“I don’t know,” Margot answers. “What else did she say?”
I try to remember, but for a moment all I can recall is Celia Hicks’s smile, the way her makeup made it look as if her face might crack.
“Nothing. The entire exchange couldn’t have lasted more than a minute. At first Essie asked her mother if Pastor Hicks might have some books that I could borrow, to learn about the founding of the town, that sort of thing. Then Celia Hicks said I should just go to the library. I think she didn’t want to be bothered and I thought Essie might be disappointed, but she agreed so readily that I should visit the library that I figured it must have been what she wanted all along. She just didn’t want to be the one to say it.”
“And then?”
“And then they left. They walked away. Really, that was the entire exchange.”
“So maybe she actually just wanted you to learn some history. Maybe it’s no more complicated than that. Judging by the dust, no one else has been up here in ages, even with the impressive bust the librarian’s family paid for. Maybe Essie thought someone should give these books another chance.”
“What did you say?”
Margot shrugs. “Maybe she felt bad that these books had been forgotten. She’s an odd kid. You have to admit that.”
“No, the other thing. The bust. Essie said something about looking into Reverend James’s eyes.”
The bust stands on a pedestal between two shelves. I hurry over to peer at it. Livingston James was a plump man, with very little hair on his head, a deficit he seemed to have thought he could make up for with the tangle of whiskers on either side of his face. Mama would have said he had been hit with the ugly stick, but she wouldn’t have said this when she knew I was listening. His milky eyes look hollow. The piece is altogether a little frightening.
“He’s hideous.” Margot’s voice comes from just behind my shoulder and I jump.
“He was a man of the people.”
“Which people? He looks more like a monster you would warn children about in a fairy tale.”
I lay a hand against the cool marble, then run my fingers over and under the rim of the pedestal and all the way down to the floor. There’s nothing there. I stand and brush the dust off my hands, all at once aware of how foolish I have been.
“I guess I was wrong,” I say. “There’s nothing here after all. Let’s go. We have a long drive home.”
Margot places Rosalind James’s diary back on its shelf and straightens the books around it so that it looks as if we were never here. I give the room one last glance, then throw out my hands in surrender and make my way toward the stairs. I am already partway down when I hear Margot’s voice coming from above me.
“Stop.”
I jog back up the steps and stand beside her at the entrance to the room. She’s examining a portrait of the reverend that is no more appealing than the bust. The canvas is largely covered in various shades of black so that the white collar that supports Livingston James’s double chin is in stark contrast to the background. The eyes I’m gazing into are porcine slits perched atop a pair of ruddy cheeks.
I frown. “This isn’t any better.”
Margot shakes her head. “I know. I’m going to have nightmares about those jowls. But look.”
She points at the film of dust that has settled on the frame. There is one place where it has been brushed away, as if someone had rested a finger on it. Slowly I reach out and put my own thumb into the negative space the absence of dust has created. Using the thumb as an anchor, I can reach around beneath the frame with my other fingers and slip them up behind the painting. I pat blindly, not sure what I hope to find, and then I feel a rough edge of crinkled tape that gives way to something smoother, well-suited for wrapping birthday presents. Scotch was not even a company when this painting was framed. There is no reason for tape of that sort to be stuck to the back of it. I stretch my hand further and then I feel it, a small raised bump, nothing more.
“There’s something back here,” I tell Margot, “only I can’t quite reach it.”
“Here,” she says and reaches around me to gently pull the corners of the frame ever so slightly forward. I slip my hands up in the space she’s created and now I can feel the edges of the object. It’s square, an inch or so long at most and flat enough that no one would have noticed it if they hadn’t been looking.
Carefully I pry it up and work at the underside of the strip of tape to ease it off the painting’s backing. Then all at once it comes free and I’m holding the red square in my hand. I turn the flash drive over and finally close my fist around it.
“What do you think is on there?” Margot asks.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
* * *
—————
I resist the urge to plug the drive into my laptop right away. Something about the lengths Essie had gone to to hide it makes me want to get out of town as quickly as we can. Margot insists on driving and I don’t protest. I’m trembling as I lower myself into the car and it has nothing to do with the espresso. I’m certain now that I was right to worry about Essie all along. No one who is happy to be walking down the aisle hides a flash drive and then sets out a trail of bread crumbs for the only reporter she knows is on her side.
Once the car is parked and Margot has left to meet her wife, I take the stairs to my apartment two at a time. I’m already pulling the drive out of my pocket as I walk in, but I immediately stop short and shove it down again. Mike is blocking the entrance, arms folded, dark eyes narrowed.
“I thought you said you would call her.”
I slip off my shoes and stow my bag in the closet in order to avoid the confrontation. When I can delay no longer, I turn around and shut the closet door behind me.
“I will. I promise,” I assure him.
“When?” he asks. He is clearly not impressed.
“You know what she wants to talk about.”
