If the Creek Don’t Rise

by Leah Weiss

  Sheriff Sykes put me in jail once to make the point he could—it was a lucky break for him that don’t happen again. Being sixteen back then, I might have been too high and mighty to get behind the wheel of Boomer’s 1940 Ford used for moonshine deliveries, but I won’t admit it to nobody that day nor since.

  Under the hood, that car had a Lincoln engine, a flathead V-eight out of a ambulance, with twice the power of any sheriff’s car. Boomer had outfitted it with a extra gas tank to hold the shine. Extra stiff springs and two shocks in the front carried the extra weight. You could put a hundred and thirty gallons of likker in that car, and it would sit smack level with the road. Billy still talks bout that car today and me going full on. I set speed records in the dark I never could claim in daylight.

  I can still feel the fine tune of that fifteen-inch black steering wheel in my hands and the rumble under the gas pedal. That big sloped trunk was sexy as shit. I blackened the wide whitewalls so they don’t shine in the dark. Dulled the chrome on the flashy grill and bumpers, too. I thought I knowed it all.

  Sheriff Sykes and me was opposites. He followed the straight line happy as a coonhound, and I felt strangled by the straight line. He hated my guts. Back then, Loyal Sykes was a greenhorn deputy like I was a greenhorn runner. He wanted to make a name for his self early on, and he got word of a likker delivery and me part of the deal. Here we was, two hard heads who wanted to make our mark that night, but don’t know what’s gonna happen.

  I did my homework. I studied the delivery route for two solid days cause it crossed two county lines. Knew every dip, curve, and straightaway. Knew the shortcuts I’d use if there was roadblocks. Ate a light supper so nerves didn’t upset my constitution. Don’t drink much the hours before so I won’t need a piss along the way and lose focus.

  The good driver gotta have rare skills to drive in the pitch-black on these mountain roads. I knew guys who bailed outta their car in the middle of the chase and let the shine and the car go up in flames rather than get caught. That won’t delivering the goods. I got more pride than that.

  The night, Sheriff Sykes arrested me for half a minute. I’d finished my first run and felt smug. I moseyed back on the main road easy, then the sheriff pulled me over.

  I’d forgot to turn on the damn headlights.

  The car don’t have moonshine in it, and the money was hid inside the door panels. The sheriff kept eyeing them door panels and was fixing to pull out his switchblade, ready to cut, but he needs the judge’s signed paper to cut into them door panels, and he don’t get it. The judge is one of ours. I was out a jail before breakfast, and waved at Sheriff Sykes when I passed his desk. He won’t happy.

  • • •

  I stop, and the body in the tarp bumps into the back of my legs.

  “Here’ll do,” I say.

  Here is a crack in the shale wide enough to slide the bundle in, and deep enough to be outta sight. I lay my end down gentle. Billy drops his. I’m fixing to smack him. He gets fatheaded is what happens now and again. My fault cause I give him too much credit, and then he starts believing it.

  “Give me a sec,” I say.

  Billy looks irked when I stop before I dump Darlene’s body. He backs up a bit and looks off into the woods with a twitch in his jaw. I don’t need him acting pissed.

  I reach in my pocket and pull out the gold locket I give Darlene at the start that hung round her neck till I broke it. A rose on the front with a sparkly stone in the middle, with the gold dull on the backside. I kiss that part and think I taste her perfume, and think to hell with Billy if he sees.

  I slip the chain under the tarp rope so it’ll go with her to her grave, and it glints in the sunshine like light on creek water.

  Damn if my hands don’t shake when I reach to push her! I swallow the bile in my throat and push anyway. The bundle drops outta sight, then I hear the cushy thud, and pebbles scatter. She lands in the dark where she needs to stay.

  I can hardly breathe my chest hurts so. I scream “Dar-lene!” and fling wide my arms, and feel the hurt let loose. Her ghost name flies out into the stinky air and spills into the hollers like lost treasure.

  I sit on my haunches and don’t wanna look at the crack in the earth where Darlene went, so I look out on the ridge beyond the shale. Old crows sit at the top of a hemlock and stare at me. Every one of them birds looks my way. A breeze ruffles their feathers, but they just stare. Don’t even call out.

