The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

  Chappy comes by to see how they’re doing, and to give Willow-May a break from Mama’s worst conclusions, Jubilee grabs a couple of mason jars and suggests the three of them go catch fireflies. In the twilight, they wander to the bottom of the field, where the gathering clouds are thick and low, and the air smells of rain. Color has faded from everything except Willow-May, who is so pretty in her cornflower blue print dress and red skull cap. Her sister is waving her jar in the air, wading deeper into the tall grass.

  “That’s far enough,” Jubilee calls out to her.

  “But I don’t see any.”

  The damp breeze that’s been darting around their ankles suddenly springs up into the trees, startling the leaves, and just like that, Jubilee knows something’s wrong. The sound of a sharp whistle blown between two fingers confirms it, that found-them whistle. She swings in the direction of the sound and sees two men charging out of the thicket. She tears through the grass toward Willow-May, yelling for her to come, and neither of them seems to move any closer to each other, neither of them nearly as fast as Ronny and Faro chasing them.

  “Run, Willow-May! Chappy!”

  She almost reaches her little sister when someone barrels into her from behind. Willow-May screams and Jubilee lifts her head off the ground in time to see Faro scoop up her sister and head for the dark woods. Ronny yanks Jubilee up by the arm, shouting at her to get up, and she stumbles to her feet and kicks at him, though it does little good.

  “Chappy! Chappy!” she screams as Ronny drags her into the woods. She keeps yelling for Chappy, and Willow-May keeps yelling for her, and as soon as they make it to the trees, Ronny lets go of her arm, and she takes this as a good sign until he raises the barrel of his rifle and aims it at the field where Chappy is speeding after them, siren blaring.

  “No!” She knocks the barrel as Ronny lets off another shot, the explosion about bursting her ears.

  “Go for help, Chappy!” she cries.

  “And they said blue coons was hard to hunt,” Faro mocks.

  Dragging her deeper into the woods, Ronny tells her to quit bucking. Faro is just ahead with Willow-May in his arms and she’s screaming something terrible, trying to wriggle free. She knocks off the miner’s hat he’s wearing. He struggles to keep his hold on her while trying to put it back on, and bends her arm the wrong way, making her yelp.

  “You’re hurting her! Let her go!” Jubilee screams, wrestling and thrashing against Ronny. She remembers the birdcall, raises it to her lips, and blows as hard as she can, but Ronny rips it from her neck and throws it aside.

  Willow-May keeps fighting Faro, who looks as though he’s about to drop her sister on her head. His face is a mad mix of malice and glee.

  “Let her go!” Jubilee shouts. “She’s done nothing to you!”

  Ronny yells for Faro to keep up, but they fall even farther behind.

  “She’s biting me!” Faro squeals, and Ronny gives the order to cut her loose.

  “Run, Willow-May!” Jubilee says, but instead of fleeing to safety, her little sister runs toward her. “No, go home!”

  “Juby!”

  Ronny aims the rifle at her, ordering her to clear out, and Jubilee springs at him and shouts for Willow-May to go home. After she takes off, there’s just a widening silence. When Willow-May gets back, either Mama will have to pursue them or she’ll have to go find Pa, but either way it’ll be too late.

  They run her through the woods. When she makes her legs go heavy, they drag her through the trees and slide her down a steep, gravel bank. There’s no stopping or slowing them, so she quits resisting. Better they get it over with. She runs loosely alongside them as though she were a mule tethered to a galloping horse, and they run until the men tire, then they walk, Faro with his miner’s hat lamp assuming the lead.

  They walk a good deal farther, until they get to a clearing. Faro’s lamp lights a rock overhang and several tarps covering the entrance of what must be a shallow cave. She catches a glimpse of raccoon tails nailed to a wooden post at the entrance. The beam from Faro’s headlamp swerves to a nearby tree, and he says, “You hung yourself yet, Blue?”

  Levi is bound by his wrists and tied to a branch above his head.

  “Levi!”

  Her brother won’t look at her.

  Faro gets right up in Levi’s face. “Think you can wipe yourself clean on one of our kind and get away with it?”

