“You . . . you said it was Danny’s on prom night. Right here, you swore it.”
“I know’d it was mine. Saw the truth on her panties she buried,” he said weakly, rubbing his brow, like he suddenly remembered it all. “Shit, Flannery, I would’ve given the bastard my name—could’ve made an honest woman outta the moonshiner’s daugh—”
“You don’t deserve a good woman.”
“I have myself one—kids now, and another on the way. Look, Patsy was just an easy piece of tail. Hell, you can’t fault a young Kentucky buck for—”
“Patsy would’ve never been with you. The likes of you. She loved Danny. Only Danny. You forced her—”
“You know better than that. Shit.” Hollis hissed, and his breath came hot and heavy at her face, a whiskey’d pant riding it. “Know that kind of girl needs a real man.”
“You let your whiskey talk too much.” Flannery wiggled the bullet again. “And you’re a liar, a long-tongued liar.”
“Humph. Who’re you to be talking to me about drinking? The daughter of an ol’ moonshiner who drank himself to death? Hardly. Hell, nobody’d begrudge a hardworking lawman having himself a cocktail or two after duty.”
“You mean the dirty, lying dog folks are going to hear about when I tell ’em how you violated my sister. Shot your own brother.”
Hollis laughed cruelly. “Nobody’d believe ya. You’re a gawdamn blue book.”
Flannery felt the punch in the gut.
“That’s right.” Hollis smiled ugly. “You think nobody knew about you going to the loco house? Was about 1955 or thereabouts, I believe.” He twirled a finger in front of her face. “Your dear mama got worried for word. Hadn’t heard from you in a month, I recall. Said she couldn’t reach you. And then she came a’callin’ to her old friends, the Henrys. Asked us to find you. I searched and searched for the sake of your dear mama. I found you all right.”
Flannery held up a hand. “Shut up.”
“Found you tucked in the Louisville Police Department’s blue book, right smack in their list for touched folks. Cuckoo, cuckoo,” Hollis sang.
“You won’t be singing when they come a’calling for your snub nose. When the law finds out what you did to my sister. Your brother—”
“You’re gonna keep that fat trap of yours shut.” He stabbed a finger at Flannery. “’Cause she came on to me, and I did no more than oblige and did the whore right here, right here in the dirt.” He spit and slammed his fist on his hood. “Had a piece of that right there, peaches. Oh, she cried some, but I gave her a few belts of hooch to heat her up, and she warmed real quick.”
“You sorry, no-good bastard, you raped her. Raped my sister! Sent her and her baby off to die! They put rapists in prison. And we both know you’ll find out what happens to the likes of those in there.”
Hollis’s face darkened with rage, and he turned and kicked at the old gas can somebody had left, spilling out a little, tumbling the container near his car door. “Yessiree, folks.” He raised his hands and called to the wind. “Yessiree, good folks of Glass Ferry, let me tell you, and you, and you, about the whoring Miss Patsy Butler!”
A puff of gasoline fumes licked the air.
“Shut up, you sonofabitch! Liar. You call yourself a lawman—”
Cocking his head sideways, he eyed Flannery. “Oh, wait. Maybe you’d like a little of what she had, some of this lawman. What that ex of yours couldn’t give you. No wonder you went cuckoo.”
“I said shut up.”
“You needing this. Is that it, peaches? All you had to do was ask.” Hollis grabbed her hand and slipped it to his crotch.
Flannery jerked back, slapped him hard across the face.
“Had her begging, I did,” he whispered low, rubbing his red, smarting cheek. “By the time I was through, Patsy girl was asking for more. Praying for it, peaches. Wonder what Mama will say ’bout that?”
Flannery tried to hit him again, but he knocked her arm away and snatched the gun from his holster.
“I swear—” Hollis tucked his teeth over tight lips and shook the weapon at her.
“W-what are you going to do? Haul me to jail? Arrest the woman who just lost her sister? Folks’ll surely talk and ask why. They’ll see who’s crazy then. I’ll sing—” Flannery stopped when she saw a killing take hold in his eyes.
“I swear you and that bitch ain’t gonna take everything I have. Everything I’ve worked for. I’ve paid my dues.”
