“It woke me up just now.” She pointed to the window. Above the trees shot brilliant orange flames. A sense of rage and helplessness flooded through him. Panic. “Where’s your God now, Mama? Huh?”
Grabbing his mother’s shotgun, he hobbled out the backyard. Already the bank was lined with the curious and horrified, who watched with sober eyes as the store burned and burned and burned—
He crashed through the river, cursing the weakness of his body—a body that had always stood up to the pressures he inflicted, could go the distance of any punishment, and now failed him with its slowness.
Thick, acrid smoke billowed through the trees, and he felt breathless with pain and fear. In spite of his curses, he couldn’t stop the prayer that formed in his mind, “Oh, God—she loves you. Keep her safe. Keep her safe.”
Have mercy.
He stumbled out of the water, and up the bank. But at the edge of the woods that circled the store, he stopped, heart plummeting. The worn wood burned with abandon, every single inch of it hellishly alight. Nothing in there had survived.
He staggered forward, pierced with grief, unmindful of the searing heat of the fire. He stared at the porch and the step where Angel had sat eating cake . . . where she had kissed him . . . where they had played as children.
As he stared, a plank of pine broke free and sailed outward, landing on what Isaiah had thought to be a pile of discarded clothes. The flames caught, showing instead the body of a man. Isaiah hurried forward.
Bobby Grover. Shot at close range by the look of the hole in his belly.
Good girl.
He whirled, headed for the woods, knowing Angel would have made for the tree house, her refuge. Now stealth would be his ally, not speed. If she was alive, he knew where to find her.
Moving slowly, looking through the smoke and night for something, anything, he crept along the path. The fire roared, drowning even the omniscient sound of the river. He pressed on, listening so hard he thought his ears might bleed.
Faintly came the sound of a voice—and with sick certainty, Isaiah knew where they were. A palpable, physical dread filled him, weighted his limbs and organs for a minute, paralyzing him beneath the trees. The horrors of war and Texas and all the imagined cruelty Edwin could conjure filled him.
Again the dread washed over him, solid as earth, but he had learned as a soldier in battle how to move against it, how to creep through the dark toward the sound of voices coming from the hollow. Arguing men’s voices. His flesh rippled. Quietly, he moved, his bare feet making little sound in the undergrowth.
The night grew blacker as he moved deeper into the forest, away from the sound and light of the all-consuming fire. As the light faded, the dread he felt grew until he felt nearly smothered. He had to push and push against the almost supernatural sense of horror.
And in that terrible darkness, under the weight of his strangling fear for Angel, Isaiah had no choice but to pray. He used the words as he would any weapon at hand—prayed anything, recited words from verses learned in childhood, from songs, from the shouted, rising and falling words of preachers in the pulpit. As he crept through the woods, he chanted the old words as if they had power, like a spell.
In the hollow, a small fire burned. An ordinary campfire, yellow and cheery against the night. Isaiah hid himself and peered through the undergrowth, gun poised. He didn’t see Angel immediately. Tom’s back blocked her from view. A harsh, murmured argument was going on. Tom was disgusted with something Edwin had said.
Isaiah’s dread evaporated. The soldier he was took control. He raised the shotgun and aimed at the burly back of the man in front of him. Tom moved suddenly, shifting a gun from his left hand to his right. Isaiah held off, waiting.
And there was Edwin, crouched on the far side of the fire, Angel gripped in his arms. Her face was streaked and filthy, her hair a tangle, and she wore only a nightgown that was torn and dirty. As Isaiah watched, she licked a bloody cut on her lip, and jerked away from Edwin, who pulled her back with a cackle.
The expression on Edwin’s face renewed Isaiah’s dread. The chuckle was edged with hysteria, and his strange eyes were wild and leaping. He lifted his gun toward Tom. “None o’ this is yours, man,” he said, his voice carrying clearly.
Isaiah sighted again, waiting for a clear shot. An instant later, Edwin loosened his hold to grab a bottle by his feet, and Isaiah fired, diving into the undergrowth for cover. Through a tangle of leaves, he saw Edwin spin sideways, taking the bullet too high.
