Snakes and Stones

by Lisa Fowler

  “No. I’m not going to lock you behind bars, but when your mama gets here we’re going to come up with a suitable punishment.” He rubs his forehead with his hand like he’s trying to rub my memory from his mind. “And we haven’t even started to discuss the bit about the kidnapping. That’s a whole other mess to get into.”

  He sighs and shakes his head as he looks me up and down like he just don’t quite know what to do.

  “You mean I won’t have to go to jail?” I ask timidly, feeling a little smile come across my face.

  “That’s what I mean,” he says. “I can’t promise, but I don’t see any reason the store owner would want to press charges. All he really wants is his money back.”

  I let out a long breath. I can’t remember feeling this lightweight in all my born days. Matter of fact, if I was a bird I’d be soaring above the clouds right about now. The way I see it, there’s not but one question still left unanswered, so I reckon it’s my duty to ask it.

  “Um … sir … does my daddy have to stay in jail?”

  The sheriff smiles.

  He stands and plants both of his big, wide hands on my shoulders. “Slow down, Miss Hill. Your daddy does not have to stay in jail, but he’s not exactly free to go, just yet. We still need to talk to your mama about that. Now, it may take just a bit, but you go with Elsie and she’ll do what needs to be done to clear this whole stealing mess up.”

  I look Elsie in the eyes and for the first time since I’ve come, she smiles. And I’m more than happy to smile back at her. Draping her arm across my shoulder, she leads me out of the sheriff’s office.

  “Oh, and just one more thing, Miss Hill,” the sheriff says as we’re walking out. “If I ever hear tell of you doing any more stealing, from anyone, anywhere, at any time, I’ll personally see to it that you spend more time than you desire behind bars. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Elsie’s walking me from the sheriff’s office, Anita Silverstone walks out.

  “Chestnut,” she says, “I wondered where you’d gotten to. There’s someone in my office to see you.”

  I look her in the eyes and she’s smiling from ear to ear. It seems even her eyes are dancing a dance of excitement. She nods.

  “Why don’t you go on in.”

  And I do. I run fast as I can to the office I saw Anita Silverstone come out of, and sitting there in a chair as big as the sheriff’s is …

  39

  FINALLY!

  Mama! Oh, Mama! I knew you’d come! I just knew it!”

  I run like a rabbit and fall into her open arms, and it’s just as I dreamed for two long years it would be. I close my eyes and lay against her pillows, trying my best to soak in the love I’ve missed all that time.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Mama!”

  I breathe in her scent and it’s just as I remembered: perfume, talcum powder, and fresh-washed clothes, fluffed outside by the summer breezes, and all of it rolled up in such a pretty package as my mama.

  She pushes me back, still gripping to my arms. “Let me look at you,” she says. And you can believe I look at her too.

  She’s as pretty as I remember with laughing eyes the color of turtle shells and hair as dark and shiny as the crows that perch the clothesline in winter. Her skin is as fair and pale as Hazel’s baby doll, and her lips are painted the deepest shade of pomegranate red I ever did see.

  “My, my, how you’ve grown!” she says. “Why, if I’d seen you out on the street, I wouldn’t have known it was you. You’re the prettiest thing I’ve laid eyes on in quite some time.” She smoothes my hair with her hand.

  Anita Silverstone strolls back into the office with a grin on her face wide enough to choke a baby crocodile. “Chestnut, do you know this lady?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” I say. “This here’s my mama. My sweet, loving, long-lost mama and I’m not aiming to ever let loose of her again.” My smile is so wide it pains the muscles in my face. I grip Mama’s hand with the both of mine, swing it back and forth, and kiss it over and over again.

  “Mama, where have you been?” I stare up into her eyes. “Have you been searching for us? Did you miss me as much as I missed you? Oh, just wait ’til you see the triplets! They’re not babies any more, why they’re plumb—”

  “All right now, Chestnut,” Mama whispers, patting my hand nervously. “Calm down. Let’s not get too excited. There’ll be plenty of time for questions and answers, later.”

