The Killing Tree

by Rachel Keener

  “Thank you, counsel,” the judge said. “Does the State have any rebuttal?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Well if there is nothing further,” the judge began, and I knew. In the shiver of my legs as they pulled me to my feet. In the spinning of the room that pulled the air from my lungs and refused to put it back in. It was time.

  “Wait.” I was letting them know it wasn’t over. I was telling them it wasn’t finished. There were vows yet to be said.

  “I took the dogs.” I didn’t whisper. I felt brave and strong, as I stared at the back of my love that wouldn’t look at me.

  For a moment they didn’t know what to do with me. The lawyers exchanged glances with each other that changed from confusion to amusement. For the young ones, I was probably the most exciting thing to ever happen in their short careers. The judge looked at the lawyers, who all shrugged their shoulders.

  “What is your name, young lady?” the judge asked, his eyebrows arching into dangerous mountains.

  “Mercy Heron. I stole my grandfather’s dogs,” I said simply.

  The young prosecutor was rising to his feet, accepting my challenge, “Your Honor, since the defendant has already pled guilty, the State would ask the court to ignore this young lady, who is obviously confused and disturbed.”

  “And what does the defense have to say about this? Do you know this young lady?” the judge asked Trout’s lawyer.

  “No, Your Honor, I was not made aware of her. But in the interest of justice, I would ask that we be allowed to examine her,” he said, his interest piqued by my challenge as well.

  “Any objection, counsel?” the judge asked the prosecutors.

  “Yes, Your Honor. In the interest of efficiency, the State asks that this girl be excused from the courtroom. Again I stress that guilt or innocence is not an issue here today. The defendant is guilty. He has already entered his plea.”

  “But perhaps her testimony could present mitigation,” Trout’s lawyer countered.

  “What’ll it hurt to see what she has to say?” the judge said casually. “Allowing the State, of course, ample opportunity to cross.”

  I was called forward and I took an oath, swearing to tell the truth. My eyes avoided him now. They danced all around him. Noting the color of his skin. The curl of his hair. But never settling on his face. Scared to settle there and not be answered. Trout’s lawyer reminded me of my oath, and asked me a simple question. Tell us what happened. And that’s what I did. I told them about the dogs. How they were killing the mountain’s creatures. How they ran wild around our house at night. How they were taken deep into the mountain and freed. How I gave Trout the ropes for his tent. I pledged my vow, and I never looked at him.

  “Ms. Heron,” the young prosecutor said, once Trout’s lawyer sat down.

  “Yes?”

  “What is your relationship to the defendant?”

  Trout’s lawyer stood and objected.

  “It is relevant, Your Honor. It goes to her credibility. If this court is going to be asked to believe her, it needs to know the exact nature of her relationship with the defendant,” the prosecutor replied.

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said.

  He asked again about the “exact nature of my relationship to the defendant.” I almost lied. But I knew they could see it. It was stamped across my flesh. I was his. And if I lied about my love, they might not listen to my guilt. So I told them. He was my love.

  “You took the dogs deep into the mountain?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “And you did it by yourself?”

  I nodded.

  “I didn’t hear you, Ms. Heron. Is it your testimony before this court that you led four large dogs weighing over a hundred pounds each, through the densest part of the woods, in the middle of the night, miles and miles from your home, by yourself? You’re asking us to believe that you did that all alone?”

  It was the cruelest question. The one that had been stalking me from the moment Father Heron said it. She killed your momma. It gave me a savage power of choosing between Trout or protecting Mamma Rutha and Mary.

  Oh how I wanted to choose him. For every selfish reason in the world. Every part of my body that was mine wanted to free him. But part of me was hers too. Mary’s. And it was that part that knew I couldn’t. Mamma Rutha wasn’t ashamed of her actions on the day my momma died. If Sheriff Barnes questioned her the way he had questioned Trout, there was no telling what paper he could get her to sign. I would become my Father Heron, the thief of Mary’s blood.

  “I’m telling you he didn’t do it. I swear on my life,” I answered him.

  “But he has pled guilty. He admits doing it. It’s his word against yours, and you both lay claim to the same crime. Unless, of course, there is someone else that helped you. If you did what you say you did, you surely had some help. Was it him? Did the two of you take the dogs together? Or is there someone else that can testify that this man did not steal those dogs?” he asked.

  “There is no one else,” I whispered. “But that man did not steal those dogs.”

  The prosecutor told the judge he was finished and took his seat, and the judge turned to me.

  “I’m sure you are very emotional right now,” he said softly, perhaps even kindly. “But he says he did it, and I have every reason to believe him. Go on home now, be a good girl, and don’t let me see you back in this courtroom again, you hear?”

  “It’s the truth,” I said. “He didn’t steal the dogs.”

  “You know lying under oath is a crime, Ms. Heron. Now run along home.”

  The judge withdrew to consider his ruling and I obeyed him and went home. But not before my eyes found his face, and my heart kissed him goodbye. He never once looked at me. Keeping his downcast stare. Wearing the look of a man whose blood had been stolen.

