“I don’t know.” He winced and squeezed his eyes shut. “I go about my daily pursuits hoping I’m leading an honorable life, and then I’m struck by some particular, some instance where I’m confronted with an example of a life, like the woman in the quarry, those bodies from the river, and it brings me to my knees.” Britton rocked forward and back.
“Don’t we all have debts? Here in the South we live up close and personal with them, in a very obvious way, confronted daily with legacies of our ancestors. It’s an advantage, in a way.” Salt stood and took her father’s coat from its hanger.
“Inescapable,” Britton said.
“Like the air stirred by a butterfly’s wings?”
Britton turned to go. “May the wind be always at your back, Detective.”
CARRY ON
By the time their baby was born, Danny T would be four years older than their baby; Pepper and Ann’s boys, nine and eleven years older. Maybe there would be still be sheep, certainly dogs.
Lil D and Latonya had walked fifty yards out into the orchard, which was just beginning to show tiny new yellow-green shoots from the branches.
Reverend Gray came down the back steps dressed in a sort of clerical robe, chartreuse with a stole of cerulean blue embroidered with pink flamingos. He carried a red Bible. When the bagpiper began tuning, the dogs came running. Wonder lifted his snout and howled. The Rotties, watching him, halfheartedly woofed. Theo and Miles skidded around the corner of the house from the front, Danny T dangling between them.
It was way more commotion than Salt had imagined. There’d been no invitations; they’d just asked their friends to show up. As the piper began in earnest, Mr. Gooden, escorting Sister Connelly, swung open the new gate between his place and Salt’s.
Wills offered Salt his arm as they descended the steps from the back porch, followed by Ann and Pepper, Felton and Rosie, and Sergeant Huff. They came together with Reverend Gray under Salt’s tree. The dogs quieted when the piper came to the final notes of the hymn. The boys held on to Danny T while they waited as Lil D and Latonya joined them, completing the circle.
Lil D and Latonya had been induced to come by Salt, who’d used the prospect of a day in the country for Danny as a way to convince them to be a part of the celebration. The sheep were also a draw.
Reverend Gray began, “Dearly beloved . . .” Salt was wearing her one dress, the crocheted off-white lace that she’d bought last year at the thrift store when she’d been getting clothes for Pearl, the homeless blues singer who was now off the streets and waiting by herself on Salt’s back porch.
Wills wore a new dark blue suit that had cost him a paycheck, an expense he justified by pointing out that there would be other occasions, “like the baby’s baptism,” when he’d be able to wear it. He looked handsome, Salt thought.
“We are gathered today . . .” Gray continued. Salt was surprised that he was using such a traditional liturgy.
Across the circle Pepper smiled, winked at her, then jerked at the closest wiggling son.
Gray asked, “Who gives this woman?” The group in unison, almost shouting, answered, “We all do,” and broke out laughing.
Salt had decided to tell her mother and brother after the fact. She would say that she and Wills had kept it simple and didn’t want them to have to come down for such a short ceremony. That way when next she was face-to-face with her family, she’d have Wills for backup. The baby would have to know there were ancestors.
Mr. Gooden wore a blue blazer over nice slacks and stood smiling and holding Sister’s arm on his. Sister, Ann, and Rosie all wore dresses in shades of spring green.
“Let us pray.” Gray bowed his head. From the porch there came a sound, an instrumental sound track, strings, a harp, then Pearl singing “At Last,” the iconic Etta James tune. Wills, ever the sentimentalist, had gotten together with Pearl and made sure all the pieces, corny and sweet, were in place.
Lil D and Latonya were dressed as always in Homes wear: athletic pants and jackets, and both wore new green footwear.
Then it was over. The piper broke into a jig. And as if on cue, Theo, having escaped his parents’ clutches, opened the sheep paddock. Wonder took that as his call to duty and began rounding up the sheep and drove them to Salt. Danny T shrieked and jumped up for his mama. Lil D grabbed him and put him on one of the rungs of the tree ladder. Miles and Theo ran between the dogs and the sheep. And while the piper vigorously piped, there was a gay jostling movement of the wedding party toward the house.
“Go on,” Salt told Wills. “I’ll get the sheep penned and be right in.” Wills whistled for the Rotties.
Lil D and Latonya walked toward the orchard again, but Danny T broke away, screeching at the sheep bunched around Salt, Latonya chasing after him.
“I’m glad you could come,” Salt said to Lil D. “He’s having a good time.” Boys don’t bother the sheep.” Miles and Theo played a made-up tag game as they ran through the flock.
