Tomorrow River

by Lesley Kagen

  “Did Gramma have one of her fits and hurt you? Is that what you’re tryin’ to tell me?”

  My sister shakes her head hard enough to make her braids whip.

  “Shenny? Woody?” It’s Louise calling to us from down below. I didn’t hear her coming down the path from her cottage to the fort. “I know you’re up there. I see the light.”

  “Only ignorant girls that live in bayou shanties sneak up on people and shout at ’em. What do ya want?” I say, keeping my eye on my twin. She is back to the drawing again. Circling faster and faster from the Gramma figure to the Mama figure.

  “Uncle Cole wants you and Woody to come to the cottage,” Lou says. “Beezy’s over there. The sheriff . . . he’s arrested Sam.”

  “We know that.” I’m sure the whole town does by now. Poor Beezy.

  Woody puts her hand on the back of my head and tilts it forward until I’m a few inches away from the drawing. “I’m sorry. I still don’t see what you’re tryin’ to tell me,” I say in my most soothing voice.

  Exasperated, my sister throws the pad off to the side and places her hands around my neck this time. Squeezes with all she’s got. This is the same thing she did to me that afternoon in our bedroom when we were looking at the drawing the same way we are now. “Cut it out!” I say, prying her fingers off. “I’m tryin’ hard as I can to understand.”

  Lou shouts, but not mean-sounding, “We got food over at the cottage. I made some of that pecan fudge from your mama’s recipe.”

  I know I should do what I promised Curry I’d do, but my stomach is begging me to fill it. The Tittles won’t have anything to eat and even if they did, I wouldn’t feel right taking it off them. Woody and I could just run over to the Jacksons, eat, tell Beezy that Sam is going to be okay in the long run, eat some more, and then take the stepping stones over to E. J.’s the way I told him I would. We’ll stay over there until tomorrow morning when Curry promised to answer all my questions.

  I beg Woody, “Please, please, let’s leave the drawing be and go over to the Jacksons’. Did you notice how pleasant Lou sounds? I think she’s changed back to her old Louisiana self now that Blackie’s broken off with her. Bet we could get her to tell us a tale about Rex the kid-eating alligator while we chow down—doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

  When she frowns at me, I start singing a couple of bars of “I’ll Never Say No to You” from the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Making her feel guilty can work sometimes if I’m really trying to convince her of something.

  “Uncle Cole says your grampappy is soused as a saxophone player on a Saturday night. And your uncle . . . ,” Lou says, choked up. “His Honor and his brother have begun celebratin’ the Founders, too.”

  It’s good they got busy so early. Maybe they’ll forget all about Woody and me.

  “I made ya girls a ju-jus,” Lou says, a little shy. That’s the nicest present a hoodoo woman can give. It’s a little sack full of fingernail clippings and ashes and feathers and toad parts. Those bags are supposed to drive off evil spirits. “I gotta get back to the cottage now. I know Beezy would love to see ya. Me, too.”

  I want nothing more in the world right now than to call back to Lou, “We’re comin’ in two shakes,” but Woody has collapsed in a heap on the fort floor. Her face is glowing, radiating. There’s that flu going around. The one that got Clive Minnow. “Are you feelin’ sick?” I kneel down next to her and kiss her forehead, but it’s not warmer than it should be.

  “You out there, girls?”

  Woody jerks to attention, the way she always does at the sound of her voice. I scramble over to the fort’s peephole. Gramma Ruth Love is standing on the back porch of the house under the bug light. She’s wearing a cream-colored nightie and her hair that she has never cut is cascading down to her waist.

  “I baked a lemon meringue for you,” she calls. Next to chiffon pie, that’s our mouth-watering favorite and she knows it. She loves my sister and me and wants to feed us and spend time together.

  Or Grampa sent her out to entice us.

  He’ll do that. He knows how fond we are of our grandmother most of the time. Thinking about a slice of her prize-winning pie is making my mouth water. Woody is furiously licking her lips, so maybe she’s feeling the same way. Or maybe not. Because now she’s doing something odd with her mouth. Twisting it, and then opening and closing it. Maybe she really is sick to her stomach.

