“If you go on to Hattiesburg, you’ll be safer.” His hands loosened with a deliberate effort that tensed his shoulders. “It’s the best I can do.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
He finally turned around. There was something else he wanted to say. “Mattie, the talk is ugly. About JoHanna. About the past.”
“What are they saying?”
“That she takes lovers when Will’s out of town. That Duncan isn’t his child.” He hesitated. “That Floyd is her lover. And yours.”
“That’s crazy talk. Floyd doesn’t even understand—”
“I know.” The gentleness of his voice stopped me. “Right now the truth doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get out of here.”
“What else are they saying?” I saw it in his eyes, something worse than lovers.
“It’s Duncan. They say she’s wicked. Marked. A child of the devil.” He tried to smile, but fear held his lips too rigid.
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. One look and you can see Will McVay stamped all over her.”
“Mattie, they’re afraid. They aren’t looking, or thinking. And what I’m afraid of is they’re going to come down that road and do something that I can’t stop.”
“Do they know you’re here, with us?”
He walked to the table and put his hands on the back of a chair. He was a man used to action, to moving on, and now he was stuck. Whatever he’d taken from Will, he’d lost his freedom in the bargain. “They’re curious about me, but there are other strangers in town, people stranded by the storm. I tried not to ask too many questions, but there was this secretiveness. Wherever I went, I felt it. The hair on the back of my neck tingled. They were watching me, calculating. They’re planning something, and they weren’t going to let a stranger in on it. They don’t trust anyone.”
“We can’t leave without Floyd.” I brushed past him and went to the sink. Evening was falling and it was time to start supper, but I had no appetite and no idea what to make. JoHanna was still in the bedroom with Duncan. I could hear the rise and fall of her voice as she talked on and on, soothing, comforting, mothering.
“I looked everywhere for him.”
Something in his voice warned me. I turned around to face him. “You think he’s been hurt?”
He spoke slowly. “I think they have him.”
“They?” My heart pounded at the thought of Elikah, at the pleasure he’d take in tormenting an innocent like Floyd. “Who’s they?”
“Some of the men. Your husband, the sheriff, that Odom man. I don’t know all their names.”
“And Mr. Moses?”
“I don’t know. His wife was very upset. I don’t know if she knows where they are and what they’re doing and won’t say, or if she’s worried about her husband.”
“They know Floyd isn’t right.” I felt as if the blood was coagulating in my heart. No matter how hard or fast it beat, the blood had gelled and wouldn’t move. Each beat brought a sharp pain.
“That’s exactly the reason they took him. Floyd would go along without a fight, never imagining that they would hurt him.”
“We have to find him, John.” My legs were liquid fire, my breath scorched dust. I couldn’t think because the need to act was so powerful. Floyd. They would hurt him. Each second was a notch of pain.
John was across the room before I saw him move, his hands assisting me into a chair.
“I looked everywhere. The livery stable, the jail. I climbed up and looked through the bars. He isn’t in there. I went around the back of the barbershop and through the feed store. I don’t know where he is.” His hands rubbed my shoulders; then he picked up one of my cold hands and rubbed it between his own. “I heard a rumor that they’d taken him somewhere.”
“Where?” I turned to look at him, snatching my hand away. “Why didn’t you say so? You have no idea what they might do to him.”
But I saw in his face that he had a very good idea, and that he was fairly certain we were too late.
“Tommy Ladnier’s.”
The only thing that came to me was the image of boots. Tall, black leather boots as elegant and slick as a coachwhip snake’s hide. Black boots that glistened in the sunlight worn by a snake-slender man with a slow, assessing smile.
“Tommy Ladnier, the bootlegger?”
“I don’t know if they meant for me to hear that so I’d go off half-cocked. It could be a setup, but those black boots have disappeared from the boot shop.”
“Did they … did they act like he was still alive?” Something pressed against the back of my throat, a tumor of fear that threatened to gag me. Fear, for Floyd and for what was happening, had begun to grow inside me like a new and terrible organ, tentacles shooting into my weakened legs, into my brain to stop my thinking.
