by Hank Early
It was on one of these breaks, standing there, thinking about the Indians flying across in the dusk so many years ago, that Harriet approached him. Rufus wasn’t completely sure where she fit in at the school. She was about three or four years older than any of the other students and did not attend classes. In fact, he rarely saw her but had heard that Harden and Deloach forced her into special sessions daily in which they counseled her in how to be heterosexual. The rumors about these sessions were as wild and varied as the rumors about the falls. She was servicing both men. She wasn’t a lesbian at all but instead a nymphomaniac who simply had to have it every day. Others claimed they were making her watch videos of women performing cunnilingus while making her bathe in the blood of dead pigs as a means of aversion therapy. The less radical rumors held that she was simply being counseled on the error of her ways. Rufus tended to believe this last one, but he still didn’t like it. He’d increasingly come to wonder why it was any of Harden’s or Deloach’s business if she was a lesbian or straight. Yet he lacked the courage of his convictions to do anything about it. Hell, he was still Harden’s—and to a lesser extent, Deloach’s—lapdog. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to please the two men so much, but he did. Their praise seemed to fill up a hollow place inside him, much like the old preacher’s had done before he saw the lies the man told, the deceit on which his whole ministry had been founded.
Since Rufus had arrived at the school a month or so earlier, he and Harriet had had minimal contact. Rufus was a classroom aide, which meant he was to help ride herd on the boys when they acted obnoxious during lessons. There were only two real teachers at the school—Deloach and an old man named Irvin. Deloach didn’t need the help, but Rufus was told to go to his classes anyway to pick up tips about discipline. Irvin was close to eighty and going blind, so Rufus found himself very busy in that classroom. It was a shame, because when the kids did settle down enough to listen to Irvin, he was a hell of a teacher. Looking back on it now, Rufus realized being in Irvin’s classroom, listening to him teach history, was one of the only good things to come out of his time at the Harden School. At least one of the only good things that lasted. But neither room allowed Rufus to see Harriet, because she wasn’t permitted to attend classes with the boys.
“Hey,” Rufus said when Harriet climbed onto the rock.
She was upset. That much was clear. She didn’t speak; instead she just sat down on the edge of the rock, her feet dangling off over the river.
“You doing okay?” Rufus asked.
“I hate this place.”
“Well, maybe you won’t have to stay too long.”
“Yeah, I could leave tomorrow if I wanted to. Today even.”
Rufus couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. He sat down beside Harriet. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s real simple. My father wants me to be something I’m not. If I want to leave, all I have to do is go to Harden and tell him his stupid therapy worked, that I’m normal. I’m a real woman. I want to go clean the kitchen and keep my mouth shut except when it’s time to stuff a dick in it.”
Rufus winced. He’d never heard a woman speak like this.
“Well,” she said. “What do you have to say to that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think that’s how you become a real woman.”
“Okay, then tell me. How do you do it?”
He shook his head, confused. “I think you already are a real woman, Harriet.”
She opened her mouth, as if to argue with him, and then his words seemed to register. “Oh. Well … damn right I am,” she snarled. “But don’t tell that to my father or to Harden. You know Harden has all of the boys calling me Harry, right? They all do it. How is that supposed to ‘help’ anyone. Not that I need any of their fucking help.”
“Don’t listen to them.”
“That’s easy to say, harder to do. It’s all I hear. Besides, I’m not the one who needs the help.”
“I’m sorry,” Rufus said. He didn’t know what else to say or do, so he just sat there, looking down at the river a hundred yards or more away. He could see the whitewater, moving fast over the rocks. It was moving on its own accord, oblivious to the whims of the foolish and inescapable human world.
“It’s true, you know,” she said after a time.
“What’s true?”
“Are you stupid?”
Rufus flinched, a little hurt. He was trying to be a friend. And now he was stupid?
“I don’t understand.”
Harriet shook his head. “The only person that knows the truth about me is Savanna. Everyone else is just assuming the thing that makes it easiest to hurt me.” She closed her eyes, as if the next part was especially painful. “I think this was her idea.”
“Wait. Her idea? You mean to send you here?”
Harriet nodded, her eyes still closed. “It had to be. I mean, she was the only one I’d ever told. And I only told her because she figured it out. I thought if I explained it to her, she’d understand. But she didn’t. Wasn’t long after that everybody knew. My father was so pissed, I think he wanted to just get rid of me somehow. He wouldn’t look at me for days, weeks, and then it was like he had an idea. But it wasn’t his idea.”
“You think it was Savanna’s?”
“Yeah. I know it was.”
“Why?”
“Because my father’s an idiot. He doesn’t think of ideas. Savanna, though …” She trailed off.
