by Lynn Pruett
“Sounds like Sheriff Dodd has saved your ass,” said Jessamine.
“And yours too,” said Ash Lee.
Jessamine rested her head on the dashboard. She felt like she was being sucked up the grill fan and turned into a swirl of smoke. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just disappear.
HATTIE BOHANNON
Now and then the moon broke through thin clouds and gave Hattie a glimpse of the wilderness as Paul drove down a closed road toward De Soto Falls. Paul had come the next evening, as planned, and now as the landscape disappeared from her sight, she remembered Darla’s red bunched-up face when she and Paul left the house. Maybe she should have waited for the ashes to arrive before going out. But no, there was the moon, glossy and grinning, playing hide-and-seek through the trees.
Paul parked the truck on an incline. Hattie was tilted toward the ground. She wore a plum cotton skirt and white Indian blouse with embroidered sleeves that caught on fledgling branches as they dashed down a dim trail. Laughter floated from her mouth. He pulled her along and hissed hush every few strides. The path twisted through an arbor of lilacs. It was dark, too dark to see the flowers. As they ducked below the branches, they passed in and out of fragrant clouds. The lilac scent thick across her lips, she followed Paul through a gap in a granite wall.
They stood on a slippery ledge under DeSoto Falls. Mists moved like ghosts, her skin tingling, moist. For several minutes, Hattie leaned against Paul. His body was warm but diminished by the exhilaration she felt for the falls. An invisible cascade, but roaring, oh, roaring with power. Moonlight cast white shadows along the granite floor.
Paul stepped away and placed a bottle of wine in a crevice. Water trickled over it, giving it a hooded robe like a religious statue. He wrapped her up in his arms. They kissed, the kiss sweet as lilac. She felt the power of the falls pounding the pool behind her, the waves gently lapping over the ledge. She was falling.
He thrust her under the waterfall. Water filled her mouth, forced her to her knees. She kicked at the slippery granite, lost her balance. She clutched at him. He whisked her from the brink. She clung, heaving for breath, her heart pounding louder than the water, louder than his laughter. Her knees, formless as water.
He half carried her to a boulder and settled her on it. “I bet wine sounds good.”
Her heart slowed but she continued to huff loudly until she realized that the falls drowned her out. Paul rearranged her legs to make room for him on the boulder. She said nothing.
He uncorked the wine, placed the cork in his pocket, and tilted the bottle to his lips. A few drops spilled on her thigh.
“I forgot the glasses. We’ll have to share.” He offered it as he might a bouquet.
She gulped a swallow of fruity wine. He took a sip, then wiped the bottle’s mouth with the hem of her dress. Her second sip was fruity and metallic, wine with a river aftertaste. She thought of Kenny Ranford drinking water from her well. “The taste of metal, the taste of money,” he’d said. “This water will make you a millionaire.” Hardly.
“You dreaming?”
“No.” She spread her wet skirt over her toes. “I’m just thinking about water.”
Paul hopped around on one foot, his legs a figure four, as he removed his shoes. He launched into a back dive through the falls. Then nothing but the rush of falling water, shimmering shifting water.
“Hey, hey, hello, hello,” he called from the other side of the curtain. “Come on in.”
“I can’t see what’s in the pool.”
“That’s just like you.” He disappeared.
She sipped the wine. He yelled and cavorted like a dolphin in the silvery foam. She caught glimpses of him as he dove through the falls. Just like a kid. Water swept in folds down the glittery black wall. Tingling with a strange intensity, her wet clothes like cool velvety skin, she chose to sit on the granite while he delighted in the rush and power of the water.
He heaved himself onto the ledge, his squared shape distinct against the misty white curtain. His belly button was the size of a quarter. Her face warmed. He shook his head, hit his ear, and shook his head again. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it near her feet, where it landed with a slap, arms outstretched.
She thought suddenly of the way Jessamine talked about the tangle of sex and love and found herself at the same crossroads. It was not love she felt but it felt like love. As Paul approached, she blurted, “What am I going to do about Jessamine?”
