Catching Moondrops (29 page)

I took a few more steps forward into the firelight that spilled across the lawn and met his gaze. “I'm only tellin' you the truth. You'll be sorry if you hurt this man.”

“This
boy
,” he corrected, “ain't done nothin' but open himself up to trouble. Any nigger that goes around this town puttin' his hands on a white woman like he did knows he won't last for long.”

“A doctor cares for a patient; don't matter what color that patient is.”

He shook his head. “Matters to me.”

Tears streamed down my face, my stomach felt like I'd been pitched about, and I was scared to death, but I did everything to keep my voice clear and steady. “Fine, then. Let your daddy die.”

He'd cocked his hand back for another try at Tal's stomach, but I must have caught his curiosity because he paused in midair and turned to look at me. “What the heck are you spoutin' off about?”

“Only that your daddy's lyin' out there in the woods bleedin' to death in a bear trap.” I pointed my own finger toward Tal. “And this here man's the only one near enough who can try and save him.”

Bobby Ray's fist loosened; his hand dropped to his side. “You're lyin'.” His words came out flat, the words of a man who is trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe.

I stepped farther into the firelight and swept a hand in front of me, displaying the blood that covered my clothes. “Then where d'you think this came from?”

Bobby Ray stepped two paces closer to me and ripped his hood off for a better look. That was when I saw fear in the eyes of Bobby Ray Custis. Nobody looks at the amount of blood that was on my clothes without feeling terror prick at their insides.

I held my palms out to him so he could see the red stains. “This here's your daddy's blood. He near about got his leg cut off clean through, and he ain't got much time left, I figure. You best make up your mind good and quick. Who dies? Doctor Pritchett or your daddy? Because this
colored man
is the only one here who can keep your daddy from bleedin' to death in them woods.” I tipped my head in Tal's direction. “Ain't you lucky you didn't kill him yet?”

Bobby Ray didn't respond. He just stood there, staring at nothing.

One of the men who had his grip on Tal released him and reached up to remove his hood. Cole Mundy narrowed his eyes at Bobby Ray. “What're you waitin' for?”

Bobby Ray shook his head. “Stay out of this.”

“What's to stay out of? It's clear the girl's tellin' the truth. Your daddy ain't here, and there's blood all over her.”

Bobby Ray snapped his head around toward Cole and roared, “I said stay out of this!”

But Cole didn't back down. He stepped closer to Delmar's son and spoke in a low growl. “You willin' to let your daddy die over this? That what you're sayin'?”

Bobby Ray turned so that his toes touched Cole's. “I ain't lettin' no nigger touch my daddy.”

“You're insane!”

Bobby Ray shoved Cole in the chest, but Cole recovered quickly and came at him, tossing him to the ground. “I don't care what you say. I ain't standin' by while your daddy dies.”

The other man who held Tal didn't budge, and Cole whipped a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at his head. “Let him go. Now!”

The man at the end of the gun barrel didn't flinch, but his voice came out in quiet shock. “You crazy, son?”

“I'm the only one who ain't.”

“You can get into a lot of trouble in these parts for wavin' a gun around at people.”

“What're you goin' to do, Sheriff? Arrest me?” Cole pushed him aside, grabbed Tal by the arm, and waved his gun around to warn everyone off. “I'm takin' him with me, and if anyone tries to stop me, I'll put a bullet through your gut.” He pushed Tal forward and then nodded at me to get moving. “Show me where Delmar is.”

Tal stumbled forward, bruised but able to walk without difficulty. “Gemma!” he called. “Get my bag.”

I ran to Gemma and took her hand in mine. “She's comin' with us,” I announced. There was no protest from her captor. He let her go and waited while she ran into the house for Tal's things; then he followed along behind us. The rest followed in their truck, and by the time we reached Delmar, I noticed Bobby Ray straggling at the back of the crowd.

The instant he saw his daddy lying there like that, he ran past everyone and fell to his knees, directing pleading eyes at the colored man he had been torturing only minutes earlier. “Well? Help him! What're you waitin' for?”

