Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  Mama went pale, and Chantry glared at the sergeant. “He can’t do that, Mama. He’s just bluffing. He wants me to tell him stuff I don’t know. I had a beer, that’s all. One beer.”

  “Be quiet, Chantry.” Mama sounded upset. He shut up.

  Sergeant Gordon made a good case against Chantry, but Mama wasn’t stupid either. She finally looked at him when he paused to take a breath and said quietly, “Was my son given any kind of test to determine his alcohol level, Sergeant?”

  Gordon had to allow that he hadn’t been, nor had he been seen with alcoholic beverages in his possession. No drugs, no alcohol, no resisting arrest, just in the wrong place at the wrong time if he didn’t count the fight in the police van. And that could be construed as self-defense if a good lawyer got up before the judge, Mama pointed out, and the sergeant had to agree.

  “Then I would appreciate your releasing him into my custody for the present,” Mama said, and added, “We will return for any court hearing scheduled, of course.”

  The tips of the sergeant’s ears had gone fiery red. His eyes looked red-rimmed as an angry bull’s. “You understand that I’ll make a full report to Mr. Quinton’s office, Miz Lassiter?”

  “I certainly hope so, Sergeant. This is a grave matter, and anything Chantry can do to aid you in arresting the men responsible for bringing drugs into our county will be done. However, he has told you he knows nothing, and will undergo any type of drug testing you require to prove his innocence. If you wish, I will hire an attorney, but I think we both know that is unnecessary.”

  After a minute, the sergeant got up and left the room, and shortly thereafter, Chantry was free of the cuffs and walking out with Mama and Dempsey. Nothing was said, not even on the ride home, and only when Dempsey stopped his truck at the end of their driveway did Chantry ask about Tansy.

  Dempsey looked at him. “Came home real late last night. Or early this mornin’, I guess you could say. You might want to give her a call in a little while. She seems mighty anxious to talk to you.”

  He wanted to call, but Mama wouldn’t let him near the phone, wouldn’t let him leave his room. He’d never seen her quite this angry at him. She was so angry, she didn’t say hardly a word other than that he was on restriction until she decided he could be trusted again, which may well be never. Rainey was gone, still at the hospital with Rafe, he guessed, and he knew Mama worried about what he’d say and do when he came home. Chantry figured he couldn’t say too much since his sons had been there, too. Not that that’d stop him.

  Well after dark, she finally brought him a dinner tray to eat at his desk. His stomach rolled in anticipation, but he stood awkwardly and waited until she set it down.

  Mikey stood in the doorway, eyes wide and anxious. His braces squeaked and his thick shoes made a thumping sound as he struggled into the room.

  “Don’t you love Chantry anymore, Mama?”

  Mama went very still. Her hands hovered over the tray like small pale birds for a moment, then she turned around. “Of course I do, Mikey.”

  “Then why don’t you understand?”

  A frown settled on Mama’s brow, and Chantry signaled to Mikey to hush. He didn’t. He lurched forward a few steps in that crab-like gait the braces allowed, and stood right between them in the middle of the room. Mama’s mouth went tight.

  “Understand what, Mikey? Chantry’s actions have been abominable. He has broken my trust and does not even seem to care that he’s caused a great deal of harm not only to himself, but to others.” She looked over at Chantry, eyes dark with some kind of emotion he didn’t recognize. “I do not know him anymore. I do know I don’t like this boy he has become.”

  Chantry sucked in a sharp breath that seemed to freeze his lungs. She’d never said anything like that to him. Ever.

  “That’s ‘cause he lost his shark, Mama,” Mikey said, and even though Chantry heard him and knew what he meant, he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t move.

  Mama sounded impatient. “Whatever are you talking about, Mikey?”

  “His shark. You know. His reason to be here. Ever’body’s got to have a reason to be here. You told me that sometimes you think me’n Chantry are the reason God wanted you here. Well, I got a shark. Now Chantry needs his shark back.”

