Catching Moondrops (21 page)

“Hey! Hey! Are you crazy, woman?” He jumped up to escape and tottered toward the woods, but she followed him and whacked him over and over until Luke came and dragged him to the truck.

“You look like a fool,” Luke muttered. “No, I take that back. You
are
a fool.” He shoved him into the truck bed so hard, Malachi slid forward and smacked his head on the side.

Malachi rolled over and glared at Luke. “What's your problem?”

“What's my problem?” He gave Malachi's chest a shove. “My problem is your little brother's missin' and you ain't been no help to your momma or sister because the only one you can think about is yourself.”

Malachi froze. “What d'you mean he's missin'?”

“I mean ain't no one seen him since this mornin'. If you hadn't been so busy gettin' sauced and gamblin' your money away, maybe you'd have noticed.”

“We have to find him.” His glassy eyes were tinted with fear. “He could be hurt somewhere.”

“No kiddin'!” Luke gave him another shove, then secured the back of the truck bed with an angry slam and hopped in next to me.

A hush fell over us as we scanned the roadside, except for Malachi, who called Noah's name with every exhale. I turned to look out the back window and saw him leaning over the side of the truck, peering into the growing darkness. His voice was anguished, slurred by the alcohol that no doubt blurred his vision as well. What help he would be, I didn't know.

I turned back in my seat. “He's bound to fall out if he leans any farther.”

Luke grunted. “Would serve him right.”

The ride was the quietest I'd ever had in Luke's truck. I spent the entire time scanning the roadside with trepidation, fearful of what sort of things I might see. I'd lived less than two decades, but I'd had enough time on earth to see plenty of the violence life can bring. With prejudice rearing its ugly head in Calloway again, all those old memories of violent hate began to trickle back into my mind. Every now and again I would blink hard in hopes of coaxing the images away, but they filled my mind the moment my eyes opened again.

But I couldn't spend the ride with my eyes shut tight.

Gemma reached out to take my hand. She was shaking like a leaf, and when I met her eyes with my own, I was petrified by the look I found there. We both knew, deep down inside, something was wrong.

Desperately wrong.

We were only a quarter mile from the Jarvis house when we discovered how wrong.

The moonlight lit up the horror with shapes and shadows that magnified what was already a sight that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

There was a slight breeze in the air, but that body hung so still and limp from the dying oak tree, I had to blink three times to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. In the cockeyed light, the arms could have been broken branches, the legs withered tangles of the wisteria vine that had choked the life out of the tree.

But the sight before us was no trick of the eye, and I reached out to grab Luke's wrist, my fingernails digging in so deeply, he gasped.

He pulled the truck to a stop. “Jessie . . . ?”

“He's there.” My voice didn't work properly, and my words came out in only a whisper. Gemma was focused on the opposite side of the road, but she turned to watch me as I spoke.

“Where?” I could feel Luke's pulse quicken under my palm. “Jessie, what'd you see?”

I couldn't speak after that, but I lifted a hand to point into the moonlit distance. Luke and Gemma followed my finger, squinting.

They didn't see at first, but the wail from the truck bed told the story like I never could.

Malachi Jarvis tumbled out of the truck like an animal. He stumbled past Luke's window, his breathing coming out in broken sobs from a place I didn't know existed in a human being. A chill ran down my spine at the sound of it, freezing me in place. Luke and Gemma shot from the truck, but I remained immobilized. He was several yards away, but I could see from where I sat that Noah Jarvis was gone from us as sure as if God had plucked him right out from our midst and rushed him up to heaven.

There should have been a crowd of mourners here witnessing the loss of life so untimely, it had stolen away the brightest hope our town had. There should have been good men here striving to untie the knot that had stolen the air from his lungs and the life from his body. Where were the decent people who should have had the goodness and the strength to stop the efforts of such wicked men?

Nobody was here. Nobody had tried to stop the bloodshed. Nobody had defended the innocent.

And nobody knelt to pray for forgiveness.