“I do,” he agrees, too quickly. “Quentin Ames is up for parole. Your mother told me. She left messages on your voicemail every day last week, which you ignored, and now she’s calling here. I shouldn’t have answered, but she called five times in a row and eventually I broke down. I can’t be in the middle of this. You know what will happen if I am.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, but you do have to tell her. Because if you don’t, then I will. She has a right to know.”
“You don’t know what it would do to her.”
Mike shakes his head and finally backs up, letting me come farther into the room.
“I do know, remember? Because I watched it happen to you.”
I walk past him and throw myself down onto the couch. The truth is, Mike is right and there is no way around it. I should have told her a long time ago. I would have, maybe, if we had still been speaking. It would have just come out—how could it not? In between telling her about the new steak house that opened down the street or why I hate my boss, it would have slipped out, how everything she thought she knew about how her daughter died simply wasn’t true.
* * *
—————
At first it was fun. It was like a sleepover. The younger kids especially were excited, giddy at the change. For Justice and me, though, things felt pretty close to normal, as strange as that might seem. We were in a different place, but we still did chores in the morning and the afternoon and, in between, we had school with Mama. Justice could read much better than I could, I remember that, though she sometimes pretended not to know a word. She would ask me for help and I would make her sound it out, even though I knew her confusion was just an act. Then she would flash a grateful smile and bury her head back in her book.
There were plenty of books to choose from once Ames and Pa and some of the other men broke into the visitor center, though the subject matter
was limited to the area’s geography and a few volumes of colored illustrations useful for identifying local birds. Before we moved into the visitor center, we prayed and cooked and slept under the stars. Black Rock was still open to tourists then, with twice-daily guided tours through some of the deeper caves. Quentin Ames had printed off some flyers announcing the occupation, but really I think no one in town took him seriously. Three weeks had passed before anyone realized that we were there.
Ames had chosen a small clearing near the perimeter of the park for our initial settlement. There was a cave nearby that he said was sacred and from which he claimed the Messiah would rise again. At the time, I didn’t question this. I took everything he said for truth. We came and went as needed through the Laramies’ back pastures, which abutted Black Rock near a trail that led almost directly to the camp. It was still warm, but even then it was clear that Ames was preparing for the winter. He himself never left the park grounds, but he would send Pa and Mo Laramie and some of his other most trusted followers back into town to stock up on supplies. Canned goods went into the cave to the right of the one reserved for the Messiah, while guns were kept to the left. By the time a ranger spotted our encampment and called in the Feds, we had enough Spam to last for months.
We moved to the visitor center in stages. The men went first, carrying rifles. By then the tourists had been asked to leave, but additional law enforcement had yet to arrive. The few staff that remained were still inside the visitor center when Pa and Quentin stormed the small shingled building. Pa took the time to pick the lock even though Ames had urged him to skip that part and just break down the door. Pa would be punished for his disobedience, publicly, but Mama whispered to me and Justice that Pa did it because he knew we would need that door later, would need it to keep out the cold.
Ames didn’t take hostages. He said he had no use for nonbelievers and that they would only distract from what we had been called to Black Rock to do. To witness. We moved camp quickly while the naturalists, some of whom I recognized from town, scurried off in their matching brown shirts and name tags in the direction of the main road. In the meantime, Ames set up a perimeter that protected the trails back to the cave, claiming that acreage as our own. He barked out orders to the adults and then turned his gaze on us.
Besides Justice and me, there were eight other children, not counting the Niccols boys, who at fourteen and fifteen wanted everyone to believe that they were grown men. Though Ames was laughing and joking loudly with some of the other men when Mama hurried us past them and into the visitor center, she moved furtively and her voice sounded scared. We huddled together in the corner, the older children comforting the younger, when Mama left us so she could return to the caves to fetch more supplies. Mama was still gone when Quentin Ames took five-year-old Virginia Murphy roughly by the hand and led the sobbing girl outside. We followed because we knew we had to and I saw Ames tug Ginny once more by the arm and then let go. He picked up a stick and sliced its pointed end through the dusty ground.
“There,” he commanded, “play.”
I looked at the ground and saw that Ames had carved the rough outlines of a hopscotch court. Ginny remained frozen, clutching at her wrist where Ames had grabbed it.
“Play,” he said again and his voice was dangerous.
“We need a pebble,” Justice demanded, apparently unafraid.
“There’s no shortage of them here,” Ames replied, throwing his arms out to either side. “Find one for yourselves.”
Ames sauntered back toward the visitor center, kicking up dust with his boots, and Mo Laramie handed him a rifle. The two men leaned against the building in the shade of the porch and watched Justice. Mo spat out a wad of soggy tobacco into a patch of dry grass. My sister stood with her hand on one hip and surveyed her surroundings. She kept her back toward the men. Then she skipped forward and bent to collect a smooth black stone. She turned it over in her hand, running her fingers across the surface and finally brushing it against her jeans to rub it clean. Justice handed the rock to me.
“You go first,” she offered.
I glanced over her shoulder to Quentin Ames.
“Don’t mind them,” she told me. “Go ahead.”
I took the pebble from her and threw it.