  Chapter XXXI

  It was the silences. They were his sharpened knife. His loaded pistol. Like with my momma. It wasn’t really the locked door that had killed her. That was just the wounding weapon. What had finished her off was the silence. As she banged on the doors and windows begging for a response, his lips had pursed together, poised for the kill. I was my momma’s daughter, so it was my turn.

  “Father Heron,” I begged him, “he didn’t steal your dogs. I did. I’ll buy you new ones. Or you can let me take his place in jail. I’ll confess whatever you want me to at church. I’ll do anything! Just please don’t do this!”

  And he sat cool and silent, finishing everything off.

  “Please!” I grabbed his hand. “Father Heron, please! I don’t care what you ask, I’ll do it!”

  One word from him could have freed Trout. It was a word that never came.

  But I was the deacon’s granddaughter. No better. I watched him and learned. I found my own cage. It was filled with bitter dreams. The ocean never came to me in my sleep anymore. But murder did. I dreamed of arsenic in his tobacco. Of Mamma Rutha’s knife in his chest. Of a locked door as he lay bleeding on the other side.

  Della knew. We’d sit in her momma’s car and she’d tell me I was crazy. She was right. Mamma Rutha carried those dogs off because they killed without reason. She was crazy enough to get her revenge. I was her daughter too, and I was no better.

  “You don’t want to end up in jail. Sheriff Barnes would know it was you if anything happened to Father Heron. Father Heron’s old anyway. A few more years and he’ll be dead. Just let it go,” she begged.

  But it was all I had left.

  “At least promise me one thing,” Della asked. “Let me help? I’ve got a clearer head than you right now. And if we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right.”

  I told her I would, so she would feel better. But I had slid beneath promises. Murder had entered my heart, leaving lies floating on the surface. Oh how Mamma Rutha prayed about it, sitting naked in the November cold. But it was no use.

  “Mercy baby,” she said, kneeling by my bed in the middle of the night.


  “Yes.”

  “You mustn’t feel all the hate.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s all I have.”

  “But you’re doing the same as him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He choked his baby’s soul with hate. And now you’re doing the same.”

  The baby, I thought, feeling confused. Not once had I thought of it. When I confessed in court, I never imagined what it would be like to be born in prison. Or have your momma locked away. The only thing I thought of was my innocent Trout. And how I wanted Father Heron dead.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said bitterly. “I only feel death within me.”

  “There’s more to you,” she said, as she laid her hand across my belly. “It’s a blessing and it lives. But it’s choking on all the grief.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me. There’s nothing I can do for it,” I muttered.

  “You must keep it safe. From him. And from your hate.”

  I had Della buy a pregnancy test. She looked down at the test and smiled. “It’s pinker than the Pink Panther.” I didn’t return her smile.

  “You’re gonna be okay, Mercy. I think ‘Aunt Della’ sounds pretty good, don’t you?”

  But how could it all be okay? I was carrying a baby, a baby who would be born in the spring. A baby whose father was locked away. And I didn’t even know for how long. I wrote him a letter that night.

  Dear Trout,

  Someone else waits for you. A baby. Now you have someone else to dream about, when you get tired of dreaming about me.

  Tell me the day to wait for. It doesn’t matter how long. Rachel in the Bible had to wait fourteen years while Jacob labored for her. I’ll be your Rachel. You are my Jacob. We will labor as long as we have to.

  Your Mercy

  For the next two weeks I fiercely guarded the mailbox. Until one day, my letter came back. “No such prisoner” was scribbled across it. No such prisoner? As though he had never existed. Had Prisoner 3902 vanished too? Had Father Heron done something more?

  “Relax, Momma Mercy,” Della said. “Remember how that guy at the jail said that they just assigned a number to him? He probably got a new number when he went over the mountain.”

  I needed that number. I needed to know what Trout’s “name” was. It was my only way to find out where he was living and breathing. Della drove me back to the jail. The same pimply-faced young guy was working the desk.

  “Hey handsome,” she said as she walked in the door. “Remember me?”

  He started giggling. “Sure I remember you.”

  “Thought you might be able to help me out again.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Just some information. On a guy that used to be here. Prisoner 3902 Price. I need to know how to track him down,” she said.

  “I’ll call down the mountain and see if they can track him down.”

  “Anything you could do to help will be greatly appreciated,” she whispered sexily.

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.” He smiled as he picked up the phone.

  “Hello, is this Roger?” he said in his serious “cop” voice. “Uh, Roger, this is Mike up on Crooktop. I was wondering if you could do me a favor . . . We brought a prisoner by the name of 3902 Price down to you because we couldn’t track his legal name. Can you look and see what his new number is and see if you can find out how long he’s gonna be there . . . ? Yeah, we brought him down a few weeks ago . . . Oh. Really? Well I didn’t know that . . . Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Roger. You say they’re laying a bunch of you off . . . ? Ain’t that a shame. Well, thanks anyway Roger. Take care now.”

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “Downsizing. They’re having to lay off a bunch of guards, so they sent off all the new prisoners.”

  “Where?” I asked. “Where did they send them?”

  “To different jails. They divided them up and sent them wherever they could find a space.”

