by Isla Morley
Jubilee doesn’t hear the footsteps till it is too late.
A big hand clamps across her nose and mouth. “Why ain’t you covered?”
Her veil is balled up and shoved in her pocket, and as she reaches for it, he yanks it from her and throws it to the ground.
“What are you doing here? You fixing to put a hex on that man?”
She knows the voice. Knows his smell, too—like damp chicken feathers. To look at Ronny Gault’s face is to wonder if he’s run into a swarm of bees. Welts for lips and swollen eyes, skin that has the sheen of boils. She tries pulling away but the more she wrestles, the fiercer he grips, so she goes limp and lets him drive her by her neck back into the woods.
When she was eight and Levi fifteen, their cow went missing and no one doubted it was Ronny’s doing. A week later Sheriff Suggins and Reverend Tuttle stood at their front door saying the special collection taken that morning to buy the church a new roof had been stolen, a large sum thanks to the generous contribution made by Mayor Gault.
Rather than proclaim his innocence, Levi challenged the men. “If you think I did it, why bother to ask questions? Why not just take me to jail?”
Jubilee doesn’t know how it is with brothers and sisters in other families, but she and Levi are so close that if he was to be cut, she’d bleed, too, and if Levi was about to go off to prison, she was ready to commit a crime to go along with him. “Ronny Gault stole the money,” she blurted, the biggest lie she ever told. “I saw him climb out the church window with a bag under his arm.”
Instead of being locked away for telling a fib, she was marched to Mayor Gault’s house where, near dumb with fear, she had to give her account again, which even to her own ears sounded dreamed up. As Sheriff Suggins made a fruitless search of the house, Ronny looked at her and drew his finger across his neck, then later that night threw a torch through the Buford living room window as a reminder that Jubilee’s false witness had only made things worse.
Now Ronny pins her against a tree. “How many times do you lot have to be told to stay away?”
“You don’t own everywhere, Ronny.”
“Always did have a big mouth, didn’t you? A big mouth with a lying forked tongue. Suppose I was to cut it out so you couldn’t tell any more of your lies?”
Ronny brings out a switchblade, and she turns her head and pretends she’s seen a sharp edge this close hundreds of times. “You leave one mark on me, and my brother will come for you.”
This sets Ronny off. In one swift motion, the blade slices through her hair. He holds up the lock. “You tell your brother to come for me and save me a trip up the holler.” He pushes her away. “Go back to your hole now.” Staggering through the trees, she hears him yell about Blues being gone once and for all.
She claws through a tangle of underbrush and finds a hidden spot to sit awhile and gather herself. Ronny out here in the woods can only mean that he’s set up his traps again. He’s not the only one to hunt raccoons, especially since their pelts fetch so much money these days, but his leghold traps are cruel, the poor victims suffering often for days on end because he can’t be bothered to check frequently, and most of the time he’s too lazy to skin and cure what he catches but instead lops off the tails and leaves the rest, babies even. There’s no such thing as teaching Ronny Gault a lesson, but Jubilee will not rest until she’s searched the surroundings and triggered all the traps she can find, about half a dozen. On her way to the path that leads to her aviary, she comes across a large spread of pokeweed, and stops to harvest as much as she can bundle in her veil, careful to take leaves only from the young plants less than a foot high. Later, she’ll boil it three times to get out the poison, and they’ll have enough poke sallet to eat for three or four days in a row. Pleased with her find, she heads to the meadow, where she keeps her birds in the small shed her father built years ago. There she sets out seed and fresh water for each one, and though convention says not to handle convalescing birds if they’re to return to the wild, she dotes on them and sings to them and confesses that she wishes at times that they’ll never leave her.
It’s late in the afternoon when she leaves the aviary and decides to visit the creek before returning home, and as she comes to the place where the creek widens into a basin, she spies Levi and Sarah Tuttle perched on a log together, Levi leaning over his flat-top guitar to neck with her. Just as startled as Jubilee, Sarah jumps to her feet. She’s wearing a dress altogether too tight and too short, and either she’s flushed from their activities or she’s colored her cheeks too red.
Instead of approaching them, Jubilee aims to go around, but Levi rushes to her with an explanation. She walks faster.
He catches up and grabs her elbow. “Hold up, now.”
“I can’t believe you!” Pa is always saying for her and Levi to keep to their own business and not give those in town any more justification for hating them, and still Levi finds ways to defy orders. As much as Levi retaliates, he also instigates, and Sarah Tuttle is more than one step too far.
“We don’t have to make a big deal out of this, okay?” If it weren’t for his blue skin, Levi would likely have all the girls in town after him, the way he can slow down his talking and deepen his voice and make those dimples appear without even smiling, but his charm is lost now on Jubilee.
“What if someone else saw the two of you?”
He dismisses her worries by saying something they both know to be untrue: “No one comes up this way.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. She and I make up songs together.”
“Songs.” Jubilee purses her lips.
“No, really. She sent a letter to her uncle, who works for a radio station in Lexington, and he’s written back saying he’ll help her make a recording and get it on the radio. She’s going to sing my songs. My songs on the radio! You should hear her sing, Juby. Come get acquainted with her. I’m sure she’ll sing something for you if you ask.”
