Kind of Kin

by Rilla Askew

  Sweet herself was shivering in the backseat of Deputy Darrel Beecham’s cruiser. She wasn’t chained, but she was handcuffed, and she was most definitely under arrest—for the crime of harboring undocumented aliens in furtherance of their illegal presence in the state of Oklahoma, a felony, as the deputy rattled off when he took her into custody. She had the right to remain silent. She had the right to speak to an attorney. If she couldn’t afford an attorney, one would be appointed . . .

  And so it was left to the pastor and his wife to bear witness to what the citizen Christians of Cedar were doing—an even smaller group now than had originally stood at the church doors, since the less stalwart of the rebels had made their excuses and signed their court appearance tickets and gone home to supper a couple of hours ago. Floyd Ollie, dragged forth from the rear side door, sat alone under guard in the church sanctuary. The teenagers who had once stood with the pastor were all gone now, too, because Vicki Dudley, at the sound of gunfire winging over her rooftop, had raced down her front steps and across the yard and pushed the four Youth for Christ kids into Fellowship Hall away from potential stray bullets. While the sheriff was arresting everybody she motioned through the glass doors for the kids to slip out through the old part of the church, and then she’d hurried home to get her boys. Therefore, the ones sitting now at the long tables were those who faithfully believed they had reason to be here—beyond just the fact, of course, that the sheriff wouldn’t let them leave.

  Of this resolute remainder, the only Christians who had directly bald-face lied to the sheriff were the four elderly Women’s Missionary Union ladies. Claudie Ott had no trouble prevaricating, prone as she was to exaggeration and embellishment when telling a story, and Ida Coley had certainly felt no compunction about narrowing her eyes at that fool blowhard sheriff and saying, “You are so full of it, Arvin. I never in my life saw a Mexican man in this church.” The other two women, Alice Stalcup and Edith Martin, had, early on, sat at the front table wavering and quavering, hemming and hawing, cutting their eyes at each other and jumping nervously every time the sheriff shouted, until Oren Dudley had at length braced himself to hear the beans come spilling out of their two quivery mouths.

  But the beans did not spill.

  Later, Brother Oren would come to believe that that brilliant white light suddenly flooding the room in the precise moments when Mrs. Stalcup and Mrs. Martin were finding it so hard to lie was like the Light of the World visited in a great beneficent flood upon them. Yes, he understood that its actual nonmetaphoric source was the portable LED light the Channel 2 cameraman had switched on, but the light had burst forth at just the right moment, and wasn’t that, Brother Oren asked himself, just exactly like the workings of the Holy Spirit? “Ask and ye shall receive,” the Word said, and he and several others had most definitely been asking. The two women, startled, had looked around, met Ida Coley’s firm gaze, and at once their quivery mouths firmed up to match hers. When the sheriff bellowed at them again, they repeated what had become the evening’s stock answer: “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Thus the investigation had begun with the people standing in solidarity—or, more accurately, sitting—and so it continued. The people were weary, they were hungry, their bodies were sore, but they were determined. They sat up straight in the folding chairs, even the oldest folks whose backs were naturally humped. The WMU ladies led a rousing chorus of “Onward Christian Soldiers” until the sheriff made them quit. Floyd Ollie had been brought in to explain to the sheriff in his own words how Wade Free had been called out on a gas line explosion near Bokoshe, and the Masons, seated in a taciturn row at the second table, murmured their corroboration. Each time an officer returned from the search to admit they’d found nothing, the resolve of the people was strengthened; they made their backs straighter, they smiled, forgot their hunger, repeated their stock phrase, and up to this point, the Channel 2 team had been recording it all.

  The other news teams had hurriedly packed up and left forty minutes ago, but Logan Morgan and her cameraman had elected to stay. She still held out hope that the church searches would produce aliens, or, failing that, that the sheriff might yet explode and do something newsworthy. At the very least she planned to get an exclusive interview with the big deputy for tomorrow’s Good Morning Oklahoma. She observed the deputy standing near the kitchen, legs akimbo, hands clasped behind. That footage of him knocking the sheriff’s pistol skyward was some of her finest work. Unfortunately, it had come too late to make the evening news.

