Fireflies in December (22 page)

My heart leapt as I watched him walk out the back door, but I didn’t know if I was more worried for his safety or for his soul. I made a note to ask Pastor Landry about gun carrying too.

The noise had gotten more distant now, and I assumed Luke was having to walk down toward the corn rows to find Duke.

“Land’s sake, they make a mess of noise, those animals,”

Momma complained. “We should have tied him up after supper. Don’t know what good we get from that mutt, anyhow.”

“Momma!”

“Well, we don’t get no affection from him, Lord knows. All he does is eat our table scraps and chase animals.”

“But that don’t mean we should want him gettin’ killed by a wild animal.”

“I didn’t say I wanted him killed by a wild animal, Jessilyn. Watch your tone of voice.”

I said a quiet “Yes, ma’am,” but a loud crash at the far end of the room made me shoot up from my seat before I even got settled down.

Momma and Gemma jumped up as well, with Momma gasping, “What on earth? My heavens, what is happenin’ in this house?” She raced across the room and pushed my and Gemma’s heads down like we were under fire. “Jesus, protect this house,” Momma said over and over again as we huddled together on the floor.

I peered out from underneath Momma’s arm to see what had crashed through the window. “It’s a rock. Just a big rock.”

“A rock don’t get through a window on its own, Jessilyn. Keep your head down.”

Then we heard footsteps on the porch, and the three of us instinctively focused on the front door. The screen door was closed but unlocked as always, and fear struck us as we realized whoever was on that porch had access to our house.

Momma decided to meet them head-on. “Stay here,” she said as she rose and walked slowly toward the front door, her head ducked.

“I ain’t lettin’ her go alone,” I told Gemma. “She crazy or somethin’?”

“Me neither,” she said.

We followed Momma in similarly hunched positions.

“I said stay back,” Momma hissed.

“We ain’t bound to sit by and let you go by yourself,” I said with determination. “We’re comin’ too.”

Momma didn’t say anything more, which surprised me because Momma didn’t take any lip from me on a normal day.

We approached the doorway timidly, and when we looked out, we saw an eerily familiar sight. Five men in white stood on our lawn, pointing guns toward the house, calling out to us with curses and wry laughter.

This time, they had come for revenge.

Chapter 19

“We brought our own weapons this time,” one of them said, as though reading my thoughts. “If we’s gonna get shot at by young’uns, we may’s well be able to shoot back.”

“You ain’t got no right to be here,” Momma said, her voice a mixture of anger and fear. “You get shot for trespassin’, let that be on your head.”

“See, as we figure it, you folks is the ones trespassin’. We got ways in this here part of the country, and you decided to go against those ways. From our side of seein’ things, you made yourselves the outsiders who are trespassin’ on our way of life.”

I strained my ears hoping to hear Luke returning, but I heard nothing from the back of the house, not even Duke.

“You ain’t got no right comin’ on our property,” Momma said shakily. “No right! And why don’t you take off those filthy hoods and show yourselves, you cowards?”

They stood with no reply, and their silence was more horrifying than any bitter words they could have uttered. The very sight of those white robes flapping in the breeze against the dark of night made my skin crawl. There were several moments of silence as we remained in our standoff, glaring at each other like opponents in a duel.

Then Momma spotted something that made her gasp and start to cry. “Oh, dear Jesus.”

I looked around frantically, trying to train my eyes upon whatever it was that had Momma so upset. It took me two passes of the front yard before I saw it. There, coming from around the side of the house, were a sixth and seventh hooded man, dragging a limp form between them. I struggled to breathe as I watched Luke’s head bob up and down, his blond hair tousled and sweaty.

“Luke!” I screamed, trying to rip my way past Momma to get outside.

“No, baby,” she said, grabbing me around the waist. “You stay here.”

I could tell by her voice that she was in tears. Gemma ran into the house for some reason, and I fleetingly hoped she was going for the rifle so we could kill all of them for what they’d done to Luke. “I want to go to Luke. Let me go!” I struggled and flailed against Momma, finally breaking free and running onto the porch.

“Jessilyn!” Momma screamed.

I could feel her grasping at my shirt as I fled, but I made it to the end of the porch and hopped the rail, landing right where the men who had Luke were standing. They dropped him to the ground, and I ran to him, falling to my knees in front of him.

“Oh, Luke, what’d they do to you?” For all I could see, he was lifeless, his bloodied face displaying no movement. I put my head down to his chest to listen, but I couldn’t hear anything. In sheer rage, I jumped up and started pawing at one of the men, ripping my fingernails into whatever skin I managed to make contact with. “You killed him!” I shouted over and over again. “I’m gonna kill you. You hear? I’ll kill you.”

The man I attacked howled and swatted at me. “Get her off me.”

