Let Me Die in His Footsteps

by Lori Roy

  “Same would have come about had it been Harold here,” John says to Sheriff Irlene. “This is all that could be done for the boy. Your Harold would have done the same. Juna’ll answer to you when she’s feeling up to it. Don’t you think, Sarah?”

  I nod, though I don’t think it at all. Juna won’t answer because she’ll have no answer. Something has become of Dale, but Joseph Carl had no hand in it. Juna likely did.

  “I sure hope you’re right, John,” Sheriff Irlene says.

  Sheriff Irlene’s skin has a glow about it and is still smooth but for the lines around her eyes and those that frame her mouth. She’s too young to be a widow, but she’ll be one the rest of her life. She’ll likely never remarry. Too young to be a widow. Too old to be a new bride.

  She’s about to say something more, maybe something about what a good man her husband was, but a scream stops her. Not a sob like those that came before but a scream. She jumps from her chair. I stand too. John Holleran pushes off the wall and grabs for the door’s latch. Daddy had been slapping at Joseph Carl with a pair of leather gloves. That’s what we had figured by the sound of it. But there’s no more slapping coming from that back room. No one is stumbling across the floor, being shoved up against a wall, tripping over an upended chair. It’s quiet except for that scream. John yanks on the door, rattling it in its frame, but it won’t open.

  “Unlock this door, Ed,” John shouts at Daddy.

  A piece of wood in the box stove falls, and the fire crackles and sparks. Another scream. The front door opens, and the damp night air bursts into the room. The flame in each lantern wavers. Abraham Pace ducks under the threshold. In three steps, he crosses the room. There’s another scream, higher in pitch this time and it lingers, and before it can fade altogether, another scream. And another. John Holleran yanks on the latch, starts beating at it with the butt of his shotgun, but Abraham wrenches it away from him before the latch breaks loose. Maybe he yanks at it because it’s a damn fool thing to do with a loaded gun, or maybe because he wants Daddy to make Joseph Carl scream.

  “You stop in there,” Sheriff Irlene shouts and then calls out the door to her deputies.

  “Make him say it, Daddy.”

  We turn, all of us, at the sound of Juna’s voice. She has stood from her seat at the small desk. The blanket is crumpled at her feet. She stands in her white gown, her matted hair hanging down the sides of her face, her lips bleeding where they’ve cracked. She takes a step toward the door, and as another scream rises up, she screams out too.

  “Make him say it. Make him say it, Daddy.”

  She squeezes her hands into fists. Her arms are rigid. She tips forward as if leaning into the wind. Her black eyes are stretched wide.

  “Make him say he done it. Make him, Daddy. Make him.”

  I grab for the blanket, try to wrap it around her, but she slaps at me and screams into my face.

  “He done it. He took Dale. He done it.”

  Sheriff Irlene and Abraham stare at Juna, both of them backing away. The deputies, three or four of them, huddle in the doorway but won’t step inside. I try again with the blanket, this time wrapping it from behind. I hold it around her shoulders. Her body is stiff and small. Joseph Carl keeps screaming, and I try not to think about what Daddy could be doing to him. With one arm still wrapped around Juna’s shoulder, I slide to the side of her. She turns toward me. Ever so slightly, she’s smiling.

  • • •

  THREE BAINES ARE the first to arrive. They must know the silence is a bad thing because their footsteps are quick up the stairs, across the porch, and through the door. Ellis walks first inside. He pulls the hat from his head, and I’m close enough to see the dent it’s left. Air rushes in and out through his nose. His jaw is covered over by a dark shadow, his having not shaved since morning. Two brothers stand behind him. They’re scrawnier, hairier versions of Ellis, and meaner too.

  The door at the back of the sheriff’s office is open now, and beyond it, Joseph Carl is locked behind a set of bars. He sits on a narrow bench, elbows resting on his knees, head hung down. A tray loaded up with his supper sits untouched on the floor near his feet. Mrs. Brashear will have brought it for him, and Abigail likely helped. Sheriff Irlene did the cooking for the men who found themselves behind those bars before her husband died, but once he passed and Irlene became sheriff, Mrs. Brashear took over the cooking. It was fried ham tonight, and cornbread and snapped beans.

