Follow Me (3 page)

Running, running, running, because that’s what a girl does who has left her baby in a basket on top of the kitchen table,
like a pile of fresh-baked biscuits. And all the while listening for the sound of voices filling the empty air, calling her
to come back.

Sally!

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world.

Where’s Sally?

Has anyone seen our wretched Sally?

Look what she forgot to take along with her!

And who’s surprised?

Almighty and everlasting God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift.

Laura, check the attic. Loden, check the cellar. Clem, ride over to the Jenson place, see what they know. Tru, watch Willy.
And the baby.

Sally isn’t here.

Sally’s gone away.

Bad Sally. Doomed Sally. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

Give unto us an increase of faith, despite —

A mouth of cursing, deceit, and fraud. Tush, she said with vanity, I shall never be cast down. And look what happened.

Bad Sally will come to a bad end — that’s what they’d been saying ever since her cousin taught her about love. While other
Tauntonville girls her age were finishing their schooling and looking forward to marriage, she was —

Running, running, running —

Where’s Sally?

Sally’s gone away.

Is that her name carried on the wind?
Shhh,
says the breeze moving through the meadow. Don’t speak. The world will watch in silence as she runs, the sky empty of consolation.
No one is calling. They’ve already given up on her.

But still she runs. Running, running, running. How many lives start over this way, by putting one foot in front of the other?

In this corner of the world, hidden from prying eyes, in the grainy light of dusk, on a June evening in her sixteenth year,
Sally knelt at the mossy edge of the spring, cupped her hand to hold the fresh water, and drank her fill. The water was as
cold as ice. Colder. She ate those sour strawberries by the handful, and then, in the darkness, she made a soft bed from dry
pine needles and slept. She slept for one hundred years. And she woke to a whole different life.

How was it different?

It was raining.

Oh.

A soft, soaking rain fell all day. It was the kind of rain that washed away caked mud from fingers, blood smears from a sanitary
pad, and dirt from the soul. She sat beneath a rocky ledge beside the spring and waited for the rain to stop. Late in the
afternoon, she was as bad a girl as ever.

Bad Sally.

That’s her.

In ancient times the oracle would have predicted a bad end. But there are no oracles in the modern world. There are only fears
and hopes.

And hunger. Dear Jesus, she was so damn hungry she was ready to eat her shoe.

But still she sat beside the dripping shale, feeling cold through to her bones and furious at everyone she could think of
— God, her family, Miss Krumbaldorf, the Jensons, the men who started the war, the German soldier who threw the grenade that
sent shrapnel into Daniel’s eye, and of course Daniel Werner himself, who couldn’t see straight enough to know that he would
never convince his cousin to marry him.

Dripping, bubbling water. It was early in the month, not yet summer, and with the rain the temperature was dropping steadily.
She’d freeze to death if she didn’t do something besides sit there watching raindrops melt into the spring, the bubbles pop,
the foam swirl, and — why, look at that sneaky little worm slipping out from beneath a rock, sliding soundlessly into the
water. Just a slimy gray newt with yellow spots. Yet in the tension of her loneliness, it was more than that.

She tried to catch sight of the creature as it swam away. At first she didn’t see it moving in the water. Then she saw the
tiny snout sticking out above the surface, the black beads of its eyes staring, as though challenging her to imagine the potential
for conversation.

What else was there to do but say hello?

At the sound of her voice, the newt pulled itself underwater with a jerk, leaving only a single circle where its snout had
been. As the faint ripple widened, Sally caught sight of thready brown hair trailing below the surface, hardly more than a
shadowy blur in the water. And were those arms stretched out, along with the flickering motion of tiny hands paddling through
the water? There and gone, leaving enough of an impression for Sally to wonder about what she’d just seen.

But wonder doesn’t last long when a belly is rumbling its complaints. Sally had never heard the legend of the Tuskawali and
didn’t want to have to figure out how to make sense of what she’d seen. Why, a newt was just a newt! Forget about it. More
important, the spring was a vessel of stone and mud spilling water in a constant stream. The water moved through the narrow
channel and toward the meadow as if on a single-minded mission, going on its way with a certainty that Sally envied. Where,
she wondered, was it heading? Where would it lead?

