by Ruth White
“Cedar was just a tiny thing, and after the sorry events of that night, me and Pearl wouldn’t let you two out of sight. We didn’t talk about it in front of y’all either, ’cause for one thing we didn’t want you to be scared of the dark, and for another it was too awful to tell it to young’uns.”
“Around my third birthday? No foolin’?” Peter said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Robber Bob said. “I remember it well. Now, what year would that be?”
“Nineteen forty-four,” Peter said.
“That’s right,” Robber Bob agreed. “It was June of 1944.”
17
RUBY DID NOT REACT. SHE SAT IN STONY SILENCE WHILE the Reeders lightened up the conversation with funny things that had happened in their family.
Rita had captured Ruby’s hand again. Somewhere Ruby found a smile and pasted it onto her face, but she did not participate in the conversation.
“Who was it that taught his dog to use the outhouse?” Cedar was saying.
“Was it Uncle Wick?” Skeeter or Jeeter said.
“Yeah, it sure was,” Peter said with a laugh. “It was Uncle Wick. That dog would stand at the outhouse door and bark when he wanted to go.”
They all laughed, even little Rita. Ruby’s smile stayed in place.
“Yeah, Ruby June, my brother, Wick, was a card,” Robber Bob said. “A true hillbilly. One time he met up with a dandy from Richmond who talked real proper, you know, like he had a big education. So Wick asked that city slicker, ‘Where’d you go to school at?’
“And the city slicker said, ‘Yale.’
“So Wick hollered in his ear, ‘Where’d you go to school at?’”
Robber Bob and his children cracked up. Ruby refreshed the plastic smile, but her face was beginning to ache. When their laughter died down, she jumped to her feet so abruptly, her wooden stool toppled over. She did not bother to pick it up.
“I’m afraid I have to go now.” She rushed through the words. “I have to get ready for bed.”
Rita grabbed her around the waist.
“It’s just barely dark,” Skeeter or Jeeter protested.
But Ruby did not seem to hear. She bent over and looked into Rita’s face. “I won’t forget you in the morning,” she said.
“I’ll walk you home,” Peter offered, and stood up.
“Oh, no!” Ruby said firmly. “No. I . . . I’ll be seeing you!”
She unwound herself from Rita’s embrace and was down the steps and out of sight in a jiffy. The Reeders looked at one another with questions in their eyes.
“Did we say something wrong?” Peter said.
“Don’t blame it on me. I didn’t cuss much,” Cedar said.
“She did act kinda funny, didn’t she?” Robber Bob said as he picked up Ruby’s stool and straddled it. Then he shrugged. “Well, maybe she’s not fond of hillbilly jokes.”
Ruby slowed her pace as she came near The Roost. She could see Mr. Crawford sitting on the front porch, staring into the night in his dark, brooding way. He had run an extension cord, as he often did, from the common room to his phonograph, which was on a table beside him. Of course, he was playing the same song he always played.
Miss Worly and Mr. Gentry came out together, exchanged a few words with Mr. Crawford, then headed toward Busy Street. They were probably going to the movies.
Ruby reached the porch, stepped up, and saw Mrs. Thornton Elkins through the window, curled up on the couch with the phone to her ear, listening in on the party line.
I don’t have to do anything! Ruby thought. I can go on here as if nothing was ever said! They will forget all about it, and I will never tell!
“Everybody is haunted by somebody,” Mr. Crawford was saying to her. “Who haunts you, Ruby June?”
Ruby did not answer. She was tuned in to the other sounds of the house. From an open window on the third floor she could hear the circuit-riding evangelist, who had arrived during the afternoon, practicing his sermon for the tent revival. From the laundry room Miss Arbutus’s sewing machine was whirring like a hummingbird.
“It’s my mother who haunts me,” Mr. Crawford went on. “She gave me away when I was a baby.”
Jolted back to the moment, Ruby turned to face Mr. Crawford.
“But I’ve heard you talk about your parents,” she said.