We had all gone two or three times at least when the first of the squad cars rolled up. It kept its distance, stopping a ways off where the driveway turned to dirt and the welcome sign was mounted on top of a small rise. Virginia Murphy stood frozen on one foot. It looked like she might start to cry again. We all watched the officer climb out, moving slowly and careful to remain protected by the vehicle. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Ames and the other men weren’t hiding their guns. The officer waited until three other cars screeched to a halt beside his and then he pulled out a bullhorn.
“Quentin,” the voice crackled, “what on God’s green earth do you think you’re doing?”
The officer took off his hat and wiped a cloth over the top of his head. I recognized him as Derrick Cumberland, who was a few years younger than my father but older than Quentin Ames. Derrick had been the captain of the high school track team the year Uncle Court, Mama’s brother, had been a senior and they got all the way to the state championship. Of course, they lost to Nixville, but you would never know it the way Court tells the tale.
So Derrick Cumberland and the men on the porch may not have been friends, but they weren’t strangers. There were no strangers in our town, except for the tourists who were only passing through. People kept to themselves. Their children might not go to school. But even so, each one of us was essentially a known quantity. Not Quentin, though. Unlike Pa and Court and Derrick, who had all come up through school together, Quentin Ames was an outsider. He didn’t move to town until he was nineteen. His parents had died or else he’d left them: I’d heard it told both ways. Even after the siege had ended and they were writing books about him, the facts were fuzzy. But the man himself never seemed that way when you were standing face-to-face with him. He looked crisp and sharp despite his rumpled shirt and unwashed jeans. He demanded attention. He drew the eye.
The eye of Derrick Cumberland, for instance, never left Quentin Ames as he stepped out of the shade and protection of the porch. There were half a dozen others flanking the entrance to the visitor center, but the officers kept their guns trained on Quentin Ames. He walked forward, his rifle held casually at his side, and stopped in the middle of our forgotten game. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and lifted an arm to place a hand on my head.
“A beautiful day to be enjoying the land, don’t you think?”
Ames spoke clearly but softly. Still, it was obvious that Officer Cumberland and the others had heard him well enough.
“This is federal property,” Derrick shouted, his bullhorn forgotten at his side.
“This land belongs to the Lord,” Quentin Ames countered.
Derrick turned his head slightly to listen to what another one of the officers was saying, then called out, “The United States government would respectfully disagree. You all are going to have to clear out.”
Ames stooped over and retrieved our black stone. He handed it to Justice and motioned for the rest of us to back up off the hopscotch court. Justice took the rock and held it in her outstretched hand. She glanced over at Pa. He must have nodded in response to whatever question was in that look because she took a step back and tossed the pebble onto a square. Ames chuckled softly as Justice hopped and then spun around, the stone once again in her hand.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said to both no one and everyone all at the same time.
* * *
—————
I tend to think of this as one of my last memories of Justice, but the truth is, by the time she died, we had been at Black Rock for more than 120 days. Thanksgiving had come and gone and though Quentin Ames led the group i
n a prayer about all that we had to be thankful for, I was angry to be eating Spam and boiled potatoes instead of turkey smothered in Mama’s cranberry sauce, and the sweet potatoes with little marshmallows melted on top. I was more than a little frightened of the cold, which had rolled in with the end of summer and seemed to blow straight through the walls. The snow helped some, when it fell in drifts taller than Justice and me. At least it blocked the wind.
When Ames called out to me, Mama was knitting stockings—I could hear her needles—and although Christmas was just around the corner, the stockings were not for holding presents. They were for our feet. Mo Laramie had nearly lost a toe when a storm started up while he was out hunting. It took him hours to drag himself back through the squall with only a few squirrels to show for all his trouble. Mama made the fire as big as she dared, then heated some water to soak the foot in while Mo cursed and spat and yelled at Lou Ann to be more careful as she pulled off first his boot and then his frozen sock.
I play these memories over in my head every so often because as much as I hate them, I don’t want to forget. I try to remember if I was even frightened or if that was just something I added in later, when the shrinks and the social workers handed me crayons and encouraged me to draw pictures that would tell them each of the many ways I was broken deep inside. Knowing that fear was what they expected, I told them how Justice and I had clung together, four arms and four legs all tangled together in our sleeping bag, and cried ourselves to sleep at night. But we didn’t. We giggled. We sang songs. We played with our flashlights for ages after we had been told to turn them off. For a long time after the day Quentin drew the hopscotch court, it all seemed like one big game.
Even that last morning, the one when Justice followed orders and I didn’t, I wasn’t hiding beneath my covers because I was afraid of what might happen if I went to Ames when I was called. I wasn’t saved by some sixth sense, some silent warning, some instinct of the forces that had been building up outside. It was because I was cold, it was because I was lazy that I got left behind. I would have gotten up if he had told me to just one more time. But he didn’t. For whatever reason, he was satisfied to go with only Justice, and they went outside, the two of them, into the deep drifts of snow. It was my laziness that killed my sister. If there had been two of us, the shooter would have never fired. Pa told me so even before we knew for sure that she was dead.
The Book of Essie Page 19