Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  “Doesn’t give a man much comfort seeing I’m sitting in a jail like Prager.”

  “You’re safe here, kid. I’m tougher than I look. Besides, police in Illinois didn’t try to stop the mob. Between you and me, my wife’s half-German. Hard keeping that stuff hidden. Having a name like Kiser is like a curse. Nowhere to hide.”

  “I’m not German.” It was the first time he said it out loud and he wasn’t sure why he did. “My last name is Houghton.”

  “Well, why on God’s earth didn’t you say something before?”

  “Would it have mattered?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “No. Not as long as you’re living with the Kisers.”

  “They’re good people. Love this country as much as the Simpsons. Except they don’t have to attack people to prove it.”

  The sheriff took in the words and shrugged. “A strange time,” he said slowly. “A strange time indeed.”

  The bell rang at the front door. “Speak of the devil. No pun intended.” The sheriff rose and pushed in his chair. “Probably your uncle now.”

  The sheriff left and when he returned a few minutes later someone other than Andrew’s uncle was by his side. Lily. Her hair brushed smoothed and clipped behind with a beaded barrette. Her dress was new, pressed and tailored. She wore heels and clutched a small purse in her hands. “Hello, Andrew.”

  He hardly recognized her, the demeanor stoic and serious, like a different version of his friend had sprouted in her place, and he was left speechless. “Was just explaining to Sheriff Tipney that I witnessed the entire exchange with you and Dan Simpson. That it was me who hit Dan over the head.”

  Andrew rose. “You shouldn’t be here, Lily.”

  “Of course I should be here. Frank sent me.”

  The sheriff unlocked the cell door and opened it slowly. “Looks like you got a witness.” He turned to Lily. “You sure Frank said he should be released?”

  “Positive.”

  He held the door open. “Got a guardian angel after all, kid.”

  Andrew followed Lily to the buggy, her posture stiff as she walked with purpose and without a word. She picked up the reins with confidence and clicked the horse to move. When they reached the far edge of town, Lily’s shoulders relaxed. She pulled the buggy to the side of the road. “I’m not going to be able to see you for a while,” she uttered plainly.

  “Frank didn’t authorize my release, did he?”

  She was silent for a moment and her eyes fluttered nervously. “No.”

  Andrew wished she had left him in the cell. “Shouldn’t have done it, Lily.”

  She swallowed, tried to look brave. “I’m a grown woman, Andrew.”

  “What are you going to do when he finds out?”

  She made a poor attempt at a grin. “Hide.”

  “You aren’t going back there.”

  “I am going back there.” The tone was firm. “Just leave it be.”

  “I can’t have you disappearing out of my life again, Lily. I can’t. I have to know you’re all right.”

  “I told you to let it go. Look,” she pleaded with a drawn face, “just give me some time to smooth it over. All right?”

  “All right,” he agreed reluctantly. “Just do one thing for me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Meet me at the spring in the woods on Friday. Frank heads to Pittsburgh for his meetings then, right?”

  She paled. “I don’t know.”

  “Please, Lily. Will you meet me there?” he asked again.

  A long pause and then she nodded once. “Yes.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.” She nodded again, her expression worried but truthful. “I promise.”

  Andrew kissed her on the cheek and jumped from the buggy. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Have to take care of something in town.” He gripped the smooth wood of the buggy as if he planned to keep it from moving. “If Frank bothers you, you get out of there, Lily. You hear me?”

  She smiled meekly. “You just worry about yourself, Mr. Houghton.” And with that she clicked and set the horse at an even, high-stepping trot out of town.

  The gravel crunched under Andrew’s worn boots as he headed behind the town shops, avoiding the main road and the people at its core. The hot afternoon sedated the branches of the overhanging trees.

  The night spent in the jail had altered him. Messages drifted from dreams; images splashed and stayed lucid upon his awakening on the hard cot. Focused clarity brought intent, direction, and his skin pulsed. Change embedded the molecules of the air and left it living and breathing. He remembered the letter from his mother and his hair prickled. He thought of the Kisers, the family who took him in when no one else would, who defended him as one of their own.

