Broken Branch

by John Mantooth

  Otto said little as the men took lanterns down and investigated. James, Ben, and Earl seemed to be waiting on his lead—which was what they always did—but for some reason, the passiveness bothered Trudy more this time. It was like they were afraid to have an opinion because it might run counter to Otto’s.

  Finally, as the day drew to a close and the men came out, Otto ordered it shut and asked Earl to stand guard over it. This was devastating to G.L., who clearly believed his swamp lay inside, but he could do nothing as Earl was bigger, stronger, and, most important, younger than the old man.

  Otto and James stepped off into the woods to talk. Everyone else waited, unsure of what to say or do. When they returned a few moments later, Otto’s face was grim.

  He walked up to G.L. and stuck his finger in the old man’s chest. “Get thee gone from this place, Satan!”

  The old man stumbled back as if struck. Otto kept after him, his mouth clenched in a grimace. “Go back to where you came from.”

  G.L. stopped backpedaling and, when he did, Otto punched him hard across the jaw. The old man dropped to the ground.

  “Stop it!” Trudy shouted. “Leave him alone!”

  Hands gripped her from behind, and she saw that it was Earl Talbot.

  She watched as G.L. struggled to get back on his feet. He wavered, teetering like a tree in high winds before righting himself and heading toward the shelter again.

  This time he was met by Franklin Meyers, who punched him right in the mouth. Trudy screamed again, and Otto turned to her. “This is for your own good, Trudy. For your children’s good. This man speaks of places that have no scriptural basis. He tries to show us a shelter. We don’t need a shelter. God is our refuge!”

  Once again, G.L. struggled to his feet. This time, he turned away from the shelter and began to walk slowly in the opposite direction. Only when he had disappeared into the trees did Earl let her go.

  After that everyone went home in silence. Even the children seemed quiet, unable to make any sense out of what had just happened. Trudy sat outside on the porch for a long time after supper, watching the shelter, wondering how G.L. knew about it, what he was doing now, and dreaming of the swamp hidden in these woods.

  14

  She woke in the middle of the night and found she was alone in the bed. It wasn’t uncommon, but when it happened, she always felt unnerved. She knew Otto called meetings with some of the men at odd times.

  Unable to go back to sleep, she went out to the porch and sat down. She’d been there no more than a few moments when she became aware of a creaking sound coming from the next house.

  Squinting in the darkness, she could just make out the shape of someone rocking in the chair on Ben and Eugenia’s porch.

  “Couldn’t sleep neither?” The voice belonged to Ben. She felt a twinge of excitement upon hearing it.

  “I think James must be at a meeting with Otto. I get cold without him in the bed.”

  Ben nodded. “I’m the same way.”

  She didn’t ask why Eugenia wouldn’t be in his bed, but she wondered nonetheless.

  “Nice night,” he said after a few moments.

  “It is.”

  “You reckon James will be back soon?”

  She blushed. “It’s hard to say.”

  “Otto don’t ask me to those meetings, but I figure they’re pretty serious and all.”

  She nodded and then remembered the darkness and said, “Yes. James never speaks of them.”

  “Shame about that man, G.L.”

  “Yes. I thought that was cruel.”

  “He wasn’t right,” Ben said, “but that don’t mean he was wrong necessarily. You follow me?”

  She did. “I think he was harmless.”

  “How do you reckon he knew about that shelter?”

  “Well, he said he’d lived here before.”

  Ben was quiet. “See, that’s the thing I keep trying to figure. When we found this place, it didn’t look like anybody had ever been here before. But that shelter. . . . Did you get a look at it? There was concrete and iron. Now, who would have brought that way out here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither. But I been thinking on it real hard.”

  “Maybe,” she said, after a long silence had passed, “it belonged to some other race, some ancient people that lived here a very long time ago.”

  He laughed. “Sounds like foolishness to me. You better not let Otto hear you talking like that. Or your husband.” He whistled. “They wouldn’t like it one bit.”

  “What are they going to do? Punch me?”

  Ben laughed. “You know why I like you, Trudy?”

  “Why?”

  “You got more balls than any man in Broken Branch.”

  She grinned, thankful now for the darkness, so he couldn’t see how much this pleased her.

  “I’ll bid you good night now,” she said.

  “Aw, I didn’t mean to insult you, Trudy . . . I just—”

  “Good night,” she said and went inside, still smiling.

  15

  James shook her awake gently. She rolled over, pretending to be asleep. He wouldn’t be wanting her body, so why else would he wake her? She found that she didn’t really want to know.

  He shook her again. “That boy run off,” he said.

  She sat up. “Boy?”

  “Yeah, Simpson. He’s gone. Otto found his bed empty. He left a note. Said he was leaving because he thought another storm was coming and didn’t want to die with the rest of us.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Simpson,” she said and instantly regretted it.