  Levi seems to stare right through him.

  As a soft mist settles on them, Faro shines the light so Ronny can tie Jubilee’s wrists together with a rope. The way he sizes her up makes her feel like a rickety old bridge, one not up to bearing the weight of what he has in mind, but Mama always says to stand up tall and proud, so she does her best to keep her knees from giving way.

  “We’ve given your brother a chance to account for his filthy ways, but he won’t, so we thought we’d bring him something to persuade him,” Ronny says.

  Faro jabs Levi with a stick, and Levi tries kicking him, but loses his balance.

  “You’re the ones who are filthy!”

  Ronny lines up his face with Levi’s. “Own to what you did to Sarah, and you can pay a lighter penalty, or be stubborn about it and bring more grief on yourself and your sister.”

  “Tell them what they want to hear,” she begs Levi.

  Instead, her brother spits at Ronny. “I won’t say what isn’t true.”

  Ronny’s mouth turns crooked. “You made Sarah a whore, say it!”

  “And you wanted to plant a blue devil in her!” adds Faro.

  Jubilee appeals to her brother, “Please, Levi, just say it.”

  “Listen to this, a blue coon making sense.”

  Levi sneers at Ronny. “You hate blue so much, you ought to hate half your own self.”

  “Levi, hush!” Jubilee starts bargaining with Ronny. “Let us go, and we’ll never bother anyone again. You won’t ever see us again.”

  But Levi blurts out, “You haven’t figured out yet that Urnamy Gault’s not your daddy?”

  Even the crickets grow quiet. “Did he just call your mama a whore?” Faro asks.

  “Eddie’s not blue, but he’s kin to blue.” Levi goes on despite Jubilee’s rebuke. “So that makes you, Ronny Gault, a—”

  “You’re lying!” Ronny lunges at Levi, who strikes back with bunched hands and chops bitter air instead.

  It takes this long for Faro to cotton on. “Wait, so is he saying Eddie Price is your real pa?”

  While Ronny is shouting that all Blues do is lie, Levi challenges him, “Don’t take my word for it. Go ask your mama.”

  Ronny kicks him, and he spins and stumbles and half-hangs himself in the process, and then Ronny gives the order for the rope to be let loose from the tree. The two tackle Levi. Like some other person has risen up out of the ground and is doing the yelling is how Jubilee screams for help.

  After they’ve bloodied Levi and bound his ankles, they come for her.

  “Leave her!” Levi groans, trying to free himself.

  Angels turn away, ghosts head back to their graves.

  Her clothes are peeled off and cast away from her like skin, while Levi keeps offering himself like some lamb. “Take it out on me, you cowards! Finish what you started!” What he does not say, though, is one word about Sarah.

  The darkness becomes a rag mopping up Jubilee’s cries.

  They do not force themselves on her. Instead, they yank her by her hair and lead her to the tree where Levi swings madly at Ronny again and punches her by mistake. Her jaw splits in pain and she falls to her knees. She puts out both hands to settle the ground but it goes on wobbling like an overturned plate.

  When she comes to, it’s hard to focus on anything but this terrible pain, like her head’s caught in a trapper’s snare, and to ease the throbbing, she tries lifting her hand to her forehead, only to find it’s been bound to something.

  “They’re disgusting,” Faro says.

  “Worse than hogs,” agrees Ronny.


  “Guess they can’t fight their own nature.”

  “You lie here and think about what you’ve started.” Ronny walks into the darkness. Faro’s miner’s lamp flickers and then blinks off.

  She cannot cover herself or move without dragging the weight of a tree.

  “We’ve got to get to my pants. My knife’s in the pocket.” Levi is somewhere close, so close, and she tries freeing her arms to turn and locate him, and she feels his hot breath on her shoulder. It’s not the tree she’s trying to rid herself of, but him. They have been tied together like mating dogs.

  Levi tries lifting one of his legs, then an arm. “Come on, move with me.” He tries propelling them both forward. They struggle and shift their bodies, and fall one way and then another, and move one inch farther away from their target twenty feet ahead.

