The Ghosts of Varner Creek (28 page)

Mama undid the gate to Lillipeg’s pen. Pap could only watch her. He was holding Sarah's hand trying to imagine how Mama could kill her. "How could you?" he asked Mama. How could you, I found myself asking Pap.

"I'm gonna go, now," Mama said again in that same odd way like talking to everyone and no one at the same time. She opened up Lilipeg's pen and backed her out. She put Lilipeg's bridle on and harnessed her up. Pap couldn't move. He just stared at Sarah’s dead face, trying to wish it unreal. Finally he raised his head as Mama finished setting the wagon.

"Where are you goin?" he asked. She didn't answer him. "Annie?" he asked pitifully.

"I'm gonna go, now," she said for the last time. And with that, still in her nightgown and without any shoes or any of her things, Mama climbed into the wagon and flipped the reins. Lilipeg started with a slow walk, and Mama was gradually swallowed by the night while Pap was left with Sarah.

Still standing within Sarah’s memory, we stood there looking down at Pap as he held her dead body. Her own emotions flowed from her to me as though we were spectators to the events of our lives, and yes even her death. All I sensed from her was pity and sadness. She didn’t seem to hate Pap at all for the things he’d done.

I looked down at Pap and tried to feel the same way, but couldn’t. I still hated him. I had never known about him using Sarah like he’d done, and it made me realize he’d been false all the times I thought he’d been sweet to her. I thought back to the times he’d played his sick games with me, holding me over the well as though ready to drop me, or the time he beat Mama, or the hundreds of times he pushed and smacked me around. The only person he treated with kindness was Sarah, and it’d all been a lie. He’d abused us all, but hers was the worst.

As he knelt down there with Sarah I could sense him wondering what to do. Should he run after Annie? Or maybe go and get Colby? No, he couldn't do that. All the options seemed wrong. Annie was gone and who knows where she was headed. Sarah was dead in his arms, and Sol was sleeping through it all. Hide it, I knew he was thinking. Nobody has to know what happened. If Annie really leaves and doesn't come back, who would know? He could just tell everyone she left him and had and taken Sarah with her. He'd get rid of their things and everyone would think they just left. Nobody would know, not even Sol. And that’s when he probably thought of the creek, down by the bend where we went crabbing sometimes.

It took Pap a while to finally get up and start to his task. First, he went inside and gathered up all of Mama and Sarah’s things. He must have been quieter than he’d ever been in his life not to wake me. I still couldn’t believe I’d slept through Mama coming into our room for Sarah, and then Pap coming in and taking all of Sarah’s things.

When Pap emerged from the house again he had all of their things, Mama’s brushes, clothes, books from Miss Thomas . . . all of Sarah’s clothes and toys, including the gifts I’d given her for her birthday, they were all wrapped up in a big blanket. All except the little castle he’d carved from cedar for her. Pap walked out into the woods and buried the big blanket as best he could, as it would only be a short-term solution until he could burn it all, but the little castle he left by Sarah. After burying the other things he came back and laid out about a four by five section of chicken wire. He dragged Sarah’s body on top of it and gave her a long last look. He wanted to wrap her up se he didn’t have to see her when he hid her away, but that would make it hard for the creek to do its work. I could feel the regret in him, but I tried not to let myself feel sorry for him. Pap folded her arms on her chest and put the little castle in her hands. Then rolled up the chicken wire with her inside and fastened it with bits of barbed wire.

It was a long walk for Pap down to the creek with Sarah’s body wrapped in the heavy wire. Unlike Uncle Colby, who had carried Sarah’s body like a bail of hay the day we found her, Pap could only walk a little ways before needing to stop and rest. Sometimes he tried to drag her by one end, but more often than not the wire would get tangled on brush and he had to carry her. All the while her face was uncovered, and his eyes kept falling upon her mask of death. I can’t say how long it took Pap, because everything seemed to change and Sarah and I were standing by the creek again, except it was daytime and beautiful. We were back where we’d started, next to place where Pap would hide her body that night.