Sarah is now halfway up the bank as though she’s of a mind to flee. If she had been with who everyone says is her boyfriend instead of with Levi, Ronny wouldn’t have found Jubilee, and Levi wouldn’t be putting himself in danger. “She’s Ronny’s girl, Levi. If he finds out, what do you think he’s going to do? Sit back and watch? He’ll come after you, and maybe me, maybe even all of us.”
Levi hears only one part. “She’s not Ronny’s girl.” He turns the color of gunpowder, and Jubilee decides against telling him about her encounter with Ronny.
“Does she even care about what could happen to you? Or is she just a vain girl who wants to rebel against her preacher daddy by courting the person least suited to her?”
“Lower your voice.” Levi puts a little more distance between them and Sarah. “You don’t know the first thing about her.”
“I know she’s bad news, that’s all I need to know,” Jubilee snaps back.
“I’m heading back,” Sarah calls, which makes Levi go after her. With this girl, he visibly softens. He talks quietly into her hair, brushes those fussy curls from her shoulders, and offers his cheek for a goodbye kiss. As he watches her walk away, he fetches his guitar and strums a tune, and she starts singing, waving the music sheets above her head in farewell.
“I know you think this is me trying to take revenge on Ronny, but it isn’t,” Levi says when he catches up to Jubilee. “She really is something special.”
Levi is somehow afforded privileges in the Buford family that no one else gets—that’s just Levi, Mama says whenever the kitchen table gets turned over or a mug goes flying into the fireplace—but there’s something altered about him now. He has the manner of a pardoned man.
“You have your reasons for being with her, but what are her reasons for being with you? Don’t you wonder about that?”
“Is it so hard to imagine she wants to be with me because she has feelings for me?”
Nobody understands better than Jubilee this longing for love, but how
can this business with Sarah do anything but bring harm to Levi? “You need to put an end to it.”
“So you would have me give her up, the one thing that makes me happy?”
“If you don’t quit her, I’ll tell Pa.”
“What do you know about anything?” Levi stomps off along the path, and Jubilee goes down to the water’s edge, puts her bundle in a tree, takes off her socks and shoes, and soaks her feet. The water is warmer than usual. She wades out to her knees, then decides there’s no harm in having a quick dip, so she returns to the shore, slips out of her dress, and goes in where the water reaches her thighs. She lays back. Her hair fans out around her. By the time she rises from the water, she’s ready to smooth things over with Levi.
Dressed but for her shoes, she hears whispering, and her first thought is that Ronny’s come for her. She spins around and two faces are spying on her from the bramble, one as though he’s just come upon a bear, the other like the sun’s blinded him. As soon as he lifts the camera to his face, she realizes he’s the man from Folgers Hill.
HAVENS
Alerted to their presence, the blue woman flashes them a look from non-reflective eyes, eyes that seem to swallow light and offer nothing in return, before flinging herself away in fright, the tendrils of her wet hair flying out behind her. Skirt hoisted, she crosses the creek, splashing and kicking up stones in haste, and on the opposite embankment, she checks their progress before taking off. She runs like someone who knows how to outrun dogs.
Massey and Havens chase after her, stumbling through the water and losing their balance on the slippery rocks.
“Wait!” Massey shouts to her. “Come back!”
Havens has not recovered his voice. He hasn’t yet recovered any other thought but one: what an extraordinary woman.
There is no song in the crease of the hills anymore, no breeze to carry the notes of an innocent tune, only the sounds of snapping branches, slapping footsteps, and labored breath—the sounds of men giving chase. The pursued makes no sound. She flies over boulders and crosses the stream again. They are no match for her. They follow her over a fallen tree until she darts into the overgrowth and vanishes.
“Come back! We just want to talk to you!” Massey calls.
Havens and Massey are out of breath. Neither of them has any clue in which direction they are to go. Bushes and ferns surround them, they are far from the stream, and Havens remembers there being a steep incline to the east, but now the grade is level. He isn’t sure which way will lead them down the holler or deeper into it. They are lost, and they have lost her.
Massey is huffing and sweating, bent over with his hands on his knees. He lifts his head. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
Havens can’t find the words.
Massey straightens up, mops his forehead with the back of his hand, and shakes his head. “Blue. She was blue!”
“We frightened her.” He can’t get out of his mind her startled expression.
Massey casts about. “How many pictures did you take?”
Havens suggests they find their way back to the path, head back to town, and try again in the morning.
“Wait, you took her picture, right?”
“I—there wasn’t any time to—”
“Jesus, Havens, the goddamn picture of a lifetime and you missed it?”
Havens imagines her imprinted on a strip of film—her innocence, her perfect form, her coloring. Even in the simple act of putting on her shoe, she was a portrait, an enigma, and he doesn’t need Massey to remind him of the incalculable loss of not having captured that.
“I had to wait until she was out of the shade and properly lighted,” he explains. “Even with color film, her skin tone would have come out looking like lead.”
