Cottonwood Whispers (25 page)

My first bite went down slowly since I could see Gemma had a tear in her eye, and we sat together in silence until I’d gotten to the middle of my bowl.

I put down my spoon and reached across the table to grab Gemma’s free hand. She dropped a wedge of potato out of her spoon back into her bowl and leveled her misty gaze on me. I could see she was starting to wonder, having one of those “tests of faith” I’d heard my daddy talk about many a time, and all I wanted to do was make her feel better.

So I smiled at her and said the only thing I could come up with. “You done good, Gemma. Real good.”

The crease that I’d started to think might make a permanent home on her forehead got a lot smaller, and she managed to turn one corner of her mouth up. She took both of my hands in hers and laid her head down on the table, fatigue hitting her like a punch. I sat there for a few minutes until I heard her rhythmic sleeping breaths, and then I let go of her hands and took a blanket from the small stack Gemma had laid in the corner of the kitchen. I covered her as best I could and then sneaked away to wait on the porch for Luke to come back.

The sky was black and filled with pouring rain, and I peered upward searching for God in the place my momma always looked.

“I don’t see nothin’,” I said aloud. “But I sure hope You’re there, anyways.”

It may have been the middle of summer, but I woke up that first morning in the cabin with a chill in my bones. Gemma was next to me on our makeshift bed on the floor, and I opened my eyes to see her face nose to nose with mine. I hated to wake her, so I slid away from her slowly and took a good three minutes to dress, I was being so careful. On my way from the room, the floorboards creaked, and I stopped on my toes and turned an eye to Gemma. She snorted once and rolled over, slipping quickly back into steady breathing.

I found Mr. Poe sound asleep, his toes up in the air, his head slipping off to one side of the couch. But Luke was absent, and when I peeked out the front window, I could see him standing on the porch, just staring at the leaden sky. Rain was falling by buckets, and I figured he was calculating how long it might stay with us, but when I pressed my face closer to the windowpane, I could see that wasn’t it.

There was something about his face that wasn’t like any expression I’d ever seen there before. He was staring out at nothing in particular. Not the rain. Not the sky. It was like he’d spotted something I didn’t.

Part of me felt I shouldn’t disturb him, but the other part of me—the stubborn, self-centered part—was too curious not to find out what was going on. The door squeaked when I opened it, but Luke never even budged.

I crept softly across the porch. “Luke?” I whispered, and then when he didn’t answer, I said again, “Luke. You all right?”

He blinked twice and turned at the sound of my voice. His cheeks turned a splotchy pink when he saw me there, and he didn’t quite look me in the eye when he murmured, “Mornin’, Jessie.”

“You worried about somethin’?”

“Nah, I ain’t worried. Everythin’s goin’ to be okay.”

But the way he leaned heavily on the porch rail told me differently, and I went to lean on it next to him.

“Seems there’s somethin’ on your mind.”

“Just life, is all. Gives you plenty to think about.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I stood silently with him for a few more minutes. “Mr. Poe’s sleepin’ sound.”

“Yeah, we were up in the middle of the night, so he’s likely tired.”

“What were you doin’?”

“He wanted some water, and I heard him, so I got up to
help. He don’t get around so well these days, especially after all that walkin’ we made him do.” He rubbed the back of his neck hard. I knew there was something he wanted to say. I could always tell when he had something on the tip of his tongue but wasn’t comfortable saying it. So I just waited with a patience that I didn’t usually possess. It was a long time of watching the rain splatter against the mud puddle outside the porch before he finally spoke.

“That Mr. Poe, he knows his Bible.”

“He was raised on it, I guess.”

He looked at me quickly. “So were you.”

“So?”

“So, you don’t know your Bible like he does. Seems he’s got somethin’ in his knowin’ of it that most people don’t have, you know? Somethin’ special.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t know.” He turned and put his back against the rail and looked at the house like he was watching Mr. Poe even though he couldn’t see him from where we stood. “That man in there, he’s what? Almost seventy? He’s lost all his kin, got nobody to take care of him, and he’s been wrongly accused and thrown in jail for somethin’ he ain’t never done. Now we got him on the run now like some murderin’ convict. And you know what? He ain’t the least scared.” He looked at me with a sort of surprise in his eyes. “Not in the least,” he confirmed. “What makes a man like that?”

