The Steep and Thorny Way

by Cat Winters

  “Uncle Clyde”—I sniffed—“told the sheriff about the marks from the noose. He reported everything that my father said.” I lowered my hands to my lap and watched my fingers hang like unnecessary appendages off the edges of my shins. “It sounds to me as though the Junior Order of Klansmen met at the Dry Dock on Christmas Eve, and, possibly with the help of a few adult leaders, they terrorized my father at that tree, as part of their initiation. They put too much strain on his heart, to the point where it stopped beating entirely in your bedroom.” I dragged my thumb across a damp patch of skin that itched below my right eye. “They trapped him into heading to the Dry Dock with the promise that they’d pay him good money for bootlegging.”

  “And Dr. Koning got paid to keep quiet about the truth.”

  “No.” I wiped both cheeks with the palms of my hands. “People threatened to hurt me if he spoke the truth.”

  Joe drew his right knee to his chest and leaned his elbow on it, sinking his nose into the undershirt. “You’re positive Dr. Koning’s telling the God’s honest truth?”

  “I spoke with the owner of the Dry Dock this morning. He verified that they used that tree to torture my father. He seemed proud of it, as a matter of fact.”

  “Christ.” Joe closed his eyes. “It’s even worse than I imagined. So much worse.” He pursed his dark brows. “They’ve won.”

  “No.” I folded my hands in my lap. “I won’t let them win.”

  “Then what do you propose we do?”

  I sat up tall. “We survive.”

  He looked at me from above his swollen nose, and I saw some fight burning in his eyes, too.

  “We’re still alive,” I said. “Still in one piece. Let’s stay that way. Let’s go make something of ourselves and show them how much we’re thriving.”

  He breathed a small laugh. “You make it sound simple.”

  “I didn’t say that, but let’s do it. Let’s become better educated than them—make more money than them—love people more fiercely than they could ever dream of loving.”

  A smile awakened at the corners of his mouth. His nose had stopped leaking, but it continued to swell and purple. Half circles the same color as his bruises rimmed the skin beneath his eyes.

  “But, for now,” I said, “I’m going to make sure you get help.” I peeked over my shoulder at the closed stable door. “Let me go see if Uncle Clyde came home yet.”

  “No!”

  “You need medical help, Joe.”

  “I’ll rest here for a while.” He scooted back down to the ground and propped himself up on his right elbow. “Gather my strength. Eat the last traces of food in that basket. And then I’ll sneak out after dark.”

  “And go where?”

  “I’ll jump a train.”

  “Uncle Clyde offered to help you find a job. Let us help you.”

  He shook his head. “If he knows I’m hiding out in here—”

  “I think we can trust him.”

  “Go back to the house—please. Keep yourself safe. I’ll get myself feeling better, and then I’ll leave.”

  I raised the hem of my skirt and opened the flap of the holster. “Let me at least leave you my pistol.”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  I paused with my hand on the derringer. “Why not?”

  Joe wouldn’t look me in the eye. “If it’s here . . . I might be tempted to use it, especially if the pain gets bad. Or if I start thinking too much about Laurie.”

  “You’d . . . you’d really do that to yourself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The wooden grip beneath my fingers no longer brought a single shred of comfort.

  “I’m not leaving you alone if you’re feeling suicidal,” I said.

  “It’s just the pain talking.” He stretched out on his back with the shirt cupped around the bottom half of his face.

  “Joe . . .”

  “What?”

  I almost asked him if he truly did love Laurence—if they’d been together for a while—but I bit down on my lip and said instead, “I’m going to check on you tonight, after dark. If you need anything before then—food, medical supplies, company—”

  “Your parents would telephone my parents if they knew I was out here. And I can’t go home.” His eyes drooped closed, and his dark lashes disappeared against the swollen mounds of his skin. “I’ll be fine, Hanalee. Just go. Keep yourself safe.” He drew a long breath. “That’s what your father wanted most of all.”

