Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees (11 page)

S
am pulled the mangled remains of Malcolm off of Willa, who had begun screaming hysterically once she realized what had happened.

“Get up, Willa!” Sam ordered. “We got to get you washed off!” He did not have to tell her twice. Sam pulled her to her feet and she stumbled into the frigid creek below. She fully immersed herself in the rushing water, attempting to rinse away the blood, brain matter, hair, and bone fragments that had once made up the hard and ruthless features of her husband. Scooping up handfuls of sand from the creek bottom, she scrubbed her hair, face, and clothing with it. “Hurry!” she screamed at Sam, who was also scrubbing at the sickening remains sticking to her. “Wash him off of me!” Her teeth chattered both from the cold and shock, and after several more minutes of harsh scrubbing, Sam put his arm around her waist and, half pushing and half carrying her, forced her up onto the creek's bank and toward the cabin.

“We can't leave him here like that!” she cried.

“I won't. I want to get you inside and then I'll come back and tend to him.”

Willa grunted as if in agreement, however her uncontrollable shaking rendered her incapable of saying any more.

Sam built up the low-burning fire in the hearth while instructing Willa to get into a pair of his heavy wool pants and shirt. After doing so, she wrapped herself in the quilt from her bed and came back to the fire. Sam had built up the fire in the wood stove, too, and the coffee pot was re-warming the remains from their breakfast. Sitting down on the floor in front of the fireplace, Willa stared into the flames.

“Soon as that's warm,” Sam said, indicating the warming coffee pot with a nod of his head, “you drink it. There's a bottle of brandy in the cupboard, to the left of the molasses. You put a double-shot in that mug, Willa.”

“I don't drink, and you know it, Sam.”

“This ain't drinking for the sake of drinking, Willa! We gotta get you to stop shaking, and to get some warmth back in your body. I'll pour it down your throat if you won't. Shock is tryin' to set in, and you're—we're—gonna be in trouble if you can't stop it from takin' over.

“We're already in trouble, Sam,” Willa replied. “We just killed a man.”

“No,
ma'am
!” Sam forcefully replied. “I was the only one that did any killin' today!”

“Don't matter, Sam,” Willa continued, while still staring at the flames. “It don't matter who pulled the trigger. We're both involved, and we're both in a hell of a lot a trouble. My last name is Holton, Sam. I never did say it to you before. And the man you just killed weren't just my husband, but Malcolm Holton, whose grandfather is Beaumont “Buddy” Malcolm Holton.
Senator
Buddy Holton. My husband's grandfather is a North Carolina state senator, Sam. We're both courtin' a hangman's noose.” Though she spoke the words in a whisper, Sam clearly understood the weight behind them, and she was sure they shook Sam's world to its core.

S
am sat on a filthy cot in the county jail, and wondered if the next person to visit his cell would be Deputy Burke, with some kind of food—food that even the mice were hesitant to eat—or Sheriff Buchanan, with a signed death warrant.

After getting Willa tended to, Sam had put Malcolm in the back of his wagon and headed into town. That had been five days ago. He'd stopped in front of the sheriff's office and told Sheriff Buchanan to come out to his wagon. He'd had to tell him who Malcolm was when the sheriff looked over the side. “Holy Mother of Jesus!” he'd exclaimed, paling as he did so. Even though he was a deacon at the First Baptist Church of Bolsey River, Sam couldn't figure out if it was the appropriate response to seeing the mangled man, or not. But he definitely knew that the cursing which ensued was not. Suddenly, the sheriff seemed to calm down, and, with the strangest smile on his face, made some senseless remark about the fact that Sam may have just helped him win another term. Sam hadn't a clue as to what he meant, and he didn't bother to ask for he had more serious issues to concern himself with. Sheriff Buchanan had then quickly ushered Sam into his office while the deputy drove the wagon over to McCrea's Funeral Home. There Malcolm would remain until the senator could be notified and arrangements made.

Sam asked himself again whether he should have just thrown the son of a bitch down an old mine shaft; the mountains were riddled with them. He knew that the chances of anyone finding Malcolm would have been slim to none, but Sam also knew that it wasn't quite as simple as that. What made things so complicated was the fact that Doc Newton had seen Willa at his cabin.
And that was my own stupid fault
, Sam thought bitterly.
If I'd just sewn her up myself this whole nightmare wouldn't have happened. Our options would have been better, that's for sure, but I was worried about her head then and not our necks. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I should have thought things through before involving anyone else.

