Cottonwood Whispers

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “Seems to me anytime you’re real sour is when you and Gemma are havin’ a dustup.” He returned my look of surprise with a wink. “See there, Jessie? I know you better’n you think I do.”

  The breeze had picked up, and I tipped my face to catch it, thinking over my options about what to tell Buddy, if I was even going to tell him anything at all. He watched me debate with myself before I finally relented.

  “It’s just, she’s my best friend,” I said with a sigh. “You know how I mean. It’s no good when things ain’t right between us.”

  “She do somethin’ to rile you up?”

  I shook my head slowly with a grimace full of shame. “It’s Gemma who’s mad at me, not the other way around. She’s all fired up.”

  “She’ll get over it soon enough, the way I see it.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Jessie, ain’t no time you two had a spat longer’n a few days. It’ll be good as new soon, you can mark my word.”

  “Things are different this time,” I murmured, tucking one knee up under my chin. “Ain’t nothin’ usual about this fight.”

  “Ain’t like you to do nothin’ to rile her up that bad,” he told me, a reassuring smile on his face. “Maybe you’re worried over nothin’. You shouldn’t feel so bad.”

  I knew he was trying to be nice, and under better circumstances maybe I would have had more appreciation for his tone. But just then, with all the worries stirring my stomach up into a twister, I didn’t take too kindly to his argument that things weren’t so bad as I thought.

  “Were you there?” I asked him sharply. “’Cause from my way of seein’ things, if you weren’t there, you ain’t got no way of sayin’ how I should feel.”

  Buddy sat up a little straighter when I spoke, and he donned an expression of discomfort that made me feel bad for speaking so harshly. But only a little.

  “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Jessie,” he said, his voice rising a bit higher in his eagerness to reassure me of his good intentions. “I was just tryin’ to help.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ you can do to help,” I told him in a softer tone. “Ain’t nothin’ anybody can do.” I said that with enough conviction to let Buddy know I didn’t want him to say anything more about it, but I didn’t mean every bit of it. Luke would help in some way; I was sure of that. I didn’t know what he would do, but suddenly, sitting on Buddy Pernell’s porch drinking lemonade was no longer a good idea to me, and I couldn’t stand the wait that it would take me to get to Luke’s. I hopped up quickly, handed my empty, condensation-covered glass to Buddy without looking at him, and said, “Gotta go. Thanks for the lemonade.”

  “Hold on, Jessie,” he called after me, but I was at the bottom of the steps by this time and didn’t stop to listen.

  “Gotta go,” I repeated, adding, “See you at church” in hopes of making some amends for returning his kindness with my short temper.

  “I didn’t mean anythin’ bad, Jessie,” he hollered.

  I stopped at the street and turned to look over my shoulder. “I know,” I replied sincerely. “It’s okay. I’ve just got somewhere to go.”

  Buddy followed me down the steps and paused at the bottom, wringing his hat in his hand nervously. “Well, I was gonna ask you somethin’ before you go.”

  My feet were itching to get to Luke, but I figured I owed Buddy for being so kind to me even when I stuck my claws out, so I cocked my head to the side and pretended more interest than I felt.

  He paused for a few seconds, and I stood there impatiently, wishing more than anything that he’d just up and spit it out. Finally he did, and I immediately took my wish back.

  “I was just wonderin’ if I could take you to the Independence Day dance this year.”

  My heart popped into my throat, and I was suddenly covered in hot prickles even though I felt shivery. I stared awkwardly at him, my mouth hanging open in disbelief. No boy had ever asked me anything like that before, and I had no idea how to respond. This was something about growing up that my momma hadn’t covered. But then, we’d never needed to cover it before since I hadn’t been interested in any boy except Luke since the day I turned thirteen.

  So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I walked away.

  “I gotta go,” I told him again, and without answering him, I left him behind as quickly as I could without looking like a coward.

  I could hear him call after me, but I ignored him. When I was well out of his sight, I slowed my pace a bit, beads of sweat dripping down my neck. I felt like a horse’s behind for leaving him high and dry like that, and my mind began to swirl with insecure thoughts that turned into anger as I walked.