  “Well, don’t they have a record of where they sent them?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “But he’s in one of the jails out there, so if I wrote to all of them he might get a letter?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess he would if he was there. You might want to address it to Prisoner 3902 Price, originally from the Crooktop Jail, because that’s probably the last jail that would be in his record. That might help ’em figure out which one it is. You gotta remember, lady, these guys are busy keeping society safe. They ain’t too concerned with running a post office.”

  “I need the addresses. Of all the jails that he might be sent to.”

  “Lady, I gotta jail to run here. I ain’t no damn secretary.”

  “But you gotta copy machine, don’t you?” Della said. “It’d be pretty easy for you to just push a few buttons. Wouldn’t it?”

  “What’s in it for me?” He smirked. “If I make the copies of the addresses?”

  She laughed. “Won’t my happiness satisfy you?”

  “Not enough,” he said smugly, his arms crossed.

  Della’s face reddened.

  “No, Della. Let’s just go.”

  But she was already around the counter, telling me to step outside for a few minutes.

  “Don’t, Della. It’s not worth that. Let’s just go.”

  “Mercy, this is my business now. I ain’t asking your permission.”

  She was whoring herself. Not for the love of a man. Or for the fun of it. Or to rebel. She was whoring herself for me. For my child. And my addresses.

  She came outside smiling, with a glint of shame and anger in her eyes. Waving papers filled with addresses. Her hair had grown out enough for her to shape into a short pixie cut. With her vanilla skin and golden eyes, she looked like a fairy that had lost her wand.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked. “I hate it when you do stuff like that.”

  “I told you I’d do anything you needed me to do to help you fix everything. And we couldn’t fix it. Trout’s off in jail somewhere. You’re carrying his baby. Helping you write your baby’s daddy is the least I can do.”

  The two of us sat up that night copying my letter over and over until our hands cramped. We wrote “Prisoner 3902 Price/Originally from Crooktop Jail” on so many envelopes my mouth puckered with the taste of glue. We mailed them the next morning, full of hope.

  I walked halfway down the mountain each morning to meet the mailman before he came to the house. He only handed me my letters back. “No such prisoner” scrawled across each of them. Eventually the letters stopped coming.

  I knew then that it was just me and the baby. And I knew I needed to take care of it. I tried my best. I would cover my face with a pillow when I sobbed at night so that the baby wouldn’t hear. I would make my mouth sing a happy song when it wanted to call out his name. When it wanted to scream, Trout! Where are you?

  I let Della take me to a clinic over the mountain where nobody would know me. The doctor had cold hands and impatient eyes. He gave me some vitamins and told me to relax and not to worry, because everything would be fine. Everything would be fine?

  “Women give birth every day,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t worry at all.”

  I let my baby hear me say, “Oh, I know, Doctor, I’m not worried.”

  But it was all lies. I was sick with worry and grief. Because I knew that I might spend the rest of my life waiting for someone that would never come.

  Soon I would show. My breasts were growing so large I was borrowing all of Della’s bras. I laughed at myself in the mirror. Finally, after all the years of hating my willowy figure, I had nice round breasts. And now I had to work to hide them. I wore loose shirts over sweatpants and hid out at Della’s. We would dream about beautiful nurseries and how we would decorate them. We would make lists of names. And I would feel like a good momma on those days. But the things that Mamma Rutha had warned me to protect my baby from were still there, pulsing inside of me. My blood was t
hick with it, and it was feeding my baby. I pushed it down and hid it from everyone. But the baby knew. There wasn’t a corner of my heart it couldn’t see. There wasn’t a beat of my heart it didn’t feel. It swam in the darkness of my soul.

  Chapter XXXII

  I had spent the day with Della helping her dream up revenge for Randy. Thoughts of punishing him amused us those days, when thoughts about my danger, the baby’s danger, and its missing daddy were too painful. We sat and giggled over all the horrible things we could do to him until it was time for me to sneak back home. From the porch I could hear Rusty’s voice inside. Level and polite. I stopped still to listen.

  “Yes sir, I think a lot of your family. My folks used to talk about your pap when I was just a little tike. They said he’d stop by the diner after crawling out of the mines, black all over. He wouldn’t come in, he was that polite. So my momma would carry his dinner out to him. And he’d eat it there in the parking lot. Yes sir, my folks always did respect the Heron name.”

  “How’s business been lately?” Father Heron asked.

  “Oh, it’s been good. People ’round here are always up for some smoked pig.”

  “And your parents?”

  “They’re fine. I just thought I’d bring some dinner by, sir. See how you was doing.”

  “We’re doing fine.”

  “That’s good. I also wanted . . . I just wanted to let you know, sir, that, well, that I heard about Mercy’s little trouble. And it made me madder than hell, pardon my language, to have some outsider sneaking in here and taking advantage of Crooktop’s women.”

  Father Heron was silent.

  “I know you think the world of her, and how worried you must be about her. Truth is, sir, I do too. Always cared for your Mercy. And if it was all right with you, I’d like the chance to show her. You know me and you know my family. I got my own business, I go to church. I’d like the chance to take good care of her, sir. Even after all her trouble.”