The Steep and Thorny Way

by Cat Winters

  My mother relaxed her shoulders when she saw me coming her way, but her face looked paler than usual.

  “I heard a gunshot,” she said.

  I shrugged. “It was probably just Laurence, shooting squirrels again.”

  “Where were you? I thought you said you were going to pick raspberries for our Sunday dinner.”

  “I remembered something I forgot to tell Fleur at church this morning.” I picked up the wicker basket I was supposed to be using for berrying. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  She put her hands on her hips and scowled at the woods. Loose strands of honey-blond hair fluttered around her eyes, which she narrowed into slits. “I don’t want you going over there if Laurence is shooting his father’s guns again,” she said. “I don’t know why his mother allows him to do that.”

  “It’s his way of grieving for his father.”

  “That war killed Mr. Paulissen five years ago.”

  “Sometimes it takes a while to recover from a father’s death, Mama.”

  She swallowed and averted her gaze, her lips squeezed together. People told me that she and I had the same mouth, especially when we looked as vexed as she did at that moment. “A white girl’s lips,” the older ladies in church would say when sizing me up like a county-fair squash, debating the degree of my whiteness. I’d also inherited my mother’s hazel eyes and long, slender neck, but my nose, my brown curls, and the shape of my eyes “derived from that Negro father,” the ladies often added in their bored-old-biddy evaluations. My skin—a medium shade of golden brown—was a few shades lighter than my father’s had been, but it caused all my troubles.

  “Did you hear that the prison let Joe Adder out early?” I asked Mama.

  “Yes.” She fussed with a lock of hair that had fallen out of its pin and coiled down the nape of her neck. “I overheard all the whispered rumors at church.”

  “His parents won’t let him live with them anymore.”

  “I heard that, too. I understand they’re ashamed of what he did, but I hope to God they can learn to forgive him.”

  “Forgive him?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes met mine. “That accident that killed your father was just a stupid mistake made by an intoxicated sixteen-year-old boy. He served seventeen months in the state penitentiary. That’s a lot for a person that young.”

  “But—”

  “You’ve got to learn to forgive Joe, too, Hanalee. Otherwise, that hatred will eat you up.”

  I dug my teeth into my lower lip. “Does Uncle Clyde know he’s out?”

  “I don’t know.” She tightened her apron strings behind her back. “He’s been at the Everses’ house since church, checking on the children’s measles. Mrs. Evers planned to serve him a little lunch to thank him.”

  “Hmm.” I tapped the basket against the side of my right leg where the holster had so recently hung. Joe’s tale snaked around inside my brain, unsettling regions of my mind already perturbed, churning up a hundred different questions. I pressed a hand to my stomach to curb a queasy feeling.

  “What’s the matter?” Mama cocked her head. “Are you worried about seeing Joe?”

  “No.” I hooked the handle of the basket in the crook of my arm. “He’s the one who should be terrified of seeing me.”

  Mama tensed. “Go pick those raspberries for me.” She nodded toward the bushes. “Go on. I need to prepare dinner.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I sauntered away.

  “And watch that harsh tone of yours,” she added. “It’s not like you.”

  I sighed and wandered to the rows of ripe red berries on the eastern side of the twenty acres of farmland Mama had inherited from her father. Over my shoulder, I saw Mama heading to the back door of our yellow farmhouse with her hands on her hips—her tired walk, her Don’t bother me anymore, Hanalee walk. My ears still rang from shooting the bullet next to Joe Adder’s skull, and I wondered if I’d been talking louder than usual over the commotion in my head. I wondered if Mama suspected that the gunshot had something to do with me.

  IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, MY MOTHER AND STEPFATHER took their seats at opposite ends of our dining room table, across Uncle Clyde’s late mother’s tablecloth, which was embroidered in cobalt-blue tulips. I sat down between the two of them without a word or a smile. The spices in my stepfather’s shaving soap clogged up my sinuses so badly, I had to squeeze the bridge of my nose to keep my head from erupting. Joe’s tale of murder was also boring a hole through my brain. The sickening combination made the food look and smell unpalatable.