John caught me by the nape of my neck as I slumped in the chair. He put me back in the chair, then slid his hands down to hold my shoulders. He knelt beside me, shaking me. “Don’t faint, Mattie. Don’t you dare faint. Not now. I need you. JoHanna needs you.” His hand groped at my leg until he found the derringer still in my pants pocket. “God dammit, Mattie, you can’t go down on me now.” He pressed the gun hard into my flesh, harder than the fear, external and internal pain in conflict, for me.
He made me look at him, see him. His voice reached through the fear and caught at me, drawing me back to the chair, the table, JoHanna’s kitchen, the derisive chatter of a big black crow outside the window. It was the hoarse voice of the bird that finally anchored me. The crow had come to pick through the storm debris. They’re scavengers, crows, eating dead things, waiting for death.
I almost fell when I tried to stand, but John helped me up and I went to the window. The crow was perched on a fence post, staring in at us. Waiting.
“What is it you want me to do?” I could do what he told me. I couldn’t think of anything on my own, but I could do what he said.
“Start packing JoHanna’s things. And Duncan’s. No matter what she says, we have to get them out of here. North. To Hattiesburg.”
“She won’t go if she finds out about Floyd.”
By the time I heard the creak of the floorboard, it was too late. I looked over John’s shoulder to see her standing in the doorway, a hand on either side of the frame as she braced herself.
“Finds out what about Floyd?”
She spoke softly, the ripple of water flowing over the hard clay bottom of a shallow creek. A whisper of sound, but a constant force, one not to be denied.
John said nothing as he got up slowly from his knees and turned to face her. “You have to leave. Tonight. With Mattie and Duncan.”
My fear arced across the room and touched her, making her flinch. It occurred to me that JoHanna was not used to governing her life with fear. It was so much more painful for me to see it in her than to feel it in myself. But she fought harder. She struggled against it even as she held herself upright by the door frame.
“What about Floyd?” There was no tremor in her voice. She spoke as calmly as if she were asking if we had eggs in the house.
“JoHanna, they’re saying that Duncan is the daughter of Satan. They’ve lost their minds with fear and vengeance. They’re going to hurt Duncan, and you, if you try to stop them.” John’s voice was raw with helplessness and worry.
“What about Floyd?” JoHanna repeated.
“Floyd can’t be helped right now. Not by you or me. Once you’re safe, once Will is back, we’ll go and find him.”
“Then you know something’s happened to him?”
“I suspect as much. I know nothing for certain.”
“Where is he, John? Where have they taken him? Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know, JoHanna.”
“And if you did, you wouldn’t tell me, now would you?”
He sighed, an admission of defeat. “I can’t lie to you, Jo. Not even for your own safety. You choose your own path, and I won’t send you down it on lies.”
JoHanna nodded, an almost imperceptible movement of her head. “Mattie, would you get some bags out of my closet? Two. Put a few of Duncan’s clothes in one. Easy things. Nothing fancy. We’ll pack something for us in a minute.”
I glanced once again at the post outside the kitchen window. The crow stared back at me, then flapped his wings once and lifted awkwardly into the air, winging away into the purpling sky as night walked softly toward us from the east.
I left them in the kitchen and went to her bedroom, where I could still hear every word they said. They argued, back and forth. John told her what he’d told me. He hadn’t wanted to tell her, but he meant what he said about lies. He could not deceive her. Not even for her own safety. The packing of the bags was a hopeful thing for John, until he discovered exactly where it was she meant to go.
Thirty-two
IT was decided. John would go to Jeb Fairley’s house and leave an anonymous note reporting the hangings out on Red Licorice Road. JoHanna had recalled the name of the twisty little path that led to the macabre scene, and other than Doc Westfall, Jeb was the only person JoHanna had any faith would contact the authorities on the strength of an unsigned letter describing such a gory scene. Even if Jeb suspected where the information came from, he’d keep his mouth shut. JoHanna was positive of it, and I agreed. Once the note was delivered, John would use the darkness to search the town. Sheriff Grissham was not a man to patrol the streets. There had been no need for such tactics. JoHanna had determined that John might discover more by spying in Axim’s windows than by asking questions. If Mr. Moses had returned home to his wife—without Floyd—then John might press for some answers.
