Effigies

by Mary Anna Evans

  Faye was willing to take whatever she could get.

  The light on Faye’s bedside phone was signaling that she had a message waiting for her. She considered ignoring it, but she’d never get any sleep with that red light flashing on and off interminably. Besides, Faye could be antisocial at times, but she wasn’t stupid. There was a killer out there somewhere, as much as she hated to think about it. It would be foolish to ignore a message that might say something like, “There’s an ax-murderer under your bed!”

  Besides, there was a new man in her life. Well, maybe Ross wasn’t in her life yet, but he was knocking on the door. Of course, she was going to check that message.

  The phone rang before she reached it, and the voice that said, “Hello, Faye,” did belong to that new man who was hovering around the corners of her life.

  “Hello, Ross.”

  “How was work today?” he asked in a voice that did not speak of work or of anything practical at all. “Did you dig up any treasures?”

  Faye remembered the embankments along the creek and the mysterious hole in its bank and the ancient mound that rose above them. Those were treasures that she hadn’t even needed to dig up. They were right out in the world for anyone to see—if they had Mrs. Calhoun’s permission. Faye decided that she didn’t know Ross well enough yet to admit to him that she’d been trespassing all evening, so she said, “No treasures today. Only tax documents and other boring paperwork.”

  “Tax documents? That sounds like lawyer stuff. People study archaeology because it’s glamorous—”

  “—or otherwise they’d never accept such low salaries?”

  “Yeah. My theory is that our society pays lawyers well because it’s the only way people will agree to spend their lives analyzing tax documents.”

  Faye sank down on the bed and kicked off her muddy boots. Realizing what her nasty clothes were doing to the comforter, she slid off the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor. “I notice that your work brought you to the Neshoba County Fair. They call it ‘America’s Giant House Party.’ I wouldn’t say that you’re suffering much over that assignment. What boring and lawyerly thing did you do today to earn your princely salary?”

  “It was bad.” A low groan came out of the phone to emphasize how bad his day had been. “I don’t know if I should even tell you about my day, because it was that bad.”

  “Don’t tell me. You spent all day on the Midway, riding rides and eating snow cones.”

  “Worse.” Another pitiful groan escaped him. “I just left Meridian, so you’ll be sound asleep a long time before I roll into Philadelphia and knock off work for the day. I spent today at an economic development conference. Every speech was equally scintillating, so I think my brain may have started to rot. Tomorrow, I’ll be around Philadelphia most of the morning—hey, maybe I’ll go to the Fair and eat a snow cone in your honor—but tomorrow night will be deadly. I’ve got to go to Jackson for a charity fundraiser where I’ll have a chance at some face-time with a few key legislators. Unfortunately, since I do think brain rot has started to set in, I may not survive.”

  “Sounds like you’ll be pretty late getting back here tomorrow night, too.” Faye tried not to sound like she wished he was right down the hall, though she did.

  “Yeah. I’ve got to spend tomorrow afternoon at the Capitol, doing all those things lobbyists do. Then I have to go to that fundraiser. Black tie.”

  Ross sounded like the thought of a formal evening made him want to groan again, but Faye entertained an extravagantly detailed mental image of Ross in a tux. For about fifty cents, she’d drive all the way to Jackson, just to get a look at that.

  “I’ll have to get up at the crack of dawn Friday,” he continued in the same suffering tone, “so that I can be back here in time to hear Neely Rutland and Lawrence Judd speak at the Fair that morning. I was thinking maybe we might have dinner that evening. Would you like to?”

  “That sounds lovely,” Faye said, realizing that she sounded as prim as a Grace Kelly character in a 1950s movie. Still, whenever she was afraid she might embarrass herself by saying something like, “Yes, indeed. Anything you want, you handsome thing,” she always fell back on her mother’s outdated but outstandingly correct version of good manners.

  “Shall I pick you up at eight?”