Angel tore away from him, stumbling in the dirt, scrambling as Tom and Jake whirled, looking for the source of fire. Jake fired wildly into the undergrowth, as if there was a platoon in the woods. Tom bolted for the edge of the clearing, and Isaiah fired cleanly, catching him full in the chest. That one hadn’t been too high, he thought as he ducked to his right through the trees, moving noiselessly as a snake. Another shot sailed wild over his head.
Angel screamed and Isaiah lifted his head to see Edwin, bloodied but still moving, grab her by the hair and head for the opposite side of the clearing.
Goddamn caveman. She kicked and scratched at him, even threw herself down on the ground, tumbling Edwin with her, but with a savage cry, he pulled himself and Angel back to their feet and crashed into the forest.
Isaiah heard Jake moving to his left. Angel’s screams were abruptly silenced, and Isaiah jumped to his feet, struggling to chase the pair. He didn’t break into the clearing, but moved laterally through the trees, keeping one ear cocked for Jake behind him.
He heard the shot whistling through the air before it hit him, hard and hot. He whirled and fired, but knew it was wild. Staggering, he pressed a hand to the wound in his side felt his blood running hot over his hand.
Oh, hell no.
From the other side of the clearing came Angel, shotgun in her hands. Blood stained her nightgown—Edwin’s blood, Isaiah realized as he clutched his side, feeling his life pour through his fingers. Uttering a sound both primitive and savage, Angel leveled the shotgun at Jake and fired point blank. He fell, his face gone.
Isaiah fell to his knees and Angel whirled toward the sound, ready to fire again. She caught sight of Isaiah, and her face went lax for an instant.
The edges of his vision were going black, too fast, much too fast. The ground rose and smashed into him. “Aw, hell, Man,” he muttered to God in weak protest. “Not here.” Then Angel was beside him, weeping, clutching his shirt.
“Isaiah!” she cried. “Don’t you dare die on me!”
“No, baby.”
She stood up. Isaiah watched lazily, almost distractedly, noticing the fire shimmer in her hair, “All right, God,” she said, and he heard a power in her call, even through her tears. “Enough. I claim this man, this man, as mine. You can’t have him yet, you hear me?”
And it seemed to Isaiah as he slipped into lapping darkness that Angel seemed to grow and expand, seeming almost to glow, become light. He reached for her, touching her ankle.
So that’s it, Isaiah thought, and fell into darkness.
“He’s mine!” Angel cried, furious. Tears of anger flowed over her face, and she wanted to add an enticement, and bargain, swear she’d do some big thing in God’s name, but held off. Bending down beside Isaiah, she pressed her hands to the leaking wound, and then remembered something from a movie. Grabbing handfuls of mud and leaves, she slapped the cool material on his body.
Panting, she begged, please God. Please. Please. She hardly knew what she was saying. The earth covered his wound and it seemed to stop bleeding, but Isaiah didn’t stir. Wiping her face, feeling the grit of dirt and blood and heaven knew what else, she bent over him and put her forehead on his chest. The sound of his breath comforted her. She would run across the river for help. “Don’t die, Isaiah. Please don’t die.”
“How come you love that nigger so much, Angel Corey?”
She bolted upright. Not three feet away, a shotgun in his hand, stood Edwin. Blood oozed from the wound
high on his chest. His shirt was soaked with it. Gone was the wild hysteria. A grim, grieving sobriety replaced it, raw and all too human.
Sensing she needed to be calm, she stood up slowly, clutching the gun from Isaiah’s hand, not even sure there were any bullets left in it. She held it loosely at her side. “I don’t know, Edwin,” she said honestly. “It would have been easier to love somebody else, but I always loved Isaiah. Can’t even remember when I didn’t.”
He nodded, gravely, as if the motion gave him pain. “Shame, Angel.” His voice was ragged and tired and bleak. “But I know how it is—that’s how I always loved you.”
Angel gripped the gun in her hand. She had shot the others in panic and a fierce need to survive. Edwin stood before her in a place of agonized recognition, his familiar face shadowed with the demons that had dogged him through his life. How could she kill him?
