“Forgot about you and everything happenin’ over here.”
She stood near the far window and avoided his eyes.
“That’s your business—forget us if you want.”
He turned to look calmly her way while giving a slight shake of his head.
“Jessup never would smack you. I don’t know why, why he never would, but I always have said someday somebody’s goin’ to pay a price for him not whompin’ you good when you needed it.”
Gail was napping in Ree’s bed, the boys ran loudly about in the side yard, and Mom sat silently in her rocker. Ree edged along the wall so there’d be furniture blocking his way if he made a mean move toward her.
“I wasn’t tryin’ to be a smart mouth, there, Teardrop. Uncle Teardrop.”
“It don’t seem like you’ve got to try none, girl, smarty-mouth shit just flies out your yap anytime your yap falls open.” He walked to the window that overlooked the side yard. Sonny and Harold chased each other around in circles, flinging snowballs while yelling fantastic threats back and forth. Teardrop stood with his arms crossed and studied their play like he was scouting the boys for the future. He was silent long enough for the quiet to become worrisome to Ree, then said, “He’s faster’n Blond Milton ever was. He hits stuff he throws at, too. Blond Milton, he always was strong as stink but he threw rocks’n balls’n shit about like an ol’ granny would without her glasses on, and he never could swim real swift or play horseshoes worth a damn or whatever. He wasn’t coordinated as Sonny is already at any of that. Course, the man has proved he’ll shoot anybody he wants, and not everybody will.” He leaned to the window as he watched the boys a moment longer, eyes following them as they moved, until he eventually grunted once, shrugged his shoulders. “Harold, though. Harold better like guns.” He pulled away from the window and turned about. “The law found Jessup’s car out at Gullett Lake this mornin’. Somebody set it on fire last night, burnt it down to nothin’ almost.”
“Was… ?”
“He wasn’t in it.”
Late-morning shadows worked patterns across the scarred wooden floor, patterns underfoot shifting angle and design at the pace of the sun crossing the sky. Mom’s eyes fell closed as though she’d heard and she began to hum a short snatch of flat music that nearly brought a song to mind. Teardrop’s green truck was down in the yard and the boys ran around it hurling dripping snowballs at each other. Ree felt a low vibration become electric in the jelly between her bones and heart, and said, “He’s gone, ain’t he?”
“This is for you-all.” Teardrop took a flat square of folded dollars from inside his jacket and tossed it to the couch. “His court day was this mornin’ and he didn’t show.” He flung his arm out, gesturing vaguely toward the land up the hill behind the house. “I’d sell off that Bromont timber now while you can.”
“No, huh-uh. I won’t be doin’ nothin’ like that.”
“That’s the very first thing they’ll do once they’ve took this place from under you-all, girl. Go up’n cut them woods down to nubs.” He stepped to stand before her and put a hand beneath her chin, raised her eyes to meet his. “Might as well have the dough to spend on your own.” He stood back, plucked a bag of crank from the smoke pocket on his shirt, scooped a load with a long fingernail and snorted, snorted again. He twisted his neck while rubbing his nose and the black dots in his eyes burst wider and darker. He held the bag to Ree. “You got the taste for it yet?”
“Hell, no.”
“Suit yourself, little girl.” He rolled the bag, put the crank away, turned in a circle to inhale the room, stopped suddenly to stare directly at Mom, humming with her eyes closed. He squinted and listened to her disjointed song awhile before turning from her. “She ain’t moved since I was here in April.” He walked to the front door and opened it, then turned to look at Mom again. “This floor, here? I remember when this floor here used to get to jumpin’ like a fuckin’ bunny from all the dancin’. Everybody dancin’ around all night, stoned out of their minds—and it always was the happy kind of stoned back then.”
Ree held the door open and leaned against the jamb to see him leave. She felt blue and ruined, as adrift and puny as an ash flake caught in a tossing wind. Teardrop started his green truck and gunned the engine until it roared, then turned around to head out. The boys stood together beside the rut road to watch him go by, stood a little bit scared and very still, their arms hanging at their sides, faces empty of any telling expression. Uncle Teardrop eased the truck slowly, slowly alongside them, stared at them intently without a word of greeting or gesture of recognition, and with no change in speed drove out of sight.
