Clay's Quilt (28 page)

She looked into the air in front of her, as if she could see the picture before her.

“It was far past time for Harold to get home from work, and I suddenly realized that the snow had rushed in so fast and thick that he would never make it over the mountain and back from the mines. It came to me to put on a record to watch the snow by. I thought about one of my favorite pieces, ‘La Campanella,' and I put the needle to the record, then went straight and raised the window. The cold air rushed in and filled up the room. The music was a perfect match to the way the snow fell. They kept time with each other, like they were meant to be played together. I turned up the volume as loud as I could, and I'm sure that everyone heard it, although they probably had no idea where it was coming from.”

She breathed out with a short shudder.

“And then, no sooner than the violins began to saw, I caught sight of a woman coming out into the road. She wore a bright red topcoat that struck her just below the knee, and a black beret that she had pulled down just over her eyes. She made her way out into the middle of the road, bouncing and twirling just like a little ballerina. She thrust her arms into the air, spinning round and round, then skipped back up the road, twirling around with her head thrown back to catch the snowflakes on her closed eyes. She was a sight! That red blur against the snow, dancing like she was celebrating life.”

She looked directly at Clay, smiling broadly. “That was the first time I saw snow and Anneth.”

“I remember that red coat,” Easter piped in.

A loud gust of wind and the bonelike crack of a limb took everyone's attention. It was as if the tree had broken right there in the living room. Everyone jumped up like they expected a limb to pierce through the ceiling.

“Oh my Lord!” Easter hollered out.

“I better go over there and check on the house,” Clay said.

“They ain't no use in it, Clay,” Easter said. “Don't get out there in that storm.”

“I need to go make sure the heater's all right,” Clay said. “I can't get no peace for worrying over it.”

Cake followed him out.

C
LAY AND
C
AKE
lit cigarettes as soon as they got inside Clay's house. They could barely taste them for the sharp air that they had breathed outside.

“God, I was bout to have a nicotine fit,” Cake said. “I was ashamed to smoke in front of Easter, though.”

“Me too. That's mostly why I wanted to come over here.” He leaned down to check the heater, then walked to the back door to look at the trees closest to his house. They were bent low with ice and snow, but they looked too frozen to break.

In the living room, Cake was standing at the picture window with one side of the curtain lifted. He was staring out at the road.

“Clay, they's somebody setting out in the road, staring at your house.”

“Who is it?”

“I don't know. He's just setting there on a four-wheeler, looking dead at the front porch.”

“Probably some of them boys out fooling around,” Clay said. He pushed Cake aside and looked out the window. A man sat on a four-wheeler in the middle of the road as if he was taking a break from a long ride. He had a wool cap pulled low over his eyes and was outfitted in coveralls that made his body look bigger, but Clay recognized him. He could tell who it was, even through the blowing snow.

“That's Denzel,” he said. “He's set home in this big snowstorm and got drunk. I guarantee he's rode that four-wheeler all the way up here.”

“Ain't no other way he could've got here,” Cake said.

“Well, I'd like to know what that son of a bitch thinks he's doing.” Clay went to the bookshelf in the living room and took down his .22. He shoved the pistol down into the back of his Levi's and ripped open the front door.

“Aye!” he hollered, standing on the porch. His call was lost on the wind. “What're you doing here?”

Denzel swung one leg over the four-wheeler seat and jumped down. He strolled into the yard and walked halfway to the porch. For a brief moment, as Denzel walked toward him, Clay found himself blinded by the white that covered everything. But over the wind Clay could hear Denzel's boots in the snow as he shifted from one foot to the other.

“Where's Alma?” Denzel called. “Send her out here.”

“She ain't here, Denzel. You might as well just go back to the house,” Clay said. He looked for a pistol in Denzel's hands but could not see one. There was no doubt he had one on him, though. “Just go on and they won't be no trouble.”

“She's my wife and I want to see her,” Denzel muttered. The snow swirled and danced about him. Snowflakes caught in his eyelashes.

