Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (35 page)

The sun hung high in the autumn sky, blistering as it looked down on its helpless people. Hank could imagine old striped jumpsuits and prisoners whose pace was steady, their rhythm in perfect harmony.
Clack
, clack,
clack
went those old tools, while that lawman with the imposing hat, the sun ricocheting off it like a bullet to a wall, rode high on his thoroughbred, his long shotgun at his side, a piece of straw dangling from his mouth. He’d kick that horse a bit and make a few circles. More dust, more harmony, more clacking.

Hank could hear them singing, slow and steady…“She’s a dangerous woman, na’,” those imprisoned visions chanted. “Lord, Lord, she’s a dangerous dame, na’. Don’t play, don’t play mouse with huh, na’”…
clack
, clack,
clack
…

“I know what she’s doing here.” Tommy hit the glass with his knuckle. “What’s the address again?”

Hank glanced at the paper Pepsi had given him. He read the address aloud.

“This is where Lil-lil-Lily Beth was killed, Hank. She c-c-comes back h-here for a r-r-reason,” Tommy said.

“I don’t know why.” Curly cleared his throat. “This ain’t nothin’ but a graveyard. A backwoods graveyard for prisoners to pick their due.”

“Ex-ex-exactly,” Tommy said. “Cray likes to keep his women like prisoners. Th-th-this would make sense.”

They drove on a few more miles before they came to an old store on the corner of a cornfield. The stalks were tall and golden, bending with the mastery of the wind. It was an ancient wooden place,
Coca Cola
painted in red against a chipped white square. One gas pump stood like a white flag for those in need. A young woman pushed herself back and forth in a rickety old chair by the entrance.

Dylan slowed the van to a crawl before he turned into the parking lot. The woman’s tender voice floated toward them. The melody of it could lend sugar to the fields around them, Hank thought. It was purely delightful, but with a haunting edge. Her eyes shared the same eerie undertone as her voice.

The young woman’s blue flowered dress was tight around her growing watermelon belly, loose around her swelling legs. She looked up at him in the glow of the sun. Hank couldn’t see her face anymore. All he could hear was that voice.

“
I am weary, let me rest…
” She rocked and sang. Hank walked past her just as she sang that last part, and she met his eye when she did. Then she nodded and continued singing and rocking.

Hank walked into the cool air of the little wooden shop. It smelled like cold dill pickles and root beer. He looked around the store for a minute, at all of the candies on the shelf—those old-time watermelon candies that Delilah had bought.

An older man appeared from the back, hunched over and lifting his hat so he could take a good look at the customer who had entered. The old man smiled, exposing empty pink gums. He had more miles on his face than those roads. One brown eye moved, while the blue one stared straight ahead.

“Anything this old timer can help you with?” the man said, his voice raspy from years of use.

Behind the counter, two deep wooden barrels were filled with pickles, floating like frogs in swamp water. And Hank’s mouth instantly clamped shut, his jaws clenching from the memory. Forevermore Delilah would be associated with that memory, and his heart clenched in automatic response.

“Yes, sir,” Hank said. “My friends and I, we were looking for a house around here. I think we might be lost.”

The man wiped his hands on his pants. Stuck one out to Hank. “I’m Jedediah Journey; folks around here just call me Spell. You’re welcome to it. That’s my daughter out there, my little Louise Anna. We’d be happy to help you in any way we can. We don’t get many visitors out this way. Who you looking for again?”

Hank introduced himself. “I’m looking for Delilah Turner’s place. The address is—”

“Delilah Mae, sure. You not far from it now. You have to just keep on down this road until you come to the end of the road, you see. And when you come to the end of the road, you can’t miss it, you see. There are a couple of houses ’round there. Nothing much, just shacks. A big white church in the middle, you see. Nobody uses it anymore. Not many people come back this way. Who you looking for again?”

“Delilah Mae.”

Spell pulled a peanut shell out of his back pocket and popped it in his mouth. He sucked on it for a minute before he cracked it with his gums and spit the shell on the floor. “Why you lookin’ for Delilah Mae? You her husband?”

“Does Delilah Mae have a husband?”

“I just asked you that, son. You all right?”

Hank laughed. “I’m not her husband, no.”

