The Steep and Thorny Way

by Cat Winters

  “It’s not really funny, is it?” she asked, still tittering. She leaned her head against my shoulder, and we both sighed at the same time, breathing the same air. “It’s awfully unsettling.”

  I rested my head against hers and closed my eyes, absorbing the warmth of her body through the dampness of my hair. “It is unsettling. And it makes me want to get the two of us out of this place as soon as I can.”

  CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WASHINGTON COUNTY, OREGON, CIRCA 1890s–1900s.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE MOUSETRAP

  FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, THROUGHOUT all my dusting and mending and other household chores, I contemplated the loss of Laurence in my life. I wondered if Uncle Clyde was to blame for that particular heartache as well.

  Looking back over the past two years, I could see all the influences that might have turned Fleur’s brother against me. The arrival of Robbie and Gil Witten in Elston. Daddy’s death. Dr. Koning’s appearance on our doorstep to check on my grieving mother, day after day after day. Somehow, all those incidents could have interconnected. Little strings that, once pulled, unraveled the world around them.

  1921.

  The year the KKK arrived in Oregon.

  The summer Laurence wrapped his arms around me and taught me how to shoot that derringer.

  The Christmas Eve Joe crashed the Model T into Daddy and witnessed Uncle Clyde take control of my father’s fate.

  The last time Laurence spoke to me with compassion.

  Robbie. Gil. Clyde Koning. They must have banded together and persuaded Laurence that he needed to change his views—stuffed his mind full of prejudices against me.

  Conformity.

  Laurence quit our fairy tales and kissing games around the time he turned ten or eleven. He said he preferred playing ball games with other boys, and his face turned scarlet whenever my arm would accidentally bump against his or we touched some other way. When I got older—twelve, thirteen—he’d tickle my sides and make me squeal sometimes, if the mood suited him. If I said something that made him laugh, I’d see the same spark in his eyes from the days when we sat side by side by side, the three of us—Laurence, Fleur, and me—fishing in the creek with our bare shins dangling in the water.

  Laurence danced with me at a wedding for two of our fellow church members the same week that I turned fourteen. He held my right hand and pressed the fingers of his other hand against the small of my back, and he squished his lips together as if he wanted to snicker—the same way he’d sometimes laugh and blush when we kissed as children. A week later, he taught me to shoot that gun so I would never end up on the floor of my house beneath white men crazed with power and hate, like what happened to Mrs. Downs in Bentley—a war widow, no less, with skin as black as pitch. He was just fifteen when he showed me how to use the weapon, and his chin, so close to mine, had grown fuzzy with the first sprouts of blond whiskers. He told me, with his breath warm against my ear, “Don’t ever let them hurt you, Hanalee. Don’t ever let them make you feel small.”

  Then, six months later, he left. He still lived beneath the Paulissens’ roof. He physically remained with us. Yet after Christmas Eve, after Daddy’s death, the Laurence I knew and loved abandoned us. I felt I’d lost my right arm, or something else equally vital to my existence.

  I missed him.

  And I now wondered if Uncle Clyde and the KKK were to blame.

  BEFORE SUPPER, AFTER PINNING UP MY HAIR, WHICH finally felt dry, I snuck into the living room and pulled my grandfather’s pipe-scented old copy of the family Bible off a middle shelf of the bookcase. I’d always loved the grainy feel of the black leather cover sliding against my fingertips and the crinkle of the gilt-edged pages, as thin as onion skin. I placed Babbitt down on the rug next to the armchair and put the Bible in its place on the end table. With the quietest of movements, I peeled back the cover and flipped through the fragile pages to the Second Book of Samuel. While holding my breath, I secured a pencil from my dress pocket and underlined one of the passages involving Bathsheba, the widow of the man whom David sent to his death.

  And when the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.

  After the time of the mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife . . .

  Supper ended, and Mama and I washed dishes over the wide apron sink in the kitchen. Uncle Clyde wandered upstairs to replace his gray work suit with a tweed vest and comfortable trousers, and he gargled with hydrogen peroxide to clean his throat of bacteria. Our usual evening routines.