Less than certain about the plan, John conceded because he could think of no other. He took the pen and wrote down the information as he and JoHanna concocted it by the light of a single lamp on the kitchen table. “Five people are dead on Red Licorice Road. I don’t know what happened, but it’s a gruesome sight. About five miles down from the old federal road.” John folded the note and put it in his pocket.
By the time they were done, I had packed for all of us, except John, who had already made sure that not a single possession of his was left in the house. He’d come without much, and what he had was in his pockets or the small bundle of clothes he’d tied together, his journal and pen in the middle.
After scouting Jexville, if he discovered nothing, John would take Mable from behind Elikah’s house and ride for Mobile, where he would telegraph the facts to us and wait for Will’s train. JoHanna wanted him to steal a car, but John pointed out that a horse might make better time if the roads were blocked by trees. Mable was a good horse, steady and willing.
We loaded the car in complete darkness, just in case anyone was watching. JoHanna walked out the back door without a thought of locking it. There was no point. If they came and wanted in, they would get in. JoHanna got behind the wheel with John in the passenger seat and we drove through the sticky heat of the night toward Jexville.
John had convinced JoHanna that the furor of the multiple hangings would buy Floyd a little diversion, and more time, if he was indeed being held at Tommy Ladnier’s Biloxi home. JoHanna had promised not to take any rash action, only to watch the house and determine what was happening until John could arrive with Will. They both knew it would do little good to contact the authorities on the coast. Tommy Ladnier did not have the political connections that Will had, but he had more local muscle, and a lot of it included the lawmen of the area. Tommy paid hard coin for the loyalty of the badge.
In short, terse sentences that contained nothing of John’s normal speech, he laid out the best possible scenario about Floyd’s condition. As the red car pushed through the humid night toward town, John told us that he did not believe Floyd’s life was in real danger. They might have beaten him, and undoubtedly humiliated him, but John was certain he was alive. John said that Floyd was helpless, and men like Elikah and Clyde Odom could not pass up a chance to torment a helpless creature. But surely they had not seriously injured him. More likely they were having sport at his expense while they kept him down at Tommy’s, a jester for their parties.
Sitting in the backseat with Duncan pressed against me and a much subdued Pecos on her other side, I tried not to think of my husband or Clyde Odom, a man I’d met once in passing on Redemption Road. A man who’d taken grim pleasure in belittling Floyd and putting his hand on my breast because he felt certain that the conditions of my life would not allow me to protest. Like Elikah, Clyde and his brother Boley understood the finest shadings of humiliation, of cruelty. They were capable of things that John had not considered. But how far would Floyd allow it to go? He was an innocent, but he knew the difference between right and wrong. And because he was an innocent, he might try to fight them if they pushed him too far. I closed my eyes tight and let the hot wind whip my hair free of its pins.
Will would get Floyd back. Will, with his deliberating eyes and his broad shoulders. He would make them let Floyd go. For Will, along with his muscle and his brain, knew every senator and congressman in Washington. Tracing his progress homeward, John would catch him on the way and wire him. Will might even stop in Jackson and speak with the Governor. Floyd would be rescued.
The car bumped across the railroad tracks and I opened my eyes as we slowed to a halt. John opened the car door. JoHanna’s hand stopped him.
“Be careful,” she whispered to him, taking his hand and holding it to her lips with her face turned so that Duncan could not see her tears. “Be careful, John.”
“I will.” He got out of the car and walked away without turning back. In seconds the darkness swallowed him, and I remembered my first meeting of him. I had always thought he would disappear, and I had a sudden, terrible foreknowledge that we would never see him again. When Will returned, John would seek out the solitude of the riverbank once again. He would go back to his writing, to his pursuit of the past, because he did not have the promise of the future that he wanted. He would not try to take her future with Will. He would not ask for even the chance. What was between him and JoHanna was over, killed by the ugliness of the people in Jexville.
