by Lori Roy
Standing bare-chested, Ryce lets his arms hang at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“I don’t know nothing else, Annie. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Stop looking,” Annie says.
Ryce shakes his head. “I ain’t. I ain’t looking. Jesus, Annie, I can’t help myself. I don’t know nothing else about Juna. Just go on. Just go on home.”
“I saw Jacob Riddle down in the well,” Annie says. “He’s the man I’ll marry one day.”
She’s telling Ryce even though he didn’t ask. Something about him looking at her the way he’s looking and the way his chest is pumping up and down and the way she can feel how warm his body is even though it’s cool to the touch makes her want to hurt him because she knows one day he’ll kiss Lizzy Morris and marry her and eat her glazed ham.
“And you tell your daddy that my Aunt Juna ain’t dead and that she’s back. He’s the sheriff and he should do something about it. You tell him that. My Aunt Juna ain’t dead, and she’s come back home.”
13
1936—SARAH AND JUNA
THE SUN IS rising, has barely broken the horizon. The light is lifting around me, the room turning from nearly black to gray. The fire was out when Daddy dropped Juna and me at home. Crossing through the doorway into a house where three people now live and not four felt like crossing into a stranger’s house. It was cold like that, cold like a house where you don’t know where to sit until someone pulls out a chair and you fidget because you don’t know what to do with your hands since you’re not the one doing the cooking or the cleaning or the serving. Cold like that.
Joseph Carl never told what he did with Dale. By the end, Joseph Carl was crying, and so much had been beat out of him, he didn’t seem altogether sure what he’d done and what he hadn’t done. He pleaded with Daddy to stop and said he would tell Daddy whatever we wanted to hear. Just tell him what to say, and he’d say it. He promised, swore to God almighty, just tell me what to say and I’ll say it. But no matter how much Daddy beat him, Joseph Carl couldn’t tell what he didn’t know, so Daddy and the others are still looking.
I sit at the kitchen table, the doors and windows shut up tight because this is the time of day I hate most. Usually, it’s because sunrise marks the start of another day just like the last. Today, it marks the time Dale has been gone. Out on the porch, the wood is too damp to use in starting another fire. This is how I’d find it if I were to look. Daddy doesn’t stack his wood right, so it rots, and that’s where the snakes take up. The box inside the house is empty, save a few scraps of kindling. It’s Dale’s job, his only job, to fill it every night. So this morning, there will be no fire.
The air is thickest at this hour, so thick and full it nearly drips, weighing heavy on everything. My clothes hang, and my hair wilts and will stick to the sides of my face and the back of my neck until I pin it up. And with the dampness comes a kind of cold that seeps in deeper than most. I’ll be trying all of the morning to warm myself, but even if I step outside, there’ll be no sun because Daddy built this house and Daddy is cursed.
The tapping at the front door is a strange sound. I don’t stand but instead listen, trying to work out what it is. In less than two days’ time, it’s become normal for folks to walk on inside, not bother knocking. They’ve come and gone with their cucumbers and tomatoes, eggs and milk. Not wanting to disturb Juna, not wanting to see her or be seen, they’ve slipped in and out, a few of them stopping long enough to say a hello to me and ask after what they can do. There is another tapping. I push away from the table, glance at Juna’s closed door, and stand.
I’ve seen Juna and Abraham Pace before. When I’ve gone to fetch her for supper because I’ve worried Daddy might find her first, I always know where to look. I’ve seen them on the patch of grass where the trees clear. They never hear me because the sound of the river, lazy as it is, covers over twigs and leaves snapping underfoot. I’ve seen Abraham trailing his fingers over the inside of Juna’s arm, the white part I know must be as soft as it is on me. I’ve seen him fill her mouth with his tongue and the way it makes her arch her back and press herself into him. I’ve heard sounds coming from Abraham, sounds that reached me before the sight of the two of them reached me, and those sounds made me turn away. From down near the river where they’d think I hadn’t seen, I’d call out for Juna to come on home.
