He crouched behind the old truck parked out back, signaled that Liam should be quiet. He wanted to get a sense of the place, but there was not much to see and he wasn’t comfortable exploring any further in the light of day. The curtains on the windows did not move and he saw no shadow in their winking panes. It was not just the land that was neglected here. The porch sagged and there were dangerous gaps where boards had rotted away. The roof needed new shingles.
* * *
Back at the campsite, the flap to the tent was untethered and the grass around the car was trampled. Someone had rifled through their things. He set Liam down, opened the car door, and pulled his rifle from under the seat. He nudged the barrel of the gun through the slack opening of the canvas tent and poked his head in after. Obi let out a long slow sigh of relief. The tent was empty.
When Obi was satisfied no one was hiding in the trees, he took inventory of their supplies. Everything seemed to be in place, though the tin of cookies on the front seat of the car seemed a bit emptier.
“Daddy.” Liam ran his hands across the dashboard. “My fish eye is gone.”
“Are you sure you didn’t drop it?”
Liam’s lip quivered and his eyes welled up. “I put it right here.” He slapped his hand on the dashboard. “I put it right here for later.”
What kind of person would dig through all their stuff—food, tools, supplies for making fire, blankets and clothing, his rifle; who would dig through all of that and decide the one thing worth taking was the dirty eyeball from a dead fish?
“Don’t worry about it, son.” He scooped Liam into his arms. “There are plenty of fish in the world and they all have eyes. We’ll get you another one soon.”
“But I liked that one.”
Obi tried not to laugh. He knew Liam was serious, but he also knew that the boy wouldn’t remember the eyeball tomorrow.
“I tell you what,” Obi said. “How about we wash up in that creek and I’ll make us some dinner. How does that sound?”
Liam sniffled and rested his head on Obi’s shoulder. “Now I’m sad.”
Obi patted his back. “I know, but this is a small sadness. Trust me.” He pulled a piece of the deer jerky from a sack in the backseat of the car and handed it to Liam. The boy stuck the hard meat in his mouth and sucked and chewed on it while Obi pulled out the ingredients to make a pan of biscuits. A good supper and a good night’s sleep were what they needed. Tomorrow, he could explore.
Chapter Twelve
Geneva drove down Highway 49, past small towns that offered up nothing but a steady dose of coffee, booze, and religion to the farmers and musicians who paced up and down the Delta in their old cars and rust-spotted trucks. The kernel of fear planted by Pisa’s warning took root and sprouted into a full flop sweat. She rolled down the window and cranked the air conditioner to high. A bank of dark clouds swelled heavy in the sky. Just like Pisa’s eyes, she realized. She ought to whip the car around and drive home, but she was not one for doing what she ought to. At Shellmound, she pulled into the One Stop to fill the tank.
The gasoline stung her nose. She leaned against the car and studied the field of cotton across the road. When she got home, she would sell some land. Crazy to hang on to it. Nothing had been farmed there since Melody was a tot. Few years back, a man came looking to buy up most of it; for what, she didn’t even ask. She just slammed the door in his face and refused to answer the phone. That land was what her father had left her. She never thought she’d give it up. Now she couldn’t believe she’d kept it for so long. What good was a bunch of land that produced nothing? Bruce’s medical bills were strangling her. Keeping up the house was hard enough, and she wasn’t about to let go of her house. It was the only thing in the wide world that was truly hers. No bank owned any part of it. She’d been born there, right on the bed that she and Bruce had shared for the past twenty-six years. She had every intention of dying there.
She drove on, slurping the dregs of a gas station iced tea through a plastic straw. Fields of soybeans and cotton stretched out as far as she could see. The beans were low and planted in even rows, thick green leaves beginning to carpet the land. The cotton stood taller, brown and scrubby at this time of year. The air smelled sharp, a mixture of fertilizer, diesel fuel, and impending thunderstorms. The radio faded in and out, but from what Geneva could gather, there was a storm moving in from the Gulf. Rain, high winds, possible tornadoes, flash floods. Well, they were always warning of something. If they weren’t bitching about a drought, they were hollering about the rain. “You can’t please anyone,” Geneva said to no one at all. She pressed her foot down on the gas pedal and sped up to keep ahead of the storm.