Now he sat wondering what would happen to Willa. He hadn't been able to talk to her since he'd been incarcerated, although Sam knew she'd come by on two different occasions. She'd been turned away both times, though, for he was able to hear her muffled conversation with the deputy in the sheriff's office, which was directly below his cell on the first floor. The first time she'd come had been the day after he'd turned himself in, and he'd shouted out the window to her as she was mounting his mule to leave, telling her that he was all right. She'd quickly looked up at the barred second story window and shouted back that she'd get him out of there somehow and to stay strong.

The deputy came out of the sheriff's office like a shot and issued a very heated warning to her, saying that if she didn't move on immediately or if she ever attempted to communicate with Sam again without permission that she'd be down at the end of the hall from him with a gag in her mouth, and a long sentence ahead of her for obstructing justice and disturbing the peace. Sam had felt the deputy's wrath more severely however, for he'd come up to Sam's cell after chasing Willa away and beaten him thoroughly with a small wooden bat.

Two days later, she'd returned to town again. “Now Miz Holton, it's like I said to you the other day,” Deputy Burke began as he stood in the doorway blocking Willa from even entering the sheriff's office, much less the jailhouse beyond. “We can't have you comparin' stories and workin' things out, now can we?” he'd condescendingly asked. “Why, there's no tellin' what you two could concoct, not to mention the fact that we don't want you smugglin' anything
in
to help Sam
out
, now do we?” His insipid smile exposed the gap where once an incisor tooth had been, and he spoke to her as if she were a stupid child, or a stupid woman, which seemed to be about one and the same to the deputy. “If'n I let you go visitin' Sam, why I'd have to search you, and I imagine that wouldn't sit too well with you,
or
Sam, now would it?” The lecherous glint in his eye was unmistakable. He laughed and his enormous belly shook as she reacted to his offensive implications by taking a step back from him.

He stinks,
Willa thought,
and his hair's as greasy as a skillet full of bacon
.
Lord, when's the last time that man washed?
His hair was black but the thought ran through her mind that it might actually be brown without the grime in it. Willa bit down on her tongue to stifle the retort that came so close to being fired back at him. It wouldn't do to end up in jail, too. There wouldn't be a thing she could do to help Sam, though she was at a loss as to what she could do to help him at this point, even being a free woman.

“Deputy, I just want to see that Sam's all right,” Willa responded. Deputy Burke was known to be a rough handler, especially of female inmates, but he was known to be abusive with men, too. She prayed he wasn't hurting Sam in any way.

“Why, gal, are you suggestin' that we'd hurt a hair on his head? Besides, what do you care? He ain't your husband, which makes me wonder if that cockamamie story he done told the sheriff is really what happened out there at his place.”

Although Willa hadn't been present when Sam had given his statement to the sheriff, she was sure that Sam had told him the truth. There wasn't any reason to do otherwise. “I can assure you, deputy, it is
exactly
what happened.” Then she not only regained the step she'd taken away from him just moments before, but took several more toward him until her face was just inches from his.

“Deputy Burke,” she began in a heated whisper. “I been told what takes place in this jail, and that Ida Portnoy's son is a result of such. She didn't seem to be pregnant when she came in, but lo and behold, she had a child ten months after first being incarcerated and she'd only been out for three. Heard tell she had to convince her husband that it was an unusually long pregnancy. Watch what you do, deputy, or as God is my witness, I'd as soon hang from the nearest locust tree then let you hurt anyone else again—Sam Harold most especially.”

“You threatenin' me, woman?” The deputy was almost nose to nose with her.

“No, sir,” Willa replied in a deadly even tone. “I'm swearin' it on every one of the graves that fills up my family's cemetery. You'll be in worse shape than Malcolm if you lift a finger to Sam.” With that, Willa mounted the mule, slapped the reins on its rump, and trotted away.

Once she rounded the bend and was out of view, she let it all go. The tears that had run silently down her cheeks as she rode down the town's main street were now accompanied by deep sobbing that expressed all of the sorrow that had been building up since Malcolm was killed and Sam had turned himself in. As guilty as it made Willa feel, she felt no sadness over the loss of her husband. She did, however, feel absolute despair over the possibility of losing Sam, and the deepest guilt at the likelihood that he would lose virtually everything he had, perhaps even his life, simply because she'd come into his.

Bittersweet memories worked their way through her anguished sobs and Willa thought back to when she and Sam had first admitted their growing feelings for each other. It had been the afternoon before Malcolm showed up. She'd told Sam of her plans to take the stagecoach out of Marion, and when she'd finished, he'd run his hands through his wavy blond hair and his dark brown eyes had stared long and hard at her.

“Don't leave, Willa. Please. I don't . . . Please don't go,” he'd responded in a low, emotion-filled voice before turning toward the cabin's front door and saying he needed to check something in the smokehouse. She couldn't help but smile at his endearing awkwardness. And she didn't miss the fact that the smokehouse was out back, and he always went through the kitchen door to work in it. He walked back into the house less than a minute later, and without saying a word, but looking as though something had been decided inside of him, he firmly but gently grasped her upper arms. Looking hard into her eyes, he pulled her to him.