“Oh, yes, my adopted family,” Mr. Crawford said. “They’re dead now. They were wonderful to me. They gave me everything—plenty of love, care, money. But all my life it has been my real mother I’ve searched for everywhere in every stranger’s face.”
Ruby was stunned.
“The adoption records are sealed for all time,” Mr. Crawford went on. “I don’t even know what her name was. But I call her Laura. The first time I heard this song, I named my mother that. Listen.”
Ruby tilted an ear toward the spinning record, and listened to the words of Mr. Crawford’s favorite song. To her surprise he began to sing along softly, and his voice was not bad.
“Laura is the face in the misty light,
Footsteps that you hear down the hall.
The laugh that floats on a summer night,
That you can never quite recall.
And you see Laura
On a train that is passing through.
Those eyes, how familiar they seem.
She gave your very first kiss to you.
That was Laura! But she’s only a dream.”
“How can a mother give away a child?” Ruby whispered to the night.
“What’s that?” Mr. Crawford said.
“Do you think my mother gave me away?” she asked in a strained voice.
“Oh, no! No, Ruby June.” Mr. Crawford was immediately jarred from his self-pitying mood. “I did not mean that. I have no more idea than you do . . . than anybody does, how you happened to . . .”
He did not go on.
“How a toddler happened to appear in a strange town all alone?” Ruby said.
“That’s right,” Mr. Crawford said. “People in Way Down have pondered this mystery for years. There is no logical explanation for it.”
“If she gave me away . . . if she came here and dumped me, then she did not care, and would probably not want me back now, would she?” said Ruby.
Mr. Crawford searched for the right words.
“But if she did not give you away, Ruby. If you were taken from her, kidnapped, stolen—which is possible, you know—then she may have been searching for you all these years. I . . . I feel sure she loved you.”
Mr. Crawford replaced the needle at the beginning of the record. As Ruby listened, she clutched at that wisp of a memory she had, of being rocked beside a window, through which she could see snow falling. She could almost see the face of the woman who held her . . . almost, but not quite.
. . . the face in the misty light . . .
That you can never quite recall . . .
The song was too heavy, too sad, too close to her own situation. Ruby bolted into the house. She found Miss Arbutus at her sewing machine. Beside her, on a worktable, was a small, colorful pile of Ruby’s underpants. Miss Arbutus glanced up and smiled as Ruby entered.
“What are you doing?” Ruby said in a tremulous voice.
Miss Arbutus did not notice. “I’m putting new elastic in your day-of-the-week step-ins. I’ve already done Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I’ll finish before I turn in.”
“I have something to tell you,” Ruby said.
This time Miss Arbutus heard Ruby’s troubled tone. Instantly she put aside her sewing and stood up. “Let’s go into my room.”
Together they went in and sat down on Miss Arbutus’s huge, old-fashioned iron bed. In a soft clear voice, Ruby repeated what Robber Bob had said. Miss Arbutus listened to every word, but did not herself speak.
“June of 1944,” Ruby finished.
Miss Arbutus placed an arm around Ruby. Her face was anxious, but still she did not speak.
“And Bird said she was a
tiny thing—a little redheaded, curly-headed girl. It’s an amazing coincidence, don’t you think?” Ruby whispered.
“Do you know where Yonder Mountain is?” Miss Arbutus spoke at last.
“No, just somewhere in Virginia. Don’t you know?”
“No.”
They sat in silence for what seemed like a long time.
“Do you want to pursue this matter, Ruby June?” Miss Arbutus finally said.
“Pursue it in what way?”
“Maybe tell the sheriff.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. That would be up to him.”
After a long pause, Ruby said, “I’ll sleep on it.”
Quietly and thoughtfully they went about their evening ritual of bathing, brushing their teeth and hair, and slathering their limbs with lotion.
As they manicured their nails, Ruby told Miss Arbutus about Granny Butler and the prediction made by Aristotle. The room was so quiet, you could hear the night bugs flying against the screen window.
“I need a hug tonight,” Ruby told Miss Arbutus before going to her room.
“And so do I,” Miss Arbutus said as she folded her long arms around the girl. Then they stood together in a warm embrace, both feeling comforted.