Tal knelt on the bloody ground and started shouting orders. Cole Mundy slid to the ground by Delmar's head and held his shoulders still, but it was clear that he was overwhelmed by the sight before him. He dropped his head and moaned.

I leaned down and put my mouth to his ear. “Too much blood for you, Mundy? If Noah Jarvis had bled out like this, would that have kept you from breakin' his neck?”

He snapped his head up to look at me, and I was so startled by the anguish I saw in those eyes, it took my breath away. I had never before seen eyes like that in any living soul, and they will haunt me until the day I die. I backed away from him, leaving him alone in his grief.

After all, who was I to convict a man of bloodguilt? I had some of my own.

“Hold him still!” Tal ordered. “We've got to get this trap off. He's mostly unconscious, but he's bound to fight at some point.”

Gemma called to me, and I ran to her side to help her, but my hands were shaky and useless. It took every bit of manpower in perfect harmony to free him, and as everyone worked, Delmar's intermittent screams spurred us on.

By the time Delmar was free and the men had loaded him onto the truck, we were all covered in blood and sweat. Gemma and I stayed behind and watched them drive away, leaving me with an empty ache in my soul. For all I knew, he would be dead before they even turned the bend.

Gemma and I trudged back to her house without a word. I didn't know what to say to her. There was nothing in me that knew how to confess a sin like mine to someone I loved so much.

When we reached her house, Gemma took my hand. “You can stay with me tonight. We'll call your momma and daddy to let them know.”

But I shook my head. “I can't.”

“Jessilyn, you need to get out of those clothes and into bed, you hear? Now come on, let's get inside.”

I let go of her hand and backed away slowly. “I can't, Gemma. Not now.” I looked down at the bloody patches on my clothes. “You don't know what I've done. You'd be so ashamed.”

She reached out and snatched my hand back. “You ain't done nothin' but save me and Tal and get help for a dyin' man,” she said with ferocity. “That ain't nothin' I'd ever be ashamed of, Jessilyn. Not ever!”

Sobs began to escape my throat and I could only fit my words in between them, but I lifted my head, forcing myself to meet her gaze. “I walked away from him, Gemma. I walked away.”

She tipped her head sideways, desperation in her eyes. “What d'you mean? You came for help.”

“No. I walked away. I looked at him there on the ground with blood pourin' out of him, and I didn't feel a thing. And when he called out for help, I just walked away.”

She watched me for several seconds and then squeezed my hand tight. “But you did the right thing in the end, and he's goin' to be fine. I'm sure he will.”

I stole my hand away in shame, wishing I could believe it would all be okay like she said. “Tell Momma and Daddy I'll be safe. I just need to be alone right now.”

She stepped forward defiantly. “I'll go with you.”

“No! I need to go alone.”

“Go where?”

“I don't know, but I can't stay here and I can't go home. I promise, I'll go home sometime soon, but I just can't right now.” This time I reached out for her, taking both her hands in mine, willing her to understand. “Just now, Gemma, I've got to be somewhere alone.”

She studied my eyes, and I knew she could see I meant what I said. “You'll be okay, Jessie,” she whispered. “I know you will.” She stared at me hard through her tears and then hesitantly let me go. “I'll tell your momma and daddy the same thing,” she called over her shoulder. Then she turned around in fine Gemma fashion and pointed into the darkness. “You just make sure you don't make them worry for long, you hear?”

As I watched her walk away, it felt like my heart was made out of a string that had gotten caught on her shoe and unraveled with each step she took. Out in the middle of the darkness, with a man's blood on my hands, I felt the ache of loneliness.

And I knew for certain that this was only the beginning.

Chapter 20

Sometimes there's a place in your heart you know is there, but you don't know all the colors of it. You see it in black and white, but then one day it comes to life like a rainbow, all clearly painted in colors so vivid, there's no way to avoid the truth of it.

That's what happened that night when I watched Delmar Custis bleeding his very life out onto the grass and then turned and walked away. I'd known the feeling of hate. I'd had plenty of it poured out on me and my loved ones over the years. I knew how hate kills the senses and traps conscience in a net. And I'd wondered time and again what could make a body hate so much that he'd want to kill.