Perhaps it was wrong, forbidden, a sin before God. But it did not seem so terrible a thing.
Duncan had eased into a troubled sleep, and I climbed over the seat into the front even as JoHanna turned the car south toward the coast.
“He’s a good man,” JoHanna said as the car picked up speed.
“He seems to be.”
JoHanna brushed the tears from her cheek. “John will send us a telegram at the Seaview if he finds out anything we need to know. I told him we’d be staying there.”
“JoHanna.” The word escaped me. “What are we going to do?”
“Whatever we have to, Mattie. Whatever it takes to get Floyd back. Then we’ll leave. I never believed they were bad people. Narrow-minded, sanctimonious, hypocritical, all of those things in abundance. But I never even considered the possibility that they would truly hurt me.”
“They’re afraid.”
“Of what?” Her voice rose in frustration. “Of a woman who minds her own business? Of a child who loves life? Yes, we are a terrifying duo.”
“You scare them because you wear the britches. Not Will’s britches. You don’t need to take his because you have your own. Everything you believe goes against the grain of the men.” I thought of what she called her religion. “Of the very land they work, the animals and trees they use. The women and children they rule. You want them to consider something other than their own needs, their own desires. They don’t like that.”
“I never tried to force them to believe the way I did. None of them.”
I finally understood it. “No, but you made them think. And that, in a town like Jexville, is unforgivable.”
We drove in silence for several minutes. Finally, JoHanna glanced at me. In the pale wash of steamy moonlight, I couldn’t tell if she was beaten or tired. “They need to think, Mattie. They’re like fat cows, al
l lined up and following one behind the other. They’re so eager to be led, to be told what to do and how to do it. Especially the women.” The bitterness made her voice hard. “Especially the women. I didn’t set out on any crusade. I didn’t. I just refused to pretend to go along. But I’ll tell you one thing. Not a single one of them is worth one of Floyd’s smiles. He doesn’t have to think his way to goodness. It comes from his heart. We’ll find him and we’ll leave. We won’t even go back for our things. We have enough.”
She knew then that we couldn’t go back. It wasn’t voluntary. Not really. I looked in the backseat at Duncan, so peacefully asleep. So trusting that we would take care of her. “They’ll kill her, JoHanna.”
“Yes. They’re capable of such a thing. I finally accept that.”
“You should have let John come with us.”
“No.” She swerved in the road to miss part of a tree that had not been fully removed. “If I could be certain that Elikah wouldn’t beat you, I would have made you stay, too. It isn’t safe to be my friend. It’s because of me that they even thought to hurt Floyd. Because he was my friend.”
I remembered the day we walked to the creek to see the baptism. The day Mary Lincoln drowned in her pure white dress, the long sash hanging on the roots of a submerged tree. The creek had shifted the tree slowly, inch by inch, along the deep, sandy bottom. It had taken years, perhaps, for the tree to suddenly appear in a pool where countless other people had been safely immersed. On the way to the baptism, JoHanna had talked to me of trees and nature, of awareness of the value of all living things. In her world, though, there was no reckoning for creatures such as Elikah. Because she could not harm another out of anything except survival, she had not accepted, not truly, that others were capable of such acts. Now she knew it, just as I had learned so long ago at Jojo’s hand. I fought back the burn of tears. This was a lesson I would have spared her.
“It wasn’t because Floyd is your friend,” I told her, finally able to reach across the seat and touch her. “Elikah and Clyde and the others have done this because they are who they are. They would have found some other reason or some other weaker creature to destroy.” I squeezed her arm, and she took her hand off the wheel and grasped mine, holding on to me. “This isn’t your fault any more than those dead people hanging in a tree are Duncan’s fault. Could be that you delayed this, because they were a little bit afraid of you.”
Touched Page 32