  I stand and hurl a rock at em, which is stupid. Then I throw another and another, till my shoulder hurts, and I feel like a helpless old man.

  The nasty crows stay put. I swear them beady eyes lock right on me. I stand quick, wipe my snot nose on my shirtsleeve, and head back cross the slippery shale, sure-footed, done with all the lugging and the dead for the day. I won’t feel sorry-assed for myself no more.

  I move down the hill fast. I want the stink of rotten eggs gone from my nose and skin, and from the back of my throat. I need to scrub with hot water and soap. I need to sleep a long night in my own bed.

  I move fast down the mountain to spite Billy. He slips and cusses and falls as he tries to keep up.

  Sadie Blue

  It’s been seventy-one days since me and Roy bothered a man’s liver-and-onion dinner to say I do, and Daddy’s miffed at me. Him and me don’t talk since I lost my baby three weeks back at Miss Kate’s, then come back to Roy’s trailer. But today I’m gonna change things. I hope Daddy’s spirit voice will come back to me then. I miss him.

  I still wear my bloody dress from last night’s beating and move gimpy slow down the hall this morning, wiggling another loose tooth with my tongue, seeing outta one eye, and holding my side. Roy beat up on me for the last time and don’t even know it. He got seventy-one chances to do right by me and messed up every one of em.

  This morning he sleeps in his chair in front of the bootleg TV that works some of the time. The floor round him is messy with scraps a food, beer cans, and a half-empty jar of hooch. His head hangs to the side, and drool runs out the corner of his mouth. I click off the TV all fuzzy, pick up trash, put on coffee, wrap a thick sweater round me, and step outside. Frost coats leaves and branches, sparkling in the early light so I have to squint against the bright. I stretch my sore back careful and breathe in gentle cause yesterday’s beating makes it hard to do the simple things.

  Percy comes outta the bushes, and a line Miss Shaw told me drifts to the front of my mind. The fog comes on little cat feet… He wraps his silky self round my ankles, and I close my eyes to feel the softness better. I say, “I see you, little kitty-kitty, but I’m too sore to bend down and love on you.”

  “You too sore to bend down for me?”

  Roy Tupkin stands in the doorway scratching his crotch and yawns wide. His spittle’s thick and dry on his lips. His T-shirt stained. When I pay him no mind, his face pulls tight and turns dangerous.

  “Pack two lunches. Me and Billy going hunting,” he says, then he adds with a sneer, “And clean yourself up. You look like shit.”

  I go inside and pack two lunches, then stay outta his way while he downs hardtack, drinks coffee, and grabs his hunting gear. I see through the window Billy shows up and stands in the yard, hunched over in his oversize camouflage coat with the hood up against the morning’s cold, smoking a cigarette, waiting like usual. I don’t let myself think long on the trouble them two get away with, wiggling out from under the law, but sometimes it come in the yard—stink on shoes, blood on clothes, and questions pinned lopsided in the air. They been luckier than their lot deserves.

  Billy catches sight of me in the window. When Roy opens the trailer door, his buddy gets up on tiptoes and looks past him at me and whistles. “What she do this time?”

  Roy don’t answer. He don’t need a reason.

  They leave single file and walk the worn path, Billy at the rear like always. He cuts a funny look back at me and I
turn away, tired of it all.

  I pour a cup of strong coffee and drink it sitting at the table, looking into them woods where Roy and his shadow walked off to hunt on the neighbor’s ridge, ignorant.

  Roy don’t know my backbone’s different today, hardened by sorrow and loss.

  He don’t know I’ll take my chances with my Maker but not get beat one more time.

  He don’t know he’s going down for the count of ten, and this time I win.

  A song from Miss Loretta Lynn bubbles up soft inside my head. When I figure what she sings, I smile sad. It’s her hit with Mr. Ernest Tubb called “Mr. and Mrs. Used To Be.” She’s singing it slow in my head, and in that song Mr. Tubb sings tender bout his woman leaving and the good at the start that’s gone bad. I don’t know why Miss Loretta picked that song to bother me by. It don’t fit for me and Roy but it’s still a pretty tune.