  In fact, for Logan Morgan, the end of the standoff had turned out to be a disappointment. No shootout, no actual Mexicans, and the little that did happen had happened too late in the day. Her best captured images—the disheveled aunt with her hands in the air, the deputy striking the sheriff’s gun—would have to wait for the lower-rated ten o’clock report. The 10:00 P.M. and morning news shows were fine, but it was the 5:00 and 6:00 P.M. spots that, professionally, made all the difference. The question Logan Morgan kept asking herself was this: Would the story still have legs tomorrow at five?

  This was a concern she unknowingly shared with State Representative Monica Moorehouse, who at this moment was asking herself a very similar question: Was it too late now for the story to make a political splash? And for God’s sake, where was that cache of Mexicans? All those cable news people on their way, Monica thought, and not one illegal alien to show them!

  This singular lack of aliens was also what had Arvin Holloway frantic and furious and cursing in church—but goddamn it, how was he going to justify the expense of a daylong siege, all that overtime, bringing in extra men from LeFlore County? How could he jail Sweet Kirkendall for harboring illegal aliens if nobody could find the damn aliens she’d been harboring? Most urgent of all, how was Sheriff Arvin A. Holloway expected to achieve the one main fundamental purpose of this whole dadblamed operation—that is, find out where the Mexican man had stashed the missing kid—if he couldn’t find the dadblamed Mexican!

  “What are you looking at?” he barked at Beecham as he stomped past—he’d kept Darrel Beecham here where he could keep an eye on him—and the big deputy shrugged. Holloway marched to the mouth of the short hallway leading to the old building. “Y’all quit horsing around in there and bring me something I can use, goddamn it!” he hollered, then whirled around and yelled at the preacher: “Don’t get up on your high horse with me! I’ll cuss when I need to!” The sheriff stomped back to the front of Fellowship Hall.

  His fury was intensified by a single suppressed fact he could admit to no one, including his own dimly conscious self: he was the one who’d left the rear side door unguarded when he sent Beecham to Wilburton to fetch Bob Brown. It was such a glaring stupidity on his part that Holloway’s mind refused it. His mind assured him that the Mexican was still hiding in the old church house someplace. He resumed his pacing and cursing, muttering foully under his breath as he mulled the possibility of arresting Sweet Kirkendall for manslaughter in the death of the old man Horace Bledsoe. He couldn’t rely on hearsay, though; he’d have to have facts, the autopsy report, testimony, well, he could get all that, sure, but it was going to take time—and anyway, how was that going to help him find the lost kid? Just then Holloway caught sight of the state representative edging toward the news people at the back of the room. “What the hell do you want!” he hollered.

  Well, this was perhaps an apt question, but not one Monica Moorehouse could have publicly answered, even had she been so inclined. Which she was not. She stopped, flustered, at a rare loss for words. All eyes were turned to her. It’s probable that no one except the representative herself heard the little whirring click as the cameraman switched his camera back on, but Monica Moorehouse heard. She stared in midair. She stammered. She struggled. Helplessly she searched for the proper calm, confident, self-deprecating answer. Her mind was utterly blank.

  “Get back over there by the door!” the sheriff bello
wed. “I’ll have you arrested!”

  The representative, incensed, immediately found her tongue. “On what charge?”

  “Trespassing, public nuisance, and interfering with an officer!”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t give a shit who you are!”

  “Arvin, please,” the pastor said. “Your language.”

  Tap, tap, tap, tap. Monica turned to see her husband outside the glass doors, motioning her fiercely to come out. What! she mouthed at him. Let’s go, babe, this instant! his fleshy face said, a study in urgency and excitement. For the briefest of moments, Monica Moorehouse was torn. The camera was on. She could have ripped that fool sheriff apart, rhetorically speaking, but there was some kind of gleaming triumph in Charlie’s eyes. At the back of the room the camera operator lifted his platinum umbrella reflector. Instinctively she turned her cheekbones to catch the light. “Goodness, Sheriff Holloway,” she said brightly as she edged backward toward the glass doors, “it appears you’ve misunderstood. As a representative of the People’s House here in this great state of Oklahoma, I’ve simply come to thank you for your service. For having the courage to uphold the state’s laws, no matter who transgresses them, no matter how personally difficult the circumstances might be . . .” Monica swept the room with her most charming, self-deprecating smile. “The people of Oklahoma appreciate our public servants, we really do. Don’t we?” The people at the tables stared back at her. With a final well-practiced, open-palm side-to-side wave, she stepped out.

