by Jack Riggs
“Well,” he says, picking up the chain saw. “Let's just hope you don't have to worry too much this time. Peck seems like a good man.”
Better than you could ever be is what I want to say, but I don't. Momma and I stand like sentinels ready to do battle if he tries to get by us and come inside. John Boyd begins to get it, to sense something is wrong. He smiles at Momma. “Mavis, you're awful quiet, cat got your tongue?”
“No, John Boyd, just don't have anything to say.”
I step down to pick up the gas, help him leave. “Let me get this for you.”
“You don't have to do that,” John Boyd says. I hand him the gas and he starts to turn around. “Can I have a word with you, Cassie?”
I look at Momma, then to the door behind which papers are scattered like a bomb has gone off in the house.
I smile, take his arm. “Sure,” I say. “Let's talk while I walk you back to your car.”
At the trunk, John Boyd puts the chain saw down, searches for his keys. “Have you had a chance to talk to Mavis yet?” he asks.
“We've been talking,” I say.
“About the property?” John Boyd's eyes shift back and forth when he speaks, looks around like he wants no one else to hear us.
“We've had some discussion on that,” I say. “But she says the land's hers.”
This seems to deflate John Boyd, his sigh pulling his shoulders down like an old dog that's just lost a scent. “Well, she needs to understand, Cassie.”
“She will, John Boyd. Just give me a little more time.”
“Time's short,” he says. “One day a bulldozer will head up that drive and there won't be a thing I can do about it.”
“I know that,” I tell him. “But you said August, didn't you?”
“I said maybe August,” John Boyd says to correct me. “They're moving fast and might be here sooner. Now you've got to explain to Mavis about the land. If you don't, then I'm going to come up here and do it myself, but that won't be pretty and Mavis will just die if I have to tell her.”
“Like I said, John Boyd, I told her. She thinks the land is hers.”
“And like I told you the other day there's no deed. Now will you please tell her that?” The smile on his face is frozen, forced.
He comes so close, I can feel him breathe. It scares me, his eyes dark, sweat trickling down his temples, running until it disappears into gray sideburns. “I'll keep talking to her, John Boyd. That's all I can promise right now.”
He pulls away, fiddles with his keys until he finds the one to open the car's trunk. Once the saw and gas are safely stored, he turns to push at me one more time. “Cassie, you need to talk to Mavis, now,” he says.
“I told you I would, John Boyd.”
He looks at me hard, tries to push me away with his stare, but I won't give him that. He won't win this time. “I'll let you know when she's ready,” I say. “It'll be by August, just like you said.” I start to walk away.
“Sooner,” he says, his voice rising, but I don't stop. I keep going, my back to him as I meet Momma on the steps.
“Come on,” I whisper, “and don't look back at him.”
We go inside, the screened door slapping against the frame. From the window, we watch John Boyd get in his car, spin tires, the back wheels tearing up Momma's grass.
In the end, the house does not yield a thing. Neither does the attic, where Momma stored boxes from the church after my father died. Out in the shed, there are files and notes, several ledgers from the church. I am hopeful when we find these, dust covered, the edges of the pages nibbled by field mice. But in the end, there is no evidence of the land being conveyed to my father before he died. The ledgers are filled with his handwritten reports on pledges and tithes, church accounts that offer nothing more than proof my father was the pastor for over twenty years.
Momma's hope fades the longer we look and come up empty-handed, her fingers stroking the cross, its tarnished surface little help in making the deed real. “It's not here,” she says. “It's just not here.”
“Is there anywhere else we could look?” I ask.
“No,” she says flatly. “I need to stop this. I don't feel well.”
We take iced tea in the backyard, sit in chairs, and watch the sun pass over Whiteside. “Maybe John Boyd was right,” Momma says. “Maybe I'm just imagining there was a paper because I want there to be one.”
“We've turned the house upside down,” I say, “that's for sure. I really thought the ledgers would help out.”