  Again, Faye’s voice spoke, but her mother’s words came out. “That will be just fine.” Which was a lot better than what she was thinking, which was Praise God. I can shop for some decent clothes at lunchtime, then I’ll have until eight o’clock to scrub all the dirt off me.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow night, if the party gets over at a decent hour. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you on Friday. Sleep well, Faye.”

  “You, too, Ross.”

  Despite Ross’ good-night wish that she sleep well, Faye didn’t rest at all comfortably, and not for the first time in the week. The excitement of discovering both the cave and the mound that Mr. Judd remembered from his youth stirred the treasure-hunter in her soul. Archaeologists were not born through the sheer love of science. It was the thrill of the search that lured Faye and others like her into a difficult and poorly paid field.

  Half the time—most of the time—she wasn’t even sure what she hoped to find when she poked her trowel into the ground. Something old. Something interesting, no, fascinating. Something that would snatch her up out of her pedestrian twenty-first-century life and plunk her down into the past. Scratch the surface of an archaeologist in her practical field clothing and her sensible shoes, and you will find an incurable romantic.

  Eventually, after mentally reviewing the glorious relics of history she might find if she were ever allowed to excavate on the Calhoun land, she drifted off and slept soundly for a time. The pre-dawn hours found her awake again, with her thoughts straying to the interesting possibilities that walked around in the form of Ross Donnelly. If she could have sat down and drawn up specifications for God to use when designing her ideal man, the result would have looked a lot like Ross.

  Her interest wasn’t as shallow as his face and body, as pleasant as those were to behold. She’d always valued intellect in a man, as well as the drive to develop that intellect. Emory Law School wasn’t known for accepting and graduating slackers. Ross rose further in her esteem when she considered that he was using his gifts to pursue a cause that he obviously believed in. Faye wasn’t sure she cared much what a man’s heartfelt cause was—provided it didn’t involve lying, cheating, stealing, or killing—as long as he had a real passion for it.

  The fact that Ross’ cause was intimately associated with his African-American identity was more than a little intriguing to Faye. She’d spent more than thirty years grappling with her own ambiguous ancestry. Was she white? Was she black? After the passage of eight generations, how strongly should she identify with her tenuous connection to the Creek nation?

  Ross knew who he was, and he accepted her African descent as sufficient to include her in the phrase, “our people.” The child inside her who had never felt part of any group was charmed by that. No, she was more than charmed. She felt affirmed for being herself. Nobody but her mother, her grandmother, Joe, and a select few friends had ever given her that gift.

  She rolled over and told herself sternly to sleep. Her job required a lot from her, physically, and she needed her rest.

  Again, she slipped away, but this time her sleep was light and troubled. When her alarm sounded, she knew only that she had dreamed, but the details flitted away like vapor. She was mumbling when she awoke, which caused her to glance quickly at Toneisha’s bed to see if she’d disturbed her roommate. The bed was empty. Faye was alone.

  What had she been saying? It seemed important to remember the words. She could almost hear them. Ross had been in her dream, looking down at her and smiling. Joe had been there, too, though she wasn’t so sure that he’d worn such a pleasant expression. It hadn’t been a romantic dream, nor a nightmare, but she sensed that there was a decision to be made, a questio
n to be answered.

  What had she been trying to say?

  She could almost taste the words on her tongue. Blanking out her mind, she tried to slip back under the blanket of sleep. As it engulfed her, she heard the words and realized what had been troubling her.

  Who’s taller? Ross or Joe?

  She tried repeating the words again, with her conscious mind turned on.

  “Who’s taller? Ross or Joe?”

  Or, more to the point: “Who was taller? Ross or Mr. Calhoun?”

  And when did Ross Donnelly arrive in Neshoba County?

  The Choctaws and the Irish

  As told by Mrs. Frances Nail

  This is another story I learned in school. It ought to be taught in all the schools, but I don’t think it is.

