Final Justice

by Patricia Hagan

  He saw the First Baptist Church with its tall white steeple and manicured lawn and recalled another of his mother's futile attempts to have him accepted. She had offered to teach vacation Bible school one summer and, again, was rudely rejected, this time by Irene Cleghorn, who cruelly told Orlena she was unqualified. So his mother had sent him anyway, but Mrs. Cleghorn had turned him away, claiming there was no room for him.

  To keep from hurting his mother, Luke had left home every morning like he was going to Bible school, then hidden till after it was over. She had never questioned why he didn't bring home handicrafts like the other kids, and he had wondered if he managed to fool her after all.

  The bus pulled in behind Creech's gas station, which served as the depot. Luke waited till everybody else got off, then took his duffle bag from the overhead rack and made his way out. The heat slapped him in the face like an invisible hand. Only hell could be hotter than Alabama in August. His uniform felt like he was wearing a thick wool blanket, but it, along with the coveted green beret denoting Special Forces, and the ribbon for the Silver Star he'd been awarded for heroics in Vietnam, were the only things he'd ever had to hold his head up about in his life, and he wore both proudly.

  Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped at his brow and neck as he glanced about. He wasn't surprised no one was there to meet him. His mother was in the hospital, and Alma would be working.

  "Luke. Luke Ballard. Is that really you?"

  He turned toward the gas pump and saw a girl waving at him from the window of a black Ford pickup. "I don't believe it."

  She jumped out of the truck and started toward him. He grinned when he recognized Sara Daughtry. Only she was Sara Daughtry Speight now, and every bit as pixie cute as she had been when he fancied himself in love with her back in 1956. Her cinnamon-colored hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and cutoff jeans revealed her shapely, tanned legs. A sleeveless blouse, the tails tied in a knot beneath her bosom, accented her still narrow waist and flat stomach even though she'd had two kids. She threw herself at him, and he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. Sara was, and always would be, special.

  Aware that the guys working at the station, as well as a few customers, were watching, he let her go. "You look just like you did when you'd run to meet me on the field after a game, Sara. I swear, you haven't changed a bit."

  "Oh, really?" she laughed and gave her waist a pinch. "If I tried to get into my old cheerleading outfit I'd bust the zipper. That was eight years and twice that many pounds ago."

  "Well, I'm way ahead of you."

  "You're still gorgeous."

  "Hey, enough of this or I'll grab you like I did back then and take you parking in the cotton field and try to get that zipper undone myself."

  She gave him a playful punch under his chin. "You've got more important things to do than flirt with me. I know you've come home because of your mom. I heard she was in the hospital. Come on, and I'll take you to the mill to get your car from Alma."

  He hoisted his duffle bag over his shoulder. "Thanks. I don't think I'd enjoy walking in this heat."

  "I'm glad to do it. It's not much out of the way, and Dewey won't care when I tell him why I took so long getting back."

  Luke did not fail to notice how her voice softened when she spoke her uncle's name. Dewey Culver was much more than just Sara's uncle by virtue of his marriage to her father's sister. He was the man she had loved since she was only fourteen years old—and also the reason she had held back from loving him. She had told him so by letter years after he had to marry Alma. He was in Vietnam by then, and she had explained that she just felt driven to confide everything to him. He had written her back that he understood—even though he didn't—and warned her she was playing with fire but wished her well.

  His letter had opened the door for Sara to unload all her problems and she had written often after that. She told him the reason why she had married Tim Speight right after graduation. She and Dewey agreed she could not spend her life living for stolen moments, and, most importantly, she wanted children and a home of her own. Tim seemed to be the kind of guy parents hoped their daughters would marry. He had a good job in the steel mill in Birmingham and the future looked bright. The only thing was, once they were married, Sara had discovered how he really was: tight with money, domineering, and verbally abusive. She took solace in the son and daughter born within the first three years they were married, and, eventually, in Dewey's arms. It didn't matter he was old enough to be her daddy. They loved each other and lived for the precious times they could steal away to be together.

