

“Any chance we can wrap this up in the next nine days? I’m due back in D.C. November first.”

Hamp winces. “I thought the Belle of the County was back for good.” He doesn’t bother to hide his hurt look.

In the end, as she thanks him, he stops just short of asking her to dinner.
Thank God!
Lila thinks.
He’s old business. Badly
finished. But definitely over and filed for all time.

Outside, Lila’s surprised to see Ruth Barrows. The older woman leans against the hood of a station wagon parked beside the sidewalk, within the bright pool of street lamp that illuminates the Courthouse exit. Against the black backdrop of the nearly empty parking lot, she appears patiently on guard, cigarette in one hand, notebook in the other.

“So far, the school board’s a unanimous ‘No comment,’ but”—Ruth nods toward the doorway—“I’ve got one last board member to ambush before I leave.”

As Lila outlines Hamp’s suggestions, Ruth, cigarette hanging off her lip, jots a few notes. The harsh street lamp gives the lined surface of her page, the gold tube of her pen, the small white cylinder of cigarette an otherworldly glow.
As if we’re the
odd ones,
Lila thinks,
outside the bounds of the prevailing craziness.

When Lila mentions Hamp’s idea about involving the F.B.I., Ruth looks up sharply, yanks her cigarette out of her mouth. “The F.B.I.?! Surely, if you can get the Governor, we don’t need the Gestapo!”

“Well, no,” Lila says. “I guess not.”

“Sorry.” Ruth drops her cigarette on the sidewalk, grinds it out deliberately with her foot. “I am not a fan of Mr. Hoover. So . . .”—she looks up, smiles—“you’ll take on Tallahassee and the District Attorney’s office, while I work the court of public opinion?”

Lila chuckles, holds out her hand. “Deal,” she says.

BACK AT THE HOUSE, Lila wheels the truck into the big grove barn. As she crosses the yard to the porch, she sees the small brown figure rise from the kitchen table, grab a tall glass from the cupboard, and turn, calling out, “Glass uh tea?”

“No thanks, Sissy. Sweet tea on top of Jack Daniel’s sounds terrible.” Lila extracts a squat glass from the cupboard, pours herself a nightcap.

“You drink like yo’ daddy,” Sissy pouts, returning to the table. Disapproval puckers her face like a prune.

“Better him than Mamma, huh?” Lila says darkly, sliding into the chair opposite her.

“Since when they serve Jack Daniel’s at a school-board meetin’?” Sissy wants to know.

“Meetin’, my fanny!” Lila huffs. “Kyle back-doored the school board while we were waitin’ out front. We never even got inside.”

“Those chil’ren get to go back t’ they school?”

“Not yet. But I talked to Hamp Berry and he’s goin’ to help.”

“Hamp?” Sissy’s taken aback. “G’wan t’help
who
do
whut
?”

“Well, for starters, he helped me kill a bottle of J.D. He’s also lookin’ into takin’ Kyle and the board to court.”

Sissy shakes her head at Lila’s smirk. Her tongue makes soft
tut-tut
noises against the roof of her mouth. “Shoulda married Hamp Berry when yuh had th’ chance,” she says, mournful.

“Think so? Given up my shot to rub shoulders with the Army’s top brass? Dodge the buzz bombs in Bushey Park? Follow Ike into Paris and Berlin?” Lila’s bristling.

“Ain’t nobody rubbin’ yore shoulders now,” Sissy says slyly, “far as Ah see.”

“Damnit, Sissy. You can’t really see me married, with a husband like Hamp, and a screaming passel of kids, can you?”
The old fraud.
Everyone knew Sissy’s history with husbands was “three away—run away, put away, and passed away.” It was after Henry, “the good and last one,” died that the Judge added rooms for Sissy to the back of the house, where she received “callers,” but pointedly refused all proposals.

Sissy’s eyes, her whole face, softens with genuine affection. “No, Missy, course not. But I shore would give anythin’ tuh see you happy.”

“Aw, Sissy.” Lila swigs deeply, feeling the whiskey expand her growing sense of melancholy. “Happy stood me up years ago. You know that.”

“Well,” the old woman’s false teeth show abruptly, wide and white. “Ah remember you happy once or twice. When you and Louis wuz little, leapin’ and croakin’ ’round here, like uh couple pond frogs!”

“We drove you crazy, I know.”

“And the night they made you Queen of th’ whole school, and yuh looked like one, too.”

“And Mamma made me wear that ridiculous red dress, and Hamp and Daddy had to hold her up on the sidelines, cause she was so soused she couldn’t climb the steps to the parents’ section?”

Sissy refuses to take the bait. “And the day they named Louis All-American. Yore daddy so proud, he ’bout bust a gut!”

“And the night Louis lit outta here?” Lila says it quietly, staring into her empty glass. “And the day that stranger in a uniform delivered the telegram? ‘We regret to inform you . . . sincere gratitude for your great sacrifice . . .’ ”

“Tha’s th’ Jack talkin’, girl,” Sissy says sharply, rising, clearing the table. “Ain’ no happy there.”

“Or
any
where ’round here, far as I see,” Lila retorts. She stands, refills her glass, and moves toward the door. “G’night, Sissy,” she says without looking back.

