The Steep and Thorny Way (31 page)

“We weren't much of friends at first,” he said, his voice quiet. “We even got into a fight over a game of baseball at one point, not long after I moved here. But we had our eyes on each other from the very beginning.” He shifted from side to side, readjusting his weight. “It took a little growing up—a little whiskey one summer night right before we both turned sixteen—before we ever broke through all that tension and kissed each other.” He opened his eyes and looked at me from above the cloth on his face. “He's the one you kissed when you were little, wasn't he?”

I sat up straight, and my face warmed again. “H-h-how did you know?”

“Because of how much you yelled at him in the woods. The hurt in your voice.” He gulped with a noticeable bob of his Adam's apple. “He always talked about spending his younger years running around with you and Fleur.”

“Well”—I picked at a corner of the basket with the tip of one of my nails—“we were just kids. Those hardly count as real kisses.”

“That kiss in front of the Wittens”—he lowered the ice to his lap—“that was your first then, wasn't it?”

I shrugged. “It doesn't matter.” I shrugged again. “I don't even know if we can genuinely call that a real kiss, either.” I continued to pick at the basket, although I drew my hand away when I realized how much the sound of the wicker echoed across the rafters.

“Come here,” he said in a whisper.

I raised my eyes to his. “What?”

He lowered the ice to the floor on the other side of him. “I want to give you a real kiss.”

I snorted. “You mean a pity kiss?”

“No. A thank-you kiss.”

I traced my finger across the edge of a floorboard. “I thought you didn't want girls, Joe.”

“It doesn't matter. I want to give you a good kiss that will erase the one in the woods. That shouldn't have been your first.” He tugged on my wrist with a gentle pull. “Come here.”

I snickered. “Your nose is all swollen. What if I bump it with my nose?”

“Just”—he slid me closer to him—“come here.”

I scooted over to his side.

We both smiled and laughed a little, our heads bent close to each other. Then his face sobered. He cupped his right hand behind my neck and pressed his lips against mine with a kiss soft and sweet. Not the kiss of a lover, or a brother, or even just a friend. A kiss that defied explanation. One that eased all the way through me with an unexpected sense of peace.

Our mouths left each other with a gentle sound, and we remained side by side, my legs bent toward his. His hand left my neck and returned to his thigh, and then to the cloth filled with ice, which he pressed against his nose again.

“We should get you some food.” I slid myself back over to the basket. “I also brought—”

A twig cracked outside the stable.

Joe and I stiffened, our shoulders squared toward the stable door. I refused to breathe—refused to move even the tiniest muscles in my fingers—and I forgot all about the derringer crammed down inside its new hiding spot in my boot. Wind whistled between the boards in the roof and rattled across splinters and nails in the rafters.
A chill seeped down my body, starting at the roots of my hair, slicing down the length of my back.

Joe scooted himself toward me.

“It . . . it's funny,” he said in a whisper. “I'm finding myself sitting here, p-p-praying that's just your father's ghost out there.”

The wind toyed with the door, nudging at the wood, as though a person with weak hands attempted to push it open. I heard a gentle
tap-tap-tap
, and the chill washed all the way down to my feet, until every inch of my skin sweated ice.

“Joe,” I said. “I'm frightened to death.”

“It's all right.” He slid all the way next to me. “It's probably just—”

Footsteps!
I distinctly heard footsteps scuffling across the dirt outside.

Joe wrapped his arm around me. “It's probably . . .”

I grabbed hold of him by his waist.

Bursts of yellow light traveled past the slats in the boards, rushing toward the door.

I froze and whimpered in fear. Joe pulled me close, clasped my head to his chest, and cussed under his breath.

The door flew open and banged against the stable wall with a crash as loud as a gunshot, and I screamed and clung to Joe. My greatest fear manifested before my eyes: a half-dozen figures in white hoods and robes—red insignias on their chests, round black holes for eyes—pushed their way into the stable with lanterns burning bright. I flew into a panic and tried to climb up Joe's shoulder, just trying to get away—somewhere,
anywhere
—and then hands clamped down on my arms and tore me away from him. Klan members
descended upon him, and although Joe thrashed and kicked, they slammed him down on his stomach, tied a cloth around his mouth, and strapped another around his wrists, which they forced behind his back.

Someone yanked a cloth around my mouth, too. The bindings tore into my lips and my cheeks, and my attackers pulled my hair when they tied the knot behind my head. No one spoke—all I heard were panicked grunts from both Joe and me and the swiftness of feet bustling around us—and I wanted to cry out,
Say something! Show me you're people and not faceless creatures
. My eyes bulged. I tried to keep my head facing Joe, to see what they'd do to him. My knees buckled and banged against the floor, but those hooded devils pulled me to my feet and wrenched me out of the stable. They pulled Joe out, too, and dragged him away, ahead of me.

White cloth surrounded me. White cloth with dark eyes peering out of round holes. Lamplight burned at my corneas. The soles of my boots scraped against dirt and rocks, and only then did I remember the little gun wedged inside, down in the crook of my right foot, below the ankle bone. Up ahead, glimpses of Joe's trousers and bare toes peeked through a wall of white cotton. He was on his knees, and they were dragging him toward the highway beyond a narrow thicket of firs on the east side of our property.

A surge of terror gripped my arms and legs. I acquired a strength that nearly set me free from the hands bearing down on my wrists. One of my captors grabbed the back of my neck and pushed me forward, onward, in the direction of a Ford truck that looked to be the Paulissens', parked beyond the trees on the side of the highway. Nothing seemed real.

The air turned cold, and everyone's feet crackled through pine needles on the dark earth beneath us. A bird of some sort flapped its wings out of nowhere and rushed over my head with a suddenness and swiftness that made me scream into the cloth.