Fat drops splatted on the window as she pulled into the parking lot of the Jolly Inn. Shaped like a cross laid flat, the motel was small and squat. An office and lobby ran east to west in the center, and a dozen rooms stretched out north to south on either side. She entered the lobby through the back entrance—the pool entrance, though the pitiful swimming pool hadn’t held water in all the years she’d visited. The air-conditioning sent goose bumps up her arms. Geneva touched the silver bell on the counter.
Atul emerged looking haggard. His face sagged so heavily that his skin threatened to slide right off the bone, like skin off a chicken. His hair, normally combed back and gleaming with exotic oil, hung across his forehead, dull and uncombed. His hands trembled as he slid a key off the board behind the desk. “I tried to call you.”
The front door swung open and a young couple with two noisy children entered the lobby. Geneva took the key, attached to a plastic fob stamped with the number 215. She left Atul to deal with the rambunctious family and climbed the stairs on the outside of the motel. The room was like any other. A horrid brown and orange polyester spread covered the bed. Underneath, she knew, were scratchy sheets made of a cheap cotton-poly blend. No matter how much she complained, Atul never upgraded the quality of the sheets. She splashed cold water on her face in the tiny, fluorescent-lit bathroom.
Geneva never had much cause to stay in motels before she met Atul. Even when they had money, they didn’t travel. As a child, she’d read books about children who lived in apartments in New York City or flats in London or even big hotels in Paris. The books were illustrated with tall buildings and sidewalks full of people. She had wanted to go, to see what it was like in a busy city. Her father said she was welcome to go on her own dime when she got older, but he had no intention of taking her anywhere. “It’s not the city I hate, it’s the goddamned people,” her father told her. “They think they’re better than us because they talk faster and go to school past the point when they ought to be earning a living. Let me tell you something, just because a person talks fast doesn’t mean he thinks fast. A wall full of fancy degrees don’t make you smart. I have dealt with more than my share of overeducated, fast-talking northern fools. You’re better off here.”
By the time Geneva was old enough to do anything on her own dime, she was married with children and had dealt with her own share of overeducated fools. Her father complained about the uppity northerners, but Geneva knew a good many overeducated fools with southern accents. Nonetheless, her wanderlust faded into memory. Something powerful tied Geneva to this flat, fertile, downtrodden area of the world, much as it had tied down her father. The idea of traveling too far away left her breathless. Who would she be in a small apartment? On a sidewalk? In a crowd? She no longer cared to find out.
Melody wasn’t afraid to leave, though. She didn’t feel the tug of the land the way Geneva did. It was for the best. Somebody ought to venture out and see what the rest of the world offered. Melody resented Geneva for not being a better mother, but she ought to be grateful. Who would Melody be if she’d been raised up by a dull, ordinary housewife? Not a girl who traveled from city to city, playing music and sleeping in a bus, Geneva figured. Not a girl with so much freedom.
She used the phone next to the bed to call home. Might as well talk to Melody, find out how
Bruce was doing. As usual, there was no answer. Pisa’s son would be there soon, and Geneva felt like she ought to warn Melody. Well, what’s the worst that could happen? If Bruce was well and vertical, he’d shoot a strange man on sight. Melody wasn’t so rash. Bobby probably wouldn’t give a fig. She’d be home soon enough.
* * *
The doorknob jiggled. Atul stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“What is it?” Geneva said. “What’s wrong?” She stood and pulled Atul close. Underneath his normal spicy scent, something rank wafted up. Fear. She ran her fingers across his fine linen shirt. “Tell me.”
“Chandra,” he whispered. His face crumpled like a used tissue.