“Well, Momma always said there’s somethin’ off about Mr. Poe. He’s slow, they like to say.”

“That ain’t it. Not this time, anyways. There’s somethin’ else. Ain’t you seen it?”

“I reckon. Maybe I just ain’t thought about it like you have.”

There were another few minutes of silence before Luke said in a voice I could barely hear, “Mr. Poe says it’s God.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Givin’ him peace, he says. He says he has faith God’ll take care of him, so he don’t worry about things.”

For the first time in our conversation I recognized the look on his face as one I was sure to have worn many times in my life. I could guess what was going on in his mind now as sure as I’d known it to go through my own time and time again. It was the look of someone who knows there’s something important to pay attention to but doesn’t know how.

“That’s what my daddy says,” I fairly whispered. “Heard it every other day, near about.”

“What do you think about it?”

It nearly broke my heart to say it, since it meant I was likely the most selfish, sinful girl in the world, but I told him the truth. “Guess I don’t think about it much at all. Leastways, not serious-like.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded and turned back around to look at the rain that now fell in sheets and made it hard to hear anything else. “But I reckon I got to think about it sometime.”

We didn’t say anything more about it then. And we didn’t say anything more about it all that dreary, rain-filled day. Mr. Poe had plenty of stories to tell—even though his tongue
seemed heavy and he tripped over words a lot—and most of his stories brought the Lord into it. It was as natural as a sunset for him to do that. He got under my skin enough that I started praying almost every hour, prayers that I figured might not mean much coming from me. But I prayed the Lord would take care of Mr. Poe, no matter what. He was such a good soul, I figured God would hear prayers about him from someone who wasn’t sure she even believed they made a difference.

Hours went by with nothing but rain and more rain. And hours went by with worries and more worries. I thought of Momma and Daddy and knew they’d be worried stiff. My mind wandered to the scenes that were likely taking place just out of our reach—an anxious Momma and Daddy, an overwhelmed sheriff, and rioting townspeople played around in my thoughts.

We were all about as quiet as mice that day, full of thoughts that made words hard. Mr. Poe was worn and often mumbled things under his breath that didn’t make any sense to the rest of us. Any time I asked him how he was, he’d nod his head and say, “Jes’ fine, Miss Jessie. The good Lord provides.”

It was late afternoon, and I longed to see the sun dipping down, but it kept its place behind the clouds. I sat in front of the window, my face so close to it my breath clouded the glass. Gemma had dozed off in the bedroom, and Mr. Poe slept noiselessly behind me on the couch.

Luke came over and made his own clouds on the glass several inches above my head. “Rain’s slowed.”

I nodded, but I didn’t feel there was anything to say. We sat quietly on that windowsill for so long, I drifted off, but I awoke with a start, banging my head against the windowpane. Luke was at the front door, his head stuck outside.

“Luke?”

He shushed me with a wave of his hand, and I sat by waiting impatiently to find out what was happening. It didn’t take me long to guess. I could hear a whine in the distance, an eerie, disconnected sound that gave me a chill.

In no time I was standing next to Luke, my head out the door like his. Seconds passed before it became clear what we were hearing.

“Dogs!” we whispered to each other.

The flurry of activity that followed was a blur. We gathered up Mr. Poe, bleary-eyed as he was. Gemma was alert in a flash, and she immediately started gathering supplies the minute I told her what was happening. I helped her pack as many things as we could carry, and we met Luke and Mr. Poe at the door.

Luke’s pistol was very evidently sitting at his waistband, and I worried he might have cause to use it. He caught my gaze and held it for a moment, a look that told me just how serious our situation was.

“Sounds like a lot of them,” I murmured to him.

“We should head for Rocky Creek,” he said. “They’ll have a hard time trackin’ if we cross it.”

“If it’s been rainin’ this hard up the hill, that creek’ll be flooded by now. It’s always spillin’ over.”

Gemma came up behind us and hung a bag of supplies on my arm. “We’ll just have to hope it ain’t.”

Luke turned to help Mr. Poe down the steps, and I reached out to grab Gemma’s hand for support.

And then we set off into the mud.

After half an hour, we had walked only half of the distance we might have covered in better conditions, and we were all worn thin.

In the distance, the howling kept pace with us, and I was beginning to feel hunted like a mangy fox. I sidled up next to Luke and tugged at his shirt to get his attention. “They’re gettin’ closer. I don’t think Mr. Poe can make it fast enough.”