  The letters had fallen off since Luke had come back from Vietnam, and he hadn't heard from her in a while. "So how are things between you two?" he asked.

  "Fine, but we don't see each other much this time of year," she said. "He's got quite a truck garden, you know, so it keeps the whole family busy, and believe me, if Dewey wasn't family, Tim would never let me work for him. He thinks all I should do is stay home, keep house, and bake cookies."

  "The ones you sent me in Nam were pretty good. They didn't last long, either. The other guys would steal them out of my pack."

  "If you'd written more, I'd have baked more. That's what you get for being so lazy."

  "It wasn't altogether being lazy, Sara," he soberly reminded. "I was always afraid Tim would find out." He had sent his letters to Sara's cousin, and Sara would pick them up at her house, but he worried just the same.

  "And I was always afraid you'd get killed with mine in your pack and they'd be sent home to Alma. Then there would have been two new graves in the cemetery—yours and mine."

  He tossed his bag in the back of the truck, then went inside the station and bought a frosty cold bottle of Coca-Cola and a bag of salted peanuts. Climbing in the cab beside Sara, he poured the peanuts into the Coke, then took a long swallow and sighed with satisfaction. He had forgotten how good the two tasted mixed together because, for some strange reason, he only thought to do it when he was in Alabama. Anywhere else just didn't seem natural.

  He asked about her kids. She said they were great. The boy, Tim Junior, had just turned six, and the girl, Bonnie, would be four in a few months.

  "I saw Tammy last week," she told him. "The church camp she's attending came by Dewey's farm on a day trip. He showed them around and gave them free watermelons. She's really growing, Luke. What is she now? Eight?"

  "I think so. Alma reminded me a few months ago we'd been married eight years, and Tammy came along about five months later." His tone was bitter as he added, "I sure as hell messed up when I had to get married. I never loved Alma, and you know it."

  "But sometimes people learn to love each other."

  "Not this time."

  She gave his arm a pat. "You'll meet somebody some day, Luke. Wait and see. Till then, just try and hold things together for Tammy's sake. That's the only reason I'm staying with Tim now. When my kids are grown, I'm leaving him and to hell with what folks think."

  She eased into a parking space in front of Woolworth's Five and Dime. "I've got to run inside and get some Band-Aids. One of the workers has a blister. Want to come with me? I won't be but a minute, but it's hot out here and air-conditioned in there."

  He reached for the door handle. "Sure. Anything to beat this heat."

  He froze at the sight of a sheriff's deputy dragging a little colored girl out the front door. She looked to be eight or nine years old, and she was crying and begging him to let her go.

  "What the hell?"

  Sara grabbed his arm. "Whatever it is, stay out of it, Luke."

  He shot her an incredulous look. "But she's just a little kid and look how he's treating her. There's no need for that, and—hey—I've seen that kid before. A picture of her, anyway. She's Ocie Rhoden's girl."

  "Who's Ocie Rhoden?"

  "You remember him. He was the drum major at East Hampton High." East Hampton was the colored high school, and the white kids loved to go to their football games on Monda
y nights. They enjoyed the spirited music and antics of the band, especially high-stepping, high-strutting Ocie.

  "Oh, yeah," Sara responded thoughtfully, "but how do you know that's his daughter?"

  Luke felt his guts tighten at the way the pot-bellied deputy was shoving her around as he screamed into her face that she was going to jail. "He was in basic training with me at Fort Benning. We stayed in touch and ran into each other in Nam. He showed me her picture. He's still over there, risking his life so fat-assed gestapos can bully his kid."

  His last words were drowned by the slamming of the door. He was out of the truck and sprinting across the sidewalk just in time to grab the deputy's arm.

  "Hey, whaddaya think you're doing?" the deputy roared.

  Luke gave him a rough shove. "I'm saving you from getting your face punched in, tough guy, because that's what's going to happen if you don't get your hands off her."

  With a curse, the deputy went for his gun, but Luke was quicker. Pinning the deputy's arm behind his back, he spun him around and pressed his face against the wall. "You don't want to point a gun at me unless you plan to use it, and if you do plan to use it, you better be fast. Now how come you're picking on Ocie's kid?"