  How dare Buddy Pernell ask me something like that while I was wound up about me and Gemma. I was in no state to be put on the spot, and he should have known better than to ask me like that, out of the blue. The way I saw it, he was just another selfish boy who thought he was so great that I’d feel pleased as punch to be courted by him and that his attentions would make all my worries go away.

  All those thoughts made me feel better for being a coward . . . at least a little.

  The sky was just starting to hint at sunset, and I took a deep breath of the summer air as I hurried down the road. There wasn’t one single person I could tell about me and Gemma, but being with Luke usually took my mind off things, and my spirits lifted with just the anticipation of seeing him.

  That was how I ended up with at least a little smile on my face when I broke through the tree line at the front of his property. I could hear all sorts of clattering going on in Luke’s house, and I wondered what sort of fixing up he was doing now.

  I walked up his front steps and peered into the window. “If you’re doin’ spring cleanin’,” I said loudly enough to be heard over his noise, “you’re runnin’ late.”

  Luke jumped a little when my voice startled him, and he tossed aside an old field-working boot with ferocity. The boot knocked over a cup full of water, and I quickly backed away from the window so none of the scattering droplets landed on me. I was so surprised by his angry display that my eyes must have been wide as saucers, but Luke didn’t seem to notice.

  He just pointed at me and said, “Don’t you go sneakin’ up on me, Jessilyn. Ain’t I told you that before?”

  I’d had enough of people trouble, and I bristled at his tone. “I ain’t sneakin’. If you hadn’t been makin’ all that ruckus, you’d have heard me comin’.”

  Luke glared at me a few seconds and then turned away, shaking his head so hard that his short blond hair fluffed up into a peak.

  I pulled away from the window and warily made my way inside, peeking around the doorway first. “You lookin’ for somethin’?”

  He didn’t answer me at first. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck, a sign of stress I’d seen in him just the day before.

  I didn’t much like being ignored and particularly not after the day I’d had. “Ain’t you gonna answer me?” I asked him determinedly. “I said, are you lookin’ for somethin’?”

  “I’m just missin’ a tool I need. It ain’t nothin’ to concern you,” he muttered, kicking a dirty sock across the wooden floor.

  “Maybe I can help,” I managed to squeak out. Since when had anything to do with Luke not concerned me? “That’s all I was thinkin’.”

  Luke rubbed the space between his eyes and sighed, letting his shoulders drop into a defeated pose. “Jessilyn, I ain’t in need of your help.” He stopped himself short, hearing the sharpness in his own words. “It just ain’t somethin’ you need to be worryin’ about, is all.”

  His words were said with restraint and laced with enough honey that they should have made me feel a bit better. But they meant little to me. His whole body told me that what he really wanted to say to me would have cut me like a knife.

  More than anything, I felt like crying, and that made me even madder because I hated crying. All in the space o
f one afternoon, two of the most important people in my life had taken to despising me. At least with Gemma I knew why, but I had no way of knowing why Luke seemed to want me out of his sight as much as he did right then.

  I could see that asking him was of no use, and after a minute or so of watching him avoid looking at me, I just turned around and walked away from a man for the second time that day.

  Chapter 13

  There was a storm in the air on Tuesday morning just as much as there was a storm in my heart, and with my chores behind me, I wearily put my walking shoes on to the tune of Momma humming while she sewed.

  “I’m headin’ into town to get some things for Miss Cleta. You need anythin’?” I asked, peeking into her tiny sewing space.

  She stuck her needle into a cushion and looked at me with consoling eyes. “You all right, baby?”

  I shrugged and fingered a piece of green muslin that lay spread out on a wooden chair. “Just feelin’ cooped up, is all.”

  “Feels like rain today. Worries me you’ll get caught in a cloudburst.”

  “Ain’t like I’ve never been caught in one before.”

  She put down her half-sewn dress and stood to pull me close. “Gemma won’t stay mad long, Jessie. Whatever it is you two are dustin’ up about, it’ll work out.”

