The Steep and Thorny Way (22 page)

UNCLE CLYDE CARRIED ME TOWARD HIS CAR. I HAD
vague memories of townspeople in red ribbons and white suits staring, gaping, as the man who presumably killed my father lugged my limp body toward the family of a boy who might lie dead on a riverbank—a boy who might have died because of the man who carried me, or at least because of people like him. I heard the reverend murmur something about going to identify the body, and the next thing I knew, my head was jostling against the half-opened window in the backseat of Uncle Clyde's automobile. My stepfather and mother sat in silence in the front seat, and the wind from their open windows screamed past my ears. I stared out at the passing fields and farmhouses and the white clouds smeared across the sky.

We neared a brown-skinned man in a dark suit and a derby hat who lumbered down the highway with a limp. My jaw dropped,
and I sat up straighter, and I saw him—my father—right there in broad daylight, wandering in the direction of our house. Daddy raised his head and met my eyes, but the car sailed past him and drifted around a bend, stealing him from view.

“Are you all right?” asked Mama, turning toward me. “I heard you gasp.”

I slumped back down in the seat and closed my eyes.

BACK AT HOME, MAMA TOOK HOLD OF MY RIGHT ARM
in the driveway and steered me straight toward the front door.

“I want to look for Joe,” I said, pulling away.

“No.” She pulled back, refusing to let go. “You're not going anywhere by yourself.”

“Wait,” said Uncle Clyde from the stone walkway behind us. “I want to speak to Hanalee in private.”

“About what?” asked Mama, gripping my shoulders.

“I just . . . I need a few words with her”—he readjusted his spectacles on his nose—“to clear up the trouble between us. Help her get seated on the porch here.”

I didn't possess the strength or the clarity of mind to keep fighting to run off, so I allowed Mama to guide me up the porch steps and sit me down on our wooden swing built for three.

“Everything will be all right.” She kissed the top of my head and patted my shoulder. “Just stay here. Recover. Behave. I'll be inside if you need me.”

I nodded and rested my head in my hands, my elbows digging into the tops of my thighs. I focused on all the splinters sticking out from the worn boards of the porch and saw, out of the tops of my
eyes, Uncle Clyde's black oxfords clomping up the steps. Then the shiny shoes came to a stop.

“I don't think he's dead, Hanalee,” he said, his voice so calm it made me shudder.

“Hmm,” I said in a low murmur. “You must be like Mildred, then. Gifted with premonitory senses.”

“The northern Willamette River's too far. I was thinking about the logistics on the car ride home. If you were with him in the woods just this morning, he couldn't have hiked over the hills that quickly.”

I raised my head. “Unless someone fetched him and threw him into the river.”

“If someone wanted him dead, they'd have killed him in the woods instead of going to the trouble of driving him seventeen miles away.”

I sat back against the swing and couldn't decide if that statement comforted or troubled me.

Uncle Clyde took hold of one of the white posts that supported the porch overhang. “The Adders and I asked the sheriff to make telephone calls to try to find the two of you. He contacted ports at both major rivers. Some other poor body likely washed ashore and made for a terrible coincidence.” He rubbed his left temple, ruffling the short hair that came to a stop above his ear. “I'm sure the mistake is killing the Adders right now.”

“They don't care about Joe.”

“Don't make such quick assumptions about what parents feel for their children. Including stepparents.”

I folded my arms over my chest.

“I want you to know,” he said in a voice that quavered with emotion, “that I've made a great many sacrifices for your safety, Hanalee. I've even sacrificed the safety of others to keep you alive.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Don't glare at me.” He let go of the post. “Everything I've done since the death of your father has been with the primary intention of keeping you and your mother alive and unharmed.”

I blinked at him. “Are you trying to tell me that you married my mother to keep me safe?”

“In some ways, yes. I love your mother dearly, of course, but my reasons for becoming her husband included protecting the two of you.”

I sat there, stiff and silent, while he tucked his thumbs into his coat pockets and seemed to wait for my response.

“Well?” he asked. “Do you have anything to say to that?”

“Yes.” I pushed my feet against the floorboards and rocked myself on the swing. “What—or
who
, as you put it—did you sacrifice to keep me safe?”

He tapped his fingers against his sides. “I'd rather not say.”

“Why not?”

He exhaled a short breath and shifted his face toward the highway. “Because we're living in corrupt times, Hanalee. Even the best intentions can sound cruel when spoken aloud.”

I kept rocking and glowering.

“If Joe shows up here,” said Uncle Clyde, “if he didn't actually run off to Washington as you claim, I'd like to tell him that I have a friend in Seattle, an old medical-school classmate of mine, who
could use an assistant to help with filing and other organizational tasks in his office.”

I brought the swing to a stop. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I want to help Joe find work. I know his time spent in prison will keep him from acquiring the type of position he once aspired to.” Uncle Clyde removed his spectacles and used the hem of his coat to wipe a smudge from the left lens. “This friend of mine . . . he has a brother who's like Joe. He'll be compassionate toward the boy. Joe would be safe and well cared for. There's some tolerance in my friend's community.”

“Why?” In spite of myself, I looked toward the opening to the woods between the firs on the edge of our property. “Why do you want to help him?”

A swallow bobbed down Uncle Clyde's throat. He placed his specs back upon his nose. “To make amends.”

My lips parted, but no words formed.

“If he shows up in this area again . . .” Uncle Clyde wrapped his arms around himself and swiveled in the direction of the woods, as if he, too, sensed Joe's presence there. “Tell him, if he sets aside his anger toward me, I'll do whatever I can to make sure no one puts him back in that prison. I'm well aware of the state's push for sterilization of homosexuals, and I don't agree with the practice in the slightest.” He swallowed again. “It'll only cause more anguish.”