Rufus looked down at the river again, as if there would be some guidance there, some hint of how to navigate this new and treacherous territory. He saw the tiny rocks that had probably chewed up those two Indians so long ago. He didn’t like hearing bad things about Savanna. As much as he felt Harriet had been mistreated, Savanna was … God, his mind went blank when he thought of her. She was so beautiful, everything Rufus had ever wanted but had never known.
“Savanna’s a good person,” he said quietly. He would believe that.
“That’s what everybody says,” Harriet replied.
“Maybe they say it because it’s true.”
Harriet ignored him and pushed on. “I need somebody I can be honest with.”
“You can be honest with me.”
“I’m trying to be.”
“I don’t understand,” Rufus said again. And looking back on it, he saw he was a fool in so many different ways, that sitting there on the rock beside Harriet, he’d actually believed he had a better grasp on not just the situation but the world than she did. He actually believed she was just confused, not gay, that the whole thing was just the product of some obscure envy she felt for Savanna. But he’d been so wrong, so devastatingly wrong.
“I am a lesbian,” Harriet said. “I’m gay. I like women.”
“No,” Rufus said. “Don’t say that. You aren’t those things.”
She just looked at him. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“I like women. I want to kiss them. To touch them the way you do.”
Rufus shook his head. “You’re confused.”
“No. I’m not.”
Rufus stood up. “I think you are.” He wasn’t being purposefully obstinate. The idea was so foreign to him then, so outrageous to his sensibilities, that he just slipped back into his past, toward the stuff he knew best, the lessons he’d learned at the Holy Flame under RJ Marcus. Even though he’d renounced all of those beliefs, his subconscious self, when faced with something he’d not had time to truly consider, still returned to those teachings.
That was the only way he could explain it to himself later.
“I’m not confused. Please, Rufus. Don’t do this. I need somebody to accept me. I need to know I’m not alone here.”
Rufus backed away. He felt weird, as if everything he knew about the world had been wrong. It was scary and he didn’t like it. The world was just straightening itself out for him, and now this? It couldn’t be happening.
“Look,” Harri
et said. “You don’t have to understand it, okay? I just need a friend, okay?”
“I think maybe you’re just jealous of Savanna.” As soon as he said it, he realized it was the worst thing he could have said.
“I might as well jump,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m thinking about jumping across.”
“To the other side?”
“Why not? The Indian did it.”
“That’s just a story.”
“And this is just life. Stories are truer than life.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ll never make it. You’ll die.”
“I’m already dying.”
“No, you’re alive. You’re here, right now.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn.”
He sat down again. He reached for her hand and turned to face her. “Promise me you won’t hurt yourself.”
She met his eyes but said nothing.
“You can’t die, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
At the time, he thought he’d gotten through to her. It was only later that he realized how much it had actually been the other way around.
29
A knock on the barn door interrupted Rufus’s story.
He gasped, sucking his last word back in.
“Who’s in there?” The voice was female.
Rufus raised a single index finger to his lips, gesturing for me to not say a word.
“I know you’re in there. I see the damned truck at the road. I’m opening the door, and I’ve got a gun.”
Shit. I turned to look for Rufus, but he was already gone, faded into the back corner of the barn.
The door swung open, and harsh light nearly blinded me. I stepped out into the sun and saw the woman did indeed have a gun. It was a shotgun, actually, and she had it aimed right at me. She squinted at me and motioned for me to step off to the side, away from the door.
“You alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. Listen, could we go inside and talk for a minute? I’m a private investigator. I wanted to talk to you about someone who used to live here.”
“My father lived here until he died ten years ago, and I have no desire to talk about him. Especially not to a man who doesn’t know how to knock before he goes snooping around private property.”
“Again, I apologize. I just … I didn’t think you were home.”
“Doesn’t matter if I was home or not. This is my property. You got no right to be here.”
“I apologize. Truly. Sometimes, in my line of work, it’s easy to forget my manners.” I reached back and pulled the door shut behind me. “Anyway, it’s not your father I want to talk to you about. It’s your sister.”
She lowered the shotgun, nearly dropping it.
“Which sister?”
“Harriet.”
“Harriet’s dead.”
There it was. The conclusion to Rufus’s sad story. It wasn’t too surprising. Rufus’s face had told me that much. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“It looks like you were here to snoop inside my barn.”
I shook my head. “No, I just … I’m sorry. Like I said, I didn’t think you were home. Could we possibly talk?”
She was silent for a moment before raising the gun again and aiming it at my head. “Sure, but I’m keeping this with me the whole time.”
“Fair enough,” I said and followed her up to the house.
* * *
Sometimes the seeds to the way a story will turn out are contained in the very beginning. That was what I had to assume with Harriet. I’d already learned she was dead. The next leap wasn’t a big one: she’d tried to jump across the ravine and failed.