These last few hours since Daddy dropped Juna and me back at the house, as I’ve been waiting for the sun to rise and the dampness to burn off, I’ve thought of those days and what I saw. But now, instead of seeing Abraham working his tongue over Juna or hearing the groans that roll up and out of his mouth, I see and hear Ellis Baine. I see his tongue and his fingers trailing across Juna’s body and hear his deep voice rumble through his throat as he calls out her name.
I open the door, and there stands John Holleran holding his hat in one hand, working the other around its brim.
“May I?” he says.
“There’s no fire,” I say, meaning there’s no coffee.
He hands me his hat and walks back to the woodpile. He gathers an armful of the logs stacked on top, sets them on the ground, and gathers another load from the drier wood beneath. He looks each piece over as he loads it in the crook of his arm and then carries it into the house. Inside, he nods at the wood box. Empty, I tell him. Like the flue at the Baines’ place, ours doesn’t draw so well, especially when it’s gone altogether cold. The fire smokes, but John is better at building one than Daddy or me, and soon enough it’s crackling and snapping and wearing off the chill. As John works the fire, I set to work on the coffee.
“I got to wondering,” John says, sitting at the table while I stand over the coffeepot, “if you’re safe here in this house.”
The pot always lets out something of a hiss just before the coffee gets to rolling. There’s no need of me standing over it, watching it, waiting for that hiss. Doesn’t make it come any faster, but I do. I wrap my hand in a scrap like Mrs. Baine did, grab onto the pot, and hold tight like it’ll slip from the stove if I don’t.
“You safe here, Sarah?”
The one lantern is still lit, the one Daddy always insists on so he never wakes to the dark, but the light in the room has lifted enough that the lantern does no good. I drop the handle on the coffeepot, walk to the lantern, and put out the flame.
It’s a disturbing thing to know someone loves you. It makes a person wonder why. That’s the first disturbing thing. But putting that aside, it makes the future spring up in a person’s mind. It makes a person see a house, a bedroom, a kitchen table, and boots at the door. It makes a person see the children that will tie her to that house. It makes a person see the garden she’ll tend, the sopping clothes she’ll wring dry and hang on the line, the beans she’ll snap and the canning she’ll do. Having someone love you gives the future its footing.
“They’ll hang him, won’t they?” I say, staring down into the dark lantern. “A man who does those things, the things Juna says … they’ll hang him for it.”
“Not until they find Dale,” John says. “You have an answer for me? You safe here?”
There’s shame in the question. Even though the answer is yes, I’m safe here, Daddy doesn’t do those things Juna said, the question still sticks to me, probably always will. It’s what Juna does. Ever so slightly, she turns folks in the direction of her liking. The voices save me from answering John Holleran.
They are men’s voices, several. They’re not hollering, just talking. Talking among themselves and getting louder and closer. Footsteps hit the front porch and the door swings open. Buell Fulkerson leans into the house. He’s Sheriff Irlene’s oldest and will likely be the next sheriff.
“Found him,” he says. “Found your boy. Your daddy says make a spot for him. He’ll be right along.”
• • •
ABRAHAM PACE IS the first man through the door. Abigail trails close behind. Traipsing through the hills all night isn’t a proper th
ing for a young lady, but she’ll have been with Abraham and so she’ll have been safe. It’s as if Abraham has told her to latch onto him so she won’t get herself taken like Dale, because as she had in Juna’s bedroom, Abigail clings to the tail of Abraham’s jacket with one hand.
The kitchen soon fills with other men, all of them tracking dirt. Their hemlines are heavy with mud, their shirts are left untucked, and their faces and hands are smudged with black. Their pants hang loose around their waists, some so loose they’ve been tied off with thin strips of leather or lengths of rope. They’ve been worn down, all of them, not so much by the search for Dale as by life. As the other men filter through the door, Abraham and Abigail are pushed to the back, though because Abraham is tallest, he isn’t lost. One of the men tells me to gather dry clothes, blankets, and the heaviest socks I can manage.
The room is so thick with the men and their wet clothes and their sour smells, I barely see Daddy when he walks through the door. The shuffling feet go still and the men stop midsentence to let Daddy pass. I can’t see anything of Dale, but I can tell by the way Daddy carries himself and the cadence of his footsteps that he is cradling Dale in his arms.