“He was a very meticulous man,” she says, looking at the cross like my father is there in her hands. “He would have had a deed if we were supposed to have one.” Momma gets up from her chair. “It's two- thirty” she says, surprised by the late hour. “We need to eat something.”
Sitting here watching, I realize how tired I am, how exhausted I have become in all this searching. I want to blame myself for not being a better daughter, for not understanding the terrible ordeal I put my parents through when I got pregnant and they were forced to make choices. I have made decisions all my life, none that were any better than those my parents made. Just look at what I've done lately. Who am I to judge my father, or Momma, or Peck for that matter? I have been able to live my life free of self- judgment by keeping everyone so far away that no one was ever close enough to know me for who I really was.
I can't even tell you one person in Garden City Beach whom I could call my best friend. I have been invisible for the past fifteen years, a chameleon that blended into the background, too afraid because of what I might actually see when I revealed myself. I may have thought Clay Taylor was my way out, but he's really not. I know that now. Our relationship was just me and Peck all over again. Now he's in Walhalla hurting like everyone else. I am sorry for my life, for the way I have treated those who loved me. Searching for this deed has proven fruitless. I don't want that to be the conclusion to the rest of my life. I've got to try to be better with Kelly and this baby growing inside me. I've got to try and work it out with Peck.
I hear the screened door slap shut, Momma's light footsteps bringing her back to the shade of the oak trees where I am ready to apologize for the years that I have been invisible. Momma looks at me with clear and steady eyes. “Come,” she says.
“Where?” I ask, my legs tired and sore.
“Just come with me.”
We walk across the yard in silence. She holds my hand, her other reaching across to clasp my arm and pull us close. She's smiling, the cross held in her fingers, touching against my arm. When we reach the back door to the house, she stops and looks at me. “When I came in, I started thinking about things,” she says. “I was sitting right there in the kitchen and was thinking about Parker and all this mess, and that's when it hit me.”
“What hit you, Momma?”
“The deed,” she says. “I asked Parker out loud just like you told me to.”
“But Momma, I was just—”
“No, Cassie, listen to me. I asked him where the deed to this property was, and then I thought, well, if I go to the Bible for guidance, like Parker always did, maybe the answer would be in the scriptures. Maybe Parker would speak to me through scripture. And there it was.”
“What are you talking about, Momma?”
“The deed was in the scriptures. It was in the Bible.” Momma laughs likes she's crazy, doubles over in silliness. “Parker's Bible,” she says again, “the deed's been there all this time. I just never thought to look.”
When we walk into the kitchen, the deed is on the table, the original deed, not a copy. It is folded and slipped inside a watermarked envelope. When I remove the deed, the paper is crisp, the edges sharp. It is as if the document had just been signed and sealed the day before, no age on it at all. John Boyd's signature is there, written in dark blue ink. And that's not all. With the deed is a letter that John Boyd wrote to my father explaining the conditions of the land exchange, how he would remain the pastor of Whiteside Cove and that in consideration of hi
s duties, the land would be his. It is a general warranty deed, signed and notarized, May 24, 1961. Two days before my father died.
“It never was recorded,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“The deed. It was never recorded because he died before taking it to Sylva.”
“He never told me it had to be taken anywhere,” Momma says.
“Of course not,” I say. “He was planning to do it himself.”
It starts to make sense now. John Boyd gave the deed to my father to register in Sylva. But when he died, that didn't happen. John Boyd let it go, never followed through himself, and now he's trying to cash in. I look at the time. It is three o'clock, time enough. “Get your purse,” I tell her.
“Where are we going?” she asks, a worried look crossing her face. “I'm not dressed to go anywhere. I'm all dirty and my hair's a mess.”
“I don't care,” I say. “We're going to Sylva. If John Boyd finds out we have this, he and his cronies might try to stop us, so we have to hurry.”