  In 1845, the potato crop in Ireland didn’t make. Now, I know all you folks grew up on land like this land here. You can drop a pea off your plate onto the ground, and it’ll come up. Next year, you’ll have a whole crop of peas. The old folks say that’s how we got corn. A crow flew far and wide—maybe to Central America, since I hear that’s where they invented corn. It snatched up a cob and flew away with it. When it flew over Choctaw country, one little kernel dropped off and hit the ground. The next year, a corn plant grew. And the next year, there were two plants. Now, everybody has corn, the whole world over.

  It wasn’t that way in Ireland. All the poor people could grow was potatoes, and when the potatoes didn’t make, they started to starve. The next year, the potatoes didn’t grow again. The next year, there weren’t even enough potatoes left for seed. People left their homes, or they died. Millions of them, or so I’ve been told.

  In 1847, our Choctaw brothers and sisters in Oklahoma raised a bunch of money, more than seven hundred dollars, and sent it to Ireland to help the hungry people. Now, I’ve got no notion how much money that is in today’s dollars, and it doesn’t much matter. It’s beside the point. The thing to remember is that it had only been sixteen years since the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek left those Choctaws starving and homeless and cold. When you look at it from that perspective, that seven hundred dollars was the biggest fortune anybody ever gave away.

  I’ll say this for the Irish. They didn’t forget. In 1997, for the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Great Potato Famine, a bunch of them flew to Oklahoma to say thank you. Then, they walked five hundred miles until they got here, to Nanih Waiya. After that, they donated a hundred thousand dollars to feed hungry people in Africa, in honor of our brothers and sisters in Oklahoma.

  They should teach these things in all the schools. The world would be a better place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Thursday

  Day 7 of the Neshoba County Fair

  Faye believed that no one should have to listen to a cell phone ringing before breakfast, but hers was singing to her from the pocket of yesterday’s muddy jeans. She crawled out of bed and put the foul thing to her ear.

  The quavery voice was familiar. Faye got a bad feeling in her stomach.

  “Ms. Longchamp—”

  “Call me Faye, please,” Faye said, partially out of good manners and partially to delay news that she suspected was bad.

  “All right, Faye. I wanted to let you know that Lawrence had another weak spell last night. He’s back in the hospital.”

  Faye felt a little weak and sick herself. He had seemed so much better when she last saw him, hardly nine hours before. Had their walk in the creek been too much for him? She berated herself for letting him talk her into taking that risk. Then she berated herself some more for not checking on him during the night. “Have you talked to him, Mrs. Judd?”

  “You should call me Sallie, after all you’ve done for us. No, I haven’t talked to him yet. I think he’s still unconscious, but I really don’t know. The doctor has not been forthcoming with information.”

  Big surprise, Faye thought. Framing her words more diplomatically for the benefit of the sick man’s sick wife, she said, “I’ll drive over there and see what I can get out of the doctor on duty. I’ll do my best to get in to see your husband. And don’t worry. The doctor I met isn’t going to win any personality contests, but I have no reason to think he doesn’t know his business.”

  Unless one counts patient and family education as part of his business, she groused to herself as she phoned Joe and told him that they needed to make a little detour on their way to work.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Faye said, letting Joe drive so that she could do a couple of last-minute grooming tasks like combing her hair and applying sunscreen. “While I’m getting the doctor’s attention, you go to the hospital cafeteria and get us some breakfast to go. We can eat on our way to work. Dr. Mailer’s not used to having anybody show up on time, but it would be nice to surprise him, just this once. He’s under a lot of stress. We should try not to add to it.”

  She was worried about leaving Mr. Judd to the tender mercies of the impatient doctor. Pulling her cell phone out of her purse, she called Ross Donnelly. He’d said he would be in town this morning, and she’d understood him to say that his important business would happen later in the day. Maybe he had better things to do than sit in a hospital room, but then again, maybe he didn’t.

  She had the impression that Ross had driven over from Atlanta primarily to have a chance to meet Lawrence Judd, and that these other political activities were just nice things to do while he was here. The Neshoba County Fair was crammed full of powerful politicos, so he might have had his sights set on more than one mover-and-shaker, but here was a chance for quality time with one of them. It was no surprise when Ross immediately said he’d see her at the hospital.

