Cottonwood Whispers (10 page)

Momma was sniffling about every fifteen seconds, and though I could understand why she was crying, I wished she weren’t. It only made me think about Callie Colby even more, and what I wanted just then was to forget. But my momma cried when she found a dead bird, so asking her to stop crying about such a horrible thing as Mae and Nate Colby’s losing their baby girl was out of the question. I just tried to think of something else as I coated blueberries with flour in Momma’s big green mixing bowl. The slam of the screen door announced someone’s entrance, and Momma and I looked up to find Gemma coming around the corner.

She took one look at the odd scene of the two of us, elbow-deep in flour and cooking grease, our faces stained with tears, and dropped her purse in a panic. “What’s goin’ on?”

Momma couldn’t talk, she was too upset, so Gemma looked at me. “Jessie, you tell me what’s wrong.”

I swallowed hard twice to push down the lump in my throat and simply said, “Callie Colby died.”

Gemma’s face paled two shades, and I saw her grip the doorframe so that her knuckles paled too. Her knees seemed so unsteady, I jumped up in case she needed help to stay standing.

“Gemma,” I said, “you okay? You need to sit down?”

She didn’t say a word, and even Momma seemed shocked at her reaction to the news. There wasn’t a single body in Calloway who wouldn’t feel a solid stroke of sadness on hearing such a thing, but Gemma hadn’t ever been around the Colbys as much as I had, and I never expected to see her so torn up over the loss of their daughter.

Gemma closed her eyes tight for a few seconds, used the wall to steady herself, and then stumbled down the hall and up the stairs. Momma and I exchanged a glance before I wordlessly followed Gemma upstairs. I found her on her bed, sobbing into her pillow, and I could tell by the sound that she was trying her best not to let anyone hear.

“Gemma,” I murmured, touching her shoulder lightly, “is there somethin’ I can do for you?”

She said nothing, and for the next several moments I sat there and let her cry, tears slipping from my own eyes all the while. I had just risen to leave when she sat up suddenly and looked at me with desperation. “What’s goin’ to happen to Mr. Poe?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch.

I got a chill at the reminder of what Luke and Daddy were walking into, and I rubbed my arms to fight it off. “Don’t
know. Daddy and Luke went off into town to see if there was any trouble brewin’.”

“There will be trouble. You know it!”

“I reckon,” I said sadly. “Sheriff Clancy’s got him safe at the jailhouse, though, and even if he is a hardheaded boor, he’s bound to do his duty by him.”

Gemma sat there on her bed, slowly shaking her head back and forth. Then she hopped up and started to take off her work clothes.

“What’re you doin’?” I asked.

“Goin’ out.”

“Goin’ out where?”

She just kept getting dressed, the tears still coursing down her cheeks.

“Gemma Teague, you tell me where you’re goin’,” I demanded.

She still held her tongue, and I went around to look square into her eyes, where I could usually find what she was thinking. “Are you goin’ into town?” I asked with surprise.

Still she didn’t reply.

“Why would you want to go into town?”

“Because Mr. Poe’s in trouble,” she moaned. “He needs help.”

“And how are you gonna help him? What are you gonna do that can help?”

“It ain’t a matter for figurin’ on, Jessie. I just gotta go, and I’m goin’.”

“There’ll be trouble there. Daddy and Luke took their guns with them and everythin’.”

She slipped her feet into her shoes and walked past me. “Ain’t no matter. I’m goin’. There’s gotta be some way I can help.”

“Just what d’you think a colored girl’s gonna be able to do in settlin’ down the people in Calloway?” I asked, determined that the only way I could stop her was by being painfully honest.

She slowed her steps and stared at me. I stood by waiting for her to slap me silly. Instead, she just blinked twice, bent over to grab my shoes, and tossed them at my feet. I looked down at the shoes and then back up at her.

“You’re right,” she said. “They won’t listen to a colored girl. Guess you’re comin’ too.”

And then she marched out the bedroom door without waiting for me to follow because she knew I would. There was never a time when one of us was about to step into trouble that the other one didn’t follow to keep watch. Most of the time it was the other way around, but today it would be me following Gemma into trouble, and I let out a long sigh as I slipped my shoes on and chased after her.

