Beneath Still Waters

by Cynthia A. Graham

  When everyone began to file out into the hot June sunshine, Hick felt his mother’s elbow poke into his back. “Ask her,” she whispered.

  “Ma—”

  “Do it.”

  He crossed the aisle to where Maggie stood. “Mag?”

  She turned and gave him a teasing smile. “I noticed today’s sermon was not very interesting to you.”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t the sermon. I’m just a little tired.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You feelin’ okay?”

  She looked concerned and it made him uncomfortable. Quickly changing the subject he said, “Listen, my mama made a big Sunday dinner and wanted to know if you’d like to join us.”

  “Your mama wants me to come to dinner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about you?”

  He was confused. “What do you mean? Of course you should come if you want to.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what I asked. Do you want me to come?”

  He looked down into her face. What was wrong with him? Of course he wanted her to come over. He wanted her all the time, and yet he could never make himself tell her. It was as if there was a gag in his mouth, something that kept him from saying what he felt. There was no use in trying to speak, he had tried for over a year, and the words just wouldn’t come. He was full of feelings, vast and mysterious that he was impotent to articulate. Inside he felt he was screaming, that surely she would hear him and know the truth, but he was helpless, silent. She looked at him, searching for the answer she wanted to hear. But he said nothing. Finally, her face changed, her eyes filling with such sadness that his heart began to ache.

  “Just stop, Hickory … please. I can’t play this game with you forever. I don’t know what you want from me, but I know what I want from life. I deserve another chance to live. You, at least, owe me that. If your mama wants to see me, I’ll come another day.” She turned and left and he stood unmoving in the aisle as all of the churchgoers filed out. Finally, he was the only one left, and yet he still stood there, feeling drained and beaten.

  “Andrew?” his mother called from the doorway.

  His eyes fell on the pew where Maggie had been sitting. She had left her fan, and he picked it up and slipped it into his pocket.

  The drive home was quiet and uncomfortable. He knew his mother guessed what had taken place with Maggie, but Hick was unwilling to discuss it. He didn’t want to think about it, but hard as he tried he couldn’t push Maggie or the image of the baby from his mind.

  Later, while the women finished dinner, Adam and Hick fixed the porch step. They were in their undershirts, their foreheads glistening with tiny droplets of sweat as they removed the rotten step. It was hot for June, the screen door was open, letting in any breeze that might whisper, the windows open, wide and beseeching. Benji, Adam, and Pam’s nine-year-old, came bounding up as they worked. “Is it true someone killed the baby in the slough, Uncle Hick?”

  Hick paused in his hammering and glanced at the boy. “We’ll have to investigate and try to figure that out.”

  “Daddy says they did,” Benji contradicted.

  Adam’s slow, relaxed smile covered his face. “I said the coroner says they did. That’s why we have to do the investigation.”

  “The kids is all afraid to fish up there now. They say the place is haunted.”

  “You tell the kids the place ain’t haunted,” Adam told his son. “That baby ain’t coming back. Y’all are old enough to know better.”

  Benji whispered, as if afraid something spectral might hear him, “They say she’s lookin’ for her head.”

  “I’ll take you fishing up there next Saturday if you like,” Hick offered. He loved to fish and spending time with his nephews was one of his favorite pastimes. “We’ll go to our secret spot and show them all how foolish they’re being.”

  Benji stood quietly, considering. After a pause, he replied in a small voice, “I’ll go if you think it’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t have to be scared of anything. I promise.”

  The boy seemed satisfied, and Hick watched him run to tell his brother Henry, who was standing beside the propane tank scratching a mosquito bite. It wouldn’t be long until the other boys, the little one stuck in the playpen and the infant sleeping on his mother’s bed, would be joining them. Three of these boys were Adam made over, stocky, wide-shouldered and easy-going with ready smiles and snapping dark eyes. Henry, the second son, could have been Hick’s child. He was thin and pale, tall with long limbs and blue eyes. Their constantly growing family kept Adam and Pam preoccupied and happy.

  After dinner, Hick sat alone on the porch swing. In spite of the love he felt for his nephews, there were times he needed to step outside into the quiet. He had just lit a cigarette, when the screen door swung open and his sister appeared. “I see you’re smoking.”

  “And?”

  “You only do that when something’s wrong.” She sat beside him on the swing. They’d always been close, despite the eight years between them. There had been another brother, but he had died before Hick was born. As they were growing up, Pam fully believed Hick belonged to her, like a puppy or kitten, and she mothered him. It was her idea for Adam to get Hick on at the sheriff’s office as deputy when he came back from the war. She pushed a blonde tendril out of her eyes and looked into his face. “Can you talk about it yet?”

  This was a game they had played since childhood. When anything bothered Pam, it came right out, sometimes angrily, sometimes hysterically, but it was never a secret. With Hick, things weren’t so easy. It would sometimes take him weeks to be able to talk about what was on his mind. Since the war, he couldn’t talk at all.

  He took a long draw from his cigarette and shook his head. “Not yet.”