I slipped from the truck and walked on leaden legs toward the place of execution. As I watched, Malachi scampered up the tree, climbing out over the branch until he reached the rope. He was sobbing, searching desperately in his pocket for his knife. “Help me get him down!”

Luke was beneath the body, holding Noah's legs in anticipation of his weight falling onto him once Malachi cut him free. Gemma was sobbing, shaking so violently there couldn't have been any strength in her, but she clung to Noah's calves as though she could help relieve Luke's burden.

I didn't move to help. I couldn't. There was barely enough strength inside me to stay on my feet. All I had in me was rage, a feeling that coursed through my blood so quickly, it became part of who I was. That kind of hate doesn't know how to cry. It barely even lets you breathe.

Malachi's moans were otherworldly and filled the warm, clear air, drowning out the night sounds. Or maybe the crickets and frogs knew what they were witnessing and had fallen silent out of respect.

Malachi's knife snapped through the rope, and Luke and Gemma fell to the ground with Noah, burdened as much by the weight of what had been done here as by the weight of his body. I dropped to my knees beside Noah, forcing myself to look at him. If he'd suffered alone that night, the least I could do was face what he'd been through.

The men who had choked the life out of Noah Jarvis had first removed his shirt, beating him ruthlessly, as evidenced by the scrapes and bruises that covered his chest. Blood matted his hair and trickled down from the corners of the mouth that had once spoken wisdom far beyond his years. The hands that had once seemed destined to treat the sick bore the wounds of a struggle to fend off blows. His cheeks were bruised and swollen.

I guess hanging him from a tree to die wasn't enough.

Luke was at my side, his breaths coming in loud gasps, and he ripped off his shirt and laid it carefully over Noah's face. With that act of finality, Gemma dropped down on the grass, her sobs ringing through the night.

Malachi slid down the tree and flung himself across his brother, his cries joining with Gemma's in a dirge. Luke reached out to touch Noah's arm, but Malachi shoved his hand away.

“Don't touch him!” He ripped away the shirt Luke had placed across his brother and cradled Noah's bloodied face in his hands. “I said I'd come,” he moaned. “I didn't come.” His words were strung out, the saddest song I'd ever heard. “I didn't come. I didn't come.”

His words of apology tumbled out with every sob, and as the realization continued to sink in, he looked up at Gemma with horror in his eyes, his voice coming out in high-pitched cries. “It should have been me. They wanted me!”

Gemma put her hand on Malachi's head, but he pulled away as though her touch were a searing reminder of how he'd failed his brother.

Without realizing it, I was rocking back and forth on my knees, my arms wrapped around my waist so tightly, my ribs could barely expand with a breath, and I was gasping for air.

Luke came behind me and pulled me into his arms. “Don't, Jessie.”

I struggled against his grasp, but he held me tight until I gave up.

Malachi's sobs kept on until I couldn't hear anymore, couldn't watch anymore. I slipped out of Luke's embrace and leaped to my feet. There was nothing we could do to calm Malachi, just as there was nothing we could do to bring his brother back to life, and I had to move. I couldn't sit there anymore, helplessly watching the living mourn the dead. On legs that felt like rubber, I paced a patch of dried-up grass, gasping for air, squeezing my hands into fists until the blood ran out of them.

Malachi leaned over and tucked his arms beneath his brother's body, struggling to rise to his feet. Luke moved to help, but Malachi called him off with a grunt and hoisted his brother on his own. His knees buckled like a new calf's, but he passed up the truck, seemingly determined to carry his brother home, like Noah was his cross to bear. But I knew that this trip would never be enough. Malachi Jarvis would carry the burden of his brother for the rest of his life.

We stumbled along behind him down the road, a haunting procession mourning all that we'd lost. For me, it was more than a singular loss. From the day I'd come to know what prejudice could do to people's hearts, it had stolen from me. It had stolen innocence, security, loved ones . . . and now it had stolen my hope. What hope could I have in a world that took the promise of a bright future and snuffed it out with such force? As I followed behind Malachi Jarvis, who would forever live with a burden no man should have to bear, I no longer struggled to understand. I didn't want to understand.