She couldn’t begin to guess the answer. Her parents’ farm was at the bottom of the south side of Thistle Mountain. Here on
a distant northern plateau, the stream meandered through the meadow and then bent toward the slope. She’d never been on the
north slope of the mountain before. She’d never been farther than the field behind the junkyard where one Sunday afternoon
she’d lain with her cousin Daniel.

As soon as the drizzle had lightened to a warm mist and before the sun had sunk behind the far ridge of pines, Sally Werner
set out walking, following the bank of the meadow stream, descending through the forest as the stream widened into a creek
and fell over mossy stone shelves. The flowing water was the next best thing to an arrow mounted on a sign with her name on
it.

This way, Sally Werner.

A girl in a plaid sheath dress and saddle shoes just walking along, stepping over roots stretched across the ground like knobby
fingers, hoping that she was heading in the right direction, with a destination that would include a hot turkey dinner, walking
to the rhythm of the ballad she was making up to tell the story of her life.

Mother, daughter, sister, lover.

Wretched Sally Werner.

And then what?

Then she disappears down the mountainside
.

Quick, come say good-bye to Sally.

Good-bye, Sally.

But she’s already gone.

June 4, 1947, five o’clock on a Wednesday. And what in God’s name did the two men see coming out of the bushes?

“D-d-don’t shoot, Swill. It’s a girl.”

“I can see it’s a girl.”

Grizzled old Swill, with narrow eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap. Everybody on the north side of the mountain knew Swill.
And the man who knew him best was his stuttering brother, Mason, standing there in Italian army boots his nephew had sent
back for him from the war, woolen kneesocks knitted by his nephew’s wife, a lumber shirt, and striped shorts belted above
his waist.

“D-don’t you d-d-do anything crazy, Swill.”

“I wouldn’t ever shoot a doe.”

Together they watched her cross from one side of the creek to the other, stepping so lightly she might have thought those
stones were eggshells.

“Hello, darling.”

The shock of them — “What in hell!”

“Well, listen to that mouth. Won’t you listen to that mouth!”

All she could think to do then was to stand there, stupid and helpless, the creek trickling merrily around the rock beneath
her right foot.

Swill said he wouldn’t have ever thought such an ugly sound could come out of such a pretty mouth.

Ticktock of a dead tree’s branch knocking against the trunk of a tall elm. Gurgle of the stream. The rest of the world was
silent as Swill took a step forward.

“Sw-Swill,” his brother murmured.

“Shut up, Mason.”

What should Sally do? After sixteen years in the Peterkin Valley, this situation was new to her. At least she’d known Daniel
before he threw himself on her. She’d known him all her life. These men were strangers and seemed bent on causing harm. Should
she turn and run and risk taking a load of shot in her back? Should she curse? Should she prepare to fight? Should she smile?
She wasn’t finished considering these options when she felt a slimy substance hit her left leg, a cold, wet wormy thing that
latched on just below the crease of her knee, causing her to lose her balance and shift extra weight to her right foot, which
slipped out from under her. She landed with a splash in the icy water, catching herself with her hands so she didn’t fall
too hard, though she got enough of a soaking to turn the butter-colored squares of her dress brown.

Now she was mad.

“You damn imbeciles,” she said, surprising herself with a choice of words she’d never before uttered as a trio. She decided
to elaborate: “You goddamn imbeciles!”

“The little spitfire,” said Swill, laying his gun on the ground.

“P-p-poor girlie,” said Mason.

They straddled the creek, curled their rough fingers around her elbows, and lifted her onto dry land. With a quick motion
she felt the back of her leg to confirm that it was bare again, free of the worm or leech that had latched itself there.

She warned the men that they’d better not lay a hand on her — this after they had already released her.

“We w-won’t,” said Mason, taking a step back.

“And you,” she snarled, turning to Swill. “Quit laughing.”

