The Promise of Jesse Woods

by Chris Fabry

  “She’s going to sleep in her own bed tonight. My daddy will be out hunting us till daybreak and maybe drinking. I could tell by the way he talked he was drunk.”

  “Who was the other guy?”

  “Somebody from the Dew Drop, probably. I don’t know. Maybe he promised a big payday for driving him over there.”

  “What will you do if he comes to the house?”

  “That’s why I brought this,” she said, patting her rear.

  I pointed the flashlight there and realized the thing under her shirt was a gun. “Where did you get that?”

  “Found it in Mama’s nightstand.”

  “Jesse, you’re not going to use that—”

  “I’ll do what I have to.”

  We rode in silence down the series of hills and wound our way toward her house. When we got there, she took Daisy out of the basket and let the bike fall. Inside, she undressed Daisy, dried her hair with a towel, then got her in some dry clothes and put her to bed.

  I looked for a clock but time wasn’t a big deal in Jesse’s world. She had a clock radio in her room, but that was it.

  It wasn’t until then that I began to wonder about my parents. They would no doubt be looking for me and concerned. I pictured my father up on the hill, trying to figure out where his flashlights went. My mother calling everyone in town, alerting the prayer chain.

  Jesse closed the door. “She was asleep when she hit the pillow. It would take a crowbar to get that doll from her, so I left it.”

  “You sure you don’t want to stay at our house?”

  “No, you go on. Your parents are probably scared half to death.”

  There was no warning. No sound of a truck pulling up. The front door burst open and Jesse’s father lumbered into the room with fire in his eyes. He was wet as a muskrat and he grabbed hold of the doorknob in order to keep himself upright.

  “There you are,” he said to Jesse, his speech still slurred.

  “Go home, Matt,” Jesse said. She nodded toward the back door.

  The man pointed at me. “No, you stay right there.”

  “You get out!” Jesse yelled. “This ain’t your house.”

  “I’ll get out as soon as you sign that deed over to me.”

  “I ain’t never doing that. Mama give this land to me and Daisy. It ain’t yours.”

  Instead of lunging for Jesse, he came at me and with one hand grabbed me by the throat. I was so surprised at how quickly he moved. I couldn’t dodge him—and his grip was tight on my windpipe.

  “You agree to sign it or lover boy is gonna turn blue.”

  I was staring into his bloodshot eyes when the shot rang out. He let go quickly and looked down. There was a hole in the linoleum by his foot.

  “You touch him again and I’ll kill you,” Jesse said, and I believed her.

  Her father didn’t listen. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in front of him. “You never was much of a shot, were you, Jesse?”

  “All I got to do is hit you once,” she said.

  I expected Daisy to come out to see what the commotion was, but her door stayed shut.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Jesse said. “You’re going to sell the place out from under us to Blackwood. You never cared nothing about nobody but yourself.”

  Though his grip was strong, he only had one hand to hold me. I looked at Jesse, letting her know I was going to try something. I leaned back against the man, driving him into the wall, then spun to the floor. He let go, falling beside me. I was up and headed to the back door before he could grab me.

  “Jesse, get Daisy and let’s go,” I said.

  She held the gun on her father. “No. You go home. Call the sheriff. I expect he’ll be able to deal with a drunk like this.”

  I felt bad leaving, but worse staying. I hopped on my bike and rode as fast as I could. The light was on at the end of the walk and I hit the door out of breath.

  “What in the world?” I heard my grandmother say.

  “Matt?” my mother said.

  When I saw her, something broke inside. All it took was her voice to touch some place I was trying to protect. “Call the sheriff,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. “Have him go to Jesse’s.”

  Lights shone through the front windows and I saw my father’s Impala. I broke free from my mother and ran to him.

  “We’ve got to go to Jesse’s,” I said. “Her dad is there. He’s going to hurt her.”

  “Are you all right?” he said. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. Hurry up!”

  “No, you get in the house,” my father said. “I’ll see what’s going on.”

  I protested. I cried. I told him I had to go with him, but my mother held me back and he pulled away. I went inside and heard my mother on the phone with the sheriff’s office.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” my mother said. “You’ll see.”

  I got out of my wet clothes and my mother offered me food. But I couldn’t eat. I was shaking and wondering what was happening. A few minutes later the sheriff’s cruiser went past our house with its lights on, the siren off.

  “Why don’t you get in bed and rest,” my mother said. “I’ll wake you when we know anything.”

  I went to my room but couldn’t think of sleeping. I wanted to crawl out the window and run to Jesse’s. Instead I clicked the CB microphone, hoping she would respond. Fatigue eventually overtook me and I lay on my covers as visions of the red eyes mingled with Roberto Clemente turning to look up. Manny Sanguillen one-handed a wild pitch. Someone grabbed my throat.

  I awoke as the front door opened, and I noticed sunlight coming through the window. I ran into the living room and saw my father taking off his hat and shaking water on the tile. He had a grim look on his face.