  The little girl rallied from her terror to cry in wonder, "You know my daddy, mister?"

  "I sure do, honey."

  The deputy growled, "You're interfering with the law, buddy. She was stealing."

  The child, buoyed by Luke's intervention, spoke up to defend herself. "That ain't so. I was just lookin' at a doll and holdin' it and walkin' around pretendin' it was mine, but I was gonna put it back. I don't steal."

  The deputy, despite Luke's hold and his face mashed so hard against the brick wall, snickered, "Niggers are natural-born thieves, you lyin' little pickaninny."

  Luke mashed his face harder into the wall to shut him up as he asked the little girl, "Where's the doll?"

  A clerk who had been standing in the doorway watching called out, "I have it." She held up the doll. "She dropped it when he grabbed her."

  "Was she trying to hide it?"

  The clerk hesitated. She did not want to dispute the deputy's word.

  "Well, was she?" Luke repeated loudly, impatiently.

  She shook her head. "I don't guess so."

  He released the deputy. "You stupid jerk. Don't you know you can't arrest somebody for shoplifting until they leave the store with the goods? As long as she was inside, she wasn't guilty of a damn thing."

  "Well, you're the one in deep shit now."

  "No, you are, for dragging her out and accusing her of shoplifting."

  "If I had waited till she left, she'd have took off, and I never would've caught her, fast as pickaninnies can run."

  Luke narrowed his eyes and thought for a minute. Then it dawned on him, and he chuckled, "Faster than you, that's for sure, Howie." He had recognized him—Howell, Howie for short—Camden. He had been a fat slob in high school and still was.

  And Howie recognized him as well. "You might've won a medal, Ballard, but that don't mean nothing around here. The sheriff is gonna be plenty mad when he hears what you did, and—"

  "And you tell him I'm real worried about it, okay?" Dismissing him, he asked the clerk, "How much is the doll?"

  She looked at the square white tag stapled to the doll's gingham dress. "Two-ninety-nine."

  He pulled out his wallet, handed her three one dollar bills, then took the doll and gave it to the little girl. "Now it's yours. Your name's Patti Sue, isn't it? I remember your daddy telling me."

  "Yessir, it sho is, and I thank you, sir. Thank you so much." She hugged the doll tightly, glanced at the deputy fearfully, then turned and ran to disappear around the corner of the building.

  A small crowd had gathered, and Sara hurried on inside to buy the Bandaids. When she returned, Luke was back in the truck, and Howie was gone, but a few men stood just down the sidewalk, talking and looking in Luke's direction.

  "I wish you hadn't done that," she said nervously, turning the ignition key with a shaky hand.

  "You can't mean that. You actually wanted me to stand by and let that bully mistreat her? You heard her—she didn't steal anything."

  "You don't understand. Sheriff Grady isn't going to like your interfering, and he can be real mean, especially when it comes to coloreds."

  "Then he's got no business being sheriff."

  "I agree. He's up for reelection next year, but nobody wants to run against him because they're scared of him."

  "That's bullshit."

  "Easy for you to say. You don't live here."

  "I'd say it if I did."

  "But you don't," she repeated, then warned, "but your family does, so mind your own business, Luke, or Sheriff Grady could make it rough on them to get back at you."

  Taking a swallow of peanut-laced Coke, he said, "That would be his last mistake."

  * * *

  Ben Cotter, retired postmaster, Jubal Cochran, manager of the auto parts business next to Woolworth's, and Clyde Bush, owner of the Bulldog Cafe, stared after them as Sara drove away.

  "He sure as gun's iron stood up to Howie," Ben said.

  Clyde agreed. "Yep. And I always liked that boy. He was a good boy, too, which is surprising when you think of how some folks treated him because he's a bastard. I remember the time he broke the glass in the front door of the cafe when he got in a fight with that punk, Rudy Veazey. Whipped his butt, he did. And you know what else?"