Now I knew.

I stumbled across the fields slowly, taking furtive glances at the blood that stained my clothes, even though I hated the sight of it. It was like I was compelled to look at it, as though facing up to the bloodstains would make me face up to the blackness of my heart. For all I knew, Delmar Custis had bled to death by now and I was a full-blown murderer.

By the time I reached the gazebo on our property, I was nauseated and worn through. I dropped to my knees inside the shelter. There I was, in the place my daddy had made out of his love for my momma, coming to terms with the fact that I was living for hate. And I remembered that day years ago when I'd questioned my daddy about the evil things that had been done to us the summer we took Gemma in. I remembered how my daddy looked when he emerged from the woods that day, with the weight of all the rage and betrayal of our neighbors making his gait slow and uneven. I remembered the way he lifted me up so that my toes skimmed the ground, cradling me in arms that gave as much love as they searched for.

But most of all I remembered how his words had come out of his mouth with an emotion that burned them into my soul.

“I ain't capable of hatin' like that,” I'd said about those men who had haunted our summer.

But Daddy had looked at me with eyes that held all the feelings in his heart at once and made his voice stern so I couldn't avoid knowing how serious his words were. “Jessilyn,” he'd said, “ain't no man can't get someplace he never thought he'd get to. You let enough bad thoughts into your head, you can end up doin' all sorts of things you never thought possible.”

The recollection of those words made my whole body ache and shiver, and I lowered my head so I was almost folded in two. That was me. Those words described me. I had become one of those people I had said I could never be like.

“Daddy,” I whispered, “you were right.” My face touched the knees of my bloodstained pants, and the terror of that night poured out of my heart into salty tears that soaked the crimson splotches. “I'm so sorry.” The words spilled out in tandem with my sobs and joined the chorus of night creatures in a mournful wail.

I lay there until I didn't have any tears left, and even then I stayed on the floor of the gazebo hiccuping air that I didn't feel I deserved to breathe. There in the middle of the thick, hot air of that summer's night, I felt claustrophobic, closed in by my sins and failures so tightly, I didn't think I'd ever escape. How could I go home again? How could I face my mother and father? Gemma? Luke? Miss Cleta? How could I face those who had loved me and cared for me, only for me to grow into a person so blackened by hate and rage she'd been capable of murder?

Most of all I wondered where I could go to get away from the agony of what was inside of me. Where do you go to escape your mind? There is no place on this earth where your thoughts can't plague you. I would forever be trapped in this nightmare where my own mind accused me every second of every day for the rest of my life. And deservedly so.

Somehow, though, those breaths that I hadn't earned calmed down and led me to a sleep so thick, it was like I'd been drugged. My body had finally given out from the strain, and when I opened my eyes again, it was to find what I thought was sunlight streaming across my face, only it wasn't the daylight that so often made the cares of the nighttime seem distant. It was moonlight—soft, brilliant moonlight that bathed the wood of the gazebo in a shadow-strewn glow. For a few blissful seconds my mind was blurry, uncertain of where I was or why I was there, but then it all came rushing back to me in a flood of memory. A sick feeling immediately grabbed at my insides, and I struggled to lift my top half off the floor for a look at my surroundings.

The world seemed much the same as it always had, the scene around me one that I had known since childhood. But something had changed, something inside of me, and once the cobwebs of sudden but short-lived sleep slipped from my eyes, that change gripped me anew. My movements were those of someone who was ill or worn with age, but even still I managed to get to my feet and stumble to one of the pillars and peer at the moon. Dark, bold clouds surrounded it, threatening to steal the light away.

The wind whipped up something fierce, and I stepped down from my perch on the gazebo and tipped my face up to catch it. I had allowed myself to be dirtied by bitterness, cut into by the claws of evil that I'd learned about all my life but had chosen to ignore. And now, as I watched my soul slip away into darkness, I wanted nothing more than to get it into the light.