  It was getting on toward evening when he found himself driving toward the slough. After the muggy summer day, the air nearly buzzed with electricity. Heat lightning flashed in the distance. He parked the car and walked to the edge of the water, sitting in the rustling grass and listening to the crickets. The place where the baby had been found was invisible from this vantage point, as if that little corner of the slough didn’t exist. Lightning bugs rose from the ground all around him and occasionally a fish would jump, making a meal of one of the countless mosquitoes that hovered above the water. He pulled Maggie’s fan out of his pocket and smelled it. Her perfume lingered, heavy and sweet, just as it used to linger on his clothes after they’d been together. A sudden warm gust of wind sprang up, bringing the distant sound of thunder.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” a voice said, making him jump. He glanced up to see Iva Lee Stanton, a wispy sixteen-year-old with wide blue eyes. He remembered her from before he went to war. She was a bright, bubbly girl with braids and one front tooth. That was before she jumped out of the hayloft on a dare and knocked herself senseless. Now the kind people called her daft, but most called her an imbecile.

  He rose, brushing the dirt off his pants. “Howdy, Iva Lee. What you doing out by this slough so late? Sun’s about to go down. Does your daddy know where you are?”

  She looked at him with those blank eyes, and it made a shiver run down his spine to think of a mind so vacant and unpredictable.

  “No.”

  “You need to get home … it’s almost dark. You could fall in the water and then what would happen to you?”

  She frowned, knitting her eyebrows and jutting her lower lip out.

  Hick was annoyed by the girl interrupting his thoughts. More irritably than he meant, he told her, “I don’t want you out here at night, you hear? You come on, I’ll take you home.”

  She frowned and stomped to the car.

  Hick started it and turned toward the road. “You spend a lot of time up here in the last few weeks? Or seen anyone actin’ funny?”

  “No,” she said with a sullen face. “Daddy don’t like me out much.”

  “Well, you best listen to your daddy and keep to home.”


  Iva Lee turned toward the window, evidently not pleased with the suggestion.

  He pulled into the driveway and saw Bill Stanton coming from the barn with a shotgun and lantern. His face clearly showed relief when his daughter got out of the car.

  “Hey Bill,” Hick said, shaking the man’s hand.

  “Where’d you find her?”

  “Out by the slough. I thought I ought to bring her home. She really shouldn’t be out after dark … it’s easy to get lost down there.”

  Iva Lee stood before her father with her arms crossed, her face wearing an awful, put-upon pout. “Iva Lee, get to the house,” her father said.

  She stomped her foot.

  Bill raised his voice saying, “You best start listening to your mother. She’s in the house scared to death. Now get inside, for Christ’s sake.”

  Iva Lee muttered the whole way to the house and Bill sighed. “God almighty, Sheriff, what am I gonna do with her? I can’t lock her up. She’s making her mother a nervous wreck.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Bill.”

  “I know that,” he said with a small smile. “Well, I’m obliged to you for bringing her back.”

  Hick climbed back into his car and pulled the fan back out, but the warm feeling of remembering happier times was gone. He tried to conjure it back on his way home, but it would not return.

  5

  Hands cupped around a mug, Hick sat at the kitchen table staring into his coffee, feeling the warmth gradually dissipate. Thunder rumbled outside and the spoon rattled on the saucer, but he didn’t move. He was gone, lost somewhere inside himself. He couldn’t say exactly where he was or what he was thinking, as his mind didn’t seem capable of forming a thought. He just stared down into the same cup he’d been holding for forty-five minutes, trying to remember what it felt like to be alive.

  Lying in bed the night before, he’d hoped the rain’s hypnotic tapping against the tin roof would help him get some sorely needed rest. But even that familiar, relaxing sound couldn’t bring sleep. As soon as he climbed into bed, his heart began the familiar racing, adrenaline shooting through his body whenever he closed his eyes, his breath coming in short gasps, his legs fidgety and restless. It had become routine, this tossing and turning for several hours, before despair would set in and he would finally just get up. He knew he had to sleep for some of the night, not sleeping at all was impossible. But it was in short spurts, and never enough.

  Standing before the mirror every morning, his routine was the same. He shaved and then combed his hair. In high school, he could never grow a mustache like Errol Flynn. The girls had always loved his blue eyes and fair hair, but he wanted to be dark and swarthy like the matinee idols he saw. His father said his hair would darken as he grew older, but it never did. It remained blond and unmanageable, requiring a generous helping of Brylcreem to keep it from jutting out at odd angles. Lastly, he slipped on his uniform, starched as always, his perfect appearance belying the insecurities inside.

  Rain blew in horizontal sheets as Hick made his way into the station. Unable to face Maggie, he skipped the diner. Opening the door, he stumbled inside and took his hat off, shaking water everywhere. Wash and Adam looked up.

  “You find your webbed-finger criminal?” Wash asked as Hick hung his hat.

  “No, but I found a place where a bunch of kids broke bottles on the street and made a mess. You reckon you got time to clean that up?” It was spoken impatiently and made Wash’s eyebrows go up.

  “In the rain?”

  Hick sat down heavily in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, not in the rain.”

