by Ninie Hammon
What had he been through? What horrors had he seen?
She understood that once he’d really relaxed, residual fatigue had hammered him like a bad case of the flu. He needed rest to heal. She watched him sleep for a time, then got up and went into the parlor and made herself as comfortable as she could on the couch so she wouldn’t disturb him.
Piper awoke Wednesday in the early morning light to the feel of warm lips on hers. She opened her eyes and Grayson was kneeling beside the couch, a night’s growth of dark whiskers on his face, his hair in bed-head disarray. But his eyes! Grayson, her Grayson, had finally come home.
“Shhhh,” he said. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, then led her across the hardwood floor to the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind them.
Piper saw the fire in his eyes and thought irrationally, “Wait, I have to brush my teeth.” This wasn’t how she’d imagined it—low light, her skin fresh from a warm bath, his face smooth and clean-shaven.
He took her into his arms and kissed her, tenderly at first, then with more urgency. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt sudden heat wash over her. He moved her backward toward the bed without taking his mouth from hers, then eased her down on it. She had time to whisper three words breathlessly before the world exploded in months of built-up passion.
“Welcome home, Grayson.”
*
Marian sat up in bed, looking out the window at the backyard, what there was of it. Grayson was fooling with the old tire swing that had hung from the limb of the oak tree since he was a boy, fixing it up for Sadie. She shook her head. That boy’s eyes were so full of hurt and fear, death and anger, it was all she could do to look into them. He was cut up inside with razor blades, so many wounds he was near drowning in the blood. She closed her eyes.
I do thank you most humbly, Lord, for answering my prayers, for bringing my boy back home safe! And for letting me see him once more before I pass over. My time’s near. ’Course I’m not tellin’ you nothin’ you don’t know. You got my days all counted out in that book of yours. You know the exact instant I’m gonna let out a breath and then not draw another one back in.
All’s I know is it’s gonna be soon.
My, won’t it be fine to look you in the eye!
Meantime, I’m gonna soak up every second I got with them I love. In this here place I love.
She opened her eyes, lifted them from her son and traced the mountainside rearing up behind him to a bare cliff face topped by Turtle Shell Rock. Chicken Gizzard Mountain, on the other side of the gob dam, had once been even taller, before they strip-mined it and bulldozed the waste off in the creek. Now the ridge on that side was flat, not a whole lot taller than the dam.
She sighed and mentally erased the ugly coal slurry dam between the sides of the valley. She put back the top of Chicken Gizzard Mountain the coal company had lopped off and the trees, even inserted a hawk in the picture in her mind, circling high above the valley floor. She set Naked Turtle Creek back in the almost dry creek bed, sliding down the ridge that was so steep it looked like a waterfall. As soon as she placed the creek inside its banks, no more than a bubbling brook a few inches deep in the wide spots, her mind went immediately to that day, the way a yo-yo rises up the string to your hand.
Grayson standing in the backyard by the porch holding the limp body of his baby sister in his arms. Someone screaming, a shrill, shrieking wail. It seemed far away, but when her throat began to close up, she’d realized the scream was hers.
Running in slow motion, dropping to her knees, the look of such pain in Grayson’s eyes. She wanted to reach out and comfort him. But comfort comes from the heart, and hers had been sucked out of her chest down into a black hole where the shining eyes of ferrets and weasels glowed yellow in the darkness.
It wasn’t until long after that day that she wondered about the boots. Carter had been standing in the edge of the woods, holding Grayson’s cowboy boots. She’d seen him and had only a moment to wonder what he was doing with them before she saw Grayson staggering toward the house.
Pain ate up the memory for months. But it surfaced eventually. Carter was forever playing practical jokes on his little brother. He’d unscrew the top of the salt shaker before he handed it to Grayson, put a dead mouse under his pillow or steal his only two pairs of pants out of his dresser drawer and put them up a tree.
So it was pretty clear what he was doing that morning with Grayson’s boots. But how did he get them away from Grayson? And when?