  In the backseat of the deputy’s cruiser, Sweet’s mind churned—had the kids made it? She hadn’t seen any sign to the contrary. She’d watched the deputies shoving her shackled daddy into the sheriff’s car, surely she would have seen if they’d caught Misty Dawn and Juanito, too. She had wanted to give them more time, and she would have, truly, if Carl Albert hadn’t come tearing across the yard. She remembered that moment, her son’s body hitting her full force. She remembered looking over his shuddering head at her husband. Who was going to take care of their son when she got sent to prison? Terry would have custody, yes, but Terry worked all the time. Who was going to watch Carl Albert the sixty or more hours a week his dad was in the gas fields? She thought of Vicki Dudley. Among all the women she knew, the preacher’s wife would be the best choice. But Vicki might not want to. She might not be available. She might, in fact, be in as bad a fix as anyone if Brother Oren got charged with a felony, too. Would they do that? Sweet wondered. Hopefully not. Not the good, sweet-tempered pastor of Cedar First Baptist, and the two senior deacons, and those four powdery little ladies from WMU . . . but Sweet had seen the uncontrolled rage of Arvin Holloway, how he’d roared Halt, halt, goddamnit! and pointed his busted bullhorn at Carl Albert like an enormous fat pistol he’d like to use to blast the boy off the earth. There was no telling, Sweet thought, what Arvin Holloway might do.

  Numbly she watched as the khaki-headed representative emerged from Fellowship Hall and followed her froggy-eyed husband back to their giant SUV. Another pickup pulled in, and a young woman got out and hurried along the sidewalk toward the brightly lit doors. Sweet’s gaze followed her, barely registering that it was the girl from the front desk at the Latimer County Jail. Her mind returned to its worn circles. Had she waited long enough before coming out? She had tried, she told herself. Hadn’t she tried? She had done what she could . . .

  “Watonga,” Monica said from behind the steering wheel. She massaged her forehead. “Where’s that?”

  “An hour northwest of Oklahoma City.”

  “Oh, Charlie,” she moaned, “that’s four hours. I don’t know if I can make that drive again.”

  “You can.”

  “How about we go home to McAlester, get some sleep, and leave early tomorrow?”

  “They’ve got the kid, they’ve got the Mexican, the media’s all halfway there by now! I called Tim Cunningham, told him to meet the network teams at the Tulsa airport and drive them straight out to Watonga. You can’t miss this, babe.”

  Monica pinched her cheek, tried to keep from rubbing her eyes. “I’ll drive,” Charlie said, and shoved open the door on his side. “I’ll drive!” she said. Her husband shut his door, hit the laptop refresh button. Monica glanced along the dark empty Main Street toward the highway. “Please tell me we can get a cup of coffee someplace in this godforsaken town.”

  “Watonga,” Cheryl repeated to the sheriff. “They said he’s suffering from exposure and a sprained arm but otherwise he appears to be okay.”

  “Praise God,” Ida Coley murmured.

  “Praise Jesus,” Claudie Ott echoed.

  Oren Dudley looked across the room at his wife. Her look said, See? I told you everything was going to be fine. At the second table, Lon Jones sat with his head bowed, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs of relief. The preacher could feel his own emotions welling: relief, yes, and gratitude, and a piercing tenderness deep in his chest. He closed his eyes. Thank you, he said.

  “The call came in, like, forty minutes ago?” Cheryl was saying. “I couldn’t get you on the radio or whatever, so I just drove over. I figured you’d want to know.”

  Sheriff Arvin Holloway said nothing. He was stunned beyond fury, beyond indignation, beyond self-justification, resentment, rage—all that would come later. Without a word he walked out of Fellowship Hall, across the trampled strip of muddy yard to his cruiser, and got in.