  “His shark? I don’t know . . . what . . . I do not understand.”

  Chantry felt stupid and childish, and shot Mikey a dark look that should have shut him up but didn’t. He didn’t want to think about sharks and he didn’t want to think about Shadow. And he didn’t want to hear this. He wished he could just sink through the floorboards to the dirt under the house and disappear. But all he could do was stand there and listen.

  “In the hospital I thought maybe I wasn’t gonna wake up after the op’ration, but Chantry said I had to if I wanted to see the sharks for real. So I did. I woke up and he bought me a shark, and he said that one day he’ll take me to see real sharks. In the ocean, maybe. Well, Shadow was his shark and now he doesn’t have him anymore. He needs a shark, Mama.”

  Silence settled in the room, so soft and thick it was like lying under a down quilt on a cold winter night. He stared down at the floor. It seemed like forever before Mama said anything.

  Then she just said, “Eat your dinner before it gets cold, Chantry.”

  Whatever Mama said to Rainey must have been pretty persuasive, because though he took to giving Chantry really ugly looks, he never said anything about Rafe or the fight or how Chantry came to be out at the Hideaway. The police gave Chantry a drug test like Mama had said they could, and when he came out clean they didn’t charge him with drugs, just misdemeanors. When he finally went to court in early January, he got a fine and six months’ probation.

  Mama would have made a good lawyer, Chantry thought whenever he remembered how she’d stood up to Sergeant Gordon. She knew how to keep cool in a fight.

  Because she was still upset with him, he never said anything to her about who he thought might be bringing drugs into Quinton County, and he didn’t know who else to tell. It was too big a risk. Being right could get him in just as much trouble as being wrong, and he had more on his plate right now than he liked to think about.

  A few nights after he was put on probation, Tansy showed up at his window. It was cold and bitter outside, but she scratched at his window screen and woke him up and motioned for him to raise the window. He glanced at Mikey, who slept peacefully curled up in a little ball like a big puppy, then eased open the sash and stared at her sleepily.

  “What are you doing out there, girl?”

  “Came to see you.” She was shivering, and after a moment’s hesitation, he motioned her to come in. She shook her head. “That’d be all you’d need, to get me caught in your bed. No, I . . . I just wanted to . . . to say thanks. You took the rap while the rest of us got off.”

  It was the first time they’d gotten to talk without Mama standing over them, or Dempsey or somebody at school watching like hawks. He shrugged. “If you’re talking about the Hideaway, I’m glad you got out of there. It would have only made it all worse.”

  “I know why you hit Beau,” she said, and he grimaced.

  “I’d kinda hoped you hadn’t heard him.”

  “I didn’t. Chris told me. He . . . he said you’re a really good friend to me.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. He really wasn’t sure how he felt about Chris Quinton right now. He’d kept him from getting stabbed with a beer bottle, but it wasn’t easy to let go of their past either. They still avoided each other, and he liked it that way. Being on probation had its small advantages since he hadn’t run into him anywhere except church.

  “I hope you’re stayin’ away from him,” he said roughly, and when she didn’t answer, he groaned. “Dammit, Tansy.”

  She pressed her palm against the window screen. “Chantry . . . whatever happens, I want you to know that I’ll always remember you.”

  A sharp bolt of fear shot through him. He stared at her. “Tansy,
what the hell are you talking about? What can happen?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” Her laugh sounded hollow. “There’s so much I haven’t told you. I miss our talks. It just all got so twisted somehow, what I was feeling inside and everything. It’s like being in a tunnel sometimes, where it’s all dark and empty and you think you’re never gonna get to the end. And then finally, you see light ahead and you start running—you think it’s the end of the tunnel but it’s only another tunnel just beginning.”

  Dim light from a sickle moon illuminated the porch and her face, and even though she wore a thick coat she couldn’t seem to stop shivering. He got a terrible feeling deep in his belly.

  “Jesus, Tansy . . . you . . . you’re not on drugs or anything are you?”