“Jessamine. Jessamine?” He blew a sour note across the mouth of the wine bottle. “Not a thing. Have you talked to her about birth control?”
Shocked, she flung her head back, the ends of her hair catching him in the jaw. She’d meant her question as a light thing, or maybe she hadn’t, but she resented his assumption of a greater intimacy than she felt.
Paul drew back and slammed the boulder. “Doesn’t the moon mean anything to you? Seeing the moon shine through the waterfall? The wine cooling in a natural spring? Our walk in the woods? Just you and me? Every time we are together we might as well be sitting in a booth at your truck stop. You’re always bringing your kids along with you. Especially Jessamine. Talking, talking, talking about your kids. Well, I’m not interested in taking your kids on a date. Can’t you just be you?”
She listened for the water’s roar but it sounded dulled and familiar. “Oakley’s ashes have been sent. I’m glad they’re on their way. Then, when I have them, I will be ready to …” She paused and smiled in the dark and felt her heart step up its pace.
“You’re waiting on his ashes?” He picked up the bottle and took a long drink.
“Yes. It’s right for the girls that I wait.”
“You’re their mother but you have a life.” He brushed her wet hair off her forehead. “I don’t mind holding out a little while if it’s for you, but if it’s a screwy reason for your kids—”
“Screwy reason!”
She watched him don his shirt and shoes with detachment. I am my children. I am my job. Just as he was his job. He had a written code that determined how he reacted to any situation—except how to deal with an angry mother. Sorry, no rules pertain. Therefore, such a situation doesn’t exist.
She could stop him before he buttoned his shirt. They could lie together under the waterfall; her body was ready. But it wouldn’t be right. “I’m too cold right now.”
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go then. You can snuggle under a dozen quilts for warmth. I guess that’s what you want. Quilts.”
GERT GEURIN
Church was hot again. It was like Reverend Peterson brought the fire from the Word into the building and stoked it to the rafters. All sprigged out in a purple vestment, he zipped through the devotional and the first hymn and began on all the sins of the world and mainly those right here in Maridoches. He lulled me awhile and my mind drifted and I was having thoughts, which I allow myself from time to time even though he is the authority and God’s personal messenger. If someone speaks in tongues, that brings me right back because there is message in the music of the strangled sounds. You’re hearing with a part of your not-brain and yet the understanding is clear.
I understand the part about forgiveness of sins, that the Lord always forgives and we should too, but it always seems that women have to do most of the forgiving. If men were made in God’s image, why are they needing the most forgiveness and why must we always forgive? Why should Ann Reynolds forgive Richard? Why should Jessamine? Why do we have confession of sins and it’s always the men up there? I think it makes them think they can go out and sin again and they will be forgiven. It’s too much free rein, if you ask me.
Reverend Peterson impresses me like no other preacher because of his concern for his flock. Some preachers would go into Bible stories or parables, and he just out-and-out states things in a modern way we all understand. Sometimes parables cause people to get off track. Like Gee and Haw setting at the lunch counter arguing about how can somebody bury a talent. I’d like to bonk their heads
sometimes, the stupid stuff they get stuck on, but they are just old men with nothing to do but examine all the knotted thoughts in their heads.
Stelle broke out in tongues and woke everybody up and Miz Breathwaite interpreted the words—more about wantonness and temptation, which I thought Reverend Peterson had mighty well covered.
Then Reverend Peterson announced there was a meeting after service for the Board of Elders, a silly name since the elders are not old but are all men, mostly in business and big farming. I’m elder than most. Rumor has it Stelle sends in notes for Reverend Peterson or, rather, the rumor is she writes out his plan—like a good secretary, I say, to whoever thinks she has too much influence, just because she doesn’t have the title. She is serving the Lord too. She has duties. Imagine who would pick the hymns and scriptures and do the visitations and the counseling if Reverend Peterson was single. Probably that burden would fall on someone like me.