“You took—”
“You! You think you can smear the Henry name? The bootlegger’s family dirtying my good family’s name. I won’t let you. I won’t let you do that.”
“I . . . I made one more call, to the state police, before I came.” Flannery squeaked out the lie, praying he’d buy it.
Hollis looked down Ebenezer like he believed she had. Flannery struck out and grabbed for the gun, getting a grip on his hand. Hollis whipped an elbow up and caught her chin.
Fury anchored and brought forth a might she didn’t know she had. Flannery’s head snapped, and she lunged at him, clawing at his eyes.
Hollis yowled, and pressed a hand to his face, dropping the gun.
Flannery whipped out the Robin Hood pistol tucked inside her boot and stumbled back. “You . . . you sinful son of a bitch.” She shifted her eyes between him and the gas can. The gun shook a little in her hands. A glint of late summer sunlight bounced off her wristwatch, slashed across Hollis’s eyes. “You’ll not steal another second from me,” she breathed.
“D-drop it,” Hollis said, stooped, cupping his eye, stretching the other arm blindly toward her. “Drop it.”
Pointing the pistol at his head, then at the rusted gas can near Hollis’s feet and back and forth, and then back on the can, and once more to him, she looked down the barrel, cocked the hammer, shifted, and squeezed the trigger. Then came the muzzle flash. The loud crack. She fired once more and heard a clang as if the car had been hit once, maybe both times. Sparks raised from the gas can.
Hollis screamed.
Flannery staggered backwards.
A strange rush of wind lit the air. Charged. The devil stuck his fiery hand up through the hot earth, looking for his sinner.
Flannery scrambled away from the flames that licked out, leapt into the car, onto the grass, exploding, and lighting that time thief on fire.
Hollis turned in tight circles, shrieking.
Flannery screamed too. Then she looked at the outlaw’s gun in her hand and quickly slipped it back down into her boot.
The car hissed and popped, burst from the heat. She pushed back, covered her eyes, and cursed into the snapping flames.
“Here’s your paddle,” she yelled at him for what he’d done and the precious time he’d snatched away from all of them.
Shards of glass and metal shot out of his car. Flames flew, licking, yapping at the ground, hopping in fiery stacks across the grass, pushing Flannery back even more.
Flannery heard crying, weeping, someone else’s, maybe her own? She darted her eyes all around and rested them on the elm. A haze of smoke crawled across the trunk’s rooted feet, turned upright into a wispy cloud, and disappeared.
Hollis whimpered. When she turned to him, he cried out once again. Weaker this time, then rattling out a calf-sick bawl before quieting.
Flannery watched him twitching in the dirt, engulfed in flames, the last cry caught in his chest.
In the distance, hounds yapped, jarring Flannery out of her unbending. She lifted an ear to the barks, and then dared to peek back at Hollis again. Horrified at what she’d done, what she’d allowed to happen, she covered her face, choked out a sob.
Turning her back against his dead-eyed stare, Flannery lit out for home.
CHAPTER 27
Reaching the porch, Flannery bent over to catch her breath. She grabbed the banister for support, the wood slipping in her buttery hands.
The screen door creaked opened, and Mrs. Taylor stepped out. Flannery swallowed her surpri
se and straightened.
“Oh. It’s you, sweet pea. I thought I heard a loud noise out here,” Mrs. Taylor said, then widened her eyes. “What on earth happened? Look at your—”
“I-I’m fine.” Flannery touched her cheek and felt the soreness where Hollis had hit her. “Just stumbled back there a ways.” Flannery made a show to dust herself off, grabbed the banister. “Is Mama okay—”
“Yes, she’s still napping. I’ve had dinner ready for a while and I was just waiting on you.” Mrs. Taylor looked past her, and Flannery followed her gaze to a plume of smoke rising in the distance. “Look. It’s a fire, Flannery,” Mrs. Taylor said, pinning a finger to Ebenezer Road.
“Sorry, the time got away from me. I heard something too, Mrs. Taylor. I, uh, I was in the barn. That’s why I came running,” Flannery lied. “I wonder if one of the farmers is burning something. Maybe someone’s tractor caught on fire or . . .” She tried to think of more excuses to give the old woman.
