Let Me Die in His Footsteps (16 page)

Annie’s hair never looks freshly brushed even if she still holds the brush in hand. It’s ordinary. All of her is ordinary, and ordinary doesn’t take up so much space. While Caroline’s softness begs to be touched, an urge that is surely testing Jacob Riddle at this moment, Annie is hard and straight and no more touchable than an elm trunk littered with cicada husks.

“Don’t guess I much care,” Annie says, working the towel around another jar and rubbing her fingers over the thick raised letters that dress each jar.

“Still a shame,” Grandma says. “Here it is your day and you’re the one doing all the work.”

Once today is over, Daddy will walk between the rows of bushy lavender, talk with the fellows in town about what weather they expect will come this way over the next few weeks. He’ll snap a stem here and there, bend it, twist it, smell its insides. He’ll cup a fist around a lavender stalk, close it just enough, draw it out, and come away with a handful of gray buds. He’ll rub them between his fingers, sniff them too. He’ll close his eyes, shake his head, and exhale as if he’s smelled lavender one too many times, one too many Goddamn times, and finally, he’ll decide.

He’ll give Grandma a date, a Sunday later this month, maybe early July, and come seven o’clock the first Monday morning in June, Grandma will begin mashing overripe bananas and mixing up her lavender banana bread because it freezes especially nice. She’ll take her sewing kit from the top shelf of her closet and pretend to just get started on cutting and stitching the sachets, though everyone knows she’s been working on them since Christmas, quietly each night in her bedroom. In a few weeks, she’ll have Annie stuffing the small bags made from swatches of fabric she pretended to be cutting for one of her quilts with dried stems and buds, and Caroline will stitch them closed. This year’s harvest date will also be the day Abraham Pace gets married.

“Why was Ellis Baine here?” Annie doesn’t look at Grandma when she asks.

The nylon brush goes still in Grandma’s hand for a moment, and then it starts back up. “Visiting.”

“I don’t think so,” Annie says.

“He’s here because his mama died,” Grandma says, handing off another clean jar. “And because he’s trying to put the cap on the end of something. Folks need that, you know? To cap things off. That’s all.”

By the time Annie had come back from the field, Ellis Baine was gone. Daddy and Sheriff Fulkerson were starting back up the hill toward the tobacco barn, and the sheriff was wearing his shirt again even though Annie never did get to that button. Grandma must have sewn it on because it was buttoned up tight by the time Annie returned home. They wanted to know where Annie had gone off to, and she told them she’d been to see Miss Watson at the fields, which made both men smile because they thought that meant Annie had been to see Ryce at the fields. Run a brush through your hair next time, the sheriff had said and laughed, and then he asked to have a word, another word, about what Annie had seen last night.

Did you see the shotgun lying there alongside Mrs. Baine, he’d asked. Did you see how far she’d strayed from her front porch and that the garden hadn’t been tended in a good long time? Did you see that all those tomatoes were volunteer, come up from the year before, and that she hadn’t been out there tending her plants but had been there, a good long ways from her porch, for some other reason?

As the sheriff asked his questions, Annie fanned the front of her shirt and shook her head and said over and over that she hadn’t seen much, not much at all. She was having trouble sorting through the sheriff’s questions because she couldn’t stop thinking about all that Ryce had seen and not seen and wondering what he’d think of her now and how many more people would know what had happened by the time the sun came up tomorrow. Fortunately, the questions were mostly the same, except for those about the gun and the volunteer tomatoes.

One more thing, one more important thing, was also different. This time, Annie wasn’t the only one who found the sheriff’s questions disagreeable. When the sheriff asked if anyone had ever told Annie she sure did favor her Aunt Juna, Daddy pointed a finger at the kitchen door, ordered Annie to get herself inside, and told the sheriff that would be enough of that.

“Did she point that gun of hers at you?”

The sheriff had waited until Annie reached the porch and slipped one finger through the door’s handle before shouting that question at her.

“Odd, don’t you think?” he said, holding out a hand to silence Daddy. “Her toting that gun all the way out there. Odd unless she intended on using it. I’m thinking maybe she knew it was your day. Thinking maybe she was there waiting for you.”

The sheriff paused as if wanting Annie to tell him he was right, but she didn’t know if Mrs. Baine had been waiting there for her to come at midnight. Maybe she was. Maybe she was waiting there, knowing Annie would come and that Mrs. Baine would finally get to have a word. Mama and Daddy never allowed Mrs. Baine to see Annie when she came to the house after too much partaking. Sometimes Daddy would have to shout at Mrs. Baine to put that damn fool thing away, which meant she’d brought a gun. Maybe she had been there waiting for Annie, and a thought like that will take a good long time to sink its way in.

“Was she waiting there for you?” the sheriff said. “She point that gun at you?”