I only wanted them to pay for what they had done.

Chapter 15

I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Noah swinging from that oak tree. So I paced the porch into the wee hours of morning, the creak of the floorboards a steady reminder of my pain. Of all our pain.

Gemma had fallen asleep in Momma's arms well after midnight, and Momma had followed suit shortly thereafter. The two of them were still on the couch resting fitfully, but even fitful sleep sounded good to me then. Daddy was asleep in his favorite chair, but every so often he'd wake up and peek out at me.

“You okay, baby?” he'd ask.

I'd just look at him and then back out at nothing.

“You should get some sleep.”

“Can't.”

And then he'd sigh and head back to the chair.

This exchange happened half a dozen times before the sun started to cast a glow over the dark that had haunted me all night long. The birds chirped songs that seemed out of place in my world just then, a ridiculous chorus of happiness for a day that spoke of nothing but sorrow to me.

Momma opened the screen door and looked at me through swollen eyes. “Baby, Daddy says you've been up all night long. Come on in and get some food in you.”

“I can't eat, Momma.”

“You'll get sick.”

“I already got sick behind the bushes three times last night. Don't need more food to throw up.”

My tone was harsh, and I felt sorry for it. But at the same time I wondered why everyone couldn't just leave me alone. Momma had her arms wrapped tightly around her, and though any other time she would have given me a slap for speaking to her like that, she just went back into the house without a word.

I never left that porch all morning. By the time I decided to sit on the porch swing, my legs felt like they weren't attached to my body anymore. Everything in me felt drained and parched, and I couldn't do much more than stare in one direction. All I wanted was to see Luke. I needed to hear him say things would be all right.

Most times that had been Daddy's place, but more and more I'd been relying on Luke for things I'd once left in Daddy's hands, and now that Luke and I had shared the horrors of Noah's death together, he was, more than ever, the only one I wanted to be comforted by.

But the events of that night had marked him profoundly, and I could see in his face as he'd left our house that he was in a dark place all his own. He needed to be alone, and all I could do was wait for him to be ready.

Daddy headed into town about ten to talk to Sheriff Clancy, but he was back by eleven, looking like a man beaten to the core. I overheard him talking to Momma a little, but I knew enough of Calloway County justice to know what had happened without even hearing the whole story. Sheriff Clancy would put on a show of duty, promising to interview witnesses and look at evidence. But in the end there wouldn't be one soul around who would admit to knowing a thing, and Sheriff Clancy would say there wasn't much any lawman could do to convict people of a crime there wasn't any evidence or testimony to support.

I walked the fields a lot that day, mostly not thinking much of anything. There's a place that terror takes your mind where there aren't any thoughts or feelings. It's an empty place, so empty it seems all the world has come to a stop. That's how I walked that day, wandering mindlessly because thinking hurt too much. It was late afternoon by the time I took my place on the porch swing again. Momma came out at suppertime to try and offer up some more food, but I couldn't even think of eating.

“Gemma won't neither,” she said, brushing hair back from my forehead. “She's sick at heart, just like you. Crawled into bed at dawn and won't budge.” And then she broke into tears so violently, she ran off into the house, leaving me to stare at nothing like I had for hours.

By the time I saw Luke again, it was getting dark. My body was more weary than I'd ever felt it, but my eyes were wide open like I'd propped them up with toothpicks. At that moment, nothing frightened me more than closing my eyes. I couldn't do much of anything when I saw Luke, as I watched him walk up like a shell of himself, with a day's growth on his face and mussed hair. It seemed to take every ounce of energy he had to climb the porch stairs. Then he looked at my face and cupped his hand under my chin.

When my chin started to shake, he crumpled and dropped to his knees in front of me. We huddled there together, crying like two children, and even though it was the worst way for us to be together, I was glad we were, nonetheless. I clung to him like the next breeze would blow him away from me for good. The tears stopped when we had no more, but words didn't follow. We were out of those, too, and we sat there on the swing until the moon was high.