The Promise of Jesse Woods (37 page)

“I stay on the hill till dark all the time.”

“In the rain? Just hand me a flashlight.”

I gave her one and watched her pull up the next incline. Over that ridge the road dipped, then flattened out until the next hill. I pointed my bike toward home, then looked back. Her legs pumped, muscles straining. She was nothing but muscle and bone and that long hair chopped short.

Water dripped from my hair and my shirt was wet and muddy from the back tire spray. Daylight faded and I looked at the treetops for red eyes or flapping wings.

People’s lives turn on a dime, on some split decision they make to turn left or right. On some compulsion to be different from their fathers and act instead of passively looking on at life. Destinies are determined by such things. Mine was changed that night when I couldn’t let Jesse ride alone. Call it hubris or fear that Jesse might be the one to die, but I put my feet on the pedals and pointed my bike toward the haunted house, the little cemetery, and the gate that would take us to Gobbler’s Knob.

Every mud puddle, every fallen tree branch, was a step closer to Daisy. Jesse rode with purpose, pedaling hard. When she came to the end of the road and the gate, we couldn’t get the lock off the chain. The rain fell in sheets. I suggested we turn back. She scowled and lifted her bike up and over the gate, letting it fall with a bang. She scampered over, hopped on, and rode away.

“Wait up!” I yelled.

“Go home!”

I picked up my bike and tried to do the same thing she had done, but when I crawled to the top of the gate, my pants got hung up and I put my hand on the rusty, sharp edge of the metal. I had a sudden fear of falling, of losing my balance and hitting my head and bleeding to death. I had visions of the Mothman. Maybe I was the one who would die. He had warned me.

“Give me your hand,” Jesse yelled. She was standing in the muck with her face into the rain. Her shirt was soaked and I felt I should look away but couldn’t. “Come on, we’ve burnt the daylight!”

Seeing my pants were caught, she reached up and yanked on them, ripping a hole. But I was free. I jumped down and hopped on my bike.

I kept the flashlight on as we rode, obsessed with the Mothman. We bounced along and hit a dense forest with trees spreading over us and blocking the water. The road was almost dry underneath and pedaling became easier. My light hit Jesse’s rear and I saw the mud splatters up her wet shirt.

“How are you going to bring her back?” I said as I pulled up behind her.

“She’ll ride in back like she always does.”

“And what happens when the sheriff finds you and takes her away?”

“I ain’t telling you nothing about the plan, PB. You help me get her. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Jesse stopped talking and slowed. When I caught up to her, she was wiping at her face.

“We’ll get her,” I said.

The road was impossibly long but Jesse seemed to have an innate sense, a magnet that drew her. We came to a fork with three choices. We could go right down a paved road, left to a dirt road, or straight up the hill.

“I remember this,” she said. “I remember looking out the window and thinking we’d never make it in our car because it was bogging down. Come on, we’re almost there.”

I rode behind her as long as I could, then got off and pushed, running uphill. We came out at what looked like the edge of a field. I could only see as far as the flashlight beam but the land looked pretty and the trees were flecked with yellow and red and brown.

“Through here,” she said, riding down a short driveway and jumping off. “Right there’s the house on that knoll yonder.”

I saw light through the trees but the rain picked up again and I put my head down and followed. We parked our bikes on the other side of an oak tree and Jesse started for the house.

“What about dogs?” I said.

“We’ve come too far to be scared of dogs,” she said, running toward the house. She stopped by a small shed. “You stay here. I’ll go look in the window.”

I looked in the trees. “No, I’m coming with you.”

“Suit yourself, but don’t make a sound.”

We crept toward the house. It had a covered front porch that reminded me of the Waltons’ farmhouse. I kept the flashlight off and worried we would trip, but Jesse seemed to have cat vision. She rose up, peeking over the windowsill.

“That’s the kitchen,” she whispered.

“It’s late. Daisy should be in bed by now, don’t you think?”

“Let’s hope so. It’ll be easier if she’s asleep.”

We walked to the back, where there was a screened-in porch that held a white contraption with rollers on top. “What in the world is that?”