I grabbed Gemma on the stairs and whispered, “There ain’t no way to get by Momma. She’s waitin’ on me to make that cobbler. She’ll be hollerin’ for me in minutes.”

Gemma just continued downstairs, stopping outside the kitchen.

Momma looked sadly over at us and said, “Gemma, you all right, honey?”

“I need some air, is all. You mind if Jessilyn comes for a walk with me?”

Momma tipped her head sideways and gave Gemma an understanding but sad smile. “Sure enough, honey. I’ll finish up the cobbler.”

Gemma nodded and turned slowly away from the door, but when we were out of Momma’s sight, she hauled me outside like a cat with dynamite on its tail.

“You lied to Momma,” I hissed when we were on the lawn.

Gemma ignored me.

“Gemma Teague!” I exclaimed. “I ain’t got any idea what’s put the burr under your saddle, but you just lied to my momma and you’ve got me involved, and I want to know what’s goin’ on.”

She kept going down the road, but I could tell by her expression that she would tell me soon enough. I kept quiet and waited, but it wasn’t until a mile in that she started to speak, though she never slowed her steps or looked in my direction.

“Mr. Poe didn’t kill Callie Colby,” she said.

“I know that. He couldn’t have.”

“But you only know that ’cause you know Mr. Poe. I know that ’cause I was there when Callie got hurt.”

Her hand still clutched my arm tightly so I couldn’t stop in my tracks like I wanted to, but my feet wouldn’t work right, and I stumbled along after her in shock.

Finally I managed to pull her to a stop and grabbed her face in both my hands. “Tell me what happened,” I pleaded. “I want to help you.”

Gemma’s eyes were glassy and shimmering with tears, and the pain in her face made my heart hurt, but I stared at her, willing her to tell me what I knew she didn’t want to have to put into words.

“I thought we hit a deer,” she whispered absently. “I told him to slow down. I told him to get out and see. But he’d had too much to drink, and he wouldn’t stop. He just wouldn’t stop!” Her voice reached a crescendo, and then she dropped to her knees on the side of the road and let her face fall into her hands.

I knelt down beside her with a stomach full of knots. “Gemma, please. Please tell me who was drivin’.”

“Joel Hadley,” she said at last.

“Joel Hadley!”

“He’d been drinkin’ at their party, but I let him drive me home anyways. His car broke down near Mr. Poe’s house, and he said we’d take Mr. Poe’s car instead. I told him no, but he said we had no other way but to walk and he wasn’t walkin’ all that way.” Her words came in streams like they’d been caught up in her for so long that she couldn’t keep them in any longer.

“I told you not to trust him,” I said softly. “He ain’t no good.”

She shook her head sadly. “He seemed to like me, Jessie.
He really did. He was always actin’ sweet on me, and it . . . it made me feel good to have him pay me attention.”

“Gemma, you ain’t got to have a no-good like Joel Hadley around to get attention. You’re worth more’n that.”

“I ain’t been thinkin’ straight, is all. Ever since he started payin’ mind to me, I been thinkin’ all wrong.”

I took her face in my hands again and swiped her tears away with my thumbs, but they kept coming so fast I couldn’t keep up. “Gemma,” I whispered, “calm down and tell me what happened that night.”

She looked away from my face and stared into the distance like that night was playing itself out behind me. “He’d been drinkin’, I could tell, and I knew I’d best not go with him, but he was actin’ a gentleman. He even offered me the front seat, and I thought maybe he’d had a change of heart, so I decided to go with him. He was just fine when we started out. Then he stopped on the road near Mr. Poe’s house and he started . . . he tried to . . .”

I grabbed her hand tight enough to squeeze the blood out of it. “Did he hurt you? . . . Gemma!” I exclaimed when she didn’t speak up. “Answer me! Did he do anythin’ to you?”

She shook her head slowly and looked into my eyes. “I got away before he could, and he chased after me and said he was sorry. He said he was sorry and he’d just get me home . . . but we couldn’t because the car wouldn’t start back up, and he got out all mad and cursin’, and I started walkin’ down the road.”

