Summer of the Redeemers

by Carolyn Haines

  I didn’t get to hear what Huey said back because the screen door banged and I went to get the baby. Arly was going to give Alice a ride to school, where the pep bus loaded up behind the band bus. It was a Jexville convoy.

  “I’ll make sure Frank behaves himself,” Alice promised me as she handed the baby over. “That Krissy Elkins has been eyeballing him hard. She might make a play tonight on the bus.”

  “I shouldn’t have to go to every game just to stake my claim.” I was irritable, and it wasn’t Alice’s fault. She was just being a friend.

  “I’m only telling you because you need to know.”

  Arly walked into the kitchen. He nodded to Alice and called over his shoulder to Mama Betts that he was gone. I watched them walk out with a mixture of feelings. Part of me wanted to go, just to be in on some of the fun. Another part of me was worried. I had to see Cammie, and I had to figure out how to do it. Greg was also niggling at the back of my mind. Greg and Caesar and Magdeline. And the preacherman. There was too much unfinished business down Kali Oka.

  Mama Betts and I watched an episode of Route 66 and then I begged her into letting me watch a rerun of Boris Karloff’s Thriller. It was my favorite show, but I couldn’t watch it with Arly because he always scared me afterward. This Friday night seemed like a gift from heaven. All through Route 66 I lay on the sofa with my head in Mama Betts lap and thought of impossible schemes to get Cammie out of that barn. Nothing I dreamed up was good enough.

  Maebelle V. was curled in against me like a spoon, sound asleep. Her little top lip looked like a kewpie doll’s, a delicate edge of a curl.

  When the show was over, Mama Betts made me hot chocolate, scooped up the sleeping baby and left me alone to watch my scary program. She didn’t like Thriller, and she warned me that if I frightened myself, I’d have to sleep in my own room anyway.

  The cocoa smelled delicious as I snuggled back into the pillows and watched these two young boys not much older than Arly have a flat tire on a deserted road. They were going to have to spend the night in this big old abandoned mansion where pigeons flew up and fluttered right under their noses, almost making me spill my cocoa.

  Just by the way they were walking and looking around, and the music, I knew something terrible was going to happen any minute. My heart was racing with excitement, and I forgot about Frank and Greg and Nadine, and even for a little while, Cammie. I forgot that my parents were over a thousand miles away at a time when I needed them more than I ever had. The plight of the boys Biff and Timmy was uppermost in my mind. The pigeons took on a hellish cast, leading the boys up into attics and turrets and rooftops where something dark and evil lurked—and waited.

  Sure enough, they discovered an entire room full of decapitated bodies. A family. Except one of the places where a body should have been was empty. And then there were the sounds of footsteps and an ax striking the walls. The pigeons fluttered horribly, fleeing the roof of the old mansion in a whirlwind of wings and guttural noises. I knew whoever was coming up the stairs didn’t have a head. It was just a body, no head, and an ax.

  Mama Betts would have asked me how he could see to kill Biff and Timmy if he didn’t have any eyes, but those logical questions were irrelevant to me. I was in the thrall of “Pigeons from Hell.”

  “I can’t believe you enjoy this kind of thing.”

  I screamed and whirled around on the sofa to find Mama Betts standing behind me, her long nightgown flowing around her and her Bible in her hand.

  “I was trying to read, and that music. It’s enough to scare Satan from the pits of hell.”

  Mama Betts was a relief. With her standing there it wasn’t so bad to watch the mud-crusted feet with the head of the ax dangling by them ascend the steps to the tower where Biff and Timmy would certainly meet their doom.

  “Rebekah Rich, I can’t believe you enjoy this kind of thing.” But she stood there with her finger tucked in the pages of her gilt-edged Bible, waiting to see what happened.

  Two steps from the top, and the television went back to Biff and Timmy trying to make something to escape out the third floor window with. If they jumped, they’d be broken to bits by the fall. They were tying curtains and sheets together while constantly watching the door of the turret room where they were. They could hear the steps, and the head of the ax thumping on the floor with each step.

  They tied the last knot, threw the rope of sheets and curtains over the side, and Timmy went out the window. He was younger and smaller. Biff urged him to hurry.

