Summer of the Redeemers

by Carolyn Haines

  “Apologize, you idiot,” I whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For saying nigger in front of Effie.”

  Arly’s grip loosened. “Mama, I didn’t mean to say that word. It slipped out because I’ve heard it so much today.”

  Mama’s sob was so sudden and unexpected that nobody said anything. It sounded like it tore her throat.

  “Mama, I’m really sorry.” Arly was worried. “I won’t say it again. Ever.”

  Daddy’s arm drew Mama across the seat until she was nestled against his side. He spoke softly to her in words I didn’t quite hear, but it seemed to help. Arly and I sat back. The rest of the ride was in silence. By the time we got to Kali Oka, Effie was sound asleep and no one wanted to wake her.

  Alice was waiting for me the next morning. I didn’t tell that I knew her mother had slapped her. It would only have made Alice feel worse. She had Maebelle V. strapped in the papoose-like carrier on her back. She’d ridden her bicycle the short distance through the woods and was parked, ready to ride, at the edge of our yard.

  “Let’s go to the Redeemers,” she said before I could even say hi. I looked at her like she was crazy.

  “Why?”

  “Old Doc McMillan had to go down there the Monday after you left. We saw his car. He’s gone back every day. Somebody’s bad sick.”

  It was nearly me. I had the horrible idea that maybe they’d beaten Magdeline to near death. Looking at Alice, I could see she was feeling the same thing.

  “It ain’t her,” I said. “There’s a hundred people living down there, and most of the boys look wormy. It could be any one of them.”

  “I want to make sure. If it’s the girl, then we’re to blame.”

  “Stop it, Alice! We’re not to blame. We didn’t make her stand up and confess to fornicating. And we didn’t make them hit her, if they did. They do what they want to do. We just happened to see it.”

  The trouble with my argument was that I knew Alice was right.

  We were to blame. Or more rightly, I was to blame. Alice would have gone to the police and admitted eavesdropping and spying. I was the one who wouldn’t do it.

  “Let’s ride down there and look.”

  “I don’t know.” I wanted to go down there, but I was worried about Effie. Her arm was swollen, and Daddy was putting compresses on it. He’d called a doctor in Mobile, and they were going over there for a consultation. “Mama’s pretty sick.”

  Alice looked at the ground. “I’m sorry she got cut. Why’d she have to go to that jail anyway?”

  I shrugged. “She said it was the right thing to do.”

  “It might have been right, but she could have gotten killed. It’s strange, but grown-ups do that kind of thing all the time. Then when we try to do it, we get in trouble.”

  She was dead right. “I’ll get my bicycle. We’ll just ride on down there and see what we can see. Maybe we’ll see the girl playing and we can come home in peace.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Alice said. Her smile was thin. “I’ve been worried crazy. I could hardly wait for you to come home. I almost went over to your house and got Mama Betts to dial you, but I was afraid she’d listen in and get us both in trouble.”

  “I missed you, Alice. And we’re not going to move away. Not ever.”

  The sun broiled down hotter than ever on Kali Oka Road. The green hills of Missouri were a fading memory as I gave myself to the heat and red dirt of my home. After a week of not knowing where anything was, of being dependent on someone else to take me everywhere, I was home. I could get anywhere I needed to be on my bicycle or on foot. I had Picket at my side, and Alice as my best friend. Even Maebelle V. wasn’t much of a bother.

  Kali Oka seemed shorter than it ever had before. We were at Cry Baby Creek before I got good and winded. Alice was blowing hard, though, and Maebelle V., in the basket of my bike, seemed a little rattled by the fast ride. I got her out and was surprised to see that she’d grown much heavier. She was also straining her head up and grabbing hold of things with her hands. Pretty soon she’d be trying to crawl, and she was already making a lot of different noises. Too many and too much.

  During my stay in Missouri I had Cathi take me to a pet store, and I bought a leash. Alice and I left the bicycles a long way from the creek, and I put Picket on the leash and took her with me. Maebelle V. was in her papoose, cooing and drooling all over Alice’s back.