  Take care of your family. Always. Frederick Houghton’s voice, the husky sound that had been absent for so long, whispered in his ear during the night. The Kisers were his family now. The old farmhouse was his home; his cousins, his brothers. A sudden pride burned. Then Lily. And the future took shape from the past, birthed new.

  Andrew turned stealthily onto the main street of town, jogged past the post office to the blacksmith’s shop in the back. The open stall was stained black from wall to ceiling and the blacksmith stood over a steel drum of water. With each submerged tool, the water cried and hissed, rose in steam to the rafters. The man didn’t turn. “Need something?” he asked curtly.

  Andrew pulled his father’s miner tags from his shirt and held them up. “Can you melt these down?”

  The man touched the tags, inspected the brass in his onyx hands. “Into what?”

  “A ring.” Andrew pulled out the green gem in his pocket. “Set with this.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Lily bent over the cucumbers. She should have picked them earlier. The biggest were cracked on the top, the brown-scabbed skin knitting the crevices. Absently, she placed the vegetables in the bucket, her mind distant and active while her fingers did the plucking.

  The wind shifted and she hurried with the task, her heart beating fast in her chest. She reached for the last fat cucumber, saw the swift movement of a man’s boot and ducked her head just as the kick landed with a shuddering smack against the metal pail, sending it flying above her stooped shoulders. Vegetables bounced and scattered across the garden. The bucket skipped and then landed, rolled slowly. Lily kept her head buried even after the noise stopped.

  “Stand up, goddammit!”

  Lily uncoiled, stood straight and faced Frank.

  “I swear I could wring your damn neck with my bare hands!” he screamed.

  She didn’t move, set dead eyes upon him, surrendered to what was to come. She could almost feel his hands on her neck squeezing out the life, could feel the way she would close her eyes and drift into death under his fingertips.

  Her silence rattled him. He took a step forward and raised his hand to strike her cheek, but she didn’t waver.

  He dropped it and turned, spit into the ground. “Goddammit!”

  He cursed and kicked the dirt, turned in circles mumbling obscenities. “If they kick me out of the APL for this, so help me . . .”

  “I was there,” she defended. “Andrew never said those things.”

  Her voice only fueled Frank’s rage. “I don’t give a damn what he said!”

  “He was helping me! Dan was coming after me. Andrew stopped him,” she cried. The fire rose in her throat. “All he was trying to do was protect me.”

  Frank barreled upon her, his finger pointing at her face in jabs. “You . . . don’t . . . ever . . . see . . . him again. You hear me?”

  “But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “So help me, if you ever talk to that man again, ever so much as look his way or pass him on the street, I’ll have him back in that cell before you can blink.”

  Lily’s brows inched together and she gritted her teeth.

  “Think I’m bluffing, don’t you?” Frank snorted. �
��Try me, Lilith. Just try me,” he threatened. “Next time I’ll make sure the officer accidentally leaves the cell door unlocked. Never know when Dan and his buddies might want to make a visit.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Oh, Lilith,” he jeered. “I hate you more.”

  * * *

  On Friday, Lily waited next to the spring in the woods as promised. Frank would never know, and besides, she had to warn Andrew to stay away.

  The air in the forest hung cool and shaded, mystical. The stones seemed to sweat water, each damp, some with trickles and drops, some just glistening in the filtered sunlight. She pressed her fingers into the spongy moss, dark and brilliant.

  She touched the surface of the pool with her palm, the water frigid and so clear she could see the rocks piled at the bottom. The ripples left by her hand soon faded, the surface turned to glass, her reflection as refined as in a hand mirror.

  She studied her nose and eyes, the arch of her brows, the hair that hung around her shoulders, and wondered if she was pretty. Squinting, Lily tried to see herself objectively but stared so long that her skin blended with her eyes and features. She cocked her head at the image, thought of Andrew and smiled. And she realized that she was pretty when she thought of him, as if his light shone straight through her eyes.

