GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (26 page)

“W
hat have you done, RubyLyn?
What?
” Gunnar threw the strawberry dress off the porch and shook me.

I choked out a cry.

“WHAT?” he boomed.

“I—I . . .”

“Crockett's been up and down this hollar, spouting off about land—
Royal
land! You took your land to get Rainey out?”

“For my—my . . . my husband.”

“Silence!” He wheeled around, raised an arm.

I cringed against the wall. “We-we're getting married, Gunnar. I love him—”

Gunnar threw back a fist, pumped it twice.

I closed my eyes tight.

He barreled his big hand into the wooden board next to my head.

My legs buckled, sending me to the floor.

He punched the wall again, anger splintering the boards.

I dared to flutter my eyelids.

White-lipped and red-faced, he swung open the screen door and disappeared inside.

Piling down hard air, I sat huddled to the wall until I steadied my breathing.
I have to get my stuff and get back to Rainey
. I crept inside and ran up to my bedroom. Slamming the door, I crossed to the bed, shook loose the case from the pillow, and began stuffing it with Daddy's tin box, Mama's purse, and my brush and a clean dress.

Minutes later he kicked open my door. I saw the shotgun at his side.

“You're not going anywhere,” he rasped a growl and tore the pillowcase from my hand, slinging it across the room. “Stay
put!
”

He thudded out, lit down the stairs and out the screen door.

I rushed over to my window. Gunnar pounded big strides across the fields. “Gunnar! Come back!” I banged on the top pane, pleading. “
Gunnar
.” I leaned out and shouted.

I tore down the steps and out the door.

The wind caught my skirts, tripping me twice as I ran across the field.

I caught up with Gunnar as he reached Crockett's porch.

“Gunnar, you can't do this,” I shouted. “It's my land!
Mine!
” I grabbed his arm and pulled. “Mama and Daddy gave—”

He shoved me off and raised his palm.

I flinched, took a step back.

Beau Crockett sat on the rocker with his glass of beer in one hand and salt shaker in the other, leg cocked on his porch rail, watching us approach. “Well, now, come to celebrate with me I see.” Crockett raised his glass, crowed. “We's kin now, with our joined lands.”

“I'll never celebrate with the likes of you,” Gunnar said real low, and threw crumpled money onto the porch. “Nor will any Royal!
'Specially
one who's still my charge and is a
minor
.”

Crockett curled his lip. “Ya ain't never been able to handle your women, Royal . . . Land's only fit for grave dirt anyways, nigger graves at that.” He spat.

Gunnar's jaw twitched. He looked like he might raise his gun, but he only glared at him before stomping off.

I stood there for a minute, not sure what to do next.

Crockett set his glass down, picked up his shotgun, and rose slowly from his seat. “Should've known . . . Should've
known
not to waste my good beer on a gawdamn lying whore!” He pulled out the deed from his shirt pocket, wadded it into a ball, and threw it at me. “Git!” He thumped the porch board with his barrel. “Said
git
'fore I drop ya where ya stand.”

I picked up the paper and stumbled back. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Gunnar heading toward Abby's. No telling what he'd do to Rainey. I took off.

As I neared the Fords', I saw them on the porch, hands windmilled, mouths tightening. Catching my breath, I stopped at the yard tree to breathe and watched Gunnar and Abby.

Abby shook her head, once, then again. Gunnar grabbed her wrist, and she tried to jerk away but couldn't, his grip ironclad. Then he pulled her inside the tiny house.

I made it up to the side of Abby's cabin and was getting ready to barge up to the door when her words struck me.

“Tell RubyLyn . . . We have to
tell
them, Gunnar,” she cried.

I ducked under the window, listening.

“I'll do no such thing.
No,
” Gunnar snarled.

“It's the only way,” I heard her say inside.

“I'll not have my sins visited on them. They'll be ridiculed. Look what Rainey has to go through every day. To send him off to war with my sins? I won't! Think on it—”

“Don't you see, Gunnar . . . love. They don't need . . . for that.” I only caught clipped sentences. She must've turned her back to the window.

“No, Abby. I won't have their souls die in that hate and fear.”

“Love, Gunnar . . . they are—”

“No,
Lord
. . . no.”

“In love.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Just like . . . us . . . always.”

Abby and Gunnar in love?
I eased up slowly to hear them better and saw Abby take her small brown hands and cradle his face.

He rubbed his cheek against her palm, kissed it, and began to weep. “Abigail,” he called formally, “I can't. No, Abigail, I'll lose her just like I did the others.”

“Tell her everything,” she pushed. “Start with the execution—her parents. Claire . . .”

Parents. Claire
. I soaked up more confusion.

“I can't tell her I cheated on Claire,” he said.

I covered my mouth.
Cheat? He cheated? Him and his heavy words of God
.

“You must, Gunnar,” she insisted. “Let her know about the hard patch with your job. How Claire always thought it was shameful work—”

“Tell her of my failings?” he cried out. “How the State called for me to electrocute a man and I
failed?
No, dammit, I won't.”

“Gunnar, you couldn't help that a big storm blew through the night before and fried them switches like that.”

I felt my eyes stretch and lock.

He moaned. “Damn lightning storm. I still can't believe that devil chair got a hitch in its wires and caught the prisoner on fire.” He sniffled and coughed out. “I caused that poor soul a crueler death.”

Oh . . . awful!
I couldn't believe it—believe that Gunnar had messed up the electrocution of an inmate . . . same as ol' Rainey Bethea's hanging had been botched.

I heard him suck in a loud breath. “A damn tragedy, Abigail, and one I can never let go of—the type of cruelty I've fought against my whole life.”