  The ax-feet were coming along the hallway now, making a beeline for Biff’s room.

  Biff and I both knew the knots wouldn’t hold his weight and Timmy’s at the same time, so he had to wait until Timmy was on the ground. He looked up, and his face registered stark terror at what he saw. Then the ax blade bit deep into the wood by his hand.

  Mama Betts walked over to the television and switched it off. “That’s enough of that.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. No wonder you can’t sleep at night and toss and talk.”

  “Me?” I knew I wasn’t sleeping well, but I didn’t know I’d been talking. “What do I say?” I was afraid to ask.

  “You talk about knives and blood and white dresses and—” She stopped. She sat on the arm of the sofa and stroked the bangs back from my face. “Effie and Walt will be home before you know it. You and Arly have been great. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

  I swallowed. “It hasn’t been so bad.”

  Mama Betts chuckled. “Every time you’ve gone down that hallway, you’ve looked at the telephone with such desperate longing. Either you’re waiting for that boy to call, or you keep thinking Effie and Walt will dial us up.”

  “There was something I wanted to tell The Judge.”

  “I thought as much. Now, I’ve got that baby sound asleep in my bed. When Alice comes in with Arly, she’ll come to your room. Just tell her to stay, and she can take Maebelle V. home early in the morning. Agatha won’t know how many young’uns are asleep under her roof. I doubt she knows how many she’s had.”

  “Thanks, Mama Betts.” I knelt on the sofa and kissed her soft cheek. It was dry, like it had been dusted with a thin coat of powder, and I remembered that she didn’t sweat anymore. She said old bodies didn’t make sweat or hair coloring anymore. That’s why she always smelled good and her hair was whiter than the sand beaches at Gulf Shores, Alabama.

  “Sleep tight, Bekkah.”

  I went on to bed. Thriller was over, and even if it wasn’t Mama Betts wouldn’t let me turn the television back on. My body wanted to sleep, but my mind wasn’t ready to give up. I lay on the clean sheets, smelling the sunshine where they’d dried on the clothesline and thinking about Greg. Had he gone back to the Redeemers? What had he done with the crucifix? Had they hurt him more? I closed my eyes against the memory of his back, but I only found Caesar’s mangled body behind my closed eyelids.

  Two weeks. If I could hang on for two weeks, Daddy would be home and I could tell him everything. I had no way of knowing if anyone had been back in Nadine’s barn and injured another of the horses. She might be hurt herself, and those animals trapped in stalls with no way to get water. I tossed on the bed. For more than two weeks I’d pushed all of my nightmares to the back of my mind. But tonight, aided by the gentle flutter of the pigeons’ wings, the ugly images attacked.

  No matter what position I got in or what I tried to think about, the worst of my imagination took hold and served me up a terrible picture. When I was certain that Mama Betts had drifted off to sleep, I got up and slipped out the front door into the still night. I went to the swing. My slipperless feet dug into the oval bare patch of ground just beneath the swing, and I moved softly into the night air. The chains creaked gently, such a different sound from the chains on the old sign at Nadine’s. This was comforting, a cre-e-ek of lulling motion. I swung slowly back and forth and waited for Alice and Arly to come pulling into the yard. Once Alice crawled in bed wit
h me, she’d want to talk about the ball game, and mostly the bus ride home. Mack would have kissed her, and we’d have to decide how much tongue was allowed for nice girls. I wouldn’t have to face the darkness alone.

  I gave my body to the motion of the swing and tried to imagine Alice and Mack on the bus, along with Arly and Rosie, and Jamey Louise and Dewey. It was a vision of tangled limbs and eventual disaster.

  A noise in the blueberry bushes made me look up. Someone was standing there, just between the two biggest bushes. It looked to be a grown boy. Close to Arly’s age and size. His hands were at his sides, empty. And he simply stood, staring at me.

  I put one foot on the ground and dragged the swing to a stop. I was terrified. The folds of my billowing nightgown settling about my legs was like the touch of a hand from the grave. The boy and I stared at each other. When the blueberry branches shifted in a errant breeze, he disappeared. I was acutely aware that I was in my nightgown, barefoot. My hair was down my back, unbraided and unbrushed.

