The Steep and Thorny Way

by Cat Winters

  “I said, put that gun back into your holster!” snapped Joe. “You almost fired it, didn’t you?”

  I hiked up my skirt and struggled to fit the pistol back inside the leather casing. My hands trembled from coming so close to shooting that bullet. I couldn’t breathe quite right.

  “We’ll make this work.” Joe stepped toward me. “We’ll stay safe.”

  I lowered my skirt. “How?”

  “I—” He stopped in front of me and rubbed his left thumb against the side of his face, while the lantern swung and squeaked from the rest of his fingers. “I don’t know just yet. Let’s find a place to sleep so we don’t have to worry about anyone seeing us walking around. We’ll talk about our plans after we’ve had some time to settle down and think.”

  I grumbled, but I complied, and the woods turned dark and cold.

  A HALF MILE OR SO FARTHER, I CAUGHT SIGHT OF A stretch of water that glistened with moonlight between the trunks of spruces wider than Joe and me and at least two other people put together. In that same direction, hundreds of frogs croaked in a chorus that sounded frantic and urgent and gave me the chills. The world smelled of pines and dampness.

  “Is that a lake I see up there,” I asked, “shining in the moonlight through the trees?”

  Joe ducked down beneath an outstretched branch for a better look. “It’s just the widest section of Engle Creek, I think. But . . . wait . . .” He slid beneath the branch and disappeared from view in the blackness ahead. “There’s a building of some sort.”

  I followed him and just barely made out the silhouette of a small log cabin. I inched up behind where Joe stood, and the warmth of his back permeated the chill in the moist night air.

  “Do you think anyone’s in there?” I asked in a whisper.

  “I don’t see any lights through the slats. I think it’s probably a boathouse. Or maybe a place to store fishing gear, like Mr. Paulissen’s shed used to be.”

  “Or a whiskey still?”

  “I doubt it. It’s too quiet.” He edged down the low embankment, his soles scraping and sliding across the damp earth.

  I cupped my hand over the holster against my thigh and followed him. My feet snagged on tree roots and other obstacles I couldn’t see without any light.

  At the bottom of the slope, I parked the picnic basket and blanket next to a bush. “Let me go ahead of you,” I whispered. “I’ve got the gun.”

  “I don’t want you shooting some poor raccoon.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  He snorted. “Like you were with that deer?”

  “I didn’t shoot that damn deer, did I?” My shoes squished through the soft soil, toward the direction of the door, and I kept my hand pressed against the holster.

  The moment I reached the door, my gut told me to act, not to hesitate. I lifted the wooden latch and kicked the door open.

  Darkness.

  Deep-down-at-the-bottom-of-a-well darkness.

  Something moved inside, and I could have sworn I heard my father whisper, “It’s not safe here. Go!”

  I jumped backward and bumped into Joe, who shrieked, which made me shriek.

  “What’s in there?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Why’d you jump?”

  “I thought I heard my father warn it’s not safe in there.” I rubbed my neck. “Christ, Joe, where are we? What are we doing out here? I’m scared to death.”

  Joe crouched on the ground and shuffled around in his bag, but I could scarcely see him down there in the pitch-dark.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for matches so I can light the lamp.”

  He struck a match, and a flame hissed to life with a burst of light that illuminated his chin and his hands. I saw that scar on his lip again—the one that looked like a wound that had healed up all wrong. He turned a little apparatus that raised the lantern’s glass chimney, and he set the burning end of the match to the flat cotton wick. The lantern awakened and glowed against the side of the cabin, revealing thick logs covered in moss and holes created by either woodpeckers or insects. Joe blew out the match and lowered the chimney.

  “I’ll go in and see what’s there.” He rose to his feet.

  “Be careful. I could have sworn I heard something.”

  With cautious footsteps, he sidled his way into the cabin. The lantern’s light fluttered against the uneven floorboards within.

  “Joe?”

  “It’s empty,” he said. “Just some used-up bottles of booze and French postcards.”

