by Faith Hunter
Priss interrupted my thoughts with, “Who hit you?”
I touched my face. It wasn’t hurting much, but it was a lovely shade of purple and green today. I had a black eye, which did hurt, and more bruises on my throat and shoulders. “Joshua Purdy. And then a black cat jumped him and I got away. Not a demon.”
Priss’ eyes tightened more, but she didn’t say anything, so I had no idea what the reaction meant. I asked, “Why does Caleb think Jackson Jr. took over administering punishments? Something new going on?”
“Since the Social Services raid, Jackie’s been a mite unpredictable. He blames you for the police interference. He’s increased his wives to four and his concubines to ten or so. He even come sniffing around Esther and Judith, till Daddy told him none of the Nicholson girls was ever going to him, not as wife nor concubine. Caleb was there in the wood shop, and the way he tells it, Jackie was a mite riled, but he backed down. The number the preacher keeps is always changing, but he holds the power right now and not enough of the menfolk can find the guts to stop him and take back the church leadership. Yet.”
Yet meant the alliances weren’t strong enough to make changes. Esther and Judith were of age according to church law, and Esther was a beauty, having taken her cornflower blue eyes and blond hair from Mama’s side of the family. “How do the elders feel about Jackie’s wives and women?”
“Don’tchu tell I told this,” she warned, her tone stern. “They been rumbling about deposing him, but my Caleb and some a his bunch got an audit in secret. All the church property and buildings belong to Jr. in the absence of the colonel. Kinda made ’em all mad and they hadda back off from kicking him out, ’cause if they do that, then they’re the ones who havta leave the compound. The law would be on Jackie’s side.” Priss had a peculiar smile on her face, and I wondered if she had urged Caleb to call for CPA services, not that I’d ask such a loaded question.
“So who’s in charge of the compound?”
“Until last night, Brother Ephraim. Now he’s disappeared, and no one knows what’s gonna happen.”
Most of Rick’s questions had been answered: no new men, lots of leadership problems and power struggles, and new tensions had occurred, all answered by inference and all partly my fault, not the fault of some new group joining the church. I bent around the portable toilet pod to make sure that Esther and the Cohen sisters were occupied. They were helping what looked like a happy couple examine dough bowls and rolling pins and hand-stitched quilts. The romantic couple were Rick and Paka, and they looked blissful together. My little custom-tailored catnip aromatherapy must be helping them, but either way, we were safe for the moment. “Any new weapons on church land? Different things from the usual?”
“More ’n the menfolk know what to do with. How many hunting rifles can one man need, I ask you, when some a the young’uns need new shoes, and the men are off buying useless stuff?” She sounded exasperated. “They brung in fifteen automatic rifles. Them things shoot thirty rounds per magazine. There wouldn’t be nothing left of the deer to eat.” She glared at me. “Why you asking that?”
“I’m asking because Jackie’s men shot up my house,” I said hotly. Priscilla’s face went through a series of emotions that were too fast to follow, but she ended up looking thoughtful. “Priss, if you want to get free, I can keep you safe, you and all the sisters, as many as want to come. I promise I can.”
“You always say that, but I gotta ask how, in light of the fact that you’rn sportin’ some mighty spectacular bruises. ’Sides, Nell”—her expression softened with something akin to joy—“I got young’uns and another on the way.” She put a hand to her belly, and something inside me clenched. I hadn’t known she was pregnant. “And I got a husband I love. I don’t want to leave. I’m happy, Nell.” Her expression proved that, all full of tenderness and joy, the way a woman must look when she’s fulfilled and satisfied. Things I didn’t understand and probably never would.
“If you get in trouble,” I said, hearing my own stubborn tone, “go to the Vaughns’ and pay them to bring you to me. I can get you somewhere safe, to someone who can protect you.”
She made a sound of disbelief in the back of her throat. “They come back last night from huntin’ all cocky and talking about how you’rn a lot more subservient to your betters now.” Her brow crinkled as she stared my jaw, her hazel eyes darkening. “Damn Joshua Purdy to the depths of perdition.”