It takes a lot more to get Momma into the car, but we manage to leave the house by three- thirty I don't know if the Deeds Office is open past four, but we have no choice. We have to go. The road out to Highway 64 from Momma's runs red with mud, the storms having turned the scarred land bloody. No one is home at John Boyd's—at least all the cars are gone. It worries me a little seeing this, wondering if he has gone to Sylva sensing something wrong, the way I talked to him this morning. I should have kept my mouth shut and not aggravated him. He might be taking some kind of action right this minute to render this deed null and void. Momma watches out for his car along the way while my eyes are glued to the rearview mirror, hoping he hasn't found us out.
We travel behind logging trucks most of the way. Momma sits in the passenger seat with worry all over her face. She twists the cross in her fingers, nervously fidgeting, as I drive too close, taking curves recklessly. When the last truck pulls off of 64, I find empty road in front of me the rest of the way to Sylva.
The courthouse doors are still open, but the basement is dark, the Deeds Office having closed at four. I pound on the door until a light flickers on, a man worriedly coming from the back office to see what all the commotion is about. It's the same man who showed me the deed plot two days ago when Peck was still here. He's in shirtsleeves this time, caught frumpy and unraveled. “We're closed,” he says, waving his hand to go away.
“Wait,” I yell, holding the deed to the window. “I found it,” I say, “the new deed.” He stops for a moment, squints toward the doors until he finally recognizes me.
“We're open tomorrow,” he says. “Eight o'clock sharp.”
“No,” I yell. “That won't do.” I point against the glass door to the clock on the wall next to him. “It's only four- fifteen,” I plead, “and we can't come back tomorrow. You said if I found the deed … well, here it is. You said it could be a case for fraud.”
I think it's the word fraud that captures his interest. He stops for a moment, his eyes staring at the deed I have plastered against the glass door. He rolls his fingers across the counter, looks at the clock, pats the marble top twice, his mind made up, the key in his hand to let us in. I present the document for recording. He checks the signatures, the notary, and then tells me it will be filed first thing tomorrow morning.
“But it's official, right?”
The man takes out a county seal, stamps the document, records the date and time, 4:00 P.M., though it is nearly quarter to five, and then looks up over his glasses at me. “It's official, yes.”
I turn to Momma, take her in my arms and hug her tightly. “The land's yours,” I tell her. “All of it.”
She seems lost by what we have just done, the cross tight in her fist. “The Arnold Palmer's golf course?”
“That too,” I say, smiling at the man, “if you want to let them build it.”
He smiles at Momma, tells her the deed still has to be filed. “But,” he says, “for all practical purposes …” And then he nods his head.
“Can I have two copies?” I ask.
He doesn't like having to do more, but he takes the deed and walks quietly into a back room where I can hear a machine warming up, then laboring to print a copy. When he returns he asks for a dollar, points to a sign that reads 50 cents per copy, and so I fish out the money from my purse. “Thanks,” I say. “You were great.”
The man smiles, follows us to the door to make sure he gets it locked behind us. I stand in the basement of the courthouse for a minute longer, looking at the copies of Momma's property deed. It is proof of my father's good work, proof of my mother's ownership of the land.
When we leave the courthouse, I am suddenly tired, Momma remembering she never made us lunch. She spots a small diner on Main Street in Sylva. It's near closing time, but the young waitress is patient, let's us sit and take our time. My stomach cramps a little to take away my hunger. Still I try to eat and not let Momma see that I don't feel well. I think of that night when Peck and I were just starting out, how different this dinner is, yet how they are connected in so many ways, both trying to change misfortune into something good. I want to enjoy this for a little bit longer, so I remain quiet, picking at my food.
When we are done, I pay the bill, and leave a big tip for the young girl who waited so patiently. We walk to the car, the copies of the deed held tightly in my hand. I tell Momma that there is one more thing I want to do before we head back to the house. “We need to pay a visit to a dear old friend, I say.”
“Who?” she asks.
I take her by the arm, hold her close. “You'll see.” And then we walk in silence.
