The Buried Book (25 page)

CHAPTER 48

Why wasn’t the murder reported?

Jasper sank down onto the floor of the creaking barn with her diary, not believing it had been right under his nose all those months. Her troubled life tumbled out all over again. Hating the farm, getting caught by Hoyt, running giggle water to Big Bill, driving an empty cart up Door of Faith Road. He hesitated to read the final entries for fear he might throw the book again and lose it for good.

He pressed the diary to his heart, steeling himself, then turned the page.

October 1, 1928

There were no deliveries today. Hoyt had me watch his bull and his new heifer Clementine in the breeding pen instead. “You come and get me when he’s finished with her,” he said.

I didn’t know what he meant by finished. He had this sly smile on his face like he wanted me to ask, so I didn’t.

Clementine was such a pretty girl, just two years old and tawny brown. Hoyt’s bull Pluto is a monster twice her size. I’d never seen what goes on in a breeding pen before, so part of me was curious. The wicked part of me, I guess. Papa always brings our heifers to Mr. Hoyt. After a few days, they come back, but they’re not heifers anymore. A year later they’re cows.

Mr. Hoyt had tethered sweet Clementine to one of the fence posts. She could take a few steps side to side, but she couldn’t turn around. He let Pluto in the pen and then went up to the house, leaving me there to watch.

But I couldn’t watch. Not after a minute. Not after I saw what was happening to poor Clementine. I crouched down into a ball, covering my eyes and ears, but I could still hear her crying. It sounded like he was killing her. I can’t stop hearing it. My ears are ruined.

When it finally stopped, I just stayed there, crouched in my ball for Lord knows how long. Next thing I knew, Old Hoyt was tapping the top of my head. “I told you to come and get me.” He chuckled. When I looked up at him, he seemed real pleased. He was happy I was crying.

Jasper quickly turned the page and scanned the next entry. It was frighteningly brief.

November 7, 1928

Papa’s taking Blue Bell to Mr. Hoyt’s bull tomorrow. I begged him not to do it. I cried. He called me a silly little girl. Heifers have to become cows or else they get eaten.

“It’s better to be eaten,” I shouted.

If I had the nerve, I’d kill her myself. My God I wish I did.

I gave her Hoyt’s giggle water instead, and I told her not to cry. Only little girls cry and giggle, and we’re not little girls anymore, Blue Bell. She didn’t want to drink it. I’m so sorry, sweet girl. The burning water will make you feel nothing. Like you’re not there at all. Like it’s happening to somebody else.

Anybody but you.

The words wove together in loose and uneven ink as though the hand that had written them was half asleep. Or drunk. Jasper flipped to the next page and the next, but they were all empty. A sickness crept into his gut. He slammed the book closed and threw it back into the toolbox. He squeezed his eyes shut and was back in his nightmare, lying on the floor in his grandmother’s old house. He could see his mother, pinned down to a filthy bed by a hulking man—

Jasper ground his fists into his eyes to pulverize the image, but he could still hear her crying. He could feel the sweaty breath of the bus driver on his neck. He jerked away from it and covered his ears.

That no-good, filthy, son of a bitch. What did he do, Mom? What did he do to you? Why d—

“Jas—per!”

It was a woman’s voice. He stopped breathing and listened, convinced he’d imagined it. That damn bird was still chirping in the yard. A fly buzzed by his ear.

“Jasper?” the voice called again from the driveway. It was his aunt Velma.

“I’m here!” he whispered, then shook himself out of his stupor. He glanced at the diary in the bottom of the toolbox, then trotted out of the open end of the barn to the driveway, calling, “I’m here!”

“Oh, thank God in heaven! There you are!” Aunt Velma ran down the drive and swooped him up into her arms. Pain shot through his shoulder as she squeezed him, but he didn’t care. “My sweet Jasper. Let me look at you.” She set him back down and took stock of every bump and scrape and the sling wrapped around his arm.

“I’m okay.” He tried to smile, but tears came up instead. “Really, I’m alright. Are you okay?”

“Oh, honey. I’m just fine now.” Aunt Velma was dressed in a torn yellow dress he’d never seen before. There was a bloodstained bandage on her cheek, and the entire left side of her face was purple. The white of her left eye was red.

“Where are Uncle Leo and Wayne?”