  For a moment she looked surprised; then she laughed, a sharp sound. “Sometimes you’re thick as a post, Chantry Callahan. No, I’m not on drugs. And so you’ll know, I didn’t know they sold drugs out there. I mean, I’d heard the rumors about stuff going on, but sometimes that’s all they are, is rumors. Lies. Like so much around here.” She pulled her coat more tightly around her. “You just wouldn’t believe how thick the lies can get, like dead leaves piling up so high you can’t see over them. And sometimes I think, All it would take is one lit match to set fire to all those lies. If that happened, there’d be a bonfire seen all the way to Memphis.”

  “What the hell are you talking about now?”

  She blew out a sigh. “I hope you never find out, Chantry. I swear to God, I do. Just do me a favor, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  A smile curved her mouth, and she pressed her face close to the screen. “I love that about you, Chantry. You never ask. You just have faith in me. Put your hand against mine, will you?” Slowly, he lifted his palm and pressed it against the screen where she held hers, and he felt the warmth of her skin through the mesh. Her voice sounded thick, low. “You once said I was like a rainbow, remember? Well, rainbows are promises, too. Will you remember that?”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about, but suddenly it felt important. He leaned into the screen so that his mouth almost touched hers through the barrier. “You’re the craziest girl. I never know what you’re talking about half the time, but if that’s what you want . . .”

  “That’s what I want,” she said softly.

  It felt like a dream, like one of Tansy’s songs, the kind she liked to sing when there wasn’t anyone else around but him. And he closed his eyes and kissed her, felt her kiss him back, then she was gone. He heard her footsteps as she ran lightly across the ground, hard now with winter frost, and the black walnut husks thick on the ground where no one had picked them up.

  If he’d known what she meant, maybe he would have gone after her. Maybe he could have done something. But he didn’t know, not then, even though he stayed awake a long time thinking about their strange conversation.

  She wasn’t at school the next day, or the day after that, and Mama finally set him down in the kitchen and told him that Tansy wouldn’t be living in Cane Creek anymore. She’d gone to Chicago to stay with relatives, an aunt and cousins who’d left Mississippi so long ago they rarely ever even came back for a visit anymore.

  “Why?” He stared at Mama, kicking himself. Tansy was right. He was thick as a post. He should have known she’d come to say goodbye. He’d just thought she was doing her girl stuff again, living out another one of her songs just like Mikey lived out some of his shark stories.

  Mama didn’t look at him. She turned the fire higher under the tea kettle and said to the wall behind the stove, “She needs a mother’s guidance and Dempsey thought it time.”

  He shot to his feet. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Chantry—”

  “She hasn’t had a mother for four years and she’s done fine. Don’t treat me like a little kid and tell me fairy tales. I deserve the truth.”

  Mama turned to look at him. She studied his face for a long moment as if looking for a sign of something, but he didn’t know what. Then she sighed.

  “She is pregnant, Chantry. Didn’t she tell you?”

  Jesus. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to think, what to feel. But he did know who he blamed for it. And suddenly he knew who Mama blamed. He blinked.

  “You think it’s mine.”

  “Is it?”

  “Is that what Tansy said?” If it was, if she’d said it was his, he’d say it, too. He’d say it, and he wouldn’t care what anyone said or did about it.

  “No. She has not named the father.” Mama turned back to the kettle as if watching the gas flames would make the water boil faster. “This is a small town. People will talk. Expect to hear . . . things you may not like.”

  He thought about what Rafe had said that night at the Hideaway. He’d never thought it was true. Still didn’t think it was true. That wasn’t Tansy’s style. She knew her own worth even when she didn’t quite trust it to be true. She’d never have a whole string of boys on her line. There were only two that he could think of, and he intended to find out which one had done this to her and then abandoned her. He knew who he suspected.

  “Where are you going?” Mama asked when he grabbed his jacket off the kitchen hook and headed for the door. “You are still on probation.”

  “I’m going to talk to Dempsey. If you don’t believe that either, you can go with me.”