The how wasn’t obvious but the when was. Grayson had been wearing his boots when he left for the creek that morning with Becky. So if Carter snatched them, it would have to have been…her heart went into her throat when she allowed her mind to follow that assumption to its logical conclusion. Carter had been there at the creek when Grayson was beating the rugs and Becky was playing in the water.
Why had he never told anybody about it? What did he see, or do, that he was unwilling to share with the rest of the family?
Carter had changed after that. Of course, the whole family had, and none of them for the better. Everett slid slowly away into some place where she couldn’t reach him, some ugly place where everything he believed about God and the scriptures became twisted into a monstrous perversion that ended up killing him. Grayson became the object of his father’s wrath and growing instability, and it was like the little boy crawled into a hole and pulled the dirt in after him.
And Carter? He never played another practical joke on anybody. All the laughing, prankish joy was gone from him. Something else took its place. Something that looked, felt, sounded and smelled like guilt.
Now that she was coming to the end of her days, she found she desperately wanted to understand that one simple mystery: why was Carter holding his brother’s boots? But she knew she would go to her grave not knowing. Oh, she could ask Carter. He might even tell her. But satisfying an old woman’s curiosity wasn’t worth that kind of pain. Rip open those old wounds and the whole family would hemorrhage.
Marian was tired, the kind of tired that wasn’t heavy, didn’t weigh her down like the exhaustion of caring for a family. This tired made her feel light, airy. As if she was barely attached to the world at all.
She closed her eyes and slept.
*
Piper watched Grayson through the screen of the back door as she dipped the pieces of chicken she’d just skinned into milk and then into flour to fry. Sadie was on her hands and knees at her feet, her long hair cascading off her shoulders to the floor.
“Sabie a doggie, Mommy,” Sadie said and made a barking sound.
“Good doggie.” Piper leaned over and petted the doggie on the head. Sadie tried comically to wag her little butt.
Grayson had the old rope untied from the tire and turned now to climb up to where the broken piece of rope dangled from the tree limb.
A slow smile spread across her face, and she actually blushed at the memories that flooded her mind, but the color in her cheeks wasn’t embarrassment. It was remembered passion. And delicious anticipation.
Today—finally!—she had gotten her husband back! They’d made beautiful love early in the morning, dawdled over a big breakfast—which he gobbled down as if he hadn’t eaten a bite in a week. Sadie had watched him warily from her high chair, but his ignoring her was definitely working. Now, she was curious about him instead of afraid. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be running into his arms, crying, “Hold you, Daddy!”
They’d intended to take a walk before lunch, but Grayson’s energy failed, and he took a long nap instead. Eager to do something when he woke up, he took the .22 rifle down from the rack over the fireplace and cleaned it for his squirrel hunting excursion tomorrow.
Whenever she came near, he reached out to touch her, as eager for the feel of her as she was for him. He whispered in her ear promises of what tonight would bring, then kissed her ear to seal the pact.
In all this glorious day, there was only one dark c
loud. Maggie. Grayson was not unkind to her. He was polite, but he regarded her warily when she came into the room and seemed to be uncomfortable when she was around, as if her presence sucked some of the joy and peace out of his homecoming.
“Arf! Arf-arf!” said the doggie crawling around at her feet.
She reached down and patted Sadie on the head. “My, what a fine doggie you are.”
A few minutes later, Maggie came into the kitchen to display her handiwork. Marian had shown the child how to crochet, and the little girl had become a regular doily-making machine.
“I messed up this part,” she said, pointing to a lumpy spot, “but Nan Marian says I’ll soon be ready to make an afghan.” The child’s face fell. “But there won’t be time for her to teach me.”
Was Maggie talking about how long she had left here or how long Marian did?
The doggy barked, and Maggie leaned over and patted her head affectionately, then nodded toward the backyard and asked, “Is Mr. Grayson going to fix up that old swing?”