  The yard was completely dark, except for the silvery light of stars and the half moon. It was impossible to see clearly. When I looked at the place where I’d seen the boy, it was empty.

  I’d imagined him. The breath whooshed out of me on a long, trembly sigh. I’d frightened myself nearly to death. Along with everything else that was happening, I was getting visits from Biff or Timmy off a Boris Karloff show. It was time to go inside.

  “Bekkah?” The voice was male, sad.

  I jerked around to find the owner, but I didn’t see anyone. The yard kept the secret of whoever had spoken.

  I eased to my feet. I’d make a dash for the door and pray that no cold and clammy hands clutched my nightgown.

  “I’m sorry, Bekkah. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Then I saw him again. He was such a distance away, and the branches of the blueberry bushes blocked my view. I couldn’t see him clearly, but I recognized his voice.

  “Greg?” I waited.

  “Nadine said you were never coming back to the barn.”

  I wanted him to come closer so we could talk, but I was afraid if I asked him to he’d leave. “She’s mad. Maybe she’ll get over it.” I tried to sound hopeful, even though I didn’t think Nadine ever forgot or forgave.

  “Nadine is …” His voice drifted to a stop.

  “Come over here,” I said. “Come and sit with me. I can get us a snack from the kitchen. Mama Betts made a fresh coconut cake.”

  He walked toward me, bigger than I remembered. He’d been so sick, I’d forgotten that he had grown so muscular over the summer.

  “You shouldn’t be out in your gown,” he said.

  The gauzy cotton folds had settled around my legs, outlining my body. I felt my face heat up, and I was glad it was dark. I could tell him that I’d seen him in less than a gown. At that thought I grew hotter still.

  “I’ve been wanting to thank you, Bekkah. You’ve been a good friend. My only real friend.”

  “It wasn’t anything.” It embarrassed me; what I’d done was minimal. “Let me go get a couple of pieces of cake. It’s wonderful.”

  His hand closed over mine on the swing chain. “Don’t go. I wanted to talk to you about Nadine.” He put his hand on the big tree trunk and leaned against it. “She’s … she said some things today about you—”

  “She was pretty mad.”

  “That’s an understatement.” He blew a sigh out. “She said you’d never come back. That the horses would rot before you saw them again.”

  “But they’re okay, aren’t they?” I dug my toe into the dirt.

  “Yeah, they’re okay. But don’t forget them, Bekkah. Maybe this will all blow over and you can come back. Nadine just gets mad and she acts like she’s … never going to get over it.”

  “Watch Cammie for me, Greg.”

  “I will, while I can. It’s that … Bekkah, I can’t stay there much longer. I—”

  I heard the sound of a car and recognized it long before the headlights cut down the drive and captured me in the high beam like a terrified rabbit. The place where Greg had stood was empty.

  Thirty-four

  ALICE decided to stay for breakfast instead of rushing on home Saturday morning. Maebelle V. perched on Mama Betts’ hip while she cooked us French toast and bacon. The morning had a crisp snap to it that the warm night hadn’t prepared any of us for. Winter was making me a promise.

  Across the table, Arly watched me like a hawk, and Alice kept shooting me sympathetic looks. Krissy Elkins had made her play for Frank. Alice assured me that he’d behaved like an honorable gentleman, but that hadn’t kept Krissy from sitting beside him on the bus ride home, and, well, Alice hadn’t been able to watch them the entire time on the way back. Seems that Mack’s face kept blocking her view.

  She thought I was upset and quiet because of that. Frank would be mortally wounded to know that the late-night visit of Greg the Redeemer had pushed his sitting by Krissy Elkins to the nether reaches of my poor brain. It wasn’t that it didn’t hurt my feelings, I was just too torn up by Greg’s visit and what it might mean to take time to feel anything about Frank and Krissy. Sometime during the late night of Alice’s excited whispers, I’d decided to go to the barn. I’d ask Nadine about a price for Cammie. Maybe if she thought I was going to buy her, she’d let me ride her again even if she hated me.

  “Bekkah?” Mama Betts dangled the Log Cabin syrup in front of my face. “Are you going to eat that French toast or stare it into another dimension?”

  Mama Betts didn’t like Thriller, but she liked The Twilight Zone. The Judge teased her about having a crush on Rod Serling.