But she had to get help for Isaiah. “I don’t want to kill you, Edwin, but I have to go.”
“No.” Angel lowered the revolver, but stayed close to Isaiah as Edwin stumbled forward, looking aimlessly around him as if he’d just noticed his surroundings. His face was ghastly white, his eyes too bright as he suddenly whirled, an edge of the insanity back now. “That man prayed like a preacher, you know it?”
Very gently, Angel asked, “Who did?’’
But Edwin seemed not to hear. “He prayed and prayed, singing and hollering. Like to scare me half to death.” He shook his head, eyes fixed on a spot at the edge of the fire. “‘Praise God! Glory!’” he shouted in imitation, and Angel suddenly realized who he must be talking about. “Why’d he pray, Angel? Why’d he sing?”
“Jordan High sang?”
“Top of his voice. Never heard nothin’ like it.” He coughed suddenly, and blood came out of his mouth, and he looked surprised. He clasped a hand to the wound. His knees buckled. Angel glanced at Isaiah, lying still but breathing. She went to Edwin and put a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was very quiet. “Tell me.”
He swallowed and looked down at his hands, covered now with his own blood. “He died. They did all kinds of things to him after, but he died before anybody touched him. From nothing.” Tears welled up in Edwin’s eyes and his lip trembled. His voice was ragged. “He looked right at me, Angel.” He coughed and there was a bubbling sound in the wound.
She touched his hair. “Go on.”
“Looked right at me,” he repeated. “And he said, ‘You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.’” Edwin shuddered. “And then my daddy punched him, but he was already dead. Already dead.” He grabbed her hand. “An’ I’m gonna burn in hell. “ He fell over.
Angel knelt and pulled her hand out of his grip. He stared sightlessly toward nothing, and Angel found she was weeping as she knelt again beside Isaiah. He was breathing evenly, and she kissed him. “Don’t you dare die.” Now that she could leave him safely, surrounded only by ghosts, she ran for the river, and splashed across to find help.
— 41 —
Isaiah was carried on a makeshift stretcher across the river and into his mother’s house. Nothing would do that Angel had to be with him, and nothing anyone said could make her go, not to wash her face or change her bloody clothes. Geraldine brought a blanket to wrap around Angel’s shivering body, and a cup of tea that sat at her elbow ’til it was cold. She clung to Isaiah’s hand all night, praying, not caring what any one said.
Watching her, Geraldine was ashamed for flinging out her accusation to Isaiah, even though she hadn’t meant it at the time. If Isaiah died, Geraldine expected Angel to lie down right beside him and go along.
And for most of the night, there was no doubt at all in Geraldine’s mind that her son would not last the night. The bullet had gone clean through him, and though the wound had been cleaned and patched as well as possible, the blood that had been drained out of him would fill a small pond.
Toward morning, Angel started singing:
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
She sang it over and over and over, rocking back and forth in her shawl of blankets. Louder and stronger every time.
Geraldine was standing in the doorway when Isaiah opened his eyes and whispered, “Angel.”
With a single, joyous cry, Angel sank to her knees by the bed and began to weep, raining kisses over Isaiah’s hand. He smiled weakly and lifted his free hand to touch her head, sighing softly before he closed his eyes again in a more natural sleep.
When Angel awakened, she had no idea where she was—only that she was stiff and achy and grimy. It was Isaiah’s hand that brought her around, finally, his big warm hand curled around her own, and his other, heavy on her hair.
She moved slowly, remembering, to look at him. Still sleeping, but sleeping right. Her throat clutched. “Thank you, God,” she breathed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The house was silent. Angel struggled to her feet. She need a bath, she thought vaguely, some clean clothes, something to eat. There was an empty clawing in her belly.
Wandering out into the kitchen, she found Geraldine at the table, reading her Bible in the quiet. At this simple sight of normal life, Angel swayed, the bitterness in her stomach roiling. Her hands trembled, and she must have made some sound because Geraldine looked up. Seeing Angel, she leapt to her feet and rounded the table. “Are you all right, Angel? You wouldn’t let nobody see if you was hurt—or anything.”
