Summer of the Redeemers (41 page)

Nadine nodded. “I know that family.” Her gaze intensified. “The Newmans were a big family. Lots of different branches.”

Cathi stood up. “Bekkah’s grandmother is probably worried to death. We’d better get on home. It was nice to meet you, and I’m sure the Riches will be in touch with you in the next three or four days. Bekkah’s told me how much you’ve taught her, so you can rest assured that she’ll take good care of that horse.”

Nadine stood up too. “We’ll work out something on the saddle if you want. I don’t really need it anymore.”

“Thanks.” I couldn’t believe Nadine.

“Maybe you’d want to get Cammie’s blanket and grooming kit from the barn.”

I looked at Nadine then. I saw it in her eyes. She was deviling me. She knew I’d seen her and Greg in the barn, and she was dangling it right in front of Cathi.

“Bekkah?” Cathi said. “Why don’t you get the kit and stuff? Since I have the car you can take it home now.”

I couldn’t look away from Nadine. She was dying with laughter, but it only showed in her eyes. “Okay.” I broke the look and hurried out the back door.

The barn was shut tight. Just as a double check, I looked in every horse’s stall. They had water and hay and the shavings were clean. Even Cammie’s empty stall had been thoroughly cleaned. I wondered if Greg or Nadine had done it.

The thought of Greg made me look up at the loft. I didn’t want to see him. Not ever again. He and Nadine could do whatever they wanted to do. I had Cammie and Picket, and Cathi was going to look into the Redeemers. I was finished with it all.

I gathered up Cammie’s stuff as fast as I could and ran out of the barn. Cathi was waiting at the car. There was no sign of Nadine, and we drove out of there.

“She’s a very interesting woman,” Cathi said. “She knows better than to live the way she does. Either she doesn’t care, or she’s making a point.”

“What kind of point?”

“That’s what’s so interesting. By the way, I asked her about the Redeemer boy, Greg. She said he hadn’t been around since the beating. Do you think he actually went back there?”

“No, he isn’t there. When I was down there today, Magdeline, the girl I told you about, she was asking for him. All the Redeemers think Greg is at Nadine’s.”

We pulled into my driveway. “Get your things and jump out. I’ve got to get back to the office before I’m canned.”

“Thanks, Cathi. I’ll call Daddy tonight.”

“If you could leave my name out of it, I wouldn’t mind. I didn’t ask for his telephone number to call for myself, Bekkah. I wanted him to know what’s going on. He needs to come back here. He and your mother both.”

“I’ll tell him. And you can bet that Mama Betts will too.”

Cathi reached over and gave me an awkward hug. “Friends?”

“Sure.” I hugged her back. “Thanks, Cathi.” I got out and got my stuff. Cathi backed up and drove away.

When I went into the kitchen, Mama Betts had some fresh greens cooked and cornbread. “I was going to fry some chicken, but I got sidetracked by a trip to the sheriff’s office instead.”

“Greens are fine.” I wasn’t hungry, but I wasn’t going to chance trouble over supper after everything I’d been into.

“Gus said they’d keep the horse, but you need to go over and help fix up a water bucket and feed trough. She’ll have to get by tonight on hay. Gus didn’t have any sweet feed.”

I didn’t want to say it, but I knew I had to. “Nadine wants a thousand dollars for her.”

“Isn’t that a bit pricey? She’s a pretty mare, but she’s not—” She stopped in mid-sentence. “We’ll see.”

“Cathi gave her a check for two hundred as a down payment.”

“If we get the horse, Walt will send her a check for that amount.”

“Mama Betts, we can’t spend money like that on a horse.” It almost killed me to say it, but it would hang there, unspoken, if I didn’t.

She sighed. “Bekkah, your father is making a lot of money in California. I think maybe he can get that horse for you.” She sighed again. “The horse is the easy part. It’s the rest of it that’s worrying me to death. I wonder what’s become of the Redeemer boy, Greg. I’m worried sick about him. And that Magdeline child too. What will become of them? And I’m concerned about what you’ve seen and learned, and what you’ve gotten into.”

“Are you going to call the sheriff?”

“I’m going to talk to Walt first. Then well see. That Joe Wickham,” she sighed for the third time, and she wasn’t given to sighing. “He’s a decent man, but he doesn’t want to take on any church groups. He didn’t say it, but I know he’s thinking if he takes after the Redeemers, then some of the other churches are going to get worried.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why should the other churches care?”