  “Pretend you’re someplace else,” he says eventually, and they lie as still as shelves of wood.

  It’s drizzling now. “Why didn’t you just tell him what he wanted to hear?”

  “I won’t own to what I didn’t do and I won’t tar Sarah’s reputation.”

  Why can’t he see this isn’t just about Sarah anymore? “If Ronny finds out who his real pa is, you think he’s going to be nicer to us?”

  “It can’t make things any worse.”

  “He’s got his mama’s honor to defend now, don’t you see?”

  “Don’t cry, Juby; I’m going to fix this.”

  It starts to pour.

  HAVENS

  Buford, Wrightley and his sons, Chappy and a few of his relatives, and Havens constitute the search party, and if paltry numbers aren’t bad enough, they have to contend with the avalanche of darkness with nothing but frayed lamplight. Two hours into their search it starts to rain, and the downpour forces them to seek shelter till dawn. Havens can’t bear to think of Jubilee out in this weather, and as each hour passes, it becomes harder to hold to the hope that she is somewhere dry and in the custody of her brother.

  At first light, Havens pairs up again with Chappy, who does not slow down except when Havens stumbles or lags, both of which occur with frustrating regularity. The ground has turned to slop and the wind has a bite to it, but the rain is a manageable drizzle.

  “Juby!” Chappy calls, over and over.

  Havens cups his hands around his mouth and cries out in all directions, “Jubilee!”

  What they hear in return is the patter of rain. On they trudge, alternating their calls into the mute forest, Havens trusting that Chappy knows enough not to get them lost.

  “Hear that?” Chappy points to an area of the woods below them.

  “Jubilee?” They slide down an embankment and race between spindly blackened trees in the direction of a faint cry, and come upon what looks like a hobo’s camp. Havens has to command himself not to show his distress at the sight of Jubilee and Levi. He and Chappy tear off their jackets and throw them over the naked pair, the cold having turned them a deep shade of steel blue. Havens drops to his knees in front of Jubilee and pushes her hair out of her face.

  “It’s all right. It’s all right, Jubilee,” he reassures her, though nothing could be further from the truth.

  Chappy unties Levi while Havens frees Jubilee with fumbling fingers. He notices that the rope tying her waist to her ankles has left deep grooves in her skin. A metallic taste builds up in his mouth, the taste for revenge. He sits her up. Her lips are ink-colored, and beneath her eyes are dark purple shadows. From head to toe, she is nothing but a bruise. She does not answer when he asks whether she is hurt or whether she can walk or if there were others besides Ronny and Faro. He scours his mind for something to say that will at least make her look at him, but all he can think of is what he doesn’t know to be entirely true: “You’re safe now.”

  Levi unties the knots at his feet, leaving Chappy to wring his hands, and rock back and forth. When he starts making his siren noise, Levi snaps at him to be quiet. “They could be on their way back!”

  Havens hands Jubilee her muddy dress, careful to keep his eyes averted, and then guides her cold wet arms into his jacket. Terrible images come to his mind. He tries to dispel them so as not to be overcome, so he can be of some use to her. Never before has he felt capable of killing someone.

  Having struggled into his pants and yanked on his boots, Levi staggers toward the trees.

  “Where are you going?” Jubilee begs with a hoarse voice. “Levi!”

  It pains Havens to think how she must have screamed for help. He tries to steady her, cupping her elbow, but she flinches and pulls away.

  “Leave me and go stop my brother.”

  Near crippled from the pain in his foot, Havens follows after Levi only to recognize the futility a minute later. He returns to Jubilee. “Let’s get you home.”

  “Go after him, please.”

  “He’s gone.”

  Havens retrieves the hubcap from the mud, wipes it as best he can, and returns it to Chappy, who no longer seems to know what to do with it. Havens circles his arm around Jubilee’s shoulders. “It’s over now.”

  Shuddering against him, she joins hands with Chappy, saying, “No, it’s not over.”

