Catching Moondrops

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  Where once they had been intense, sparkling with hatred, suddenly they narrowed, a light cast behind them.

  He was smiling.

  The fear I had felt at the start struck me again with such ferocity, my legs felt as though they would give way, but before they could, I turned and ran. Despite the terror that filled my body, my feet moved deftly across the underbrush, almost as if they had a mind of their own. I could hear my stalker thrashing through the brush behind me, and even though he grunted from exertion, I knew he was gaining ground. The air that pushed in and out of my lungs did so audibly, and I focused on the rhythm of it to help keep my pace. Weeds and shrubs smacked at my legs, ripping at my pants, scraping my skin. But I kept moving, my eyes pasted to the scene in front of me, fearing with every stride that if I allowed myself a moment’s distraction, I would be caught.

  Tree branches whipped at my face and grabbed at my hair, working against me as violently as if they had been wearing a robe and hood themselves. A prickly bush snapped at my face, digging its claws into my temple, causing me to stumble. I regained my balance, and for that split second before I again began to run, I found myself compelled to look behind me.

  And there he was, no more than ten yards away, cutting a path toward me with the determination of a man consumed by vengeance. Slipping briefly in the dirt, I took flight again, but I knew I’d never outrun him. His footfalls grew louder and louder until I could hear them over the wind, the crunch of his boots echoing in my ears. Twigs snapped and dry leaves crackled as they split apart and crumbled beneath him. The sound of his approach was deafening to me.

  Suddenly I heard a scream so violent, so agonizing, I skidded to a halt in spite of my fear. I turned to see the ghostly man lying on the ground in convulsions, his white robe turning crimson so quickly, it seemed an illusion.

  I walked toward him slowly, cautiously, squinting against the growing darkness. When I came within several yards of him, I stopped and stared at the bear trap that had ensnared his calf, crunching into flesh and bone so deeply, it seemed if he moved, it would split in two. Blood oozed from his leg, covering his robe and turning the summer greenery a deep scarlet.

  And I felt nothing.

  No compassion, no compulsion to duty. This man lay there, bleeding to death in front of my eyes, and not only was I helpless, I was happy to be so. In my mind, at that moment, he deserved nothing better than to die out here, caught in the very device I had once heard someone call a nigger trap.

  It was perfect justice.

  As I stared at him, his breathing became ragged, raspy, as though there were holes in his lungs. All struggling ceased, and he dropped to his side. He looked up at me through those ghostly slits in his hood and spoke two words.

  “Help me.”

  I knew that voice. No muffling hood or ragged breaths could disguise it. I knelt beside him so I could look deep into those desperate eyes. “Help you, Delmar Custis? You want me to help you?” I ignored the blood that turned my blue trousers brown and ripped his hood off, looked into a face so pale, it seemed the same as the white hood that hung from my fingertips. “Like you helped Noah Jarvis?”

  “Jessilyn, please. Help me.”

  I didn’t always do what my daddy would say was the Christian thing to do, but in this case, I knew that getting help was at the very least the human thing to do. Only I didn’t feel human just then. I felt outside of myself, so consumed by rage and hatred that all rational thought seemed to have spilled out onto the grass along with Delmar’s blood. I dropped the filthy hood to the ground, took one more look at that pale, drawn face that seemed to foretell of death.

  And then I walked away.

  I didn’t run for help. I didn’t even intend to tell a soul what I’d seen. I pasted my vision squarely on that meadow ahead of me, and I didn’t look back. For all I cared, Delmar Custis could die alone and rot away in these woods without a soul to ever know what came of him. I walked the slow, easy gait of one who hasn’t a worry in the world. I wanted nothing more than to show this man I hated him so vehemently that I could saunter away from his dying body without one ounce of conviction, without a bit of shame.

  The first several steps were so simple. It all seemed to make perfect sense. These men had terrorized me from the day Gemma had come to live with us. And even when they had let us be, the nightmares of burning crosses—and now of bodies hanging from trees—haunted me at every turn.