“They get touchy about rights. See, if Joe Wickham starts to look into one church, then he just might decide to look into another one. There’re a lot of little churches scattered all through this county, and they aren’t much more sophisticated than the Redeemers. They all think non-members are out to persecute them.”

“Joe wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, come election time, if the churches go against Joe, he’s out of office, and he knows it. And we both know the ministers carry a lot of sway on who votes for who in Chickasaw County.”

It was too much for me. “Mama Betts, if an older woman …” How was the way to say it?

“Well, go on.” She stopped cleaning the top of the stove and waited. “If an older woman what?”

“Gets involved with a younger boy, is it against the law?”

“How young?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Fifteen or sixteen.”

Mama Betts looked over her glasses. “There’s no law protecting young boys in Mississippi, but public opinion would go a certain distance to putting an end to such a thing. Now, is there a reason you’re asking this question?”

She suspected. The way she held her hands so still told me she was putting two and two together, and it was adding up to trouble.

“Do you think your friend Greg is being abused by some of those Redeemer women?” she asked. The idea troubled her a lot. “Did he ever insinuate such a thing?”

“Not really.”

“Bekkah, physical abuse is one thing. Sexual is another breed of cat. Those people can be in very serious trouble.”

“He never said such a thing at all. I was just wondering. Because of the selling babies and all. And I was thinking about Magdeline and if she’s really pregnant, and if she is, who it belongs to.”

“You’ve been doing some grown-up thinking for a thirteen-year-old girl.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Mama Betts.”

“No, child, you’re not. And that breaks my heart. This summer you’ve grown up, and what you’ve seen is the ugly side of what people can be. That’s the worst of growing up.”

“Greg said I lived in a fairy tale.”

Mama Betts picked up my empty plate. “And his life has been a living hell. I’m hoping we can change that for him.” She put the plate in the sink and turned to me. “If Greg wanted to come here to live, how would you feel about that?”

The question took me so completely by surprise that I must have shown my shock and disapproval. After what had gone on with Nadine, I never wanted to see Greg again. I didn’t think I could face him. But where would he go?

“Not a good idea, huh?”

“I don’t know. I mean, well, it’s just out of the blue.” I had to be careful because I didn’t know what I felt. “What would Arly say?”

“I’d say I’m not sharing my room.” Arly walked into the kitchen. “Can I go down to Rosie’s house to work on my algebra? She said she’d help me, and she makes the best grades in the class.”

“For two hours. Then home.”

“Bekkah’s the one you’d better keep home. I haven’t been in half the trouble she’s been in. Not in my entire life.”

I thought about rubbing a piece of cornbread into his just washed hair, but I knew Mama Betts would tear my butt off its hinges.

“Arly, I suspect your folks will be coming home soon. That algebra grade better be up from a C, or you and Bekkah both will spend the rest of the year in your rooms.”

When the car had cranked and left, Mama Betts wiped off the table for the second time. “I wanted Arly gone,” she said. “It’s time to call your father, and I think it might be easier for you if Arly wasn’t hanging around.”

Thirty-seven

M
AMA
Betts spoke with Effie for a moment, then gave the telephone to me. She got a book from The Judge’s study and went into her room, closing the door.

“Bekkah, what’s going on?” Effie asked. The line fuzzed, and I felt again how far away they were. I didn’t want to tell them. Not now. They’d feel helpless, and Effie would feel guilty, like if she’d never left, none of this would have happened. But it had all been going on before she left, and when she realized that, she was going to be mad.

“It might be better if I told Daddy,” I said. “I’ve got some questions … he could …” The Judge wouldn’t go all to pieces, but it was difficult to say that to Effie, because then she’d think the worst.

There was a pause. “I’ll get Walt.” She put the telephone down, and I could hear a buzz of conversation in the background. I hadn’t seen Rita Sheffield in years, but I recognized her little laugh. She was petite, almost doll-like, and no matter how old she got, she’d always sound young.

“Bekkah, honey, what’s wrong?” The Judge’s voice was warm, concerned but overlaid with a hint of humor. It was like saying that nothing really serious could be wrong, maybe just something that needed a drop of oil here or a screw tightened there.

“There’s been some trouble on Kali Oka Road, Daddy. Some serious trouble.”

“Can you give me the specifics?” The humor was gone.

Even as the tears started, I smiled. No matter how bad the trouble,
The Judge would always ask for specifics. The Detail Man, as Mama Betts called him.