“She ain't your wife no more.” Clay could hear his voice echoing off the frozen cliffs lining the creek.

“Sure she is,” Denzel said, almost smiling. “Bring her out here.”

Denzel walked into the yard without taking his eyes off Clay's face. He walked right up onto the first porch step, so that he appeared a head shorter than Clay. “Alma!” he hollered. “Get on out here, now, I said!”

He was so close that Clay could smell him, and their breath trailed out of their mouths to collect silver between them.

“Denzel, I don't want no trouble with you. You ain't got no business here.”

“Alma is my business. I want her to come out here to me.”

“I want you the hell out of here,” Clay yelled. He thought of pulling the gun out of his pant waist and putting it in Denzel's face, just to scare him off. But he thought of what Gabe had always told him:
If you pull a gun on a man, you better be ready to use it
.

Denzel didn't flinch. He stood still and studied Clay's face, looking into his eyes the way Easter did when she was trying to read him.

“Go on, now,” Clay said, and quickly ran his hand over the pistol's handle, as if to reassure himself it was still there.

Denzel cut his eyes away and reached into his coat. He felt around as if patting his pocket for a pack of lost cigarettes, then pulled out his gun. He brought his arm up, and Clay could see the silver of the barrel, Denzel's finger on the trigger. The sound of the hammer being thrown back made a grinding click.

Clay heard the sound of his own pistol bounce off the mountains before he saw the blast of light. The sound echoed down the holler, booming louder and louder with each reverberation. His ears rang with the explosion.

Denzel staggered down off the steps and out into the yard. He pulled his hand away from the wound in his chest and slung blood out across the snow. His unfired pistol fell out of his hand and disappeared in the snow. He slumped down onto one knee and looked up at Clay. “Goddamn you. Goddamn you, you've shot me.”

Clay dropped the pistol onto the porch floor. It bounced down and fell heavily onto the first step. Denzel eased down
onto the ground, and his body twitched. His arm jerked, and then he was still. Snow blew down the neck of Clay's shirt.

Clay screamed. He let go of all the screams that had been latched away inside him ever since he was a child, ever since he was a little boy lying facedown in the snow with his dead mother's scarf wrapped around his hands.

W
HEN THE LAW
came for Clay, Easter fought them with all the combined strength of herself and her dead sister. One of the troopers tried to get hold of her, but she tore at his face with her fingernails, ripped his hat from his head, kicked him in the shins. The trooper tried to ignore her at first, as he was used to mothers acting in such a manner. But she struck out at him with such ferocity that he had to fight back.

The other trooper shook Clay awake. Clay looked around as if he didn't know where he was, then up into the eyes of the officer. The trooper helped him up and Clay leaned against him as they walked to the car, Clay's feet dragging in the snow. Easter broke away and ran after them, screaming an unintelligible barrage of entreaties. When the trooper caught up to her, he shoved her away to make his way around to the car door. She stumbled back, then reached down to pull up handfuls of snow that she threw at him in great, wet sprays.

Dreama screamed, her voice full of tears: “Easter, please quit!”

All at once Marguerite breathed into Easter's ear. “It's all right. Let them go now,” she whispered. “They're just going to talk to him.”

Through a haze of tears, Easter saw the blue lights of the police four-by-four moving away, the red taillights. She brought a clenched fist up to her face, fingers toward her, and saw the blood caked underneath her nails. A ghost had come into Easter, a strong ghost, full of life. She had felt Anneth slipping into her, just stepping into her as easily as a woman steps into a beautiful gown. She had felt Anneth directing her hands, opening her throat. She had felt all of the life she had never possessed before—all the raw strength she had always longed for—course through her blood vessels and make the frame of her body a crowded place.
This is what it feels like to be truly alive,
she had thought.
This is what's it's like to be strong.
When the state Bronco pulled away, Anneth slipped back out of Easter's skin and became air again.