“Uh-huh. But it looks like a two-person job to me. Why don’t you go see if he needs help.”
Maggie looked dubious. “I don’t think he wants my help,” she said.
“Give him time, okay? Now shoo.” Piper urged a reluctant Maggie to the screen door and practically shoved her out.
*
Grayson had climbed the gnarled old oak tree and shinnied out onto the big overhanging limb, holding his army knife in his teeth. One end of the rope that he’d untied from the old tire was knotted around his waist. His intent was to slice away the remains of the broken rope, tie one end of the rope around his waist to the limb and let the other end dangle. Then he’d shinny back down, attach the dangling rope to the tire leaning against the tree, and voila, the tire swing would be fixed.
He used his legs to grip the tree limb, took the knife out of his mouth and set to work sawing back and forth across the old rope. It didn’t cut readily. Obviously, he needed to sharpen his knife.
“Can you fix it?” called a voice from below him. He looked down and there stood Nguyen.
The cool air of a West Virginia early evening was replaced by the sticky, stinking heat of a jungle night. He could hear the cries of the unknown animals in the dark jungle as well as the laughing voices of the other members of the company playing poker.
“Can you fix it?” Nguyen asks.
She is seated in the dirt at his feet, looking up at the stars sprinkled like salt on the velvet sky. Sergeant Hotchner has just told him they’ve been ordered to move out, leave Yan Ling to the enemy. Abandon the village. And Nguyen.
Now Grayson must think of a way to explain to the little girl that they will be leaving in two days.
She points up at the stars. “Is that the”—she pauses, then continues, concentrating—“the ig-bay ipper-day?”
“Yeah, the Big Dipper.” He tries to keep his voice light and cheery. “And over there is the constellation—”
“You leaving, Grape?” she asks quietly.
He looks down at her, stunned. How had she found out the unit was pulling out? Even the sergeant didn’t know until a couple of hours ago.
“Yes, we’re leaving.” His voice is tight.
“And I not go with you—right?”
Now he fears his voice will crack. Emotion wells up in his chest.
“That’s right, Nguyen. You can’t go with me.”
“Can you fix it?”
Grayson sits down on the dirt beside her and lifts her into his lap.
“Nguyen, I’d take you if I could. Do you know that?” He rocks her tenderly back and forth, then stops and holds her at arm’s length. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Take me where, Mr. Grayson? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
The world began to spin. He could hear the jungle creatures. And West Virginia cicadas, each with its own voice—deep or shrill—blending in a constant chorus. He looked around. It was twilight, and the shadows shifted and moved. When he looked back at the little girl in his lap, she no longer had shiny black hair and brown eyes. Her hair was red, her eyes an odd shade of green, and a spray of red freckles decorated her nose.
But she looked at him with the same almost-adult compassion on her face he’d seen so many times on Nguyen’s face.
He shook his head and blinked.
“Do you know where you are, now, Mr. Grayson?” the little girl asked timidly. “You’re home, here at your Ma’s house.”
*
Piper stood in the back door, staring through the screen into the backyard. She had watched Grayson climb down out of the tree and take Maggie tenderly into his lap. He’d held her close in the kind of familiar way a father holds a beloved child. But now he was looking at her quizzically, as if he’d only just now noticed she was sitting there.
He shook his head, then stood up so abruptly Maggie spilled out of his disappearing lap in a heap on the ground. He turned away from her and strode purposefully toward the house.
“Grayson…what—?” Piper began.
He didn’t respond, merely brushing past her into the kitchen. Sadie looked up when he came into the room. And Piper was sure she saw the beginnings of a smile on the child’s lips. Then she must have seen the stern, severe look on her father’s face because her face crinkled up like a piece of crumbled notebook paper, and she began to cry. Grayson ignored her, walking past her as if she weren’t even there. He went through the parlor into their bedroom and shut the door behind him.
It all happened so fast, Piper felt like a tornado had sailed through the house from the backyard and almost wondered why there weren’t papers and debris still hanging in the air in its wake.