“Out lookin’ for you. They’re a bit banged up . . . but that’s all.” She cupped his hands around his face. “The good Lord was watching over us.”

Jasper gazed past her at Timmy lying alone under his tree but said nothing about his thoughts on
the good Lord
.

Uncle Leo and Wayne got back to the wreckage of the cabin less than an hour later. Their ill-fitting clothes were splattered in blood. His uncle grinned widely. “Hey, look who’s decided to join us, Wayne!”

“Jas! You made it!” Wayne trotted up to him and tugged at his sling. “Some ride, huh? What’d ya do? Break it?”

“Dislocated. What, uh . . .” Jasper gaped at his cousin’s crusted red hands. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, this ain’t me. Me and Pop had to help a few folks break down cows. So where’d you land?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“I ended up on the other side of Jeddo Road. That twister threw me almost a mile. Ain’t that somethin’?” Wayne was doing his best to brag about it, but tears had left tracks in the mud on his face.

Aunt Velma dug the washbasin out from under a pile of fallen timbers and filled it up at the hand pump. The two men stripped down and rinsed the blood off, while she busied herself taking stock of what was left of the kitchen. The woodstove had been thrown clear across the yard.

“Wayne, these flies are going to chew your ass to bits. Go see what you can find to wear.” Uncle Leo picked a tattered curtain up off the ground and wrapped it around his waist. It was covered in pink flowers and would have been real funny if it hadn’t been for the purple bruises running the length of his body.

Jasper followed his cousin as he picked through the remains of the cabin. The feather mattress the boys shared was nowhere to be seen. The bed frame itself was upended in the garden. The bureau full of their clothes was gone. Wayne found a tablecloth lying in the grass. The wind had ripped it to tatters, but he wrapped it around himself anyway and kept on digging through what was left. Jasper’s ill-fitting overalls were suddenly a luxury. He made a motion to offer them to his cousin. Wayne waved him off. His entire back was scraped raw as if he’d been dragged down a gravel road.

“So, how’s the arm?” he asked.

“It’s alright.” Jasper did his best to shrug even though he couldn’t really move his shoulder.

Wayne’s eyes lit with amusement at the gesture.

“How is it? Out there?” Jasper tried not to stare at the angry rash running down his cousin’s spine.

“About like it is in here.” Wayne surveyed the mess that was left.

“Stop gabbin’, you two.” Uncle Leo kicked his way through the rubble to where the boys were standing. “We have a mountain of work to do before nightfall. Jasper, I need you to go survey the yard for whatever you can find. Take the wagon and haul back anything that’ll help us get through the night. Wayne, we need to go shore up that barn before it topples over. Jasper, you found my tools?”

“Yes, sir. Most of them, I think.” Jasper tried to sound casual about rummaging through the bottom of his uncle’s toolbox. His mother’s diary was buried back under the old pipe tobacco where he’d found it. Her words were still scrawling through his brain.

Anyone but you.

Jasper turned toward the barn to hide his face.

“Good. When you’re done searching, go help your aunt tend to the animals. We’ve been blessed, boys.” His uncle wrapped an arm around each of them.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Wayne forced a chuckle. “Gettin’ pulled out of the house, stripped naked, and thrown into the mud doesn’t make me feel so special. How about you, Jas?”

“Hey.” Uncle Leo smacked the back of his son’s head. “Not many farms still have a barn standing or a pot to piss in. That chicken coop over there looks like nothin’ happened at all, so you count your blessings, hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” both boys answered.

Jasper did as he was told and walked a circuit around the rubble, dragging a rusted wagon behind him. Dish towels, bedsheets, spoons—items from the house were scattered across the yard like broken Easter eggs. He climbed trees and fought his way through pricker bushes, collecting one item after another and placing them as carefully as he could on the wagon.

When he lifted Aunt Velma’s best soup pot up out of the mud, he found his old children’s Bible stuck in the muck beneath it. The pitiful consolation prize his mother had left him in the bottom of his suitcase the day she vanished. His worried aunt had placed it up on a shelf to watch over him.

Blue-eyed Baby Jesus smiled up at him from the dirt like it was all a big joke. The tornado, the fire, Mr. Hoyt—all of it.
Everybody’s a sinner, Jasper.

He wanted to pick up smirking Jesus and throw him across the field.

Uncle Leo’s words stopped him.
Count your blessings, boys.
He shouldn’t be completely ungrateful. He still had family after all. And a pot to piss in.

