“And you know that I can’t arrest somebody without evidence.” His voice was harsh. “You got evidence?’’
She wanted to tell him that she’d seen it, had seen Edwin Walker and his cronies out there tearing up her store with her very own eyes. But Isaiah was right—that tree house had been a safe spot for a long time, and she aimed to keep it that way. “I think I do have evidence,” she said. “Not much, but maybe it’ll help.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’ve got a pet blue jay. He was there last night and he scratched or pecked somebody pretty good.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded in resignation. “Thank you.”
“It doesn’t help, does it?”
“I’m sorry, Angel.” His mouth was grim. “It doesn’t help much, but you never know. I always need more than what I can get,” he added, half to himself.
“Well,” she said, standing up. “Thank you, anyway. I knew that—” She broke off and sighed. “I know you do the best you can.”
“Angel.”
She looked at him.
“You need to get the hell out that store. Ain’t nobody going to bother you if you just move into town, get a job at the five and dime, maybe. They’d be lucky to have you, with all that experience.”
“I’m working on it.” But it suddenly struck her as completely unfair. “It means he wins, doesn’t it?” She was fighting tears, and had to admit, at least to herself, that she was deeply frightened. But if she gave in now, it would be like spitting on her father’s grave. “He’s not going to get that store. At least I can make sure of that.”
He shook his head. “Stubbornness runs in the family, don’t it?”
“He’s just not gonna push me around.”
“No—maybe he’ll just kill you instead.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, he won’t. Mark my words, Sheriff.” Smoothing her skirt, she stood and smiled politely. “Thank you for your time.”
“Angel, girl—”
She didn’t wait, holding her shoulders straight and proud as she walked out. Out in the open, her bravado melted. She paused in the shade on the sidewalk, her stomach a little weak as she tried to decide what to do next.
The morning bustle was in full swing. A blue pick-up drove by and pulled in front of the drugstore, and she saw Agnes Miller tugging surreptitiously on a slip as she pretended to window shop. Across the street, through the plate glass windows fronting the diner, she could see Joe Brown in his mechanic’s overalls, eating a late breakfast with Douglas Neally, the dry cleaner. Angel had gone to school with Milly Reading, the waitress, who came by with a pot of coffee to fill up Joe and Douglas’s cups, trading jokes with them as she picked up an empty plate. Milly had been really pretty once, with loads of auburn hair and a slim figure. Four children and twenty-odd years of Texas sun had done a lot of damage. She was still slim enough—nobody worked on her feet like that and then went home to all those children and got fat all at once. Traces of prettiness lingered, but it had gone hard around the edges, her smile slipping right off her face like a rubber mask as soon as she hurried away from the table.
It made Angel feel vaguely sad. Didn’t anything ever turn out the way you thought? Didn’t anybody ever get what they wanted? She looked down the single main street of downtown upper Gideon with an almost oppressive sense of discouragement.
She had to get out of here.
Realizing she’d been standing there a long time, she roused herself and started walking without any real sense of where she was headed, but if she didn’t move, everybody would soon be staring.
Aimlessly, she wandered down the sidewalk in the close, heavy air. Lucas Meyer approached with his head down, a circle of shiny dark scalp gleaming in a bald circle at his crown. He didn’t speak, nor did Angel expect it, even though she had been waiting on him in her store for at least ten years.
The incident stopped her in her tracks.
Rules. Rules for what you wore and who you talked to, and how you talked to them. A rule that nobody had ever had to tell her made her walk aimlessly down the street, made her keep her eyes averted from Lucas Meyer—entirely for his sake, of course. If she spoke in defiance of the rules, it wouldn’t be her who’d pay the price.
She thought of Isaiah, in the trees, his great ambitions turned to dust; thought of her mornings in the store with the women, their own pool of quiet before the world intruded, a pool of time that would now be lost no matter what she did.
She was suddenly so chokingly angry that she couldn’t swallow. Just ahead was the feed store, and she acted without thinking, something cold and new making her smile as she headed straight for it, ducking into the dark, vast interior. The smell of hay and fertilizer filled her nose. Nearby somebody measured out nails into a bag.
“Why, Angel!” came a voice from behind her.
She turned and Mrs. Walker, limping slightly, hurried over and touched her arm.
Angel took a breath. There was no point being ugly to this simple and protected woman. “I’ve been real busy running the store,” she said.
“Oh, I reckon that’s a real big job. Edwin was just telling me how well you’re doing with it, though.”
So summoned, Edwin stepped from behind a pile of feed bags.
“Is that right?” Angel said. A long, fresh cut slashed through his eyebrow and into the puffy flesh of his eyelid. Below, on his cheek, was a series of tiny scratches. She cocked her head, unable to curb a triumphant lift of her chin or the slightly sarcastic tone of her voice as she exclaimed, “My goodness, Edwin, whatever happened to you?”
His eerie eyes flared hot and mean for the barest second. “Just a little altercation, sweetie. Nothing to concern yourself about.” He gave her his dark smile. “What brings you to town today?”
“A little of this and little of that.”
“Ah-uh.” He drew a cigarette out of his pocket. A ghost of a smile played around his eyes as he tucked it into his lips. “What can we do for you today?”