  Her face flushes red as a poppy flower and I notice right off she’s not looking into my eyes. She’s looking to Anita Silverstone the whole entire time that she’s talking.

  Strange.

  Reckon she’s just as feared of folks in the lawman business as I am.

  “Oh, Mama, I’ve got so much to tell you,” I say, “and wait ’til you see our wagon!”

  Mama rolls her eyes to Anita Silverstone. Humph. If I didn’t know better I’d say Mama’s embarrassed of me. But that can’t be. I reckon she’s just tired from her travels.

  “How was your trip down?” Anita Silverstone asks.

  Mama dabs at her forehead with her handkerchief. “The train ride? Dreadful! Simply dreadful. All of the stops we made in those tiny little one-horse towns full of insignificant little people going about their silly little lives. I’ve never been so cramped for so long a time in all my life. Folks say the train is the way to travel but I don’t agree. There are just too many people crammed into one place to ever call that comfort!”

  Mama’s changed.

  I ain’t sure how exactly, but she’s changed. I listen patiently as she spends more time complaining to Anita Silverstone about everything from the train ride to the shoes she’s wearing that are causing corns and bunions where there used to be tiny little toes.

  After a while of Mama’s complaining I suppose Anita Silverstone must have gotten a-fierce tired. “Chestnut,” she says, “would you like to take your mama outside under the oak trees and wait for your daddy to be released?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. “Oh, Mama! Daddy’s going to be so happy to see you.”

  Mama shoots me a look as she snatches up her purse and plops it over her arm like a wet towel to a clothesline. Been so long since I been with a lady carrying a purse I ’bout forgot what it looked like. Then again, Mama always did say a lady never goes into public without her purse—even if there’s nothing in it of substance.

  Walking the halls from the sheriff’s office, my face is aching from the grinning. I stare up at Mama and think again just how pretty a lady she is. But, I can’t help but think again how Mama’s changed. She’s smiling and nodding and speaking to every lawman in sight. Now it almost seems like she’s one of them, with her shoulders pulled back and her nose sort of high up in the air.

  We stroll, arm in arm, to a small grove of oak trees just outside of the building. The sunlight is shining down around Mama like a light’s been turned on from Heaven. She’s dressed in the prettiest blue suit I ever did see. Reminds me of the robin’s eggs in the nests up and under the eaves of our barn. With her purse hung over her arm and carrying her white gloves in her hands, Mama looks right citified, just like the ladies in the fancy shops in Louisiana.

  “Oh, Mama,” I say. “I forgot something inside. I’ll be right back. You wait on me now, you hear?”

  Mama smiles and nods but I’m not quite sure if she’s nodding and smiling at me or that lawman just passed.

  Anyway, I left my metal box back in Sheriff Nix’s office and I’m not aiming to leave it behind. That box cost me a cut on the finger when I dug it out of the ground with a rock back at the coal mine.

  I run lickety-split back into the building thinking all the time I’d better hurry or Mama will think I’m not coming back. Elsie’s there, behind the desk, same as always, but this time she smiles when she lays eyes on me.

  “Miss Elsie,” I say, “I forgot my box.” I spit the words out fast because I don’t want to miss a minute with Mama. The whole time
I’m standing before Miss Elsie I’m stretching my neck, weaving and bobbing, trying to see outside, to make sure Mama don’t leave.

  “Your box? Where did you leave it, do you remember?”

  “Yes’m. I left it in Sheriff Nix’s office, on his desk.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll get it for you,” Elsie says. She plops a book down on top of her papers and turns back toward the sheriff’s office.

  “It’s metal. And black,” I holler, as she walks away. No way I want her to bring me back the wrong box.

  There’s more folks coming and going in this office today than the last time I was here. Way I got it figured it must be a right busy day for crooks.

  It’s not too long before Miss Elsie returns, carrying my box in her hand.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I say. “I appreciate it. Oh, and don’t take me wrong, ma’am, but I sure do hope it’ll be a cold day in May before I ever lay eyes to this place again.”