  “Are you going to upchuck?” I ask. “Let’s get you over to the side.” But it’s not a retching sound that comes out of her mouth. It’s a word that I swear sounds like, “Cantaboo.”

  I’m not sure that she’s spoken or if it’s just wishful thinking on my part.

  “Twins?” Gramma calls again from the porch. “I brought all my best dolls.”

  Woody opens her mouth and tries again. Yes. I’m sure she’s saying, “Cantaboo.”

  If this was any other moment in time, I would be crying for joy, thanking her for coming back to me, for speaking. But this isn’t any other moment in time. It’s now or never. I heard the screen door open and slam shut again.

  “Cantaboo!” My sister is telling me to Run! But there’s only one way down from the fort and Grampa is already coming.

  Gramma is calling to him from the porch, “I’m sorry, Gus. I tried to get them to come down the way you told me.”

  “Show yourselves!” Grampa shouts. When we don’t jump right up, he changes his tone to sound something more like one of those carnival men trying to con you into playing one of their games of chance. “There’s a nice surprise waitin’ for you two in the parlor.”

  No, there isn’t. Not one thing that’s about to happen will be nice. Or a surprise.

  This is all my fault. I should’ve done what Curry told me. Climbed up the fort steps and right away taken Woody over to E. J.’s.

  I gotta make this right. I’m not going to let my sister suffer for my stupidity.

  I hand her the flashlight, whispering, “I’m going down. Wait five minutes and then you and Ivory cantaboo over to the Tittles. Take the steppin’ stones and not the road so Grampa can’t follow you.” Nobody can scoot over those rocks faster than she does. I wish I could tell her to head over to the Jacksons, but they aren’t strong enough to fend off Grampa if he goes over to the cottage looking for her. And I can’t do that to them. They’re at the mercy of the great and invincible Guster Carmody. The Tittles are poor, but they are white. Grampa might think twice about charging over there in the dead of night. But even if he does, E. J. will hear him coming with a hunter’s ears. He’ll keep his true love safe. “Do you understand, pea?”

  Woody shakes her head, but she does.

  I take her hands in mine and say, “I had a visit with Curry Weaver tonight and you know what he said? He told me that you’re the only one in the whole world that can help Sam because you’re an eyewitness to what happened to Mama. That means you’re a very important person. We’ve got to keep you out of harm’s way. You don’t want to let Sam down, do you? You don’t want your new uncle to have to work on a chain gang, do you?”

  “Get your twin butts down here!” Grampa can’t be more than ten paces away.

  Woody lays her head on my chest. Ivory sets a paw high on my thigh.

  “One more thing,” I say, petting them both. “You need to meet Curry out on the road in front of the house tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s got some news for us.” My sister’s warm breath is coming fast onto my neck. She knows what’s bound to happen to me once I leave the fort. “Oh, c’mon now. It’s not the end of the world. Shoot. I can handle the root cellar with one hand tied behind my back. There’s those delicious strawberry preserves down there. I could eat all those up and wouldn’t you be jealous.”

  I manage to get a teensy smile out of her.

  “Sum bitch,” Grampa says, from right below us. “You girls make me send Ruth Love up after ya, I ain’t gonna be happy.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” I tell Woody. “Go s
traight to E. J.’s. And keep your eyes peeled.” Then I call in my most congenial voice, “I’m comin’ right down, Grampa. Golly, I’m so, so sorry. I must’ve dozed off. Didn’t hear you.”

  When I lift the fort hatch, Woody whimpers, whispers, “Hushacat.”

  “Amen,” I say, even though I don’t believe for one second that everything’ll be all right no matter how bad it looks at the present time. And neither does Saint Jude. Over my sister’s shoulder, I can see the plastic statue of the granter of hope for the hopeless. He’s lying facedown on the rusty coffee can altar.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  My arm may be broken.

  Grampa practically ripped it out of its socket when I came down out of the fort. “Smile!” he shouted, so he would know which twin I was.

  The lights are down low in the kitchen. Just the one above the stove top and the brass lamp on the counter are lit. A half-empty bottle of Maker’s is standing in the middle of the round kitchen table. The Carmody men have been interrogating me. Gramma has wandered off somewhere.

