“I used to teach here, a few years back.”
“They have a college here?” As far as she could see, the town of Christiana seemed to be a post office, a tiny gift shop, and this restaurant, all sprouting up in the middle of Tennessee’s version of nowhere.
He smiled. “There’s a state university in Murfreesboro, up the road a bit.”
She sat back in her chair, the clatter of lunch swirling around her. Two white-haired women at the next table gossiped about someone they’d seen in church yesterday; two other women behind them planned a baby shower for a friend. A busboy scooped dirty dishes carelessly into a plastic tub while a waitress refilled their iced tea. How odd it all seemed. Her godchild was missing and she’d just lost her job, yet people were laughing with their friends, eating chess pie for dessert, figuring up how much to leave for a tip. Lily had been stolen. She could not find her. Jasmine Harris had been abused. And she’d just been fired for sending her abuser up for twenty years in prison.
All at once, she needed to get away. The world made no sense today; none of the rules she lived by applied anymore. She grabbed her cell phone and got up from the table, knocking over her chair. Other diners looked up, startled, as she hurried to the door. She made no apologies but rushed outside, into the warm autumn afternoon.
To her right stood the post office, in front of her nothing but a road and a railroad track. She ran toward the tracks mindlessly, stopping only when she stood on a cross tie between the long iron rails. As she gazed down the tracks, the view looked like a perspective exercise in drawing class. Two arrow-straight lines converged into a vanishing point, stretching through acres of land to link Chicago with Mobile, the North to the South, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. And here she stood, in the center of it all, unable to find one three-month-old baby and hang on to her job at the same time.
She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun when a sign caught her eye. Nearly covered by a sprawling trumpet vine, it stood tilted next to the tracks, its black letters peeling.
“Abandoning animals is unlawful,” she read aloud, and suddenly, without warning, everything—Lily, Mott, Jonathan, and Ruth—all crashed down upon her. She sat down in the middle of the railroad track and started to cry. She didn’t care if a train came along. In fact, she wished one would.
She wept until she heard footsteps crunching through the gravel. She looked up. Gabe stood there, holding their lunches on a tray. He looked ridiculous but somehow noble, too.
“I figured today might be a good day for takeout.” He said, smiling.
She lowered her head, embarrassed. Gabe had been nothing but kind and helpful ever since she met him. She’d no reason to run out of the restaurant as if he’d insulted her.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “You deserve better.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’d be a little hot too, if I were you.”
“If you were me?”
“In the past forty-eight hours I’ve seen you lose your godchild, face off with a small-town sheriff, comfort the woman who married a man you still love, and lose your job. I’d say you’ve got a right to be a little cranky.”
She stared at him, speechless. Who was this man? He’d known her less than two days, yet he seemed to read and accept the troubled terrain of her heart as readily as Jonathan. The smile she gave Gabe was wobbly, but genuine.
“Whoa,” he murmured, leaning down to touch the corner of her mouth. “That’s some thing you ought to do more often.”
“Let’s eat,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m done feeling sorry for myself.”
They moved from the railroad track to the broad, gold field that stretched beside it. Gabe brought a blanket from the van and they spread their food out and ate, picnic-style. He’d ordered them both fried chicken and corn nuggets, turnip greens and pecan pie. Though Mary would have sworn she had no appetite, she soon had an impressive pile of bare chicken bones on her plate.
“Pretty good, huh?” Gabe lay back on the grass, his arms cradling his head.
“Delicious.” Mary looked over at the restaurant. “Don’t they want their dishes back?”
“I’ll return them in a few minutes.” He turned over to face her. “You feeling better?”
She nodded. Maybe her grandmother had been on to something after all. Maybe corn bread and butter beans did make things seem not quite so bad.
“It’s always hard to lose something you love.” Gabe’s face grew suddenly sad.
“Something or somebody?”
“Either, I guess. I’ve never lost much of anything, but I once lost somebody.”
“Your dad?” Mary offered the only person she’d heard him mention.
“My wife.”
“You lost your wife?”
“You saw our wedding photo.”
“I did. She’s gorgeous.”
“Yes, she was. Her name was Becca. She was a graduate fellow in archaeology at UT.”
“What happened?” She didn’t want to pry, but he seemed to want to talk.
“We were in Washington, at an archaeological conference. I wanted to drive over to Baltimore, to watch Cal Ripken break Gehrig’s game record. Becca didn’t even like baseball, but she went, just to please me. We watched the game, watched Ripken take a victory lap around the field. She wanted to leave; I wanted to stay to see the whole post-game show. On the way home a drunk driver T-boned our car. I came out okay. She didn’t.” He studied the blanket as if it could reveal the secrets of the universe.
“That’s awful, Gabe,” Mary said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It happened eight years ago. Every day I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t acted like such a jerk, if we’d left that stadium when she wanted to.” He glanced up at her. “You know what I mean?”