“Good, that’s mighty good. She’s a real nice girl. You seem like a nice boy. But you’d need a mighty fine hammer to nail that one down. What was your name again? Oh, I reckon Delilah Mae wants her special stuff. You here to take it to her? I could’a sworn another fella was around here a while go, asking about her. I gave him pickles too. He was suppos’ ta bring them to her.”

Son of a bitch
, Hank cursed underneath his breath.

The man nodded, chewing his peanut into butter. The pulp-like substance gathered at the side of his mouth, and he used an arthritic finger to wipe it away before licking it off. He opened one of the barrels, took out about twelve pickles, and placed them in a clear plastic bag. Out of the cooler, he grabbed twelve bottles of root beer, packing it all in a brown paper bag. He had Hank take the old-time candies off the shelf and put them in the bag too.

“I think that ought to do it, son. Who you going to see again?” He stopped for a moment, tipped his hat and scratched his head. “Tell Delilah I sent that special for her, you hear, na’? Tell her the baby is coming real soon. Remember what I said na’, all the way down to the end of the road. And you and your friends, you drink that root beer. Even though it’s harvesting season ’round these parts, it’s still mighty hot. You won’t find a finer root beer anywhere else. Have a pickle too. Delilah Mae, right?”

Hank offered him money, but the old man almost violently refused.

Hank nodded. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure and tell her you sent this for her. I’m mighty appreciative for everything.”

“Oh, it’s all right. We do what we can. Folks ’round here have to help each other out. The world ain’t like it used to be. Be sure and drink those root beers, na’. You won’t find any better. I’d bet my brown eye on it. The other one is glass, you see. My other one, the one made by the hand of God, is still rolling around in the fields somewhere out here. My wife, she took it out with a pitchfork, plucked it right into the cotton fields. Said I was looking at another woman, you see.”

Spell cleared his throat, a piece of peanut flying overhead, sticking to a pack of homemade popcorn on the shelf beside Hank. He wagged his gnarled finger. “The Bible states,” he said, his voice like a nagging old woman’s, “it’s better to take your out eye than to roam!” He cleared his throat once again, muttered something in his own voice for a second. “I reckon she never gave me a choice to do it myself. She took it upon herself to do it. I sho’ enough never did that again. They come in pairs for a reason.”

“I’m sure sorry to hear that, Mr. Spell.”

“I was sho’ sorry, too. Hey, you say you’re fixin to see Delilah Mae? Listen here, you be careful, all right? Like I say, people ’round these parts have to stick together. Na’, that other one—” he whistled real low “—don’t play mouse with a cat, boy. You won’t win. Ah, but she’s a good girl. Just don’t forget what I say. Way down the road there…Delilah Mae.”

Hank waved and went to leave when Spell stopped him.

“Oh, and honey boy, I’m still on the hunt for my eye. If you happen to see it, bring it back to me, will ya? I sure miss it, you see. My wife, she’s gone now, and it’s safe. I always figured it was too scared to come back, gettin’ poked like that. There’s a dollar reward for it. And I’ll throw a whiskey and a few pickles in, too. Damn, I miss my eye. I miss my eye more than I ever miss that wife o’ mine.”

The old man sat on one of the jugs, crossed his legs, and started humming “You Are My Sunshine.” When Hank walked back outside, he found, pasted onto the dirt-stained window, a worn-out poster, crinkled and thinning in spots from apparent age. In the center of the wanted sign was a hand-drawn picture of a brown eye, and written below:
Have you seen this eye? Please return to Jedediah Journey, he can’t see without it. Dollar reward. Last seen in the old cotton fields by Possum Road. Much obliged.

Hank handed out the pickles and root beer once the van started throwing up dust again. The mud was so thick Dylan had to turn the wipers on. The windshield became a mucky, distorted mess, the water somehow making it worse. Their view was mucked up, to say the least.

The pickles made up for the scenery. They were just as good as the night he had them with Delilah. And the root beer was the best he had ever tasted. It was so fresh and crisp, and it flowed down your throat like cool water, while it bubbled like a brook on your tongue. Sarsaparilla was so very concentrated and exotic tasting.

The guys each drank two, ate two pickles too, when suddenly Curly sat straight up and pointed out the window. “Did you guys see that?”

“See what?” Hank held a hand up to his brows, shielding some of the glare from his eyes.