  I dried a plate and poked the tip of my pinkie through a small hole I discovered in a bottom corner of the dishcloth.

  “It’s awfully quiet in the house this evening,” said Mama, her hands submerged in water and bubbles.

  I raised my head and listened. She was right: an unnatural hush had descended over the house. The hairs on the backs of my arms stood on end. My hands slipped and squeaked on the china.

  “Are you all right, Hanalee?” asked Mama, her mouth taut.

  “Of course.” I nudged the plate onto the drying rack with a shakiness that rattled the rest of the dishes.

  My stepfather reached the living room and the Bible before we did—I know, because I heard my mother’s name cried out in a sudden roar that made me jump a foot in the air.

  “GRETA!”

  Mama and I exchanged panicky looks. Her face blanched to the color of death.

  “What is it, dear?” she called back.

  Uncle Clyde marched into the kitchen, slippers whooshing against the floorboards, face boiling red, and he held up the opened pages of the Bible. “She replaced Babbitt with the story of David and Bathsheba.”

  Mama drew her eyebrows together. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hanalee laid out a passage in the Bible”—he turned his gaze toward me, skewering me with his clear blue eyes—“for me to see.”

  Mama handed me the last washed dish. “Is there something wrong with that? She and Hank often read Bible passages together.”

  Uncle Clyde’s fingers whitened beneath the gold lettering on the cover. His chest heaved, and he glared at me through his spectacles.

  I folded my dish towel over the edge of the sink. “I don’t entirely remember the story of David and Bathsheba.” I peeked up at the both of them from beneath my lashes, remembering the way Joe had employed that technique to soften me. “What’s that one about again?”

  “You know the story,” said Mama. “David fell madly in love with Bathsheba, who was married to Uriah the Hittite. David seduced her and arranged for Uriah to get killed in battle, and then David took Bathsheba as his bride . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she froze in place, blinking at the empty space in front of her.

  Uncle Clyde kept his eyes fixed upon me, staring and frowning as though he longed to dig beneath my skull and excavate the thoughts hiding away inside my head.

  I untied my apron and laid it over the back of a nearby chair. “May I read the passage aloud?”

  Mama turned her face toward me, hurt welling in her eyes.

  I reached for the book. “May I? Shall we go out to the living room so you can get more comfortable?”

  Uncle Clyde slammed the Bible shut and threw it onto the countertop.

  I jumped. “What’s the matter?”

  “Stop it!” He clamped down on my left wrist and yanked me toward him. “Where is he, Hanalee? Is he in this house?”

  “No. Let me go!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Clyde!” cried Mama.

  My stepfather wrenched me out of the kitchen and half dragged me to the front door at the end of the entry hall.

  “Where are you taking her?” asked Mama.

  “Call Reverend Adder. Tell him to drive over here immediately.”

  “But—”

  “Lock all the windows and doors. Make sure Joe can’t get inside.”

  Uncle Clyde threw open the front door and tripped me down the porch stairs
. My feet missed the last step, and my right ankle twisted with a shock of pain.

  “Stop!” I said. “Stop—you’re hurting me.”

  Uncle Clyde pulled me toward the darkening road in front of the house. “Joseph Adder!” he called out to the empty highway. “You come out here and face me yourself. Come out here and face me like a man, not a cowering little boy who hides behind girls.”

  “Clyde!” Mama ran up behind us. “Stop.”

  Uncle Clyde swung me around toward my mother. “I said, lock up the house, Greta! Go! Stay inside. Don’t let him in.”

  “Hanalee, what have you done?” asked Mama, kneading her skirt between her hands. “Why did you have to go and align yourself with that boy?”

  “Both of you, leave me alone.” I pushed at Uncle Clyde.

  “Where is he?” Uncle Clyde asked in my face, his breath sour, his lips pinched and chapped. “You tell me where he is right now. I know what he thinks of me.”

  “Oh, Hanalee,” said Mama with a sob.

  “Where is he? What is he offering you? What is he telling you about me?”