I push through the men to get to the back room. Inside, Juna is already out of the bed and standing in the far corner. She has brushed her hair and dressed herself in one of my dresses, which I can see straight off because it hangs down her shoulders and the neckline sags.
“I fixed it up,” she says of the bed.
And she has. She has pulled the sheets taut and folded the blue blanket twice over and draped it across the end of the bed. The lantern is lit, and the shutter over the window has been lowered and locked in place.
When Daddy steps into the bedroom and before the door has closed, the men in the kitchen get back to talking. The house still has that feeling of belonging to someone else. Someone, a stranger, is opening and closing the coffeepot. He doesn’t use a rag, and he shouts God damn, and the lid bounces off the counter and onto the ground. With the toe of a boot, I suppose, someone kicks closed a cupboard, and chairs scoot across my floor. Someone tosses more wood on the fire. Someone else dips up water for more coffee. A few engines fire up, and tailgates rattle as trucks pull away.
Standing with his feet planted wide and leaning back to brace himself for the weight in his arms, Daddy looks to me. I wave at the bed, tell him it’s fine, it’ll be best for Dale. He stares down on it, thinking, wondering if he should lay his boy there in the bed where Juna and I usually sleep. His hat has been knocked about and sits too low on the back of his head. His brow is white against his dark-red cheeks and nose. They’ll blister, both of them, in a few days’ time. He shuffles up to the bed, slides one foot in front of the other, lowers himself, and lets Dale slip from his arms.
I’ve always known Dale would turn out looking like Daddy. Even starting out as sweet as he has, as pink and soft and kind, I knew time would rub against those things until they wore off. Looking down on Dale sinking into the feather ticking same as Juna did, I see Daddy looking back at me. The soft round cheeks have caved, already, in such a short time, and the left side of his face is swollen and black with bruising. One eye is closed from the swelling, and his bottom lip is split, though it’s crusted over. He’s been beaten. And he’s wet, all of him, and he smells of the river, like the moss that grows up between the rocks and the thick black silt the floods left behind. His skin’s fresh pink color is gone, replaced by something pale, something waterlogged and nearly dead.
I start with his shirt, unbuttoning each button and pulling his arms through one at a time. His skin is cool, and it’s like working stubborn hinges as I try to bend his arm and twist it, slowly, tenderly, and peel the damp shirt away. Daddy leans over me, pointing when I’ve missed a button, using his one long fingernail, the one on the pointer of his right hand, to scratch at a leaf stuck to Dale’s chest. Juna keeps her place in the corner, hands clasping under her belly, her long yellow hair hanging over her shoulders, hiding the oversize neckline that sags.
Someone hands me another shirt, a dry one. It’s Daddy’s—flannel, soft from all the wear. I work Dale’s arms again and thread them through each sleeve. I don’t bother with the buttons, but instead, because it’s so big on him, I tuck the shirt around him, swaddle him. With the same rag I used to dab at Juna’s burned skin, I clean Dale’s face, arms, and hands, being careful of the swelling and bruising. Next, I grab at the snaps on his britches, but John Holleran takes Daddy’s place over my shoulder and gathers my hands with both of his.
“Better not,” he says, and with a knife cuts a half dozen inches into the fabric, and with both hands pulls until the pant leg has torn through. He does the same on the other side, and then I see.
Dale’s left leg is broke such that the bone has popped right through the skin, and his foot is twisted at an ungodly angle. I had worried when Dale wouldn’t open his eyes. Not once as I pulled off his shirt and cleaned his face and neck with a damp cloth and laid a towel under his head did he open his eyes. I’m glad of it now.
“What do we do?” I say.
“Doctor’ll be here shortly,” John says. “Clean him. He should be clean. And keep him warm.”