  “What do you know what Simpson sounds like?” he said quickly. “He was a sinner. Probably better for us all with him gone. Sometimes the real strength comes when you get rid of the chaff,” he said, but Trudy was barely listening. Instead, she was thinking a single thought over and over again: Good for Simpson.

  16

  Trudy had expected a gathering the next morning, but there was none. Her only glimpse of Otto was brief, and the man seemed focused solely on getting the others out to the meadow to continue work on the church.

  She waited for someone to speak of Simpson, but no one said a word.

  At lunch, James ate in silence, and Trudy was fine with that.

  That evening, another storm blew through the woods. It was violent but brief. James stood from the dinner table and said he and Otto would be heading over to make sure the church was okay.

  Trudy said nothing, but she was secretly thankful to see him go.

  “Momma?”

  She turned and saw Rodney standing in his nightshirt.

  “Yes, baby?”

  “Why doesn’t Daddy love me?”

  Jesus, Trudy thought. Where is this coming from?

  “He loves you fine,” she said.

  “Then why do you keep me a secret?”

  “I don’t keep you a secret, Rodney. That doesn’t even make sense.” But she was lying. She saw exactly what he was trying to say, and it broke her heart.

  “I think maybe I got a demon in me.”

  She reached for him and pulled him close. “Now, who told you such a thing?”

  He shrugged. “I figured it out. Folks say when the storms come it’s because of sin. I can’t think of no sin to explain what happens to me, so maybe I’m just a demon.”

  She squeezed him tighter. “Ssh, I don’t want you to talk like this, Rodney. It’s foolishness. You are a little boy, not a demon.”

  He nodded and buried his head in the crook of her neck.

  “What if Momma told you we were going to leave this place, baby? What if I said you and me and Mary were going to go someplace nicer, someplace where there wasn’t no storms?”

  He shook his head violently.

  �
�No.”

  “Why not, Rodney?”

  “I don’t want to die. Otto says the Lord will take vengeance upon those that abandon this place.”

  Trudy was stunned. She had no idea Rodney had been absorbing all of this. It shouldn’t have surprised her, because his perception was uncanny sometimes, but it had never crossed her mind to consider how all the talk about God’s wrath might be affecting her son.

  “Promise me we’ll never leave, Momma.”

  “Rodney, I can’t promise that. We . . .”

  He squirmed out of her arms, and she was surprised by his strength. He sat back and glared at her. “Promise me or I’ll scream.”

  Trudy was aghast. He hadn’t done this in years. When he was much younger, he used to make her do things with these sorts of threats. She had hated giving in to them, but he could scream in such a terrible, soul-killing way that she often did anyway.

  “You will not,” she said, trying to be in control.

  But she was wrong because he did, and it was awful, so awful she grabbed him and shook him hard, probably too hard, but he wouldn’t stop.

  “Okay,” she said. “I promise. I promise we won’t leave.”

  He stopped immediately and fell into her arms.

  17

  But she had lied to him. If anything, her desire to leave grew stronger. She spent her days imaging how it would go, waking up in the middle of the night, going to the children’s room and shaking them awake. She’d lie to them and say that they were going outside to see the stars or the moon. Once outside, she’d get them moving with some promise or another. They’d make the road within an hour or two, and by then, Rodney might have realized what was happening, but they’d be too far gone for anyone to hear his screams.

  Sometimes she fantasized about going over to Ben’s place and asking him to come with them. She knew it was foolish because she didn’t really love him. She couldn’t love him, she knew, as long as he bought into what was happening here, but if he rejected it too, if he agreed to come with her, she thought that might change things. Still, he had his own family to think about. She shook her head, dismissing such ideas.

  She decided they would leave in one week. That would give her some time to pack a bag, to plan, and though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, a week would also give her plenty of time to talk herself out of it.

  18

  It was hard to say exactly what changed over the next week. There were no storms. In fact, the days were sunny and the nights warm, yet people stopped speaking to her, and when they saw Trudy coming near, they often exchanged looks and an awkward silence would ensue. She tried not to let it bother her. She tried to remind herself that she was leaving soon.

  Except she had some doubts about that too.

  Somehow the fact that nobody mentioned Simpson at all made his sudden departure seem even more ominous. It was almost like he hadn’t existed. When the others had left, it was hard to go anywhere in Broken Branch without hearing someone saying how they’d made a mistake to leave, how times were hard and God might not be as merciful as they assumed.

  She tried to bring him up a few times, but folks either ignored her or, in some cases, walked away as if she wasn’t there at all.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought. A few more days and they can forget about me too.

  19

  She’d set her sights on Saturday night for leaving because most folks went to bed early on Saturdays on account of church the next morning, and on Thursday night, she stood out on the porch before bed, looking at the clear sky, thankful that no clouds appeared on the horizon. The stars were bright and she remembered what G.L. had said about being born on the night so long ago when they fell. What a wonderful legacy, she thought, to be so connected to magic, to something beyond the flesh and bone of everyday life.