Marguerite lifted Easter up out of the snow and lay her across her arms. She stood straight-backed and carried her as gently as a mother packing her growing child off to bed. Easter was aware of being packed away, aware of figures moving in the yard, but she had no comprehension of them. She didn't see Dreama walking slowly behind them. She did not notice Cake standing in the middle of the road, watching the taillights move farther and farther away. She did not know that Gabe was having to sink his thumbs into Alma's arms to keep her from running after the police car.

Marguerite maneuvered through the deep snow, stepping high to keep her balance. She made it up onto the porch, slid one hand beneath the bend of Easter's knee to twist the doorknob,
and carried Easter into the bedroom. Marguerite lay her on the bed and kneeled down in the floor, running a hand over Easter's forehead. Easter could feel Marguerite's warm, coffee breath playing out across her forehead.

“I'll set up with you all night,” Marguerite cooed. “I'll take care of you.”

Easter didn't know if she was dreaming or simply remembering, but an image came to her so plain and clear that she felt she might have stepped back in time.

She was sitting on the ground in her garden. A garden of October, made up of nothing more than crisp fodder, yellow pumpkins, and rows of leafy mustard. She was snapping off the mustard and shoving it into a brown paper bag.

Clay was standing at the edge of the garden, holding a bulging hunting sack. He was ten years old, and Gabe had outfitted him in clothes twice too big.

“Kill anything?” she asked, and looked back at her mustard.

“Naw.” He came closer and set his hunting sack down between rows. The top of the bag slumped over and a few walnuts spilled out and rolled toward her fingers.

“What's this?” she asked.

“Walnuts,” Clay said. “I wasn't doing no hunting, so I figured I might as well gather them.”

She smiled and watched the mustard as she broke it. He began to help her, and the sound of breaking stalks chattered between them.

“You ought to concentrate more on something like this,” she said. “You a good hand in the garden to be so young. If you don't want to hunt, just tell Gabe. Ain't no shame in it.” She put another handful of mustard in the paper bag and shook it so the dirt would gather at the bottom. “It's a lot better way, if you ask me. Raising up food beats killing it any day.”

Clay said nothing, but he nodded in agreement. The mist moved down low over the garden, slipping off the mountain. High up on the ridge, another shot rang out, but neither of them acknowledged it.

“You never wasted the morning,” she said. “That's the aw-fullest big bunch of walnuts ever was. This evening we'll hull them.”

“It was a pretty morning, too,” Clay said.

“It sure was. I been up prob'ly before you.”

“No, I mean from up there,” he said, nodding toward the mountain. “It's different.”

She stopped momentarily and looked at him. “I know,” she said.

Now Marguerite was talking to her again, her voice just like a sweet little song. So easy, so soft. “Try to rest,” she said.

Marguerite got up and took a quilt off the foot of the bed, then spread it out over Easter. She tucked the edges in around Easter's body. Beyond the room, the house was busy with talking and crying: Alma wailing uncontrollably, Dreama singing in a cracked voice to the baby, Cake asking questions that Gabe did not answer.

A
LMA WAS CRYING
into the telephone, holding it close against her face, as if it were a hand upon her wet cheek. She looked into the living room, where Clay sat with his face in his hands. She sank back into the kitchen, unable to watch him.

“I think he's losing his mind,” she whispered. “I don't know if I can stand this much longer.”

“Maybe you all ought to get away for a while. Get out of that town—get out of Kentucky, period. I'd hit the interstate and drive as far away as I could,” Evangeline said. She was on a pay phone in Nashville, on a loud street in front of the apartment she shared with every one of her band mates. They still hadn't been able to get their demo listened to. “You all could come see me. I'm so lonesome for home I'm bout to die.”

“No, that's when he's the worst, when we're round a big bunch of people. Some days he's all right, but usually he comes
straight home from work and sets down in that chair and just stays there the rest of the evening.”

“Well, God awmighty, it ain't like he murdered Denzel. He didn't have no choice but to kill him. Even the police told him that.”

“I know it. I think it bothers him on account of his mother dying the same way.”