I stay far from the jagged tip that sticks out of Dale’s right shin. It’s like a twig, a slender branch whittled straight and smooth. The skin is puckered where it tore through and red with smears of blood, but not as much as I’d have thought. He was in the river. Somewhere, all this time, he’s been in the river. I know the leg will be tender to the touch. Someone sits a pan of warm water next to me. I turn to thank Juna, but she still stands in her corner, hands still clasped like she’s cradling a basket. Abigail brought the water. She stands next to me, staring down on Dale. Her eyes first land on his face, but they slowly slide over his body and stop at his leg. I wave for one of the men to take her away even though she cries out for me to let her stay. When she has gone and the room is quiet again, I soak the rag, wring it good, and wipe it across Dale’s sunken cheeks, over his small mouth, along his neck and up under his chin. I follow behind with a dry towel, blotting the damp skin. Two, three times, I clean him.
“Where was he?” I ask. “How did you find him?”
“Joseph Carl,” John says.
He pauses, stares at the ground like he’s thinking what to say next and how he ought tell me.
“He told Sheriff Irlene. Finally told where we’d find Dale.”
But Juna’s story. It hadn’t been right. Joseph Carl wouldn’t have asked after fresh, cool water deep enough to wade in. He would have smiled at Dale like all folks did. Juna’s story hadn’t been right.
“He done it, Sarah,” John says, staring down on Dale’s tiny, beaten body. “Joseph Carl done this.”
“I don’t believe it,” I say. “I know Joseph Carl. Known him all my life. I don’t believe it for a minute. It was someone else. Someone else did this to Dale.”
John steps close, leans in, and talks in a low voice no one else will hear. “Only way we found Dale was because Joseph Carl told us where he’d be. Ain’t no way Joseph Carl would know unless he done it. I’m sorry, Sarah. Don’t know what possessed the man, but he done it.”
Twice, John hollers at the other men to get along home, and then the doctor comes. He wears a long black coat to fend off the morning chill. The damp wool brings the sour smell of a wet animal into the house. It’s a reminder of the cold Dale suffered in nothing but his undershirt and britches. After removing his coat, the doctor drapes it over my arm and doesn’t bother taking off his hat. His white beard is neatly trimmed and just nips his chest when he nods his thanks. It’s been a good five years since I last saw him, but he’s aged a good many more. Still his eyes are clear, his hands steady. As if to warm himself, he rubs those steady hands and weaves his long, slender fingers together.
“Hell of a fall,” the doctor says, leaning over the bed for a good look at Dale’s twisted leg. He came from twelve miles south and so doesn’t know about J
oseph Carl and the things he’s done.
“Wasn’t no fall,” Daddy says, and because he shakes his head and scrunches up his nose like he’s smelling milk gone sour and can’t quite let his eyes settle on his own son, the doctor doesn’t ask after what did happen.
“Which of you will it be?” he asks instead, pulls a cotton kerchief from his front pocket and wipes his hands.
They must know what the doctor means to say, Daddy and John, but I don’t. John gives a nod that sends Daddy out of the room. He’s happy enough to go, doesn’t look back or do any insisting. Juna follows, and I start to dip my rag in the water that’s already gone cold. John shakes his head.
“He’ll not shout out,” John says. “But best you’re not here.”
I drape the rag over the back of my chair. “Did you find cards on Dale?”
John is standing at the end of Dale’s bed, looking down on him. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“The cards Joseph Carl says he gave Dale. I didn’t see them, didn’t find them in his pockets.”
John stretches his head from side to side as if loosening a tired neck. “Probably just washed away. No telling.” Then he presses a hand to my shoulder and turns me toward the door. “Go,” he says. “We need to get on with it.”
From out in the kitchen and through the closed door, I hear them. Hold him here. Brace your feet. Use the wall to steady yourself. Don’t stop. Not even if he wakes. Not even if he cries out. Keep on until it settles in. Juna sits at the table, Daddy stands out on the porch, where he smokes a cigar, and Abraham and Abigail huddle together in the farthest corner, Abigail still hanging on to Abraham’s jacket. And the doctor counts off … one, two, three.
By the time John opens the door, the kitchen is as light as it’ll get. The sun has risen full in the sky, but already, we lie in the shadows. The smell of damp wool follows him from the room.
