Touched

by Carolyn Haines

  “It’s Lily Anderson,” JoHanna said. She pulled a blanket out of the wagon and threw it on the ground for us to sit on beside Duncan. Up on the slope just in the shade of the small scrub oak trees, we had a good view but we weren’t actually a part of the event. A strip of white sand separated us from the others, like a barrier neither wanted to cross.

  The day was bright and hot, and the water of the creek looked tempting. I remembered what JoHanna had said about swimming around naked. It was scandalous but also tempting. Did she really do such things? I looked at Duncan, but she was leaning forward in her chair, watching the girls who were about her age. They were all singing away, their young voices piercing but thin. Annabelle Lee had the best voice, and she knew it.

  Her mama was on the edge of the crowd, so proud she was about to pop. There were a couple of men there, but Elikah said religion was women’s business and most of the men seemed to feel the same way. They just made themselves scarce when it was time for a service.

  Little Lily Anderson gave a squawk of fright when the preacher lifted her up and dunked her backward in the water. She came up squirting a gusher out of her mouth and drew a few giggles from the congregation and a smile from JoHanna. Duncan, though, didn’t look amused. What worried me was that Pecos seemed to pick up on his mistress’s attitude. The bird was bristling as he sat on the back of her rocking chair.

  “Hush, Pecos.” JoHanna reached into the picnic basket and brought out a handful of dried corn. She scattered it at Duncan’s feet, but the bird ignored her. His little head ducked and darted, beady eyes fixed on the proceedings at the creek.

  “I had a dog, once, a long time ago.” I thought of Suke and the loss of her was just as fresh as it had been when Jojo took her off and shot her. “I never thought of having a pet rooster.”

  JoHanna leaned back on one arm and let her other touch Duncan’s foot. Duncan had on socks and shoes, her little feet ready for action, even though she couldn’t walk.

  Down in the creek Annabelle Lee was wading in. The preacher was talking, but I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. It was like a chant, familiar yet dulled and unclear. The sun made the sand dazzling, and I was beginning to drift off into one of my island fantasies when JoHanna leaned forward.

  “Annabelle looks a far sight better dry than she does wet,” she said.

  She did in fact. But for the first time the child looked genuinely pleased. Had she found something special beneath the cold water of Cedar Creek? “Do you think they really feel something?” I asked.

  JoHanna shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe some of them do.”

  I wiped a sheen of perspiration from my forehead. It might be worth the trouble just to get in the creek. “If those girls died right now, would they go to heaven?”

  JoHanna chuckled in a soft way. “I wouldn’t lay any bets one way or another. There goes Mary.”

  It was the girl who’d come outside to see Duncan dead. She waded right into the water without the hesitation of the other girls. The preacher said his chant and reached behind her to support her back. Over she went.

  Instead of coming back up grinning and dripping, Mary started to fight. Her legs thrashed in the water; the amber current was turned to white foam. Mingled in there somewhere was her dress, which floated out around her.

  The preacher stepped back, startled. Mary was just beneath the surface, her outline visible to us up at the top of the slope. I could see her, but I couldn’t see what she was fighting against.

  The preacher grabbed a leg and pulled, but he just got tugged forward, nearly losing his footing in the sandy bottom. Fear widened his eyes, and he reached down in the water. Mary’s hands came up and caught at his neck, circling with a strength that panicked him. With a hoarse cry he broke free and ran toward the bank. Behind him, white girl legs kicked harder, churning the water.

  “Mary!”

  That single cry tore the sky.

  “Damnation.” JoHanna got to her feet. “She’s drowning.” She started forward, but so did several members of the congregation and the choir. It was a small stampede into the water.

  “Mary!”

  I put my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t force my eyes away from the creek. There were so many people in the water I couldn’t tell what was really happening. The preacher was sprawled in the sand at the edge of the water, and a couple of women were tending to him. He was safe, but Mary had not emerged.

  I couldn’t rid myself of the sight of her legs, thrashing and kicking, as though some big monster had risen up from the dark pools of water and gotten hold of her head.