  Joe dropped Faye off at the hospital entrance, then zipped away to park the car. Faye knew her way to the emergency room, a fact that was depressing in itself. It was a fairly small hospital, so she was there within minutes.

  The doctor she’d met during Mr. Judd’s last hospital visit was standing at the nurse’s station reviewing a chart. She could tell that he was not overjoyed to see her.

  “How is Mr. Judd?” she asked, hoping that Mrs. Judd’s earlier permission for her to speak with medical personnel still held. Or that Mrs. Judd had faxed him another one already, with the sun still hardly up.

  “I just spoke with his wife, but I’ll repeat what I told her. This time, he was able to call 911 before losing consciousness, but the paramedics found him in the same condition this morning as he was when he was brought in earlier this week. Very low blood pressure. Very slow heart rate. These symptoms may have been even more pronounced than upon his first visit, but they fluctuate from minute to minute, so I don’t want to say that for certain.”

  “How is he now?”

  “His blood pressure and heart rate have improved since he was admitted, though we have no idea why his condition deteriorated again. He’s been conscious, but he’s drifting in and out, and I’m not sure he’s completely coherent when he’s talking. I’ve asked his wife again whether he’s had this kind of episode before. She denies it. She sounded a little insulted to be asked the same question a second time.”

  Faye wondered how he’d respond to a question that suggested he might be dangerously careless or forgetful.

  The doctor continued. “She says he was prescribed medication for chest pains—angina—a year ago, and that his doctor recently added a beta-blocker for his hypertension, but that he’s had no other problems. Certainly no episodes like this.”

  “I happen to know that he took a long vigorous walk in the country yesterday evening,” Faye ventured cautiously. “Could that have caused this kind of problem?”

  “He had no difficulty breathing while he was walking? He wasn’t dizzy or faint?”

  Faye shook her head.

  “Walking is one of the best exercises for patients like Mr. Judd. I wouldn’t want him to give up aerobic exercise for fear of another attack. Unless we find something structurally wrong that we didn’t find two days ago, then I w
ould encourage him to keep taking those walks. But first we have to track down the cause of his problem.”

  Faye was relieved to hear that she probably didn’t instigate this new crisis by caving in to Judd’s desire to take a long walk in the creek.

  “Can I see him?”

  The doctor nodded, and a nurse escorted her to a curtained cubicle that was filled with flashing, beeping medical instruments and a hospital bed. The bed was short and narrow, but Mr. Judd still looked small in it. His skin was gray, as before, and his eyes didn’t open when she took his hand and said, “Sallie sent me. Are they treating you okay?”

  A little smile twisted his lips, and he gave her hand an imperceptible squeeze. Perhaps he was more responsive than the medical personnel realized. Or perhaps Faye had played a trump card they didn’t have, simply by mentioning Sallie’s name.

  “What happened? Did you just wake up feeling bad?”

  No response.

  “Sallie says she’s going to hop a plane and come get you, even if they have to put you both in an ambulance to get you back to Michigan.”

  A bare shake of the head said that he wanted Sallie to stay right where she was.

  A deep voice outside the curtain asked, “Can I come in?”

  Faye said, quietly, “Of course you can,” and Ross slid into the narrow space between the foot of the bed and the curtain.

  Mr. Judd’s lips moved, trying to frame a word. Something unintelligible came out.

  Faye and Ross gathered at his elbow. Together, they said, “You’re talking!”

  “See you…again.”

  Ross thought for a second, then said, “Good to see you again, too, sir! I wish you were looking better, but I’m glad you’re talking.”

  Faye was glad Mr. Judd was talking, too, but she was preoccupied with trying to figure out what he’d actually said. All she was sure of was that he said something about seeing Ross again. Maybe he meant he was looking forward to seeing him again. Maybe he meant that he’d seen Ross recently and, thus, was seeing him again. If so, then the obvious question was this: How long ago did he see Ross last? If he’d seen him shortly before his mysterious collapse, some uncomfortable questions needed to be asked.