Curly shook his head. “Those women.”

All the guys looked out the window, but all they saw were more prisoners and fields.

“I think Curly Izza Cootie is tripping.” Stroke laughed.

“Look!” Curly shouted. “They’re out there doing the prison work. And they’re singing so pretty like. Hear it? Listen to that, will you! How sublime. Sweetness, they’re all wet and wearing white. I can see the outline of their breasts…Oh.” He swallowed hard. “They’re like angels. Like little birdie angels, and they’re going to be free from all their shackles and chains.”

Hank didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t see any women, and neither did anyone else, for that matter, except for Curly. And he went on and on about the birdie angels all in white until they made it to the end of the road. Just like Spell had said, it was five old shacks, able to be called houses because they had windows and doors.

They were chipped and white, standing on red cinder bricks. Each had a screened-in porch, the aluminum screens all torn and waving in the wind. In the center was the old church. It was nothing but white cotton, except for tall pines that started the woods at the end of the land.

Loretta Lynn, singing the same song Delilah had in the shower, played from one of the houses. Hank and Curly were going together to check it out while the rest split up in twos. The closer their scrunching footsteps came to the house, the louder the music became.

Hank climbed the steps, Curly behind him. A table and two plastic chairs were on the porch, the old radio singing on the table. He opened the porch door, called for Delilah, but no answer. He went in anyway.

Hank looked at the “house” in disbelief. It was in horrible condition. Weathered furniture was still inside. One old kitchen table with a small crystal vase was placed in the center. Pictures of the cornfields hung crookedly from the walls, rusty nails barely keeping them above the floor. The same little girl in the picture next to Delilah’s bed was smiling on the wall in oil. The pictures were hand drawn, just like the ones in Delilah’s place. Plates were still housed in the musty glass cabinets.

Hank opened the doors and two sets stared back at him, one set of fine china, in pristine condition, and one set chipped and cracked, something you wouldn’t feed a dog off of. They were miles apart, even though they stood side by side. A plump rat jumped from the cabinet and onto the floor, screeching as it ran away, long tail trailing behind it like a snake on the hunt. Hank lost his breath for a moment, slamming the door shut behind the rodent.

“Hank, did you see this?” Curly was looking down at the floor. “What do you think happened here?”

The light wood had been stained with blood, but years had turned the dark color into a pale shade of rust. Hank stared at it a moment. Somewhere in his head, he felt like a frog was jumping from lily pad to lily pad. It was causing his eyesight to become blurry, before he could focus again. He started to fan himself.

“I don’t know,” Hank said, staring. He couldn’t look away. But he took a step back. The blood seemed to be moving toward him, rushing with the rhythm of a living pulse. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and when he decided to lift his lids, the stain had retreated back to its original place on the floor. “Tommy said her aunt was killed out front, on the street.”

Curly walked down the hall, stopped at the first bedroom. It seemed to be a little girl’s room. Five white lace dresses hung in the closet, yellowed from time. Each had the same color ribbon hanging from the iron hangers. Hanging on the other side of the dresses were old jeans, overalls, and ratty shirts. One pair of lace-up boots sat on the floor below them and to two pairs of white dress shoes.

“God Almighty,” Hank whispered, looking up to the water stained ceiling. “Did she really grow up here? I feel sick to my stomach.”

Curly started acting real strange then. He started to twirl in a circle, humming old hymns from church. Sweat rushed down his face and a goofy smile stretched his cheeks as he spread his arms, acting like a bird. Hank’s eyes starting to twitch as he grabbed Curly by the shirt and led him from the house toward the church. One church became two before it finally connected again into one structure.

Hank found Dylan, Tommy, Jesse, and Stroke all kneeling in front of the altar. Spiderwebs hung from walls, some humble, some intricate and beautiful, and vines were starting to creep in from outside. Hank could’ve sworn he heard a snake hiss from somewhere in the vicinity of where he was standing. He stomped his foot—
stomp, stomp
—to be sure it wasn’t close enough to make contact with his flesh.

The guys all hummed the same song Louise Anna was singing back at the shop: “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest).” Hank rubbed at his eyes. He had seen the young woman singing, and then she was gone. All he could think of was that ballooning watermelon, those swelling ankles about to burst.