Of course. His daughter, nineteen years old, riding a full scholarship to Ole Miss, and yet somehow managing to cause trouble.
“What about her?”
“It is all my fault. She is home for the summer. She said she wanted to go camping with her friend. I let her go even though I knew better. She said if I did not let her go, she would stop coming home to visit. She said she was not a child and I could not keep treating her like one. We had already fought about so many things.”
This surprised Geneva. It wasn’t like Atul to fight with his daughter. He doted on her—too much, in Geneva’s opinion. “What sort of things?”
“Little stuff, not important.” His shoulders heaved. “She came home from that college wearing makeup and with her hair cut short. She wore shorts and T-shirts like an ordinary girl. She told me that everyone dresses this way. I hated it. I said her mother would be ashamed. I told her she could not go anywhere with friends who led her to such bad decisions, but then I was afraid I would lose her and I could not stand that. I should never have said that about her mother.”
When Chandra was thirteen, her mother was mowed down by a car just outside the motel. The driver didn’t stop, left her to bleed out like a slaughtered hog. Sheriff’s deputies ran down the driver, but never charged him with anything. An accident, they said. Your wife should not have been out walking alone after dark. This, despite the fact that the man spent the four hours before the accident drinking himself blind at a roadside bar. By the time they caught him, the other men at the bar insisted he’d had nothing stronger than RC Cola for hours. The man was wealthy. He owned several restaurants in Greenville. The next month, the sheriff’s office got a whole fleet of new patrol cars, and the promise of fresh tamales every Christmas. It was the way things worked, but Atul wanted to believe life was fair. Geneva knew better.
“Mira was always proud of Chandra.”
“Of course she was.” Geneva pressed her lips to Atul’s sweat-soaked forehead. How was she supposed to break it off with a man who was already broken? “Chandra knows that.”
“She came home in the early morning. It was pitch-black out. She was nervous and shaking. She would not talk to me. She would not eat. Finally, she said that she had seen a man kill someone. It was one of those dangerous men who live on the river, and she said he killed a boy about her age.”
“Which river?” If she drove three miles in any direction, she’d cross a river.
“I am not sure. She would not talk about it. She said she was afraid the man would come after her.”
“When did this happen?”
“It is still happening. It will never end.”
“Everything ends.” If she’d wanted to deal with a hopeless man, she could have stayed home. “Where is Chandra now?”
“I called you, but your son answered the phone. I didn’t know what to say or how to ask for you.”
“When was this?”
“Today. This morning.”
She’d been on the road to see Pisa. “Well, I don’t know what I could have done anyhow.” Geneva didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. She didn’t have much time here. There were plenty of troubles waiting for her at her own home. “Is Chandra home alone?”
“No, no. She is with her aunt in Indianola. She needs the comfort of a woman. I could not protect her, so what good am I? I sent her off into danger.”
This was the problem with having children, Geneva thought. It was sure to end in disappointment. She had failed her own children even with the help of Pisa’s magic chants and potions. She’d managed to save Bobby’s life, but not his spirit, and she’d pushed Melody away, thinking it would make her stronger. Instead, it only made her more resentful. “Atul, I’m sorry, but you’ll work it out. Chandra needs to go see the sheriff.”
“She is too afraid.”
“Even so.” Geneva knew it was a terrible time to leave him, but it was time. “We can’t keep doing this. I have to take care of my family. I came to tell you that. I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”
He grabbed her and pushed her down on the bed. “You cannot leave me. Not now.”
He pinned her with his body. His strength surprised her.
“Atul, I have to get home tonight.” She struggled beneath him.
“You would abandon me now? I thought you loved me. What am I going to do? What am I supposed to do about all this?” His face hovered just inches over her own. Every word rained down moist and warm on her skin.
“Talk to Chandra.” She lay still beneath him, not wanting to agitate him further. Was this the violence Pisa had warned about? Would her gentle lover turn against her, try to hurt her? “Tell her to go to the sheriff.”
