The Ghosts of Varner Creek (24 page)

It was Uncle Colby who spoke for her, a rare thing indeed, "It's about your daddy, Sol. He’s done shot himself."

What? I thought. "Shot himself . . ." I repeated. "When did he shoot hisself?"

Aunt Emma found her voice again, "Today, Sol, this very evening. They found him in town. Apparently he had got his hands on a pistol and, well, he shot himself with it."

I couldn't believe this was being added to everything else. How was a twelve year old supposed to deal with all these horrible things happening at once? In one day I'd found my murdered sister‘s body, and now the man who most likely had done it, our own father, had killed himself. And God only knew what had become of Mama. I waited for the tears to come again, but they didn't. Whether it was because I was out of tears by now, or simply couldn’t make myself spend them on Pap, I didn’t know. It was all like some cruel joke fate was playing on me. The weight of it all pressed down on me like a ton of stone. "Why?" I asked, without really thinking about the awkwardness of the question. Two seconds of reflection would have been enough for me to figure it out, but the question had come automatically.

The adults in the room all looked at each other thinking the same thing but nobody wanting to be the one to say it out loud. Aunt Emma lent her delicate touch, "We don't know, baby. But I reckon it might have had something to do with Sarah today. But don't nobody know any particulars," she added. "There's going to be plenty of speculatin' about, but right now don't nobody know anything for sure, you understand?"

I did. I understood Pap shot himself because he had been found out about killing Sarah, and probably Mama, too. I understood that I didn't have a family anymore, that they were all dead. I understood I was an orphan, made so by my own evil Pap.
Ignorance is bliss
, I thought. Because the more I was understanding things the more that I wished I didn't.

Aunt Emma explained to me what would happen. Tomorrow the town's carpenter would be busy making two caskets, one big and one little, and they'd both be buried in the cemetery. I was sure Sarah needed to be in the ground quickly. When we pulled her out of the creek the decayed flesh had smelled horrible. "I'm going to ask that they be placed apart, though," said Aunt Emma. "I just think given things that would be best, unless you think otherwise."

"No Ma’am,” I said. I was sure Sarah wouldn’t want to be buried next to Pap.

“
I reckon we’ll bury her in one of Amber’s dresses if that’d be alright.”

“
No,” I told her. “She’d want to be in her princess dress.” I knew it was filthy, and they had probably had to cut it off of her, but I felt that was what Sarah would have wanted.

Aunt Emma looked as though she’d protest, but when she saw my eyes she just said, “I’ll see what can be done.”

“
So what’s going to happen to me?" I asked.

Uncle Marcus spoke up, "We've been talking 'bout that. Your Aunt Emma and Uncle Colby say you're welcome to stay here with them, but I'd also like to have you come and stay with me and my family," he told me. "You ain't never met your Aunt Mary Jo nor your other cousins, but I think you'd be real happy down that way. Your granny lives there, too, with your Aunt Candace and her family. We've got plenty of room and there's a good school for you, lots of kids your age and things you’ve probably never seen here in town. I'd make sure you didn't have to worry about anything a boy needs."

Aunt Emma also spoke, "We think it best if we let you think about that, Sol. We all love you and would be happy to have you as our own. And you don't have to decide tonight, not after all that's happened. You just think about it, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," I told her. I was surprised Uncle Marcus had invited me to come and live with his family. He didn't even know me, nor I him, really. And his wife and kids had never even laid eyes on me before. It was strange to think that he'd be so willing to bring me home and into his family like that. But I guess blood is thicker than water and he seemed sincere about not only being willing to have me, but also wanting me. My immediate reaction was that I'd stay with Aunt Emma and Uncle Colby, though. I'd grow up here with George and stay in Varner Creek, the only home I'd ever known.

I went back to bed thinking about what had happened. I imagined Pap in my mind holding a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. I wondered if he was drunk when he did it, and if so, would he still have done it if he had been sober. It didn't matter, though. They'd have hung him anyway even if he hadn't done himself in.
Why'd you do that to them, Pap?
I asked the stillness.
What possible reason could you have had to kill poor Sarah?

