Mittman, Stephanie (5 page)

The
laundry hung, Mary Grace passed a watchful Dukeboy and went into the house. She
went straight
to Emily's room to ask her if she could borrow another skirt and blouse, just
until the other set dried. When she entered, the three men were kneeling by the
bed, their hands clasped in prayer. The sight shocked her. Somehow she had
convinced herself overnight that Emily Tate couldn't be as sick as she seemed
or someone would have gotten her to a doctor before now.

Mason
looked up as she stood in the doorway. She covered her mouth with her hands,
and Mason shook his head and stood up. His steps were heavy as he left the room
and motioned for her to follow.

"Is
she...?" Mary Grace started.

He
shook his head. "She's sleepin', again. Does that more than anything else.
That and nurse the kid. Been six months, now. Never really recovered from
having Horace."

What
an awful name for a baby, Mary Grace mused. It was a petty thought to have at
such a terrible time, but she couldn't help herself.

"Named
him after her father. Hers and Harlin's."

"Then
Harlin is her brother," Mary Grace deduced.

"Harlin,
Wilson, me. We're all her brothers. Only Wilson and me, we had a different
daddy. But we all had the same mama. She died after givin' birth to Harlin,
sick all through, just like Emily."

"Emily
was sick when she was pregnant?" Mary Grace asked, trying to follow the
conversation.

Mason
nodded.

"And
she stayed here with you? Her husband was already dead?"

Mason
nodded again, thoughtfully. "That mighta been a mistake," he said.
"More I think on it."

"A
mistake?"

"Mason,"
Harlin yelled. "Come quick! She's breathin' funny, Mason. Hurry!"

Mason
scrambled up from the couch where he and Mary Grace had been sitting. Shivering
from the cold, she wrapped the blanket tighter around her, and shuffled behind
him at a distance.

She
stopped once again at the doorway. Emily's eyes were wide open and she looked
frantic. "Mary Grace! Get Mary Grace! Where is she? Is she dead,
too?"

"I'm
here," Mary Grace said quietly, stepping forward. "I'm right here.
Lie back, now." She turned to Mason, aware now that he was the one in
charge. "You have to get her to a hospital, or she's going to die. She's
dehydrated and they can get fluids into her."

"She
won't drink anything no more," Harlin said, showing how the water just
trickled down her chin when he raised the glass to her lips.

"They'll
use an I.V.," Mary Grace said.

"An
I.V.?"

She
remembered the bloody rags in the bundle of wash. "Has she been bleeding
since the baby was born?"

No
one answered her. She took that as a yes.

"Why
haven't you done something before this?" she begged them. "How could
you let her get so sick?"

"You
heard her yourself," Mason said as he took his sister's hand in his own.
"God's punishing her for the life she led. It's His will. It's too bad,
though, about the baby."

Mary
Grace could hear her own father's voice, reciting those very same words. It was
the zealot's explanation for suffering and death and a way for them to escape
the responsibility for doing anything to help.

"Mama!"
Emily yelled, obviously delirious now. "Mama!"

The
men backed away from their sister's bed, and Mary Grace came forward, sitting
on the edge of the mattress and taking Emily in her arms.

"I'm
here," she crooned. "I'm here. Everything's going to be all
right."

"He's
dead!" Emily said. "They killed him! I didn't think they'd kill him.
Now what will I do? God'll never forgive what I done, now that he's dead."

"No,
no, Emily. He's all right. Everything is all right."

Emily
pulled away from Mary Grace's arms to look into her face. Her eyes were clear
and bright, and they connected with Mary Grace's. She seemed completely lucid
again. "Do you swear?"

Mary
Grace didn't hesitate. "I swear."

"I
believe you," Emily said, and Mary Grace felt the girl's body go slack
against her.

"Emily?"
she whispered. There was no response. Tears welled in her throat, behind her
eyes, in her cheeks. Her arms grew rigid, and Wilson eased Emily out of them
and down onto the bed. Mary Grace's blanket slipped and went unnoticed,
exposing her legs, her wet shirt split on her flat stomach.

A
shuddering breath rocked Emily's chest, startling them all, and Mason leaned
down and lifted the edge of the blanket and covered Mary Grace's lap with it.

"I
thought she was gone," Harlin said in the quiet of the room.

Mary
Grace nodded. "She just... she just..." And then she started to cry,
big wracking sobs that shook her body and nearly knocked her off the bed. Mason
steadied her, and she grabbed him, pressing her cheek against his thigh and
letting him stroke her hair.

He
smelled of horses and worse, but he was alive and real, and she clung to him
shamelessly until she felt a light tug at her arm. She turned slowly to find
Emily's eyes open, her tongue wetting her dry lips.

"The
baby's crying," she said, with great effort. Even
though she was
dying, her first thoughts were of her child.
Once a mother,
Mary Grace
thought, and let the rest of the saying go as she heard the baby's wail. Mason
motioned to Harlin, who left and came back with the child, handing him to Mary
Grace. He quieted immediately.

"He's
a beautiful baby," Mary Grace said to Emily, patting the baby's head.
"I think he favors his uncles with this dark hair."

She
shook her head very slightly. "Looks just like his pa. Glad to have been a
part of that. His pa was a handsome son of a bitch."

Mary
Grace couldn't help being a little shocked. She kept thinking Emily was some
fairy princess, lying in state, her blond hair flowing around her. And then
reality would intrude.

"The
man coulda charmed the habit off a nun. Course I wasn't no nun. Still ain't
right to kill a man over a roll or two in the hay, no sir. 'Specially not a man
what loved ya."

The
baby wriggled in Mary Grace's arms, reaching for his mama, who put out her hand
and let the baby wrap his fist around one of her fingers.

"You're
as doomed as your mama," she said to the boy. "God help you if you
turn out like your mama's kin. The devil take you if you turn out like your
pa."

She
struggled to sit up a little, just enough to reach the boy's hand with her
lips. She kissed the hand gently and fell back onto the pillow.

"I
think I'd like to sleep a little now," she said and closed her eyes.

Mason
took the baby, balanced him against his shoulder while he opened a drawer, and
pulled out some clothing for Mary Grace. He handed her a small pile and motioned
for her to leave the room.

On
her way out she heard him whisper to Emily. "He didn't get no worse than
he deserved. Nobody does."

Mary
Grace hugged the clothes to her body and hurried to the room they had let her
sleep in the night before.

***

He
had made his way down the side of the mountain, the surefooted horse he had
purchased from the Havasupai accustomed to going down winding trails on the
sides of canyons. He had considered his options carefully and decided he
wouldn't so much as spit until he knew which way the wind was blowing.

Maybe
Emily had already found herself someone else. She'd be one less problem to
reckon with if she wasn't looking to hog-tie him with the bands of matrimony.
The other woman wasn't worth his worry, being too feeble to smell a fire if she
was locked in a furnace. No, what he needed to know was how many men there
were: three, or a fourth belonging to Emily; where they were keeping the baby;
and the lay of the land.

He'd
found himself a fine hiding spot, maybe a couple hundred feet or so from their
cabin, and settled himself in for the day, savoring the feeling of being the
hunter and not the prey. Maybe he'd get lucky and that redheaded stick of a
woman would come out and strut her stuff again. She sure did have a problem
keeping her clothes on.

But
it was Wilson, not the woman, who came out of the house as he watched. The big
man with the dark beard and the two gold teeth went straight for the shed and
emerged with a shovel, a brown dog on his heels. When he returned to the porch,
Mason was just coming outside. The dog's tail began wagging at the sight of
him, but Mason didn't appear to be in the mood for
playing. He was
wearing his church clothes, and Sloan felt a twitching up his arms. It looked
to him like maybe there was one less son of a bitch he'd have to worry about as
Wilson nodded, took the shovel, and climbed the ridge. At the summit he plunged
the shovel into the earth over and over again until the purpose became
unmistakable.

A
ripple of disappointment went through him. Harlin hadn't been down by the river
yesterday, and now it looked like they might be getting ready to bury him.
Sloan Westin had his heart set on putting an end to Harlin Tate with his own
hands. He had decided even a bullet was too good for him, and had lain awake
nights among the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon devising for
Harlin Tate deaths too horrible to confess aloud.

Wilson
struggled to dig the grave in the hot sun. He mopped his brow, took off his
shirt, and continued to dig as if nothing else was going on in the world. He
looked like a simple country farmer who might be burying his wife out there on
the ridge, and not the scum of the earth Sloan Westin knew him to be.

The
redheaded woman came out of the house, dressed up in a dark printed wrapper
that set his teeth on edge. He remembered the wrapper real well. Remembered how
proud of it Emily had been. Remembered her warning him to be careful with it as
he unfastened the buttons that ran down the back. Remembered clutching the hem
of it after he had fallen to the ground. Remembered her yanking it from his
grip and running, running. And then he couldn't remember anything. Nothing
about how he'd wound up at the bottom of the canyon, strangers tending to
him... smoke and magic words... feathers and potions....

The
woman was on the ridge, talking to Wilson. The baby was crying inside the
house, and the woman raised her head as if to hear better. She said a few more
words to Wilson and then came running down to the house, tripping on the hem of
the dress and nearly falling. Probably Harlin's woman, and too grief stricken
to think about lifting her hem. Or just too feeble. He didn't know which.

Wilson
returned to the house and washed with water from a bucket on the porch. When he
was done he entered the house, and the redheaded woman came out and sat on the
porch with the baby in her arms. She hugged the child tightly to her chest and
kissed the top of his head over and over again. If only Sloan had bought those
binoculars in Jerome. He couldn't make out a feature on the kid's face.
Couldn't see if he had dimples like his grandma, big hands like his pa and his
grandpa before him. Couldn't see nothing from so far away. Damn, and damn
again! He'd sure like to get a better look at that child.

"Open
the door, Miss O'Reilly," someone called from inside, and she rose and
pushed the door inward into the house.

Mason
came out backward, struggling with the end of a makeshift coffin, nearly
falling down the two steps that separated the porch from the ground. Wilson
held up the middle, as best he could, from one side. Around his legs, the mangy
dog danced and nipped at his heels, almost tripping him up, until finally
Wilson delivered a swift kick to the dog's soft underbelly. At the far end of
the coffin, his face clearly visible to Sloan, was Harlin Tate, a blond halo
surrounding that little boy face of his.

Well,
at least it wasn't Harlin making the trip to meet his maker. Sloan could still
look forward to the pleasure of doing unto others as had been done to him.

He
waited for Emily to emerge, one eye on the procession, the other on the door.
She didn't come. Had she run off again, this time abandoning the baby?

The
funeral was a quick affair. The woman, carrying the baby, who Sloan noticed
didn't cry once throughout the whole service, returned to the house with Harlin
and Mason. Wilson stayed up on the hill, fashioning a marker of sorts and
banging it into the ground.

Sloan
waited until nightfall to make his way up to the hill. In the dark he tried to
make out the words on the wooden cross stuck at a slight angle by the head of
the grave. Finally, he lit a match, blocking the light with his body so that he
couldn't be seen from the house.

REST
IN PEACE EMILY TATE BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER, AND MOTHER '75-'94

There
were coyotes in the distance. The moon came out from behind a cloud,
illuminating the marker as if that was its sole purpose for hanging in the sky.
From the house he could hear a woman singing softly to a baby and the sounds of
men arguing. The back door slammed, and he could hear the jangling of Harlin's
spurs.