  “Mary!” Brenda Lincoln tried to run into the water, but several women grabbed her, pulling her back on her butt and holding her down in the sand.

  The only men in the congregation were down in the water. Now even Mary’s legs were gone. There was no trace of her, but the men kept going underwater, then coming back up and making gestures.

  “Oh, no.” Johanna sank back into the sand. Her face was white, but perspiration glistened on her skin. “No,” she whispered again. Then she looked at me. “They let her drown.”

  Duncan rocked slightly forward in her chair. Her expression angry, her clear voice carrying on the intensity of her emotion. “I told her not to sing with her mouth open.”

  Six

  WE loaded up the wagon as fast as we could. Down below us, one of the men had finally managed to bring up Mary Lincoln’s body. He carried her out of the creek and laid her in the pure white sand. Brenda Lincoln sat in the sand beside her, rocking and keening as Nell Anderson and Agnes Leatherwood tried to console her.

  One of the young boys had been sent sprinting up the slope to the nearest house that had a phone, to call Doc Westfall and get him out to the creek. The boy passed us with a curious look but didn’t linger to ask any questions about the rocking chair or the rooster. He ran on by.

  JoHanna was white. Even her blue eyes had paled until they seemed completely translucent. I couldn’t look at her, the same way I sometimes couldn’t look at Elikah. She didn’t ask Duncan a single question or even express any shock that the girl had opened her mouth and talked as normally as she had the day she had been forked by the bolt of lightning. No, she just flipped the blanket together, sand and all, put it in the wagon with the basket, and signaled fast for me to help her lift Duncan and the chair.

  “Can you walk?” I asked Duncan. If she could talk, maybe she could walk, and JoHanna wouldn’t have to pull the wagon all the way up the hill.

  Duncan shook her head.

  “Can you still talk?”

  She gave me a sideways look. “Of course.” Her attention was focused down the hill. “I told her not to …”

  “Hush up!”

  It was the first time I’d heard JoHanna speak harshly to anyone, especially Duncan. She was terrified, but I couldn’t understand why. Duncan could talk. It was a miracle.

  “Lift,” JoHanna said as we picked up the chair and put it in the wagon. JoHanna buckled the belts and picked up the handle. “Would you push from behind?” she asked, starting forward without waiting for me. She was going home no matter what I chose to do.

  I bent down and heaved. The heavy sand trapped the wheels, and Pecos fluttered his wings at me, pecking down as if he wanted a taste of my eyes. Ignoring him, I gritted my teeth and pushed.

  “JoHanna McVay!”

  I turned back to look at the woman yelling. Brenda Lincoln was standing at the feet of her dead child, but she was looking up at us.

  “JoHanna McVay! Bring that young-un down here!”

  JoHanna gave the wagon a vicious tug. “Push, Mattie,” she whispered without acknowledging Brenda. “Push hard. We have to get out of here.”

  Instead of pushing, I turned to look back at the creek. Brenda Lincoln was pointing a finger at us as everyone else looked up the hill at us, transfixed. The crimson red robes of the choir fluttered in a sudden breeze. There was a rumble of thunder, far away and distant.<
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  “Stop her!” Brenda turned to the people around her. “Stop her!” Her voice rose hysterically. “That little monster. She cursed Mary. She caused her to drown.”

  Beneath Brenda Lincoln’s hysterical voice was the sound of JoHanna panting. The quick, panicked breaths were close, intimate, and more frightening than the hysteria down at the bottom of the sand slope. One of my new shoes came loose in the deep sand and I finally caught a good purchase with my toes. I gave the wagon everything I had, and we made it out of the sand and onto the more solid ground of the path.

  “Go!” I ordered JoHanna. “Go!”

  Behind us the congregation had begun to shift, their voices growing louder. Surely they would not come after a helpless child and her mother. Surely not. But I’d seen fear and anger in action more than once. Jojo was never as mean as when he was scared.