His eyes found the place on the horizon where his grandmother’s house had once stood. Jasper drew in a shaking breath and pulled the wagon onward, leaving Baby Jesus in the dirt.

CHAPTER 49

Murder is quite a serious charge. Isn’t there any other explanation?

The family spent the first night after the storm in the shored-up barn with the animals. They’d laid down what clean straw they could find for beds, and Wayne was stretched out a foot away from Jasper. He could tell from his cousin’s breathing he was asleep. His uncle snored in the far stall next to Aunt Velma. They’d been up for over thirty-six hours, and the work of slaughtering animals and gathering their home into piles had rendered them all dead tired. All except for Jasper.

A warm wind whistled through the open end of the barn. His eyes darted between the crossing shadows of mismatched timbers Uncle Leo and Wayne had nailed up wherever they could reach. Scraps of sawn lumber braced the walls against the ground like broken crutches. The whole structure creaked and shuddered with each strong gust, making Jasper flinch. The dull ache in his shoulder was a constant reminder of the storm, and he couldn’t shake the feeling he was falling over and over again.

Jasper sat up and took stock of the barn. His wagon of supplies had been wheeled into an open cow stall and inventoried. Broken timbers were stacked near the open end of the barn next to the shadow of his uncle’s toolbox. Jasper’s eyes fixed on the box. After a moment’s hesitation, he slipped out of his makeshift bed and crept over to it.

As he lifted the tool trays out and onto the ground, each clink and clank halted his breathing as he listened for his uncle’s snoring to change. Uncle Leo didn’t stir. A strong wind hit the side of the barn. A chorus of creaks and groans sent Jasper shrinking into a ball as he braced for impact. But nothing fell.
I’m scared, Mom. I wish you were here.

He lifted her diary from the bottom of the box and tried to imagine her voice.
Don’t be ridiculous, Jasper. Leo would never let his family or his animals sleep in this barn if it weren’t safe. Now get your butt to bed, or I’ll give you something to be scared about.

Uncle Leo’s tools went back in the box one agonizing clink at a time. Jasper crept back to his makeshift bed and fell asleep, clutching her book to his chest.

The next morning, Jasper woke to the sound of a car engine rolling down the driveway. The morning light was pouring in through the open end of the barn. He was the only one still curled up on the floor. Everyone else was up and out. Panicked, he felt for his mother’s diary under the straw.

A car door slammed.

“Christ Almighty,” a hoarse voice said from the other side of the barn wall. “Everybody out there alright?”

“Hey, Wendell!” his uncle called from across the yard. “It sure is somethin’, isn’t it? Folks in town are sayin’ it’s the biggest storm on record. They counted more than five tornados touchin’ down. All my life, I’ve never heard nothin’ like it.” His voice grew closer, and there was the sound of a hand clapping a shoulder. “Good to see you.”

“I came to help out and to see if everybody . . . Is he—?”

“He’s fine. Got knocked around a little, but he’s fine. He’s still lazin’ about in there.” A fist pounded the barn wall above Jasper’s head. “Why don’t you go get him?”

Jasper bolted up and found the book lodged in the straw under his own rear end.

Wendell appeared at the far end of the barn. “You in there, Son?”

“Yes, sir.” Jasper tucked the diary into the back pocket of his overalls while making a show of dusting off the hay.

“Let me get a look at ya.” The old man hobbled over to his ten-year-old with a wide grin. “I heard the storm parted your hair a bit.”

“A bit.” Jasper knew he’d never tell him how terrifying it had been. That sort of thing wasn’t what men did.

“How long you get to wear that?” Wendell tapped the sling.

“About a week. It’s not too bad.”

Wendell’s pale-blue eyes were glassy with tears that would not be let out. He patted him on the back instead. “We got our work cut out for us today, now don’t we?”

“Yes, sir.” Between rebuilding the cabin, tending to the animals, and cleaning up the yard, Jasper knew there would be precious little time to sit and read through his mother’s handwriting. Or try to remember the sound of her voice.

“Well, quit your daydreamin’, and let’s get to it!”

The morning bled into the afternoon as they pieced the farm back together again. A couple of distant neighbors showed up around lunchtime with several slabs of beef to thank Uncle Leo and Wayne for their help butchering the cows. Aunt Velma grilled the steaks over an open fire, and they all sat on the floor of the barn for an aftermath feast.