The next day after breakfast we all put on our Sunday clothes and headed back into town. Uncle Marcus had gone back to Miss Thomas' the night before and promised that by mid-morning he'd have everything set up. He paid the carpenters and paid for the plots in the cemetery, and wouldn’t take any of the offers of cash from either Miss Thomas or Aunt Emma. A lot of folks wanted to chip in but he wouldn't hear of it. It was the least he could do, he told them, the only thing left he could do.

We got to town around ten and the second hole in the cemetery was already being dug. Sarah and Pap had already been nailed in their caskets. Neither one was fit for a viewing. Sarah was decayed and eaten up beyond recognition, and Pap's skull was lopsided after losing its left side. He had put the gun to his temple instead of in his mouth, I heard someone say during the burial, and half his head went flying. Most all of the town turned out. It was one of the biggest things to happen in Varner Creek since time remembered, and word had spread fast. How that many people knew about it in just twenty-four hours was beyond me, but small towns are like that. I knew everyone would find out pretty quickly, but this must have been like a wildfire spreading through town.

I got more hugs and apologies than I knew what to do with. People I couldn't remember ever talking to before were calling me by my first name and extending their deepest sympathies. Miss Thomas hugged me every time I got within arm’s length of her. Her arms were like a frog's tongue chasing flies, unexpectedly flying out at me when her cup of pity runneth over.

We buried Sarah first and I cried as I watched the small wooden box being lowered into the hole. The preacher said some nice words, quoting the Bible a lot. Something about how the Lord brings death and makes alive, takes down to the grave and up again. I wasn't paying attention, really. I kept thinking about her in my dream, lying next to me hand in hand, pleading not to go back into the dark alone. I hoped I had accomplished what she wanted. Maybe she could rest now that she wasn't in that hole back at the creek, wrapped in metal and held down by stone.

Pap's burial didn't have quite as many patrons. A few thinned out here and there, but most still walked over since they were already there and their curiosity wouldn't let them leave the show until the final curtain. It was a quite a different speech from the preacher. He did the same ashes to ashes, and still quoted the Bible a lot, but instead of verses about children in God's hands and the beauty of heaven, he spoke about repenting of one's sins and the Lord's judgment. "And Job tells us, 'What will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? He repays a man for what he has done; He brings upon him what his conduct deserves.'"

It was probably the most accusing eulogy anybody would ever hear in Varner Creek, but the people expected it. Everyone knew what'd he done and they couldn't see the salvation of his soul. Miss Thomas tried to let God have his judgment and put hers aside, but it was evident on her face as she watched them put him in the ground the way she felt. She couldn’t help but to nod approvingly with the preacher’s words. She’d cared a lot for Sarah, and Mama, too. And the expression was the same everywhere. Well, almost. Everyone there hadn’t come to pay their respects to Pap, they were there to wish him a merry one-way trip to hell and to see that he was on his way, but Uncle Colby had some mixed feelings. He remembered just wishing Pap could have gotten right with himself, he’d tell me later.

As for me, it seemed eternal watching Pap go back from whence we all come. The preacher's eulogy droned on, "For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." And in this way Pap ended up facing the jury after all. Even in death he couldn't escape the town's condemnation. The preacher was handing down the sentence with every word and all the people seemed to applaud his sentence with their nodding heads and Amens. Truth be told, I found myself agreeing with everything I heard, too. He had done such a horrible thing. I knew his own childhood and life had been rough, but he’d taken so much from me, and was never really nice to me, not in all those years. And Sarah was as sweet and innocent as a human being can be. And lastly poor Mama, they hadn't found her at the creek. At least not yet, anyway. She was probably drifting down to sea as the creek's inhabitants slowly consumed her. She had only ever tried to make the best of things. They didn't deserve what he had done; nobody could ever have deserved that. I thought about those things as he disappeared into his grave and I found myself furious at him.