“That doesn’t look so good. I should call the fire department,” Mrs. Taylor said.
“I better check on Mama.” Flannery hurried past her and into the parlor. Trembling, she stuffed Jesse James’s pistol back into the secretary drawer and then looked in on Mama, who was still sleeping, out cold from her swim.
Flannery pulled a quilt up over her mama, pushed a fallen lock off her cheek. “You rest, Mama; get better. I won’t let anyone hurt us again.” Flannery retreated to her own bedroom.
Digging out her old sky-blue Samsonite suitcase from under the bed, Flannery laid it on the mattress. She flipped open the clasp and scattered the small pile of clothes, locking her fingers around the smooth neck of the fifth of whiskey Honey Bee’d given her long ago.
A swallow would help knock down her fear. Or knock her on her tail. But just one long pull could right her nerves. That’s all she wanted. Just to steady her nerves. So she could right her mind with calm thinking.
Flannery pressed the cool glass to her forehead. From outside came the long, quivering cry of sirens. A few seconds later, another, and another. One, then one more wailing, piggybacking onto the others.
Rolling the bottle over her cheek, she pressed the glass to her hungering mouth, tapped. “Not for the Devil,” she finally whispered, and stuffed it back into the suitcase. She wouldn’t open it, not unless it was her daddy’s birthday, and then only for a nip to toast him and his goodness. Certainly not for the likes of Hollis Henry.
She would never do that again. Wouldn’t disgrace herself and her kin, like Uncle Mary had rightfully accused her of back then. It might start her hankering for bigger things that were locked up in white apothecary cabinets kept in bigger places. Couldn’t risk the long tooth for those pills again, those stronger, newer medicines, those feeling deadeners. Those bigger things that at one time helped bury her drowning aches and despairs. Those tonics and elixirs in locked, sterile hospital wards.
Flannery teared up remembering what she’d just done, all of it, the bullets, the silences when asked—and called for Honey Bee to help her, prayed that she’d given Hollis no more of a paddle than he deserved, and then begged for her sister’s peace. “Patsy, your secrets are safe. You can sleep in peace now.”
She prayed that justice had been met, and that there was nothing more needed telling. Her sister’s and her family’s reputation would remain unsullied, and Hollis’s tale of Danny playing around with a gun would eventually stick. Stick like most tall tales and gossip did in small-town Glass Ferry.
Mrs. Taylor came to her bedroom door and said she’d reheat the dinner and it would be ready shortly, chattering on about the “fire over yonder.” Flannery stood in the middle of her room, waiting for the officials to drop by, to come snooping, and told Mrs. Taylor she’d be down shortly. When minutes rolled past and still not a one had called, she started breathing tiny sighs of relief.
Mrs. Taylor served up chicken and dumplings, cornbread, and mustard greens. Mama ate hearty, and Mrs. Taylor said she was relieved to see the color bloom in Jean Butler’s cheeks.
Flannery picked at her food, tried to eat, but couldn’t stop thinking of how she’d robbed Hollis of his last meal, couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.
Mrs. Taylor and Mama chatted about old times, and soon Mama smiled.
Flannery washed the supper dishes, while Mrs. Taylor visited with Mama on the porch.
Myrtle Taylor left just before a storm blew in. It rained hard, coming down in sheets that pelted the panes, whipped at the old two-story, dropped dead branches onto both the roof and Flannery’s spirit. She checked on Mama several times, wearing out the floorboards in front of her window, jumping at the slightest sounds.
Parting the curtain, she looked out. Again and again. When the rain settled into a mist, Flannery seized hold of a thimble of hope and magpied it away. The rain was a good thing, she surmised; surely it would hide any footprints left on Ebenezer. Hide what the fire hadn’t—and maybe erase her deed completely.
Holding that hope, Flannery fell into bed, tossing and turning most of the night until she climbed back out at four in the morning.
Flannery dug in the drawer for Patsy’s pearls, then packed the family heirloom back inside, damning the night she’d found them and all the lies and souls she was stacking up because of them. For God’s sake. What have I done? I only meant to scare Hollis. She spilled bitterly into her pillow until spent; her head ached, and a fitful sleep took hold again.