Chapter 21
MOM STOOD when asked and Ree dressed her in a white winter coat that was puffy and slick and a yellow stocking hat that had a floppy yellow ball knit at the peak. Ree opened the side door and ushered her outside into the yard. Mom seldom left the house and her face looked anxious. She stepped uncertainly onto the thin snow, first tapping about with a toe before letting her heel come down. Ree held her by the elbow and led her to the steep trail on the north slope. The sun was dropping behind the far ridges, and in such light ice on the trail looked like spilled milk frozen hard.
After each step up the trail Mom would pause and lean back on Ree until Ree boosted her forward again. The routine acquired a working rhythm when Ree began boosting Mom along in that brief second before her pause could become a lean. Brittle ice snapped as boots fell and toes pressed forward. Mom’s breath washed back in gusts to break across Ree’s face. The warmth and flavor of Mom’s breath held sweetness and opened memories. Mom before she was all the way crazy, lolling with Ree on a blanket between the pines, telling windy tales of whiffle-birds, the galoopus, the bingbuffer, and other Ozark creatures seldom seen in these woods but known for generations to live there. The whiffle-bird, a jolly feathered mystery just waiting to be born from shadows hatching to spark aloft quick as thought and fly backwards like a riddle across the sky, or the galoopus that might come roost deep down your well and lay perfectly square eggs of stiff yellow taffy inside your water bucket, or the taunting spooky bingbuffer that would creep close on the darkest of dark stormy nights to flex a huge hinged tail and peg rocks banging against your house while you pulled the blankets over your head and waited for the sun. Mom’s words had tickled and her close breaths had soothed.
At the crest they began to walk gingerly through the Bromont acres. Ree linked arms with Mom and steered a course between stout trunks, carefully stepping over thick roots and blurs of ice. They walked near the rim of the knob and could see distant spots in the valley while heavy trees loomed over their shoulders. A band of crows sat on limbs high above and gabbed as the women passed below. The knob was bare slab rock in some spots, and the slab rocks were yet too slickery to walk across. Ree moved between gray slabs, squeezing with her arm to prompt Mom in one direction or another. At a breakneck bluff above a wet-weather creek they paused to stare to the next knob over, where the first Bromont house had been built. The walls and such had been carted away long ago but the square rock foundation still gave a base of ordered shapeliness to the barrage of runt oak and creeper vines that had overgrown the place.
Ree turned to walk along the north slope and up into the pines. Mom tripped on a root and slipped to her knees, and her expression jolted almost alert. She said, “How long has this snow been here?”
“Days and days now.”
“I saw when it came.”
Beneath the pines the ground was kept clear by falling needles, a soft carpet of browned needles spread under the low branches, a natural rumpus space for short scampering youngsters. The pines could easily be imagined into a castle or a sailing ship or serve merely as an ideal picnic spot. The trees broke any wind that came and lent a good scent to any season.
Mom held on to a branch and paused. “This is where I used to play.”
“Me, too.”
“Plus Bernadette.”
Ree pulled Mom snug
to her side, walked between the pines, the sharp needles and swishing branches, then downhill and across the wet-weather creek to the next wooded mound. There were footprints in the snow, raccoons and rabbits and a pair of coyotes that had prowled near for a sniff. Ree pulled Mom along uphill into the dense hardwood. Many pauses were required, and deep sucks of air, before the crest was reached. The trees were large and august and faithful. A huge oak stump sawed level made a sitting place overlooking the valley. The stump had become frayed and squishy from rot but made a wide pleasant seat.
Mom sat and Ree sat beside her. Ree held Mom’s hand a moment, then came off the stump to kneel. She squeezed with both hands and tilted her face to look up at Mom.
“Mom, I need you. Mom—look at me. Look at me, Mom. Mom, I’m goin’ to need you to help. There’s things happenin’ that I don’t know what to do about. Mom? Look at me, Mom. Mom?”
The going sun chucked a vast spread of red behind the ridgeline. A horizon of red light parsed into shafts by standing trees to throw pink in streaks across the valley snow.