  The closer we got to the church, the harder it was for me to breathe. I hadn’t told Alice about the 7-Up bottle. I’d sort of buried that thought from myself.

  “What are we going to do?” Alice asked.

  We’d gotten off in such a hurry, I didn’t even have a plan. It was Monday, so there likely wouldn’t be a church service. We could wade down the creek until we stumbled across someone or something. That seemed like a waste of time, though. I kicked at a stick floating by in the creek. “I don’t know how to get to the girl and check on her. We could just walk up, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Alice eased the papoose around to her front and took the baby out. Maebelle V. chirped with delight at the feel of the cool water on her legs as Alice dangled her in it.

  The truth of the matter was that I didn’t know what to do. Since it wasn’t a Sunday, those Redeemers could be anywhere in the area. They wouldn’t be all gathered up in church for our convenience to spy on. I’d been listening close, and there wasn’t a sound of the boys, even though we weren’t all that far from the place where they’d begun their fort. With no better plan, the fort seemed the best place to start.

  We waded along in the creek. I couldn’t help but remember the summer before—before the Redeemers and before Maebelle V.—Alice and I had dreamed together back then. Now it had changed, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how. Everything had changed. Part of it was Missouri, and even part was a green 7-Up bottle flying through the air and blood dripping in the dirt. Part of it was a singing girl and too many secrets.

  When the boys’ fort was across the creek from us, we stopped. There wasn’t a sound in the woods except for the small animals and birds hustling about their business.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Alice asked out loud.

  “Good lord, no.” I asked Picket to sit beside me as I sank into the creek. She was straining at the leash. Squirrels danced on the rim of the bank, tempting her almost beyond endurance and the strength of my arm to hold her. At least she didn’t bark.

  “You think she’s hurt, don’t you?” Alice sank into the cold rush of water beside me.

  I did, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want to think about it. “We didn’t even go to the water slide. Last summer we wouldn’t have missed a day. Now June is half over.”

  “Bekkah, what are we going to do?”

  “What do you want us to do, march in there and demand to see a girl named Magdeline?” Instead of angry, I was tired.

  “Let’s find that chubby boy, Georgie. He could tell us where his sister is.”

  “Like he would if they’ve killed her. The Redeemers are a sect, Alice. They do everything together. They’d never go against their leader. Mama Betts said they’re almost as bad as a cult. None of them even have jobs, that we know of.”

  Sand was slipping under the elastic of my underwear. My sneakers had already filled with it. The current was so shallow and fast that it moved over my lower body with a relentless power that suddenly made me even tireder. I didn’t want to take on the Redeemers. Effie getting her arm cut had done something to me. Those folks outside the jail, they’d changed me. If the Redeemers had done something terrible to Magdeline, what could I do about it? The answer was nothing.

  “I’m going to take a look,” Alice said. She thrust Maebelle V. at me and churned off down the creek. I held the baby, dangling her feet in the water and then pulling them out, until Alice disappeared from sight. Maebelle V. and I sat for another five minutes before I got up and started after Alice. It wasn’t fair
to make her go by herself. She was always going with me.

  It didn’t take me long to catch up, and I know she heard me splashing behind her even though she didn’t turn around.

  “I’m not afraid,” I said as I touched her shoulder.

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “You think I am, though.”

  “I think you’re different.” She shook her head and made her ponytail jiggle. “We both are, I suppose.”

  She took the baby in her arms and led the way toward the church. We had both changed. Alice had gained guts and I had lost them.

  We hadn’t gone too much farther when we heard the voices. The boys again. It was crucial that we kept Maebelle V. quiet, and Picket too. She was straining at the leash again and growling low in her throat. She hated those boys, and if anyone doesn’t believe a dog is a good judge of character, they just haven’t known any smart dogs.