I started at the beginning, about the day the Redeemers moved on the road and how they’d run me and Picket away. I went on to Greg and working at the barn, and how he’d gotten beaten once because I stole his shirt and how he’d been beaten again, with a coat hanger, because of the crucifix that had been painted black and had now disappeared. When I told him about Caesar, the horror of it was so clear that I had to stop talking for a little while. The Judge talked to me then. What he said didn’t matter, but he spoke softly and told me that he loved me. I didn’t do a good job of telling it, but at last it was all told. All except for Greg and Nadine. I didn’t see how that figured in with anything else, so I left it out.

“Bekkah, I want your solemn promise that you won’t go anywhere near those church people.” He was calm, but there was a steely edge to his voice. “Effie’s going to catch a flight home tomorrow. We’ll make the arrangements and call you back to tell you what time she’ll arrive. I’ve got a bit more work to do. I think I can finish up in a few days. Then I’ll sell the car and come on home by plane too. I don’t want to spend the time driving.”

“Daddy, I had to call Cathi Cummings.”

“I see.” He thought for a minute. “If you called her, I’m sure there was good reason.”

He was asking me what that good reason was, so I told him about the Redeemers snatching Picket and how the preacherman said I’d lose everything I loved and that I would suffer endlessly. “Cathi came over from the newspaper and made them give Picket up,” I finished. “She’s going to investigate them.”

“She’s a good reporter.” There was no trace of what he was feeling in his voice.

“What is it, Walt?”

I could hear Effie in the background, and I felt sorry for The Judge. He was going to have to figure out a way to tell her all of this and get her on a plane by herself.

“Let me talk to Effie,” I requested.

“Bekkah, I want your word that you’ll stay at home. You’ve got the horse at Jamey’s. Stay with Arly and your grandmother.”

“Okay.”

“Here’s your mother.”

There was a rush of breath. “Bekkah, are you okay? Walt looks like he’s going into shock. What is it? Is it Arly? Is your grandmother ill? Has something happened? I knew I shouldn’t have left home. I knew that if I didn’t watch out for you, something terrible would happen.”

“Mama.”

The dead calm of my voice frightened her into silence.

“I’m perfectly fine. Mama Betts and Arly are both just fine. Even Picket’s okay now, but it’s been tough around here. I told Daddy everything, and he’s going to tell you.”

“Bekkah, what is it?”

“Daddy will tell you all of it. It’s pretty long, and I made some bad decisions. I know that, but nothing terrible has happened. Not yet.”

“We’re coming home, sweetheart. We can leave tonight, just as soon as Walt—”

“I know Daddy has to finish his work, and it doesn’t matter right this minute. I just want you to know one thing.” I paused.

“What?”

“Everything here is perfectly fine. That’s all you have to remember. We need your help, yours and Daddy’s, to get everything straight, but so far …” Caesar was pretty awful. There was no fixing that, no going back and changing what he’d suffered. And Greg. And maybe Magdeline, if she was really pregnant. “I can’t wait for y’all to come home,” I finished.

“Walt just said he was booking a flight.” Effie was flustered. I knew she’d feel responsible. The flight to Mobile would be horrible for her. Kali Oka was her haven, her charm. For all of her life she’d believed that as long as she stayed on Kali Oka, she’d be able to protect her world. Her children. The people and things she loved. And somehow she’d been lured away. She’d gone to California, and she’d broken her magic charm. She’d even begun to dream of visiting other places, tempted by new sights and sounds. All along she’d expected to be punished.

“Mama, all of this started to happen before you left. I should have told you, but it didn’t seem so bad. It all started back in June, with the Redeemers and when the horses came. None of it has to do with you at all. It would have happened if you’d been here or not.”

“I’ll be home as soon as we can make the connections.”

She was already in the air, flying as hard toward me as she possibly could. California and all she’d experienced and liked was dust. I could hear it in her voice.

“Bekkah, you and Arly stay with your grandmother. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Put Mama Betts on the phone.”

I put the receiver down and knocked on Mama Betts’ door. She’d been waiting because she came with her slippers on.

“I’ve ruined everything for her,” I said softly. “She blames herself, just like I knew she would.”

“Effie has to learn not to take on everything. Control is an illusion, Bekkah. You remember that. And know that you can’t make everything right, not even for someone you love more than life itself.”

“Effie, darling,” she picked up the phone, “we’re all fine here. Yes, I think it would be best if you came on home now, but don’t get so worked up …”

I went into my room and closed the door. Now the summer was over. Really over. I could taste the end of it at the back of my throat.