  I nodded, my lips pressed tightly together. “All right, then. You know where to find me.”

  I gave his wrist a squeeze, and my heart crumbled again into a grainy pile of sand, just as when I’d left Fleur behind.

  ON MY JOURNEY BACK HOME I STAYED LOW TO THE ground, sticking to concealed pathways through berry bushes and trees. My pistol continued to ride against my leg, its two sturdy bullets packed inside the barrels, and it remained with me when I snuck through the front door and tiptoed up to my bedroom.

  I unbuckled the holster and crammed it down inside the box of toys.

  After a few steadying breaths, a few prayers, a few swears, I reopened my door and padded back downstairs.

  The door that led to the basement from the kitchen stood ajar, and the smells of must and mothballs blasted through the opening. I grabbed hold of the brass knob and called down to my mother, “Are you doing all right down there?”

  A bare bulb shone across the trunks and old furniture that had found themselves banished belowground. Some of the items had lived down there ever since my grandparents first built the house in the 1870s. Mama’s tan shoes with rubber heels clomped into view from behind a small table, but I couldn’t see any part of her above her ankles.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just keep the door locked, and stay away from the windows. Are you going through your belongings?”

  “I got distracted, but I’m just about to start.”

  “Keep your curtains drawn while you do so. Uncle Clyde should be home soon.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I returned to my room and embarked upon the task of packing up my life in Elston, Oregon.

  UNCLE CLYDE RETURNED HOME SHORTLY AFTER noon, and we ate lunch. We planned. We fretted. I longed to tell both him and Mama about Joe in our stable, his face swelling and aching, but I didn’t want to be wrong about placing trust in my stepfather.

  During most of the afternoon, I packed and sorted some more, and when the task grew too difficult to bear, I slid my sketch pad out from its hiding spot between my mattress and the box spring. My drawing of Joe in the pond caught my eye first, and above it I found the crossed-out sketch of Fleur, seated in her window seat, telling me of Daddy’s ghost.

  I parked myself at my red desk and flipped to a fresh new page. While Mama and Uncle Clyde bustled about down below, I leaned over the paper with my elbows pressed against my strawberry-colored worktop, and using my supply of charcoal pencils, I drew the story of the past few days. I sketched Fleur and me, kneeling over a magazine with our heads tipped close together. Joe and me, running through the woods, lantern and blanket and carpetbag in hand, my skin shaded quite a bit darker than his, even though I rarely ever drew myself with much color. Uncle Clyde, standing on our front porch with his thumbs tucked in his pockets, his mouth open, speaking of making amends with Joe. Mama and me, together, hand in hand, beneath the pine tree near the Dry Dock. Laurence, bending over at the waist, his bruised fist balled against his stomach. A fish wearing a crown, diving back into a river after bursting free from his captor’s stomach. The Dry Dock’s oak tree, standing tall and fierce, with its weight-bearing branches reaching out toward the beholder of the drawing, the ends of its boughs curled like fingers.

  I spent the bulk of my time on the oak tree, shaping and shading each leaf, each stripe of bark, until the tree looked precisely as I remembered it. Once I finished fussing over the details, I sat up straight at my desk and studied my creation—forced myself to stare the oak down�
��as though facing an enemy.

  If the tree held on to my etched name, waiting for me to disappear, then I would keep a drawing of it, waiting for its demise.

  KU KLUX KLAN MARCH, JACKSON COUNTY, OREGON, 1920s.

  CHAPTER 26

  HAD I BUT TIME

  I LAY IN BED IN MY DAY CLOTHES AND stared up at the candlelight twitching across my ceiling. It still didn’t seem right, leaving a boy marked for death all by himself, unarmed, injured, behind an unlocked stable door.

  “Damn it,” I muttered up to the ceiling. “I wish I could have given him my pistol.” I sighed and blinked. “What in the world am I supposed to do?”

  No one answered. The wind didn’t even breathe through my curtains.

