by J. D. Horn
“Don’t ask how, my love, just be happy that it is.” Ruby glided toward him, her arms outstretched in a welcoming lover’s embrace, but Elijah stood frozen in place, looking at the cage’s door as if he were considering pulling it closed in an attempt to keep her out. “You are happy to see me, aren’t you, sweetheart?
“When I awoke,” she said, “all I wanted was to come to you, the one person who loved me. The one person who would be missing me. I wanted to tell you that I was fine. That we could still . . .” Ruby paused, the words seeming to fail her. “But I was so weak at first. I had to build my strength. I wanted to be whole, to be strong. Then I learned you were to be married. To this.” She shot a contemptuous glance back at Corinne, turning as if she planned to advance on her. But then she stopped and turned her face upward.
“I can feel it. I can feel Daddy waking.” She paused, seeming to listen to something that Corinne couldn’t hear. “Now he’s mine forever. And I will come to him every night, and I will hurt him. Just like he hurt me.”
She turned back to Elijah. “Your mama cheated me out of finishing her husband, but I’ve punished everyone else who came between us.” She lifted a few inches up off the ground as she spoke, gliding into the cell. “I’ve punished everyone who’s betrayed me. I’ve made them all pay. All except one. You.”
Her hand shot out and took hold of Elijah’s forearm. “I wanted to see if you would wed that woman. Or if you would walk away. But since the nuptials got interrupted, I’m going to give you one last chance, right here, right now,” she said. “One last chance to make the right choice. Tell me you love me”—she paused—“and you better tell me the truth, ’cause I know the difference between the real feeling and the infatuation this thing inside me uses to make people stand still when it’s hunting.”
Elijah’s lips moved without making a sound, as if he were waiting for the words to catch up with them. “Ruby.” Her name finally formed. “I don’t understand none of this. I don’t know how this could be happening. But of course I love you. I’ve only ever really loved you.” Corinne’s heart broke when she saw the look in his eyes. What he was saying was true. “There is no one else I could ever love like you. But I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you forever.” He placed his hand over her hand that held him. “I want to be with you. I do.” Corinne watched as a tear fell from his eye. “But there’s something you have to know.” His voice lowered. “I’m your brother. The Judge. He was my father.”
“Oh, darlin’.” Ruby’s voice curled through the air. “I know that. I’ve known it for years. I knew before I ever set my sights on you.” Ruby reached up with her free hand and placed it lovingly on Elijah’s cheek. “You know how much your daddy liked getting all liquored up. Once Dylan found him stumbling around outside Nola’s.” Her voice turned into a low purr. “Dylan liked hanging around there. Plenty of drunk, lonely men to take their pleasure in his pretty mouth.” She lowered her hand, a cruel twist to her lips. She was playing with him. Tormenting him even as she demanded his love. “Dylan said your daddy cried like a little girl when he told Dylan about you.” She released his arm, and took a step back, as if she wanted to get a better view of his reaction.
Elijah’s face fell at the sound of her words. His gaze turned toward Corinne, his face burning red with shame. “You have to let them go,” he said, nodding toward Lucille and Corinne. “We can be together. I’ll do anything you want, but you have to leave them be. Lucille—she ain’t ever done a thing your daddy didn’t make her do.” He reached out and pulled Ruby into his arms. “And Corinne. You know she ain’t you. Hell, just look at her. But she’s a good person, and she helped saved my leg back in Korea. She never came between us. Not really.” He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Ruby’s lips. “She helped get me back to you.”
Ruby’s eyes flashed on Corinne. “Well, there you have it, sugar. You are one hell of a lucky girl. Elijah just bought you one final chance. Get out of here. Get out of Conroy,” she said and then turned her gaze toward Lucille. “Both of you. If either of you are here tomorrow at sunset, you won’t live to see another dawn.”
The world around them began to tremble as the sound of an enormous blast tore apart the night. For a moment Corinne struggled to pull the pieces of what was happening together into a rationally acceptable situation, but a sudden realization caused her to let all the nonaligning pieces tumble to the floor.
