Sunshine Walkingstick Omnibus

by Celia Roman

  ‘Course, there was a better’n fair chance Fame’d wrung her gizzard neck and buried her in the deep wood, but who was I to judge? A monster’s a monster. Sometimes they was human to boot.

  The front door rattled under somebody’s fist. Weren’t Riley. He was one to bide his time, line his ducks up in a row, and strike like a rattler, hard and fast and deadly, sure, but usually when you least expected it. Fame or one of his boys woulda walked on in. Might be business. Doubted it, though. That road really did need a good scraping.

  “Come on in,” I hollered, and weren’t surprised none when Melissa Duggins poked her pretty head in. She was about the only family I had what respected my privacy.

  About two years after Henry was born, being a decade or so after Fame run his wife off, Melissa showed up on my uncle’s doorstep carrying a backpack, claiming to be a lost hiker. Weren’t no stretch to believe it. Hikers went missing all the time ‘round these parts. We done searched for our share, probably would again. Fame didn’t want nobody stumbling on his extralegal enterprises for one, but for another, a body could die in the deep wood if he weren’t real careful. Way Fame figured it, we was doing a neighborly deed by helping, kind of a tit for tat. Someday, one of us might be lost and need the extra eyes, though it weren’t likely. We all knowed the deep wood like the back of our hands, even Gentry.

  No, it weren’t the claim what was suspect. Through hikers was skinny folk, lean from long months on the trail. Melissa’s voluptuous body give her away. Fame took her in anyhow, ensnared by loneliness or her wide, violet eyes or the soft womanliness of her voice. Didn’t matter none. She done right by him, feeding him and the boys up, taking care of us all, and made Fame happy as I ever seen him.

  “Hey, Missy. Fame unchain you from the stove?”

  She glided on bare feet across the worn puke green carpet I didn’t have the money to replace and plopped down in the chair Riley vacated not an hour before. Her jeans had holes in the knees where they’d thinned over time and her shirt was one of Fame’s castoffs, a flannel plaid what’d shrunk from being run through the wash once too many. A golden ring hung from a chain around her neck. Its solid inset ruby glinted outta the gap in her shirt in the trailer’s uneven light.

  “Will you ever tire of that joke?” she asked.

  “Not any time soon,” I said, cheerful like. “What’s for supper?”

  “Roast ham, baby potatoes from the garden, and fresh green beans,” she said, so automatic I raised an eyebrow. “I enjoy feeding my family. That doesn’t mean Fame chains me to the stove.”

  “Missy, honey, you’re barefoot and spend most of your time in the kitchen. If you was pregnant, you’d be the perfect Southern woman.”

  A cloud crossed her expression, quick and black, and was smoothed over by a gentle smile. “Someday, maybe.”

  I snorted. “You want kids, you’re gonna have to kick Fame in the rear to get ‘em. You ain’t getting no younger. Don’t pussy foot around or you’ll never have them babies.”

  Her smile turned arch and mischief filled them violet eyes. “Oh? And what about you, Sunshine? Are you making plans to have babies with that handsome young man who left here a while ago?”

  I choked out a laugh even as my nethers tightened and burned. Riley’s kids, held gentle and safe in my womb, and the deeds we’d have to do to plant ‘em there? I’d never have that, not on the coldest day in hell or the warmest in Heaven. Didn’t matter none. Henry had been enough, even for the short time he’d been mine, God rest him.

  “Not likely,” I said.

  “So he was here on business, then.”

  The good humor Missy spread like wildfire snapped right outta me. “Seems something’s disturbing the high and mighty out on Burton. I told him no.”

  “And he accepted that?” She shook her head, jiggling the sable curls piled willy-nilly onto her crown. “Seemed like the persistent sort to me.”

  I flopped into my own chair, slumping with my arms and legs akimbo. “He asked me to dinner. Steaks at his house. Think he mighta wanted more.”

  She leaned forward, expression glowing with rapt interest. “Do tell.”