18
WELL, I SLEPT ON IT,’ RUBY SAID TO MISS ARBUTUS as she came in to help with breakfast.
“And?” Miss Arbutus urged her to go on.
“And I didn’t get any answers, but I feel better. So let’s give it to the sheriff. Let him deal with it, okay?”
Miss Arbutus didn’t answer.
“Oh, I know you don’t like to go to Busy Street,” Ruby said. “So I’ll go by myself after I’ve finished my errands.”
To Ruby’s surprise, Miss Arbutus said, “I’ll meet you there.”
After breakfast, Ruby went to pick up Rita Reeder, as she had promised. Robber Bob had gone to work already, but the rest of the family saw Rita off in the Radio Flyer.
Rita’s face was shining, but Ruby was sorry to see that the child was dressed in the same ratty outfit she had worn the night before. She made a mental note to ask Miss Arbutus about clothes for Rita. She knew that many of her own outgrown clothes were tucked away in the attic. Miss Arbutus never got rid of anything.
“First we’re going to Morgan’s Drugs for aspirin and Band-Aids,” Ruby said as she walked down the sidewalk, pulling the wagon with Rita in it. “Then we’re going to the A&P for vanilla flavoring and baking powder and peanut butter, and . . . and . . . something else. It’s on my list.” She patted her pocket. “Your daddy will be there working. Then we’re going to the courthouse to see the sheriff.”
It was a beautiful morning, and Busy Street was full of activity, with people going to work, or running errands. Rita began to flash her dimples and wave at people on the street, and they all smiled back, or stopped to speak. When Ruby introduced them to Rita, the child never spoke, but she didn’t stop smiling.
Everybody in the drugstore had to pat Rita on the head or pinch her rosy cheeks.
“What a charmer!”
“Bless her little heart!”
“No bigger’n a minute, is she?”
Ruby was reminded of the days when she was small and Miss Arbutus took her places she had to go. People had been just as attentive to her, and she remembered Miss Arbutus standing aside quietly, beaming with pride, as if Ruby were her own child.
Robber Bob was in the back of the grocery store in the meat section, trying to learn how to cut pork chops without slicing off a finger. He didn’t have time to visit with Ruby and Rita, but he waved and smiled.
At the courthouse, where the sheriff’s office was located on the first floor, Ruby parked the wagon outside with all the items she had bought in it. It was a common belief among Way Down folks that anybody who would steal must be in great need, so they should help themselves. Rarely did anything go missing.
When Ruby entered the sheriff’s office, holding Rita by the hand, Miss Arbutus was already there, sitting quietly in a wingback chair, her hands folded before her. The five-year-old left Ruby, walked straight to Miss Arbutus, and climbed onto her lap.
“She takes to you like a fly to flypaper!” Ruby exclaimed.
Surprised though she was, Miss Arbutus’s face showed that she was pleased. She placed an arm around Rita and smiled into the dimpled face. Rita leaned her head contentedly against her.
For the past five or ten minutes the sheriff had found himself in the awkward position of trying to think up things to say to Miss Arbutus. She had responded only with a smile, a nod, or a yes or no.
“Ruby June!” he said, with relief in his voice. “So glad you’re here. Miss Arbutus said you have something to tell me, but that’s all I could get out of her.”
“She doesn’t like to talk,” Ruby said. “But she tells me that I talk enough for the both of us.”
The sheriff chuckled.
When Ruby finished telling the sheriff Robber Bob’s story, she waited for him to react, but he just sat there staring at her.
“Go on,” he said finally.
“That’s all there is,” Ruby said. “It happened June of the same year, don’t you see?”
“The same year as what?” the sheriff said, his face as blank as a sheet of clean paper.
“When I showed up here in Way Down!” Ruby said. “Don’t you think that’s peculiar?”
The sheriff glanced at Miss Arbutus, then shuffled his feet under his desk and began to play nervously with a pencil.
“Don’t you see, she had red curly hair like mine, she was very young, she disappeared without a trace, and I turned up here around the same time.”