“The sheriff does not care about me. No one cared when Mira was killed, and they will not care about this.” He wailed. His body shook against hers. How could she leave him like this?
“Look.” Geneva shifted her hips from side to side, but he didn’t budge. “I know the Muskogee county sheriff. We went to school together. He’s a good man. Fair. Chandra can talk to him. Tell him the truth.”
“What does that mean? Tell the truth. When has she lied?”
His sharp hipbones ground painfully into her own. Now she was having trouble breathing. “All I’m saying is that she needs to tell someone what happened, where it happened, at what time. They’re going to ask a bunch of questions and she needs to answer.”
“Those men who live on the river. They are desperate and dangerous.”
“Not all of them.” None of them had ever held her against her will. She had expected Atul to crumble and cry when she said she was leaving. Instead, he turned his body against her, the same body she’d loved so much for so many years. She took shallow sips of air.
“You will go with me to the sheriff.”
“No.” Her heart beat against Atul’s chest. There was no hiding her fear. “I’ll call him. I’ll let him know that you’ll stop by first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You must go with me. I will not go alone.” He grabbed her wrists, yanked them up above her head until her shoulders burned.
“You’re hurting me,” she said between clenched teeth. “And you’re being ridiculous.”
“Then I am ridiculous. I am a ridiculous man. An unloved man.”
“You are hurting me.”
“You are killing me,” he said in a flat voice that scared her more than if he’d screamed.
“I love you. You know that I do,” she reassured him.
“If you loved me, you would stay.”
“I’ll take you to the sheriff’s office in the morning, but then I’m heading home. You can’t imprison me, Atul. You can’t force me to stay with you.”
Atul stared at her, and Geneva saw the same storm rolling in his eyes that she’d seen in Pisa’s. Was she going mad? Maybe it was the lack of oxygen. Did he intend to sleep on top of her all night long? When she’d given up hope that he would ever move, he rolled off. She coughed and took a few long, deep breaths. He kept hold of one wrist.
“You’re going to stay?”
“Just until morning.”
“I’m sorry.” He released her wrist and rolled away from her. “I need you.”
Geneva lay still. Pisa was wrong. Atul was scared and upset, but he was not a violent ma
n.
Chapter Thirteen
Melody unpacked sacks of groceries. She dripped with sweat, and her clothes clung to her skin like flypaper. She wished the clouds in the distance would roll in already and dump some rain. The woman on the radio said a big front was coming, and they were in for a gully washer, possible flooding. She hoped so. Anything to break the god-awful heat.
Her father was sleeping—peacefully, it seemed—and she took a moment to examine his pale skin, his flattened cheeks, and the bruised pockets of his eyes. He barely resembled the father she remembered. He looked like a bad, deflated imitation of himself.
The grocery store had been packed with folks laying in supplies for the weather. People liked to be prepared. Melody knew better. There was no preparing for weather. A strong storm could be death and destruction or it could be a cleansing force. Melody desperately wanted to be cleansed. Life on the road had left her sluggish and bloated. It felt good to be shut of that life. George Walter’s dire predictions ran through her head. She wished she could stop thinking about the crazy man who’d given her a ride to the station, but his warnings haunted her. He was wrong about one thing, though. She wasn’t leaving behind anything that she would miss. She just had to figure out what came next.
She sang softly as she filled the fridge with fresh milk, eggs, juice, fruits, and vegetables, then unpacked a case of the new nutrition drink for her father. The man at the grocery store swore this drink would taste better; she hoped he was right. She shoved a soft, squishy carton of ice cream into the freezer. She sang an old Carole King tune, one of her favorites: I feel the earth move under my feet / I feel the sky tumbling down. It felt good to sing for no one and for no reason, except that she felt like singing. She ran a mound of blackberries under the sink tap, picked off a few stray leaves and stems, dumped the berries into a bowl, and dusted them with sugar. She chopped onions until her nose ran, patted fat pork chops dry with paper towels, then dredged them in seasoned flour.
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