  My shoulders sagged with worry but not only from remembering my troubles with Gemma. I was still stinging from Luke’s rebuke the night before too. I just melted into her arms for a minute and let her comfort me as only a momma could. Then I smiled wanly and said, “I’ll be all right, Momma. Sure you don’t need nothin’?”

  “No, baby, I was just in town last night. You have a nice walk and be careful. Duck into a store if it starts to come down on you.”

  “Yes’m.” I made my way downstairs and packed up a few things for Mr. Poe, grabbed one of Daddy’s fine ripe tomatoes from the pantry, sprinkled some salt on it, and set out on my way. Tasting the cool juice from the tomato did nothing to ease the intense heat of the still-early morning, but I kept on the road into town, determined to check up on Mr. Poe.

  The sheriff was standing on the front steps when I reached the jail. He was smoking a cigar, and he tipped his hat at me when he saw me coming.

  “Got a hot day for such a long walk, Miss Jessilyn. But then, we ain’t got nothin’ but hot days no more.” He cast a glance up into the sky, squinting against the sun as it popped out from its cover of clouds. “Those storm clouds are teasin’ us today. Sure could use some rain.”

  “It’ll rain,” I told him confidently. “I can smell it in the air.” I climbed the steps and stood in front of him, well off to the side to avoid the suffocating stench of his smoke. “I’m here to see Mr. Poe. Seems to me there ain’t no law against me seein’ a prisoner in your jail.”

  “Well, I suppose I could work somethin’ out there,” he said with a slow drawl. “Providin’ you behave yourself, that is.”

  I bristled at his response and stood up straight, my five feet seven inches matching up to his short frame. “What kind of trouble are you talkin’ about, Sheriff? I ain’t never been in no trouble with the law.”

  “You ain’t never been so determined to see a man go free, neither. I don’t want you goin’ and takin’ liberties with my prisoner. I know you and Gemma have been sneakin’ him things. I already done took away a box of one of his crazy collections.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Doggonit, you know I can’t have you interferin’ in police business.”

  “Maybe if the police wasn’t so bound to make a poor innocent man miserable, I wouldn’t go interferin’. And anyway, all we did was bring him some treats. Seems a man unjustly accused can’t hurt so much from gettin’ treats.”

  He replaced his hat, took two puffs on his cigar, and looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Ain’t no reason you girls had to do it in secret. I’ll let the man have some treats. Just depends on what the treats are.”

  “You wouldn’t even let us see him.”

  “That was when there was trouble stirred up. The boys around here have eased off a bit. Seems they’re willin’ to wait for trial and let the law take care of things. Wish you’d do the same. I got rules in my jail, Jessilyn.”

  I reached into one of my dress pockets and held out a handful of stones. “Brought these for Mr. Poe’s collection. And I brought him some of Momma’s dried figs.” I pulled a bag out of my other pocket and revealed it to him. “You got rules about these things, too?”

  “Can’t let him have the stones. Could be a weapon.”

  I rolled my eyes to the heavens and sighed. I never enjoyed dealing with people that didn’t use the sense God gave them. “When’s the last time you saw Elmer Poe hurt a body with a rock? He ain’t no David with a sling. He just wants ’em to look at when he’s sittin’ all cooped up in that dingy old cell.”

  The sheriff puffed another circle of smoke in my direction, and I waved it off angrily, sick of the smoke and senseless words that kept coming from that man’s mouth.

  “Listen here,” he said, his patience waning. “You can let him have those figs, but that’s it. Now, if you want to come in here, fine. But I’m tellin’ you, those rocks stay outside. You hear?”

  I looked at the thick, stubby finger he pointed at me and bit back the sharp words that sat on the tip of my tongue. Finally, after taking a minute to compose myself, I dropped the stones onto the jailhouse steps, letting their clatter interrupt the silence between us. I held up the bag of figs to show it was all I had with me. “Now can I go in?”