  But with the next set of steps something began to scrape at my insides—some small, nagging doubt. The wind picked up again and ran crisply past my ears, calling my attention to the whispers Miss Cleta had told me of, whispers that remind us of wise words from loved ones.

  But this whisper was nothing like what I’d imagined I’d heard before. This whisper didn’t go from my mind to my heart. This whisper went from my heart to my mind. It was an inner voice.

  It began as a murmur, but with each step it became more and more of a roar. My cheeks began to burn with a hot shame that seared from within. I slowed my steps until my whole body was so racked with despair, I could no longer move. Compelled to see the depths of my depravity, I turned to look at the human being I had left to die, and my world came crashing in.

  Just like Miss Cleta had threatened, I had become like him. Like all of them.

  Only I didn’t have the hood.

  These men were willing to kill because of their hate, and though I had not created the wound that drained this man’s blood, I was willing to kill by my very inaction.

  The realization of what I had become made me nauseous, and I leaned over and retched into the grass.

  Delmar heard me and managed to lift his hand toward me.

  “Jessilyn,” he whispered again. “Help me.”

  From my place on the leafy ground, I peered at his limp, bloodstained body, and I knew what I had to do. I wiped one arm across my mouth, stood up slowly to steady my trembling legs, and walked back to where he lay. I passed him without a word, but our eyes met, and I saw his mouth move without producing any sounds. I went past him, past his bloody robe, past his wordless pleas for help.

  And I ran.

  But this time as I left him behind, I didn’t plan to leave him to die there. This time I knew what had to be done, and I ran toward Gemma’s house with tears streaming down my face.

  All I could hope was that I would be in time, that I could get Tal to Delmar before he died. It was a stunning notion to one who only minutes earlier had wished the man dead with all her heart, but now it was my deepest desire to bring Tal to that spot in the woods and hear him say that Delmar would live.

  And as I ran, my lips kept forming the same words over and over: Please don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die.

  My retreat through the woods seemed endless, marked by shame and guilt of a kind I’d never known before. Inner turmoil can be more devastating than outer. There are things in this world that wound the body, but when the spirit is spared, it has a way of overcoming. When the spirit is wounded, it affects the whole of a person, racking the mind and body with unceasing, unbearable pain.

  And if Delmar Custis died that day with the help of my hatred, then I knew with absolute certainty that my spirit would die as well.

  With a heart and conscience as heavy as mine at that moment, I struggled even to lift my feet, but the wind was at my back and fear pushed me onward. Once again, as had happened so many times in my life, I ached to be where Gemma was.

  But if I had thought Gemma’s home to be a refuge that night, I was desperately, terribly deceived.

  There are some moments in time that sear your consciousness so deeply they never leave you. They’re recalled by sensations that trigger a memory and transport you back in time so quickly, it’s as though it’s happening all over again. That night, as I rounded the corner to Gemma’s house, the flicker of light that colored the night sky sent me reeling back to a time six years earlier. I remembered standing on my momma and daddy’s porch with a rifle, Gemma at
the screen door behind me, shaking in fear. I remembered the howls of wicked laughter, the haunting calls of faceless men. And I remembered the way the fire from that burning cross singed Momma’s flowers and flecked the darkness with sparks.

  When I came to a stop in front of Gemma’s house, with darkness all around me—and in my heart—the horrors of that long-ago night were playing out again before my eyes. As I watched that cross burning in Gemma and Tal’s front yard, I knew this was no mere memory.

  This was now.

  Gemma’s screams pierced the darkness, snapping me out of my reverie, and I realized with a sudden force that my chance meeting with Delmar Custis hadn’t been chance at all. There was a reason he was in those woods, and it had nothing to do with me. I was a happy accident, an opportunity to take care of two birds with one stone.

  I watched in horror as two men kept Tal’s arms pinned behind him while another taunted him, slapping him like he was an insolent child. Several others stood around, torches in hand, hurling insults, urging the aggressor on. Gemma continued to cry out in agony, struggling against the man who was holding her back.