  Elsie’s eyes disappear into slits, and she chuckles.

  I quickly lift the lid on my metal box to make sure it’s empty, tuck it up under my arm, and take off running down the hallway to the door. I’m dodging lawmen and criminals, men and a few women, to get back to my mama fast as I can.

  Closer I get to the doorway though, the louder the sounds are from the outside. Sounds like someone yelling. Sounds like a woman’s voice. Matter of fact, it sounds like my mama.

  40

  MORE THAN MONEY

  When I get to the door there’s a crowd gathered just beyond the steps.

  I see right away who’s doing the hollering.

  Mama.

  She’s standing face to face with my daddy and she’s giving him a what-for-whipping. The words coming from her mouth aren’t nice either. They’re loud, and curt, and hateful and I can’t believe what I hear her saying.

  “You’re a no-account man, Slim Hill! Never have been, and you never will be.”

  My first thought is to go and get in the middle of them.

  But I don’t. I can’t. Seems when there’s trouble the last thing that wants to move on a body is their feet.

  Reckon she has a right to be angry, him stealing us away and all. Still, this is not going a thing in the world like I had it planned, and I don’t rightly know what I can do to change it all.

  “You’re a lousy, good-for-nothing dirtbag!” Mama yells. “How could you do this to me? I’m a lady of importance in my community. I don’t have time to be running halfway across the country to tend to you and your problems.” She’s wagging her finger in Daddy’s face so close that Daddy’s having to squint and duck to keep from getting hit.

  I’m surprised at Mama’s anger, but I guess I shouldn’t be. It was just as I’d thought all along. Daddy stole her babies away from her. Of course she’s angry.

  “How in the world did you get yourself into trouble like this anyway?”

  Daddy, staring at the ground, shrugs. Then he lets out a deep breath, then cocks his head to look at Mama.

  “No, sir, don’t you go looking at me like this whole thing is my fault. You’re the one who made it impossible for me to stay by refusing me the finer things of life that I deserve.”

  Mama takes a breath, looks around at the folks that’s gathered, and rolls her eyes. But it don’t take her gathering more than that one tiny breath before she sets in to letting Daddy have it again.

  “You only have yourself to blame for this, Slim. I wouldn’t have come in the first place but the sheriff made it seem like I had no say in the matter.”

  Daddy’s gripping his hat so tight his knuckles are white. His shoulders are slumped and round and the more I watch what’s happening between the two of them, the more I realize he’s not saying anything back to Mama. Not a word. Matter of fact, he don’t even look at her. He just stares down at the ground hanging on tight to his hat.

  The crowd is growing and folks are scratching their heads, and I know they’re wondering what in the world is happening. Daddy’s as pale as a water lily in the noonday sun, and Mama’s face is as red as a rhubarb stalk, but Daddy don’t say a word. Not one little uttering sound does he make. Daddy always says a real man will treat a lady with respect no matter what the circumstances. He’s as respectful of Mama now as I’ve ever seen him be even though she’s giving him more than the dickens, and I realize standing there in that mob of nosy busybodies that’s gathered that my daddy’s more of a man than I’d ever come to recognize.

  Mama leans in toward Daddy, pointing her finger up next to his nose and waving it around in his face.

  “And another thing,” she says. “I have a new life now. I’m a woman of high society. What do I want with a bunch of babies running around, worrying the life out of me, tugging at my dress-tail? I’ll not have it. I’m going back to the city where I have a real life, with a man who’s sophisticated, with a place in the upper class. I told you the day you left that I wanted a very different life than the one you were offering me. How much plainer can I be? I don’t want those children. Not then, not now, not ever.”

  All of a sudden, my legs are so weak they won’t hold me up and I drop right straight down to my knees, like I was fixing to do some praying right there in front of the sheriff’s office. I gasp for air, feeling like I just been slapped in the chest. Hard.

  “The day I left you was the best day of my life, and I’ve no desire to go back to that life. You just take your little nut farm, Slim Hill, and leave me alone, you hear?”