  “The truth,” I said. I kicked the doc in the shin and streaked like a bolt of lightning toward the trees on the edge of our property.

  “Hanalee!” called Mama from behind me. “Clyde, don’t chase her! You’re making it worse.”

  I peeked over my shoulder and witnessed Uncle Clyde tearing after me, in his green tweed vest and house slippers. Catching him running after me like that, his teeth set, arms pumping, legs a blur, allowed me to see, for the first time, the devil lurking inside him. The killer.

  I put full blame on the doc.

  Mama yelled out both of our names. The woods drew nearer. My chest and my leg muscles burned, and I grunted through each stride.

  Uncle Clyde cried out, “Damn!” and I looked back again to find him on the ground.

  “I’m going to Fleur’s,” I hollered over my shoulder. “Don’t you dare follow me, Dr. Koning. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

  Tree trunks shrouded in lichen swallowed me up. I grabbed my holster from the oilcloth in the log and hid amid the trunks of the trees until I counted to sixty without anyone following me. In the distance, Mama and Uncle Clyde shouted. An automobile door slammed shut, as well as the door to our house.

  I turned and took off again, past the lightning-blackened tree and the junction to Fleur’s house, over the rocks poking out of the creek, and up the embankment to the little white shed.

  CHAPTER 11

  WITH FIERY QUICKNESS

  I DIDN’T EVEN KNOCK. I BURST straight into Joe’s hiding spot and called out, “We’ve got to get you out of here!”

  Joe bolted upright on the cot, a book in hand. The flame in his lantern sizzled.

  “What the hell’s happening?” he asked.

  “Clyde failed the test. He’s going to fetch your father and probably the deputy. I’m terrified Laurence will lead them here.”

  “Christ!” Joe bent down beneath the cot and stuffed his belongings—shirts, books, a toothbrush, a razor, a blue-plaid coat—into an old green carpetbag that looked faded and frayed and stained with mold.

  “I’m so sorry.” I lifted my skirt and strapped the holster around my right thigh. “We just need to get you out. Uncle Clyde started chasing me into the forest, but he tripped and fell.”

  Joe tossed me a brown blanket from the cot and fetched a pair of shoes. “He’s following you?”

  “He was.” I tucked the bedding under my arm and grabbed a picnic basket that sat next to a brand-new card tower, a tall, rectangular one. “But he gave up. I’ve never seen him run before in my life. He knows what we think he did.”

  “Fuck!” Joe threw his shoes onto his feet.

  I hustled outside with the basket and the blanket.

  Joe ran out, as well, his laces untied and flopping about. He carried the carpetbag and the kerosene lantern by his sides.

  “This way. Hurry!” He dove through a low set of branches that swished across his back.

  I followed him, and we were off, shooting through the woods in a maze of trees and moss and feathered ferns that seemed to expand into primeval proportions. Firs stretched to the sky and blocked the waning daylight; leaves the size of my head scraped at my calves. We hurtled ourselves over poison oak and stinging nettles, logs, brooks, burrows, and even scampering chipmunks that eyed us with fear. Unseen creatures rustled through the bushes. Birds scattered overhead. The woods darkened. Our feet galloped onward, and my heart pounded until I worried it might explode.

  “Where should we go?” I called from behind him.

  “I don’t know. Far.” He launched himself over a narrow sliver of a creek and sprinted through a patch of mud that squished beneath his shoes and blackened his laces.

  I followed, catching the water with my heel and splashing the hem of my dress.

  Something howled.

  “Oh, Lord! What was that?” I asked.

  “Just run.”

  The forest brightened. Joe came to a sudden stop in front of me, and I crashed against his back.

  “Damn!” He pushed me backward, and from behind him I saw a stretch of the northbound road that met up with the main highway a mile or so to the south. “Get back, before anyone drives by.” He steered me by my shoulders, back into the dark and primitive recesses of the woods. “Hurry!”

  He slipped into the front again, and we ran and leapt and climbed until pain stabbed at my right side, below my ribs. The ankle I’d twisted on the porch steps throbbed. The holster pelted my thigh, and the path ahead of me blurred.