“An old-timey washing machine. See the crank handle? Mama used to have one of those but we got rid of it.”

I heard someone talking inside. Jesse peeked, then ran to the other side of the house. Rain pitter-patted from the roof in pools beneath us. Jesse found another window, a dim light glowing inside.

“There she is!” she said in a whisper. She reached up to knock, then held back.

“What’s she doing? Is she in bed?”

Jesse stared, then slid down, her hands still on the windowsill. “She’s playing. She’s got a doll in a stroller. Feeding
it a bottle.” She pulled herself back up, then slid down again. “I thought she’d be crying her head off.”

“At least they’re taking good care of her.”

She scanned the room through the rain-drenched window. “There’s a real bed in there, too. Not just a mattress on the floor. And a dresser with a mirror.” Jesse looked at me, her chin puckering slightly. “She’s wearing a new dress. And somebody’s put a bow in her hair.”

I shivered and thought of the return trip home. Daisy could catch pneumonia. The last thing Jesse needed was to lose another sister.

Jesse punched me in the shoulder. “Come on.”

She moved to the front of the house under the porch, where we could get out of the rain. The temperature had dropped and I could see our breath. It wouldn’t be long until winter was here.

“Are you having second thoughts?” I said.

“Mama always said no matter how bad things got, it was better to be with your family. People down in Kentucky offered to take me and Daisy until Mama got on her feet. But she knew we should stay together.”

“But if Daisy is being cared for . . . ,” I said, my voice trailing off.

“We used to have a Sears and Roebuck catalog. The big thick one. Daisy would flip to the toys and just stare at the dollhouses. She always talked about having a baby with a stroller and a bottle to feed it. No wonder she’s not asleep.”

She stared into the darkness. “I don’t get it, Matt. If
God cares about sparrows and how many hairs you got, why does he let mean daddies come back?”

We had never talked about sparrows or hairs, and I wondered where Jesse had heard those concepts. Maybe from a radio preacher. It was the same conversation we’d had before, but my answers were changing.

“Maybe God lets us choose. Maybe he lets the good and bad happen so we can work it all out ourselves.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“That’s the way it’s starting to appear to me.”

The rain slowed and a little light peeked through the clouds from the moon, but only for a moment. I wondered what this secluded place looked like in the daylight.

“I wish everything could be like it was,” Jesse said. “Mama sitting on the couch and Daisy bringing her flowers. We never had much, but we was happy.”

“You’ll be happy again, Jesse,” I said, trying to deliver the line as believably as I could.

“Easy for you to say. You got two parents at home and the whole world spread out for you. What do I got?”

“You’ve got Daisy. And you’ve got me.”

She glanced up at me but didn’t say anything. Then she went back to Daisy’s window and looked inside. I followed and knelt beside her.

“She’s getting tired. When she rubs her eyes like that, she’s ready to plop. I’ve seen her go to sleep standing up in the middle of the room and then she’ll just fall over like a cut tree. It’s the funniest thing you ever seen.”

I put a hand on Jesse’s back and she turned, the glow
from the bedroom on her face. I wanted to say how pretty she was, how much I cared. When our eyes met, I didn’t know if she felt the same way about me or if she was turning some rock over in her mind to look for worms. She leaned forward, water dripping from her face, and I met her lips with mine. I’d always heard that you never forget your first kiss. Whoever said that was right.

Jesse pulled back and brushed the water from her face. “Come on, let’s go,” she said, turning. “I don’t want to drag Daisy out in this.”

I smiled and followed. “Right.”

The world felt like a better place. I could see Jesse coming to our house, maybe sleeping on the couch. I would explain to my parents. They would help us. And if they didn’t, I’d work out some other plan. And I would steal another kiss before morning. And when the sun came up, everything would be all right. And Jesse could take a shower and get warm.

As we reached our bikes, lights shone in the trees and the rumble of an engine sounded.

We hid behind the oak and watched the truck pass, pulling into the driveway. Jesse looked like she had seen the Mothman. We had forgotten about her father.

“That was him.”

“Who’s the other man?”

“I don’t know.”

“We should get out of here before he sees you.”

“I ain’t letting him take Daisy.”