The ladies meet too, and sometimes I go, although most are younger than I am and live in town so I’m sort of like a potato to their tomato. They want to start an aerobics class in the fellowship hall. That I cannot abide: women in skimpy outfits doing high kicks to modern music in the house of the Lord.
They want to do it on Sunday and Wednesday evenings before service. I can just imagine all those sweaty women sitting in the congregation, their faces flushed and pink, all thoughts on their bodies when they should be thinking of His message. And to say nothing of the men’s responses. I know the Lord will put a stop to that.
After the sex sermon, I was fanning myself when Reverend Peterson said something that gored me to my heart. He quoted out of Leviticus: “Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.” He said we, the congregation of the Church of the Holy Resurrection, could not in good faith go to Miz Bohannon’s truck stop because of the evil that was going on there. This nearly made my heart jump out of my body. I felt anger rise up and I liked to stood and give them folks a tongue-lashing like I was Joel or some other wild-eyed prophet. But I am a woman and they stone us who speak in English. I wonder if that is why Stelle always speaks in tongues: because if she spoke in English the people might stone her? So I sat and boiled. We are not bad, the Bohannons and me. We serve food, not smut. I could feel that anger seep out of me and turn to rivulets running down my face and under my arms. Baker Thomas inched his backside down the pew in one direction and Miz Killian pretended to sneeze. She rose up off the seat an inch and sat back down away from me. I got to the point of blindness, where all I could see was dark red out of my eyes. It took so long to get out of the pew and then down the aisle. So many people were congratulating the reverend on this great idea. They actually stopped to talk instead of brushing his hand in passing like they’ve just played a ball game and were on their way to the snacks. Especially the sinners: Baker Thomas, Richard Reynolds, all of them others holding up the line. A guilty conscience always has a lot to say.
It was like a public atonement but I thought, Just you wait. The minute one of you skunks goes to Ash Lee, I’ll find you out. Won’t be nothing for me to walk through the brambles and get there, not as often as I’m at work. I’ll just go down after my shift and watch. I’ll just drive over with a big hamper full of food, stretch out in the back of the station wagon, and catch them. With their pants around their ankles and their eyes dancing the Devil’s delight.
REVEREND MARTIN PETERSON
Martin was his old self, full of verve, planning a march on the truck stop to protest its immorality. As in the old days when he organized battalions of tornado relief volunteers, he made lists of squads, each with an appointed warden. He assigned four wardens: Ann Reynolds, who choked softly and hung up while he was enthusiastically outlining her position front and center of the marchers, Elise Thomas, Verdena Tannehill, and June Ann Breathwaite. The three who were in agreed to bring at least ten others. They would write Bible quotes on posterboard and staple them to stakes donated by Logan’s Yard. They’d meet at 9 A.M. at the ramp and march up the hill, perhaps singing an appropriate song—Martin would ask Stelle to choose it.
He looked up when Stelle came down for tea. She moved on moccasins so soft he had not heard her approach. He looked up and there she was, a long column of white cotton that showed him nothing and everything of her elegant body.
He shared his plan for the march and she broke out in a smile, and warmth moved back into his gaze. “I can’t imagine why Ann Reynolds hung up on me,” he said.
“She may want out of the spotlight,” said Stelle.
“Why? Her husband’s back in her bed. That should make her happy.”
“That should,” said Stelle.
He glanced at Stelle’s face but found her eyes closed and her nose happily inhaling the aroma of her peppermint tea.
“I thought I’d give her a chance to triumph over that truck-stop hussy. Make her a warden.”
“Oh, Martin,” she said, “it’s not a war.”
He emitted a throttled snort. “It is a war. A moral war.”
Though she didn’t laugh, he felt like she had. He watched her open the freezer and remove half a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream. She scooped three large spoonfuls into a coffee cup and put the box back in the freezer.
Martin said, “No, thank you.”
She startled. “I thought you wanted to whittle your tummy down. I was eating it so you wouldn’t.”