  “Joe, I need to stop.”

  “What?” He turned around, at least twenty feet ahead of me.

  “I’m hurting.” I dropped his belongings and braced my right hand against a fat red trunk, which was cold to the touch. A beetle scrambled up the bark, away from my hand, upon feet swift and silent.

  Joe sauntered back to me through piles of fallen pine needles. “What’s wrong?”

  “My side. My ankle.” I pushed my other hand against the trunk and leaned forward to catch my breath. “My ribs feel like they want to split wide open.”

  “You must have been breathing wrong.”

  “How much farther should we go?” I asked. “Where should we go?”

  “I don’t know.” He set down his lantern, which had long since blown out, and dropped his bag of clothing beside it.

  “What are we even doing, Joe? What the hell are we—?”

  “Shh!” Joe put out a hand. “A car.”

  We both stiffened, even though we no longer stood within sight of the road. I held my breath, and my ribs ached all the more from tightening my muscles.

  The automobile in question neared us, no more than fifty yards beyond the trees beside us. I heard the pop-pop-pop of a motor, and my heart pumped my blood in a staccato rhythm. I imagined the screeching of brakes, car doors opening, bloodhounds barking, Deputy Fortaine charging toward us with a rifle and bared teeth.

  We stood as still as the trees surrounding us, not breathing, not flinching. Beyond the wide green firs, the automobile chugged by and rattled off to the south, toward the crossroads where I’d spoken with my father just the night before.

  “Come on.” Joe picked up the lantern and wheeled back around toward the trail. “Let’s keep going and find someplace to sleep overnight, before it gets any darker.”

  “Am I safe with you?” I asked, not budging.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder. “I’m not going to touch you, Hanalee.”

  “Are you sure? You’re not just making up that thing you said about yourself so you can—?”

  Joe’s mouth tautened.

  “After those men attacked Mrs. Downs a couple years ago,” I said, “I just . . . I want to watch out for myself.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. You can sleep with your gun pointing straight at my face if you want, but I’m not planning to attack anyone besides Clyde Koning. Come on.” H
e turned back around to the path ahead of us. “We’re wasting time.”

  He continued onward, this time with steps that made mere whispers of sound against the pine needles that littered the forest floor. I grabbed the basket and blanket and followed.

  THE WOODS SLOPED UPWARD IN A DIRECTION THAT I believed to be the north, although the darkness settling over our surroundings proved disorienting. My stomach dipped with the sensation that we were nearing the territory of unkind people.

  “How far do you think we are from the road?” I asked. “There are houses up here in the hills. Swanky ones.”

  “I know.” Joe kept walking. “I think we’re still far enough away to avoid seeing anyone. I don’t hear any dogs or other signs of civilization.”

  I stopped, set down his belongings, and drew the pistol out of my holster.

  Joe spun around, and his shoulders jerked. “Jesus! Why are you bringing that out right now?”

  “I’ve got to be honest with you, Joe.” I held the derringer by my side, the muzzle pointed toward the ground. “You’re not safe at all. Fleur told me that Laurence, the Wittens, and some of the other local fellows want to do terrible things to you because they know . . .” I nodded through the words I didn’t know how to say.

  Joe leaned back on his left foot. “Who told them about me?”

  “I don’t know. Fleur suspects Laurence has been hiding you so he can brag about leading the others to you.”

  Joe tightened his grip on his bag and scanned the forest with his eyes.

  “You ever shoot a gun before?” I asked.

  He blinked. “No.”

  “I had to store the pistol in a hiding spot in a log,” I said, “instead of sneaking it back to my bedroom. I didn’t have time to replace the bullet I shot past your head.”

  Joe grimaced.

  “So there’s only one left,” I continued. “I’ll use it if we’re desperate.”

  He swallowed. “Put that gun back in your holster. I don’t want you tripping and shooting me in the back by mistake.”

  A twig snapped behind me. I flinched and turned and nearly cocked and fired. A deer leapt into view and zigzagged off into the distance, leaves swishing behind its hooves.