The other man pulled me off like a rag doll, his face against my right ear. “Ain’t you done enough killin’ for one year?” he asked in amusement. “You’re just a regular killin’ machine, ain’t you, little girl? Well now, I like spunk in a girl, sure enough. And you got spunk.”

“If I’m a killer like you say, Walt Blevins, then I ought to have no trouble puttin’ a bullet through your heart.”

In normal times, Momma would have washed my mouth out with soap for that, but she said nothing even though I knew she must have heard me. She just stayed frozen there on the porch with her hands over her mouth and terror on her face, two Klansmen blocking her path to where Walt stood with his dirty hands on me.

Just then, Otis Tinker’s truck came flying up the road, spraying gravel every which way. Daddy was hanging halfway out the window firing a pistol into the air and shouting things I’d never heard my daddy say before.

Walt took a minute to whisper, “This ain’t over, pretty girl,” in my ear before dropping me like a hot potato.

I crawled back over to Luke, sobbing, while the rest of the group fled. There was absolute chaos in the yard, with Daddy and Mr. Tinker yelling and Momma wailing.

“Jessie!” Gemma screamed. “Jessie! Jessie! Stop shakin’ him!”

I realized then that I had taken Luke by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth, begging him to wake up. At Gemma’s orders, I let him go suddenly, his head dropping back to the earth with a thud.

Engines roared as the two trucks carrying the Klansmen sped off down the dirt road, and Daddy helped Momma over to where Gemma and I sat with Luke.

Gemma held me as I wept, but we both jumped a mile when Luke jolted up into a sitting position, yelling something about killing someone. He closed his eyes tightly and muttered again, “I’ll kill ’em all.”

I must have cried out his name ten times, throwing myself over him like a blanket.

“Now, Jessie,” Daddy said, “don’t strangle the boy.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“Well, keep that up and he will be.” My daddy’s face was red with rage, his hands shaky as he grabbed my shoulders, yet he somehow found the ability to tint his tone with lightheartedness. “Come on,” he urged as I resisted his efforts to pull me away from Luke. “Go to your momma. I need to help Luke into the house.”

I stood reluctantly and watched, with Momma’s arm about my shoulder, as Luke got up, wincing in pain with every move he made.

I looked over at Mr. Tinker and said, “You seen what they done, ain’t you? They near killed Luke. You gonna arrest ’em?”

“It’s right hard to arrest men with no identity.”

“They got identity, all right. I can tell you that Walt Blevins was one of ’em, and so was Cole Mundy. I know them voices.”

“Jessilyn—” Daddy grunted from the strain of lifting Luke—“I thought we agreed not to get the law into this.”

Mr. Tinker went over to help Daddy, ignoring my insistence that the men be arrested.

We got Luke settled on the couch, and Momma gathered her antiseptic and bandages. I followed Mr. Tinker out to his truck, telling him all the reasons he needed to arrest half the men in Calloway.

But he seemed loath to engage in any argument with me. “Jessilyn, you best talk this over with your daddy. Now you head on back inside, you hear?”

“Ain’t no use gettin’ the law involved,” Luke moaned when I renewed my argument inside. “Even if we could for certain identify them, which we can’t, they’d get off anyhow. That’s the way it works in these parts. Klan gets by with everythin’ and anythin’.”

“But, Luke, just look what they done to you.” I had his hand in mine, and I kept squeezing it. “They bruised you all up. They can’t get by with that.”

“Jessilyn,” he said with a grin, “you’re gonna wear the blood right outta my hand.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I gasped, dropping it quickly. “Did I hurt you more?”

Luke put a hand on my cheek and patted it lightly. “I’m gonna be just fine, you can be sure. Don’t you worry none about me.”

“I always worry about you,” I said, tears starting to drip down my cheeks again.

Momma coaxed me away. “You let me fix him up now, and you go put some tea on. It’ll settle his stomach.” I watched for a minute as Momma worked on him. Her hands were as shaky as the rest of us. “Just look at me.” She laughed nervously. “I’m all thumbs tonight.”

Gemma and I went into the kitchen together, and as I filled the teapot, Gemma came to my side and whispered, “What’d that man say to you when he had you? He threaten you again?”

“Leave me be. Ain’t me you got to worry about.”

“I got this whole family to worry about. Now, I want to know what he said to you,” she demanded.

I slammed the teapot onto the stove, but her grip on my arm told me she was in no mood to accept defeat. “Fine! He said it wasn’t over. That’s all.”

Gemma shook her head, wide-eyed. “He’s got somethin’ in for you.”

“Everyone in this town has it in for us. What’s the difference?”

“But Walt’s got it in special for you. He’s gonna hurt you, you hear? He won’t be happy till he does.”

“You promised not to tell no one,” I argued. “You best keep it to yourself.”