  Uncle Clyde, a six-foot-tall white man with trim brown hair and Dutch-blue eyes, spread his napkin across his lap and licked his pale pink lips. He wasn’t an actual blood uncle, just an old family friend I’d called “uncle” all my life.

  “The ham smells delicious, Greta,” he said.

  “Thank you, darling.” Mama smiled and waited for him to take his first bite before lifting a forkful of potatoes to her mouth.

  I just sat there without touching my silverware, facing the dining room window and the stretch of woods that hid Joe deep within. The curtains billowed on a hot July breeze that dried out the skin on the backs of my fingers and elbows. The dreamlike dance of the lace—the shimmying of fabric possessed by an unseen force—turned my thoughts toward all those disquieting rumors of my father’s spirit wandering the main highway late at night.

  “Did you hear the news, Uncle Clyde?” I asked, still massaging the bridge of my nose.

  My stepfather regarded me through the wide lenses of his spectacles, those large blue eyes of his betraying nothing but curiosity. “What news might that be?”

  My mother shook her head. “No, Hanalee. Let’s not discuss that subject at the dinner table.”

  “The state pen let Joe Adder out early on good behavior,” I said.

  Uncle Clyde switched his attention to his plate and used his fork to poke at a fatty piece of ham—a morsel shaped like the state of California, with brown sugar encrusted on the ends.

  I sat up straight and dropped my hands to my lap. “Did you hear what I—?”

  “I heard the rumors this morning,” he said in his calm, physician’s voice that used to assure me he could mend anybody’s woes and take care of everyone’s troubles, including mine.

  “What do you think of his release?” I asked.

  “Hanalee,” said Mama. “What does it matter? Joe’s out, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I worry a little bit about—” Uncle Clyde stopped himself from speaking by slipping the fatty sliver into his mouth. He chewed like a gentleman—lips closed, jaw moving up and down with delicate little movements, not a tooth or a crumb exposed—and his clean-shaven tidiness and upper-middle-class politeness irked me no end that afternoon. I wanted to shake him by the lapels of his gray coat and scream at him to tell me whether Joe had lied to me.

  “What do you worry about?” I asked, my stomach tightening.

  He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “I don’t mean to offend either of you by saying this, but I have to wonder how Joe is doing—physically. I’d like to be able to examine him. Prison isn’t known for its hygiene or freedom from diseases.” He spread the ivory cloth back across his lap. “Do you know where he’s staying, Hanalee?”

  My heart stopped. “Why would I know that?”

  “I just wondered, since you brought him up.”

  Mama took a sip of water without a sound.

  “He might be armed,” I said, just to see how Uncle Clyde would react.

  He gave a start, and I’d swear, his pupils swelled.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “He’s a jailbird. A wayward youth prone to drinking and recklessness in this noble age of Prohibition.” I kept an eye on his every blink and facial twitch. “It just seems like he might be armed. And angry.”

  Uncle Clyde shifted in his seat and made something pop in his back. “Well . . . let’s”—he downed a gulp of wat
er, then dabbed at his face again—“let’s end the subject of Joe Adder for the rest of the meal, if you don’t mind. I’d like to enjoy this delicious ham.”

  I did mind, but I kept my mouth shut.

  AROUND SEVEN O’CLOCK THAT SAME EVENING, WITH Mama and Uncle Clyde’s somewhat hesitant permission, I packed the old brown canvas valise Mama had purchased when she worked as a telephone operator in downtown Portland and Daddy served food at the swanky Portland Hotel. My father had lived near the hotel with other Negroes, and my mother resided in a Salmon Street boardinghouse for young, unmarried white women. They met while crossing paths to their respective places of employment, even though everyone around them told them that the paths of a black man and a white woman should never, ever cross.

  With the valise swinging by my side and my feet squelching inside my damp Keds, which I’d fetched from the edge of the woods after dinner, I walked up the highway to Fleur’s house. I puckered my lips and whistled “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goo’Bye” in a desperate attempt to forget Uncle Clyde’s squirmy dinnertime behavior. The sun wouldn’t set until close to ten o’clock, but I opted not to travel by forest trail.