  She turns from Daddy and walks away, but before she gets too far she hollers back, “Leave me alone.”

  Mama walks down the street, toward the heart of town and I watch ’til she’s clean out of sight.

  I don’t know whether to cry or throw up, but before I do either I look over at my daddy. For what I reckon is the first time in my entire twelve years of living, my heart’s breaking into tiny slivers for him.

  He lifts his hat to his head and pulls it down low over his eyes. His head’s hung plumb down to his chest and his shoulders are stooped and bent. He buries his head in his hands.

  Folks standing around are whispering, punching each other with their elbows, and pointing. Some of them are snickering, like they think maybe my daddy got just what he deserved, but I know better. Daddy don’t deserve the way Mama done him. Nobody deserves that.

  I stand and pull my metal box close, square my shoulders back, and stiffen my upper lip so’s I don’t dare let Daddy see I’m choking back tears for him.

  I move close beside him but I ain’t sure what I can say that will make it better. I reckon sometimes the best thing a person can say is nothing at all, so I just slip my hand in his and grip it as tight as I possibly can. For the longest, we just stand under the grove of oak trees without talking at all, my daddy’s head hung way low.

  After a while I take in a deep breath and muster the courage to look up into his eyes. They’re wet, and dripping a steady stream, like the water pump behind the house back in Kentucky. Daddy’s face is the color of wood ash from the morning-after bonfire and his hair is mussed and unkempt.

  “Daddy,” I say, quiet as I possibly can, just like him when he’s fierce mad and upset. “I’m sorry Mama done what she done.”

  A tear falls from Daddy’s cheek and drops right down into the hole on top of my shoe. I don’t say a word, but I look up at Daddy, to see if he saw it too. He looks at me and all of a sudden, there’s a smile runs across his face and mixes in with the tears. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down and I know he’s swallowing back a cry.

  “Daddy, there’s something else,” I say, still holding to his hand and rubbing on his arm. “I’m sorry I done what I done. I know stealing is wrong and I should have told the truth about it from the beginning. It was all my fault that you was thrown in jail.”

  Still, Daddy don’t say a word. Tears roll from his cheeks even faster now, like river water off mountain rocks, and he’s trembling and shaking from the crying. But still, I just stand there, holding hi
s hand real tight.

  After a while he lets loose my hand and lays his hat on the ground. He pulls a wrinkled handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his eyes. He blows his nose too, real loud, and looks around to see if folks are still standing and gaping. Some are, but most of them are gone by now, thank goodness.

  “Say, Daddy,” I say grabbing hold to his hand again, “there’s something else I want to tell you, I mean, while I’m talking, that is. These last two years I didn’t believe you about Mama’s leaving. I mean, I always thought you stole us away. Now I know better. I been wrong all this time about Mama. I had no idea about her, Daddy, and I just want to say—”

  “Stop,” he says, through the tears and just as quiet as a church mouse at a funeral. He lets loose my hand, turns to face me, and gently sets one finger to my lips. “Just stop. I’m sorry you heard the things you heard. You didn’t deserve it. You’re a beautiful young lady and a fine, fine daughter. No man could ask for better than you are. I’m so very proud of you.” He squats in front of me, then leans in and kisses me gently on the forehead.

  “But one thing I won’t have you do, Chestnut, is disrespect your mama. The two of us might not see eye to eye, but she gave you life and don’t you never forget it. And the triplets don’t need to know their mama didn’t love them enough to stay with them, so what say we just keep all this between the two of us, all right?”

  “All right, Daddy.”

  “And there’s something else—while we’re getting stuff out on the table,” he says. Daddy wipes his face with his handkerchief. He takes a deep breath and then lets it out again, like the worries he’s been keeping bottled up inside are beginning to disappear.

  “I realized when I was locked up in there that I’d been expecting a lot out of you—too much, really—and I want you to know I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re a young lady, sure, but you’re still a little girl too. You deserve to make your own friends, have some fun, and do some more growing. I’m sorry that I’ve kept you from that by dragging you across the country chasing my foolish dreams.”