Touched

by Carolyn Haines

  “You bring out the best in me, Mattie.” He picked up the shirt I’d ironed and slipped it on. “Now help me button this up. I need to be dressed when you bring Will over here. Oh, and if you’re going to make this believable, I think you should scream and cry a little as you run to the courthouse. You’re a little too calm to be an accidental murderess.”

  Forty

  JOHN Doggett stood at the train depot in Mobile. He held his ticket to New Orleans in his hand, and everything he owned was packed in a suitcase that rested beside his right leg. Not ten yards away the train puffed and hissed, ready to pull out as soon as all the passengers had loaded. John was the last.

  “Is there anything you want me to tell JoHanna?” I asked him. John would not ask me to arrange an assignation or relay his need for her. It was a matter of honor. Will had stepped in to save his life. More important, it was a matter of JoHanna’s happiness.

  He shook his head, and the look in his eyes told me that he was already gone from the spot where he stood. “We said it all.”

  “What about Duncan?”

  “Tell her not to forget to go back to the Pascagoula on the night of the Hunter’s Moon to hear my people. Tell her to grow up strong, and to dance.” He looked beyond me.

  “You’ll like New Orleans, John. It’s a good place for a writer.”

  He stepped toward me, taking my shoulders in his hands. “Take care, Mattie. I don’t know how you managed to get me out, but I owe you my life.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t owe me anything.”

  “If you went up to Natchez to visit JoHanna and Duncan, you could ride the riverboat down to New Orleans to see me.”

  “I won’t be traveling for a spell, John.”

  His mouth tightened. “Why are you staying with that man, Mattie?”

  How could I explain? Elikah and I were locked in a death embrace. We were tied together in a pact far more binding than vows of matrimony. “I’m doing what I feel I have to do, John. Just as you are. Just as Will is.”

  John sighed and nodded. “Then he went on up to Natchez?”

  “He left this morning.”

  He could not bring himself to say that it was good. His love for JoHanna was as hopeless as mine for Will. I believe John suffered even more than I did because he had tasted JoHanna, what it might have been like. I had only fantasies. JoHanna’s love was boundless, inclusive. She scattered it among us like pearls. I reached up and put my hand on John’s cheek. “Take care, John.”

  Behind him I saw the conductor waving a final signal. “All aboard!” he cried, waving again.

  “Will you write me?” he asked.

  I nodded, pleased that he had asked. If we could not have JoHanna, we could share our memories with each other. He picked up his bag and started toward the train.

  “You’ll send me news of JoHanna and Duncan?”

  “Every bit I hear.” I was walking fast beside him as he hurried toward the train. He walked like JoHanna. Long, determined strides. He would be okay. I had to believe that, because it gave me hope for myself.

  “Oh, Mattie!” He swept me against his side with his free arm. “Remember the days we spent along the river at Fitler, and remember the river is our bond. We’ll always go back to her, each of us for our own reasons. You’ll find your freedom in that river, Mattie.” He kissed my cheek and gave me that clear look that seemed to come from another time, a place long ago. “Duncan told me so.”

  I squeezed him as hard as I could. “Good-bye,” I whispered as I broke away from him and ran in the opposite direction. When I got to the end of the platform, I turned around. He was gone. With a blast and a geyser of smoke, the train began to pull away.

  Jeb Stuart waited in the car beside the depot. He’d driven me and John over to make sure no one tried to detain John when he boarded. John’s innocence wasn’t exactly an established fact around Jexville, and Jeb, Will, the lawyer, and I had decided to put John on the first train to New Orleans we could manage, just in case Elikah decided to go back on his word. Sheriff Grissham had been deeply upset that after going all the way to Ellisville, he had no one to strap in the traveling electric chair.

  Jeb shook his head as we both watched the train pull out. “Mattie, girl, you should board that train and go with him. He struck me as a decent man. One who cares about you.”

  I opened the door and got in the car, not even bothering to try and hide my tears. “They’d hunt me down like a rabid dog.” I tried to smile, but it was pointless.