“I don’t have to do nothin’ that I think puts you in danger. This has all gone far enough, and I’m tellin’ your daddy.”

“No, you ain’t,” I said. “You just keep your mouth shut!”

Gemma looked me hard in the eye and tightened her lips before saying, “Not this time. This time, I do what I gotta do.” She moved away from me.

But I caught up to her and blocked the doorway. “You ain’t tellin’.”

“I’m tellin’ your daddy,” she replied. “I’m tellin’ your daddy right now.”

“Tellin’ me what?” Daddy asked, his sudden appearance making us both startle.

Gemma looked at Daddy and then back at me. “Gotta do it, Jessie. For your own good.”

I folded my arms and glared at her fiercely, but I didn’t stop her. I knew it was useless.

“Gemma?” Daddy asked. “What is it you’re tryin’ to say? I want to know what’s goin’ on in my own house, you hear?”

“It’s that Walt Blevins,” Gemma said with hesitation.

“What about him?”

“He’s been threatenin’ Jessilyn.”

“Threatenin’ her in what way?”

“He’s been talkin’ to her indecent-like.”

“What do you mean, indecent-like?” Daddy leaned down as though getting closer to Gemma would help him understand her better. Then his eyebrows narrowed, and he asked, “You mean he’s makin’ advances at my baby?”

Gemma said nothing, and Daddy correctly took her silence as corroboration. His face turned violent, and his eyes looked darker than I’d ever seen. The distress this news was bound to cause my daddy was part of what had kept me from saying anything to him, and I eyed Gemma sharply.

“Gemma,” Daddy finally said after several seconds of silence, “you stay with Jessilyn as much as you can when you’re home, you hear?”

“Yes’r.”

“And, Jessilyn, you stay in this house. No goin’ out without me or Luke, and no wanderin’ in the fields.”

“But, Daddy,” I moaned, “I’ll have nothin’ to do.”

“Now you listen to me, Jessilyn Lassiter. Ain’t no tellin’ what that man’s capable of, and I ain’t gonna have you walkin’ into his trap.”

“I’ll be stuck in this house all day, bored stiff.”

“Bored is a lot better’n what you could be if that man gets his paws on you. You stay in this house. You hear?”

I stood there in slight shock, watching everything I’d feared come true.

“I asked you a question, Jessilyn,” Daddy said. “You hear me?”

“Yes’r.”

Momma came up behind Daddy with bloody rags in her hands. “What in the world is goin’ on now? Ain’t we had enough trouble in this house for one night?”

“Jessilyn’s been gettin’ threats and not tellin’ us,” Daddy bellowed. “Walt’s been bein’ aggressive with her, and our girl decides not to tell us.”

“Jessilyn!” Momma sounded horrified. “What’d that man do to you?”

“He ain’t done nothin’. He’s just sayin’ things, is all.”

“I don’t care if he’s just sayin’ things or not,” Daddy continued. “Ain’t no way you’re goin’ out of this house without a man with you, and that’s final.”

Luke joined the fray at this point, his voice weak but strong enough to be heard over the commotion. “Who’s been threatenin’ Jessie? Is it Walt again? I swear, I’m gonna kill that boy. . . .”

I’d had enough. I couldn’t take the loud voices and the chaos any longer, and the very idea of losing what little liberty I had left made my heart sink further still. My nerves broke. “Everybody just stop! You see why I told you not to tell, Gemma?” I asked in tears. “Ain’t I had enough troubles this summer, now I got to be locked up in my own house? Walt Blevins, he gets to go around doin’ whatever he pleases, and I got to suffer for it. Ain’t none of this fair, and I’m tired of all of it. Everybody just leave me alone!” I pushed past Daddy, running upstairs to lock myself in the bathroom.

Gemma knocked on that bathroom door near about fifty times, but I ignored her and put my hands over my ears to block out the noise. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why she was so worried about getting in there, and I yelled as much at her when she hit around sixty knocks. “What’s your fuss? Can’t you leave me alone, like I said?”

“You let me in there.”

“What for? Leave me alone.”

“No! I want in there.”

I unlocked the door and opened it just enough to peer at her through the slit. “I got people followin’ me near everywhere these days. I should be able to go to the bathroom by myself.”

“Now listen here,” Gemma said seriously, her hands planted firmly on her aproned hips. “You fixin’ to do some-thin’?” “Besides gettin’ rid of you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean besides that.”

“Like what?” I argued, squinting till my eyes were barely open. “Can’t do much in this little bathroom.”

She leaned closer to the door, poking her nose into the small space I’d left her. “Now listen here,” she said again, like she was my momma or something. “You plannin’ on hurtin’ yourself?”

For a few seconds I didn’t know what she was talking about, but when I realized what she’d meant, I rolled my eyes. “That’s right. I came in here to jump out the window.”