  I dared to step inside after him, and my eyes widened at the sight of naked white ladies—a half-dozen bare-breasted, bare-bottomed beauties—posing on postcards nailed to the log walls. The lamplight flickered across their smiles and flirty eyes and gave the impression that they were all winking at us. The air inside the cabin stank of whiskey and cigarettes. Fiction magazines and newspapers littered the floor in the far-right corner.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. But someone must come here to hide out and drink.” Joe wandered over to one of the empty bottles and picked it up for a sniff. “Moonshine—that’s for certain.” He sniffed again. “Potent moonshine.”

  I crept over to the pile of reading material to see if the contents would offer any clues about the inhabitants. A few editions of the crime-and-adventure magazine Black Mask lay on the floor in front of the toes of my shoes, but my eyes veered straightaway to a copy of a newspaper called the Western American. The front page featured illustrations of Klansmen in hoods and robes gazing at the Statue of Liberty. Beside the newspaper rested a pamphlet the color of porridge that bore the words THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JUNIOR ORDER OF KLANSMEN.

  My stomach dropped.

  I knelt down and picked up the pamphlet with the very tips of my fingers, as if the paper might singe and blister my skin. Down at the bottom of the front page I found a series of handwritten notes, scribbled in pencil.

  Konklave, July 2, 1923. New members needed. White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen.

  Initiation planned. Necktie party?

  The problem of Joe Adder. Moral degenerate.

  Pancake breakfast set for Saturday at the Dry Dock. Money raised will repair potholes on Main Street.

  “Joe,” I said in a suddenly raspy voice. “Look.” I stood up and stuck out my hand with the pamphlet.

  Joe walked over and took the paper.

  “Do you know anything about the Junior Order of Klansmen?” I asked.

  His eyes dropped down to the notes penciled in at the bottom. His breathing quickened, which made me breathe twice as fast as usual, and the combined sounds of our panting gave the unsettling impression that a dozen other people crowded around us.

  “Did you read it?” I asked.

  He plunked the lantern onto the ground and ripped the paper down the middle.

  “No!” I clamped a hand around his wrist. “That’s evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” he asked. “My future beatings? My murder?”

  “I don’t know, but”—I grabbed the pamphlet and crumpled it down into one of my dress pockets—“I’m keeping it.”

  “This place makes me sick.” He kicked aside a cigarette butt and stumbled out of the cabin with the light from the lantern skittering across the walls.

  I followed, and everything outside in the dark—the breeze in the branches, the splash of an animal in the creek, even the damn croaking frogs—spooked me into thinking an entire mob of Elston residents shuffled around in the bushes, spying on us. People our own age. White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen.

  I blinked to adjust my eyes to the lack of light, and then I grabbed the blanket and basket and trailed Joe and the lantern up the slope. “Where do you think we should go now?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” he said. The lantern swung by his side, casting erratic streaks of light that made our surroundings
seem to shake and grow.

  “Do you think Laurence and the Wittens are in that Junior Order?” I asked.

  “Laurence probably is.” He veered to his left at the top of the slope and brushed a thick branch out of his way. “He’s been speaking highly of the Klan and one hundred percent Americanism.”

  “Fleur said he’s been after her and her mother to spend more time with church groups, to mind how they look in the community.” I pushed the branch away, too, and sap smeared across my hand. “He hasn’t said a kind word to me in well over a year, not since he befriended those Wittens. Since Uncle Clyde barged his way into our lives.”

  “You see what I mean?” Joe stopped, for one of his pant legs had gotten snared on a bush. “The local Klan is more than just a group that hosts baseball games and prints anti-Catholic pamphlets. And even if they did just promote anti-Catholicism, what makes you think their hatred would stop with one group?” He shook his leg free of the branch. “I witnessed it in prison, and I’m feeling it out here—there’s a powerful movement to cleanse this country of the wrong sorts of people.”