My eyebrows went up when Priss cussed. She leaned around the toilets, staring at the booth, and said, “I been gone too long. I gotta go.”
“If you learn something more about the factions or troubles sometime in the next week to ten days, and you can find an excuse to get away, come through the woods to tell me.”
“I can’t do that,” Priss said, her voice wavering. “I can’t. I can’t be taken to punishment. Jackie, he’d . . .” Her words stopped, her voice holding real fear now.
“Find a way to get word to me if you need me. If Jackie tries to punish you.”
“Fine. Iffen that happens, I’ll try. I’ll do most anything to keep outta Jackie’s hands.” Priscilla paused and added, “Our brother picked hisself out a girl and is getting married in a week. Just so’s you know.” She took off back to the booths and I went the other way, but my stomach was sour and a knot had formed just below my breastbone. My bruises ached, and they hadn’t really bothered me until now. I shoulda shot Jackie and Joshua when I had the chance. I shoulda fed their souls to the woods and good riddance. How could I protect my family against Jackie and his “cadre of cronies”? I couldn’t kill them all.
“You the one they said was differ’nt.”
I whirled, startled, my heart leaping into my throat. The ground hadn’t told me anyone was near; I hadn’t realized how quickly I had adapted to depending on the earth to warn me of things.
She was dressed in churchwoman attire—olive green skirt, brown shoes, tall socks to hide her legs, olive shirt, and brown sweater. Her hair was still down, not up in a bun, making the girl less than twelve years old, her height marking her as probably eight or ten. Her hair was the exact shade of reddish brown that Priscilla’s had been when she was this age, before the red had dulled down to brown. And her eyes were the hazel gray of my own eyes. Her jaw was like mine, a bit pugnacious, her brows arched . . . like mine.
She was a Nicholson. I was sure I had seen her the last time I went to services with John, but that had been a long time ago. She was too young to be Judith.
I took in a slow breath and whispered, “Mindy?”
“Yup. But I like Mud, because I can grow things so good. Is you her? The one that could grow most anything? The one who left?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
She was my sister. I hadn’t seen her since she was a toddler. I realized that my sisters knew more about me than I knew about them.
“They say you done got married in the eyes of the law. That you took land that shoulda gone to the Purdys. That you’un’s independent and read books and live alone instead of in a big house with a bunch of women and young’uns.”
I had no idea at all how to reply to that, so I just nodded my head and realized how much she looked like Mama, all long-limbed and skinny. And how much she looked like me.
“You like it? Living all lonesome? I think I’d like it. I like the quiet. I like planting things too, making ’em grow.” Her eyes went bright and intense. “If Mama says I can, can I come visit?”
Something unknown moved deep inside me, something I had no name for. So much was new and uncertain since Rick LaFleur and his mate came to my door—so much of the strangeness within me. “Yes,” I whispered again.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
A chuckle burst from my lips, quickly stifled. “No. Not much.” She grabbed my hand, squeezed, and held on. Something slow but powerful passed between us, like the growth of roots in the soil, like
the slow process of rock or glaciers beginning to cleave. Like nothing I had ever felt before. And then she let go and the feeling was gone. I shook my head.
“You’un’ll talk if I come visit. Mama says I can make a turnip talk when I’m of a mind to. Daddy tells me I’m to be seen and not heard. I think that’s stupid. I gotta go.” She whirled, her skirts flying, and in an instant, she was gone.
“I think it’s stupid too,” I whispered to the empty place where she had stood.
My sisters had been talking about me. Remembering me. I stared at the place where Mindy had slipped between the portable toilets and disappeared. Priss, Esther, Judith, and Mindy had kept my memory alive. I wondered if my brother, Samuel, remembered me. And if my half brother, the one born from Mama, listened to the chatter about the one that left the church. Thinking about family, all the young’uns growing up, I shook my head in wonder. Sam was getting married. Amazing. The wedding would be huge, with all my full and half sibs. I had several half brothers, and I had no idea how many half sisters. I hadn’t kept up with that part of the family after I left.