  “Suppose you can let the boy out now,” Ellis says without looking at Sheriff Irlene. Instead, he keeps his eyes on that open door and the little bit of Joseph Carl he can see from where he’s standing.

  “Afraid I can’t do that, Ellis,” Sheriff Irlene says. “Best place for that boy is right where he sits.”

  “We kept Joseph Carl safe bringing him here,” I say. “The sheriff did. Didn’t let Daddy take a gun or a knife to Joseph Carl. Made sure he was fed. We kept him safe.”

  John Holleran steps into the middle of the room. “He admitted to it,” he says. “Heard it myself. But won’t tell us what he done with the boy.”

  “Damn right he admitted to it.”

  It’s Daddy. His dark shirt has pulled free and hangs loose about his waist. He still wears his hat, though it’s pushed high on his forehead. Drawing a kerchief from his back pocket, he wipes the sweat from his face. He looks small, scrawny even, compared to John and Abraham, but Joseph Carl is smaller still. When John Holleran finally broke through the door, Sheriff Irlene rushing in behind him, he had hauled Daddy off Joseph Carl with one hand.

  “God only knows what he done to my boy,” Daddy says.

  “Daddy’s going to make him tell.”

  Again, we all look to Juna. The lids over her black eyes are swollen, and dark patches have settled under each. It’s from her not sleeping and not drinking and not eating. She holds the blanket around herself like a shawl, baring her white shoulders.

  “Make him tell what he done to me too, Daddy.”

  It’s no more than a whisper. Clutching her blanket with both hands, she is looking at the ground at Daddy’s feet and not into his eyes.

  “You can do it,” she says, still in a whisper. “You can make him tell what he done to Dale, and you can make him tell what he done to me.”

  “Juna, no,” I say, dropping my arms and backing away. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

  “What’s that you’re saying?” Abraham says.

  Sheriff Irlene covers her mouth over with one hand and shakes her head. Her three deputies turn away. John Holleran does the same. They’re trying to spare Abraham his shame.

  “He ruined me, Abey,” Juna says. “He didn’t spare me. Not like you said. I’m so sorry, Abey.”

  “You saying Joseph Carl ruined you, girl?” Ellis says.

  “Can’t bear to say what he done to me,” Juna says.

  “Man can’t very well ruin what’s long since been rotted out,” Ellis says.

  At this, Abraham Pace lunges for Ellis. John Holleran grabs at him, wraps him up in two arms. Ellis holds up a hand to his two brothers, stopping them from raising their guns.

  “Would guess half the fellows here have had a hand in ruining this girl,” Ellis says, nodding off toward Juna. “But Joseph Carl damn sure ain’t one of them.”

  John Holleran holds on tight, pulling against Abraham, who is still pushing to get at Ellis. Abraham leads with his square jaw, and his heavy brow shades his eyes, making them look dark like Juna’s when really they are pale brown.

  “You surprised I’d say that, Abe,” Ellis says. “Don’t mean no harm. Guess I shouldn’t speak for the others, but I damn sure had her. Damn sure of that. She’s been ruined all right, but it wasn’t by that boy in there.” He calls Joseph Carl a boy even though he’s the oldest Baine brother. “And he sure didn’t do nothing to Dale. It’s a damn fool thought.”

  John’s arms loosen from around Abraham. He’s no longer struggling to get at Ellis but instead is staring at Juna.
I can’t help but stare myself.

  She’s known, known all along, I wanted Ellis Baine. She’s known I’ve been waiting for him to wring himself out and be ready for a wife. She’s known I watch him in the field, fingering the dirt until it’s just so and knowing the perfect time to set his crop. She’s known my wanting him is like an ache. She’s told me over and over that Ellis will want me too and has told me how he’ll marry me one day and take me in and we’ll grow beans and cabbage and our fields will be filled with tobacco. And still I believe Ellis Baine. I know he’s telling the truth.

  “Don’t you let him say that, Daddy.”

  Juna tilts her head in that way she does. She’s wanting Daddy to remember the wife who died and the boy Juna was supposed to be. She’s wanting Daddy to remember he’s afraid of her.

  “Don’t you let him, Daddy.”