  The first house they come to is Socall’s and the woman flings open the door and crushes Jubilee in a fierce embrace. Though he’s tired and in shock, Chappy sets off to the Bufords to take word of Jubilee’s safety.

  “Levi’s gone and stirred up a hornet’s nest with the issue of Ronny’s siring,” Jubilee tells Socall.

  “Oh lord.”

  “And now he’s taken off somewhere. We must find him and bring him back home.”

  “He’s likely gone to check on Sarah. I’ll take you home, then ride down to the Tuttles’,” says Socall.

  “He might have gone to look for her at the Granger place.”

  Socall assures Jubilee she’ll stop by there, too. “Don’t you worry now; Levi knows to keep his head down.”

  Havens nods his agreement, even though the look on Levi’s face as he took off into the woods suggested quite the opposite, and if Levi’s state of mind in any way resembles Havens’, personal safety is the last of his concerns.

  Socall steers Jubilee to the bedroom to change and Havens collapses in the nearest chair, easing off his shoes and unwinding the bandage. He tugs off two blackened toenails. As soon as Socall returns, he relays what little he knows, and she stares out the window at the brooding sky clearing in places. “Gladden filled me in about the business with the photographs.” He waits for her to yell at him, but instead she offers him a drink, says, “I’m not saying there’s pardoning what you’ve done, but most everyone I know fails to see past her color. You know how special she is.”

  “I should’ve put a stop to it sooner.”

  They turn when they hear the bedroom door squeak. Standing in the doorway wearing a dress several sizes too big for her, her hair making a wet patch on her shoulder, Jubilee looks like a patient not quite recovered from a life-saving surgery. Her slight and brave attempt at a smile can only be for their benefit.

  “Stand here by the stove, get yourself warmed up, and then we’ll head off,” Socall instructs. She hands Jubilee a drink and rubs her back. “They’re going to pay for what they’ve done.”

  Jubilee’s chin trembles, but she does not cry. “They didn’t—they didn’t touch me in that way.”

  Havens can’t hide his relief.

  Slowly her skin fades from navy to a soft gray-blue. As chaste as a morning sky, she turns to Havens. “Were you able to stop Mr. Massey?”

  Havens’s tongue is a thick piece of rubber. He shakes his head. “But I don’t want you to worry about the picture anymore because I’ve come up with a solution.”

  “What’s that?” Socall asks.

  “I’m going to tell everyone it’s a hoax.”

  “Who’s going to believe that when your friend has proof that it isn’t?” Socall contests.

  “They won’t believe the picture is true because I have m
y own proof.” For the first time, Havens is about to speak the truth about Orphan Boy. “Proof of another hoax.” He explains how a ploy that was meant to keep him from losing his job resulted in an image that struck a nerve with the public and, much to his surprise and dismay, became a symbol for all the hardships the nation had suffered. As one critic stated, in no other picture was the despair of the times more starkly portrayed.

  “I offered the boy’s mother twelve dollars, and staged the whole thing.” What he has kept secret he now tells in full, one despicable detail after another—how the boy’s mother didn’t understand at first what Havens wanted, that she’d brought her boy out to the alley behind the tenement building in clean clothes, polished shoes, and combed hair, with his school reader tucked under his arm. To convince the mother to have the boy wear his scruffiest clothes and to go barefoot, Havens made up a story about it being a costume of sorts, that the portrait was a kind of audition. Oliver Twist, he said, and how eager the boy was to get the part, rubbing dirt on his face and arms, mussing his hair, putting on his saddest face. Havens posed him sitting with his back against a chain-link fence, and handed him a prop, an opened can of beans. Scoop some out with your fingers, Havens instructed. He hadn’t planned on the dog. That bony stray that came begging was pure luck, and as the boy fed it the beans Havens pressed the shutter. That was the shot.

  “The boy’s mother wouldn’t take the money in the end. She said if I could just take one picture of her little boy in his clean clothes and give it to her, that was payment enough. I told her I’d be back the next day to deliver it, but of course I didn’t go back. I still have the picture, and that is my proof.” He’ll also provide the boy’s address so the press can verify his statement with the mother.