Upstairs in her room, she resists turning on the light. Too many memories reside in the pink rosebud wallpaper, matching chenille bedspread, her teenage vanity with its pleated satin skirt and twin fitted drawers jammed with prom tickets, play programs, fading photographs and, in the back, the small ribbon-tied stack of college love letters from Hamp. She sets down her drink in the dark, removes her shoes, drapes slacks and shirt on the back of her bedside chair; slips off the sheer French lace and silk underthings that are, since Paris, her private indulgence; and slides into bed. She sips the remaining whiskey, awash tonight in painful wavering images: Louis’s flag-draped coffin with its bayonetted body missing a hand; Hamp’s bloated, unhappy face; and Jazz, candlelit in her apartment, pulling her out of bed to dance with him, naked, to Lady Ella’s smoky “Night and Day.” Jazz, who would soon be all hers forever, but who—
for what reason?
—had not, for three days now, returned her call.
His lack of response means something
—all his actions are artfully calculated—
but what? That
he’s asked for the divorce? Or not? That our own plans are on? Or
off? That her private ache for an open, legitimate life, too long delayed, so recently promised, is . . . ? Lila drains her glass, wincing at the Jack’s hot descent down her throat.

She lays back, sinking into the whiskey’s warm embrace. For a few hours at least, it frees her from further thought.

With the loss of but a few of the Old Ones, who
spent the last of their lives wisely reminding others that all of life is uncertain, the move is complete.

Once again, by the grace of He Who Provides,
food is plentiful. And, with the exception of one
startling bit of news, life in the colony returns to
normal.

The news, unexpected yet, in retrospect, not
surprising, is that He Who Provides appears to
have widened his net of care to include a young
one of His own kind. In return for the move to a
more plentiful dwelling place, the colony is to accord this Young One the same mindful protection
provided each of their own.

She Who Decides has decreed it. The Young
One has been marked with His scent, as surely as
She has marked each of them with Hers. Despite
his size, the Young One remains a sentient child.
And children, of all kinds, are to be protected, at
all cost.

24

Daniel sits on the porch with Pap watching Uncle Will cross the twilit clearing ’twixt his cabin and theirs. Midpoint, in front of the big woodpile, Uncle Will stops, scoops up a small chunk of pine, and, turning it in his hand as if it were a tender robin’s egg or a sparkling piece of feldspar, seats himself in the empty rocker next to Pap.

The boy watches as Uncle Will, without a word, unfolds his pocketknife and peels back the rough bark to reveal the pearly white pinewood with a knotty streak of red running through it.

Pap draws on his pipe. And Daniel waits for Uncle Will to tell how Aunt Lu’s faring with Minna and SaraFaye. The girls, after hearing they, too, were barred from school, had howled broken-hearted all the way home from the Courthouse. And how was silent ’Becca, who’d hidden her face and darkened the front of her dress with fat tears rolling like raindrops off her cheeks?

Years before Daniel was born, the old men up home, who spent half of any given day warming their backsides at the potbelly stove in Hart’s General Store, had nicknamed Will “The Puzzler.” “Give ol’ Will enough time and he’ll puzzle his way outta jus’ ’bout anythin’,” they’d tell Daniel and his cousins, voicing grudging respect for the man who’d been unbeatable at sodapop-top checkers since he was six years old.

“Ol’ Will’s a puzzler all right,” they’d say, tossing back another piece of root-beer candy. “Steady and slow like that-air turtle in the tale, ‘Th’ Tortoise ’n’ th’ Hare.’ Not atall like his brother Franklin, who’s as hare-headed as can be,” they’d add, squinting their eyes at some recalled instance that proved, to them at least, that Pap and his brother were as different as night and day.

Slowly, Uncle Will slices off the wood’s odd corners, its sharp edges, till it’s the size and shape of a large potato. Then, turning the streak of red topside, he begins to carve.

“Minna ’n’ SaraFaye are sleepin’,” he says without looking up. “Pore ’Becca’s jus’ sittin’, woe-eyed, by the fire.”

“That blamed Sheriff!” Pap jerks his pipe out of his mouth and stabs the stem into the air. “I shore God should a-laid him out, the day this trouble first come up.”

“Now, Linny . . .” Uncle Will, the only person in the world ’lowed to call Pap that, gives his brother a black look. “That-air Sheriff’s like a wild b’ar hog. It ’ud take a whole huntin’ party, an’ a pack of prime dogs, to lay that man out. And, I reckon yer ’ware, we’s slap outta good dogs.”

Pap jabs his pipe back into his mouth and sucks hard. Daniel sees the tobac in the bowl glow like a piece of coal, coloring the tip of Pap’s hawk nose an angry red.

“Ain’t the crook of it,” Uncle Will asks quietly, shaving wood, “that this-here Sheriff’s the king of Clark County?” He’s rounded the red part and, eyeing it carefully, begins to shape the white wood on either side. “And, over there,”—he points casually with his knife blade to the tidy rows of Aunt Lu’s vegetable patch—“somewheres ’twixt Lu’s taters and the scarlet runner beans is ’nuther county altogether. Reckon they got schools over there, free as water? And a Sheriff who ain’t K. A. DeLuth?”

Pap leans forward, peering through the haze of smoke, his pipe clamped tight on one side of his mouth. “Tangerine County,” Pap whispers, as if somethin’s suddenly risen up yonder, out of the corn rows, beyant the beanpoles.

“How ’bout you ’n’ me take off work early tomorr’, go on down there to Opalakee, get these kids back in school where they b’long?” Will asks softly.

Daniel rocks back, caught between the seeping dread of another new school, another passel of squinty-eyed strangers, and the rushing joy of recognizing the cock of head, the slant of tail of a robin redbreast, ’Becca’s favorite bird, taking shape in Uncle Will’s patient hands.

“Tomorr’, then,” Pap says, settling back in his rocker.

“Tomorr’.” Uncle Will nods, adding delicate detail to the robin’s beak, using the blade tip to tenderly outline a round, expectant eye.