  I took the syrup and puddled my plate to the edges. The bacon was afloat in maple. Alice and I ate three pieces each, a real Saturday treat. We didn’t have French toast or pancakes unless the weather was cold, and then not often. I ate with a big show of appetite, just to let Arly know that Frank Taylor didn’t bother me a bit.

  Mama Betts was bathing Maebelle V., so Alice and I took the first load of clothes to the line to hang them. I enjoyed putting them out in the sun. The day was crystal, the humidity much lower than usual. The clothes would dry fast and stiff, the way I liked them when I ironed them.

  “Bekkah, you okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “You didn’t like Frank that much, did you?”

  “Not enough to cry over him.” I grinned to take the sting out of my words. How could I explain that the things happening in my head were so different from kisses and crushes that I couldn’t take time out to let a boy break my heart?

  “Jamey Louise said you wouldn’t be upset. She said you cared more for that bay horse than you ever would for a boy.”

  I let it ride. Jamey Louise had a sharp eye and a sharper tongue. But she wasn’t as wrong as she could have been. “Jamey hurt Greg pretty bad, you know.” I shook out the last towel and pinned it to the line. It was red- and blue- and yellow-striped, beautiful in the clear October sun. I couldn’t get Greg off my mind.

  Alice nodded. “Jamey acts like there never was a Greg. I asked her one time if she ever saw him, and she pretended like she didn’t know who I was talking about. She was ashamed that she’d spent all summer smooching with him.”

  “Because he’s a Redeemer. ‘Cause he’s different.”

  Alice started to say something, but we heard a vehicle on the road. It didn’t sound like one of the regulars, and we paused to watch. Nadine’s old green truck churned by, going twice as fast as was safe or necessary. A cloud of dust boiled out behind her.

  I handed Alice the empty basket. “Listen, I may not have another chance to see Cammie in a long time.” I watched the road as I spoke, afraid that it might be one of Nadine’s little jokes, that she’d turn around and drive right back home because she’d know what I was thinking of doing.

  “You aren’t going there? She told you not to come back.” Alice was worried.

  “If she doesn’t catch me, she’ll never know.”
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  “And if she does?”

  “What can she do? The worst would be tell Mama Betts. She’ll fuss at me and ground me. I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, so what’s the big deal?” I put it together in my head, unwilling to look beneath the surface of what I was about to do. I had to see Cammie. I had to. Maybe then I could sleep without dreaming about her. And if Greg was back at Nadine’s, I wanted to see him too. He’d been trying to tell me something. Something important. There had been something very different about Greg, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

  “Bekkah, this is wrong.” Alice thrust the clothes basket back at me.

  I refused to take it. “I’ll be back, Alice. Cover for me if you can. If you can’t, don’t worry about it.” I turned and ran, glad to see that Picket had fallen in beside me.

  The barn door was opened a crack. It gave me pause, but I didn’t tarry long with indecision. Nadine had gone. There was no telling when she would be back or where she might have gone to. I slipped inside.

  An unfamiliar odor came from the center of the barn. A dark suspicion blossomed in my brain. Greg had said something about checking on Cammie. The first stalls were clean, hay stacked neat, good water. I smelled Cammie’s before I looked. When I did look, my heart pounded with fury. Her floor was squishy with muck. I got her halter and slipped it over her head. In the semidarkness of the barn, she rolled her eyes and nipped at me. I spoke softly but firmly and put her in the cross ties. I hadn’t intended to take the time to groom her, but her coat was crusted and rough where she’d lain down in the stall and manure had dried on her. I started crying as I cleaned her up. Every time my hand touched her hide, she flinched and danced away from me. I found the saddle in my hands without even thinking about getting it. Once she was tacked up, though, I knew I was taking her down the road. I’d never bring her back. Never. I didn’t care what happened to me, I wasn’t leaving Cammie behind.

  She shied almost out from under me as I tried to mount, but I managed to struggle into the saddle by clinging to her mane, and then was nearly upset again as I tried to urge her through the narrow gate I’d left open. Once we were through, we started down the drive at a trot. She twisted and spun under me, but I managed to keep my legs on her and push her into something of a forward motion.