“Then what?”

“Then he saw we were near Mr. Poe’s house, and he said we’d just borrow Mr. Poe’s momma’s car, and I said no. I said it was same as stealin’. But he said I was bein’ uptight, and I didn’t want him to think I was some dumb girl, worryin’ about everythin’.”

“But he’d been drinkin’. He wasn’t fit to be drivin’ no more.”

“I know. I know I should’ve tried to stop him or at least walked on home, but I was all mixed up.” She was pacing now, wringing her hands so tightly I thought she’d peel the skin right off. “I’m no fool of a girl, Jessie,” she told me in a near sob, as though I needed to be told some such thing.

“I know you ain’t, Gemma,” I said as consolingly as I could. I reached out to touch her shoulder but she wouldn’t be moved to stop her pacing. I stepped back a bit and waited for her to sort out her thoughts.

“He kept makin’ me out to be a worrywart and all, tellin’ me I was scared of every little thing, and he said he’d thought I was the sort of girl that wouldn’t go gettin’ silly over nothin’.” She turned her eyes to me with an expression full of panic. “You were right, Jessie. You warned me not to trust him, but I wanted him to like me. I don’t know why. I just wanted him to like me, and I thought he did.”

“I don’t care none about bein’ right just now,” I told her as softly as I could though my mood was strung high as a kite. “I just want you to be okay.” I reached for her again and this time she stopped and let me take her by the shoulders. “You
ain’t been okay for a while now, Gemma Teague, and I just want you back, is all. I want my Gemma back.”

“I ain’t the old Gemma no more,” she cried in short gasps. “If I hadn’t been so worried about not makin’ Joel think me foolish, I’d have kept him from drivin’ that car. Or at least I would’ve made him stop to see what he’d hit.” She said that last word with a broken voice that mirrored her heart, and I knew she blamed herself for Callie’s death as though she’d done the killing herself.

“Gemma, you can’t take this on yourself. It was Joel Hadley killed that girl, not you.”

“But I could’ve stopped him from gettin’ in that car. And maybe if I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have been so feisty and he might’ve paid more attention to where he was goin’. He was cursin’ me when he hit her, tellin’ me I’d led him down the path and then put up a fuss over nothin’. It was because of me he wasn’t payin’ much attention.”

“Don’t you go makin’ excuses for that Hadley boy. That’s the problem with him altogether. Ain’t no one ever let him take the blame for nothin’, and now he just goes around doin’ things he should be blamed for but knowin’ he won’t.”

Gemma couldn’t stop her tears for anything, no matter what I said, and my heart ached for her. I was losing my Gemma, all body and soul of her, and I wanted to fix it all but didn’t know how. Callie Colby was dead and Mr. Poe was in jail awaiting a biased trial, and there was no way to push back time.

“Are you sure, Gemma, that Joel hit her? Are you sure?”

“There ain’t no way around it, Jessilyn. We had the car; we hit somethin’ right up along the bridge. . . . There ain’t no way around it. And all this time I knew what happened and let Mr. Poe go to jail instead of sayin’ the truth.” She crumpled to her knees again, weeping till I thought she’d have no tears left.

“There ain’t no sense in wallowin’ in nothin’,” I told her with firmness. “What’s done is done, and ain’t no way to do anythin’ but move on and keep more wrongs from happenin’.”

“But we can’t do nothin’. Nothin’! When I told Joel about Callie and what must’ve happened, he said his bank holds your daddy’s mortgage, and he threatened to take the farm away. Why do you think I ain’t come clean before today?”

“He threatened you? He threatened my daddy?”

“And you know he’ll do it too. Ain’t no one in this town’s goin’ to take my word against his. He’ll just tell them I’m lyin’ and then take your daddy’s farm away.” Gemma stopped wailing but her breathing came in staccato hiccups and tears still rolled liberally down her face to wet her dress. “Poor Mr. Poe,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do, Jessie. I can’t think straight no more.”

“You ain’t got to think straight. I’ll do the thinkin’ for us.” But despite my words, I didn’t know what to do any more than Gemma did. I craned my neck to look upward as though the clear blue sky would open up and give me an answer that would make everything right.