When we are in Cashiers, off Highway 107, I slow down and look for John Boyd's house. It sits in the darkness like it has been abandoned, all the cars missing in his yard. I pull over, stop in front, and tell Momma to wait while I go to the door. I cross the front yard, my eyes scanning the property, afraid at any moment John Boyd will jump out from one of the dark shadows and catch me trespassing.
My hands are shaking when I reach the front porch and then deliver to the mail slot the best piece of bad news John Boyd will ever get in his life. I fold a copy of the deed like a letter to be mailed, write bluntly the words Don't trespass on Momma's land again, and slip it quickly through the mail slot. The feathery sound of paper hitting floor inside assures me that the message has been delivered. “Thanks for taking care of Momma,” I whisper.
I run back feeling like a schoolgirl. Momma's face is lit by the dashboard lights, her eyes glaring out into the dark, worriedly searching for me until I reach the car and unlatch the door. As I slide into the driver's seat, she says, “Are you sure we should do this?”
“Momma, it's your land,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “But it seems so reckless the way John Boyd can be.”
“What's reckless is what he did to you. It's your land and John Boyd needs to know that, right now, right this minute.”
The distance we put between the Bel Air and John Boyd's house eases Momma back. I can feel her relax as she touches my arm, breathes deeply before she speaks. “You know, I'm glad you did this,” she says.
“Momma, you don't need—”
“No,” she interrupts, “you need to hear this, Cassie. I'm telling you this from me and your father. You did a good thing today.”
“Well I don't think John Boyd's going to be all too happy about it,” I say. “Probably best not to answer the door when he comes to visit next time.” I accelerate down the road, the Bel Air slipping underneath us in the mud. “In the morning, I want to find a good lawyer,” I tell her. “I have a feeling we're going to need one.”
We are quiet the rest of the way, exhausted from all that has happened. I think about calling Peck to tell him about the deed, but also to talk about us—how the adventure of the past two days has revealed all that is good in my life. I keep this to myself, though. I don't want to share it with Momma right now. I drive on, si
lently keeping to the road as best I can until my headlights find the front drive, and we are back at Momma's house.
Peck
NOBODY SLEEPS. There's too much adrenaline tonight, too much unknown about this one. We usually don't know when something catastrophic is coming. Most of the time the fire bell rings, we get up, take the call, and are off to some sort of disaster that five minutes ago we had no idea even existed. I've been doing this long enough now to sleep easy in the bunk room. It's almost my first home. If you can't settle down while on rotation, you're going to burn out. I've seen it happen more than once. You make your call, do your duty, and then let it go, come home to clean the equipment, fill out the paperwork, or climb into bed and sleep. That's what we usually expect of our lives down here. But this thing inland is different. It's all over television, the local news making big hay over the fire, so we know before we're even told whether or not we will go in that it's bad out there, one of the biggest fires in the history of South Carolina. Mark my word, we're going in.
Still we try to act like it's nothing different. J.D. takes one of the cots out of the bunk room and gives it to Lori. She's sleeping over the next couple of nights because Strachen's told everyone they have to stay on duty. She'll run dispatch out of the station, keep the line open with Surfside so we can stay in touch. When we settle down, there's a lot of tossing and turning in the dark. No one says anything. No one wants to be accused of keeping anyone else awake, but we're not sleeping—nobody, not a single fireman.
It gives me too much time to think about things, Pops and Cassie. It's all so twisted and messed up, everything balancing on an edge that I can't get to. I can't reach out, grab them and pull them back. I can't stop any of it. I don't think Pops is going to make it. He didn't look good when I saw him tonight. And then there's Cassie and Clay. I'm so frustrated by what they've done. I put it out there to Cassie before I left, that we could work something out if she wanted, but I don't know how a baby would fit into all of that. I guess it can't if it's Clay's baby. Although if I let myself imagine it, I can see us raising that child as ours, no matter who the father is.