“
It’s a sad memory,” she tells me again.

I looked into her eyes, thinking about how she must feel knowing now just what it was Pap had done to her, and about how Mama had killed her out of some sense of sacrifice. “Yes,” I told her, “it sure is.” We stood together as I took in all I’d learned. I thought about Mama, traveling to some unknown destination, falling apart as she went. And Pap, who’d tried to cover up his sins despite his regrets, I remembered seeing him that morning with muddy boots and wet hair. Now I knew where they came from. I guess his regrets would get him in the end, though. He’d end up dead in town a month later. “Pap shot himself,” I told Sarah. “I’d always thought he’d killed himself because everyone found out he’d killed you and Mama. Turned out he didn’t murder anyone, though I guess he might as well have.”

Sarah squeezed my hand and said, “I saw.” matter of factly.

“
You saw?” I asked. “How could you have seen that?”

“
When I got here,” she said. “I could see everything, even things that happened a long time ago.

“
How?” I ask.

“
I don’t know. I just think about something, and I see it. I’ll show you. Do you remember how Daddy stopped hitting Mama?”

"Yes," I said. "Sometime around 1905, like someone had just turned off a switch. I often wondered about that."

"It was Uncle Marcus,” she tells me.

“
Uncle Marcus? But he wasn’t even there.”

“
Just think about it. Think real hard why Daddy stopped hitting Mama, and the answer will come.”

I closed my eyes and tried thinking about it, and slowly, I could feel something change.

Chapter
17

When I opened my eyes again I was in a field somewhere and there was a man working near us. I recognized him immediately as Pap. He was out feeding the cattle Mr. Pyle had in one of the fields. He was by himself in that particular area of the pasture when a man came riding up towards him. The horse was a beautiful gray with white spots along its side and running along its mane. The man dismounted and Pap barely paid him any attention at first, but then he stopped what he was doing as the man approached. By the time he recognized who the man was, it was too late. He had been knocked down with a swift punch. And before Pap could get up again he was staring down the barrel of a Colt .45 pistol that was being pressed up against his nose. On the other end of that Colt was Uncle Marcus. He still had that intimidating look he was so recognizable by, but he looked not a day over thirty, "I never liked you," he told Pap. "And if I had it to do over again I wouldn't never’ve let Annie get mixed up with yah." He put his right knee on Pap's chest and knelt down close, still holding the barrel of the gun against Pap's face. "But what's done is done and you're my sister's husband, now." He pushed his thumb down and cocked the pistol. "But if I ever and I mean ever, hear about you laying one finger on her again . . . I'll blow your head clean off, and smile while I do it. I bought this gun just for you, and if I ever get another letter from Emma saying you’ve hit Annie, you’re a dead man. Nobody knows I'm here 'cept you and Emma, but if I ever have to come back you'll be the last to know, because the last thing you'll hear is what this gun sounds like when I shoot you with it. You understand?"

Uncle Marcus had a way with words, brief but powerful. Pap looked scared shitless. Uncle Marcus had scared Pap back before he had married Mama, but seeing him like he was now with that stare of death on him and that gun in his hand terrified Pap. "Yeah,” he told Marcus, but apparently Uncle Marcus didn’t feel convinced because he pressed just a little harder, “I understand!" Pap shouted. And only then did Uncle Marcus get off of him. He uncocked his gun, stood up, and walked away without another word. He must have taken the train all the way from Galveston to Houston and then all the way down to Varner Creek just to deliver that message in person to Pap. But even though he'd made the trip, he didn't visit anyone else except Aunt Emma that same day to ask her where he could find Pap. She didn't ask him what he intended to do and didn't have any idea what was said, but she saw the result same as us, even if we didn't know the cause back then. Pap quit hitting Mama after that day.

"That explains who flipped the switch," I said to Sarah. "He never told me he had done that, even after I went to live with him."

"Marcus was with Pap when he died, too," she told me.

"What?" I asked. "I never knew that." That's not what I had been told. Uncle Marcus said Pap was already dead when he found him at Miss Thomas’.