Abby mumbled something.

“The resignation was more than I could bear.” His graveled words quaked. “I was weak . . . then you . . . with child . . . Claire . . . oh,
dear Lord
. . . if only I'd been stronger . . . Claire wanting the babies so bad. And . . .”

You . . . ? What?
I pressed my ear closer.

Gunnar coughed again, tears strangling the words. “And Rainey . . . After he was born, she . . . well, you saw how she folded herself up that winter. Devil's doings, my doings, Abigail.”

“Pneumonia,” she hushed. “You can't blame yourself—”

“I suspect it was more that made her give up her fight. It was Rainey.”

I wrinkled my brow.
Rainey
.

Abby put a force in her voice. “Go, before it's too late, Gunnar. He's gone to the Feed to meet her. Tell her 'bout the law.”

“Abigail, I . . . I don't know—”

“It's against Kentucky law to marry your first cousin. Go on, Gunnar, tell her about our son,” she begged.

Son!
I covered my mouth to hold in the scream. “My cousin . . . kin . . .” I lowered my head down and snuck away, making it to the old black locust in her yard.

I let out a whimper. Thoughts coiled around Molly and Lewis and their baby. “No.” I banged my forehead against the bark.
Rainey
.
My husband-to-be, my kin
.

“No,
no-o
.” I thumped the tree with my fist. “
No,
” I shrieked, no longer caring who heard.

The quick footfalls of Gunnar and Abby closed in behind me.

Gunnar latched on to my arm.

“
Let go!
” I jerked and whipped out of his hold and tumbled backward, dropping to my knees, spilling the hurt into the dark ground. “You've taken everything. Not Rainey.
Rainey,
” I wailed.

Abby tried to shush me with soft words. “Oh, dear RubyLyn, I'm so sorry, chil'.”

“How could you?” I hissed.

Gunnar put a hand on my shoulder. “Get on up, RubyLyn. We need to talk about things—us here in Nameless . . .” I felt his fingers dig into my ribs, work their way under me as he tried to pull me up. “
Stand up
.”

I didn't want to get up, ever. I wanted to empty my tears—bloody the already darkened soil with more hurt. I wanted the dirt to cover me, hide me like it does its dead. I wanted nothing. And I went limp in his big, ugly hands. He tugged again and I felt him lifting me and found the strength to twist my shoulders and chest, grab one of his gnarled fingers, and bend it back.

I broke away, threw the deed in their faces. “
Nameless?
I got nothing left in Nameless!”

Gunnar grasped my elbow.

Abby put her hand on his. “Gunnar, let her go and tend to her hurtin'. Alone,” she said.

“RubyLyn—” he began.

“
Don't,
” I warned.

Gunnar dropped his hold and shifted his weight back.

“Nothing left.” I spit at him and tore off across the fields.

A minute later, I stood breathless in front of our house. Numbly, I bent over and picked up the strawberry dress from the yard, then climbed the porch steps.

Inside, I slung the dress over a kitchen chair. Flinging open the pantry door, I grabbed Gunnar's bourbon bottle and plopped down into the chair. Staring hard at the dress, I opened the Kentucky Gentleman and downed a big, burning gulp. Coughed. Downed more. And coughed again.

I held up the bottle, read the name, and gave a short, tight laugh. “
Gentlemen?
” I wiped my tears. “Nothing but cheaters and women beaters here.”

I shoved stuff off the table, sending Mama's purse, newspaper, pens, and Gunnar's pills flying. The Tuinal lid burst off the bottle. Colorful capsules skittered across the green linoleum.

I pulled Mama's snakeskin purse onto my lap and fished out her lipstick and our fortune. I smeared the paint across my mouth, thickening, smacking my lips. I studied the flaps on the fortune-teller. Tracing my fingers over the tiny sketched portraits of me and Mama, I peered closely at the third flap with the tobacco leaf, then the fourth where Daddy should've been, instead of this poorly drawn heart with the cut down its middle.

Distant screams sawed through clouded memories.
Mama, Daddy
.
Daddy yelling at Mama
.
Me
.
Daddy rushing toward me, knocking me onto the floor
.
More screams
. . .
Mine
.
His
.
More crying
. I shook my head, the memory fuzzed, blurring.

I tossed back two more gulps of the bourbon and fell to my knees coughing, the bottle tipping, spilling out some of the booze. Brown liquid spread out before I caught the bottle and set it upright.

I felt the aching hum of the Patsy Cline song rub my tongue. I tipped back the bourbon to silence it, slapped the wet floor with the bottle.

Floor
.

The spill had dirtied my spotless linoleum.

I stared down at it feeling trapped—aching in the darkest way—drumming the floor with the bottom of the Kentucky Gentleman.

I knew it would be hell to clean the sticky mess, but I swiped my foot over the puddles anyway, making a bigger mess for
him
.
Him
always telling me to appreciate the
living
bones in my knees. Let
him
feel the breath in his own knees and clean up this slop. If I was gone, he wouldn't have anyone . . . No one. Same as me.
No one—no more
. And
no more
Rainey and me breaking our living bones for his
dead
ones.

Rainey
. . . At least he had a mama and daddy now—alive—close to his side.

I blinked, swigged more, spilt some more, and looked at the blue and red capsules scattered in the bourbon, dropping fat tears onto the floor.

The power of the booze landed low and hit me. My throat and gut felt the burn and asked for more.

Family is what I needed from Gunnar, but could never have.
I guzzled down the webbed thoughts, took another long drink. All the good having one does . . .
Rainey
. Knowing about his family now would destroy him.