Ree waited kneeling for several minutes, kneeling as raised hopes fell to modest hopes, slight hopes, vague hopes, kneeling until any hope at all withered to none between her pressing hands. She released Mom, stood and walked away into the shadows behind the stump. She returned in a minute and looked closely at her from above, then sat on the stump again. Mom’s skin was sallow, her face was blank and her soul was sincerely given over to silence and the approximate refuge offered by incomprehension. Mom stared into the sunset, then pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself and held tight.
“Mom?”
During the next minutes Ree leaned to look into her face a few times. Mom’s gaze stayed unwaveringly on the glowing distance, chin to her kneecaps, hands clasped around her shins. Ree scooted away on the old stump and studied Mom’s face in profile, the rounding features and sagged cheeks, then sighed and looked west. Sunlight shriveled to a red dot beyond the ridge, night swallowed the dot in a gulp, and the vista quickly began to sink from sight. Ree stood, pulled Mom to her feet, and arm in arm they started the darkened walk downhill to home.
Chapter 22
FLOYD CAME by after dark with the baby. Gail had at least three times since noon told Ree her breasts ached a little and she latched onto Ned like he was medicine and carried him to the couch. She sat back, opened up in a hurry and gave him a nipple he seemed eager to get. Ree sat in a chair by the far window and tried not to listen to the husband and wife talk, but she heard it all. Floyd wanted Gail home, his momma couldn’t keep up with a kid Ned’s age and the trailer was too quiet without the noise of her cooing at the boy, goo-goo-gooing and all. Plus her catalogue had come in the mail and she could page around and pick out something pretty for springtime and he’d likely get it for her. Gail switched Ned to the other nipple and seemed to feel less ache drop by drop. She said some shit had to change. He ain’t the boss of her every minute of every day. He said okay. But the big deal is that goddam Heather—you’ve got to quit fuckin’ Heather. Floyd didn’t say a word. Sonny and Harold slunk up close to see the tit the baby sucked, and the baby sucking was the only sound. Floyd lit a cigarette, then got to his feet and went outside. Gail bounced the baby, saying, There, there. There, there. The door opened and Floyd set down a black suitcase and the blue bag of baby stuff, then stepped backwards and pulled the door shut. Both boys leaned on the couch arm staring at Gail’s breasts and the headlight beams from Floyd’s truck swept across the window glass as he drove away. Ree went over behind the couch and began rubbing Gail’s neck. There, there. He’ll be back. He’ll be back to get you again, most likely on laundry day, I bet. He’ll be sayin’ ol’ Heather has got fat and sour of a sudden, she truly has, and god but he misses you sore. Come on home, sweetheart—soap’s under the sink. What Gail said was, At least he didn’t try to lie this time. Did you notice?
Chapter 23
REE PUSHED a mulish shopping cart in the Bawbee Store, with Ned in the basket and Gail beside her. Ned slept and slobbered bubbly while she and Gail shopped as a pair. The wheels were splayed like walleyes, so the cart would not easily go where it looked to be aimed but screeched off-line in half-moon spins toward one side of the aisle, then the other. Ree hunched forward and rode the cart like she was plowing a crooked row, holding hard and muscling the thing more or less where she wanted to go. She put noodles, rice and dried beans into the cart. She had already dropped in cans of soup, tomato sauce and tuna, a full chub of bologna, three loaves of bread, two boxes each of oatmeal and grits, plus three family packs of ground beef. She paused to stare at her load, finger at her lips, then put the rice back on the shelf and grabbed more noodles. She said, “I don’t know what he done was wrong. Not for sure.”
Gail said, “With all them noodles you’ll want sprinkle cheese, won’t you?”
“It costs too much for what you get. So we always skip it.”
“Either he stole or he told. Those are the things they kill you for.”
“I can’t see Dad squealin’. Dad didn’t have no dog in him.”
“This generic here don’t cost much.”
“Naw, skip it.”
“It tastes just about the same.”
“Nope. Once the boys start likin’ it they’ll want it all the time. It’s too expensive. It costs even more’n meat does.”
“Oh, man,” Gail said, “it just hit me—I must’ve been raised up rich—we always had sprinkle cheese.”
Ree laughed and draped an arm across Gail’s shoulders. “But you turned out okay, anyhow, Sweet Pea. The sugar-tit life ain’t spoiled you none. None that I can see.”