“But didn’t you say she was eaten by a panther?” the sheriff said, obviously bewildered.
“That’s what they figured,” Ruby said, “but nobody knew for sure. There was never a trace of her found.”
The sheriff’s face lit up.
“Oh! Oh! I get it!” he cried out. “You’re wondering if . . . if . . . I see! Maybe she wadn’t eaten up by a panther a’tall!”
Ruby nodded.
“And maybe she was you?”
Ruby nodded again.
The sheriff looked at Miss Arbutus and smiled as if seeking her approval for his cleverness. Miss Arbutus stared out the window at Busy Street and patted Rita’s bare leg.
“But how would she get here?” the sheriff said to Ruby. “A little girl like that in the dark. Yonder Mountain is a good piece from here.”
Ruby shrugged. “How far is it?”
“A good piece,” the sheriff repeated. “And you said her name was Jolene. But your name is Ruby.”
“We don’t really know my name, do we?” Ruby said. “I mean . . . I was only a toddler. I couldn’t talk plain.”
The sheriff was trying to comprehend that statement, and it seemed that he was not having much luck.
“We don’t have all the answers, Sheriff.” Miss Arbutus spoke up. “That’s why we came to you. We thought you might want to investigate.”
“I do want to investigate,” the sheriff said without enthusiasm. “I mean . . . I reckon I should.”
Miss Arbutus kindly tried to help him out. “Maybe you should call the law over there in Virginia and see what you can learn.”
“Why, Miss Arbutus, that’s a real good idea!” the sheriff said. “No matter what anybody else says, I’ve never thought you were dull-witted!”
The sheriff’s words hung in the air like a bad odor, and he bit his lip as if he longed to take them back. But Miss Arbutus retained her calm demeanor.
“All righty!” The sheriff tried to sound cheerful. “Y’all go on home now, and I’ll take care of everything.”
19
THAT VERY AFTERNOON A DETECTIVE BY THE NAME OF Holland came from Buchanan County, Virginia, to see Ruby at The Roost. He was tall with a pleasant face, and he listened to Ruby’s brief story without making a comment. In fact, Ruby thought he must have something else on
his mind.
She figured a detective probably got leads every day, and if he followed all of them, he would be like a dog chasing its tail. So this Mr. Holland would probably treat her story as just another dead end. After asking her a few questions, he thanked her politely and left.
And that was that, Ruby thought with relief, and went back to helping Miss Arbutus make corn bread for supper.
Detective Holland, however, was not as uninterested as he seemed. He was, in fact, having trouble keeping his excitement concealed as he listened to Ruby’s story. On leaving The Roost, he hurried to the courthouse to report to the sheriff.
“She looks exactly like her mother,” he said as he dropped himself in the same wingback chair Miss Arbutus had occupied earlier. “She was Jo Combs from Yonder Mountain—prettiest girl you ever saw. She married Clayton Hurley. We called him Clay. I went to school with both of them.”
Sheriff Reynolds was too flabbergasted to respond.
“The missing girl was named Ruby Jolene Hurley,” Detective Holland went on. “I would swear on a stack of Bibles she’s the same child.”
“What . . . what should we do?” asked Sheriff Reynolds.
Holland stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at Busy Street.
“Maybe I’ll bring her Uncle Christian over here to see her before we do anything.”
“Her uncle?”
“Yeah, her mama’s brother, Christian Combs. He lives over there near Yonder Mountain.”
“What about her mama? Why not bring her? Or her daddy?”
The detective from Virginia sighed a long, weary sigh. “That’s a sad story,” he said. “I won’t go into it now.”
The next day, as Ruby was weeding the garden, Miss Arbutus came out and said to her softly, “Someone is here to see you, Ruby June. Do you want to go comb your hair and wash your face?”
“Do I need to?” Ruby said, wiping her hands on her shorts.
Miss Arbutus touched Ruby’s hair with tenderness, and shook her head. “Not really. You look beautiful.”
“Who is it?” Ruby asked.
“A man from Yonder Mountain. His name is Christian Combs.”