  Brave Beezy came pounding plaintively at the door a little while ago. “I know what you’re tryin’ to do to my boy, Gus, and ya ain’t gonna get away with it. Bring me those girls. Show me my babies.” Her cries were no more important to them than the owl hooting in the backyard tree.

  Grampa’s wearing brown trousers and a tan sport shirt stretched across his belly. Below the pocket is a speck of barbeque sauce, or it could be my blood. His crew cut is buzzed down to his sunburned skull, his hands are tantrum red and within reach of his double-barrel shotgun. The usual Lucky Strike cigarette is stuck in the corner of his mouth, so wisps of smoke are hanging over us.

  Papa leans forward in his chair and says, “I’m only going to ask you one more time, Shenandoah. Where is Jane Woodrow?”

  I can’t hardly talk because my lip is so swollen. “I already told you, sir, I . . . I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  Bare-chested Blackie raises his hand again, but Grampa says, “Don’t mark up her face anymore. We got the festivities to think of.” He pours himself a couple of fingers out of the bottle. “What difference does it make where Janie is, anyhoo? Now that she’s admitted it’s her we saw that night in the fort even if she could talk, who’d believe her? All that flappin’ and eye blinkin’. Anybody can see the girl’s got bats in the belfry.” He downs the whiskey and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “We can look for her later. When we find her, Shenny will help us impress upon her twin the importance of keepin’ her mouth shut, won’t ya, honey?”

  “I sure will, Grampa,” I say. If they knew it was me that promised my father to keep quiet and not Woody . . . I can’t think what they’d do to me.

  Uncle Blackie says, “Gus is right.” His sons have always called their father Gus because he doesn’t like to be called Daddy or Papa. He thinks it’s sissy. “We’ll go lookin’ for Janie later. I’ve been hankering for a game of hide-’n’-seek,” he says, giving me a playful smile.

  “Speakin’ of mental cases, where’s that woman gone off to? Ruth Love, get in here.” Grampa leans back and bellows. “Bring me a piece of that pie.”

  The lemon meringue is setting on the kitchen counter not a foot away from him, right below the radio, which is playing something low and bluesy. The three of them are so drunk, they’re swaying to the drumbeat and don’t even know it.

  Grampa burps and says, “Time to get to the business at hand. Go ahead, Wally.” He doesn’t respect him, but he knows that my first-in-his-law-school-class father is far more skilled than a horse farrier or a land baron at posing probing questions.

  Papa rolls up the sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt and says to me, “Remmy Hawkins told me that he saw you and your sister over at the Triple S the other day visiting with Sam Moody. Is that true?”

  “I . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you about that, sir. Woody . . . I mean Jane Woodrow . . . ran over there and I went to fetch her. I know how much you don’t like Sam Moody, Your Honor. Me neither. I despise that man.”

  “You’re lying,” Papa says. “I know Mother had been visiting with Moody on Tuesdays and that you girls went along with her in the rowboat. Maybe that’s why your sister ran off to the Triple S. Do you think that could be why, Shenandoah?” He asks that like he really does wonder why his wife sought comfort with another man and why his children liked spending time with him, too.

  “That’s not true,” I say. “I think you got wrong information, Your Honor.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Grampa and Uncle Blackie are smirking at me from across the table. Papa says, “I dropped a cuff link . . . I found your mother’s diary hidden beneath the bedroom floor. Did you know that she kept one?”

  I lower my eyes, not able to stand the pain that I’m seeing in his. “Of course, you knew,” Papa says, so disappointed. “That’s what you were doing the other day up in my room, wasn’t it? Looking for her diary?”

  “No . . . I . . .” His Honor holds up his hand in a stop, just stop, I-can’t-take-anymore-of-your-lies way. Sadness is tugging at the skin around his eyes, his mouth. He truly doesn’t understand. He bought all Mama’s clothes. Never let her out of his sight. Held her so tight.