  “What? Is it Jesse?”

  He swallowed hard. “Son, Jesse’s father is dead.”

  My mother gasped.

  “I knew it would come to this,” my grandmother said.

  “How did it happen?” my mother said.

  “Did Jesse shoot him?” I said.

  He walked into the kitchen and sat and I followed, waiting to hear the news.

  “He fell. He touched an electric wire and fell. There was nothing anyone could do.”

  My mind raced. There was no way it was an accident. Jesse had promised to kill her father and she had done it because of me. And only two living people knew the real truth.

  “What about Jesse?” my mother said.

  “They took her to the emergency room. To check her. The sheriff called family services to care for Daisy Grace.”

  “Those poor children,” my mother said. “Losing a mother and now a father.”

  “What happened, Matt?” my father said. “Why did you go back there?”

  “I was trying to help. We were trying to keep Daisy safe. She promised she would. Jesse always keeps her promises.”

  “I know, Son.” He smiled, but there was something sad about it. “She’s going to get the help she needs. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.”

  His voice comforted me. He seemed so sure. And I believed him. I believed everything he said because the son of a pastor should have no reason to doubt his father.

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1984

  For the second time in twelve years I walked into my father’s office without knocking, water dripping from my hair on the hardwood. The smell of ozone was fresh and the earth felt like it was taking a long drink before it went to sleep for winter.

  “Matt, what are you—?”

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  He looked at me as if I were Lazarus being unwrapped from grave clothes. “You’re supposed to be in Chicago by now.”

  “Something’s come up.”

  He stood and grabbed a towel from his bathroom and handed it to me to dry my hair. “Matt, you made your decision.”

  “I made a decision without knowing all the facts.”

  “What a
re you talking about?” He ran a hand through his hair.

  “I went by Mr. Caldwell’s house.”

  He searched my face but didn’t understand.

  “Jennings Caldwell. Retired from the sheriff’s—”

  “I know who he is.”

  “I saw him Tuesday. He said something that bothered me.”

  “Matt, you have to be exhausted.”

  “It didn’t click until this morning. You know how driving helps you think. Stuff bubbles up. You ruminate like a cow chewing its cud.”

  He pursed his lips and patted my shoulder. “Let’s get you home. It’s clear this whole ordeal—”

  “He was the first one on the scene that night. At Jesse’s house. He said you were talking with her. You were on the roof with her.”

  My father squinted. “What are you talking about?”

  “It didn’t register at the time. From what you said, I thought you sat in your car and waited until the sheriff came. But he said you were up there with her when he arrived.”

  My father rubbed his face. I gave my words a moment to sink in, then took a step closer.

  “Is it true?”

  He put a hand to his forehead. “I’m sure Jennings is mistaken—confused after all these years.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say. So I asked him to get the report from the station. It took quite a while.” I put the photocopy in front of him. “The highlighted part is what you’ll want to see. Right there. You were with Jesse when he arrived. On her roof.”

  He stared at the report, then looked up. “Matt, that was so long ago. You can’t live looking in the rearview.”

  “But the whole point of life is seeing, isn’t it, Dad? I never saw this before.”

  He pushed the page aside. “I don’t have time—I have a lot to prepare for this weekend.”

  “Humor me. I’ve driven a long way.”

  “I don’t know what you want.” His eyes showed something close to fear.

  “I want the truth.”

  “I’ve always been truthful with you.”

  “Really?”

  “You may have had an impression about something I said—”

  “No, don’t blame me. You led us to believe something that wasn’t true.”

  “I can’t remember. I’d been out looking for you, praying you weren’t lying dead in a ditch.”

  “What did you cover, Dad?”

  “I was looking out for your own good.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “My own good or yours?”

  Bewildered now, he cocked his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  For a moment I felt sympathy for him. I thought he was genuinely confused. His tell was putting his hand to his temple and rubbing it. It was a crutch I had seen before, in prior conversations when he was caught in some small bend of the truth. He would do that to stall. It was then I realized where my acting DNA originated.

  “Here’s the question, Dad. Here’s what I really want to know. Are you ready?”

  His mouth became a tight line. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “What did you make Jesse promise?”

  My words seemed to take the wind from him. His face showed palpable shock and guilt. Finally he pushed himself up from the chair and walked to the window, his one act of defiance against Blackwood. He’d spent his own money on a window. As he looked out, raindrops pelted the glass.

  “When your father tells you something, you don’t question it,” I said. “Especially when your father is a pastor. I thought you had waited for the sheriff and then went to help Jesse. That’s not the truth, is it?”

  He clasped his hands behind him. “No, that’s not the full picture.”

  “The full picture?”

  “It’s not the truth.”

  “Then tell me.”

  He stared at a discolored spot on the window where moisture was getting through and put a finger there. “I was looking for you,” he said slowly. “Your mother was frantic. She didn’t want to lose another son. I figured you’d come back. I drove around town and remembered Dickie. You two had been such good friends—I knew there was a rift after his father died.