  I shrugged. “Ain’t nothing to say. Men only want two things outta me and neither one is fit to speak on in polite company.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t be that way. You’re a good woman, Sunshine. You are,” she added when I sneered. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”

  “All I’m doing is holding on to reality. Ever body knows I’m a stone cold killer, just like my mama.”

  “That’s not…” Missy sighed and pressed her lips together, firm as they ever got. “I bet he wanted more than a quick roll in the hay.”

  “Oh, I bet it woulda been kinda long and drawn out like, rumor holds true,” I said, and she laughed like I intended her to. Missy was the kind of woman nobody ever wanted to see go without a smile for long. “Anyhow, it ain’t no never mind to me. Riley Treadwell ain’t somebody what orta be spending time around here nohow.”

  “Sheriff Treadwell’s son, the one that got back from the Army, what, four years ago or so now?”

  “The very same. He might come back.” I give a half-hearted laugh at her pointed look. “Wants me to do that job something fierce, so I reckon he’ll show up on my stoop in a few days. Warn Fame, wouldja? Don’t want the boys getting in no trouble.”

  “Those boys are your age, Sunshine. When are you going to start calling them men?”

  “When they grow up,” I said, and grinned.

  Her smile went wry. Missy had at least two dozen different kinds of smile, and she wore ever one of ‘em when she talked. “I’m going into town later for a grocery run. You need anything?”

  “The usual.” I shored up my courage and blurted out, “You want company?”

  She rose in that slow way she had, all ladylike and graceful, like she was wearing a fancy gown and a tiara instead of threadbare hand-me-downs. “Only if you want to tag along, and I know you don’t.”

  I stood up, offered my cheek for a kiss, and sensed what always come to me around her. Fresh mowed grass in the spring, the musty damp of a closed in tomb, the faint clash of swords on a battlefield. No idea what it meant. Didn’t care, neither. Missy’s past weren’t none of my beeswax.

  ‘Sides, I kinda liked having her close. She was my friend, near about the only one I had. If I let on like I was catching them glimpses, she was sure to hightail it outta here, and then where’d we be? No Missy with her warm smiles and generous curves, no woman friend to lean on and be leaned on in return.

  Plus, her and Fame and the boys, they was my family and about the limit of my tolerance for touching. I relented ever once in a while and went into the city after a man. Good Book or no, a woman had needs, though mine went untended often as not. Still, a body needed human contact, down in the soul where we forgot to tend. Reckon that’s why Riley Treadwell turned me on the way he did.

  ‘Course, that didn’t explain why he always had.

  “Be careful,” I said. “Likely get rain later and traffic’s bound to be awful, what with the holiday and all.”

  “Only in town.” She glided to the door, peeked at me coy like over her shoulder, her violet eyes lit by a strange light. “Riley Treadwell comes around again, you think hard before turning him down.”

  “Go on with you now, Missy,” I said, gentle enough to dull the sting of my words. Ten to one, nobody’d ever treated her like she was no better’n the muck on the bottom of their shoes, even now with her and Fame living in sin. Missy’s goodness shone outta her like a beacon, warming ever body stepping crossways over the path her elegant feet trod. She weren’t no backwoods trash, the mixed breed daughter of a man what’d run off to be with another man and the woman what’d carved ‘em both into puzzle pieces with a dull butcher knife.

  I watched Missy leave and envied her something fierce in that place where Henry lived, and then I let it fly free like a good Christian would. Too bad me and the Christ child was on t
he outs or that small gesture mighta earned me some points, evening out the pile of sins stacked high all around me.

  Chapter Two

  I made a PB and honey, strapped on my Ruger 1911, and carried my supper out to the spot on the trail where Henry disappeared more’n three years ago. Over time, we cut out a place alongside the trail, erected a small marker with his name on it. Added a bench so we could visit him, catch him up on the goings on. Missy planted flowers, gobs of ‘em all around, turning the tiny memorial into a park. About a year ago, I found a concrete angel no bigger’n my knee to the ground and hauled it out. Now, it watched over Henry when I couldn’t.