  I waited for Mama and Uncle Clyde to retire to their bedroom and finish opening and closing drawers and get settled in their bed. And then I waited at least a half hour more. The candle burned down to a nub no bigger than half my thumb, and the world outside my window lay still and as dark as a pot of ink.

  I didn’t take Necromancer’s Nectar that night, but I did slip out of bed. I grabbed my derringer out of its holster and slid the gun, the lucky sprigs of alfalfa, and my bare feet down inside a pair of big black boots I wore whenever rain soaked the yard. In front of my floor-length mirror, I swiveled my right ankle to make sure the derringer didn’t bulge like a pork chop beneath the boot’s leather, as it did whenever I lugged it around beneath my skirt. If Mama and Uncle Clyde were to catch me prowling around the house, they wouldn’t see I was armed.

  “Good,” I said to the mirror with a nod.

  I cracked open my door and descended the staircase upon feet that strained to keep from making a sound inside those bunglesome boots. My arches ached from stepping with such caution. My legs moved with a stiff and heavy gait that seemed to fill my calves with sandbags.

  Down in the kitchen, I fetched the block of ice from the icebox and chipped large chunks into a dishcloth. I then grabbed our picnic basket—now empty and clean from the day before—and packed it with the ice, an apple, cheese, bread, some bandages and scissors from Uncle Clyde’s first-aid kit we kept under the sink, and a metal canteen filled up to the screw-top lid with water. I retrieved some oil for Joe’s lantern. Silence reigned over the world outside the window above the sink, and only a hint of the glow of whiskey stills peeked above the tops of the trees. Or maybe I only imagined that faint glimmer of orange. Maybe the world slept uneasily, holding its breath, waiting to see what I would do next.

  I ventured outside with the basket and the can of oil and bolted across the grass as though a whole herd of Elston boys were chasing me down. I made it to the stable in well under a minute but forced myself not to scare Joe by bursting inside. Instead, I creaked open the door with the softest of movements and stole into the blackness within.

  “Joe?” I whispered, closing the door behind me.

  “I hope to God that’s just you, Hanalee,” he said from over in the corner where I’d left him.

  “It’s me. I brought you ice for your nose and some food and some oil for the lamp.” I attempted to walk in his direction but couldn’t see a darn thing. “Can you light a match?”

  “Here”—he shifted about—“give me the oil, and I’ll light the lantern, but just for a short while. I don’t want anyone seeing the flame through the slats in the wood.”

  I crept over to him in the dark as best as I could and set the basket and the oil beside him. “Can you see at all in here?” I asked. “Have your eyes adjusted to the dark?”

  “Sort of.”

  I held my breath and waited while he fumbled around with the lantern and the oil. After a hiss and a quick whiff of sulfur, a match flared to life. Joe’s swollen nose and red-rimmed eyes glowed in the wavering light. My stomach dipped. He lit the lantern and shook out the match. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “I know, but it seemed wrong to leave you out here with an unlocked door and no treatment for your pain. I’m sure you’re also thirsty and famished.” I sat down next to his outstretched legs and pulled the canteen out of the basket. “How are you feeling?”

  “Well”—he took the container and unscrewed the lid—“I could sure use some hooch right about now. That’s not what’s in here, is it?”

  I smiled. “You’re not going to find any liquor in a house occupied by Clyde Koning.”

  Joe chuckled under his breath. “A boy can dream, can’t he?” He tipped back his head and took a swig of water.

  I glanced over my shoulder to ensure I had remembered to close the door behind me.

  Joe swallowed and came up for a breath. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to make sure I shut the door.” I shifted back toward him. “Do you think the boys would truly take the time to head out looking for you? Or would those Wittens be too busy getting drunk in that cabin we found near the creek?”

  Joe shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I suppose it depends on how embarrassed Laurence felt over what I told you.” He screwed the cap back into place. “He must be pretending awfully hard to be something that he isn’t if he’s running around with the Klan and a girl like Opal.”

  “Opal’s not as bad as some.”