As Jasper poked at his food, his eyes kept wandering to the faces of the two men that had come to help. They were both older, older than his uncle. He found himself wondering if either of them had kept a jug of giggle water up in their hayloft back when his mother was making her deliveries. Maybe they’d spent time up at Black River and had been friends with Hoyt too.
What other secrets were they hiding?

“You alright, Son?” his father asked. “You’ve barely touched your steak.”

“Sorry. I guess I’m just not . . .” Jasper searched for the right word and gave his father an apologetic shrug. Wendell just patted his knee, and the old man’s trembling hand lifted another forkful to his mouth.

After Aunt Velma cleared the plates, Uncle Leo turned to the boys. “Jasper, I need you and Wayne to take the cart and tractor over to Jeddo. Pick up any decent-looking timbers you can find. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” they answered.

Ten minutes later, Wayne was driving the tractor up Harris Road, hauling his cousin in a cart behind him. The engine was too loud to talk over, which was fine with Jasper. He gazed out over the fallen trees toward Hoyt’s farm on the other side of the horizon.

After a couple of hours of navigating down roads littered with branches and helping Wayne drag splintered wood onto the cart, the tractor finally turned up Jeddo toward Hoyt’s farm. Jasper surveyed the surrounding fields, searching for the man who had ruined his mother. A wide swath of Hoyt’s fields had been stripped down to the dirt, but his barn was still standing. “Stop!” Jasper called out.

Wayne cut the engine. “What?”

There weren’t any usable pieces of lumber lying nearby, but Jasper didn’t care. He jumped down off the cart. “I just want to see if he’s alright.”

Jasper trotted up the drive to the barn. He’d never talked to Hoyt, having only glimpsed his sagging face through windows and knotholes. Now that he might have the chance, he had no idea what he’d say. A part of him worried he might just strangle the bastard to death. His feet slowed as he reached the door.

“Hello? Mr. Hoyt?” he called through the tightness in his throat and peeked inside. Nothing but the usual tools and implements lined the walls, but the ropes, crops, saddles, and pitchforks all looked like torture devices hanging in there. Jasper shuddered as he scanned the shadows of the dark barn. He could hear his mother whispering,
Lots of people been known to get hurt in haylofts, Jasper.

“He in there?” Wayne trotted up beside his cousin and shouted, “Hey there! Mr. Hoyt? It’s Wayne Williams. You need any help?”

No one answered.

Wayne let out a low whistle. “Shoot. I’d heard he’d slowed down a bit since his wife died, but man . . . There isn’t a cow in here!”

The boys skirted around the side of the barn. Behind it, a fenced pasture stretched all the way down to the creek, separating Hoyt’s farm from theirs. They’d run through it on their way to school more days than not and knew it well. It was empty.

The infamous bull, Nicodemus, snorted at them from his ragged holding pen.

“Hey, pal. Not so scary now, are you?” Wayne kicked at his fence. “Where’s your papa?”

Nicodemus bellowed, then charged at them. Both boys jumped back despite the fencing.

“Easy there.” Wayne chuckled and turned to Jasper. “See? I told you this was the meanest bull in the county.”

The enormous black beast let out another snort and brandished his horns at them. He was a killer. Jasper’s eyes traced the twenty-foot by twenty-foot pen abutting the pasture.
This is where she sat,
he thought.
This is where he made her watch.

No one had ever explained to Jasper exactly how a heifer became a cow, or a girl became a mother for that matter, but he’d seen what goes on between goats in his uncle’s barn.
We’re not little girls anymore, Blue Bell.

He had to shake off the image of his mother trapped inside the breeding pen with Hoyt. The weight of him pinning her down.

“You alright?” Wayne had seen him flinch.

“Hmm? Yeah. Fine.”

“Don’t look like he’s here. We should be getting back.” Wayne shrugged and headed back to the tractor. Jasper gave the pasture one last survey. Something moved over in the grass at the far end.
A hat? Was Hoyt out there mending a fence?

Then it was gone. As he turned to leave, his eyes fell on the gate separating the bull’s pen from the pasture. He glanced back at Wayne adjusting the logs on the cart, then gazed out over the field again.

“God help you, you son of a bitch,” Jasper whispered. He leaned over and unlatched the gate.