“Why do you need to make amends, Uncle Clyde?” I cocked my head at him. My heart pounded, but I kept talking. “What did you do?”

My stepfather returned his gaze to me. “Joe was the sacrifice.”

I gripped the bottom edge of the swing.

He shifted his weight between his legs and failed to elaborate.

“Are you admitting to me,” I asked, my heart thumping faster, my palms slick with sweat, “that you allowed an innocent sixteen-year-old boy to head to prison . . . and not a guilty one?”

“You don't—”

“Is that what you mean by a ‘sacrifice'?”

“It's not . . .”

“Not what?” I asked. “Not as bad as it sounds?”

“It's not what you think,” said Uncle Clyde. “Just . . . just know I'm on Joe's side. I want him to be all right.”

I stared up at my stepfather without blinking.

He nodded toward the front door. “Now go inside and drink a couple of glasses of water. And eat. You're probably dehydrated and hungry.”

I refused to tear my eyes away from him.

“Go on now.” He opened the door for me. “I don't want you getting sick.”

“I'm going to look for him.”

“You'll do no such thing. You tore your mother's heart to pieces last night. I know you don't care for me in the slightest right now, but show the woman who raised you and loves you some respect.” He pulled the door farther open. “Come inside. For her.
Now
.”

With a deep groan from the bottom of my throat, I pushed myself off the swing and did as he asked, for the sake of my mother, but not without one last glare at him, and one last peek at the woods.

CHAPTER 18

DESPERATE UNDERTAKINGS

RESTING ALL AFTERNOON ALLOWED
me to stay wide-awake and alert at night when Mama and Uncle Clyde retired to their bedroom. They closed their door, and through the wall I heard murmurings and the squeaks of dresser drawers—and then private sounds I didn't care to hear. I pushed my hands over my ears and told myself,
Drink it, drink it, drink it
. . .

I slid out the box of toys and Klan notes and derringer ammunition from beneath my bed and dug around for the bottle of Necromancer's Nectar.

Another fiery spoonful.

Another rush of heat exploded through my chest, my stomach, my head, my extremities.

This time around, I remembered to screw the cap back on and tuck the bottle into its hiding place, and as soon as I pushed the box back beneath my bed, my hair, too, seemed to catch fire. Flames scalded my cheeks and my neck, and I couldn't stand the heat of my burning curls against my back a moment longer.

Time jumped forward again. I found myself in the hall. Then the middle of the staircase. The kitchen. I fetched silver scissors from Mama's worktable and cut my hair until my skin cooled and the fire died. Dark locks coiled around my feet like a pile of lifeless snakes.

Lifeless adders
.

The front door.

The front yard.

The highway.

The crossroads.

A fog that smelled of briny ocean air veiled the patch of road that lay before me. The compulsion to seek more answers propelled my feet forward.

Using the toe of my right shoe, I drew a circle in the dirt. The mist dampened the skin of my now-bare neck and kissed the tip of my nose. I stepped inside the marking and peered ahead at an undulating mass of gray that blocked the view ten feet ahead. The fog seemed a living creature . . . waiting . . . listening . . . silent.

“Daddy,” I called, and my voice splattered against the haze and the flat stretch of land without the slightest quiver of an echo. “Daddy, I need to talk to you. I need to find out which doc you
meant. Come here.” I clasped my hands beneath my chin and trembled. “Please . . . come. Talk to me.”

I bowed my head and sniffled and shook. I heard no owls, no bats, no barking hounds. No patrol cars puttered through the night, searching for boys who sinned with other boys or for girls with brown skin who ran off with such boys. Fleur rested in her bed, safe, I hoped, from her brother and the Wittens. Joe lay in some unknown place—alive or dead, I still didn't know.

And there I stood, alone, waiting. Ready for a ghost to tell me whether I should kill.

A sound started up ahead in the fog.

I lifted my chin and held my breath.

Footsteps thumped my way. One sturdy leg and one leg busted by a Model T limped beyond the wall of fog and shadows, and all the hairs on my neck and arms bristled. I stood on tiptoe, as though the act of rising up tall would better allow me to see my father approach.

The silhouette of his hat and his body emerged first. A shadow—a well-dressed shadow—wandered toward me and transformed into a familiar face and a derby hat and a suit with shining buttons. Once he walked more fully into view, Daddy smiled a sad smile and removed his hat.

I settled back down on my heels and forgot how to speak.

“Are you staying safe, honey?” he asked, holding his derby by his side, above his right hip. “You look distressed. No one's hurting you, I hope.”

“I'm . . .” I tore my eyes away from his and peered out at the dark fields beside me. “I'm tempted to commit a murder.”

“I beg your pardon?” He pushed forward another two steps. “What in tarnation are you talking about, Hanalee? Who on God's green earth would you want to murder?”

I swallowed and shook with shame and terror. “When you said you blamed the doc for your death, did you . . . d-d-did you mean Dr. Koning?”

He stepped back on his good leg. “Oh, sweet Jesus, no, Hanalee. Don't you dare kill the doctor.”

“But . . . is it the Dry Dock, then? The restaurant?”

“Yes, the Dry Dock. If I'd just stayed away from that place that night, if I'd been a stronger man, I'd still be alive today.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “W-w-what happened to you there?”

“Don't you dare go to that place by yourself. Don't even get close to it.”

“What happened? Tell me.”

“I—” His eyes welled with tears, and he turned his face away. His chin quaked, and his left hand clenched and unclenched by his side.