  Seeing him so dejected makes me want to brush the lock of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead back where it belongs. To kiss his tears away. How devastated Papa’s going to be when I testify at his trial. “Sam Moody did not murder my mother,” I’ll tell the court. “He couldn’t have. I was over at his place that night and he was there and not in the clearing behind our house where my mother was last seen alive. I don’t know why, but my father is lying, trying to make Sam seem guilty when he isn’t.” The family attorney, Bobby Rudd, will jump up and protest, but it’ll be too late. I will have done irreparable damage to my father. No matter what I told Curry earlier, I can feel my feet growing cold. I don’t think I can go through with it. As wrong as it would be to let Sam take the blame for something he didn’t do—I can’t betray my father. This little man, no matter what awful things he’s done, this runt of the litter is my papa.

  “Pay attention.” Grampa taps the back of my head, hard. “Sam Moody’s been arrested for murderin’ your mother in the first degree.”

  He was trying to catch me off guard, but I’m too practiced to let him. I feign shock and make myself say what he expects to hear. “He . . . he . . . that nigger killed Mama?”

  Grampa smiles, showing teeth that are as beautiful and bright as Sam’s, and just for a moment in all that radiance, I can imagine how Beezy let herself fall in love with the richest boy in the county all those years ago.

  “Shenandoah.” Papa isn’t sad sounding anymore. He talks to me in the same judgmental voice that he would a prisoner that’s just been found guilty in his courtroom. “You’ve done a bad thing. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I do. And . . . I’m begging for mercy. I should’ve told you that Mama was going over to visit with Sam Moody at the Triple S. I realize that now.”

  “You need to make things right.”

  “Yes, sir. I will do anything I can.”

  “When . . . when the sheriff questions you in this matter I want you to tell him how your mother was so kind.” Papa looks at Grampa for his approval. “And how she was going over to the gas station to help Moody out of the goodness of her heart. And . . . how you heard him threaten to kill her when she shunned his advances and—”

  “Cuckold,” Grampa barks out.

  Blackie sneers and says, “Your woman was steppin’ out with your own father’s bastard. Ya pussy.”

  They will call each other names into the night. Grampa and Blackie ganging up on Papa.

  When my father drops his head into his hands and starts bawling, Grampa Gus says, so repulsed, “For Chrissakes. No wonder your wife went lookin’ for some real male companionship.”

  “Go ahead and tell Shenny the good news, why don’t you,” Blackie says slyly to his little brother. “Go on, Wally.�
��

  “I have to get remarried,” Papa says. “To . . . Abigail Hawkins.”

  Even though I’m not supposed to ask questions in these interrogation sessions, I can’t help myself. “You have to get married to her?”

  Grampa snorts out, “He damn well does. ’Bout time he made up to all of us for the years of trouble he caused marryin’ that Northern bitch.”

  When he mentions Mama, I start to cry along with my father and it makes my lip bleed harder.

  “Awww . . . let me help you with that,” my uncle says. He steps over to the freezer and removes a bag of peas. All I can think of is Woody. I hope she made it to the other side of the creek into the loving arms of E. J. and isn’t wandering around in the woods, not sure what she should do next. “Here you go.” Blackie sits back down and places the cold bag against my mouth, presses down too hard.

  “We’ll be heading over to the carnival tomorrow evenin’,” Grampa says, taking a long draw and blowing the most perfect smoke ring. “I bet you’re excited, Shenny. Ya always have loved that freak show.”

  I reply exactly how he expects me to. “I’m more excited than a banty rooster in a henhouse, Grampa.”

  “Thatta girl,” he says, phlegmy. “Now get me a fresh bottle of bourbon from the dinin’ room cabinet and don’t forget a glass for yourself.”

  Grampa and Blackie like to get Woody and me inebriated. They think that’s hardy har har funny.

  “You heard your grandfather,” Blackie says, tipping my chair backwards until I have no choice but to do what he asks.

  The lights that hang above the pictures of past Carmodys are the only illumination in the dining room. Hiram Carmody. Elsie Carmody. All of them. These black-and-white people dotting our walls are the ones to blame for creating a line of men so mean that they think nothing of framing an innocent man for murder or getting a kid drunk on whiskey or treating women like . . . I’m going to run out the front door. Make a break for it. Join up with E. J. and Woody over at the Tittles’. I take a step towards the foyer.