The thought of my sisters—of Mindy—was warm and bright in my dazed mind as I carried my seeds and pickles and empty baskets to the truck. Without looking around, I stored everything away, dropped my hat into the passenger seat, and drove off, finding my wits only after I maneuvered away from the market.
My sisters remembered me. Talked about me. A small smile played at my lips.
Like usual, I stopped at the library and left off the books I had finished, but the night without reading and watching films had put me behind, so I renewed two of the nonfiction books and both films, and visited Kristy. Today I brought her some African Blue Basil seeds, a variety that had dark bluish purple leaves and a robust flavor. I found it too strong, but she liked her basils licorice-y. Once I got past an explanation about bruises—blamed on a lie about an ax head that came lose mid swing—I leaned across the book counter, and we had a nice chat about fall plantings. I made a suggestion about an herbal tea recipe for her grandfather, who was having trouble sleeping. He was a Vietnam War vet, and his PTSD symptoms always got worse in the fall and winter, as the days got shorter and his seasonal affective disorder kicked in to exacerbate it.
Kristy was studious and dark-haired and, like most librarians I had met, she read a lot. Before I left, she handed me a new book and said, “I know how you feel about romances, but, girl, this one is a must read. It’s about a woman from the Victorian era who carries a sword like a man, goes into business like a man, and still gets her man, if you know what I mean.” Her eyebrows waggled.
“I know what you mean,” I said, amused. “I just never thought about that being too terribly important.”
“Girl, when you meet the right man, your head will spin. Happened to me when I met Harvey. We’ll do coffee and I’ll dish.”
Which sounded fun. The visit was short, but it left me feeling more lively and positive. I took home a newspaper with a splashy story on the front page about a townie girl who had been kidnapped. The paper showed a grainy photograph of a white van with a dented back panel. Police were investigating it as a possible sex trade abduction. Sad that the police had never been called into investigate when church girls were taken that way.
* * *
Rick and Paka and the thing called Pea were parked next to the truck when I came out of the library, sitting as if enjoying the warm weather; I walked over to their car, leaned in the window, and told them not to come back to the house, that I once again had three men in the deer stand that overlooked my property. A single visit I could explain away. Two would create too many questions.
Rick’s response was, “It’s empty at night?” I nodded once, my hair loose now, and swinging. “Good thing. I hear we’re going to have some localized straight-line winds and downbursts tonight. I hear they can do some awful damage.” Beside him in the car, Paka laughed. The sound was nowhere near humorous. Or human.
I had a feeling that there was a lot more going on than the PsyLED cop and his cat-woman had told me. And that feeling suggested that I was going to get stuck in the middle of it before all was said and done. It was a mite curious that I didn’t care. “Did you get the insurance handled and the repair people lined up?” I asked.
“The insurance adjuster will be there this afternoon. The Rankins will start today, and will be back at dawn to finish,” Rick said. “The receptionist said she knew you rose early, so I didn’t argue.” I dipped my head in a small nod and Rick went on. “What did you learn?”
I told him, as succinctly as possible, but leaving out my sister Mud, what I had learned. Then, figuring we were done, I got in the cab, shut the door, and drove off in John’s—no, not John’s, my—truck.
* * *
I was home early enough to harvest some root herbs, which was hard work, requiring using a very sharp shovel, a gardening fork, a sturdy spade, and a pair of thick leather gloves to protect my hands, while keeping a shotgun close and the .32 in my overalls’ bib. I thought about my day as I worked up a sweat. I needed my bare feet in the soil and the dirt in my hands and up under my nails. The feel of the soil leached the tension and worry out of me and left me feeling more peaceful, the way it always did. Before I turned to more difficult projects, I pruned back some overgrown plants and placed bricks over some rosemary limbs to root them for selling.