  Jeb reached into his pocket and brought out a clean handkerchief. He handed it to me and patted me on the arm. “Jexville is no place for you. Elikah may have promised you he’d change, but he won’t. Without JoHanna and Will to protect you, he could hurt you bad.”

  I looked over at Jeb. He was a kind old man. A good man. Other than that big magnolia tree in his yard, what else kept him in town? He had saved his money. He could relocate anywhere he wanted. “Why do you stay?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He put the car in gear, and we headed back to Jexville. “No place I’ve ever been to seemed much better. I guess I don’t have a lot of faith in the human animal to rise above his nature. Jexville is as good a place as any, better than some.”

  “Are you going to marry Aunt Sadie?”

  He chuckled. “Now that’s just like a woman to think a wedding will patch everything up.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m going to ask. She may not have me.”

  “I bet she will.”

  “Maybe we’re too old to get used to each other.” He gave me a speculative look. “She wouldn’t consider going to Natchez with JoHanna, and she won’t come to Jexville. I guess I’ll have to go to Fitler to live. Then who would keep an eye on you?”

  “Elikah won’t ever hit me again, Jeb. I can promise you that.” I wiped my eyes and settled back in the car.

  He put the old Ford in gear, and we bumped over a set of freight tracks and onto a brick street. Jexville was a long ride away, and I wanted to enjoy the cold wind on my face for the few hours of freedom I had. I was not fool enough to think Elikah and I would work things out. We were bound by hatred and a common desire to punish each other as much as possible. Strangely enough, I preferred it this way. I would not try to please him as I once had. I would spend my days inflicting as much suffering as possible. Elikah’s life had been touched by the hand of God, and I was the retribution sent down to plague him. Disease, locusts, rivers of blood; I intended to do my worst. It was not the life I’d chosen, but I could stand it.

  One thing I knew for certain: He would not beat me down or break me.

  “Tell me something, Mattie.”

  Jeb’s voice brought me back to the present. “What’s that?”

  “Those dreams that Duncan had, the prophecies. Was there anything that caused them?”

  I’d given this a lot of thought on and off. “They started the day she was struck by lightning, out dancing the Charleston at Annabelle Lee’s birthday party.”

  “Ansel Wells got struck by lightning, and he went blind.”

  We had left the smell of the Mobile River behind us, the sweet odor of fruit ripening on the dock and water meeting rich brown soil. We drove down the tree-lined street that would eventually turn into the old federal road that led through Jexville and finally up to Natchez, where the McVays had gone.

  When I didn’t answer him, Jeb spoke again. “Last year three of Oscar File’s cows got struck. He said it fried the blood right inside them.”

  I looked at the houses to my right, taking in the wide porches and the plantation-style homes set on tiny lots. It seemed to me that folks with enough money to build that kind of house would have bought enough land to sit it on without making it look all crowded and scrunched up. I thought of the barrier islands and the small shacks that had been built facing right into the Gulf. I wanted to live someplace where the wind blew free and fierce, and the waves crashed
hard on pure white sand. No matter how fancy the house, living jammed up against someone wasn’t for me.

  “Mattie, what do you suppose it was that made Duncan dream the future instead of going blind or deaf?”

  I couldn’t ignore him any longer. He was going to persist. And it wasn’t that nosey kind of question that Janelle would ask. “Floyd thought it was a gift.”

  “What did Duncan think?”

  I wasn’t certain, but I had a fair idea. “Duncan wasn’t afraid of the dreams. She accepted them as fact. Some of them she understood better than others, and when she did, like with Mary Lincoln or Red, she tried to warn the folks involved. It wasn’t anything bad or mean. She didn’t invite it, but she wasn’t afraid of it.”

  “There were other dreams?” He glanced at me, shocked.

  I’d forgotten that we’d told no one about the dead family, the Spensers, driven to madness and desperation by money. It was best to let that one go, but I didn’t see any harm in telling him the one about the man at the bridge. “There was one other, the only one that frightened Duncan. We all thought it might have to do with Mr. Senseney, the man who wanted to build the bridge. Duncan kept seeing a body at the base of the bridge in Fitler, a man with boots like JoHanna said Jacob Senseney wore. The man kept trying to talk to Duncan, and it scared her.”