  Alice slung Maebelle V. back in her papoose, and I kept one hand on Picket’s back. It seemed to keep her calm to feel my touch. Like some soldiers in the war movies, we crept up the bank and fell on our elbows to spy on the boys.

  They were in the old church cemetery. Alice and I exchanged looks, and if I had the same wild-eyed stare she had, we were a fearsome-looking duo. The boys had a shovel, and they were going to town on a hole.

  Jim, the blond boy, was digging while Greg supervised. At first I didn’t see Georgie, but I heard him. There was this soft choking sound coming from behind one of the old tombstones, and it took me a minute to locate Georgie sitting there, crying. The worst sensation ran down my spine.

  “They’re burying her,” Alice said, awe and terror in her voice. “They killed her and they sent the boys to bury her.”

  “That’s impossible.” But I knew it wasn’t. One thing I’d learned this summer was that anything was possible. People could be as nice or as mean as they could think up to be. They didn’t need a reason to be either one.

  “Bekkah, they’re digging a grave.”

  “Maybe it’s treasure.” I wanted it to be treasure. I hoped they found a million dollars each. I didn’t care how rich they became, I just didn’t want them to be digging a grave.

  “In a cemetery?” Alice scoffed. “Not much chance of that.”

  “Alice, if they’ve killed her …” We would have to call the police. “Let’s just watch for a minute.” The time before, I’d run off without my evidence. This time I wanted to see for sure.

  Jim dug the hole diligently. He was knee-deep and working it into a square about three by four. But we couldn’t be sure of the size of the hole, because our view was on the same level.

  Alice’s fingers were digging into the dirt of the bank, and to my complete relief Maebelle V. had dozed off in her papoose. Even Picket was lying right beside me, her eyes alert and watching but her mouth closed.

  From the woods near the boys there was the sound of terrible weeping. Alice gripped my shoulder and nearly broke the bone she squeezed so hard.

  I wanted to break free of her, but I was afraid to move. A white shape flitted through the woods. My heart notched up to a faster rhythm, and I had to force myself to hold my ground and watch. The white shape came closer and closer.

  The boys didn’t seem to notice it. Jim kept digging. Greg supervised right on, and Georgie sat behind his tombstone with the other two boys. He was still crying, and they were talking to him.

  None of them acted as if they heard whoever was coming through the woods crying like they’d lost their only friend. It was a terrible sound, that crying. I’d never heard anything like it. It was so sad that it tore at me. I looked at Alice and there were tears in the corner of her eye.

  “We’re a fine pair, crying over God knows what,” Alice whispered.

  “Who is that and what’s wrong with her?”

  All we could tell was that it was a female. She was draped in white and she wore a veil that obscured her face. She went to the edge of the grave where the boys were working. She stood for a moment, looking down into the hole and crying.

  Jim got out of the hole, and the boys over by Georgie pulled him to his feet. When he turned toward us, he was holding a blood-soaked towel in his arms. There was blood on his face where he’d rubbed his hands at his eyes. Beside me, Alice made a dry, retching sound. I gave her a hard elbow in the ribs and stopped her before she could start vomiting.

  “What is it?” she asked weakly.

  “Shusssh!”

  The boys and girl gathered around the grave. Georgie, crying loudly this time, still held the bloody parcel. I could see by now that it was something wrapped in the towel.

  Out of the clear blue, the girl’s voice rose in a hymn. The words of “Softly and Tenderly” floated from the graveside in a tone so pure that it made my skin jump. She sang one verse and the boys took the bloody towel and put it in the hole in the ground. Without another word Greg took the shovel and started covering it up.

  Georgie and the girl we both recognized now as Magdeline broke into fresh tears.

  “They didn’t kill her,” I told Alice, though she could plainly see it for herself.

  “No, they didn’t kill her.”

  Her voice let me know she was thinking of something almost worse than killing her. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe she had been fornicating, and she was pregnant. Maybe they beat her until they killed the baby.”

  “You think they were burying a dead baby?” That idea was more horrible than anything I could ever have thought of.