On the back porch, I washed and laid out the first of the burdock root, calamus, ginseng, goldenseal, yellow dock, soapwort, and snakeroot to dry, then spent the warm heart of the day working in the garden with the tiller. The engine was loud, but I had my awareness of the land to tell me if anyone was heading this way, but no one did, not even my watchers. And just like I needed to have my hands in the soil, the soil needed my attention, turned under with natural supplements. Twice a year I turned over the garden dirt, this time in the half an acre where the spring and early summer plants were dying, adding compost from the fifty-gallon drum on the south side of the house, readying the ground for winter, mulching deep, trying to make up for the time spent away from the plants. It was grueling work, but the ground liked the feel of the tiller in it, churning and aerating and adding new nutrients. It was like exercise and a good meal for the garden. Had my land been a house cat, it would have been purring by the time I finished.
The three men in the tree stand watched, but didn’t come close.
The insurance lady came by and stayed for half an hour, taking pictures of the vandalism, as she called it. She assured me that the insurance would cover the damage, but got kinda pruney around the mouth when she did. I got kinda pruney when I heard the deductible.
The Rankin truck must have passed her on the road down, because the dust was still settling when it pulled in. Thad Rankin of Rankin Replacements and Repairs showed up himself to inspect the damage and give me an estimate. We had done business together ever since John and I married, and he had a set of windows in the back of his truck when he parked. I counted and the number matched the ones that needed replacement. Rick could follow orders. That was a good trait in a man. I met Mr. Thad at the front door, noting that he had another man with him, toting a ladder and other equipment. “Hear you had some problems yesterday, Miz Ingram,” he said by way of greeting, his eyes on my jaw and eye, with their blossoming bruises.
“Bunch a hooligans out hunting,” I said. “I reckon they thought my house was edible.”
“Them hunting hooligans manage to sock you too?” he asked gently.
I touched my jaw and sighed. “Actually, in a way, yes. But forewarned is forearmed. I have a gun, and next time it won’t be so easy for the vandals.”
Mr. Thad chuckled, though it sounded mostly polite, not like real amusement. Over Thad’s shoulder the young man with him lifted a hand, nodded, and headed to the back of the house with the batch of equipment, the ladder over one shoulder. Thad’s son, Thaddeus Jr., who went by the name Deus, ha
d grown a foot since I’d last seen him. He was the fifth generation to be working for the family business, which had been started back after the Civil War, by a family of freed slaves. The young man looked to be about eighteen, and was fit and trim in his company T-shirt and jeans, his dark skin shining in the sun.
“That cult you got away from,” Mr. Thad said, jerking my attention back to him. “Was it involved in this ‘hunting vandalism’?”
I glared at Mr. Thad and he backed away fast, down the top two steps, lifting his hands as if holding off an attack. “I didn’t mean no nosiness or disrespect, ma’am. But people talk.” When I didn’t say anything, he went on. “We pray for the women and children at your cult all the time.”
“Not my cult. Not now. Not ever,” I said stiffly.
“I understand that, Miz Ingram. But if you ever need help or a new place to worship, you are welcome to come to church with us at First Tabernacle A.M.E. Zion. We accept everybody, whites and blacks, brown-skinned and Asian folk, men and women, worshiping together under one roof, like the good Lord intended. We even got a sign language speaker to interpret the sermon and prayers and such for the deaf.”
I relaxed my shoulders and shook my head at Thad, not in negation, but in embarrassment. “Sorry,” I whispered. “It’s been a tough couple of days.”
“I understand. I’ll get your house secure for the night and put in the windows. We’ll come back tomorrow to redo the siding over the old logs, and check again to make sure you got no rot or termites. I’ll send a crew to patch the wallboard and paint inside, someone you can trust to let in your house. And you remember: You need help, you call on me. I’ll come. The men from my church, we’ll come. We’ll help you fight the evil of that place and them people. You understand? We’ll come.”