She nodded as the faraway whistle of an approaching train broke the warm silence of the meadow. The sad wail seemed to echo both the grief Gabe had just given voice to and the older grief that resounded in her own battered heart. How well she knew how he felt! She’d relived her own actions the day her mother died a million times. However fervently she wished she’d done things differently, the end result always came out the same. You lived your life in ignorance, thinking what harm can there be in lingering at a baseball game, or making love to someone you deeply desired? Only later did you learn the consequences of your acts, when the people you most loved lay dead and the only thing left for you to do was sit beside them and weep.
Twenty-four
“COME 0n, Y0u sunuvabitch. Get that damn crate out of the road!” Jonathan gripped the steering wheel, wishing it were the neck of the driver in front of him. For the past hour he’d tailgated an old Ford pickup that had wobbled around the curves with maddening slowness, due either to woefully misaligned tires or a woefully inebriated driver. Every time the two lanes widened to allow passing, the Ford sped up and shot to the middle of the road. When the road climbed the mountains through narrow switchbacks, the ancient truck slowed to the point that Jonathan had to brake to keep from running into it. Finally, at a town called Madisonville, the battered truck turned east. Jonathan blasted his horn, just for spite. As the truck wobbled on toward Sweetwater, a gnarled hand appeared from the driver’s window and gave him the finger.
The detour Jonathan had taken from Carolina had led him hours out of his way. He’d driven mountain roads that had neither name nor number, causing him to take a wrong turn and wind up almost on the other side of Lookout Mountain. Now, after a trip to Wal-Mart for a road atlas, he was nearing Tremont, Tennessee. He’d stopped at several pay phones and tried to get in touch with Ruth, punching in Little Jump Off’s number but getting no reply. He’d called both the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Nikwase County sheriff’s office. At the THP he’d gotten a voice menu. The Nikwase County sheriff’s line rang busy. With a coldness in his
gut, he pushed the repaired Whirlaway north.
“One more hour,” he said softly. The guy at that store said people had been hurt at these demonstrations, but he hadn’t said how. Had the cops taken clubs to them? Tear gas? Could they have been trampled in the chaos of a violent crowd?
“Don’t go there,” he snapped aloud, wishing Whirlaway had a radio so he could turn on the news for more information. “Ruth is a good mother. She would have gotten Lily out of there at the first sign of trouble.”
But if she did that, then where is she? She isn’t back at Little Jump Off. Could Clarinda have talked her into driving out to Oklahoma? On TV he’d seen the governor of Tennessee furious, wiping pie off his face, and the equally furious demonstrators confronting cops and soldiers with rocks and spittle. What had started as an Indian demonstration over a field of bones had grown into a fierce protest of government policies about everything from logging rights in national forests to the ecological impact of gas-burning cars. A goodly number of Americans were acting out their sub-basement opinion of the nation’s leaders. It made him sick to think of Lily and Ruth caught up in such anguish.
When he turned toward Tremont, he truly thought he might vomit. National Guard trucks lined his side of the highway, while the westbound lane away from town was littered with all the crap people had ditched as they fled: paper cups, fast-food wrappers, and lumpy bags of garbage lay strewn along the road. He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. It looked as if somebody had dropped a bomb on Tremont, Tennessee.
National Guard troops had erected makeshift bivouacs in a strip-mall parking lot. Kids from town loitered, curious and sullen at the lot’s edge.
He turned down a side street to find a parking space in front of a Baptist church. The sign in front of the church advertised a “Prayer Vigil to Heal Our Wounds.” As he strode back to the main drag of the town, it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t wait for the vigil. Maybe he should start praying right now, all by himself. Where had his wife and child gone?
People crowded the street, giving the little town the uneasy feel of a kettle on simmer. Civil libertarians, war protesters, and radical ecological groups had flocked to the support of the Native Americans, while the construction workers were aided by flag-waving veterans and sour-looking men who wore heavy boots and carried signs provided by the local brotherhood of teamsters. “Can you tell me where to find the Save Our Bones people?” Jonathan called to a Guardsman directing traffic.
“The who?” The helmeted soldier looked no more than eighteen. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip.
“Save Our Bones,” Jonathan repeated. “The Indians.”
“I can’t give out that information, Sir,” the kid replied. “You’ll have to check with Command.”
“Where’s that?” Jonathan yelled over a jeep that badly needed a new muffler.
“Courthouse. That way.” The Guardsman pointed north.
“Thanks.”
He hurried up the street, dodging more Guardsmen and nearly stumbling over a thick fire hose that was refilling a pumper truck. Finally he saw a redbrick building with a clock tower on top: “Nikwase County” was engraved across its granite facade.
He started to run, pushing his way through the thickening crowd, not caring whose toes he stepped on. He needed to see his wife. He needed to hold his child.
An Army tent was pitched on the courthouse lawn. He hurried toward it. Inside, another soldier sat at a collapsible table, drinking coffee in a cup. His hair had been shaved so close that his pale scalp was visible, and he had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm.
“Sergeant.” Jonathan recognized the man’s rank from his own days in the Army. “Do you know where the injured are?”
“Most are at the hospital. A couple have made the morgue.” The man scowled up at Jonathan. “Who are you looking for?”
“My wife.” Jonathan’s mouth felt like dry ice. “She came to the Indian rally.”