  I came to a stop near the same bush that had grabbed him. “If they’re as hateful as you believe—”

  “Hate doesn’t even begin to describe what’s happening.” Joe turned back around with the lantern shining across his eyes. “People in this state are controlling who can and can’t breed, Hanalee. They’re eradicating those of us who aren’t white, Protestant, American-born, or sexually normal in their eyes. They’re ‘purifying’ Oregon.”

  “Oh, God.” I dropped the basket to the ground and crouched into a ball, holding my arms around myself.

  Joe knelt down in front of me. “I know. I’m scared to death, too.” He raised the lantern so we could better see each other’s faces. “But if those of us who are being threatened join together and fight back, there will eventually be enough of us to stop them.”

  I shook my head. “How on earth do we fight a movement like that?”

  He lowered his eyes, and the light from the flame streaked across both our faces. Heat nipped at my cheeks.

  I rose back up to a standing position. “Do we just keep running? Find other castoffs and build up a ragtag army against people like Uncle Clyde and the rest of the Klan?”

  Joe cracked a small smile in the lamplight. “I like that.” He stood up, too. “An army of blacks, Catholics, Jews, Japanese, and queers would scare the hell out of the fucking KKK.”

  I stepped back. “You sure have a foul mouth for a preacher’s boy.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t been a preacher’s boy in a long while.” He turned back around to our path. “Come on. Let’s find a place to camp.”

  A mere ten paces farther, we entered a small clearing surrounded by a fortress of trees whose tops disappeared high overhead. We both stopped and inspected the area by the light of the lantern.

  “Do you think it’s far enough away from the cabin?” asked Joe.

  “Well . . .” I cast my eyes toward the darkness that devoured the path back to the building. “It is nice to know the cabin’s within running distance, in case rain arrives. Or a bear.”

  “What?” He gasped. “You think we’ll encounter a fucking bear?”

  “Jeez, Joe! Stop using that word.” I crept over to the outer reaches of the lamp’s arc of light and bent down to study the dark outlines of a patch of leaves. “I don’t see any poison oak. Or any animal dens.”

  He set the lantern by his feet and threw his carpetbag onto the grass. “Holy Mother of God, we’d better not get mauled by any bears.”

  “Stop worrying about the damn bears. They’re the least of our problems.”

  “Why are you getting after me for my language? You swear a lot for a girl.”

  “I only swear when I’m pushed into situations like this. And my words are tamer.” I dropped the picnic basket and shook out the tan blanket.

  Joe helped me stretch the bedding across the ground until it covered an area the size of two bodies. Then we both stood back up and stared down at the makeshift bed before us. I heard him swallow—or gulp was more like it. I swallowed, too.

  “You can lie on it,” he said. “I’ll sit against the tree.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll get a sore back.”

  “I don’t think you’d want me lying beside you.”

  “I don’t hardly care right now.” I tucked the holster beneath the right side of the blanket and stretched myself out on the rough surface that scratched like a burlap potato sack. My hair felt lumpy between my head and the ground, but I didn’t feel like pulling out all the pins. “As long as you don’t mind lying down beside me,” I added.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because of my skin color, of course.” I bit down on my lip and then added, “And my sex.”

  “Now you’re just insulting the both of us.” He plopped down beside me and pulled out an object from his carpetbag.

  I rolled onto my side, away from him. “Am I disgusting to you?”

  “Hanalee . . .”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  He dropped a woolen garment in front of me. “Here, put this on. You’re going to get cold out here.”

  “What is it?”

  “A coat.”

  I patted the sleeves and the buttons in the dark, verifying that it was, indeed, a jacket. “Won’t you get cold?” I asked.

  “I’m wearing long sleeves. You’ve got your arms hanging out. You’ll freeze to death without it.”

  “Well . . .” I tucked the coat over my shoulders like a cape. “Thank you.”

  He shifted about on the blanket beside me. “I’m blowing out the lantern now.”