  The sounds below were blocked out by my own labored breathing as JoHanna and I fought to move Duncan to safety. The pattern of the sun in the tree limbs was like a blur of motion as we rushed along the path, JoHanna pulling the wagon and me bent down pushing. I kicked my other shoe off and gained the use of my toes. A low branch caught JoHanna’s hat and knocked it off her head, revealing the shocking lack of hair, the glimpses of a cool white scalp beneath the chestnut bristle where she’d cut too close.

  “Leave it,” she said of the hat.

  I went back for it. If they saw her now, coming on us in a frightened fury, the sight of her head might be the final straw. I grabbed it and plopped it on Duncan’s head as we set off again.

  By the time we reached the main road, we were winded and shaky. No one had tried to stop us. No one had given pursuit. But I had had time to consider what would happen when Elikah heard about my activities for the day. I would rather have faced the crowd of angry Baptists than to have to confront Elikah at night, especially after his visit from Tommy Ladnier.

  “I’m sorry, Mattie. I had no intention of dragging you into this.” JoHanna signaled for me to move up beside her. The road was solid, and the wagon rolled easily enough for her to pull it without me pushing.

  “He’s going to be mad.” What was the point of trying to pretend I wasn’t afraid? I was, and it showed.

  “Come to my house. Will will be home Tuesday, and he can try to explain to Elikah. They’ve always gotten on.”

  I shook my head. Hiding would only feed his anger. There was a fine line to walk between cringing and standing up for myself. It was my marriage, and I had to learn to work it out. Mama had taught me that much. Outside interference only made matters worse.

  “Oh, Mattie.” She dropped the wagon handle and pulled me into an embrace.

  Like two fools we stood on the side of the road and cried. Duncan and Pecos watched us, and I had about as much sense of what the bird was thinking as I did Duncan. Those black eyes gave up nothing. In that regard she was like her daddy.

  When we were through with our cry, JoHanna looked down at my feet and started to laugh. “Your shoes.”

  I’d thought of that, too. They were brand-new, and I’d lost them. Maybe someone from the creek would pick them up and bring them to me. I wasn’t going back to get them now.

  We walked on in silence. At the edge of town, JoHanna motioned that she was going to cut over on Jerusalem Road to hit Peterson Lane without going into town. I don’t know if she was trying to spare me or if she wanted to be alone, but I was glad. She took my hand.

  “You’re welcome to come with us.”

  “No, I need to get supper going.”

  “Go over to Jeb Fairley’s and use his phone to call me if you need me,” she said.

  “Okay.” I just wanted to be on the way home.

  She released my hand and stepped back. I was turning to go when Duncan called out to me.

  “When my legs get well, I’ll teach you to dance the Charleston,” she said.

  I hadn’t forgotten the fact that while one girl had drowned, a miracle had occurred for Duncan. I hadn’t talked about it because it upset me, but now it was staring me square in the eye. “How did you know Mary Lincoln was going to drown?” I asked her.

  Duncan shifted so that Pecos could move onto the arm of the rocking chair. “I saw it.”

  “Just like it happened?”

  Duncan cocked her head, and the damn rooster imitated her. “Not exactly like today. I heard the singing, and I saw the girls in their white dresses. There was the choir in their red robes and Reverend Bates down in the water. I saw Mary walking down into the water, and I saw her trying to come up for air. Under the water, her mouth was opening and closing, like she was singing.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Mama, pull the wagon over to the shade, please.”

  Fear nipped at my heart. Had Satan brushed his hand across the child? “Have you seen anything else?”

  JoHanna stepped beside Duncan, and Pecos hiked his wings an inch.

  “I see things sometimes, but they aren’t clear, not like Mary. They don’t go together to tell a story right.” Duncan’s face was serious and completely composed. “I wasn’t certain it would really happen to Mary. It was like pictures in my head.” She looked up at JoHanna. “I tried to tell Mary, didn’t I, Mama? I told her not to sing with her mouth open.”

  JoHanna took her hat off Duncan’s head and put it back on her own head. We had left behind the isolation of the old road. This close to town, someone could come up on us. She knelt down. “Duncan, have you seen anything else? Any other pictures in your head?”