  Up ahead, Mildred Marks, a girl my age—just turned sixteen—with thick red hair shoved beneath a gray fedora, pedaled toward me on a squeaky green bicycle. She rode at such a snail’s pace, I could have ducked into the trees to avoid her if I had wanted to. She and her eight younger siblings, along with their widowed mama, lived in a farmhouse less than a mile west of mine. They were known for pumping out large batches of moonshine and reaping quite a profit, while the sheriff looked the other way.

  “Hanalee! I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day,” called Mildred, bicycling closer, her vehicle chirping and groaning with each labored pedal. “How serendipitous that I decided to take a ride this evening.” Mildred used words like serendipitous to show off the brain sitting inside that big old head of hers, even though she’d had to quit school after the seventh grade to help her mama.

  I clutched the handle of my valise. “Hello, Mildred.”

  She slowed to a stop and planted the soles of her brown boots on the road. “I saw your father in our house last night.”

  My stomach dropped. I nearly bent over and threw up on the road, right in front of her.

  “He walked through the front door,” she continued, her pale brown eyes expanding, “and just stared at me, as clearly as I’m looking at you.”

  “You . . .” I swallowed down a foul taste that reminded me of coffee grounds. “You must be talking about my stepfather, Dr. Koning.”

  “I’m talking about your real father—Hank Denney.” She leaned her freckled face forward. “He seemed confused and upset, as if he were trying to reach you but couldn’t find his way. I saw urgency in those big dark eyes of his.”

  I shrank back, my skin cold.

  She rolled her bicycle closer, crunching stones beneath her wheels. “I think he’s trying to find you. I’ve seen his spirit roaming the road before, but I—”

  “No, you haven’t seen my father.” I inched backward. “It’s bad enough I hear little kids telling ghost tales about him, but a girl my own age . . .”

  “He wouldn’t speak to me, but if he’s got something on his mind, I’m sure he’d say it to his own child, especially if she was equipped with a tonic that would allow for spirit communication.”

  “I need to go.” I turned and continued up the road.

  “‘Necromancer’s Nectar’ is what we call the concoction. Our patented elixir would allow you to talk to him this very night.”

  “‘Screwy Ladies’ Moonshine’ is more like it.” I trekked onward, toward Fleur’s. “I’m not buying any of your whiskey water and giving Sheriff Rink another reason to ask me what I’m up to. It’s bad enough I tried your disgusting hair-straightening tonic that turned my curls carrot-orange.”

  “I wouldn’t even charge you for the elixir. You can have it for free.”

  I stopped and swung my face toward her.

  Mildred never offered anything for free.

  “If you don’t speak with him,” she said, “he’ll just keep searching for you, every single night. I wonder if . . .” She closed her mouth and squeezed her fingers around the bicycle’s black handle grips.

  “Go on,” I said. “What do you wonder?”

  “If his frantic state . . . has anything to do with . . .” She averted her eyes from mine. “With . . . J-J-Joe. Joe Adder.”

  I stared at her and tried not to appear fazed, but gooseflesh rose across my arms. “My father isn’t a ghost, Mildred. Please don’t ever make such a claim again.” I turned and broke into a trot.

  “If I see him again, Hanalee,” she called after me, “I’m coming to your house and forcing that elixir upon you. I’d normally charge three dollars for it, but I don’t want him haunting me.”

  “Good-bye, Mildred.”

  “Hanalee . . .”

  “Good-bye!”

  In the distance behind me, Mildred’s bicycle slowly squeaked away.

  Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

  POLICE OFFICER WITH WRECKED CAR AND CASES OF ILLEGAL LIQUOR, 1922.