  I rinse my chipped coffee cup in the sink and put on Daddy’s hunting coat, humming easy with Miss Loretta. The long cuffs hang over my fingertips. I walk to the shed for a shovel with Percy by my side, then down the dirt trail to the ditch where hemlock grows. I hear gunshots and wonder if it’ll be rabbit or squirrel coming home for Roy Tupkin’s last supper. I push the pointy shovel deep into the soil. Pull out the roots, shake off the dirt, and fill the hole. Drag the shrub home and free the roots with a hatchet and hide the rest in a gully under dead leaves.

  “You work smart, girl.”

  Daddy’s back! I clutch at my heart in joy to hear him again.

  Daddy, where you been?

  “I been close. Watching. Waiting for you to turn brave.”

  Today’s the day. Don’t go way.

  “I won’t miss it for the world. I’m here, sweet girl. Now you be careful of that mousy smell when you boil them hemlock roots. Don’t wanna tip him off.”

  Birdie give me the recipe. Percy’s gonna help.

  I fill a wash pan to the top with chopped hemlock roots. Then fill the wash pan with water so the poison roots soak. I scrub them roots clean, then scrub em again, rubbing off the purple skin to the white flesh of the root. I dump the lot into my canning pot. Birdie says the secret to good hemlock poison is a eagle’s claw dropped into the roiling water. She says, “The hemlock roots gonna turn him mighty sick, but this here eagle’s claw tears out the heart of a evil man. Roy Tupkin’s gonna die for sure.”

  Now, back inside the trailer, the water boils and the plan cooks.

  • • •

  I go out in the yard, get down on my knees—careful to spring the steel trap under leaves guarding Roy Tupkin’s private hooch he don’t share with nobody—then carry the jars inside, unscrew the metal tops, and pour a cup from each jar down the drain.

  I strain the boiled hemlock root through muslin three times like Birdie said to, then strain it again for luck till the poison is as clear as spring water and the eagle claw sits cooling on the counter. I pour a cup of poison in each jar and swirl it in the likker. To my nose, it smells like hooch, but my hands shake when I screw lids back on the jars and wipe the outside with a rag. It won’t do for me to break a jar, so I breathe deep and slow down.

  “This gonna work?”

  It’ll work, Daddy.

  It’s gotta work.

  I put the jars back—alongside the stink of a dead rat Percy brung me—reset the trap, and cover my tracks. Wash up at the sink and scrub the poison pot with extra elbow grease. Put on cabbage to cook to cover the hemlock smell. Change into a clean dress and put on a thick sweater against the chill of the last day of October.

  Birdie told me, “Tonight that harvest moon will rise. A watching moon. A blue moon on All Hallows’ Eve to turn midnight into daylight. Nights like this, Sadie, don’t come but a handful of times. A army of haints is gonna walk these hills in the moonlight. They help you if you ask em to.”

  It’s how come I picked tonight to kill Roy Tupkin.

  • • •

  I run a comb through my hair, being careful of the sore knots on my head. Then I sit at the Formica table with my knees together and my backbone straight. Percy sleeps on my lap and warms my empty belly. I wait as light leaks outta the sky, and I hum. When I listen, I find I’m humming Patsy Cline’s big hit, “I Fall to Pieces,” and I stop and fall silent cause that message won’t serve me right today. I can’t fall to pieces when I gotta keep it together.

  The silence round me feels different from other days. It’s peaceful and heavy at first, like a crazy quilt made of all the hurts of my seventy-one days as Roy Tupkin’s wife, but now I add worry to the border of silence and can’t help myself.

  I wonder… When I go to church will sin sit on my skin like scabs? Will Preacher Perkins point a finger at the dark in my heart? Will Miss Shaw shut me outta her days? Will Aunt Marris love me still?

  I wonder… Did I get rid of all the pieces of my crime? Did I cover my tracks good? Will Roy know his private hooch got moved and tastes different? Is the trap set right? Did I make a dumb mistake that’ll mean the death of me?

  Sweet Jesus, help me. I clutch my hands together in desperate prayer. I promise to be good after this. All I want is to not get beat up. Find my special life. Live up to my potential. Read by myself. Kill Roy Tupkin.