The uncertainty on Luke’s face said everything I was thinking, and it made me shiver inside even more knowing he had as little hope as I did. We continued on wordlessly, with Gemma in the lead, and as we went, I prayed as many things as I could think of to pray.

The dogs were so loud, I wondered if God could even hear my whispered prayers, and the gray skies were nothing but dampers to our spirits. With the eerie cries of the dogs in the distance, fear seemed to be chasing us right along with the posse behind us. And both were gaining on us.

Another half hour went by and we were managing less and less distance on our wobbly, worn-out legs. The howls were echoing behind us now, and Luke was fairly dragging Mr. Poe along as he had lost strength altogether.

I was losing any faith in prayer, and the words that I sent
heavenward were expressing more and more doubt that He was even listening.

By the time the dogs were within seeing distance, we had reached the creek, and the rumble we heard through the trees told us it had flooded as I’d feared.

“Creek’s up, all right,” I called to Luke.

Luke pulled up short of where the water roiled below us and let Mr. Poe lean against him. He turned to gaze behind us, fatigue written all over his face. But there was determination there too, and he shielded Mr. Poe’s body as though he could keep anyone from touching him. And that’s what Gemma and I did as well.

We all knew we were only minutes from being discovered, and there simply was nowhere to go. If we’d only been able to cross the creek, we were just minutes from our farm, and I was sick at heart to be so close to home but so far from the security it offered.

I crept as close to Mr. Poe as I could and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Poe. We ain’t caused you nothin’ but trouble.”

With an energy that belied his age and situation, he stood up tall and put one shaking hand under my chin. “Miss Jessie, ain’t nuthin’ you done fer me but help and care. Ain’t nuthin’ anyone’s done that God ain’t in control over, neither.”

“But I’ve been prayin’, Mr. Poe. I’ve been prayin’ and them dogs are still on our heels, and them men still want you to pay for somethin’ you ain’t done. I tried to help, but God ain’t hearin’ me. I don’t think He cares much.”

“Oh, He cares, Miss Jessie. It’s jes’ sometimes His plans’r plans only He understands. That’s sure ’nough.”

“But that ain’t fair!”

“Aw, Miss Jessie,” he said with a shake of his head. “But He’s God.”

For the first time in my life I saw a completely coherent Mr. Poe. There was no dreaminess about him, no rambling speech. He was more focused and in control now than any man with all his wits about him, and I couldn’t stop the tears that spilled down my cheeks.

And as we stood there in a circle around Mr. Poe, the only blockade to the dogs and angry men that were fast gaining on us, Mr. Poe was the one who stood strong among us.

He swiped two thumbs across my cheeks, wiping at the tears. “Don’t you cry, Miss Jessie. Muh God’s got a place for me.”

I stared into his eyes and saw nothing but peace. Luke looked at us both and put one strong hand on Mr. Poe’s shoulder and one on my arm. The two of us exchanged a desperate glance.

And then they were upon us.

Gemma had her arms spread out in front of our group like a shield, and all I could hear was my heartbeat. The dogs seemed to bark soundlessly in slow motion, and I watched as we were circled by men with shotguns at the ready. I was filled with indescribable hatred as Joel Hadley made his way to the front of the pack, a rope coiled around his shoulder.

Instinctively I jumped in front of Gemma so Joel couldn’t
lay one of his filthy hands on her, but he didn’t care much who he manhandled. The fact of the matter was, his life was on the line if the truth ever came out, and the fear of that happening was written on his face, coloring it with determination.

“Best get out of my way, Jessie,” he growled. “I ain’t got me a lot of patience today, and I’ve had a hankerin’ to teach you a lesson a long time now.”

Luke catapulted forward and dragged me behind him, every muscle in his torso tensed for a fight. “Get on outta here, Hadley,” he said through clenched teeth. “None of this is your say.”

Joel’s smirk spoke a million words, and all I wanted to do was slap it off, but Luke’s hold on me wouldn’t let me budge. I could only stand on my toes to peer over his shoulder.

“Way you’re holdin’ that girl makes me think things ain’t as innocent as you pretend they are,” Joel said loudly enough so the crowd could hear. “Her daddy know what’s goin’ on between you two when he ain’t around?”