“I didn’t hardly see a thing,” Annie had said.

Out on the porch, Jacob Riddle stands. His head and shoulders fill the window. He pulls his hat low on his forehead, turns sideways, and draws his hands together like he’s getting ready to throw a pitch. There’s another giggle from Caroline.

“Why does Aunt Juna only send cards at Christmas?” Annie asks, sliding the last jar onto the table and tapping it until it falls into line with all the others.

Grandma runs her brush under the cool water and rinses it clean. “Don’t guess I know,” she says, taps the white bristles against the sink, and tosses a handful of fresh water to rinse away the suds. “Suppose that’s a question for your mama.”

“Strike three,” Caroline calls out.

“Will your snakes make her go?” Annie asks. “If I find more, will they make Aunt Juna go?”

“Full moon’s coming soon,” Grandma says, ignoring Annie’s question. She pulls open the drawer to her left and lifts out a serving spoon. “You drink it up, the moon when it’s full, it’ll show your intended good and clear as any well.”

Annie takes the spoon by its slender handle, runs her fingers over the large, rounded head. “Already seen him.”

More laughing from the porch. This time Caroline calls out that Jacob threw ball three.

“Maybe with the next full moon, you’ll see another fellow. A better fellow.”

“Yes, ma’am. Maybe so.”

Annie won’t be kissing Jacob Riddle by summer’s end, though Caroline likely will.

1936—SARAH AND JUNA

ONE DAY AFTER
I kissed John Holleran, Dale wakes, opens his one good eye, and smiles at Juna and me. As I did with Juna, I feed him cornbread dipped in cane syrup. I crumble the bread and press the small, sticky chunks to his swollen lips, make him drink water too and milk. He might never turn pink again, not like he was before, but the gray lifts.

Soon he complains of the hot room, and together, Juna and I lift the shutter and prop it open. His clothes, his skin, his hair, smell of Daddy’s cigars. We hold Dale’s slender arms and wash them clean with soap and water. He cries out when we work too quickly. We open the front door, try to get a cross breeze going to clear away the stale, smoky smell.

Dale’s skin, so cold before, is warm now. Maybe too warm. Before, he would have been happy to have us two do his washing for him, but once he wakes, he is somehow older and eager to be so. That’s likely why he waits to speak his first words until Daddy walks into the room.

“I know better,” Dale says. “Sure am sorry.”

We tell him to hush, both Juna and I. Save your strength. Nothing to be sorry about. The words catch in my throat as I speak them, can’t stop myself from thinking about the fellows who pass through this way and bring news. Don’t talk to those fellows, Daddy has always said. Dale is sorry for talking to a fellow like that. He’s sorry for talking to Joseph Carl.

Late into the night before Dale woke, Juna had whispered about the things a man would do to a boy like Dale if he were so inclined, and I barely slept for thinking about it. I hadn’t been able to believe, hadn’t wanted to believe, Joseph Carl had done those things to Juna and Dale. But he did, Juna said over and over all through the night. We have Dale back because Joseph Carl finally told. Praise the Lord, Dale is home and soon he’ll be well. Joseph Carl finally told. Why don’t you believe?

Visitors come throughout the day, all of them relieved because Dale’s waking means he’ll be well again. First, it’s Sheriff Irlene. She brings strawberry preserves, two jars.

“Didn’t intend on making a bad situation worse,” she says to Juna because Joseph Carl told and we all know he’s guilty now and the sheriff is feeling ashamed for having questioned Juna’s story.

“Are you girls well?” she says to me once Juna has settled in a seat at the kitchen table. “You have all you need for Dale? For yourselves and your daddy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

“Your daddy,” she says, “he seem content to have Joseph Carl behind bars? He planning any sort of trouble?”

“No, ma’am,” I say, and I want to ask her if she’s sure. Is she so sure Joseph Carl did these things that she’ll let him die?

“And you girls?” she says, staring at me and only me. “You’re well here? You’re safe?”

It’s John Holleran who has told her the things Juna said, and as I thought, they’ll stick to me now all my days.

“Safe and sound, ma’am.”

John Holleran comes after supper. I knew he would. I meet him at his truck because it feels like the thing I should do, and I tell him Dale is awake. Juna too is better. She walks straight now, same as always. She had needed rest and water and a little something to eat. I want John to tell me the sheriff had been wrong about Joseph Carl, but instead, he removes his hat, glances over my shoulder to make sure Daddy isn’t watching, and he kisses me. Not like before, not with both hands and his tongue inside my mouth, but a quick soft kiss that catches the outer edge of my lips. I wish I wasn’t, but I’m angry at him for making Sheriff Irlene think terrible things were happening in this house. Like always, John was only trying to do what he thought was right.

“There’ll be a trial,” he says instead of telling me the sheriff was wrong. “He’ll be treated fair.”

