by Kate Merrill
“What’s a birdsong?” Diana was intrigued.
“The Birdsongs have lived in the hills out towards Blowing Rock forever. They have Cherokee blood on the granddaddy’s side, but it was Mother Mattie who held that family together.”
“What about Leona?” Matthew asked.
“If it’s the same gal, she’s the last of ’em. Leona’s mama, Mattie’s daughter, died giving birth to Leona, and Leona’s daddy got himself killed running a truck off the mountain. Like always, it was Mattie pulled herself together and raised the child.”
“Then you actually knowLeona?” Diana was amazed.
“We worked the same shift. Leona was real quiet and shy, but I reckon it was hard for her working alongside the college kids. Ordinarily the boss wouldn’t hire a mountain girl, but he thought the world of Mother Mattie, so he it did it as a favor.
“It ended up bad when the poor little thing got herself pregnant by some hillbilly out of West Virginia. The boy came to Appalachian State on a basketball scholarship. Once Leona began to show, the boss figured he’d made a mistake and fired her.”
Diana’s mind raced ahead. Everything in Lucy’s story fit the profile of the mysterious country girl. “Where do the Birdsongs live?”
“Couldn’t tell you.” The elderly waitress shrugged. “Those Birdsongs don’t want to be found, if you know what I mean? Once upon a time, Mattie’s husband was a bootlegger. Family tradition, don’t you know?” Lucy turned to Matthew. “But I recall Flake Brown always gave Mattie a ride when she came into Boone to sell her eggs and whatnot. Maybe he can show you how to find their house? Flake lives out somewhere on Route 321.”
“Thanks, Lucy, you’ve been a great help.” Matthew smiled. “Can I buy you a slice of pie?”
The old woman’s laugh echoed through the empty dining room. “Lord no, sir. Do I look like I need another piece of pie?” She patted her round tummy, then turned a curious eye in Diana’s direction. “I recall seeing yourhusband here before, ma’am, but I can’t say I recognize you.”
Diana longed to crawl under the table, because the old waitress had recognized Matthew, after all. No doubt she figured Diana was a home-wrecker having a fling with a married man. She was so flustered, she dipped her spoon into Matthew’s cup at the exact same moment he started to stir his coffee. Both Lucy and Matthew froze at Diana’s action. They stared at the cup, then at one another. Lucy began to giggle, while Matthew flushed red.
“Well, now I see how things are.” Lucy winked. “So I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone to get on with it.”
“What was that all about?” Diana demanded once Lucy made an abrupt exit.
“It’s another one of our folk beliefs…” Matthew averted his eyes. “When two people put spoons into a cup at the same time, it means that someday they’ll get married.”
FORTY-ONE
Blind man’s bluff…
Floyd kicked the metal door open with the toe of his boot. Four days cooped up in the shitty trailer was worse than solitary confinement. In prison he had no choice, but now he was supposed to be a free man. A tune kept running through his head: Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, and he didn’t have a hell of a lot to lose--- unless Juanita really came up with a pot worth one hundred thousand at the end of his rainbow. Then he’d have plenty to live for.
He stumbled down the broken steps and peed into the ragged bushes. The trailer’s plumbing broke two days ago, so he’d been washing up in the stinking river ever since. At first he boiled the river water to make his instant coffee, but later he’d come to blame the water for the headache that would not go away.
His buddy, the one who owned this trailer, always bragged how Daniel Boone once made his home a few miles upstream on the Yadkin, where he lived off berries and wild game. Well, Floyd was no frigging pioneer. He had already eaten all the canned goods, leaving a gnawing hole where his stomach used to be.
He fetched a rock and heaved it at the crows squawking their heads off in the river oak.
Behold the fowls of the air, they don’t sow, neither do they reap,
Yet the Heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?
Damn straight! Floyd was a religious man, but he couldn’t wait forever for the Lord to divvy up five loaves and two fishes.
Bloody bitches! Lately the image of Leona, the one who betrayed him, had begun to blend with the face of Juanita, the harlot holding back what was rightfully his. This shifting vision, a two-headed female monster, sharpened his hatred and made him strong, but this wretched isolation was definitely playing games with his sanity. It was high time to move on.
He knelt at the river, fetched a pail of water, and then stomped back to the trailer to stand in front of the mirror. He figured the good sharp razor would help him get reborn as a new man, so that even his own mama, God rest her soul, wouldn’t know him. Neither would that snot-nosed kid up the road at the convenience store, the one with the pay phone.
He had given Juanita until Sunday to get the money. By now she should have an answer, and Floyd needed to know. A trickle of blood dribbled down his bald scalp, but Floyd felt nothing. All he knew for certain was that another night here was not an option.
* * *
Juanita shuffled barefoot across the living room floor and shoved the front door open with her toes. She glared into the humid night and lit up a Cigarillo. At that moment she saw the flash of another lighter, much like an echo of her own, from across the dark lawn. Next she heard the soft laughter of an FBI agent, who was smoking near the gate.