  Sweet watched the sheriff’s car in the stillness that followed. She couldn’t see her father in the backseat, though she knew he was there. Probably cold, like she was, probably sore around the wrists. The glass doors opened again, and the young brunette reporter and her cameraman fumbled their way out with their equipment, rushed toward the news van. The sheriff started his car. So they were taking her daddy back to jail, Sweet thought. She supposed the deputy would be here in a minute to transport her, too. She would be one of those mothers in orange jumpsuits visiting with their children in the county jail yard. At least until her trial was over, that’s where she’d be. Until she got convicted and sent to the McAlester state pen. If that’s where they even sent felons like her. Maybe not. Maybe they had special places for women where their kids could come visit without having to stand around outside in the heat and cold.

  Part Four

  Postlude

  ONE WEEK LATER

  Saturday | March 8, 2008 | 7:00 P.M.

  Sweet’s house | Cedar

  I kept feeling like I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. Every time I went to the window and twisted the blinds open, there wasn’t nothing outside to see. Our whole town looked dead. “Dead as a mackerel.” My cousin Carl Albert used to always say that. When me and Aunt Sweet got home from Watonga Monday evening, there was a white news van parked in her yard like the one me and Señor Celayo seen at Misty Dawn’s house. Aunt Sweet wouldn’t talk to them though, she squirreled us right past into the carport, and after a while the van left. Now nobody bothers us. The house stays more quiet than you could ever imagine. Sweet keeps the sound down on the TV. I said, “Is that lady from the human sources office going to be there when we go see Grandpa?”

  “What?” Aunt Sweet said. “Oh. No, of course not. It’s human services, hon. Department of Human Services. Please quit messing with those things.”

  I quit twisting the blinds open and closed and just left them closed and came over to the divan. “How do you know?” I said.

  “She won’t be there. Sit down, Dustin. Nobody’s going to make you go live someplace else.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That judge in Watonga gave his ruling, hon. You heard him. You’ll stay here till Daddy gets out.”

  “When’s that going to be?”

  “Honey, I told you. We just have to wait and see.” She got vague again, staring off at the TV, flicking at the little thumb tabs on the Bible she was holding in he
r lap. Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth . . . I learned them all straight through to Revelation in Vacation Bible School last summer. They gave me a prize, a new Youth Bible and a fake sword. I said, “Is Carl Albert going to be there?”

  Aunt Sweet set the Bible on the coffee table, got up and left the room. In a minute I heard the popcorn in the microwave. I try not to say my cousin’s name out loud, but sometimes I forget. Part of me sort of hopes Carl Albert might be at the fence when we go to the jail yard tomorrow, and part of me hopes not. For one thing, I don’t know if him staying in Poteau with his dad is something else I’m going to have to tell Grandpa. There’s a bunch of things I’m going to have to tell him when I see him, including lying, cussing, and stealing. I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

  The cans of pork ’n’ beans and other stuff I took from Aunt Sweet’s pantry and the map I got out of her glove box and the coin jar I swiped from her dresser drawer—I’m going to pay all that back. Twenty-seven dollars and thirteen cents, me and Señor Celayo counted it. Everything else, though, that’s going to be hard. The bike’s gone, the preacher’s knife’s gone, and my cousin’s brand-new Cars backpack.

  When Aunt Sweet came in from the kitchen, her eyes were red, and her nose, too, and she had a wadded-up Kleenex in one hand. She handed me a plastic bowl. I didn’t really want any popcorn, but I took it so she wouldn’t feel worse than she already looked like she felt. There are a lot of things different now—how quiet the house is, no Uncle Terry and no Mr. Bledsoe, no dodging the secret hand-pops from my cousin, no arguing with him in the bathroom when we’re brushing our teeth—but the biggest difference is Aunt Sweet herself. She’s nicer than she ever used to be. She lets me stay up till practically midnight, watching TV. She never says no reading under the covers. Half the time she even forgets to tell me to brush my teeth. Staying here wouldn’t be so bad, except I’d just rather be home.