  Later, when she climbed into bed, she felt a deep peace. Her life would go on beyond this place, and one day she’d look back on these days as a mistake, but also a lesson. A lesson that taught her that attaching oneself to another for any reason other than love was foolishness. It would also remind her of how those that claim to know the most about God and His ways are the scariest people of all.

  She sat up abruptly several hours later when the rain began its furious assault on the roof. At first she thought it was Rodney. Sometimes at night when an attack came, the thudding of his knee against the wall sounded like this. The noise was unbearably loud, so much that it almost became a kind of silence, a great, impenetrable wall that pressed on her from above. She wanted it to stop, but she realized this was going to be another big one.

  She climbed out of the bed and went into the front of the house. James had fallen asleep with the Bible open on his knee, his head tilted back as he snored openmouthed. In that moment, he seemed more vulnerable than ever, and in a way he reminded her of Rodney. She almost felt something for him then; not love, but something familiar, something like kindness, but she shrugged off the urge at the last minute. These were the thoughts would make her want to stay. Staying wasn’t an option.

  Out on the porch, she saw the woods were on fire. Damp smoke drifted toward the cabin and beyond that flames licked the hollows of the night. Tree fires during the storms were not uncommon. Most of the time the rain put them out, but Trudy was surprised to see how bright the fire was, and she wondered if this one wasn’t larger than normal.

  She was about to go back inside when a blast of lightning turned the world white and she saw Ben sitting on his porch across the way. The world went dark again, and she reached for the door. Another strike illuminated him and this time he spoke, his voice sounding like it was coming from a long way away.

  “It’s good weather for just sitting and thinking,” he said. “Hold on.”

  And then he was on the porch with her, soaked to the bone, shivering. Another flash of lightning and she saw his smile. “Would you mind bringing me a blanket or something?” Ben said.

  She went inside, moving slowly and carefully so as not to wake James, and returned with a dry blanket. He sat down in James’s chair and nodded at the one next to it. “I don’t bite. Not much anyway.”

  “It might look improper.”

  “Never knew you to be one to worry about such things.”

  She looked through the window into the darkness of the house. If James did wake up, would he come out onto the porch? And what if he did? She had already told him she was leaving him. That made her decision easy. She sat down beside Ben.

  “I been meaning to tell you that what you did the other day was something.”

  Trudy looked at him. One side of his face was lost to the shadows. The other side seemed kind. She had to resist the urge to touch his cheek, to run her fingers along the rough, short hair that grew there.

  “I mean helping that old man. I should have done it too.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Don’t rightly know. Probably because I’m scared. You, though, . . .” He laughed. “You’re just a little thing, but you don’t get scared. Seems like the stuff the rest of us worry about doesn’t touch you.”

  “I’m not that brave,” she said. “Besides, you don’t seem like a man who’d be afraid.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid plenty, Trudy. My whole life is just being afraid of one thing after the next.”

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “Saturday night. James isn’t coming.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him he should come instead. She knew it was wrong. She knew it was, but knowing and caring weren’t always the same thing. It would be terrible of her to do that to Eugenia, though, and that was what stopped her.

  He leaned back in his chair, and his entire face came into focus in another flash of lightning. He was staring at her.

  “See what I mean? That’s brave.”

  “You could leave too,” she said. “You and Eugenia. The children. You could com
e with us. Mary and Maggie could play all the time . . .” She trailed off. He was shaking his head.

  “As bad as it is here, I know this place, Trudy. The world out there . . . I’ve forgotten it. It’s forgotten me. Besides, even if I wanted to leave, Eugenia wouldn’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  He laughed then. Loudly, and she put her hand on his arm to quiet him. His hand covered hers and held her hand in the crook of his elbow.

  “She’s more scared than I am, Trudy.” He leaned his head onto her shoulder and she smelled the rain on him and something stronger underneath, his scent. It was a good odor, full of sweat and strength, the way a man was supposed to smell. Was there something else, though? Something vague, just a whisper? Trudy didn’t want to admit it, but there was. It was fear.

  She knew the scent well. It lingered in this place like ground fog on a humid morning. Of course it was fear. Everyone felt it. You just had to deal with it, she thought. That told the tale.

  She was about to say this when the door behind them groaned open. She stood quickly, putting distance between herself and Ben, which was probably a mistake, as it made it look like she had something to hide and she didn’t. Did she?

  James stood at the door. “Little late to be calling on folks, ain’t it, Ben?”

  Ben stood up. “Sorry, James. I came for a blanket. Maggie wet hers again, and the storm woke her up. Now, she can’t sleep without a blanket. Just sat down for a moment with your wife because I selfishly asked her to pray with me.”

  James said nothing, and it was unclear if he believed any of Ben’s story.