  Sheriff Irlene walks among the men, pushing them aside as she makes her way to the small door at the back of the room. She leans inside and says, “You sit tight, Joseph Carl. I’ll be in to tend to you shortly.” Then she pulls the door closed, though, because the latch is broken off, it doesn’t shut all the way.

  “I heard it myself, Ellis,” she says, turning her attention to Ellis Baine. “Joseph Carl said he took the boy, so you all need to go on now. Joseph Carl’ll be staying right here until we sort this through. And all the rest of you, you all go on home. Ed, you. And Ellis, you too. All of you. Get on with looking for Dale. Joseph Carl is staying here with me, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Tell you right now,” Ellis Baine says, backing toward the door, “this will not be the end of it.”

  12

  1952—ANNIE

  NO ONE EVER talks about Aunt Juna being Annie’s real mama, at least not in a place or in a way Annie could hear. When Annie was younger and would happen by a group of girls skipping rope and singing about Juna and how many Baines would die this day, sometimes those girls would stop and huddle, one whispering to another. They were the ones who knew Aunt Juna was Annie’s mama even before Annie knew. Other times, the girls, different girls, would keep right on jumping and singing and not knowing Annie was Juna’s relation.

  The ones who stopped their jumping to whisper had grandmas and grandpas who had lived here all their lives. Those older folks are the ones who lived here when Joseph Carl Baine was hanged. They’re the ones who knew he was hanged not only for what he did to Dale Crowley but also for being the one to put the seed in Aunt Juna. Not even these girls who knew the truth would mention Joseph Carl Baine when Annie passed them by. They might have warned one another that the evil lives in Annie’s black eyes and pleaded with Annie not to curse their daddies’ crops or beg her to bring them a favorable winter, all the while laughing because Annie’s mama wasn’t her real mama, but they never dared mention Joseph Carl being her daddy.

  But as Grandma hurries around the table, her wide hips bouncing off the counter and then the kitchen table, and wraps her arms around Annie, and as Daddy stands so quick his chair tumbles backward and bounces off the linoleum floor, it’s clear Joseph Carl Baine being Annie’s daddy is the thing that brought Ellis Baine into the Hollerans’ kitchen.

  “You want to say that again?” Daddy says.

  Ellis Baine leans forward, rests his elbows on the table, and nods at Annie. “Here to see that one,” he says.

  Daddy lunges across the table, but before he gets a hand on Ellis Baine, the sheriff grabs him by the back of his shirt and gives a good yank.

  “Good Lord, John,” the sheriff says, both he and Daddy stumbling over the fallen chair.

  Ellis Baine stands too, though not as quick, and his chair stays on its feet. He holds his hands out to the side and backs away until he’s beyond Daddy’s reach.

  Grandma tries to hide Annie’s eyes by wrapping her up in a hug, but Annie is a good half a foot taller than Grandma. Try as Grandma might, she can’t hug Annie tight enough to cut off her view.

  As quickly as Daddy leapt across the table, he settles back. His chest is pumping again, and he’s staring in the direction of Ellis Baine, but it’s not the visitor who has drawn Daddy’s attention. Annie unwraps herself from Grandma’s arms to see what Daddy is staring at. It’s Mama. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, one hand covering her mouth, the other clinging to the banister.

  “John?” she says.

  Jacob Riddle is inside again, though Annie never heard him open the door, and he must have righted Daddy’s chair because it’s there for him when he collapses into it.

  Mama’s hair is always pretty. She brushes it every morning and washes it at least three times a week, which is plenty given how thick and long it still is. She has a few gray hairs, but mostly Mama’s hair always looks nice. On Sundays though, Mama fixes it extra fine for church. She teases up the top and pins back the front, picking out a few stray, wispy pieces with the pointed end of her comb. She says it frames her face and that Annie’s hair would do the same if she’d ever take a set of bristles to it. The rest of Mama’s hair she leaves to fall down her back in long, dark waves, and if the weather is dry and accommodating, she’ll use that green gel and sleep in rollers so she’ll have long, smooth curls by morning.