  Wash and Adam exchanged glances. “Where’d you eat breakfast?” Adam asked, sitting on the edge of Hick’s desk.

  “Didn’t.”

  “Come on,” Wash said. “I’m buying.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Adam and Wash each took an arm and lifted him from his chair. “Alright, alright,” he said in surrender, “I’m coming.”

  They opened the door. Thunder rolled and the rain fell heavily, making the gravel road that served as the town’s main street a sloppy, muddy mess. Quickly, they ran across the street to the diner, their feet sloshing through the puddles. The bell on the door rang and they closed it behind them, making their way to a booth. Hick glanced up and saw Maggie talking to Matt Pringle. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling and she patted his arm as she walked past him to their table. When she saw Hick, the smile faded. “Hey boys, what can I get you?”

  Adam and Wash ordered, but Hick muttered, “Just coffee,” handing her the menu. She barely looked at him as she added it to the stack, and then, glancing toward the door informed them, “Doc’s here,” and made her way to the kitchen.

  The doctor walked in, dripping from the storm and, spying the men, joined them. “Morning all.”

  “Hey, Doc,” they answered.

  “Making any progress?”

  “None,” answered Wash. “What are we supposed to do, ask everyone in town if we can see their fingers?”

  The doctor shook his head. “You’re law enforcement, use your imagination for God’s sake. You ain’t got to make a big to-do, just start looking at the people you meet.”

  Hick had been staring at the darkness outside the window. “Well, it ain’t a Stanton. I was up there yesterday and seen Iva Lee and her daddy. They got nice, normal-looking fingers.”

  “What were you up there for?” Adam asked him.

  “Oh, I went back to the slough to … hell, I don’t know what I thought I was doing. Anyway, Iva Lee was wandering around up there, so I took her home.”

  “Why would she be up at the slough?” asked Wash.

  “Damned if I know.”

  “She see anything?” Adam asked.

  Hick shook his head.

  Maggie came back with four cups in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. “Morning, Doc. I suppose you’d like some coffee?”

  “That’d be nice, hon,” he said, patting her hand. She took his order and he asked, “How you been feeling?”

  “Better, thanks.”

  Hick abruptly turned from the window. “You been sick?”

  “Just anemic. Doc gave me some iron pills.”

  “Anemic?”

  “It comes from not eating right,” Doc said. “Ain’t nobody around here got enough money to put meat on their plate every night.”

  Hick looked at her questioningly and she bristled. “Everything’s fine.”

  She retreated, scurrying toward the counter, and Hick turned back to the window. He could see her reflection as she worked, wiping off the counter and setting dishes in the tub behind her. She turned back to take the order of a farmer who had just come in from the rain. The reflection of her face in the window melted into the memory of her face from years before. Then, it was wan and haggard from the knowledge that he would soon be going to war.

  “Jesus Christ, Mag! Do you have to be stubborn about everything?”

  She pulled a bunch of lilacs from the bush and ran them beneath her nose. “Not everything.” She said it in a false, light voice that irritated him.

  In frustration, he ran his hand over his newly shorn hair. “Will you ever listen to reason? If you marry me now, you’ll get fifty bucks a month. Fifty bucks!” His eyes glanced over to the Benson house. “Think how much you and your mama could do with that.”

  Maggie stiffened a little. “Mama and I are just fine. Bud says I can stay on at the diner as long as I need to. You don’t have to pay me to wait for you, Hickory. Your people could use the money, too.”

  He shrugged. “Dad’s working. You need it more.”

  She looked deeply into his eyes and caught his hands in hers as if trying to will some inner knowledge she possessed. “Hickory, your daddy might not be able to work much longer.”

  Hick chose to ignore the statement. “Mag, I know how much you need—”

  She squeezed his hands. “What I need is for you to trust me
. Do you think you’re going to get a ‘Dear John’ letter?”

  He laughed. “Well, maybe a ‘Dear Hick’ letter….”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t think I can wait? You think my love is that small?”

  He sighed, recognizing the defiant glint in her eyes. “No, Mag. I just wish every once in a while you’d let someone help you.”

  “You having faith in me will help me get through this more than any money ever could. What are you afraid of anyway?”

  He pulled her to him. “I’m afraid of you wantin’ for something and me not being here to give it to you.”

  Lightning popped directly outside of the window and the instantaneous thunder behind it caused Hick to jump, jerking his mind back to the present. “It’s as dark as night out there,” Wash commented, wiping his hand across the window to remove the moist condensation and drawing Hick’s mind away from the reflection.

  The farmers were at their leisure today; there would be no working in this weather. Sounds of clinking silverware and laughter erupted from different spots of the room, and Maggie quickly moved throughout, filling coffee cups and chatting with the customers.

  Adam watched the crowd at the diner. Lowering his voice, he suggested, “Maybe Wash could hang around in here for a day or two. Most of the town comes to this diner at least once or twice a week.” Hick’s eyes met Adam’s. He understood Adam worried about Wash. The deputy was growing older and Adam had been hinting he should retire, although Wash wouldn’t have it. He’d worked for Sheriff Michaels for his forty-year tenure and he intended to stick around as long as he could.