She inhaled. His laughter mocked her. She was lonesome, bored, a prisoner in her own house. The guards dogged her every move, they even delivered her groceries right to the kitchen door. Then once each day, an armed escort drove her in an unmarked car for a quick trip to the hospital.
Bobby was tired of being a prisoner, too. They had no control, like their whole future hung on the fate of one little boy they both love too damned much.
She exhaled. The smoke drifted up to the treetops, where her mockingbird sang to the night. Juanita used to love the mama mockingbird. Bobby had taught her how to recognize all the bird’s different songs, but Juanita wondered, did the mockingbird have a song she could call her own? All spring Juanita watched the creature building her nest, and then the mama taught her little ones how to fly and to imitate all their feathered friends. But could she teach them how to find their own voice?
Juanita decided she had lost her own voice somewhere along the way. She once was an easy-going gal, but now helpless anger gnawed a hole in her gut, and then filled that hole with violent nightmares of revenge.
Bobby claimed he was coming home Saturday, even if he had to murder every doctor to get there, but Saturday would be too late. As life went on, with more landscape workers arriving every day like clockwork, pretending Porter Park would open on schedule the Fourth of July, only Juanita knew the truth:
The sky was falling.
For the first time since she came to the States as a tiny child, she now felt alone i
n a foreign land. Everyone had deserted her, even Diana. All morning she had tried to call her friend, but an answering machine informed her that Diana was on vacation. Vacation! Juanita had tried to phone Matthew all afternoon, but he too was missing in action. Even the employees at his store didn’t have a clue where Matthew had gone.
Juanita licked her fingers and pinched out the smoking filter. She smelled burning flesh and watched a tiny blister puff up, but felt nothing. Where were your friends when you needed them? She spit into the night, then backed into the house, closing the door behind her.
A crazy idea was writhing in her brain like a poisonous snake, and she wished she could try it out on someone. She couldn’t tell Bobby, because he’d freak. The stupid FBI would never allow it, so Juanita was on her own. She was alone in the house with one hundred thousand dollars in ransom money, armed with nothing but this wild notion about how she might force the kidnapper to release her little Juan.
Then, when the phone rang, it scared her so badly she stubbed her toe on the coffee table and skinned her knee breaking the fall.
“Fuck!” she screamed into the receiver, intent on giving someone a piece of her mind.
“Fuck you, bitch!” a low male voice answered.
He was the demon from her nightmare. Juanita was paralyzed by terror, yet she longed to pick up a knife and cut the preacher’s throat, like she had in her dream. Instead, she remained comatose as a dummy while he poured filth into her ear.
Eventually, he calmed down. “You guys from the FBI---I know you’re listening in. In case you’re interested, I’m calling to ask the bitch if she’s got my money.”
Juanita was chilled by the monster’s total disrespect for the authorities. At the same time, all the frustrations of the past week rose like bile to the back of her throat. “I have your money, asshole!”
“Now ain’t that good news.” Floyd chuckled. “Seeing as how you’ve been a good girl, we should get together real soon.”
“How is Juan?” she demanded.
“The little pisser’s hanging in.”
Suddenly Juanita found her voice. “Why should I believe you? You don’t get one penny until I know my boy’s alive and well.”
Silence, then laughter. “Oh, woman of little faith, I don’t see you holding no cards.”
“I have the money, but you don’t get shit until I see proof.”
More silence, and then a raspy whisper. “Don’t be rude, Juanita. I could send you one of Juan’s little brown fingers, but they’re so tiny don’t hardly seem worth the postage. We discussed other options, don’t you remember?”
Dizzy with horror, she recalled how this maniac had threatened to send Juan’s head in a box. She imagined the child’s lifeless eyes accusing her of murder, yet she held back her tears. If her plan was going to work, she must show no fear. “Put Juan on the phone right now.”
“My dear Juanita, you’ve been watching too many movies.” The preacher’s voice was dry ice. “The little pisser’s taking his nap.”
She sensed hesitation in his response. “Okay, take a digital photo of Juan waving his left hand and send it email. Get a pencil and write down my address…”
“I don’t have no fucking computer, are you crazy?”
“Then send me a photo overnight FedEx. Call again when you know I’ve got it. Then, once I hear Juan on the phone, you have one hour to meet me in person.”
“I don’t have no fucking camera, bitch!
“Then get your sorry ass to a drugstore and buy one. I have the money in my hand, and you sure as hell better have Juan in your hand when we meet, or the deal’s off.”
The preacher was breathing hard. She could almost smell his scared animal stink, but his voice remained neutral. “My answer is no, ma’am. I’ll see the boy dead before I meet those conditions.”
Juanita held back her tears. If she weakened now, all was lost. “Then go ahead and kill him, asshole! I’ll keep the money for myself.” She looked down at her clenched fist, where her fingernails were drawing blood. Seconds seemed to expand to hours as she prayed to Almighty God: don’t let him hang up.
A third party on the line, coughed and cleared his throat.