“Always the good Samaritan, Stelle,” he said. “But seriously, have you gotten a good look at your rear end lately?”
Stelle carved off a bite and set it in her mouth. She closed her eyes. Her back stiffened. She dipped up another spoonful and lobbed it at Martin. It missed him but stuck on the wall behind him.
“Missed.” He grinned.
“No kidding,” she said, and walked up the steps to the second floor.
He felt she’d meant something more than she said. He listened to hear her footfalls above him but heard instead her vocal exercises, scales of la-las. She’d shifted back from painting to singing, now that there was a church action that required more of her voice. He looked at his list and drew a line through Ann Reynolds’s name. He thought awhile and added Rhuhanna Polk Killian, Troy Clyde’s mother-in-law. Let the Bohannons fight among themselves. He called Rhuhanna, who gushed through a dozen questions before agreeing to be a warden.
His adrenaline returned. He got up and fixed himself a dish of ice cream. There was only a little left in the box so he added it to the grand mound crowning the bowl, dumped Stelle’s melting scoops on top of that, and went out to the deck and gorged.
A very large black ant crawled across the boards toward his foot. He wondered if it could sense his ice cream. He plopped some in the ant’s path. The ant circled it and moved away, as if in dread. A weird raindrop, Martin surmised, cold and dark and sweet-smelling.
The sun was still high. His ice cream melted faster than he could eat it until it was chocolate soup with nuts. He looked to the house but couldn’t discern where Stelle was so he did an unexpected thing. He walked down the steps toward the water.
The trees were hung with gossamer sacks of caterpillar nests. All through the hot green maze to the lake, cottony lanterns clung to branches. Martin had not seen an infestation like this before. He wondered if the trees would die or if there’d be an overabundance of caterpillars in his woods, crawling in armies up to his house. He wondered if they ate ice cream. Mosquitoes flew by his ears and nibbled his arms. He swatted them and zigzagged his head to miss a swarm hanging out like a mob needing a victim. He moved faster, his shoes slipping on the mossy steps, until he broke suddenly into the clearing and stumbled onto the dock.
Blinded by the flat white surface of the lake, he grabbed at air and fell hard on his knees. At least he’d hit the wood. The dock rose and fell with small waves. His closed eyes bored into the back of his head as he clutched at the splintery wood for a handhold. There was none. Just balanc
e and motion and the smell of hot mud and the sting in his knees. He turned his head toward the dark pines and opened his eyes, then slowly, slowly, brought the lake into his view. He saw ripples on the surface, black hillocks of water, moving away from him like a brigade of soldiers. From his rampart, he smiled. If he gave them the Word, God’s Word, they’d be his Army of the Lord.
He crouched on his knees, mesmerized by the waves, and felt a surge of power.
How long since there’d been a river baptism in Maridoches? Years. Yet he believed in the washing away of sins. He lay on the dock and folded his hands and slipped them into the warm water. God would make Stelle right. The promise and relief washed up against his hands. If he could swim, he’d jump in right now and be healed—but he could not, so he let his hands come clean.
On the deck, up at the house, he found his bowl full of drowned black ants. He took it inside and washed them down the drain.
HATTIE BOHANNON
“Are you kidding?” Hattie said to Gert, who had come all the way into the office and shut the door behind her.
“No, ma’am. They are going to march up here and protest your truck stop on account of prostitutes.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Hattie. Church people were mostly full of hot air. Stupefied on Saturday, sanctimonious on Sunday, mundane on Monday. She wished Gert would go and let her finish the payroll.
Gert shifted from one leg to the other. “Jessamine’s just under the influence of bad spirits. She’s not trash.”
Hattie looked up sharply. “Is this because of Jessamine and Richard Reynolds?”
“Praise the Lord.” Gert worked her hands one over the other as if trying to rub them clean.
“Are you kidding?”
“You know about it,” said Gert with relief.
“And you know too?” Hattie’s stomach clenched.
“I discovered them,” said Gert.