  Mama has done all these things today except for sleeping in the rollers. She’s also painted her lips with her best crimson-rose lipstick, and her lashes are long enough to throw feathery shadows on her cheeks. Annie watches Daddy watching Mama, and Annie knows, and Daddy knows, Mama did these things for Ellis Baine.

  “Good to see you, Sarah,” Ellis says to Mama, bowing his head. His voice is rough like those of so many of the men who spent too many years in the mines. Wherever he’s been and whatever he’s been doing since he left Hayden County, he has spent a good bit of that time underground.

  Mama slides one foot toward Ellis. It’s barely a movement, just enough to make the skirt of her dress sway from one side to the other, and then she stops. She crosses her arms loosely over her waist and says, “You look well, Ellis. My condolences.”

  From his seat at the table, Daddy leans forward in his chair, rests his elbows on his knees, and with one finger waves Mama toward him. He studies Mama as she walks across the kitchen. She wears her bright-blue dress, the one with pale-yellow trim at the neckline. A white scarf is tied around her waist. Whenever she wears this dress, usually for a night of dancing in the church basement, Daddy wraps his hands around her waist to prove it’s not one inch bigger than the day they wed. His fingers never quite reach, though he always swears they do. On Mama’s feet, she wears her best white heels, the ones she won’t dare wear in the rain and that she stores in two cloth bags. Daddy drops his eyes to the floor as Mama slips behind him. He can smell it too … Mama’s best perfume.

  Ellis sits back down, and his eyes settle on Annie again.

  “That her?” he asks. “That your oldest?”

  “Get out, Annie,” Daddy says.

  Mama rests a hand on Daddy’s shoulder, but he swats it away.

  “Now,” he says. “Outside.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” the sheriff says. “Go on outside, Annie. You’ll get some good light out on the porch. Make threading a needle a whole lot easier. You go on while we do some catching up.”

  Grandma wraps an arm around Annie’s waist and turns her toward the door.

  “He’s back because his mama’s dead,” she whispers in Annie’s ear. “She’s the one kept him away all these years. Don’t you stray, you hear?”

  • • •

  GRANDMA SAYS THERE is something deep underground that feeds the soil. It’s the first thing she taught Annie about the know-how. Year after year, century after century, she says, this something rises to the surface, leaches into roots and streams and lakes, and this something makes things grow stronger and bigger here in Kentucky than in any other place on this earth. The horses, the grass, the trees—all of them feeding off the thing that lives deep underground.

  And this thing, it bleeds through our s
hoes and through the soles of our feet and it feeds us too. It’s our histories, Grandma says. Our histories root themselves right where we stand, and they lie in wait until they can soak up into the next generation and the next. It’s what feeds us.

  Watching everyone in the kitchen, most especially the men, Annie figures that’s why they’re all so big. All of them except the sheriff, although even he is extra big around the middle, are feeding on this thing deep in the ground. Year after year, century after century of histories living underfoot have made these men bigger and stronger than all the rest.

  The sheriff was right; the light here on the porch would be perfect for stitching a button, but the needle and thread are in the top drawer to the right of the sink. Annie drapes the shirt, which is a little damp and most unpleasant to hold, over the railing, walks across the porch on her toes so she’ll make no noise, and stands near the kitchen window. From here, she can see them and hear them too.

  “Yes,” Mama is saying, “Annie is our oldest.”

  More words are exchanged, though they aren’t clear, but it’s definitely the sheriff doing the talking. He’s saying things about bygones being bygones and doesn’t Ellis have plenty to worry about without worrying about the past.

  “Where have you been all these years?” Mama asks.

  Ellis Baine leans across the table and picks up one of the decks of cards. Annie knows the deck well enough, has even used it herself a few times. The back of each card is bordered in a red that was likely a brighter shade at one time but is now faded from age. In the center of each is an ink drawing of a sailboat, and in the center of each sail is written “Old Cutter Whiskey.” A red rubber band is wrapped around the deck, only twice so as to not dent the cards. Ellis slips off the band, fans the cards, and taps them on the table. Holding them in one hand, he uses the thumb of his other hand, bends back the deck, and lets each red card pop up one at a time. He holds the deck near his eyes as if making sure each card of each suit is accounted for. If he answers Mama, Annie can’t hear what he says.