  If I live through this night and days beyond and get Roy buried in the ground, I’ll sell jelly at the roadside like I done before. I’ll help Miss Kate at school. Tattler can help find me a dog to keep me safe. That dog can stay inside when weather’s harsh and I need the beat of a strong heart beside me.

  Percy stretches out his hind leg, eyes closed, body soft.

  Life’s gonna be different, Percy.

  Percy likes it when I rub behind his ears.

  We won’t live scared. Won’t watch for the kick of that man’s boot. The snap of his temper. The strike of his hand. We’ll sing with Miss Loretta every day if we want to.

  If we wait a little longer.

  If my plan works. Oh, merciful Lord, please make my plan work.

  • • •

  A voice flies outta the air. “Sadie, you in there?”

  I jump from the sound. It won’t Roy Tupkin or Daddy’s voice. My heart thumps against hurt ribs. I stand too quick, knock Percy off my lap. My knees give way and I have to push against the table to stand.

  “Sadie, come out here,” Billy yells louder. “Roy done got shot.”

  My hand quivers when I reach for the knob and open the door. The harsh setting sun hurts my eyes, and I shield em with trembling fingers to make out shadowy shapes in the yard. I step down from the trailer into the chilled twilight where Roy Tupkin’s body lays on a makeshift stretcher of saplings roped together with vines. Over his heart, his camouflage coat has a dark patch the size of a pie.

  I circle the body, confused at what I see. All this time I wished the devil would take Roy Tupkin’s sorry soul into the hellfires and leave me be. Now this.

  “What happened?” I ask in a small voice with arms limp by my sides, eyes on Roy’s body.

  “I brung him home for you. The rifle went off when…”

  Billy’s voice fades and my ears listen for scraps of Daddy, but he picked now to be gone again. Every hair on my body itches, and a sick shudder runs through me. I let out a big breath that turns cloudy in the frosty air.

  Does this mean I been saved? That I can break the proof against the rocks? That my crime will seep into the soil? That I can tell Miss Shaw my life finally turned into something awful good?

  Oh my Lord! Did Roy’s eyelashes flutter? Did his chest rise under that bloody jacket?

  My eyes ache to see what’s truth in the waning light, and I press my knuckles to my mouth. What if this is a nasty trick? It’d be like Roy Tupkin to smear deer blood on his coat, then pop up and laugh like a crazy man. Billy would be in on it. He always does what Roy Tupkin says without a thought of his own. I don’t under
stand that kind of unnatural loyalty. But sometimes I think Roy needs Billy more than the other way round.

  I inch toward the trailer door and keep my eyes on Roy. “What you say happened?”

  When Billy don’t say, I look at him for the first time. His face looks loony and dopey. He’s grinning, for heaven’s sake! He steps toward me and reaches out his hand.

  He touches me!

  He drags his stubby finger down my throat where my heartbeat thuds in the hollow.

  My legs want to fold under me when his hand grazes my collarbone and slides over the rise of my breast.

  Billy leans in and whispers, “I done it for you.”

  He done what for me? Killed Roy? Roy thought Billy was a nobody. Billy’s crazy is what he is.

  He walks away, chuckling, and I shudder, watching his weasel body head down the path he’ll walk to my door tomorrow. I look down at my dead husband who looks small. I look at this tin can of a trailer that don’t look bad in the dusky light. I straighten my back, lift my chin, and call out in a strong, strange voice I claim as mine.

  “Hey, Billy.”

  He turns.

  “Why don’t you take Roy’s moonshine? He won’t be needing it now.”

  Reading Group Guide

  1. Life in 1970 Appalachia (and fictional Baines Creek) was undeniably hard and harsh. What did the novel tell you about that historic time and place that you expected? What did you learn that surprised you?

  2. Sadie Blue was the principal character in the book, with her story told in three chapters. Did you root for her from the start? What were her key moments of growth? Who were her mentors and supporters? What did they do that helped her grow a stronger backbone?

  3. In what ways were Sadie Blue and her grandmother, Gladys Hicks, and Sadie and her mother, Carly, alike? In what ways were they different?

  4. Gladys and Marris were best friends. Who needed the other the most? Who gave the greatest purpose to their relationship?