  “I knocked and his mother woke him. Dickie said you asked him to help find Daisy. He thought you might be trying to rescue her.”

  “Dickie figured it out,” I mumbled.

  “I was worried. I’ve known Wendell Woods since we were kids. I know he’s capable of terrible things. When I learned you were looking for his daughter and that he was back in town . . .”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Basil Blackwood mentioned he had seen him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I drove to the Colwill home.”

  “Where?”

  “The family caring for Daisy Grace. On Gobbler’s Knob. Matt, we were more involved with Jesse’s situation than you knew. We were in contact with family services after we learned of her mother’s death. When you brought up the possible abuse by the cousins—the Branches—we asked that Daisy be moved from their home and suggested they not reveal where she was. It was our hope Jesse would be taken there as well. But she disappeared.”

  “You knew all that?”

  “We tried to shield you.”

  I pushed the revelation away. “What about that night?”

  “I came back from Dickie’s before I drove to the Colwills’—it’s a trek out there. As you know. And you were home. I drove to Jesse’s, and their house . . . It was the strangest thing. The lights were on, but Jesse was sitting on the roof in the rain.”

  He took a breath. “I got out and called to her. Asked her what happened. She was shaking and crying. Shivering. She couldn’t speak.” He leaned against the pine paneling and it creaked.

  “I went to the side of the house to help her down, and that’s when I saw Wendell. He was on his back, his arm spread. His head twisted in a weird angle. I could tell he was dead from his eyes—I felt for a pulse and there was nothing.

  “Jesse asked me to bring the ladder to the front of the house. I climbed up and sat with her. When she could speak, she said her father was going to hurt her. He had a gambling debt and needed money. She had a gun but she couldn’t shoot him. She had taken the deed from him somehow, and he came after her. He said she could either sign it or he would kill her and he’d inherit the land.”

  He walked slowly to the other side of his desk and sat, moving his Bible. “She threw the gun into the field so he couldn’t find it. Then she put the ladder against the roof, next to the electric wire. She hoped he’d follow and grab it in his drunken condition. And it was either that or the fall that killed him. She begged me not to tell anyone what she had done.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  He swallowed hard. “I told her I wouldn’t tell. And I said we would help her with Daisy Grace. The church has a benevolence fund. And there was a lawyer who could help her keep the farm, if that’s what she wanted. If she wanted to sell, he would help her do that.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked what she had to do in order to receive that care.”

  “And you said?”

  He closed his eyes. “I said it was easy. All she had to do was give you up.”

  I turned to the window and stared at the water coming down. “And if she didn’t give me up?”

  “I would tell the sheriff all I knew. That she had planned her father’s death. There would be a trial and Daisy would be sent away.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “Why? It was self-defense. And she was a kid. She was just trying to save herself and her sister.”

  “It’s all turned out for the best. Don’t you see? Your mother was adamant that we steer you two away from each other. I went along with it. And to her credit, Jesse has never held it against me. She and Earl asked me to do the ceremony and I said an enthusiastic yes, partly because I wanted this to be the end. That’s why I didn’
t tell you about the wedding.”

  I slid into the wooden chair beside his desk. Lightning flashed outside and a few seconds later thunder rumbled the windowpane.

  “I always felt responsible for his death,” I said. “I thought it was my fault.”

  “Why would you feel that way?”

  “Because Jesse told her dad if he touched me again, she would kill him. And he grabbed me. So if I hadn’t been there . . .”

  “It was never your fault, Matt.”

  “What about Mom? Did she know this?”

  He shook his head like a child caught in a lie. “I’ve never told her. And Jesse never talked, as far as I know.” He looked up. “How did you put it together?”

  “She said something last night. That some promises cancel others out. I always thought she shut me out after that night because I had made her kill her father.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “It’s what I believed for so long. But she was really just keeping her promise to you. She was protecting Daisy.”

  “We helped her, Matt. The church came around her. Not perfectly, of course, but she’s done so well.”

  “You kept Blackwood from taking her place.”

  He nodded. “Basil wanted the riffraff away. I think he wanted the memory of what Gentry did to Jesse to go away, too.”

  I stared at his desk and remembered the Polaroid he’d made me surrender.

  “Now you have a choice, Matt. You’ve gotten what you wanted. You know the truth. If you expose this, it will come back on her. And me.”

  “But you can release her. She’s trapped, Dad. She’s like the horse we found.”

  He stared at me and I realized he had no idea what I was talking about.

  Finally he said, “What good would releasing her do? She’s marrying Earl.”

  “She deserves to make that decision free and clear. Release her from the promise she made.”

  “And if I do and she says she loves you, the Turleys will make her life a nightmare. And yours, too. Earl deserves better than this. He’s an honorable man. No, the best thing is to move on. I think you know that.”

  “What about the best thing for me, Dad? What if I love her?”

  “I’ll never understand why you chose Jesse. Your mother would have been fine with any other girl in town, but you had to—”