“He been to the zoo, but he don’t get to run around like this,” said Lil D, making his way, trying not to touch the animals or to let them rub against him.
Danny eluded Latonya, running from the tree to the sheep pen, where he began climbing the rails. Lil D started toward them.
“He can’t hurt anything,” Salt told him. “Besides, there’s something I want to ask you about.”
Lil D looked at the house, the fields and orchard. “You raised up here?”
“My family owned the place.”
Latonya scooped up Danny and sat him on the top rail so he could watch the five sheep rustling around Salt and Lil D.
“She likes this for him,” said Lil D, nodding at his family.
“She’s a good mother.”
Lil D, shrugging, looked down at his feet.
“I’ll be leaving here. I’m going to be living with Wills now that we’re married.” Salt turned to face Lil D. “I’m going to need someone to stay here and take care of the place—a caretaker.”
“Big place. I guess you do.”
“What if you, Latonya, and Danny lived here?”
Lil D looked up at her, tucking back his chin, squinting. “What? We don’t know nothin’ ’bout no country shit.”
She waited, watching Latonya and Danny. “I’d come and help you for a while, on my off days. Mr. Gooden lives right over there.” She pointed across the field. “Anything you need right away he’d help you. It would solve problems for both of us. You’d have it free in exchange for taking care of the place and the sheep. Just think about it. You and Latonya talk it over.”
“I ain’t . . .” As he shook his head, his voice trailed off.
“D, we’ve never talked about it. You’ve saved my life twice now, and your testimony last month—I worried about Man’s reaction, if he might feel different about you.”
Lil D, twisting his mouth, made a click sound. “He ain’t straight over Flash yet.”
“What future can you have with Man? What future can you give Danny T if you’re working for Man?”
“Me and him, we be kids together, come up together in The Homes.”
“I’ve known you both for about half that time, more than ten years. But The Homes is gone, torn down. And you’ve got Latonya and Danny T now.”
“I don’t know.” Walking toward his family, he said it like there was much he didn’t know.
Pepper called the boys. Lil D and his family followed them into the house.
Salt gave Wonder the old Gaelic command, “Come by.” And the dog rounded the small flock, causing them to bunch up and follow her to the pen, where she opened the gate and put Wonder at a stand. The sheep trampled in. “That’ll do,” she said to Wonder, realizing that if Lil D decided against their moving here, this was maybe one of the last times Wonder would have this, the job he was born to do. She touched the dog’s head and he turned wi
th her toward the door, where Wills stood watching and waiting for them.
• • •
The piper was long gone, as were Reverend Gray and the guests. Lil D, Latonya, and Danny T were staying with Mr. Gooden, who would take them back to the city tomorrow when he drove Sister back. Ann, Sister, and Rosie had done their best to set the house back to normal, plates washed, leftovers wrapped and stored.
“That turned out to be quite a party,” said Wills, sprawled on the living room sofa.
Salt sat on the rug beside him with the dogs. “It was kind of magical.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have thought of all those details.”
Wills sat up and held her hand. “We’ll make good partners.”
“You think Lil D and Latonya had a good time?” she asked. “They seemed a little overwhelmed.”
“Danny T wasn’t. He was having the time of his life.” Wills nudged her with his knee. “What’s up with that? You seemed intent on Lil D and his family being here.”
Salt stood and pulled at Wills. “Come on. This is our wedding night.” She held his hand, tugging him toward the bedroom. “This might be my last night in this house. I’d like to leave it with a good memory.”
They bid the dogs settle in the hall outside their bedroom door. The spring wind picked up and howled in the attic rafters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to Sara Minnich Blackburn, my editor, and Katie McKee, my publicist, and to all the team at G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Nat Sobel, my agent, is a mensch, and my thanks go out to him and all those at Sobel Weber Associates. Bless you, first reader Lorna Gentry. I’m ever thankful for the support of my family, Noah, Viki, Gabriel, and Sadira, and my ground control, Rick Saylor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trudy Nan Boyce received her Ph.D. in community counseling before becoming a police officer for the City of Atlanta. During her more than thirty-year career she served as a beat cop, homicide detective, senior hostage negotiator, and lieutenant. Boyce retired from the police department in 2008 and still lives in Atlanta. She is the author of Out of the Blues.
trudynanboyce.com
facebook.com/TrudyNanBoyce
twitter.com/TrudyNanBoyce
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Old Bones Page 29