Something in his voice made Angel think suddenly that it had been very very, very stupid of her to come in here like this. “I need some bone meal for my roses.”
“You want that delivered?” His raspy voice promised more than bone meal.
“No, thank you.”
“Gonna send your nigger over here to pick it up, are you?” He didn’t bother shield his hatred. “I offered to fix that roof for free, why you let him do it, anyway?”
As if disturbed by this turn in the conversation, Mrs. Walker fluttered her hands and made an airy excuse to escape them. Angel stepped forward. “Because I don’t want you anywhere around me, Edwin, and you know it. I’m sick to death of you doin’ whatever you want, and I’m not afraid of you, you understand me? Stay away from my store and me.”
Very slowly, he smiled, jeweled eyes glittering. “Or what, Angel?”
“I’ll kill you.” She delivered the words in a voice she didn’t even recognize as her own, before she knew she would say them. It shocked her, but she meant it. Like she had never meant anything in her life.
“I’d love to see you try, sugar.” He leaned in close. “Because if you don’t kill me, and I’m hurting, I might finally forget I’m a gentleman where you’re concerned. I might remember that you’re nothing but a little scrap o’ white trash and nobody in this county would give one little goddamn about what I do to you.”
Angel stood her ground. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
“S’that right,” he said softly. “Well, I reckon the war is on, sugar. We’ll see who wins it. “He spun on his heel, chuckling softly, as if there was no question at all about who the victor would be.
As Isaiah unloaded shingles and glass from the back of a pickup into the side yard of the Corey store, late afternoon sunlight slanted yellow through the trees. It fingered Angel’s straight, fine hair, setting it ablaze as she helped him with the lighter bundles. He could see that she was preoccupied, and waited without speaking for her
to reveal her thoughts.
When the last roll of roofing was propped against the side of the house, she crossed her arms on the edge of the truck and leaned in. “What do you think happened to Edwin?”
Isaiah frowned. “He’s crazy, that’s all.”
“He was a sweet child. We used to be in the same Sunday school class and most of the time, he was a cherub. Happy.” She chewed on her bottom lip, looking toward the river. “He was a mama’s boy, too, crying to her whenever he got a little scratch on his knee. The other children used to tease him.”
“Raise up a child in the way he should go,’” Isaiah quoted, “and when he is old he shall not depart from it.’”
“I guess.”
He slammed the pick-up gate closed. “You have any luck with the sheriff?”
“He can’t do much.” She flashed him a grin, her pale green eyes glittering. “But Edwin’s a sight.”
“What?”
“Ebenezer tore him up. Practically took out his eye.”
“Where’d you see Edwin?”
She shifted. “At the feed store.”
“You went looking for him.” It wasn’t a question. When she didn’t reply, he cursed softly. “You don’t have the sense God gave a monkey.”
Instead of protesting, Angel lifted her shoulders in admission. “It was my pride and my daddy’s Irish temper that marched me in there.” Her face clouded. “I was standing there before I knew it—and then what could I do? Turn tail and run?”
In his imagination, he saw it—Angel standing in the dark, cavernous store in her thin little dress, suddenly realizing how foolish she’d been. “Well, I don’t know nothin’ about pride,” he said with a rueful smile.
She returned his smile, just as the sun sank an inch, sending an arrow of gold over her, like a spotlight. Isaiah remembered suddenly how she had felt in his arms this morning—slender and fragile and pliant. So right.
He swallowed, “Better get this truck back to Harold, now.”
Before he climbed in the driver’s seat, he hesitated. “Keep that gun by your bed tonight.”
“I will.” She looked a little forlorn somehow, standing there by herself against the big Texas sky. “Thank you for all your help, Isaiah.”
He gave her a nod. “You’re welcome.” It took everything he had to climb in to the truck and pull out of the driveway, and even after he had returned the vehicle to Harold, and went home to eat supper with his mama, the picture of Angel standing alone in her yard stuck with him.
— 33 —
V-Mail
December 1944 (don’t know the exact date anymore)
Somewhere in France
Dear Parker,
I been thinking so much about you and my own daddy while I’m out here in France. I think about y’all in the trenches. Must have been terrible, but I reckon I’m starting to understand what y’all saw here, too. How it changed you. As we move through the villages, the people bring us food and hard cider and call out welcome. L’Americanz! L’Americanz! Never felt so welcome in my life. A white man came right up to me and hugged me like I was his own child, kissed my cheeks, pushed a bottle in my hand. Vive L’American!
Never knew how much Jim Crow I was still carrying around until I stood straight up under those kisses. I reckon you might know what I mean. Got my daddy killed, I guess, knowing what I’m finding out, but as long as I stay out of Texas, I’ll be all right.
One more thing. I been busted down to private again (and you know that hurt my heart, hard as I been working) but for a good cause—I’m infantry, now, combat ready. Guess they found out in Italy a black man could be a good solider. Orders came down from Eisenhower himself. No sense in telling the womenfolk, of course. Just between you and me. You take care now,
Isaiah High
V-Mail
December 1944
Dear Angel,
I got your package, you sweet thing, and all the men in the squad are now thinking you are the queen of the world. You just don’t KNOW how bad we need socks. You see I’m writing with this fine fountain pen. Fine, fine Christmas present. Thank you.