  I sat on the bench and seeped myself in the silence for a minute, alone with the birds chirping and the squirrels stirring the underbrush. It was peaceful out here, restful now that summer was dying and fall was tiptoeing in. Sometimes, if I closed my eyes real tight and wished with all my mama’s heart, I could about feel my boy hovering nearby, his face lit up with a smile and them big ol’ ears twitching when he laughed. Lord, them ears was about big enough to fly away on, like Dumbo only on a little boy.

  Henry’d loved Dumbo.

  I closed my eyes and reached out a hand, searching for that feeling, sending out my love to him. I miss you so much, Henry, I thought, and drew my hand in to swipe away the water leaking outta my eyes. Henry was the first person what ever loved me, was mine alone anyhow. He never cared none about me being a no account piece of trash, never spent a minute thinking on how I was anything outside of his mama.

  That woulda changed when he went off to school, once he was around gossip and spite. I managed to hold him close to home ‘til he was past Kindergarten, sheltering him from the hurt I knowed was coming. Taught him his three R’s myself, sitting out on the front porch playing cards and Yahtzee or reading a book. Lordy, we had a load of fun, did me and Henry.

  After that, though, I was scared DFACS would come ‘round and claim I was unfit or some such, so I done my duty and registered him for first grade, brung Henry in and introduced him real adult like to his teacher down at the new school. Miss Jenny Brookshire. She weren’t from around here, claimed no kin nearby, as I recalled. Henry took a real shine to her and she to him, seemed like. He was all excited about riding that big ol’ yellow bus and making new friends and learning.

  Henry was always one to stick his mind to something when it caught his interest.

  I scraped together enough money to take him shopping down at the Mall of Georgia, first time I ever been, and the last, too. Got him some real nice clothes, washed ‘em up and tucked ‘em away in that old dresser of Daddy’s, and then I made the mistake what got Henry killed. I trusted the deep wood.

  I’m sorry, baby. So, so sorry.

  A quiet thud hit the trail twenty feet away, ‘round the bend toward Fame’s, and the critters hushed. I opened my eyes, eased my hand toward the 1911 strapped over my hip. Since that pooka, we never went nowhere in the deep wood without a weapon. You hear a rustle out here, could be a painter or a bear, or could be something a whole heckuva lot worse.

  Fame strode ‘round the bend, his dishwater blond hair sticking up ever which way, like he just tumbled outta bed. He weren’t careful, Missy’d be after him with her scissors. No telling what he’d look like when she got done neither. She was a good cook and could make any plant grow fast as a weed, but we learnt real quick like not to bow our heads under her scissors. Missy had a habit of letting her mind wander and her hands with it.

  Fame dropped down on the bench beside me and slung an arm along the top behind my back. His wild blue eyes landed on Henry’s stone and stuck there. “Hey, Sunny girl. Figured I’d find you here.”

  “I was eating lunch with Henry, ‘bout to share some gossip.”

  “Yeah? Anything good?”

  “Belinda Arrowood, you remember her? She was a Heaton from Satolah what married Tom Arrowood and took on his two girls to raise.”

  Fame grunted. Tom’d helped us out of a tricky spot or two with the law over the years. More particular, he’d helped Fame’s boys outta some minor drug possession charges. They was pretty careful to steer clear of the law, but nobody could avoid ‘em one hundred percent of the time, ‘specially when the sheriff was gunning for you.

  “Anyhow,” I said, “I reckon she got some property over on Burton. Heard tale something’s tearing up her dock.”

  “That why Riley Treadwell was sniffing around your trailer today?”

  “He weren’t sniffing, Fame, he was asking. Said Belinda was a paying client.” I crossed my arms over my bitty breasts. They’d perked up a bit on hearing Riley’s name and I weren’t wearing no bra to hide the evidence. “I could use the money.”

  “You need money, you come to me.” Fame’s voice mighta been soft, but underneath lay pure steel. Weren’t no love lost between the Carsons and the Treadwells, and sure as tootin’, weren’t none lost between me and that hussy Belinda. “Ain’t no call to mess with the likes of her.”

  “Come on, Fame. You knowed I was gonna have to work with the uppity folk when this begun. Ain’t no other way to do it around here.”

  “You ain’t gotta do that kind of work, hon.”