“One of them Bone people?” Jonathan nodded.
“Bunch of them folks got thrown into jail. I’d check the sheriff’s office, if I were you.”
“Where’s that?”
“Brick building on the side of the courthouse.’’
The coldness spread inside Jonathan. What if Ruth and Lily were the two in the morgue? What if they’d been beaten to death by those construction goons? What would he do if that had happened?
Suddenly he heard someone call his name.
“Jonathan?”
He stopped.
‘’Jonathan?”
A woman ran toward him. For an instant he thought it was Mary Crow, then he saw the shorter hair, the smudged face and dirty clothes. Her heavy breasts swayed as she ran. She flung herself in his arms, burying her face in his chest. His wife, Ruth. She pressed herself into him desperately, as if he and he alone could save her from some unimaginable fate.
He held her for what seemed like years. People swept in and out of the sheriff’s office around them, indulgent of the two young lovers who had found each other in all the chaos. Now all they needed to do was get Lily, and get out of here. Go back to the mountains of Carolina, where they belonged.
He loosened his embrace and looked down at her, brushing the hair away from her eyes.
“Where’s Lily?”
“Come on,” Ruth said, grabbing his hand. “I need you to talk to the sheriff.”
“The sheriff? What for?”
“Come on, Jonathan.” She was tugging him into the building. “We need to talk to the sheriff.’’
“Where is Lily?” he demanded, his heart jumping like something caught in a trap.
Ruth’s face crumpled like paper. “She’s gone, Jonathan,” she sobbed. “Somebody stole our baby!”
Twenty-five
THE THIRD .JPG file arrived along with a rush of hot, oil-tinged air and a din of clacking wheels and squeaking ties. Mary checked her cell phone as a locomotive thundered by, finding the e-mail icon blinking; the sender, Lily Walkingstick. She showed it to Gabe and they waited impatiently, unable to cross the tracks as car after car of Alabama pine rolled north to become condos in Kentucky, apartments in Illinois. Finally the last car passed and they raced to the van, speeding away from Christiana to the nearest Kinko’s—this one close to Gabe’s old college in Murfreesboro.
“Here it comes,” said Gabe, rolling his chair closer to Mary’s.
As the tiny pixels of color flooded the screen, Mary felt as if she were looking at some transmission from outer space—a cold mosaic of digitized color that represented an infant human being.
Without question, it was Lily. This time she lay not on top of a grave, but at the foot of a highway marker that read “Waverly” and “The Trail of Tears.” Someone had cut her hair and dressed her in a little blue jumpsuit with a cowboy stitched on the front. Her eyes were closed, and she exhibited none of the blurred, angry motions of the other pictures. She might have been sound asleep. She also might have been dead.
“We passed that marker on the way to Miller’s,” Gabe said decisively. “It’s not twenty miles away.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I could drive you there in fifteen minutes.” Mary clicked on the PRINT command. “Give me a minute, then we’ll go.”
After the printer churned out their copies, they hurried up to the checkout desk. Two blue-shirted young men stood talking behind the counter.
“Hi, fellas,” Mary said, digging in her purse for her wallet. “Have you two been working here all day?”
“Since noon,” said a thin African-American boy whose tightly braided hair sprouted from his head like sprays of millet.
“Have you sold computer time to anybody with a digital camera?”
The boy glanced cautiously at his partner. “Who wants to know?”
Mary feigned a look o
f deep hurt. “My best friend’s husband is posting some weird shots of her on the Internet. A divorce thing, you know? Can you think back on who’s been on the computer this morning?”
“Let’s see.” The boy gazed up at the acoustic tile ceiling as if he might read the answer up there. “I had you two, before that I had some kid from the college, before that a crazy old lady doin’ her family tree.” He shook his millet-locks. “Nobody else been in here today.”
“Don’t forget that old white motherfucker,” his shorter coworker said under his breath.
“What old white motherfucker?” Mary leaned closer.
“Old dude in a baseball cap. Came in just before lunch. Had a little Mexican guy with him.”
“Oh, yeah.” The first kid’s face brightened. “He did have a camera, didn’t he? He wasn’t in here long, though.”
“What time was it?”
“Maybe eleven-thirty. Before lunch, anyway.” The boy shrugged.
The headers at the top of their latest print indicated that the file had been sent to her at 11:42. Ninety minutes ago. “Did this guy happen to pay with a credit card?” Mary asked.
“Nah. He paid cash. Had a big old wad of money.”
She pulled out two twenties from her own wallet and pushed one toward each of the boys. “Okay, guys. Think back and tell me absolutely everything you remember about this man.”
“Which one?”
“Either one.”
The boys looked at each other. “Old dude’s about this high,” the tall one began, indicating a height of around six feet. “Fat. Gray beard. Wore a blue Braves cap pulled way low. Had dirty pants.’’
“Dirty pants?”
“Khakis, but he done spilled somethin’ all over the front. Somethin’ brown and nasty.”
“What kind of shirt did he wear?”
“A sweatshirt. Brown, gray, something dark,” offered the shorter one. “Dirty.”
Call the Devil by His Oldest Name Page 17