Massey goes from being irked to despondent. “We have to find her.”
Dusk falls while they are discussing their next move. Massey insists they proceed around a stack of boulders, convinced he has heard leaves rustling, and Havens counters by mentioning that evening is fast approaching and the light is useless for photographing now anyway. “And we do not want to get caught in the woods at night. Let’s take another stab at this tomorrow.”
“Five more minutes,” Massey insists.
Havens pushes past Massey, climbs over the large boulder, and stubs his foot on a sharp rock. He cries out. Thinking he might have broken a toe, he wills another step, but the pain becomes fiercer still and shoots from his toe to his ankle to his thigh. He feels faint. He looks down at his foot, but it seems very far away. Rising up from the cold ground is a disheartening numbness. This can’t be the rock’s doing. He wants to alert Massey but when he tries to talk he can’t quite make his mouth work right. Instead of being anchored by the surroundings, he begins to see swirling patterns.
Massey yells at him not to move. “You’ve been bit by a snake! Right behind you. Don’t move!”
A terrible tightness has taken hold of Havens’s left leg while other parts inside him go slack. He feels his mouth unlatch. His thoughts flutter as though from an overturned drawer. Is someone shouting? He is trying to hold on to a recollection, something he’s just seen but cannot now draw a bead on. He can’t remember what has brought him to such a dark place, darker than night. His eyes are open and yet he cannot see anything. He begins to fall. Leaves are falling on him or are they papers? They are photographs, each one blank. All the photographs he has not yet taken are falling on him, burying him. He scans them, desperate for the image. He can’t remember what the image was that he’d wanted to capture.
And there it is, coming out of the dark. A face. An exquisite, blue face. A vision.
He is so pleased.
Until there is nothing.
JUBILEE
She doesn’t even run her fastest and still they fall behind. To better hear their intentions, she stops and hides behind a huckleberry bush. The friend does all the talking, saying, Go this way, go that, nothing about why they’d want a picture of her. Screaming and yelling for help comes next, then she hears, Snake.
She sprints out of the woods.
Pa’s heard her calls because he dashes to meet her at the bottom of the field and Levi is not far behind with a shotgun. She tells Pa a right-colored man’s been snake-bit and gives the whereabouts. Two of them. “But newcomers,” she adds, so Pa doesn’t have to worry about dogs and guns.
“Get word to Jeremiah Wrightley and tell him to meet us at home,” Pa orders. “Then stay with your mother.”
She does as he says, except for the last part.
By the time she catches up with Pa and Levi again, they are headed out of the woods with the two strangers, the one with the camera not long for this world. His face is twisted and sweaty. Pa’s tied a tourniquet around his leg to stop the poison from traveling, and keeps saying, “You’ll be fine, mister, you’ll be okay,” which means Pa thinks the opposite.
“It’s my fault, Pa.” She knows he has his hands full with a dying man, but she has to start taking the blame. She’s never going to come away right from this moment if he succumbs.
Pa shushes her.
“But I shouldn’t have led them that way.” With Right-coloreds chasing, there are three ways to run through the holler—one where the poison ivy grows thick, one along the path that drops off on one side and it’s easy for a man to lose his footing, and one into adder territory. She hadn’t been thinking of any of these ways to shake free of them, but she could’ve easily led them to the start of the holler before disappearing, if she hadn’t been thinking so much of the picture-taker’s face, how it seemed as though he could take in the all of her in one go and not be sick.
“They were after you?” asks Levi.
Carrying his friend’s equipment, the talkative one falls quiet and gives her that please-don’t-tell look.
“They were lost. I think they wanted directions.” She hasn’t told more lies in her whole life.
Pa says for her to go up ahead and tell Mama what to exp
ect. Instead, she falls behind the men and begs God to stop time and stall the venom. They are not halfway up the field when the man goes limp.
Mama steps aside so the men can enter the house, then gives Jubilee a shaking hard enough to rattle her ribs loose. “I’m about worn-out with worry. Why were you out there so long?” Mama’s love always shows most in her crossness.
Jubilee kisses her grandmother hello and the three of them huddle at the doorway of Mama’s bedroom, scarcely able to comprehend the scene before them—two strangers, one lying on the bed and another pressing Jeremiah Wrightley about his medical qualifications. A snake-handling, din-making man of no logic might be one way to sum up Jeremiah Wrightley, but there isn’t anyone who knows more than he about snakes and their venom, and Pa tells the man that.
Only a person from a city would bring up the subject of a hospital. “We need to get him to a doctor. Do you have a telephone?”
While Pa explains about country ways, Mama asks if Jubilee knows where they come from and what they were doing up Spooklight Holler anyway.
She could answer that the man had directed his camera at her, but if she is to tell the whole truth, doesn’t she also have to say Levi had been with Sarah Tuttle, and Ronny Gault had held a knife at her throat? Shouldn’t she warn that trouble is about to follow like fire on a trail of gunpowder? But what if she’s wrong? Sometimes the wrong thing a person assumes is all it takes to light the fuse, so she tells Mama she doesn’t know anything.