  Ben and Jake shook their heads.

  "Gave me a dollar a week out of his salary at the A&P until he paid for fixing it."

  Jake mused aloud, "Well, it's a shame he don't live here. He'd be a good one to run for sheriff against Grady."

  "Maybe we can talk him into it," Ben suggested.

  Clyde snorted. "It'd take more'n talk, I'm afraid. Lot's more. 'Cause somethin' tells me unless something big happens to change his mind, when Orlena Ballard kicks the bucket, we've seen the last of Luke in this town."

  * * *

  Sara stopped at the front gate of the mill. Inside the fence, workers were sitting at picnic tables, taking their morning break for coffee and cigarettes. "I see Alma, and she isn't going to like your being with me, Luke. Hurry and get out and maybe she won't notice."

  He did not move as he looked at the woman who was his wife and wondered what it would be like to be married to someone he could look forward to coming home to... like Sara.

  Sara glanced at her watch. "I have to get back to the fields, anyway. Now you be sure and tell your momma I'm thinking about her, you hear?"

  "I will, and thanks for keeping in touch with her." He paused to gaze at her thoughtfully, then said, "She always hated that we didn't wind up together."

  "I know." Sara swallowed hard. "If not for Dewey, maybe we would've. But you're still my friend and always will be, Luke. I want you to know that."

  Suddenly he found himself asking the question that had burned in his gut ever since she first told him how it was with her and Dewey. "What makes him so special, Sara?"

  She stared through the window, beyond the mill and toward the Cheaha mountain range in the distance as she tried to frame her answer. "It's hard to explain if you've never been there, Luke... if you've never felt that way about anybody. It's a kind of warm, hand-holding kind of love that makes me feel like as long as I'm with him nothing or nobody can hurt me. And it doesn't matter if the sun is blazing down, or rain soaking me to the bone, or so cold my toe nails pop off.

  "He's in my heart, Luke," she said wistfully. "Every hour of every day. No matter how rough things get, I know he's with me. I think it's the way we're supposed to feel about Jesus. I don't mean to sound sacrilegious. That's just how it is. And I know if folks found out, they'd think it was just for sex, but that's not so. That's just a part of it. The important thing is our heart love, not our body love."

  She was suddenly embarrassed to have become so carried away, especially over something so personal. "You asked me, an
d I told you, and I sincerely hope one day you'll understand what I'm talking about."

  Luke doubted that would ever happen. "Just be careful and don't get caught. If Tim ever found out, he'd divorce you and take the kids. And Dewey's marriage would be wrecked, too, if your daddy didn't kill him first."

  "We never take any chances, and look how many years we've been together. Besides, you've got enough to worry about without me. So scoot. Alma's seen us, and her eyes are shooting daggers."

  * * *

  Norma Breedlove turned to see what was making Alma look mad enough to bite a nail in two. "Hey, isn't that your old man getting out of Dewey Culver's truck with Sara Speight drivin'? What's he doing with her?"

  Without a word, Alma got up and started walking across the parking lot. She was not about to make any comment that would give Norma more fodder for gossip. Luke got out of the truck, and Sara wasted no time driving away.

  Alma couldn't help thinking that he was a fine-looking man, even if he did already have some lines around his eyes, and his nose was crooked from when he broke it playing football. He was tall and well-built, and she knew lots of women thought she'd made a real good catch when she married him. Of course, they didn't know the truth, that he didn't love her and never had. But he was hers, by golly, as long as he went on believing Tammy was his daughter.

  Alma thought of the promise she had made herself, how she was going to make things better because she didn't want to lose him, which is what might happen once Miss Orlena died. Luke would never come back and probably want a divorce, and if that happened, Alma knew at her age she'd probably never find another husband. So she was going to seduce him, and she smiled to think about it. When his leave was over, he'd be so crazy about her he'd want to get out of the army and settle down and be a real family man. Before, it hadn't mattered, because she knew as long as his mother was alive, things would stay the same. Only now, she was worried, and the first thing she was going to do was not to say anything snotty about him riding with Sara.