When Venus Fell (55 page)

“No. Never.”

“I just needed to hear you say so.” He pulled my letter from his pocket again, and read the rest of it aloud. “ ‘I loved you even before I met you, I love you now, and I’ll always love you.’ ” He folded the letter and laid it on the nightstand. Then he carefully gathered me in his arms and stretched out on the bed beside me. “Every time I think of all the reasons I love you,” he said, “what you did tonight will be at the top of the list.”

I think Ruth saw the face of her parents’ murderers, the Irish terrorists who set the bomb, in every person she prosecuted, and Gib had seen them in every face in every crowd he worked as an agent. Isabel submerged the tragedy in her fantasy art. Only Simon had invited it into his life, by inviting strangers to Cameron Hall and making them friends, as if in some way he could transform the hatred and lunacy in the world by bringing it to the heart of the family.

All four of the siblings had searched for sense and justice, but then Simon left them, refueling all that bewilderment and free-floating anger at fate and circumstance. I think I was welcome at first because I put a face on survival. But I was also the hard-eyed outside world personified. How does a person fight fate? Simon’s death and Gib’s injury, Isabel’s ill-chosen husband and Ella’s headlong romantic impulses, were evidence that fate chooses first.

I was pondering all that when Ruth drove over to the Waterfall Lodge a few days after the fire. I rocked on the front porch, dressed in a sweater and jeans, warm enough for a mild winter afternoon. I was testing my newly unbandaged hands on my keyboard, which was set up in front of me.

When I saw Ruth the hairs rose on the back of my neck. She was still an uncertain force of nature, Rubenesque in her combination of heft and delicacy, fashionably suited, with bright red power scarves peeking from the necklines or pockets of her deep blue pin-striped dress suits, and her brunette hair twisted up in elaborate knots. She always made me think of Wagner’s Valkyries. All she needed to complete the image was a pair of fat blond braids and a horned Viking helmet. She marched up the cottage walkway, a sleek alligator-skin purse bouncing on one hip. “Howdy,
kin
,” she drawled, scowling.

“Howdy. What’s shaking in the Matlock business today?”

She snorted. “You are
some
piece of work. Here I come to be nice and neighborly, and you bite me on the proverbial ass. Remember, my cousin sleeps with your sister. You’re sleeping with my brother. You’re going to be my sister-in-law.”

“Go ahead. Ruin my day.”

“Yep.” She pulled two corncob pipes from her purse. Real corncobs, with stems made from river cane. “Let’s smoke to a truce,” Ruth said. “I make these pipes myself. They’re the best smokin’ around. Sweet. I rub honey into the bowls and the stems. And the tobacco is local. Good Tennessee-mountain top-grade homegrown
tobaccy
. I’ve already packed the cobs for us. You up for the Tennessee equivalent of a peace pipe?”

I stared at the pipes, took the one she thrust toward me, and nodded. “Will this give me any urges to slap my legs and yell hee-haw?”

“Only if you’re lucky.”

I was going to be sick as a dog. She handed me a sleek gold lighter. “Flick the flame and suck the stem,” Ruth ordered. “You’ve heard that before, I bet.”

“Shut up.” Pop had smoked a pipe. Usually filled with marijuana, but a pipe nonetheless. So I knew the technique. I got my pipe lit then put on a good show of rocking and puffing while Ruth lit her pipe.

“Here’s to treaties between the sisterhood,” she announced. She puffed on her pipe, then held it out to me. “Trade.”

We traded. “Here’s to treaties,” I echoed, eyeing her warily.

“Now, here’s the thing,” Ruth said contemplatively. “When you and Ella came here I said, They want that money. That’s all. When Ella married Carter I said, She wants more money.” Ruth hesitated. “Well, I’m here to say,
Case closed
. I was wrong.”

“That’s a given,” I said coldly.

“Oh, hell,” she went on blithely, “and about your daddy? We may all seem ready for sainthood around here, but the fact is we’ve got enough skeletons in our closet to keep us from being too judgmental. You already know about Aunt Olivia murderin’ her own husband—a morally justified killing, of course, but let me tell you, there are a lot of other bones in the closet that don’t rattle so kindly. There were Camerons who helped the government kick the Cherokees out—Camerons who turned their backs on our own Macintosh kin. There were Camerons in the Klan. There was a Cameron out in Texas who burned down a courthouse in the nineteen thirties and shot the county judge and five jurors as they ran out the front door. My point is, whatever your daddy did or didn’t do, it’s clear you and Ella aren’t going around burning any flags.” She paused. “Or chapels.”

“But you won’t catch me saluting any flags, either.”

She sighed. “If you stick around, and I do get elected president some year, will you say ‘No comment’ when reporters come to interview you and the rest of my colorful kin?”

“Can’t make any promises.”

“How’s about I let you visit the White House and scribble old hell-raising Joan Baez songs on the bathroom walls?”

I couldn’t help laughing. “All right.” I nodded. My head
buzzed with the smoke. “If that’s an apology, I accept it.” I just wanted her to leave so I could stagger indoors and throw up.

Ruth clicked her pipe to mine. “Here’s to smoke and mirrors,” she said. I nodded sickly.

Pipe dreams and conversations with Camerons were hard on the stomach.

•   •   •

When the Manchesters’ travel column began to circulate, Min took another hundred calls for reservations in one day’s time.

“This is embarrassing,” Gib said as we all read the article. “Distorted, melodramatic, and way over the top. I poked an aggravated mother bear with the claymore, and she ran once her babies were free. It’s not as if she fenced with me for points.”

“At least they didn’t call you a damsel in distress,” I said.