In the morning, Flannery served Mama breakfast, keeping their conversation away from their worries. She chatted with Mama about the weather and other meaningless things that wouldn’t beg for more, and Mama stuck with it, the meds sedating her old nerves and then sending her off to nap.
Flannery cleaned up the kitchen, made iced tea, and whipped together ham salad for dinner. Turning on the radio, she kept one ear cocked on it, the other bent to the drive for unexpected visitors.
She rested at the counter with a glass of iced tea. The radio announcer interrupted a Marvin Gaye song. “It has been confirmed that Sheriff Hollis Henry of Glass Ferry died last night on the way to County Hospital, Deputy Miles of Glass Ferry’s Sheriff’s Department said. The sheriff died of injuries sustained in an accident.”
Flannery’s hands shook, and she set down the glass, pressed a hand over her mouth.
The announcer went on. “Apparently the Glass Ferry sheriff was removing an old gas can, and it blew up due to an unexplained cause, fatally injuring the thirty-nine-year-old father of three, husband to Mrs. Louise Crawford Henry.... Deputy Miles said that the department does its best to control litter, picking up everything from old ammunition, lighters, and all kinds of trash kids leave behind. Sheriff Henry was particular about keeping vandals off Ebenezer Road, but the department had seen an increase in offenses now that school was out.... The department will now permanently close off the old gravel road with a bull gate that neighboring farmer, Rusty Parsons, offered to have erected.”
A puff of static lit the airways.
Flannery leaned into the counter and turned up the dial. “. . . Deputy said many times the good sheriff took it upon himself to pick up the trash.... Funeral arrangements are being made by . . .”
Flannery sank down onto the kitchen chair. She wasn’t happy or proud that Hollis was gone by her doing, but a deep gratefulness slumped her anxious shoulders.
Mama came into the kitchen. She peered at Flannery’s face. “What is it, baby girl?”
“Oh, Mama, more bad news.”
The house creaked, gasped like it couldn’t take anymore, couldn’t choke down one more sorrow.
“Flannery Bee?”
Flannery wiped the reprieve from her damp eyes. “It seems Sheriff Henry had an accident. A horrible accident.”
CHAPTER 28
Flannery and Mama made arrangements to bury Patsy in their family cemetery. But old man Mr. Henry had other thoughts and came out to the Butlers to share them with the women.
The former sheriff su
ggested the three—Patsy, Danny, and Hollis—share funeral services, even be buried beside one another out at the old Catholic cemetery. “It will quell rumors and unite the community,” he said, taking off his cap, scratching his bald head. “And it sure is a pretty marble orchard for our young ones too.”
“What are you talking about, Jack?” Mama asked him when he dropped into the empty porch rocker beside her.
“Well”—the old man shifted in his seat, pulled his lanky frame toward her—“I’m talking ’bout folks thinking bad things here.”
Flannery stepped out onto the porch. “What bad things?” she couldn’t help but ask, alarm prickling her flesh.
“Killings,” Mr. Henry said, shifting his eyes. “Folks are saying Hollis was so distraught about his dear brother, he took his own life out there. That maybe Patsy shot Danny. We don’t know—”
Mama clutched her chest.
“Now see here, Mr. Henry,” Flannery said. “I know. My sister wouldn’t stomp a blade of grass, and Danny likely did his own self in just like Hollis said he did.”
“She wouldn’t,” Mama echoed.
Mr. Henry held up a hand. “Folks is speculating; that’s all, Jean. Running their flaps. So I thought burying the kids together would bring us all together. Keep us together. Keep folks from gossiping.”
“Gossiping?” The word wormed itself into Mama’s brow. “Jack, Saint Luke’s closed decades ago when it burned down.” Mama bunched up her forehead tighter.
“Not the church’s cemetery though, Jean. And it has plenty of space,” Mr. Henry said. “Fine headstones. We’ll do a grand one for Hollis, Danny, and your girl, too. My Hollis never let a day pass that he didn’t look for those two or worry for their whereabouts. He devoted his days to finding them, raising money for the school prom they’d missed, honoring them. Good son, good brother. We give them a proper burial in Saint Luke’s, we’ll give them poor souls a good Catholic anchor, the one and true, for eternal rest.”
The Sisters of Glass Ferry Page 21