  The cool air dropped a degree and another form entered the glass surface; two eyes and a hat grew above her head like a serpent emerging from the lake. Lily jumped and turned, just long enough to see her smile morph into terror.

  “Thought you were out milking,” Frank accused. “But you were coming to meet that cripple, weren’t you?”

  She backed up, braced against the spring’s wall, the water instantly freezing and soaking her back. Lily’s fingers found a rock and she traced her fingers around the edge, thought how easy it would be to strike it against him. If she hit hard enough, it would kill him; if it didn’t, the nightmare would grow worse.

  Frank’s anger left and he seemed suddenly lost. He looked up at the trees as if the limbs and leaves confused him. “You know I don’t like this any more than you do.”

  Something about his tone made her skin break out in a cold sweat. A look passed over his face, the ashen contrition she had only seen once before. “You need to come back to the house and get changed,” he ordered softly.

  Panic swelled and she shook her head. She tried to step back, but there was no room. “No,” she said fiercely.

  “Now, Lilith, I don’t like it any better than you do, but it got to be done.”

  “No.” The woods became walls that twisted and warped, made her dizzy, and her chest contracted until she drowned. “I won’t do it. I won’t do it again.” The memory of a rough hand between her legs made her whimper. She shook her head, the smell of a man’s breath pungent in her nose.

  Frank reached to her kindly—reached to her like he held a pillow for her head, even as he pressed it against her face. “This is the last time. I swear.”

  “That’s what you said the last time!” she screamed, the tears streaming from her eyes now. The memory of that day poisoned her, nearly broke her to her knees.

  “I know it. I know what I said.” He put his hands on his hips, his patience waning. “But had some trouble again. Just need it cleaned up.”

  Cleaned up? Cleaned up! A mop across a dirty floor. The filth submerged everything around her. Her lungs ached for air. This couldn’t be happening again. Again. She moved away from the damp wall, the back of her wet dress sticking to her skin. “I won’t do it!” She inched farther away, readied her muscles to run. “You can’t make me!”

  He grabbed her wrist hard, jerked her to him. “So help me, you’ll do what I say.”

  She struggled against his pull, slapped his face hard with her free hand, hardly reddening the cheek. But the cold, cruel, cruel look came over him and she instantly regretted hitting him. Terror lashed. “Andrew!” she screamed.

  But he pulled her arm behind her back and covered her mouth with his big hand. She couldn’t breathe between her sobs and his fingers.

  “You will do this!” he seethed into her ear. “You’ll do this or I’ll take the belt to your sister—to your mama—so hard she won’t be moving till Christmas.” He jerked her arm higher and she screamed out, the sound muffled under his palm. “What? You going to sit by and let her get the crap beat outta her like when you were a kid? You going to let her take the beating for you again just because you’re too proud, think you’re so special?” He let go and pushed her away. “Well, you ain’t special, Lilith. Not a thing special about you.” He spit on the ground. “Not a damn thing.”

  Life fell away, disintegrated into the words and the darkness. The black closed in, the knowing of what she would have to do, what she was going to do, and it broke her in pieces, whole and standing, yet broken and splintered. She tilted forward, weakened and soft as a dying willow.

  Frank gave a long sigh, took off his hat and wiped his brow. His work done. “Claire’s been there for you her whole life,” he pointed out calmly. “Aren’t you going to do one thing for her?” He stepped away as if opening a door for her to pass through, an open gate to Hell. “Besides, you do it and it’s done. Last time. A promise is a promise.”

  * * *

  Andrew waited for hours at the spring. He rolled the ring in his palm, played with the metal. He touched the water and replayed the words that he would say. He recited the number of ways he could tell her that he loved her.

  Andrew waited. He waited for his Lily girl to keep her promise. He waited until the dark shade of twilight leadened the leaves and made it clear she wouldn’t come. Yet he still waited.

  Now his mind took away the sentiments of the heart. His body turned cold against the flutters of her touch and her lips. His mind told him he was a fool and that she did not love him, never had. His mind made up stories that told him he was only half a man and she knew this and could never share her life with half a man. His mind told him that she was only drawn to him because there was no one else. He was a distraction, a plaything. And with each ticking moment, the insult grew, seemed to crush the life out of him, one mortared brick at a time.