  “Not a complete baby.” Alice slipped back into the creek where we could talk easier.

  “What are you getting at?” I wasn’t following. It was either a baby or it wasn’t. Unless someone had cut it up!

  “Well, babies grow. If they don’t get a chance to grow enough, they come out, and they aren’t real babies. They’re just part of a baby. If she was pregnant and not too far along, she could have lost her baby when they hurt her.”

  “This is crazy, Alice. Where did you learn all of this?”

  She dropped her head and turned away from me.

  “What?” I was getting upset. Where had Alice heard these things and why hadn’t she told me before? We’d never had secrets. “Where did you hear all of this stuff?”

  “Jamey Louise.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Jamey Louise Welford?” I was completely betrayed.

  Alice nodded. “Jamey and her sister, Libby.”

  “While I was gone to Missouri?”

  “Yes. Jamey came over and asked me to go bicycle riding with her. She wanted to come down here to the creek, but her mama wouldn’t let her come by herself.”

  “So she asked you to be her nanny?”

  Alice frowned. “She was lonely. She’s not as bad as you think, Bekkah. That Libby is something else. She knows everything there is to know about sex and boys and that kind of stuff.”

  “Libby said they could beat Magdeline and kill her baby if she was pregnant, right?”

  “That’s what she said. That’s why I’ve been so worried.”

  “What if she wasn’t pregnant?”

  “Then what were they burying?”

  “I don’t know, Alice. Why don’t you ask Jamey Louise? She seems to be quite an authority on these things.” Before she could respond, Picket and I started back up the creek to the point where we’d entered.

  Sixteen

  BEHIND me, Alice called my name once, then fell into her own angry silence. I could hear her splashing after me, but I only pushed harder to leave her behind. Picket was an asset, straining forward and pulling me. Alice had the baby to drag along. By the time I left the creek bed, she was far behind.

  I got on my bicycle and pedaled fast toward home. My heart was burning with a strange emotion. It wasn’t fair to get mad at Alice for being friendly to Jamey Louise, especially not when I had been off in Missouri. But it was so hard. And they’d been talking about the Redeemer girl. Alice had told our secrets. The pa
in in my heart barely left enough room for my lungs.

  When I got to Nadine’s driveway, I didn’t even hesitate. I rode straight in. The barn doors were open wide, and I dropped my bicycle in the shade by the chinaberry and ran toward the barn. I was panting when I stopped in the dim coolness, a bit startled by the sudden quietness.

  Cammie’s head was hanging over her stall. There were more horses, but I ignored the new arrivals and ran toward Cammie. I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face. She was damp, and I drew back to take a look at her.

  There was a light blue sheet over her. I slipped the latch and went into her stall. I felt her all over. She was wet, but a cool wet. Not the sweat of being heavily blanketed.

  “I gave her a bath.”

  Nadine’s voice shocked me, but I didn’t let it show. I walked back to the stall door and looked down the hall. She was sitting on the cement block, just as she had the first time I met her. Her legs stuck out of a pair of short, short cutoffs, and she wore a tiny top, like part of a bikini. Her skin was very white and her dark eyes watched me closely.

  “How often do you bathe them?” I asked. Every week or two we gave Picket a bath, which was quite a chore. I couldn’t imagine that Cammie would like it any better.

  “Once a week, at least. It depends on show season. The fall circuit will be coming up soon.”

  I counted nine heads of horses, and I latched Cammie’s door and walked toward Nadine, taking in the little I could see of the new horses.

  “I went to Missouri and rode,” I told her. “I learned how to post properly.”

  “I thought maybe you’d moved away.” Nadine stood up. “Since you didn’t show up to work for lessons, I hired someone else.”

  A giant rock plunged through me, knocking my already injured heart around. All of my summer dreams disintegrated. I’d gone to Missouri for one week, and Alice had a new friend, and Nadine had found someone else to work. Greg, the Redeemer boy, hadn’t lied.