"Guess you’ll be findin’ hell," I heard myself say. It was quiet, a private condemnation from me to him, but Uncle Marcus standing close by heard me. So did Miss Thomas, and neither one tried to dissuade my anger. They felt it, too, and figured if anyone was entitled to it, it was me. I walked away before the preacher finished. Let the worms have him, I thought. I hope they chew him up and crap him out for a hundred years. A quick bullet to the head by his own hand was better than the way Sarah and Mama went. I knew it wasn't right to think such things, but my anger stirred with memories of Mama and Sarah.

When all was said and done we went home. Uncle Marcus came with us, and so did Miss Thomas. All that afternoon, well-wishers stopped by extending their condolences. We had pies, casseroles, cobblers, and just about every confection known to man delivered to our door. The preacher came and wanted to know if I needed spiritual guidance in my time of need. Luckily Aunt Emma said she was seeing to that. Miss Thomas told Aunt Emma that if they were tight on space she'd be willing to take me in and see to it that I had a happy home to live in. Aunt Emma thanked her but said she was determined to have me under her roof if I was willing.

I went walking through the woods with George for a while that afternoon mainly to escape all the looks everyone was giving me. We talked about the rumors Francine and Amber had told us they heard in town, about how really Uncle Marcus had shot my Pap but nobody would say so. "I don't think he did," said George. "He doesn't seem the type of man to lie about such a thing if he didn't do it."

"I don't know," I told him. "Mama was his sister. And from what I gather there weren't any friendship between him and Pap." Nothing had been directly told to me yet, but all one had to do was look and listen to get a feel for things.

"I heard my folks tellin' Amber and Francine to hush up with such rumors, and that there weren't any truth to them," said George. "So if they say Uncle Marcus didn't shoot him, then that's what I’m gonna believe, too." Did it really matter? I wondered.

When we went back home Uncle Marcus was sitting on the porch. He looked like he had been waiting for us with his pocketknife out and George's old chicken stick, the one he duplicated Pickett's charge with, being whittled upon again by his skillful hands. He looked like he was carving chain links into the wood. I imagined that given enough time, he would have turned out something uniquely artistic. It was absolutely the only thing about him that reminded me of Pap in years to come. They both had that way with wood. He saw us coming up and asked if I'd join him on the porch. "Why don't you go get washed up, George. I want to have a talk with Sol for a bit."

"Yessir," said George, and he disappeared into the house.

"Your Uncle Colby told me 'bout what some folks said today there in town, 'bout how I might have shot your daddy," he said. "You hear any of that?"

"Yessir," I told him, "Francine and Amber told me about it, but I don't reckon I believe it."

He stopped whittling, "Well, I want to tell you, Sol, as your uncle and as one man to another, I didn't shoot your daddy." He took a breath and organized his thoughts, "Truth is I might have after I heard about Sarah and the state she was in." He seemed to catch himself saying more than he meant to, "About how she’d been wrapped in the same kind of chicken wire y’all had at home, and how she’d been sunk down like she was. And the sheriff told me he suspects the same thing might have happened with Annie, I mean your Mama, but the rains probably carried her off." He looked out over the fields and watched some cows not too far off munching away, "Your daddy and I never got along, you see. Even when we was younger, we didn't think much of each other." He looked at me and realized I didn't need the history lesson. "But after I talked to your Uncle Colby and the sheriff I went back to my room at Miss Thomas' house. She was out talkin' with Dr. Wilkins and the preacher, and when I went into my room, there was your daddy." He looked at me with his intense eyes. I hadn't heard this part of things. All I'd been told is Pap had been found shot in town, but nobody told me where or by whom, and I didn't think to ask. Unbeknownst to me Uncle Marcus made a decision at that moment. "Your Pap was there, already passed on. I don't know why he was in my room, or even how he knew where to look. Might be he thought of shooting me, might be he wanted to talk, I can't say. But I opened the door and found him in there, dead by his own hand." I suppose his hand went back to carving the stick out of lack of anything else to do with it, "It's been an unfair lot that you've been given, Sol, but I wanted you to know I didn't shoot your daddy."