  He finally stubbed the ugly old cigar out on the metal railing and flung out a hand in an exaggerated gesture to usher me inside. I was disliking him more and more by the minute.

  “My daddy says ain’t no way Mr. Poe done this,” I told the sheriff as I followed him back to where they were holding Mr. Poe. “Ain’t just me and Gemma that thinks it. Ain’t just Daddy, neither. There’s plenty of folks that know he ain’t capable.”

  “Ain’t what folks think that I run my town on,” he said sharply.

  “Sure about that?” I asked, opening my mouth that one step too far like I usually did. “It’s an election year, ain’t it?”

  He whirled around on me with a quickness I didn’t know a bulky man like him could possess and glared at me with a look I’d never seen in his eyes before. “Talk like that’ll get you in trouble, little lady. You best bite your tongue before I send you out of here good and quick.”

  He startled me enough that I took a long step back, but my gaze never left his. “I done known you a long time, Sheriff. For the life of me I can’t figure why you’re treatin’ Mr. Poe so bad. He ain’t never been nothin’ but good to you.”

  “I’m done talkin’ with you, Jessilyn,” he told me. “You want to see Elmer Poe, then you go on back and do it. I ain’t gonna argue with you no more.”

  I stared at him for a few seconds longer, then stormed past him into the short, stuffy hall that led to Mr. Poe’s cell.

  “You got ten minutes,” Sheriff Clancy called before he slammed the door behind me.

  I reached Mr. Poe’s cell and tapped on one of the bars to get his attention without startling him. He was all curled up in the corner of his cot, staring at the narrow patch of cloudy sky that was visible through his window.

  “Hey there, Mr. Poe,” I said softly as he turned to look at me.

  He sat up to greet me, but his movements were slow and labored, his face creased far more than I remembered it. “Hey there, Miss Jessilyn. Didn’ hear ya comin’.”

  “I thought you’d like some company.”

  “Sure ’nough.” A dim smile crossed his face but never reached his eyes. “A body needs comp’ny tuh get by.”

  A knot formed in my throat as I looked at his face that was so saddened by betrayal and confusion. He shuffled over to me, wrapping his hands around the bars for support, and just stood there with his head dipped down, his eyes focused on the tips of his worn sho
es. I’d never seen Mr. Poe with shoes that didn’t shine like the moon, and it struck me that all I’d known this man to be seemed to be slipping away from him.

  I pulled the small sack from my pocket and held it between the bars. “Brought you some of my momma’s dried figs. I know you like them.”

  “That’s right kind of ya,” he said, taking them with a shaky hand. “Right kind. Tell yer momma Ah said so.”

  “Yes’r. I’ll do that.”

  I watched him as he made about the business of getting into the bag of figs, but his motions were slow and uncoordinated. The paper sack crinkled loudly as he tried to unfold the top and reach inside. It must have taken him a solid minute before he even managed to open the top, but once inside, his hand wouldn’t grasp one.

  “Cain’t find ’em,” he muttered.

  “Here, I’ll help you, Mr. Poe.” I gently took the bag from him and reached in to pull out two sugary figs. “They get stuck together sometimes, is all. Maybe we can rip the sack some so you can see them.” I tore the bag halfway down the side and rolled the top down to form a paper bowl. “There you go. Now you can get at them good and easy.”

  I leaned against the bars and watched as Mr. Poe shuffled back to his cot, slumped over his knees, and fumbled with the figs. Even eating seemed a chore to him, but at length he managed to swallow one.

  “Mighty good,” he murmured, his head continuing to nod slightly as though he had no ability to control it. “You tell yer momma ain’t nuthin’ tasted better tuh me than these here figs.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Poe.” For another minute I watched him without saying a word. He was just sitting there, staring at the other fig in his shaky fingers. Finally I leaned in closer, sticking my head as far through the bars as I could manage, and quietly said, “Mr. Poe. They bein’ good to you in here?”

  He didn’t seem to hear and I raised my voice a little. “You hear, Mr. Poe? I was askin’ if they’s treatin’ you good in this here jail.”