  The Klansman put his face right up close to Tal’s so that his spit flecked Tal as he spoke. “Come on, nigger, ain’t you got enough man in you to fight back? You want your woman here to think you ain’t got it in you?” He gave Tal a slap to both ears twice in a row. “Look at this here boy,” he sneered. “Yellow as the day is long.” He howled with laughter, and I knew him right off to be Bobby Ray Custis.

  I cried out just as he raised his fist. “You hurt him, Bobby Ray, you kill your daddy!”

  Bobby Ray’s fist stopped two inches from Tal’s gut, and he whipped his head around. The rest of the men did the same.

  I stepped forward so they could all see who I was.

  Bobby Ray lifted his hand to point at me with a finger that shook violently. “You stay out of this or I’ll get to you next.” His voice came out filled with a ferocity I had never heard from him before.

  Hooded cowards don’t like to be unmasked.

  I took a few more steps forward into the firelight that spilled across the lawn and met his gaze. “I’m only tellin’ you the truth. You’ll be sorry if you hurt this man.”

  “This boy,” he corrected, “ain’t done nothin’ but open himself up to trouble. Any nigger that goes around this town puttin’ his hands on a white woman like he did knows he won’t last for long.”

  “A doctor cares for a patient; don’t matter what color that patient is.”

  He shook his head. “Matters to me.”

  Tears streamed down my face, my stomach felt like I’d been pitched about, and I was scared to death, but I did everything to keep my voice clear and steady. “Fine, then. Let your daddy die.”

  He’d cocked his hand back for another try at Tal’s stomach, but I must have caught his curiosity because he paused in midair and turned to look at me. “What the heck are you spoutin’ off about?”

  “Only that your daddy’s lyin’ out there in the woods bleedin’ to death in a bear trap.” I pointed my own finger toward Tal. “And this here man’s the only one near enough who can try and save him.”

  Bobby Ray’s fist loosened; his hand dropped to his side. “You’re lyin’.” His words came out flat, the words of a man who is trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe.

  I stepped farther into the firelight and swept a hand in front of me, displaying the blood that covered my clothes. “Then where d’you think this came from?”

  Bobby Ray stepped two paces closer to me and ripped his hood off for a better look. That was when I saw fear in the eyes of Bobby Ray Custis. Nobody looks at the amount of blood that was on my clothes without feeling terror prick at their insides.

  I held my palms out to him so he could see the red stains. “This here’s your daddy’s blood. He near about got his leg cut off clean through, and he ain’t got much time left, I figure. You best make up your mind good and quick. Who dies? Doctor Pritchett or your daddy? Because this colored man is the only one here who can keep your daddy from bleedin’ to death in them woods.” I tipped my head in Tal’s direction. “Ain’t you lucky you didn’t kill him yet?”

  Bobby Ray didn’t respond. He just stood there, staring at nothing.

  One of the men who had his grip on Tal released him and reached up to remove his hood. Cole Mundy narrowed his eyes at Bobby Ray. “What’re you waitin’ for?”

  Bobby Ray shook his head. “Stay out of this.”

  “What’s to stay out of? It’s clear the girl’s tellin’ the truth. Your daddy ain’t here, and there’s blood all over her.”

  Bobby Ray snapped his head around toward Cole and roared, “I said stay out of this!”

  But Cole didn’t back down. He stepped closer to Delmar’s son and spoke in a low growl. “You willin’ to let your daddy die over this? That what you’re sayin’?”

  Bobby Ray turned so that his toes touched Cole’s. “I ain’t lettin’ no nigger touch my daddy.”

  “You’re insane!”

  Bobby Ray shoved Cole in the chest, but Cole recovered quickly and came at him, tossing him to the ground. “I don’t care what you say. I ain’t standin’ by while your daddy dies.”

  The other man who held Tal didn’t budge, and Cole whipped a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at his head. “Let him go. Now!”

  The man at the end of the gun barrel didn’t flinch, but his voice came out in quiet shock. “You crazy, son?”

  “I’m the only one who ain’t.”

  “You can get into a lot of trouble in these parts for wavin’ a gun around at people.”