Gail tossed two canisters of sprinkle cheese into the cart, saying, “I’ll buy those on my nickel.” She reached to the opposite shelf and grabbed a can. “Plus these tamales.”
The morning sun polished the hard road to a blinding sheen and both girls squinted on the way to the house. Mud holes were growing brown spots in the blanket of snow. The holes held water and birds pecked in the mud. A couple of saplings had roots spring loose in the wet and had fallen partway onto the road, and the thin ends of branches crunched under the truck tires.
While on the rut road to the house Ree looked across the creek. Blond Milton and Catfish Milton were standing by the bridge with a stranger. There was a parked white car that had a long antenna raised from the trunk. Both Miltons and the stranger watched the truck come along the rut. The stranger pointed, shrugged, started walking across the bridge.
Ree said, “Who the fuck is he?”
Gail said, “Somebody from town—look at the pretty shoes he’s got on!”
Ree hefted groceries while Gail hefted Ned. Both of them stopped on the porch and turned to the stranger. Ree set her sacks down, said, “That’ll do, mister. Right there. What is it you want?”
The man stood tall inside his thick coat, a hide and wool sheep coat with wide fuzzy lapels. He might’ve been thirty years old and wore mirror sunglasses and a leg holster. His Adam’s apple was big and jumpy in his throat, brown hair fell thick to his shoulders. Two inches of whiskers drooped from the point of his chin. He looked like he meant no harm but could do plenty if pushed, and said, “I’m Mike Satterfield, from Three X Bail Bonds. We hold the bond on Jessup Dolly, and he’s now a runner, it looks like.”
“Dad ain’t a runner.”
“He didn’t show for court—that makes him a runner.”
“Dad’s dead. He didn’t show in court ’cause he’s out layin’ dead somewhere.”
Satterfield stopped at the bottom of the steps, removed his sunglasses. His eyes were hazel and calm but interested. He leaned sideways against the handrail while looking at Ree.
“That ain’t what I want to hear. It surely ain’t. That’s no good for nobody, none of us. You understand I’ve got the legal right to search anywhere I want in this place huntin’ the man? I mean, I can go on in there if I want, check the closets’n attic, poke under beds’n
stuff. You know that, kid?”
“I know you’d be wastin’ your time if you did. Wastin’ your time’n pissin’ me off is all you’d be doin’.” Gail stepped inside with Ned, and Ree came down the steps. “How long do I got? How long before we get thrown out?”
“Well, that depends on if I can find him and drag him back.”
“Look, man, listen to me, it’s like this—Jessup Dolly is dead. He is in a crappy little grave or become piles of shit in a hog pen or has busted to bits tossed down a deep cave hole. Maybe he was left out plain in the open and is rottin’ away in a snow pile nobody has looked under yet, but, wherever, he’s dead, man.”
Satterfield shook a cigarette from a pack, lit up and exhaled. He had the habit of swatting his long hair from his face with the back of a hand. He said, “And you know this how?”
“You must’ve heard about what Dollys are, ain’t you, mister?”
“Only all my life. I mean, I always have heard what some are, anyway. I imagine most everybody for a hundred miles round here has.”
“Well, I’m a Dolly, bred’n buttered, and that’s how I know Dad’s dead.”
He looked across the creek at the watchful Miltons, nodded.
“Those fellas’re kin, of course, right? They wouldn’t say boo to me, neither one, even though my dad has written bonds on the both of them, too, over the years. The idea I got from them was they didn’t know no Jessup Dolly, or anybody that matched that description.” He smoked while looking closely at Ree. “This thing has felt a little funny from the giddy-up. Smelled just a tad bit off. This house’n stuff of you-all’s didn’t cover the man’s bond, not nearly—you know that?”
“Nobody told me nothin’. I found out everything after.”
“Well, he was short on the bond, but a fella come into the office one evening, had a plastic sack of crinkled money and put it down to cover the rest. When I went over there to the jail, your dad didn’t seem a hundred percent sure he even wanted out of lockup, neither, which ain’t usually how they act, but he was sprung by breakfast. It seemed like somebody needed him sprung in a hurry.”