Before I could protest, she ran toward the house, her
silhouette moving into the red of the truck’s brake lights. When the truck stopped, she went to the right, out of sight.

The truck doors opened and both men got out and slammed the doors. I sat by the tree, frozen, unable to move. I closed my eyes and wished this were a bad dream. When I opened them, I was still there by our bikes and a bare lightbulb came on over top of the men on the front porch. The door opened slightly and Jesse’s father pushed it wider.

When the door shut, I ran toward the house. There was yelling inside. The truck was still running, so the men didn’t plan on staying long. I found Jesse at Daisy’s window. She had the screen off and was trying to push on the glass but the window was stuck.

“I can’t get it open,” she said.

“Here,” I said, falling in the mud on all fours. “Step up.”

She hesitated, then put her muddy shoes on my back and it gave her enough height to reach the top of the window. A second later I heard a creak and voices inside like they were right next to us.

“You don’t have no right to take her,” a woman said. Her voice was sharp and husky.

“I got every right,” Jesse’s father said, a little louder than the woman, his words slurred. “She’s my daughter.”

“You turn around and get out of here, Wendell,” another man said. “You ain’t taking her in the shape you’re in.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“We’ll call the law,” the woman said.

I was so engrossed in the conversation I forgot about Jesse until the pressure left my back. I looked up to see her crawling into the room. I stood and peered in the window as Jesse closed the bedroom door and locked it. The argument escalated. Daisy looked at her sister as if in a daze, holding on to the stroller with one hand and the baby doll cradled in the crook of her arm.

Jesse tried to pick Daisy up, but the stroller and doll got in the way. Jesse grabbed the stroller and jerked it away, and Daisy let out a squeal that Jesse caught with one hand clamped over her sister’s mouth.

“You want to go home, don’t you?”

Daisy nodded, tears coming to her eyes.

“Then you need to leave these.”

Daisy shook her head violently.

“We ain’t got time for this,” Jesse hissed. She grabbed the doll and tossed it on the bed.

Daisy reared back to yelp, but Jesse increased the pressure on her mouth.

“She can’t breathe,” I said from the window.

Jesse turned and gave me a look. Then she whispered something in Daisy’s ear and the girl nodded. Jesse let go and grabbed the doll and stroller, handing them to me through the window.

“See, Matt’s going to help us take your baby home. Aren’t you, Matt?”

“Sure.”

“Bottle!” Daisy said, pointing.

“Yeah, and your bottle too,” Jesse said, handing it to me.

Jesse picked up Daisy and passed her through the window. I put the stroller and doll down and took the child, who wound her arms around my neck and held tightly.

“Go on,” Jesse whispered as she climbed out the window.

I turned but heard a noise from the room that took my breath away. Somebody was jiggling the knob.

“Daisy? You in there?”

I ran past the porch with Daisy in one arm and the baby and stroller in the other. The bottle fell but I didn’t stop. I heard a dull thud behind me, as if a body had fallen, then footsteps catching up.

“Get her to my bike,” Jesse said, pain in her voice.

“What happened?”

“Just get her to the bike.”

I heard a bang and then another, followed by a splintering sound coming from the house. We reached the bikes and Daisy whimpered. “My dress is getting wet!”

Jesse grabbed her and put her in the basket. “Hang on tight!”

She took off toward the road. I pushed my bike to the driveway and looked back as someone yelled, “Somebody’s been in here, Wendell! There’s mud all over. And the girl’s gone.”

I pulled the flashlight from my pocket and turned it on but it was little help because it bounced and jiggled wildly. I heard Daisy cry, begging for her stroller, which I had dropped behind the oak tree. Jesse told her to be quiet.

We were almost to the place in the road where it split in three directions when I heard the engine rumble.

“Here he comes, Jesse!”

“Faster, Matt!” she said, her bike rattling and jangling.

Lights in the tops of the trees above us.

Jesse flew past the road that went to the left and headed straight. I followed and the road quickly dipped as the headlights cast shadows on the hill. I slammed on my brakes and stayed with Jesse in the dip as we listened to the engine. If it came toward us, we were sunk. Instead, it barreled down the hill and out of sight.