“Who’s laughing?”

“Tell him to quit laughing.”

“Quit l-laughing, Swill.”

“I’m not laughing. It’s a cough. Feather on the back of my tongue. Ha, hach.” He spit a gob into the creek, squared his shoulders,
and announced, “That’s better.”

“Aw, Swill.”

“Swill,” Sally echoed. “It’s a good name. Swill. Like what’s in a pigsty.”

“Hey now, I haven’t done you any wrong.”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever, missy. Not if you get on home where you belong.”

“I don’t have a home.”

“You sh-sure look like you have a home. That’s a homemade dress like wha-what Georgie would sew,” said Mason. He pointed at
her, singling her out, accusing her of being who she was.

“You just appeared out of nowhere?” goaded Swill. “Like an angel, eh?”

“Like an angel, yep.”

“You an angel?”

“What if I am?”

“Prove it.”

“Angels don’t have to prove anything. Either you believe or you don’t. It’s your choice.”

“An angel wouldn’t curse like you do.”

“How do you know what an angel would say? Ever met one?”

“Swill, d-don’t g-go pretending you know anything about angels. You of all p-p-people.”

“Swill,” sneered Sally, filling her mouth with the bad taste of the name.

“Let’s go, Mason,” Swill said, hooking the strap of his gun back over his shoulder. “It’s suppertime.” And to urge his brother
along, he added in a hush that was more than loud enough for Sally to hear, “Can’t you see she’s got a screw loose?”

She slapped a mosquito into a red smear on her arm and watched the two men as they headed down the path away from her. At
first she felt triumphant and certain that she had a right to be indignant. Then she started to feel a rising anguish as she
thought about that good word
supper
and realized she would go another night without it.

Wait!

Did she say that aloud?

They went on without turning, climbing carefully down the steep path, holding those twelve-gauge shotguns snug under their
arms.

Please
.

All she could see by then was Mason’s cap bobbing above a jutting rock. “Hey there,” she said in a whimper. “Hey, misters.”
Now that they were out of sight completely, she realized how foolish she’d been. Like what’s in a pigsty, she’d said. Why
had she said that? She sagged in a heap to the ground, taking up the space between a craggy boulder and the hard knuckle of
a root, and hid her face in her arms. She held in her sobs in order to be able to hear their footsteps if they returned to
help her. But they didn’t return. That was her fault. She wouldn’t last through the night. That, too, was her fault. She’d
left her newborn son on the kitchen table. She’d made it impossible ever to return home. She had no home. She was born out
of nothing and would become nothing. Like what’s in a pigsty, sure. Out of her own pretty mouth. Shit and filth and blood
and any goddamn chance she had left — all in the pigsty. It was her fault. Mistaking ignorance for freedom. All the facts
that she would never know. A phrase from her seventh-grade studies came to mind:
failure of self-governance.
Meaning what? She hadn’t understood then and she didn’t understand now. And another dislocated phrase:
on the eve of
. And a word she didn’t remember ever learning:
blimey
. Where did that come from? The unscrewed screw causing everything to lose its place.
Crosshatch
and
according to
. Bump, bump, bump. The world spinning like her mother’s lazy Susan on the table, beans and potatoes turning round, along
with baby.

For Christ’s sake.

Amen.

Help yourself. Loden, pass the carrots.

Can’t someone shut that baby up!

He misses his mum.

Tru, go warm the milk. And the rest of you — what are you waiting for? Eat.

Spinning on this, the second night of her new beginning. Cool breeze hardening into a frosty stillness. Low sun filtered by
the trees. Creek burbling on its descent. Awareness growing of pain hardening in her right breast, and no one to help her.
No one to comfort her. No one to save her from herself and the harsh night. She would drift away. Drifting, she would lose
track. She would give up. She would forgive. She would forswear and forget, and life would fade into the dream of life, a
woodland scene, Sally Werner huddled on the ground, birds chirping and whistling, indifferent to her plight, and a red cap
bobbing up over the rock.