Ruby and Elijah were gone.
FIFTY-THREE
“‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit . . .’” Raylene’s voice carried in the unnatural silence of the morning, all the way from the city hall steps throughout the streets of Conroy.
Corinne jumped at the sound of the words. Lucille patted her hand. “Looks like for once that crazy bitch is right,” Lucille said, and Corinne broke out laughing. Lucille only smiled at first, then she laughed, too.
Dawn found the two women huddled together outside the train station. It was the only place where they could wait together. By formal law, Lucille could not join Corinne in the white waiting room; unspoken law among the whites dictated that Corinne not join Lucille in the colored. They had one goal, and that was to get out of Conroy. They didn’t need any misstep preventing them from achieving that goal. But neither could they bear to separate, not after what they had witnessed together. Left alone, they would begin to question their sanity.
They were leaving Conroy with nothing other than the cash Corinne had concealed in her brassiere. Lucille had chosen to walk away from the meager belongings that remained at her own house, unwilling to risk that something might happen to prevent her from joining her babies up north. The words “As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return . . .” played in Lucille’s mind.
The ticket seller had refused to give Lucille a ticket without a hefty bribe, so Corinne had been forced to part with more than the regular cost of two tickets. If word of the Judge’s death hadn’t made it around the town, thanks to Corinne’s call to the undertaker, Lucille knew she would never have been allowed to board the train. But now she had her ticket in hand, and she would be, praise the Lord, leaving this place. Once they were safely away, Lucille would write the pastor. Warn him to warn the others.
Even though the sun had risen, the air remained chill and pungent now with the clinging scent left by the explosion at the pulp plant. News of the plant’s destruction was on the lips of all who passed.
The blast had been bigger than any faulty boiler could have caused, managing to take down a good part of the building. Fifteen men on the night shift were confirmed dead. Many others had been wounded or remained unaccounted for, including the Sleiger boys, who worked maintenance on the boiler and hadn’t been seen for a couple of days. Suspicion was falling on them, as many were of the opinion that the place looked like it had been purposely bombed. No one had been able to locate either Sheriff Bell or his deputy, so many of the townspeople worried that they had somehow been caught up in the event. All worried that the closure of the mill might sound Conroy’s death knell.
But none of this held any meaning for Lucille and Corinne anymore. They sat silently, letting the conjectures and consternations of those who passed them float by like the song of so many morning birds.
“He didn’t mean it, you know. Elijah, what he said. He just didn’t want her to hurt you.”
Corinne laughed, but this time there was no humor in the sound. “Oh, he meant it all right. Every word. I knew it, and that creature knew it. That’s why she let us go.” Corinne took Lucille’s hand. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what any of these people think about me. Including him.”
The shrill cry of a train whistle carried through the crisp morning air. “Won’t be long,” Lucille said to her new friend. “Train’s just a bit south of here.”
FIFTY-FOUR
What with Frank up and disappearing, the Judge’s death, and the disaster
at the mill, Nola felt like she had somehow survived the end of the world. News about the deaths at the mill intertwined with rumors about the Judge’s passing, spreading through the town before the milk could be delivered. As far as she knew, the whereabouts of the Judge’s body remained a mystery. Some unknown Yankee woman had called and reported the Judge’s death to the funeral home, but by the time they got their best hearse washed and over to his house, there wasn’t a soul there. Even his maid had flown the coop. A few folk were questioning whether the Judge was really gone, but Nola knew if he were still alive, sick or no, he’d never be able to resist presiding over the investigation into the explosion at the mill.
Conroy was a small town, which meant everyone was touched by the deaths at the plant. If an unforgiving God had chosen to punish Conroy for its sins, He couldn’t have picked a better place to strike. An impromptu wake hatched at Nola’s the moment she opened the door, and what with nearly everyone in Conroy out of work and wanting to raise a glass in someone’s memory, Nola had been on her feet from three in the afternoon until one-thirty in the morning. It’d been a hell of a night, and it was damned good to be home.