We sat in the den, her in a large rocking chair with the gun across her lap and me on the couch, right across from the fireplace. The mantel above the fireplace was covered in framed photographs. I was too far away to get a good look, but I assumed they were pictures of her family.
“Are you married, Ms.…?”
“It’s Duncan, and no, I’ve always been single. But I thought this was about my sister, not me?”
“Well, I’m getting to that. Sorry. Just trying to get oriented. One more question. Harriet had two sisters…”
“I’m Lyda, the eldest. Lord knows where Savanna is these days.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I’m glad she’s no longer in my life.”
“Savanna? Not Harriet?”
“Of course. Harriet was a soul in pain, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“And Savanna would?”
“I have to say, Mr. Marcus, you are trying my patience more than a little. First, you don’t have the common decency to knock, and now I have to ask myself what your real motives are. You said you wanted to talk about Harriet, not Savanna.”
I studied her closely. Once she had certainly been attractive, but time had done a number on her. Her face was pitted and scarred, her eyes dull and washed free of almost all their green. She was older than I’d expected, too, or maybe that was an illusion brought on by the perils of a hard life.
And she was right. I had told her this was about Harriet, and it was. I needed to focus. I just couldn’t help but be curious about Savanna. It was obvious Rufus had a thing for her. And based on the way Rufus had reacted when the knock came on the barn door, he must have believed she lived here. He hadn’t had time to finish the story, but it was clear it must have ended badly. Love stories were like that. You always knew the ending. If it had ended well, they would still be together.
“Okay, let’s talk about Harriet.” I paused. The trouble was I didn’t know exactly how to ask about Harriet. Her story was much more complex. “I’m investigating a death out at the Harden School, and I was hoping to find out about your sister’s time there.”
“You’re talking about the kid who jumped recently?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, for starters, I think it’s a lot like Harriet.”
“Right, which is why I wanted to hear from you. How do you see the deaths as similar?”
“Harriet was gay. At one time, she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but most people who knew her understood it. She liked other girls. That’s pretty much why my father sent her there. To make her straight. Paid his brother-in-law a lot of money to do it, too.” She shook her head. “Sometimes humans are so stupid. I mean, the idea you can change someone from something they have no control over to begin with.”
“And you think that’s why she killed herself?” I said.
“Of course it’s why. She wrote me letters. They were torturing her. Calling her names, telling her she was worthless. Spitting on her. Grown men spitting on a girl. And there was more too. Stuff she wouldn’t even tell me in the letters. Stuff that gave her panic attacks to even think on. She never explained, but I feel certain it was sexual abuse.”
“Do you still have these letters?”
“No. They were lost.”
“How?”
“I feel like I’m being put on trial here. Do you not trust me, Mr. Marcus?”
“I apologize again. I’m just trying to gather all the relevant details.”
“I don’t see how me losing the letters is relevant. They’re gone, lost in a fire a long time ago. My life hasn’t been easy.”
“I understand, but the letters are relevant because they could directly link her death to abuse. What gave you the sense she was being abused?”
“Harriet told me once that at the end of each day, a counselor would come into her room to ‘test’ her. She never went into details about what these tests were like, but I know there was one particular counselor who she dreaded more than others.”
“What was his name?”
“Harriet never told me.”
“That seems odd.”
She shrugged. “Not really. I don’t think it’s odd at all t
o be reluctant to name names when you’ve been sexually abused.”
“It’s just a name. Surely—”
“Have you ever been sexually abused, Mr. Marcus?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t really be an expert on this, would you?”
I shook my head. She was right. I was pushing too hard. No, it was more than that. I was being an asshole. My natural state these days, it seemed.
“Okay, so did the letters say what it was about this one counselor she dreaded?”
“His test methods, best I could tell.”
“Go on.”
“I think he might have forced Harriet to have sex with him or someone else.”
“And you feel confident about this?”
She just stared at me, expressionless.
I tried again. “So, it’s your belief that Harriet decided to jump because of the bullying and abuse she received at the Harden School?”
“I’m almost positive of it.”
“Did you try to get the police involved at the time of her death?”
“I was shut up.”
“How so?”
“My father. He didn’t believe women should become involved with matters such as those.”
I nodded. Not surprising. It was the same way my father had treated women—as if they had a narrowly defined role that began and ended with pleasing the men in their lives.
“Ms. Duncan, would you be willing to testify to what you are telling me in a court of law, or at least make a statement to the police?”
She was silent, obviously thinking over her options. She bit her lip, tearing a small piece of flesh from it with her teeth.
“The men you are dealing with will stop at nothing to protect their good names.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a no.”
“Which men are we talking about? Harden? Blevins? Or maybe Deloach?”