“I know you’re listening, you FBI shits!” the kidnapper roared. “So I’m telling this bitch she’s got a deal, but she’ll have to give me time to get the camera. Then, if I so much as smell you guys anywhere near our meeting, you can collect what’s left of the boy in a body bag.”
When the line went dead, Juanita’s stomach lurched and she sank to the floor. She vomited on the carpet and almost choked when the phone rang again.
“That was an Academy Award performance, Ms. Cruz.” Agent Grim’s voice was the gruff rasp of a very tired old man. “You got guts, I’ll give you that, but you’re playing hard ball with Juan’s life. Now the preacher’s running scared, and that makes him desperate.”
“At least I proved Juan’s alive,” she gasped. “Now you go find him!”
“We know Floyd Clontz never returned to West Virginia.” Grim sighed. “But his nephew, Darryl, has regained consciousness. The kid can’t talk yet, but he has indicated he wants to cooperate…”
Juanita felt drained and disgusted as she hung up on the man. In her experience, the only help she was likely to get would come from herself, or maybe, if she was very lucky, from God. Or maybe Bobby would come home Saturday, but it would be too late…
And where the hell wereDiana and Matthew?
FORTY-TWO
The guardians of lost children…
Mattie decided her house didn’t smell like itself. Layered on top of the usual odors---last winter’s greasy wood smoke in the fireplace and ripe tomatoes on the windowsill---were the sweet and sour smells of powder and sweat. Mattie realized she was too familiar with her personal old-woman odor to notice that anymore, so she figured the new aromas came from Leona and the boy. Even as a child, Leona favored flowery body powders, but Mattie had no experience with little boys. Sure enough, her granddaughter and the strange child who arrived with her, wore filthy clothes and both were ripe for a bath.
Seemed like Mattie’s eyesight had faded while her other senses had gotten sharper. Nowadays she smelled the rain before the thunderclaps boomed over the mountains, and she heard the rooster before he crowed. But in spite of these talents, the sudden arrival of Leona and the boy had caught her unawares.
It was not Mattie’s habit to sleep more than an hour or two each night, but while she slept her dreams took on the texture of reality. That particular night, five days ago, she dreamed she was a young woman of childbearing age, and little Leona was taking her first steps in the meadow out near the bootleg still.
Wild daisies tickled Mattie’s bare knees as she sat with her legs spread open in the tall grass. She tossed a flower and Leona toddled off to fetch it, with sun vibrating around her baby blond hair like an angel’s halo. Leona found the flower, then fell laughing into Mattie’s skirt.
This dream went on and on, the tossing and retrieving, until the sound of tires crunching on gravel penetrated her consciousness. Still groggy, Mattie figured it was her long-dead husband driving up the country lane with the revenue officers hot on his tail, but when she opened her eyes to the black of night, she saw headlights flashing on the wall. Disoriented, she couldn’t find her wa
y back through time, nor could she go for her gun before a strange car stopped outside the screen door.
Leona and the ghost of a boy were standing at the foot of her bed before Mattie’s mind finally caught up with the truth of things.
“Hey, Mother Mattie,” Leona whispered from behind scared eyes. “I’m real sorry busting in like this, but I got myself into some trouble. This here is Bird. You reckon we can stay awhile?”
So last Saturday night they came to Mattie out of a dream. Love did funny things, so at first Mattie just held her little girl, rocking and crying with Leona against her breast, and thanking the Lord for delivering back the long lost great grandson who never got born. In those long hours before dawn, Mattie allowed herself to believe the boy really was the one killed by lightning so many years ago, but when the sun came up, she saw a rusty blue station wagon listing sideways in the yard and the strange, druggy-eyed kid staggering through the house like a lost soul.
Mattie sat Leona down with a strong pot of coffee. “We need to talk, honey. Want to tell me what happened?”
As daylight lifted beyond the yellowed lace at the kitchen window, Leona spun a tale that chilled Mattie’s blood to ice water, then got it to boiling like the pot on the stove. Mattie had no radio or television, so she had no way to measure the truth of Leona’s bizarre yarn of kidnapping and murder, but she did know Leona. She saw the sickly pallor of her granddaughter’s skin and the dark pockets of sleepless nights under her dead eyes.
She saw how her girl kept glancing nervously over her shoulder, like the Devil himself was sneaking into the barnyard. And since Floyd Clontz was involved, Leona’s fears were warranted.
“You best hide that car in the barn,” she told the girl. “If Floyd is coming, he’ll spot it in the drive and there’ll be hell to pay.”
The boy slept while Leona hid the station wagon. In the meantime, Mattie visited the hen house to kill them a chicken. It gave her no pleasure to lose one of her laying hens, because nowadays the egg money and what little she fetched for fresh vegetables kept her alive. Flake came around once a week, of a Friday, and took her into town, where she sold to the diner and one local market. But now, with two extra mouths to feed, Mattie had no choice. Vegetable soup did her just fine, but a growing boy needed meat.