  Mama didn’t try to stop him or follow, and his boots scraped on the icy gravel with loud crunches as he trudged down the frozen road. A curl of smoke drifted up from the chimney of the leaning house, melting into the smudged sky.

  Dempsey opened the door and stood there a moment, light behind him and no welcome on his face. He looked—grieved.

  Chantry didn’t know what to say suddenly. A wave of grief washed over him, an empty feeling like he’d lost something very precious. He could only stand there looking up at the old man who’d been the closest thing to a father he’d ever known, with words all churning inside him and none coming out.

  Then Dempsey stepped aside and Chantry went in, going straight to his favorite place by the old potbellied stove. He didn’t know what he’d expected, commiseration maybe, or answers. He got neither. He asked for neither. He offered what he had—his presence, his grief—and the old man accepted it with his customary grace. Dempsey Rivers, Mama had once said, had more class than most of the folks living over on St. Clair Road. Maybe not the social graces or the education, but definitely the class.

  The living room was clean and neat, Julia Rivers’s touches still evident in lace doilies on the back of the couch, a green and yellow pothos plant thriving on a windowsill, pretty statues on the low coffee table. Dempsey’s rocker was cushioned, and he sat in it and smoked a burled pipe that smelled like cherry tobacco. Music played, the radio tuned to his favorite gospel station and the TV screen dark and silent.

  They sat that way for a long time, just the two of them, each wandering in private shadows, and then Chantry stood up. Dempsey looked at him and he met his eyes and didn’t look away. “If you need an extra pair of hands, I’m available.”

  It was the closest he could bring himself to asking for absolution from suspicion, and he knew Dempsey understood when he nodded. “I could use you, boy.”

  CHAPTER 16

  It was all over Cane Creek like wildfire. So far it was only rumor, a whisper of lurid suspicion, but any time a girl left school abruptly and with no explanation and was sent off to a distant relative’s, the assumption was that she was pregnant. It wasn’t always right and wasn’t always fair, but that’s the way it was. And that wasn’t all. Rumor had it, Chantry was the father.

  He found that out when Cinda Sheridan marched over to him in the school cafeteria at lunchtime where he sat with Donny and two other boys known for being rough. She didn’t look at all uneasy at coming up to a table full of boys. She looked mad.

  “Chantry Callahan, I think what you did is just terrible. You should be ashamed.”

&n
bsp; Since he’d committed any number of sins that a girl like Cinda might think terrible, he had no idea which specific one she meant. He leaned back to look at her, and had the thought that being mad sure did make her eyes a pretty green.

  “All right,” he said evenly, “tell me just how ashamed I should be.”

  She planted a fist on each hip and glared at him, and for some reason he thought about her mama and how she’d looked at him that day in the kitchen, like he just didn’t measure up. Maybe Cinda was more like her mama than she knew. She stomped her foot.

  “It is you. Everyone said it must be. You don’t even try to deny it.”

  He went still, belatedly realizing what she meant. Then his mouth went real flat and he just stared at her, until finally something in his face must have convinced her that she didn’t want to keep on. She took a step back, then whirled around and walked off. No one at the table said much after that.

  Chantry cornered Leon Smith behind the boys’ gym one afternoon right before basketball practice. He went straight up to him where he stood with his friends, all of them rangy black boys with athletic aspirations and muscles honed by years of practice and hard work. Some of them gave him a pretty hard look that he ignored.

  “I want to talk to you, Leon.”

  “Yeah?” Leon twirled a basketball in one hand, balanced it on the tip of a long blunt finger and eyed him coolly. “Don’t much think we have anything to talk about.”

  “I think we do.”

  Leon was a senior this year, tall and hard-muscled, nearly two years older than Chantry. He didn’t look the least bit inclined to conversation. One of the other boys nudged closer, flexing his arms and back.

  “You think you so tough?”

  Chantry didn’t even look at him. “No. This is between me and Leon.”