  “What did he say?”

  I shook my head and realized he was watching the road. “I don’t know, Jeb. JoHanna was always afraid that it was Duncan, predicting her own death.”

  “And what did you think, Mattie?”

  “That one dream really frightened Duncan, and I think it was because we never could figure it out. But I think we never understood it because it was about the past. Maybe it was old Mr. Senseney trying to tell what had happened to him. I guess some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved.”

  The conversation made me sad. I missed Duncan and JoHanna terribly, with a physical pain far worse than anything I’d suffered at Elikah’s hands. I turned my attention to the passing scenery. Though I’d been to Mobile several times now, I kept seeing it anew. We had left the fancy residential section behind and were on the outskirts. Fine homes had turned into smaller houses with more land. Fall gardens of turnips and pumpkins reminded me of JoHanna’s garden. Would they sell the house? I hadn’t asked. I guess I didn’t want to know for sure. I could always pretend they might come back if I didn’t know for sure.

  Jeb cleared his throat to get my attention. “You reckon Duncan will dream those dreams in Natchez?”

  I’d thought about that, too. “I don’t know, Jeb.”

  “It’ll make life a lot simpler for the McVays if she doesn’t.”

  I had to smile at that. “Maybe, maybe not. The only thing that would make life easier for JoHanna would be to stop thinking, to fall in line without question.” My smiled widened. “I don’t believe that will happen. She’s beat-up now and suffering hard, but I honestly don’t think she can help herself. Not any more than Duncan could help the dreams.”

  Jeb drove on in silence, pondering what I’d said. JoHanna would survive. She was strong. She was beaten, but she wasn’t defeated, not by a long shot. That was the one thing that made it all worthwhile.

  Forty-one

  “LOCALLY, the Jexville Ladies Club has gathered over five thousand pounds of scrap metal. A truck from Mobile will arrive Saturday to pick it up and take it to the war effort.” Janelle nodded and beamed at the polite round of applause from the fifteen women in the room.

  “Our bake sale and fund-raiser was an exceptional success last Saturday.” Janelle hesitated. The years had not been kind to her. Fat had accumulated on her hips and middle, and her large eyes, once wide with intrigue and gossip, were hooded in disappointment. “We owe a special thanks to Mattie Mills, who arranged the, uh, the theatrics. The troupe was very professional, and we all appreciate the work she did to bring them to us from New Orleans. They were, uh, very dramatic. Mattie’s trademark.”

  The applause was barely a ripple around the room, but I acknowledged it with a gracious smile, then glanced out the window. The storm clouds that had begun to gather about noon now covered the eastern horizon in a gray mass that seemed to draw the evening behind them. April storms were usually intense but brief. I checked my watch and hoped that it would hold off until I could get home. I didn’t relish the idea of being stranded in the meeting for an extra half hour.

  “Now, on to the plans for the town victory garden. Mr. Elmo has plowed the garden, and we all have our list of plants that we’re to bring?” Janelle looked around the room to be sure that everyone nodded in agreement. She had a special talent as an organizer. She didn’t do much physical work herself, but she was a master at getting others to work. Everyone except me. As everyone in town knew, other than my job as part-time court reporter, I hadn’t hit a lick at a snake in nearly twenty years. I sat on my front porch swing listening to records or reading strange magazines that came in the mail, along with big packages from all over the world. And I wrote letters. Every day at least one, which I saved until I could get to Fitler or Mobile to mail.

  “Mrs. Stewart’s son left this morning to go to Jackson, where he’ll be inducted into the navy. We’ll all very proud of our brave boys, going over to fight the Germans and the Japs …” Janelle’s voice broke. Her own son was in the Pacific. Janelle had not fully recovered from the shock of his leaving, the day-to-day threat that he would not survive. I felt a moment of pity for her and a fierce delight that I had not left myself open for such anguish.