The Judge’s passing had been overshadowed in a way Nola knew he’d find most displeasing. Full pomp and circumstance, she thought as she reached behind herself to undo the zipper of her dress. The Judge would have wanted full pomp and circumstance to mark his passing. Now his death was just one of many, not so special anymore, and from the talk at the bar, not many would miss him. “Here’s to you,” she said with only a slight tone of sarcasm as she took a sip of her whiskey.
She usually hung around the bar long enough to count out the till and supervise cleanup. Not tonight, though. She’d headed right out at closing time. For all she knew, with the Judge gone and Sheriff Bell missing, the state police would be closing her down come daybreak anyway. No use wasting her time and energy until she knew how the chips were going to fall.
She undid her bra and let it fall to the floor. She turned to view herself in the mirror of her vanity. Tits were hanging a bit, not as high as they once were, but they looked as good as any woman her age could hope for. God, she envied those Hollywood starlets who filled the magazines at her hairdresser. Some of those damned bitches never seemed to age. She turned sideways to examine herself from that angle. Her stomach showed just a bit of padding, a softness Frank claimed to enjoy. She ran her hand down the length of her stomach, the thought of Frank causing her fingers to reach a bit lower. She’d miss that man all right.
She’d never see Frank again, of that she was certain. He’d plowed his car into a tree, killing Bayard, then skipped town to avoid the consequences. Bayard. No one had come to toast Bayard’s memory. Nola had hated the bastard, who’d scared her to death on a regular basis, but now that he was gone, she found it in her heart to toss back the last of her whiskey in his honor. She sat the glass on the vanity table, then went to the closet, pulling a clean nightgown from a hanger and slipping it over her head.
She crossed to her bed and reached down to extinguish the lamp on her nightstand, when a knock, unmistakably his knock, sounded on the front door. Her heart fluttered as she raced to answer it, but she remembered herself and slowed, taking her time to cross the darkened living room and find the door. She flipped the switch to illuminate the porch light, planning to give Frank holy hell for up and disappearing, before she let him take her into her room and lay her down.
She flung the door open, but the sight of him caused her words to catch in her throat. He stood there before her as moths flitted into his halo. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was only because she’d thought he was lost to her. She had always wanted him, for pleasure, for company, but she had never before realized how much she loved him. Her heart nearly broke at the sight of his oddly pale skin.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Were you hurt?” She paused, a little taken aback by a flicker of tiny blue specks dancing in his dark eyes. Something was different about him; something was strange. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked, finally taking note of the police uniform he was wearing. Never in a million years would she have expected to see him dressed as an officer of the law.
He cocked his head and smiled at her, a delicious mischief in that smile spiking her desire. “Ain’t you heard? There’s a new sheriff in town.” He leaned toward her, placing a hand against the outside of the door frame. He was so close, and she wanted him so badly. “Come on, sugar, it’s getting late,” Frank said, his lids narrowing seductively. “You gonna invite me in or not?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the amazing team at 47North, especially Jason Kirk for having faith that a rough stone might shine, and Nicci Jordan Hubert, for her patience and elbow grease. Thanks also to my friend and fellow author, Roberta Trahan, for the encouragement that helped Shivaree grow from a short story to the novel you now hold. Of course, the biggest thank-you goes to my spouse, Rich Weissman, without whom none of this would have ever happened. Finally, much love to my furry co-authors: Duke and Sugar.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Boone Rodriguez
J.D. Horn was raised in rural Tennessee and has carried a bit of its red clay with him while traveling the world, from Hollywood to Paris to Tokyo. He studied comparative literature as an undergrad, focusing on French and Russian in particular. He also holds an MBA in international business and worked as a financial analyst before becoming a novelist. Along with his spouse, Rich, and his furry co-authors, Duke and Sugar, he divides his time between Black Butte Ranch, Oregon, and San Francisco, California.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-FOUR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR