Penumbra (20 page)

“You’re lying.” He did not step away, but he leaned back from her. “You think you can scare me off, but I’m not afraid of ghosts.” He laughed. “I sort of like ‘em. Dead people are just dead. Nothin’ more.”

She could see he’d regained his nerve. Threats of ghosts would not keep him away from her property any longer. “The dead tell me their secrets.”

“You’re a feisty little gal,” he said, showing yellowed teeth in a grin. “I might bring you another present. I got some cash. Maybe you could put on a show for me.”

Her mouth was dry and she could find no other words to ward him off. He’d peeped at her, and now he was admitting it because he viewed her as helpless. This was sport for him, and he enjoyed it. Fury coursed through her. She was about to respond when a nurse hurried toward them.

“It’s Mr. Lavallette on the telephone. He says he needs you to drive the hearse, Mr. Clements. There’s a body needs to go to Pascagoula. That man who was beaten to death. The family wants him brought home.”

“I’ll be seein’ you,” Junior whispered softly to Jade. “You and your pretty little sister. Real soon.”

He brushed past her, and she forced her legs to hold steady as she watched him walk down the corridor. She had a visceral urge to plant her knee in his crotch, but she didn’t move. Jade felt the nurse’s stare, but Jade held her tongue. Talk would only make matters worse. She had evidence of that. There could be only one person who’d been telling tales on Marlena. Dotty Strickland. Jade had a grim desire to make the woman pay for running her mouth.

She tapped lightly on the door of Marlena’s room and entered. The blond head was turned away, the once bright hair, in need of washing, flattened to Marlena’s skull. Jade heard the sound of soft sobs.

“Are you okay?” Jade asked. She closed the door firmly. “Be careful. The nurses are out in the hall. They’ll hear you.”

Marlena worked at holding back her tears.

“What happened?” Jade asked. She got a clean washcloth, wet it under the tap in the bathroom, and wiped Marlena’s hot face. “What did he say?”

She inhaled, shuddering with the effort. “He pulled the covers back and looked at me,” Marlena said. “I had to pretend that I was asleep.”

Jade gritted her teeth. Junior was a pervert. He’d been spying on her and now he was exposing Marlena’s poor, beaten body to his view. He was bolder, too, acting as if there was no recourse that could be taken against him. Jade thought of Frank and felt true fear. If Junior suspected she’d slept with a white man—she halted her thoughts.

“Did Junior say anything?” she asked.

Marlena sniffed. “No. He just pulled the covers back and pulled up my gown.” More tears leaked out of her eyes. “He just made this grunting noise, like a pig at a trough.” Her voice rose in hysteria. “I can’t stay here. You have to take me away!”

“Take it easy,” Jade urged. “He can’t hurt you here.” She didn’t believe the words even as she said them, but she had no idea where Marlena could go that would be safe. Now she understood her sister’s desire to stay comatose. Waking up brought only pain and danger. Junior Clements scared her. Junior was capable of cruelty, and lately he had an air about him that was different, as if he thought himself above the law. She looked at Marlena. “Was it Junior who hurt you?” The expression on Marlena’s face was answer enough.

“Jade, you have to help me.” Marlena glanced around the room as if escape were hidden behind the draperies. “I can’t stay here! I can’t pretend any longer! They’re going to find out I’m awake!” Marlena’s eyes were wide. Her fingers dug into Jade’s arm, clutching in terror.

“I don’t know what to do,” Jade said. She couldn’t leave Marlena alone in the hospital. There was no safe place for them. At least not when Junior got back from Pascagoula.

“Take me somewhere safe, where no one can find me. Not Lucas or Junior or anyone.” Marlena’s voice dissolved into tears. “I’m afraid.”

“Okay,” Jade said, putting an arm around Marlena’s thin shoulders. “I’ll think of something.”

Dotty tried to hold her weight off the jouncing truck seat, absorbing some of the punishment with her arms. There was nothing around them but trees, a thick wall of them with their gray-black trunks and bitter green needles. They were deep in the woods in a place Dotty had never imagined, going into the dense forest and away from town. Dantzler was driving like a maniac on the narrow dirt road that was little more than a pot-holed path. Outside the windshield, the sky had taken on a dark gray cast with hints of green in the center of the front. Bad weather, really bad weather, was about to hit.

The truck hit a deep hole, and Dotty’s head bounced into the roof of the cab. She let out a yelp, and Dantzler’s fist flew across the seat and backhanded her in the mouth. She tasted blood but didn’t say anything. She’d learned in the first few minutes that trying to talk only brought more slaps and slugs. The man beside her had no interest in anything she had to say.

“Ole Frank’s going to be surprised when he gets home and finds you gone without a trace,” Dantzler said, chuckling to himself. “He’ll be hunting that little girl
and
you.”

Dotty felt the tears slide down her cheeks. Frank wouldn’t know she was gone. The one thing that might have tipped him—her car—had been left in the old garage behind the Kimble house. Frank might not find it for days. No one would know she was missing. She lived alone and hadn’t made any plans to meet anyone. She had no job, no place of employment for someone to miss her. Marlena was in a coma and couldn’t tell anyone she was missing even if she knew. Worst of all, Dotty realized she’d made a terrible mistake. She’d been at Frank’s house ready to tell him that Junior Clements had abducted Suzanna Bramlett, and she’d been dead wrong. She was locked in a truck going forty miles an hour down a pig path with the kidnapper.

The tears ran into her split lip and she wanted to cry out with pain, but knew better. She cowered against the passenger door and prayed for deliverance.

“I’m not Frank’s girlfriend,” she said, the words a little distorted by her now swollen lip.

“Did I ask you a question?” he asked.

Dotty knew she had to make him understand before it was too late. “Frank doesn’t even like me. He won’t care that you have me.”

Dantzler stopped the truck. He slowly pulled his belt from the loops of his pants. “You want to play games?” he asked. “I’ve got a few I really enjoy.” He was laughing as he reached for her, his fingers knotting in her hair, dragging her across the seat and clear of the truck, her cries bouncing back from the trunks of the huge pines.

J
onah sat on the back steps of his home, sweat draining from every pore. It was a sick sweat, the smell of shame in it. He stank, and he felt nothing except contempt for himself. He could not face his wife. Thirty-seven years of neglect had weighted his marriage down in a bog of hurt. He’d never committed adultery; that was not his sin. His was worse, because he had put Ruth always last in the trinity of his allegiance. Before Jade had come home with them, Lucille had always come first. He saw that now. Yesterday, he would have denied it. Such an accusation would have angered him. Lucille had lifted the veils from his eyes, and he saw plenty now. His relationship with his wife was built on resentment and anger. She had the right to it, but he did not. Jade had become his first priority, with Lucille dropping into second place, and then Ruth. Always at the last, Ruth. Shame swept over Jonah and he put his head in his hands and wept.

“What are you doing sitting on the back step crying?” Ruth asked him from inside the screen door. He hadn’t realized she was in the house. She was so quiet, like a wraith, and that was his fault, too. He’d taken the softness from her, drained it out of her as surely as if he’d put a siphon in her.

“So much time has gone by,” he said, not bothering to hide his tears from her. “I’m an old man now.”

“You’re crying for your lost youth?” Her tone bespoke her impatience with him.

“No, Ruth, I’m crying for the years that I was a fool, for the time I treated you poorly and was so stupid I wouldn’t admit what I was doing.”

He felt the screen door touch his back as Ruth pushed it open. It slammed softly. She came onto the step and sank to a seat beside him. She didn’t touch him. She hadn’t touched him in years. That was another thing he’d stolen from her, from both of them. His tears had dried, but the pain of remorse was wicked cruel in his heart.

“So you finally woke up?” she said. Her eyes were soft, the anger finally gone. “It’s a hard fall, Jonah. I know it hurts.”

“Maybe I need to hurt. I’ve hurt you plenty over the years.”

“Yes, you have.” She said it without anger.

“Ruth, I didn’t mean it.”

“Most folks don’t mean to bring suffering to others. Still, it happens. When you love, you risk pain.”

He thought about her words. “Do you still love me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve spent so many years hating you, I don’t know what’s beneath that. Hating you was the only way I could survive. Hating you and Miss Lucille.” Those last words were spoken with bitterness. “You never saw her for what she really is.”

“I did today.” He would not tell her that Jade was his daughter. It wasn’t his cowardice about not knowing that he wanted to hide. He’d believed every syllable Lucille had told him, because he’d wanted to believe the baby she carried belonged to another man. As a young woman, Lucille had been free with her body, and so he’d never questioned her story of a Negro lover from New Orleans. He’d met Slidin’ Jim at the Longier party, had seen the man’s charm. Knowing Lucille the way he had, he’d never questioned her lie. Lucille had tricked and manipulated him like a wooden puppet. Jade was his daughter. Lucille had hidden that from him for thirty-six years. Ruth would never know. He wouldn’t taint the one thing she loved with all her heart. “I saw Miss Lucille for what she’s become, over the years. I saw her, and I saw myself.” His head lowered. “I’m ashamed.”

“The truth can be harsh,” Ruth said. “But when you turn that light on yourself, I’m forced to see the woman I’ve become. That’s not pretty to me or anyone else.” She sighed. “I haven’t looked in a mirror in better than ten years. I can’t bear to look at myself, an old dried up woman burning with hatred.”

“You can look, Ruth.” He touched her cheek, feeling skin that was unfamiliar to him. Ruth’s face was soft, belying the hardness he’d come to associate with her. He turned her face so that they gazed at each other. “There’s a lot to see besides hardness. There’s goodness and a real love for our daughter.”

“I wanted to love you, Jonah, but there wasn’t any room for me in your heart.”

He closed his eyes. The damage he’d wreaked was worse than any Lucille might have done. He had no excuses. He’d had a woman who loved him and wanted him. Lucille had been alone.

He stood up. “Where’s Jade?”

“She went into town to talk to Frank Kimble about the peeping Tom. I told her not to. I told her the white law didn’t care what happened to a black woman.”

Jonah thought his heart could get no heavier. The idea of Jade and Frank tore at him. Jade would suffer, as he had suffered. And the end result would be that anyone else who dared to love her would suffer, too.

“Is there something between Jade and that lawman?” Ruth asked.

Jonah didn’t answer instantly. He thought about it. He’d neglected his wife for many years. Now he wanted to protect her, but to do so, he’d have to lie to her again. That was a road he wouldn’t travel twice. He wouldn’t lie to anyone, especially not himself.

“Frank says he cares for Jade,” he said. “She was with him. Last night.”

Ruth moaned and swayed on the step. “Jesus save us.” She clutched at her dress front. “Sweet Jesus up above, please help us!” she cried out and bent double.

Jonah put his hands on her shoulders and steadied her. “It’s going to be okay, Ruth. You were right to want to send her away. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll send her to New Orleans, help her set up a shop there. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s not too late for Jade, and it’s not too late for us. I’ve got to go and find her, tell her.” He rose to his feet, kissed Ruth’s cheek, and started walking to town.

Frank wiped the sweat from his eyes. The air was heavy with humidity, as if the storm clouds were a blanket holding in place all the warmth of the earth that attempted to rise. His eyes stung from the sweat, and he blinked them. He caught movement in the gray blur of the tree trunks and reached for his pistol. When his eyes cleared, he saw Joseph Longfeather standing among the trees. Instead of fatigues, he wore the aqua-and-white-striped shirt he’d been so proud of. A red bandanna was tied at his neck, his hat pulled low over his eyes. He smiled and disappeared. Frank’s shirt was soaked with sweat, but he strode through the woods, confident of his trail now, sensing he soon would have his quarry.

The trail had taken him to an old logging path choked with briars and the remains of pines too straggly for the mills. He’d traveled for better than five miles, winding ever eastward, away from the river. The dense trees had given way to rutted and barren land. The loggers had had their way with the pines, and with them they cut everything that stood in their way. A few lone blackjacks had escaped, growing out of privet and briars.

When the logging trail fed into a more traveled path, Frank felt a swell of elation. He stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and run his fingers through his slick hair. There were tire prints in the sand. A vehicle had come this way and in the not too distant past.

He chose north and kept walking, following the path. The clouds hung low and dense, and thunder rumbled like an angry god. The few trees around him began to quake and shimmy as a hard wind swept through their tops, and Frank tasted rain seconds before the first fat drops began to fall. In the distance he heard the sad howl of hounds, and he picked up his speed.