Min shushed us. “You created a fantasy. You made people remember how it felt to be part of something special here.” She paused. “You made me remember, too. Now I’m sure we’ll be all right. What happened to Simon is hard on guests who’ve been coming here for years, people who liked Simon. I was afraid this would never be thought of again as a happy place to spend time. But people want to see what’s new. They want to see Gib. They want to see you, Venus.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You’re new and fresh. Someone interesting. They won’t have to pretend nothing’s changed.”

I didn’t know what to say. My whole life had changed.

Olivia studied the Manchesters’ article. “As I told you once before,” she said calmly, “all we needed were one or two wise souls who looked beyond the insignificant.” She then resorted to her old silent habit, which seemed appropriate for the task. She scrawled across the top of the article:

Gib had already begun the restoration work on the chapel, with Bo Burton’s help. Bo opted for early retirement from his state forestry commission position. He came to Gib and Min with ideas for the valley’s preservation. He and Isabel and Ella had cooked up some plans for placing a few handsome, cozy log cabins in the lower hills, out of sight from us and each other. These wouldn’t be new structures; Isabel had been in contact with various Cameron kin throughout the south who had old cabins they’d donate.

Bo and I were talking about a small music pavilion, nothing fancy, maybe just a covered outdoor stage at first. He had drawn up some modest plans for a small museum.

The Simon Cameron Center. Not the elaborate, expensive operation Emory had promised us, but a good start. It could grow. Gib planned to use chestnut logs in the building. Simon’s museum would be birthed from the earth of the valley, built by his own loved ones, nurtured and promoted and cherished. Min had lovingly approved the plans.

This would all take time—years, decades even. But time was a slow song in a place where the memories of more than two centuries still whispered in our ears.

Min was appointed to invite Emory back. He immediately assumed the family had decided to accept his proposal. We went to the chapel to wait for him. We set up a celebration in its charred interior, spread fresh rugs on the floor, brought in folding chairs and picnic tables covered in antique Cameron linens, the best china and silver, bottles of champagne, and a feast of FeeMolly’s food.

And we waited.

When Emory arrived he brought a slender leather folder containing what he called “just a simple two-page agreement to agree” that he expected everyone to sign. And he brought corpulent, smugly smiling Joseph, and an even beefier stranger whom Emory introduced as a security expert he had already hired to begin overseeing the property. “Since no one except myself considers Aunt Olivia a serious threat to our lives or property,” Emory said, “my first priority will be installing an alarm system and sprinklers. My security man advises placing locks on the chapel door once the renovation is underway. Also encasing the stained-glass windows in Plexiglas shields.”

Emory snapped his fingers. Joseph handed him a small wooden box with a gold latch on it. “A gift for you,” he said to Olivia, who sat in one of the chapel’s heavy, ornate, smoke-damaged armchairs. Bea stood beside her. Emory bowed slightly and put the box on her lap.

“My own letters cannot be a
gift
,” she said. “You’ve merely returned stolen property.”

Emory snapped upright. He gaped at her. His gaze darted to the rest of us. “When did she start talking again?”

“When the truth needed a voice,” Olivia said evenly. “And the truth is, Emory, we’ve brought you here to make it official. You’re banished.”

“What? Again? Now really, this is ludicrous. We had an understanding.”

“Blackmail is no understanding, you bloody bastard,” Bea intoned.

She stepped forward and cuffed the side of his head so hard he lurched into Joseph, who caught him. Mouths open, stunned, both men stared at us. “You can’t back out now,” Joseph said. “There’s a clear agreement.”

“No one agreed to anything,” Gib said. “You made your own assumptions and they were wrong.”

“Perversion,” Emory rasped, clasping the side of his head and staring at Bea and Olivia. “You’ve lived your lives in perversion and have always been a goddamned embarrassment to my family and to all of our relatives who are decent-minded—”

“You’re banished,” Gib said. He took Emory by one arm. Carter bounded forward and planted a hand on Joseph’s arm. Gib jerked his head toward the chapel door. “Take your father out of here and get him out of this valley before I forget he’s kin and hit him myself.”

“I can’t allow this—” the security man said, stepping in-between.

“I think you better keep out of it,” I said to the man.

“Sir, remove your hands from Mr. Emory.” The security expert pointed to Carter. “You, too.”

“I think you better stay out of this,” Gib agreed calmly. “This is a family argument. It could get more violent.”

The security man thrust an arm around Gib’s chest. The next moment the security expert was lying on the floor with
his nose broken, courtesy of Gib’s right fist, which had the compact effect of a punch with the end of a thick stick. Gib helped him up. The man clasped a hand to his bleeding face. “I don’t want to work for Camerons,” he said grimly, and walked out.

With much sputtering of obscenities and righteous indignation, Emory and Joseph were escorted by the whole group of us down the chapel steps and to their car. “You can’t do this!” Emory shouted. “None of you! And you—” he pointed a finger in Gab’s face, “you’ll come to me in a year or two begging for help. You have no authority! You have no business trying to manage the Hall or this valley or be the head of a family! You’re disabled! You’re pathetic!”

“You’re banished,” Gib repeated. “It’s permanent.”

“You have no right to make these ridiculous pronouncements! Who do you think you are?”

Gib turned his back, walked to our group, nodded to Min, who nodded back, and to Olivia, who stood with Bea at the top of the chapel mound. She inclined her head. Gib pivoted and looked at Emory quietly.

“I’m The Cameron,” he said.

We celebrated. Gib and Carter went outside the chapel and returned, carrying the organ. Jasper lugged its stool in behind them. They set both carefully on the smoke-blackened chestnut floor, which proved itself by not giving so much as a single sigh of protest.

Ella and I smiled at each other. We went to the organ. I sat down and played “Evening Star,” while she sang the lyrics. When we finished, Min slipped out the door and walked down to the cemetery. “Should we leave her alone?” Isabel asked softly.

“Give her a minute,” Ruth suggested. “Then we’ll all go down there.”