  “What’re you goin’ to do, Sheriff? Arrest me?” Cole pushed him aside, grabbed Tal by the arm, and waved his gun around to warn everyone off. “I’m takin’ him with me, and if anyone tries to stop me, I’ll put a bullet through your gut.” He pushed Tal forward and then nodded at me to get moving. “Show me where Delmar is.”

  Tal stumbled forward, bruised but able to walk without difficulty. “Gemma!” he called. “Get my bag.”

  I ran to Gemma and took her hand in mine. “She’s comin’ with us,” I announced. There was no protest from her captor. He let her go and waited while she ran into the house for Tal’s things; then he followed along behind us. The rest followed in their truck, and by the time we reached Delmar, I noticed Bobby Ray straggling at the back of the crowd.

  The instant he saw his daddy lying there like that, he ran past everyone and fell to his knees, directing pleading eyes at the colored man he had been torturing only minutes earlier. “Well? Help him! What’re you waitin’ for?”

  Tal knelt on the bloody ground and started shouting orders. Cole Mundy slid to the ground by Delmar’s head and held his shoulders still, but it was clear that he was overwhelmed by the sight before him. He dropped his head and moaned.

  I leaned down and put my mouth to his ear. “Too much blood for you, Mundy? If Noah Jarvis had bled out like this, would that have kept you from breakin’ his neck?”

  He snapped his head up to look at me, and I was so startled by the anguish I saw in those eyes, it took my breath away. I had never before seen eyes like that in any living soul, and they will haunt me until the day I die. I backed away from him, leaving him alone in his grief.

  After all, who was I to convict a man of bloodguilt? I had some of my own.

  “Hold him still!” Tal ordered. “We’ve got to get this trap off. He’s mostly unconscious, but he’s bound to fight at some point.”

  Gemma called to me, and I ran to her side to help her, but my hands were shaky and useless. It took every bit of manpower in perfect harmony to free him, and as everyone worked, Delmar’s intermittent screams spurred us on.

  By the time Delmar was free and the men had loaded him onto the truck, we were all covered in blood and sweat. Gemma and I stayed behind and watched them drive away, leaving me with an empty ache in my soul. For all I knew, he would be dead before they even
turned the bend.

  Gemma and I trudged back to her house without a word. I didn’t know what to say to her. There was nothing in me that knew how to confess a sin like mine to someone I loved so much.

  When we reached her house, Gemma took my hand. “You can stay with me tonight. We’ll call your momma and daddy to let them know.”

  But I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “Jessilyn, you need to get out of those clothes and into bed, you hear? Now come on, let’s get inside.”

  I let go of her hand and backed away slowly. “I can’t, Gemma. Not now.” I looked down at the bloody patches on my clothes. “You don’t know what I’ve done. You’d be so ashamed.”

  She reached out and snatched my hand back. “You ain’t done nothin’ but save me and Tal and get help for a dyin’ man,” she said with ferocity. “That ain’t nothin’ I’d ever be ashamed of, Jessilyn. Not ever!”

  Sobs began to escape my throat and I could only fit my words in between them, but I lifted my head, forcing myself to meet her gaze. “I walked away from him, Gemma. I walked away.”

  She tipped her head sideways, desperation in her eyes. “What d’you mean? You came for help.”

  “No. I walked away. I looked at him there on the ground with blood pourin’ out of him, and I didn’t feel a thing. And when he called out for help, I just walked away.”

  She watched me for several seconds and then squeezed my hand tight. “But you did the right thing in the end, and he’s goin’ to be fine. I’m sure he will.”

  I stole my hand away in shame, wishing I could believe it would all be okay like she said. “Tell Momma and Daddy I’ll be safe. I just need to be alone right now.”

  She stepped forward defiantly. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No! I need to go alone.”

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t stay here and I can’t go home. I promise, I’ll go home sometime soon, but I just can’t right now.” This time I reached out for her, taking both her hands in mine, willing her to understand. “Just now, Gemma, I’ve got to be somewhere alone.”