  My eyes caught on the angel guarding over my boy. “You know that ain’t so, Fame. You know it ain’t.”

  He sighed and tucked me in to him, wrapped his strong arm around my shoulder and hugged hard. “I know, Sunny. God’d listen, I’d wish it all away. Henry was a good young’un.”

  I sniffed and nodded, stiffened my trembling lips.

  “You coming up for supper?” he asked.

  “Probably.” Mischief poked at me, easing through the weight of guilt and sorrow. “You cooking?”

  “Hell, Sunny, why tempt the devil to happy, sending one of us down?” He ruffled my hair with one of his narrow hands, like he done when I was a kid. “I got something to show you, you come up.”

  “Must be something bad if it brung you to me.”

  “Might be. Something strange in the water. Could be my imagination, though.”

  That weren’t likely. Fame was serious about his water. Bad water made bad liquor, and he had a reputation for the good. “I can run up tonight before dark, you want.”

  “’Preciate it.” He give me another good squeeze. “I gotta go round up them boys, move a little merchandise around before that feller of yourn comes sniffing around again.”

  Merchandise, my hiney. He was moving plants. “Tell the boys not to put any on my land. One of us has got to stay clean to get the other outta jail.”

  “You just don’t want that Treadwell boy busting you with it.” He stood and looked down on me with them wild eyes of his, crazy as a mad boar and twice as mean, ‘less you was family. His mouth turned up into what mighta been a smile. “Missy said you got the hots for him.”

  “Jesus, Fame,” I said, and winced. Dagnabbit. Another quarter for my jar, twice in one day, and all ‘cause of Riley Treadwell. “I ain’t got the hots for him. He brung me a potential client, is all.”

  “Way I hear tell, that ain’t all he brung you.”

  I was gonna kill Missy deader’n a doorknob, family or no. “You want me to check your dang water or not?”

  “You always was easy to rile.” He laid a hand on my crown, smoothed it over my stick straight hair. “Come up for supper. We ain’t seen enough outta you here of late.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I watched him walk away, his booted feet near silent on the spongy bed of the trail. Thing about Fame was, he loved his family and was loyal to the bone. He passed that on to us young’uns, taught us what he could of right and wrong. Him taking me in after Mama chopped Daddy into sushi, that was right. Me going after what killed my baby, that was right, too. Didn’t matter none if the Carsons and the Treadwells rubbed the wrong kinda sparks off each other. If there was something out there liable to hurt an innocent, I had to go after it. Fame understood, even if he didn’t much like the company I kept while I was a-going.r />
  ‘Course, I hadn’t decided whether I was gonna help Riley or not, and through him, Belinda. Snooping didn’t count. Weren’t nothing to that and I enjoyed it anyhow. Didn’t mean I was gonna lend a helping hand to the woman what’d made my teen years hell. Truth be told, I’d as soon not, paying client or no.

  I sighed, pulled my sandwich outta its hankie, and chewed on it whilst my brain chewed on ever thing else.

  The afternoon whizzed by. I puttered in the house, straightened my work files, dusted off Daddy’s LP collection. Didn’t hardly play ‘em none. They was too precious to me, one of the few things left of him ‘sides memory. I did turn on the local radio station, hoping to catch the news. Instead, I caught an earful of cringe-worthy pop.

  Lord all mighty, what was them musicians thinking, making that racket? I mean, I knowed the Good Book said to make a joyful noise and all, but I couldn’t find a dadgum thing joyful in the beeboppy dance tunes sputtering outta the radio’s speakers.

  As if the DJ heard my complaints, a Journey song come on just as I was filing the last album back in its place. I sprawled into my desk chair and listened it out, eyes closed. Missy was likely waiting supper on me, but that weren’t no excuse to waste a good Journey song when one come along.

  Once the song was done, I cleaned up best I could, stuck a mini-Maglite in my back pocket behind the 1911, and trudged up to Fame’s along the trail worn by the feet of me and my kin. The deep wood cast a long shadow over the ground as the sun worked its way close to the mountaintops. At Henry’s marker, I touched my fingertips to my lips, then to the top of the stone as I wandered past.