A thin wisp of black smoke curled on the horizon. A cook fire, Frank reckoned, since it was too hot for any other kind. He headed for it.

Bile rose in Dotty’s throat as Dantzler prodded her forward toward the gathering of men who stood, scratching and hawking at her approach. She’d given up trying to talk. Dantzler Archey was an animal. He’d beaten the backs of her legs to a fiery red with his belt, and the skin felt puckered and inflamed. As she walked toward the men she held her skirt so that it didn’t brush against her angry flesh. He would pay. He would pay dearly, just as soon as she figured out where she was and how she could get home. They’d driven at least ten miles into the woods. She was in a place she’d never been, and she hadn’t seen a house or a store or anything the whole time. The right heel on her favorite patent leather shoes had broken, and Archey had tossed it into the woods with a laugh. Now she hobbled like some kind of cripple.

The men watching her were obviously half-wits and mutes, and she hawked up a ball of phlegm and spat it on the foot of the closet one. Behind her, Archey laughed. “Boys, this here’s Frank Kimble’s woman. She needs to be brought to heel.”

Dotty kept her chin up, but she felt her gut turn to liquid, and she had the horrible sensation that she might mess herself.

“Where’d you git her?” a tall, toothless man asked.

“Oh, I found her. You know, finder’s keepers.” Archey pushed her forward, and Dotty gagged on the stench of the men.

“Are we gonna keep her?” The man’s eyes glistened, and a string of spittle laced his lips.

“For a while,” Archey said, grabbing her arm.

“For all of us?” the man asked.

Archey hesitated. He looked at Dotty and then back at the men who’d all taken a step forward. “Maybe,” he said. He pushed Dotty forward, away from the men, and she stumbled on her uneven shoes and fell to her knees. Had Archey not grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, she would have fallen there and been unable to help herself.

“Come on,” he said, roughly dragging her beside him. He paused and turned back to the men. “Get the truck started. We’re going to the still tonight. We got a delivery to make, and then we’re gonna have us some fun.”

His fingers closed over her arm and he pushed her ahead of him. Dotty lost her right shoe completely and kicked the left one off. Up ahead, she could make out what looked like an unpainted cabin. She caught her balance and walked beside Archey, the sharp roots and broken limbs stabbing into her soft feet.

“What are you going to do to me?” She was beyond fear now. If he touched her—if any one of those filthy, stinking men touched her—she would die.

“Shut your yap,” he said. He opened the door and pushed her inside. The door slammed behind her and she heard metal running against wood. She turned and saw the large links of a heavy chain in a hole in the door. The room was almost totally dark, only a dim light slipping through a few chinks in the wood. She made out beds, and from the stench she knew the men outside slept here.

In a far corner of the room was a curtain. She crawled toward it, praying that it led to an outside door. She’d always been afraid of the woods, afraid that she’d get lost and that some wild animal might attack her. That, now, was a pleasant dream. The nightmare was Archey and his men. She had to get away from them, and even if she starved to death in the woods it would be better than the fate he represented.

Behind the curtain she heard something dragging. A chain. She froze. What if there was some animal chained behind the curtain? A wolf, or a panther, or a bear. She could hear her blood coursing in her ears, but she heard the chain again. It moved slowly across the floor. Slowly. She inched forward, her fingers feeling the worn wood floor, the grit embedded in the unfinished lumber. If she ever got out of this, Dantzler Archey would pay. She’d get a gun and she’d shoot him. First in the balls. After he’d bled and begged a while, she might shoot his knees, cripple him good so even if she let him live, he’d realize he’d always be a cripple. After a while, if he hadn’t bled to death, she’d finish him off with a blast right between the eyes.

She hung on to her plans for revenge as she moved forward to the gingham curtain, to the thing chained behind it. She stood up and walked to it, pulling it back with one quick jerk. The woman standing at the stove was naked, her body covered in dirt and bruises. Clinging to her side was a boy, his face distorted by horrible scars.

Dotty felt something in her throat. She lifted her hand and felt the column of her neck, felt the bulge there that choked off her air. She couldn’t stop staring at the woman and the boy, and they, in turn, stared at her. She stumbled backward, unable to breath because her throat was jammed. She fell back across one of the beds, and the jar of the fall broke the scream loose in her throat. Once she started screaming, she couldn’t stop.