Her meaning was clear. “None of them did anything like that,” she said dully and sank in to the chair Geraldine urged her into. She laughed without humor. “Edwin wouldn’t let them.”
At those words, the horrors came tumbling back into her mind from whatever place she’d shoved them away—and violent kaleidoscopic whirl, she saw them again. Saw Edwin with the gaping hole high in his chest, and Isaiah with his in his side, and Tom with no face and the flames exploding out of from the front of the store, killing Ebenezer and everything her daddy ever worked for.
“Ebenezer died,” she said, then wildly looked at Geraldine, gripping her fingers. “I killed people,” she whispered.
“Oh, Angel,” Geraldine said, and she took her in her arms.
And against the cushiony bosom that had provided a pillow so often in her childhood, Angel wept—great, sobbing tears that washed clean the horror of the night. Geraldine murmured soothing words that meant everything and nothing, and cried right along with her.
When both of them were finished, Geraldine drew a hot bath in the tub in the kitchen and helped Angel into it, then left her alone to wash away the blood and grime, the sticky tears and smell of smoke in her hair. Clean at last, she put on a soft dress of Tillie’s that hung almost to her ankles. She ate the food Geraldine put before her, then went back to Isaiah, curled up next to him, and slept.
Geraldine had to pretend that all was just as it had been. Once Angel was cared for, she put on her work shoes and marched over the bridge as she did every morning, even if it was a bit later than usual.
She had tried to prepare herself for the store, for what remained of it, anyway, but the sight of the smoking, blackened ruins made her feel instantly ill. A crowd of people milled around, the sheriff and his deputies among them. Geraldine spied Horace Walker by Edwin’s truck, and Angel’s aunt Georgia in her big car, looking half-terrified, half-gleeful. There wasn’t a black face among them at all. Only white folks, here for gossip or work.
For a minute, Geraldine paused, breathless with a certain fear that all would be uncovered, and the two she had left safely back at home would somehow still lose. Then she narrowed her eyes and straightened her back.
No bodies would be found. When Angel had come splashing over the river, almost chillingly coherent about Isaiah and all the rest, there had been those who had taken shovels over the bridge, melting into the darkness to do a gruesome, ugly job, at gre
at risk to themselves, for if anyone had come to investigate the fire that could almost certainly be seen in town, they would likely have paid with their lives.
But no one had come. The job was done. Today, Angel and Isaiah would be hidden, too. No trace of any of them would ever be found. It was the only way.
The sheriff spied her. With heavy steps, he approached. “I guess you saw the fire?”
She nodded.
“I reckon Angel’s dead.” His mouth twitched and he cleared his throat. “I know you cared about the Coreys, and I’m sorry.”
Of all the things Geraldine had expected, this wasn’t it. “Thank you, Sheriff.” She bowed her head to hide her relief. “I’ll go and talk with Mrs. Pierson, less you have already. She’ll be making the arrangements, I’m sure.”
He nodded, and for an instant, there was a sheen of tears in his eyes. “She came to me just a few days ago,” he muttered. “Wish to hell I’d done . . .”
Geraldine nodded, then she turned away, passing the milling crowd, the resigned face of Horace Walker and the pinched one of Georgia. When her back was to the mess and crowd, she felt a smile she couldn’t stop spreading wide over her face. There were hurdles yet, but sometimes, the Lord understood about humans.
Sometimes, yes, he cared about just a single pair.
— 42 —
September 22, 1946
Dear Mama,
I know you been sweating bullets, so I’m just writing to let you know we are safe. I’m fine, healing up so fast them doctors oughta write a paper about me. Angel fussed all the way, making me rest about three hours outta every four, so you know it’s all right now.
She’s so happy to be in England—we been to a couple of the castles around here and she lights up like a Christmas tree every time. The folks show you around just love her, cause she asks so many questions and makes them feel good. We’ve seen all kinds of things they don’t usually show people. It’s like they just take her on, even though Yanks are none too popular at the moment with all the problems there are here.
The Sleeping Night Page 27