I didn’t have to ask her to show me, because once again everything around us changed. I could see Pap leaving Mr. Pyle's farm early the day I found her in the creek. He went home and started in on his last bit of whiskey. At the same time me, Uncle Colby, and everyone else were sitting in front of the sheriff's office with Sarah's body in the wagon, Pap was walking into town to go and buy another bottle. He didn't have a horse or wagon anymore, so he was on foot and coming through a little wooded area that ran up against some cropland on the edge of town. Before he came out onto Main Street he saw us off in the distance sitting in the wagon. Then he saw Uncle Colby going towards it with Dr. Wilkins by him. Pap froze and his heart jumped up through his lungs. He stood with his feet growing roots in the ground as he watched the Doctor look into the wagon and appear to pull back a bed sheet. Shit, he told himself. So that's why Colby had left early. Somehow one of them knew where she might have been. I could feel his disappointed curiosity at how she’d been found. He should have burned the body, he scolded. He had been smart enough to gather up her things that night and hide them until after Sol left for Emma and Colby's, then make a fire and burn them to ashes, and now he wished he’d done the same with Sarah's body, because there she was. He started back the way he came and was going to head back home, but then he thought better of it. The sheriff will know by now, of course, and he had horses. By the time he could walk home that old fat bastard would likely be waiting there with three or four other fellas. So instead he crept back in the wooded area and found a spot where he had a pretty good view of town without anyone seeing him. We watched him creep behind the tree line, protected by the brush. His head was spinning with the whiskey and he tried to concentrate and think straight.

Time skipped ahead under Sarah's control as she painted the picture of that afternoon. At about the time my living self was having dinner back at Aunt Emma's, Pap was still sitting on the edge of the wood thinking about what to do. He replayed events over and over again in his mind and remorse started eating at him. All the things in his life were coming back to haunt him. He decided to just sit and gather his thoughts on what he should do now. And as the light began fading away he saw the train pulling into town. A few people got off and on, and one of them that had exited went to the back car to get a horse. It was a gray horse with white spots along its side and neck that Pap could see from where he was. He had seen that horse before. There wasn't another like it in the whole town. That was Marcus.
Annie!
cried his thoughts. She must have gone to Galveston and told Marcus everything. Now Marcus had come back to kill him. He waited until the horse and its rider entered the town and disappeared between some buildings. Then he decided the light was fading enough that he might risk getting a little closer. So he crept down from his hiding spot and sneaked his way towards town. It took him a few minutes to get into town under the shadow of dusk, but when he did he noticed the gray horse was tied to the hitching post near Miss Thomas' house. Then he saw Marcus come rushing out of the door and head towards the Sheriff's office on foot.

Sarah and I watched him as he crept to the back of Miss Thomas' house and into the back door. He had been in her home on a number of occasions. Whenever they came to town Annie liked to stop in and visit Miss Thomas and of course they’d had dinners here on a number of occasions. Pap knew where the guest room was and he snuck inside. The first thing he thought was that he'd get Marcus before it was the other way around. He must have brought that gun with him, he thought, and he started rummaging around the room. Sure enough, there under some underwear that had been folded and put by the nightstand was the Colt .45 Peacemaker. Pap grabbed it and opened it up. No bullets. They weren't far, though. He spotted them near the traveling pack Marcus had brought with him and proceeded to load the gun. Now, what, he thought. Sarah and I watched it all like a living picture show. Pap sat on the bed and his mind began to wander. His emotions were like butter being churned over and over. He was scared of being caught and having to explain things. Even if Mama hadn’t told Uncle Marcus, then everyone would just think he’d killed Sarah. Either way, he was in bad trouble with no way out. He thought about all the things that’d happened to get him to this spot. So he’d shoot Marcus, what good would that do? Even if he did manage to get away and run, the sheriff would have a posse after him, and when they caught him, he’d still die. He’d buried himself, he realized. All those sins had buried him. No good, went his thoughts, I ain't never been no good.