  Shut up, Andrew, his father ordered but gave no more advice. Perhaps Frank had kept her home. Andrew squeezed the ring tightly, forced the insecurities at bay. Perhaps she did love him after all and he wasn’t a fool. Perhaps.

  But he didn’t know. In the darkening forest, he glanced at his arm. Thought again of his mother’s curt letter. Thought of the jabs and insults and glances that hovered around his form. And he wasn’t sure if he understood anything at all.

  CHAPTER 43

  The splintered bread wagon slowed to a halt at the end of the Kiser lane. “Good morning,” Eveline greeted them.

  Bob nodded. Bernice kept her head low. Eveline’s smile vanished, the uncustomary blandness of the couple knocking her sideways.

  The old man leaned to the back and pulled out the bread bag, handed it to her. Eveline juggled the weight of it in her hands, felt the difference. “There’s a double order in here, Mr. Stevens.” She raised the bundle back toward the wagon.

  He shook his head. “Keep it.”

  “Much as I’d like to, we can’t afford it. Need to conserve these days.” She raised the bundle again. “Better just take out the extra.”

  Bernice looked at her now. “You keep it, Mrs. Kiser. Ain’t no charge. Ain’t no charge for any of it.”

  Her mouth fell agape and she looked at one Stevens and then another. “That’s very kind of you, but I can’t . . .”

  Bob let out a long, drawn sigh and rubbed his worn pant leg. “We just come from town. Hearin’ things. Been hearin’ things for a while. This war got everybody clawin’ at each other.” He met her eyes. “We know that Campbell cut off your credit. Know the butcher ain’t been givin’ you nothin’ but the gristly meat that been hangin’ on the shelf too long. Know your mail’s been getting opened and read before it’s delivered.

 
“Ain’t jus’ you,” Bob consoled. “Doin’ it to the Muellers, too. Doin’ it to all the Germans. Ain’t right.”

  Eveline squeezed the bread to her chest, the yeasty, warm smell at odds with the stench of war.

  “Bernie an’ me know somepin ’bout this hate. Know it good, don’t we, Bernie?”

  The woman nodded, grinned sadly. The gray between her ebony strands stood bold against her dark skin.

  “When I was in the war, back down in Vicksburg, saw the same thing,” the old man said. “Same with every war, I reckon. ‘The army of the North were the saviors; the men in the South, savages.’ You hear it an’ ya start to believe it. An’ a man gets pretty good at tellin’ himself the other ones are evil, that it’s okay to kill ’em just so you can sleep at night. But you know. You know inside that man ain’t no different than you. Jus’ got a gray coat on instead of a blue one.

  “Like that with the Germans, too,” he continued. “Men gotta make people hate ’em, otherwise wouldn’t get nobody to go over there to fight.”

  Bernice patted him on the knee. “That’s enough, Bob. Gettin’ yourself all upset.”

  And he was. His lips glistened with spittle and his body shook with agitation, his pupils bobbing. “But it’s not jus’ the war. It’s the hate. Still have people starin’ at us, Bernie and me, with hate even though the war long over. Still got people throwin’ our bread to the crows because a Negro woman kneaded it with her fingers.”

  “Bob . . .”

  He straightened then. “So, we know a little ’bout the hatred that’s stirrin’ an’ it ain’t right. So, you take that bread, Mrs. Kiser. Make us feel mighty good you takin’ that bread from us. Me an’ Bernie ain’t got much, a little shack with a leaky roof an’ this old horse, but we got bread an’ if we can give you a share, well, it make us sleep a little better. It ain’t charity, Mrs. Kiser. Jus’ givin’ you somepin small to help against what’s bein’ taken’ away.”

  He looked at the street. “A lot of people been cruel to my Bernie. More than been kind. But the folks on this route here always been good to us. Widow Sullivan, the Muellers.” He paused. “Even those Morton girls, always been kind. People like that got to stick together. It’s the only shield against the hate.