She left Sadie on the floor crying and went to the bedroom door, reached for the knob and then thought better of it. She called through the door instead. “Supper’ll be ready in a few minutes, Gray, honey. I’m making—”
“I don’t want anything,” he called back through the door. His voice sounded muffled, like he had his face buried in a pillow—or had been crying. “I’m not hungry.”
“But you said you wanted—”
“I said I don’t want any supper,” he snapped. “Please, just leave me alone.”
Piper walked slowly back into the kitchen and turned off each of the burners on the stove. Then she picked up the crying toddler and bit her lip to keep from joining Sadie in tears.
Grayson stayed in the bedroom—sleeping, Piper assumed—until after Piper had bathed Sadie and put her to bed. When he emerged, he was “gone” again. Piper had given that label to the distant look in his eyes, the “not-there-ness” in which he could engage in conversation, be kind, polite and totally in another world where she couldn’t join him. A world full of monsters.
He had let her in. For a brief time yesterday, it’d been like it had always been between them, so close emotionally you couldn’t slide a piece of tissue paper between them, and so close physically it was like they really were one person, like the Bible said—the two shall become one flesh.
But that had vanished with his conversation with Maggie.
Marian went to bed early. It would be a long, hard day for her—the trip to Charleston and being poked and prodded by the doctor. Maggie tiptoed into Sadie’s room and curled up on her pallet on the floor a short time later. Piper and Grayson went to bed soon afterward. They made love passionately—but it was physical passion with no emotional connection. The act left Piper feeling emptier and lonelier than she’d felt when the bed beside her was cold and Grayson’d been in a foxhole somewhere. Did they dig foxholes anymore? She didn’t even know. She knew nothing about what had happened to him. And she wanted to know.
Tomorrow would be different, she vowed. Tomorrow after she returned from Charleston, she would begin the process of prying open the locked doors in her husband’s heart, of letting light shine into the darkness there.
She fell asleep with that vow on her lips and awoke with Grayson’s
lips on hers.
She opened her eyes. The sky outside the window was that odd shade of blue-black that told her the sun had risen out on the flatlands. It had cleared the horizon and it was dawn there, but the sun wouldn’t shine down into the hollow for hours.
“I’m going now,” Grayson said. “I’ll see you when you get back from Charleston.” He paused. “And we’ll talk. There are things…we need to talk about.”
“Why so early? Don’t you want some break—?”
“I’ve been awake for hours. I need to get out of the house, get some air.” He paused again. “Piper…I’m sorry for…how I’ve been. I love you.”
He hugged her fiercely and then was gone.
She sat up in bed and looked out the window, watching him get his gear—army fatigue pants and shirt and black lace-up boots—out of the storage shed beside the back porch. Then her eyes followed him as he crossed the yard and started up the hill, his Steeler’s cap cocked back, the rifle in the crook of one arm, a knapsack with the lunch she’d made him and his canteen in the other, a silent shadow that quickly melted into the darker shadows of the forest.
She felt uneasy when he was gone, her mind spinning webs of anxiety like spiders. It was a long time before she was able to go back to sleep.
Chapter 19
Jesse McCullough went puttering down Carlisle Road, looking like he didn’t have nowhere in particular to go to and wasn’t in no hurry a’tall to get there. Just like he done every time he went out to check the five stills he and Carter had hidden high up in the hollows.
He had lots of kin in this neck of the woods, so he had reasons he could give if he had to come up with an explanation of what he was doing out here.
’Course he wasn’t never going to have to explain nothing to nobody. Even if he’d put a great big ole sign on his pickup truck saying, “I’m goin’ out to bottle up some hooch” wouldn’t nobody call the law. Mountaineers didn’t care if you made moonshine. They was the ones who bought it off’n ya! Besides, nobody called the law about nothing. If you had a problem, you solved it yourself and didn’t expect some outsider with a badge to fix it for you.