Can’t even tell you how cold it is. The Jerrys sure know how to deal with all this weather, but I ain’t got the hang of it at all. I’m mainly thinking of days so hot the air shimmers. Remember how it used to be in the tree house sometimes? Like if you stepped out you could walk on that shimmer, way up in the middle of the treetops.
Different kind of forest here. Big pines and spruce, full of snow. If it wasn’t for what we’re doing, it’d be like a fairy tale. I can see Hansel and Gretel holding hands, walking to Grandma’s house.
Now the Christmas rush is over, men here could use any number of things. Soluble coffee, if you can get hold of any, and whatever food you can send and more socks and mittens and salted peanuts. Not if it causes any hardship, of course.
Just heard had a letter from a friend in England who said Mrs. Wentworth got killed by a V-2 last August. Got through so many raids she never blinked an eye about sirens, and she gets it from one of those robot monsters. Don’t seem fair. I sure will miss her.
Thanks for all the things you sent her, Angel. She was real good to me.
Your friend,
Isaiah
V-Mail
December (still) 1944,
Gotta be getting close to Christmas. Wish I could be in Texas eating my mama’s roast turkey and macaroni and cheese, instead of freezing out here with cold toes. (No frostbite, tho—socks dry out pretty good if I take them off and put ’em next to me at night.)
Hell, Angel. This is hell. I wish everybody could just see one time what happens when a man steps on a mine.
Too cold to do this now.
(Next morning)
It’s morning now. Real early. Sky like cotton balls, falling right down on top of the trees. Cold, but not so bad as yesterday. It’s snowing. Fella from New York say that’s why it’s warmer. Has to be warmer for snow. Ain’t that something.
Wish I could tell you more about what I been seeing, thinking, but the censors will just cut it out, so I’ll save it up for when I get home. I will tell you the battalion is integrated now, and hasn’t been near as much fuss over it as you might imagine. How about that?
You’d like the snow. It slips down from nowhere, from that big, heavy sky, so quiet, like a blanket. And it’s true about all the snow flakes being different. I think sometimes they’re like people, so different, even though there’s so many.
So quiet right now. Just the snow and me and this piece of paper. I woke up cuz there was a rock in my shoulder. Always a rock somewhere, no matter how you try to brush the ground smooth before you go to sleep. Think you’d get used to it, but you don’t. Body keeps remembering how it used to be to sleep in a soft place.
I just ate my last praline. Sucked on it till there was nothing left but sticky fingers, and then I cleaned them up, too. Been eating just one every now and again. Kept them in my shirt pocket, shared a few with some people I know—what few are left, anyway. Faces change so fast you don’t know who’s gonna be there the next day. Keep wondering how God picks which one to take when there’s so many of us out here, all jumbled up like a pile of firewood. How can somebody right beside you . . .
Never mind. I liked the candy, girl. Don’t know how you got the sugar to make pralines, but you were a hero the day they came. How’s your daddy? Still poorly? You tell him Isaiah said he gotta get well. I got a few words to say to him. Him and his big ideas.
Naw, you just tell him I miss him, allright. You, too. Keep up them prayers. We need all we can get.
Love,
Isaiah
— 34 —
After dinner, Isaiah went outside to smoke, looking across the river. Crickets whistled in the undergrowth and a haze of gnats hung near a trumpet vine. Briefly, he considered getting his pole and going fishing, then rejected the idea. Too restless.
All day long, a ghost of Angel had been clinging to his body, an echo of h
er against him this morning, crying her eyes out. His heart had nearly broken when he’d come upon her, looking poor and broken in her old, thin robe, with sleep-mussed hair. Even then, when she was as ordinary as a glass of milk, she did something to him, just like she always had, as long as he could remember. In that minute, he just hadn’t cared anymore about anything except letting her know that as long as he walked the earth, she had a friend.
In the darkness, he smoked and listened to the river swishing against the bank, and thought of her arms around his neck, slim and strong as rope. She’d clung so hard, so tight, that he bent his head and buried his face against her warm neck and sat down and rocked her. He should have done it sooner.
Because that very minute, with Angel curled up in his arms, his own sense of being constantly, eternally, forever solitary had evaporated. Angel had always been the only one. The only other human he could be himself with, the only person he couldn’t stand to think of living forever without—although he had really tried, once upon a time, when Solomon had married her. He thought he’d written her to offer condolences.
An excuse, he saw now. He’d just wanted to hear from her, be in touch with her, remember that there was one person who knew him. He wanted to hear her voice in the words she put on the paper, wanted to think about her pretty laugh and sharp mind. Through the war, her letters sustained him.
Best friend. That’s what he’d told her last night. You couldn’t hate your best friend. And she was that, all right, his best friend in the world. But a man didn’t want to do things to a friend that holding her for five minutes this morning had brought to his mind. A man didn’t think about slipping the old, tired robe from the body of his friend, think of touching the fresh, supple skin below. A man didn’t ache all day with hunger for a friend.
The Sleeping Night Page 21