It’s the best he can do and the best we can hope for. Daddy wanted Joseph Carl for himself, thought any decent man should be able to see to his own justice.

“He’ll stay in jail until then?”

John nods.

John’s mama comes next. Mary Holleran has quietly slipped in and out of the house several times over the past few days, always leaving food or ground coffee or fresh-picked tomatoes and such from her garden. People wonder now does she really have the know-how because she couldn’t tell where Dale would be found. But Juna couldn’t tell either, or wouldn’t tell.

Mary touches John’s sleeve as she walks into the kitchen. Her long hair, as always, has been twisted and rolled and pinned in a bundle on top of her head. She smiles until she sees Juna sitting at the table. Like so many others who come into our house, Mary walks a path that keeps her clear of Juna. Most folks are leery of those who have the gift. It’s not that they’re scared. Folks have a way of keeping a comfortable distance from things they don’t understand. But Mary understands the know-how, knows it better than most anyone, so it must be the evil Daddy has always thought took up in Juna’s eyes that frightens Mary.

“I want you to keep a sharp eye on that boy,” Mary says before leaving again. “On Dale. Keep a sharp eye.”

I nod. “Thank you for coming,” I say.

Again, she says, “You keep an eye. No one else. You.”

I sleep all that night at Dale’s side, sitting up in the chair next to his bed. The doctor said if he began to fuss about the pain, which he would eventually because God damn it all, that was quite a break, we should give him a teaspoon of Daddy’s whiskey. That’ll do the trick, he said, but Dale never complains. He sleeps through the night, restless and sometimes mumbling, and in the morning, Juna wakes me with a tap to my shoulder.

By herself, Juna has lifted the shutter. A sliver of sunlight, the most the house would see all day, lights up the room and collects in her hair. To look up at her from my seat at Dale’s side, I have to shade my eyes and squint. I forgot while I slept. I forgot the things Juna had done with Ellis Baine and all the others too. I forgot Joseph Carl would likely hang for what he did, and that Ellis Baine and I would never steal away to join Joseph Carl where the wheat grew taller than a man. I forgot Dale disappeared and that he was home again. I forgot I kissed John Holleran.

“Did he wake at all?” Juna asks, shaking me again. “Did he say anything more?”

But then I remember everything. I push aside Juna’s hand still resting on my shoulder, stand, and seeing that Dale is yet asleep, I walk from the room without giving Juna an answer.

I fix Daddy breakfast, same as always, and as he eats, I put out the lamp we kept burning through the night. Usually, I see to it the lamp never goes dry, but Juna must have done it last night, or maybe Daddy himself. Daddy says no to seconds on his coffee and no to seconds on his biscuits. He sits low in his chair, shirt buttoned up to the top button, one boot crossed over the other. He’ll be going to the fields. The other fellows will be helping him, just enough to get back on track. It’s what he’s always needed. A little help. Just a little Goddamn help. Mostly folks stay out of Daddy’s fields because they are cursed, but Dale coming home has softened them, at least for the day.

“Where did you find him, Daddy?” I ask, following him onto the porch.

He tells me I won’t know the spot.

“On up the hill. Farther south than you might have thought. Where the river widens. On up the hill.”

Straightaway, I know exactly where they found Dale. It was Juna and Abraham’s spot, or somewhere near there.

“Blackberries still waiting,” Juna says after Daddy disappears down the road. She is waiting for me in the kitchen, maybe waiting for Daddy to leave. “Won’t Dale like some blackberries?”

Juna isn’t up to it yet, she tells me as she braces herself by pressing one hand to the kitchen table and slowly, gingerly lowering herself into a chair. She tells me where they’ll grow. On the northern side of the hill, that’s where you ought find them. Touch the soil, rub it between your fingers. In the cool soil, where the water doesn’t rest, that’s where they’ll grow.

“Fetch some berries,” she says. “I’ll see to Dale.”

I go. Even knowing I shouldn’t, I leave Dale with Juna. I go because she took Ellis Baine and she took the whole of my future. I go, even knowing I shouldn’t, and I leave Dale to Juna.

•   •   •

OVER THE NEXT
two weeks, Dale’s face and the scrapes on his knees, hands, and elbows heal, and Juna takes to standing a certain way. She clasps her hands just below her belly. The first time I noticed, as I recall, it was the night Dale came home. I thought she looked to be cradling a basket. And her gait changes. It slows, or maybe it doesn’t slow, but her steps are more measured, she takes greater care, all of it to remind me or Daddy or whoever might be near that she has been tarnished and damaged by Joseph Carl Baine.

And she takes to wearing my dresses, and each time Daddy hints at weeds that need dug or the worms that have been spotted on a neighbor’s tobacco and so have surely taken up on his, she tells him she’s not yet up to it. But isn’t she lucky, so lucky, to have a father who would care for her and fight for her and see to her well-being.