  Duncan’s eyes came alive with mischief. “I saw my friend Floyd from the boot shop come to supper tonight to tell me a story.”

  JoHanna reached up to touch Duncan’s face. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You haven’t seen Floyd since you were hurt.”

  Duncan laughed. It seemed she grew stronger and more alive with each passing moment. “I would. He was telling me about the river and how Fitler came to be. It was a wonderful story.”

  “I’ll give him a call.” JoHanna stood up. “Did you really see him come to dinner, like you saw Mary drown?”

  “No!” Duncan laughed. “But he will if you ask him.”

  “Yes, he will.” JoHanna went to pick up the wagon handle.

  “That’s not the man who thinks he’s a cowboy?” I’d seen him hulking around the streets. He wore a holster, and some fool had whittled him a gun. He was in the habit of stopping right in front of a person and drawing down on them, pretending that he could shoot them with his wooden gun. I’d seen him a couple of times, but always at a distance. I always crossed the street to avoid him.

  “That’s Floyd. He’s Duncan’s best friend.”

  “He’s a loon.” I spoke, once again, without thinking.

  “He is not! He’s a storyteller.” Duncan was bristling with sudden anger. She pointed her finger at me. “Take it back. He’s not a loon. He’s just different.”

  “I take it back.” I turned away. “I’d better get on home.”

  Like most things in Jexville, word of what happened at Cedar Creek made it back to Elikah before I could even get home good. I changed back into my old clothes and shoes and started some cucumbers and peeled tomatoes in vinegar for supper. Elikah had gotten a block of ice, and the cool vegetables would be good on such a hot day.

  Potato salad with mustard and red onions was one of Elikah’s favorites. We had a bin in the kitchen that was cool and dark, and I got several taters out of there and started peeling them. I was about halfway through when he came in.

  “Hello, Elikah.” I put the knife down and turned to greet him. I met his gaze without flinching.

  He held my new shoes out to me. “Didn’t you forget something at the creek? I hear you left in a mighty big hurry.” He let loose, and they dropped to the kitchen floor with a clatter.

  “Thanks. I’m glad someone brought them back.”

  The shoes lay between us like a sin. Elikah nudged one with his toe. “That little girl, Mary Lincoln, her dress got ca
ught on a tree trunk. That’s how come she drowned. You know, in all the times they’ve had baptisms right down at that creek, no one has ever drowned before. Preacher Bates, he never saw or felt that old dead tree. It was like it was waiting out in the water, just waiting for Mary Lincoln to come along, and then it slipped along the sandy bottom and caught hold of her dress. Can you imagine?”

  The more he talked, the more afraid he made me. “No, it was a terrible tragedy.”

  “You saw the whole thing?”

  I nodded. “I’d better get these potatoes peeled. I thought some salad would be good with the pork chops.”

  “Fuck those potatoes.” He was suddenly excited. “I want to know what you saw. My own wife an eyewitness to a drownin’, and she wants to peel potatoes.”

  I swallowed. “I just saw her walk into the water, and the preacher sort of dunked her backward. Then her legs went to thrashing, and she didn’t come up.”

  “Just like that.” He held up his hands, palms facing me, a gesture of surrender that wasn’t surrender at all.

  “That’s what I saw. Then people ran in the water to help her, and I couldn’t see anymore.”

  “I see.” He turned his hands over as if he studied the palms. “That’s what you saw. Nothing more.”

  “It all happened so fast.”

  “And then you ran?”

  It was a statement-question that didn’t require any real answer, except I had to answer something. “It was awful. We decided to head home.”

  “So fast you lost your shoes?”

  “The wagon got stuck in the sand and—” I wasn’t going to tell him that JoHanna was afraid.

  “And you ran off ‘cause you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t have been.” He walked around the kitchen, slow, stopping to look out the window over the sink, as if he pondered something seriously. He came back to stand in front of me. “Innocent people don’t run. Now what exactly did that little McVay girl do to Mary Lincoln? What kind of curse did she put on her?”