  CHAPTER 3

  DESPERATE WITH IMAGINATION

  MR. PAULISSEN’S FORD TRUCK SAT IN the gravel drive in front of Fleur’s house, a pretty white structure with forest-green shutters and geraniums blasting bright red fireworks of color from boxes in front of each window. Laurence Paulissen—almost eighteen years old, close to two years older than his sister and I—stood next to the hood of the truck, raking his hand through his short blond hair. He nudged the toe of his shoe against a front tire and spat as though he hadn’t noticed a female wandering into his company. Behind him, the Witten twins, Robbie and Gil, took off their coats and slung them over the slats of the truck’s wooden siding.

  I walked through the shade of an apple tree that Fleur, Laurence, and I used to call “Jack’s beanstalk” when we climbed into its branches as little kids. I slowed my pace the closer I got to the boys, for I didn’t completely trust those twins, with their slick, tawny hair, their teasing green eyes, and the comfortable way they chatted with me, as though we were old chums who’d shared years of laughs, even though we hadn’t. Their faces were identical, with broad foreheads and square chins—a really rugged sort of appearance. Their father had come to Elston to fill our pharmacist vacancy in 1921, and they dressed a little nicer than the rest of us.

  “Hanalee!” said Robbie, the louder of the twins, with a clap of his hands. He removed his cap and swaggered my way with a grin that stretched to his ears. “I see you have a bag all packed, darling. Are we eloping tonight?”

  His brother, Gil, brayed a laugh that made his chewing gum fall out of his mouth and splat against his left shoe. Laurence frowned and turned his attention back to the truck’s tires, testing out a back one with a solid kick of his foot.

  I stepped past Robbie, smelling cigarette smoke from his clothing. “I’m just here to visit Fleur.”

  “Here”—Robbie grabbed the valise from my hands—“I’ll carry that for you.”

  “All right. Thank you.” I proceeded up to the porch with Robbie close to my side.

  At the top of the steps, he shot me a sidelong glance and said, “You seem tense tonight, Hanalee. What’s wrong?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, we need to get going, Robbie,” said Laurence. He bent down in front of the truck’s grille and turned the starter crank. The congested old vehicle coughed and shuddered to life, and Laurence circled around to the driver’s side of the cab. “Quit chatting with Hanalee.”

  “Quit flirting with her is more like it,” said Gil with a laugh that carried a bite, and he climbed over the back slats of the rumbling truck.

  Robbie set my bag on the steps by my feet. “Is it Joe’s return that’s bothering you?”

  I picked up the valise without answering.
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  “Joe Adder’s not right in the head, Hanalee.” Robbie leaned his left hand against the wall beside the Paulissens’ screen door, above the brass doorbell. “He’s dangerous.”

  “H-h-how . . .” I swallowed. “How do you mean, ‘not right in the head’?”

  “He’s immoral. Depraved. Disgusting.” Robbie sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “If you see him, telephone Sheriff Rink immediately.”

  “Come on, Robbie,” called Laurence from behind the steering wheel. “You’re gonna make us late.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Robbie fitted his cap back over his hair and galloped down the steps. “Just protecting our womenfolk, unlike you two useless boobs.”

  “She’s not our womenfolk,” said Laurence, the boy who used to race me into the woods on hot summer days—the first boy I’d ever kissed. With his face tipped toward the steering wheel, Laurence peeked up at me from the tops of his sky-blue eyes, and, without a trace of feeling in his voice, he added, “It’s just Hanalee. You know what I mean.”

  I shifted my bag to my other hand and lifted my chin, as though his words hadn’t hurled a dagger into my chest.

  Robbie climbed into the passenger side. Laurence broke his gaze from mine and backed the truck down the driveway. In the truck bed behind them, Gil gripped the wooden slats and whooped with the cry of a coyote embarking upon a hunt.

  I swung open the screen door and ducked inside the Paulissens’ front room, a modest-size space filled with doilies and potted plants and butterscotch-colored furniture. The house always smelled like cinnamon and Christmas, no matter the time of year, and it immediately made me feel better.

  “Fleur?” I called across the empty room.

  From the kitchen, in the back of the house, came muffled adult voices and laughter. To my right, a clock made of blue and white delft ticked away the seconds on the mantel above the brick fireplace.

  “Are you here, Fleur?” I asked, strengthening my grip on the suitcase.