  “She’s fast, though. I kissed her once, at a party, just to see if I’d like it, and she wanted more from me.”

  I sat back on my heels. “You’ve kissed girls?”

  “Just her.” He moved the canteen and the lantern to the other side of his legs, opening the space between us. “And you.”

  I lowered my eyes and fussed with the handle of the basket. “I only agreed to that unfortunate kiss because I worried the Wittens would hurt you worse than what Laurence just did.”

  “A true love’s kiss, then.” He smirked and wrapped his arms around his knees, peeking at me out of the corner of his eye. “One given to save a life. You must love me dearly.”

  I snickered through my nose, and my face and neck burned as much as when I’d swallowed down the Necromancer’s Nectar. “Come on.” I reached into the basket and pulled out the chunks of ice wrapped in the cloth. “Let’s get this ice on your nose. That’s an ugly shade of purple you’ve got there.”

  I held on to his back and set the chilled cloth against his nose. He raised his left hand and helped me hold the ice in place.

  “Ahh,” he said, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He breathed a sigh that warmed my palm, while his eyelids batted closed. “Thank you.”

  “Better?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Joe . . .”

  “Uh-huh?”

  I kept my fingers below his on the cloth. The sides of our hands touched. His breath fluttered against my skin.

  “How long have you loved him?”

  His eyes remained closed. “I don’t know. Since I first saw him, I guess. Since I first came to Elston.”

  “Didn’t you move here from some little town in the mountains when you were about thirteen years old?”

  “Yes.” He gave a small nod. “That’s when I was certain. Of everything.”

  I lowered my hand from the frozen cloth, finding my fingers numb. “That’s a long old time.”

  “We weren’t much of friends at first,” he said, his voice quiet. “We even got into a fight over a game of baseball at one point, not long after I moved here. But we had our eyes on each other from the very beginning.” He shifted from side to side, readjusting his weight. “It took a little growing up—a little whiskey one summer night right before we both turned sixteen—before we ever broke through all that tension and kissed each other.” He opened his eyes and looked at me from above the cloth on his face. “He’s the one you kissed when you were little, wasn’t he?”

  I sat up straight, and my face warmed again. “H-h-how did you know?”

  “Because of how much you yelled at him in the woods. The hurt in your voice.” He gulped with a noticeable bob of his Adam’s apple. “He always talked about spending his younger years ru
nning around with you and Fleur.”

  “Well”—I picked at a corner of the basket with the tip of one of my nails—“we were just kids. Those hardly count as real kisses.”

  “That kiss in front of the Wittens”—he lowered the ice to his lap—“that was your first then, wasn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” I shrugged again. “I don’t even know if we can genuinely call that a real kiss, either.” I continued to pick at the basket, although I drew my hand away when I realized how much the sound of the wicker echoed across the rafters.

  “Come here,” he said in a whisper.

  I raised my eyes to his. “What?”

  He lowered the ice to the floor on the other side of him. “I want to give you a real kiss.”

  I snorted. “You mean a pity kiss?”

  “No. A thank-you kiss.”

  I traced my finger across the edge of a floorboard. “I thought you didn’t want girls, Joe.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to give you a good kiss that will erase the one in the woods. That shouldn’t have been your first.” He tugged on my wrist with a gentle pull. “Come here.”

  I snickered. “Your nose is all swollen. What if I bump it with my nose?”

  “Just”—he slid me closer to him—“come here.”

  I scooted over to his side.

  We both smiled and laughed a little, our heads bent close to each other. Then his face sobered. He cupped his right hand behind my neck and pressed his lips against mine with a kiss soft and sweet. Not the kiss of a lover, or a brother, or even just a friend. A kiss that defied explanation. One that eased all the way through me with an unexpected sense of peace.

  Our mouths left each other with a gentle sound, and we remained side by side, my legs bent toward his. His hand left my neck and returned to his thigh, and then to the cloth filled with ice, which he pressed against his nose again.

  “We should get you some food.” I slid myself back over to the basket. “I also brought—”