Though Sam was not a terribly large man, wiry by some people's thinking, he was hard as a rock. Years of living alone and working the land, without a brood of children to help, had done that for him. His hands were capable and calloused. His shoulders were sturdy and strong. He smelled of the cedar wood which lined his closet and scented every piece of his clothing, and he smelled like the coffee he'd been drinking while she explained her plans to him.

Sam spoke softly against her right ear, though the words were hoarse sounding and urgent, and she knew what they'd be even before they were said, “I've started loving you, woman,” he gruffly admitted. “Don't go. Please.”

“My feelings are growing for you, too, Sam. As wrong as it is,” she quietly admitted, dropping her forehead to rest against his chest. “God help us.” Her voice cracked with the pain and truth of her feelings.

“Willa, look at me,” Sam demanded, holding her away from him. “This can't be wrong. I don't believe that. It feels too
right
. This is what God intended a man and a woman to feel for each other, and mean to each other.”

“A man and
wife
,” she corrected.

“Damn the rules, Willa! I'm not convinced that isn't just man's way of controlling things, and not the good Lord's way of wanting things. Sometimes I think we set our lives out in the way
we
see fit, not in the way God would. Can you honestly say that you believe God thinks it's all right to be beaten by your husband? Do you believe God thinks it's okay for a man to gamble every last penny away that he has, leaving his wife and family to starve or freeze to death? I surely don't believe He does. Just because a preacher and a signed marriage paper say things are all proper-like, don't make 'em so! You deserve more, Willa. Much more. There's not an ounce of me that's sorry that I got involved with you, or this situation. And I never will be. I'm just sorry that it wasn't sooner. Divorce him, Willa, and be with me. There'd be no shame in it. The only shame there'd be is if you stayed with a man that hurts you like he does. Then you'd be doing nothing less than saying it was okay for him to abuse you!”

Willa moved back into Sam's arms again and finally allowed herself to let go of many unshed tears. After only a moment, though, she stepped away from him and said, “I have to think about it, but from the angle I'm seeing things, there doesn't seem to be any solution for a good outcome.”

But Willa
was
tempted to do what Sam wanted her to, though she knew that they'd pay a terrible price. Even if she could get away from Malcolm, she and Sam would be ostracized by those they'd known all their lives. They'd be pariahs in their communities, and they'd end up hating each other for it. Try as they might to ignore the pain and the loneliness of being outcasts, the resentment they'd eventually feel toward each other would eat away at them.

But all of Willa's wants and needs paled in comparison to those of her child. She was willing to give up whatever was necessary in order to provide a life of security and happiness for her son or daughter.

She knew with absolute certainty that she couldn't raise her child in the malignant atmosphere of a home where Malcolm lived. But she also knew that she couldn't let the baby's life start out under a cloud of shame. And to divorce her husband and immediately take up with another man would bring disgrace to this baby from the moment it drew its first breath. She couldn't be with either man, and that knowledge helped Willa make a difficult decision easier. She would raise the baby on her own, wherever that might be.

She worried greatly about being found, and the possible actions that Willa's grandfather-in-law had the power to take.
Oh dear God, what if the senator tries to take my baby from me? To raise as a rightful heir?
Willa quickly pushed that thought from her mind. She knew there were more immediate things to worry about, and she was convinced that by leaving both Sam and Malcolm, in the end it would save them all. However, unquestionably, it would shatter Sam's heart, and her own in doing so.
We'll heal in time
, she tried to assure herself. But she knew that it would be a long, long time in coming. If ever.

Not long after Sam had gotten her back to the cabin after killing Malcolm, he'd told her he had to go take care of things. She heard him drive the wagon out of the barn and assumed he was going to pick up Malcolm's body to bury him. But once the sun began to dip below the tree line with no sign of him, she began to worry about what might have happened to cause such a delay.
Perhaps he decided to bury Malcolm much further away
, she told herself.
But even so he ought to have returned by now.
Willa became almost frantically worried, but knew she had to try to calm down or risk hurting the baby. Trying to change her focus, she thought about starting some supper, but even the idea of food was nauseating, so Willa decided instead to busy herself by doing a little mending. She went into the bedroom to retrieve the wicker basket of Sam's clothing that she'd placed in the corner just the night before, and as she grasped the handles of the basket to carry it out to the living room, she glanced down and saw a neatly folded note that had not been there earlier. She immediately realized that Sam must have placed it there for her before he'd left to take care of the grisly chore. With shaking hands, Willa carried the paper over to the window to better see it in the streaking golden light of the fading day.