  I shrugged. “That’s fine.”

  He raised the chimney and puffed, and the forest went black. The temperature seemed to drop about thirty degrees, and I found myself shivering in an instant. I slipped my arms inside the sleeves of the coat and buttoned up the garment to my throat. Behind me, Joe wriggled around on the blanket until it sounded as though he faced in my direction. I heard him breathing about a foot away from the back of my neck.

  “No,” he said, “you’re not.”

  I lifted my head. “Not what?”

  “Not disgusting to me.” He drew a deep breath that whistled through his nose. “Am I disgusting to you?”

  I lay my head back down and tucked my hands inside the warm depths of his coat sleeves. “I haven’t yet decided.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “It’s not because of the boys thing,” I chose to add. “Although that’s still a bit confusing to me, to be most honest.”

  Again, he didn’t respond.

  I cleared my throat. “It’s because of the other thing. My original reason for hating you.”

  “It’s still sometimes confusing to me, too.”

  “What?”

  He sighed. “‘The boys thing,’ as you called it.”

  “I . . . I suppose that would be.”

  “Everything would be a hell of a lot easier if . . .”

  I nodded in understanding, although I supposed he might not have seen me doing so in the dark.

  We lay in silence, the subject of our mutual fear of disgusting each other still taking up space in the air around us. Crickets and frogs called out in their desperate frenzy of chirping and croaking, and I wondered how I could possibly sleep with all the ruckus, never mind the other discomforts and worries. A splash sounded somewhere beyond the trees, and for a moment I thought Joe might have caught the urge to swim around naked again. I still imagined him as a woodland creature, swimming down among the submerged grasses, hiding in the darkest recesses far below the water’s surface. Maybe he transformed into a fish when I wasn’t looking, like the prince in the Creole story. A sleek coho salmon, or even a swift and frightened minnow.

  He scooted closer to me on the blanket—not in a bold and forward way, but in a slow and cautious manner, as though he was trying to come nearer for
a smidgen of warmth without sounding like he was doing so.

  “Good night, Hanalee,” he said, just a few inches away.

  A tear leaked out of my right eye and dampened the blanket below my left cheek. I held my breath for a moment, forcing my shoulders not to shake, and then I answered, in as steady a voice as I could muster. “Good night.”

  OREGON WOODS, CIRCA 1918.

  CHAPTER 12

  HOW UNWORTHY A THING YOU MAKE OF ME

  IT TOOK A LONG WHILE TO FALL asleep in such a strange and exposed environment. Terrible dreams bothered what little slumber I could snatch, and at one point I woke up in the darkness, huddled against Joe’s stomach and chest with my hands balled between our two bodies. My teeth chattered, and I shivered and whimpered and burrowed against him, while he breathed in a steady rhythm beside me. The air on the forest floor felt as bitter cold as December, not at all like the beginning of July.

  Joe tucked his arm around my back and pulled me close. He shivered, too, but his shirt heated my cheek and nose.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

  “It’s freezing out here.”

  With gentle movements, he scooted the two of us over to my side of the blanket, and then he lifted his arm and wrapped the other side of the covering around us. We had to snuggle close for the blanket to reach around my shoulders, and all I could think was The world must be mighty atrocious right now if cuddling up with Joe Adder in the middle of the woods seems my most desirable option.

  I DREAMED OF DADDY OPENING UP THE FRONT DOOR to our house. I stood in our gleaming oak entry hall, upon the green and gold rug, and I gaped at the sight of my father pulling his hat off his head of short, tight curls. He reached out his right hand, smiled, and told me in his deep, honey tones, “There’s been a mistake, baby doll. I didn’t die after all.”

  A sound awoke me—a crack of a twig or some other minor disturbance that jolted me out of the sweetness of the dream. I grabbed hold of a warm hand that rested near my chest and strove to slip back to the place in which my father walked in from the fields, his coveralls streaked in dirt and flecks of hay, everything smelling fresh and clean and earthy.