  Janelle recovered herself. “At any rate, we should take a moment to remember Mrs. Stewart. A phone call would be greatly appreciated; I know from personal experience. I vote we also send over a flag with a star for her front window so everyone will know she has a family member in the war.” She blinked the tears away. “Now that’s all the business, and we’ll serve refreshments. Carrie has prepared a delicious dewberry cobbler with berries picked by her own little Carol Beth. And Annabelle Lee Adams, née Leatherwood, has some of her homemade ice cream for us to top it.” Janelle stepped away from the podium and fanned herself with her program even though it was not warm at all in the Kittrells’ spacious living room. Carrie Kittrell was the newest member of the Jexville Ladies Club. She had recently moved to town with her husband to take over Doc Westfall’s practice. I felt her gaze upon me and knew she’d been warned about me.

  I smiled at her, forcing her to look away. I felt a pang of remorse. She was about my age and looked nice. Maybe she would have been a friend to me, but I couldn’t allow it. The life I’d chosen had no room for friends. If I opened the door to my emotions even one tiny crack, I wouldn’t be able to maintain the life I’d built. I wouldn’t be able to continue. I had my letters from JoHanna and Duncan and Will and John. My little notes from Callie, who had five children, and Lena Rae, with her two sons. That was the only closeness I could manage, and only that because it was far removed from Jexville.

  Mama had died the past spring, and none of us knew if Jojo was still kicking or not. I prayed he’d live to be very, very old. He deserved longevity. I had come to see it as the greatest punishment of all.

  “Now everyone take a seat, and we’ll serve you,” Agnes Leatherwood said. She was a whisper of her former self, a ghost of a person who lost a little more color and substance each year. She lived with her daughter and son-in-law in the same house on Redemption Road where I’d first met JoHanna and Duncan.

  Laying my purse and gloves on the sofa, I got up and went into the kitchen to offer to help serve. They wouldn’t let me, just as they had no interest in having one of the Tuesday meetings in my home. I was allowed to belong, on the fringes. Never in the center. It was an amusing way of dealing with me. I had taken up where JoHanna left off as the town pariah and agitator, but they did not hate me the way they’d hated her. The element of fear was missing.

  They did not fear me because I was no threat. I never had the strength of JoHanna, nor the ability to
love. I didn’t have her joy for life, and there was no need for them to waste their hatred on a dead person.

  The bittnerness of that sudden knowledge almost made me flinch, but I straightened my shoulders and continued into the kitchen.

  “Annabelle Lee, let me help with the ice cream.” I reached for the spoon and dasher, and she drew back as if my red fingernails were too hot to touch.

  “No. No, you might ruin your dress.” She stared at me, the spoon in one hand and her mouth open slightly. Her mother stood behind her.

  “That’s an interesting dress, Mattie.” Janelle walked up to my shoulder. “I didn’t realize that with the war effort they were limiting rations to one yard of material per dress.”

  “Certainly not, Janelle. There are allotments for larger-sized women. But I’m willing to do whatever I can for our boys on the front.” JoHanna had sent me the red dress from New York. It was sleeveless, tight, and above the knee. The shortage of fabric was due to the war effort. The bright red color was due to JoHanna. I gave them all a big smile. “I just got the most precious little Dido. The entire thing wraps around like a little playsuit and ties at the waist. The American designers have done a remarkable job of taking the war limitations and using them creatively. I wouldn’t want to be one of those women who wasted a zipper on an everyday dress.”

  Janelle’s face had gone a hot, hot red. Sweat beaded her upper lip. She still gripped her program in her hand and waved it in an attempt to cool off. Janelle and Vernell were still good friends with Elikah. They pitied him for having such a hard wife, a woman who would not give him children or cook his meals. A woman who wasted her time reading magazines and dressing in outrageous styles that called attention to herself.

  “When Elikah was over at our house for breakfast this morning,” Janelle spoke loudly, to be sure everyone heard, “he was saying how he had decided to join up. He said he’d heard where the infantry needed medics. He’s always had a talent in that area, and he said he was going to join up to help the war.” Janelle’s face had cooled, but her blue eyes had not. “He said he’d already packed his things.”