During the days, and most nights too, Juna cares for Dale, tending a fever we can’t rid him of. She rarely leaves his bedside, sitting with him even while he sleeps, and when he wakes, they whisper together, their heads pressed close, she patting his hand all the while. Abigail comes to the house most every day, but Juna sends her off because Dale isn’t strong enough yet. Juna says she and Dale share something now, something the rest of us can’t understand. He wants only to be with Juna. That’s what she tells us.

And while Juna busies herself with Dale, never does she talk of Abraham Pace or speak of missing him or wondering after him. She never asks Abigail how Abraham is getting on. Except for seeing Dale safely home, Abraham hasn’t been back since the night in the sheriff’s office when Ellis Baine said Juna had been ruined by plenty of men.

I think the doctor should come again and have a look at Dale, but Juna says no, he’s improving every day. He’s frightened of the doctor, and can’t you see his color is so nice and his breathing so easy? But still he isn’t right, not like he was before, and he sleeps, mostly he sleeps. Juna says he’s eating, but I don’t see because I’m too busy with the laundry and the tobacco and John Holleran.

While Juna tends to Dale, I take over her chores. The work is hard and my days are long. I spend them in the fields and do the things Juna once did. I snap the pink flowers from the tops of the tobacco that has survived the dry summer. I pull worms, learn to pop their heads off with a flick of my thumb and toss them on the ground. At night, every night, my knees and back ache. I clench and unclench my fingers to loosen the stiffness. I pat my face with a cool cloth to soothe my sunburned skin, peel the black grime from my hands, and my skin is raw from the lye soap I scrub with every night before supper. Juna tells me to eat and take care and not concern myself with Dale. She’s tending him and helping him to remember. By the time I come home each night, my fingers sometimes bleeding from the blisters that break open and my shins and forearms bruised and scabbed and my throat dry, Dale has eaten well and is resting. You really don’t want to disturb him, do you, Juna will say, and then she’ll pull out a chair and invite me to have a seat. Each night, I barely sit through supper before falling asleep.

John Holleran does what he can. Every evening and some mornings, he comes to help me because mostly these jobs are new to me and I’m not so handy with them. He lays in new firewood, and to keep the snakes from getting inside, the thing he knows I most hate, he cuts back the grass Daddy left to grow alongside the house. As we work, he talks about land and wanting his own and how he’ll one day have his daddy’s. It’s meant to pass on through the family from father to son, he tells me as we pour buckets of water on the garden to save the fall crop. John is easier with me now, talks more, smiles more. He’s happy, and as much as that’s my doing, it’s mine to undo as well.

When finally we send John for the doctor, Joseph Carl’s trial is two days away. Juna and I will not be making the trip. Daddy has already said no two daughters of his will be put in such a circumstance. Juna smiled to hear him say there are two of us.

It only took fifteen days for the grand jury—that’s what Daddy called it—to say Joseph Carl should be tried for his crimes. Ellis Baine showed the sheriff, showed anyone who would make the trip, the spot where Dale was discovered. The river where he was found is drying up, a little more each day. It swelled to its highest level in early spring, run off from the thaws up north, but every day, it’s lower and slower. The boy could have fallen, Ellis Baine said. Could have climbed a tree and fallen. But there was no broken branch and why would the boy climb so high. Particularly a boy such as Dale. He was soft, you know, softer than most. The boy was beaten. Beaten and left for dead.

Then make him talk, Ellis said next. The boy has yet to even name Joseph Carl. He won’t say a word. Make the boy talk. Make him say something. Get that girl, Juna, away from him and make him talk.

Doesn’t really matter, the sheriff had said. That man’s going to hang for what he done to the girl. Don’t much matter what really happened to the boy.

Times are tough, the sheriff is rumored to have said to Ellis and every other Baine brother. She promised those boys Joseph Carl would get himself a trial as fair as any man could expect. But she couldn’t promise nothing more. Folks want to see something evil, if only a single evil thing, get its comeuppance, she told them. Joseph Carl is that evil, and if seeing him pay will appease the one who might cause them more pain—and by that the sheriff meant Juna, though she didn’t dare say it—well, folks see it as justice worth serving. Folks just want a better life.

“I guess this’ll be the thing to haunt me all my days” is what folks say the sheriff last told Ellis Baine.

The doctor doesn’t wear his coat when he walks through the door this time because it’s late morning and the chill of the early hours has worn off, everywhere except at our house. He glances around when he steps inside, crosses his arms and rubs his hands from shoulder to elbow, up and down, warming himself. His heavy white brows nip together over his nose as if he’s wondering where that terrible draft has come from. I offer him coffee, an offer he declines, and because he already knows the way, he lets himself into Dale’s room.