I'm dead, I'm dead
, I thought, and my knees sank again to the ground. The Klan members had to drag me; I would not willingly walk to whatever fate they intended for me and Joe. Stones and twigs tore at my legs and stung my skin, but I would not walk. I smelled a citrus-tinged cologne that reminded me of Laurence, but my brain forced me to think of the hooded men as creatures and strangers—not neighbors and childhood companions.

One of the Klansmen pulled down the wooden gate at the back of the truck's bed. Three of the robed figures hoisted Joe into the vehicle. Two of them jumped in after him and dragged him by his pinned-back arms across the floor, toward the back of the cab. Two more Klansmen lifted me in by my arms and legs. I writhed and fought, but they shoved me into the open compartment and climbed right in after me before I could reach for my boot. One of them pulled me down onto my back and held me by my elbows, while the other pinned down my legs by my knees. I prayed my little derringer wouldn't slide into view at the edge of my boot. I prayed the truck would crash and kill our attackers before they yanked us anywhere near a tree and a rope.

Someone closed up the back of the truck, rocking the bed, and the remaining Klansmen must have climbed into the cab, for I heard car doors opening and shutting.

The truck engine grumbled to life, and the vehicle lurched forward and headed down the highway, the floor of the bed rattling
against the back of my skull. I heard Joe squirming and grunting behind me, and I realized that one of his feet was thrashing about near my right eye. Mainly, though, I saw hooded faces looming above me, and the wide black sky that stretched overhead, the stars winking down as though it were a regular July night in a regular summer. I closed my eyes and pushed my mind to thoughts of Daddy and me standing side by side in the green waters of the creek. I made myself hear the sound of my father's deep voice singing “Wade in the Water,” while the current trickled past the tree roots and branches hanging out from the shore. Cool waters lapped at my stinging knees. Daddy's large, warm hand wrapped around mine. The sun shone hot and sweet on my face, and I no longer tasted the cotton of the cloth that bound my mouth or felt hands forcing down my limbs. I willed Joe to escape, too, to join Laurence in the woods when they weren't yet sixteen; to taste their first kiss and run his fingers through the sunshine in Laurence's hair.

The brakes of the truck squealed to a stop. My body jolted. Car doors opened. I writhed again and arched my back, but hands grabbed me and yanked me forward in the dark. My feet hit the ground with a thump that made the gun jump in my boot, and I thanked God for the safety mechanism.

“Look what we found,” said one of the Klansmen who squeezed down on my arm. I recognized his voice as being that of Mr. Franklin from the Dry Dock. “Both of them, huddled in the stable on the girl's family's property.”

The man whipped me around toward a scene of bright light, and my breath caught in my throat.

A wooden cross, at least eight feet tall, burned in the patch of tall grasses between the Dry Dock and Ginger's. The inferno crackled and strengthened and reflected off the glass of the Dry Dock's windows, brightening the white of the Klansmen's robes. Beyond the cross stood the oak tree, looking larger and blacker and more monstrous than I remembered, its crooked boughs stretching out to the surrounding darkness. Four more Klan members waited by the tree, and they held torches that illuminated a noose that hung from the thickest branch.

Behind me, Klansmen pulled Joe out of the truck, his mouth and hands still bound. His eyes widened at the cross and the noose, the fire shining against his brown irises, and he dropped to his knees.

“Joseph Adder and Hanalee Denney,” called out a wheezy, high-pitched voice that I knew for certain to be Sheriff Rink's. He stood by the noose, a slightly shorter figure than the others, and the black and hollow eyes of his hood stared straight inside me. “We have brought you here because you are both threats to the moral purity of this community. As punishment”—he grabbed hold of the noose dangling beside him—“we will bring you each forward, fasten this rope around your neck, and raise you in the air three times in a row.”

I whimpered beneath my gag and bent my arms and knees in a frantic fight to break free. The fire on the cross blurred and jumped about, and all I could see was the color red.

“Afterward,” continued the sheriff, “you will leave this community, as well as the white homeland of Oregon, for the rest of your living days. You are not welcome in Elston, nor will you ever be. Boys”—the sheriff waved to the Klansmen holding Joe—“let's start
with him. You new recruits will have the honor of slipping the rope over his head and ensuring it's secure.”

Four of our original attackers crowded around Joe, and at first I couldn't see any part of him, aside from one of his bare feet sticking out from between the bottoms of the Klansmen's dark trousers below the robes. Two of them reached down and hoisted him to his feet. They steered him toward the noose that the sheriff held in his meaty fingers. Joe's hands remained bound behind his back, but he wiggled his elbows and kicked at his captors and gave one last go at escape. The sheriff grabbed him by the back of his collar and forced the rope around his neck.

“No!” I cried out from beneath the cloth—a muffled sound, but one that startled the two Klansmen who held my wrists. Their grips loosened. I somehow yanked myself free of their hands.

I tore off, darting down the side of the highway like a hunted rabbit.

Mr. Franklin shouted, “Run after her!”

Footsteps pounded the soil in the grasses behind me, and I heard my name, called out in Laurence's voice. Adrenaline soared through my body, allowing me to fly over the ground and run harder than I'd ever run in my life. I pulled the binding off my mouth and allowed my lungs to breathe.

The muscles in my legs carried me through the copse of trees that rose up in my path, several yards south of the Dry Dock. With motions swift and powerful, before my pursuers could even think of catching up, I was down on the ground, pulling off my right boot, knocking my fingertips against the wood and cold metal of the pistol.

“Leave me alone, or I'll shoot!” I cried, and I pointed the double barrel up at two white sheets that came to a skidding stop in front of me. “I swear to God, I'll shoot.”

“Put the gun down, Hanalee,” said Laurence from beneath the hood on the right.

“Take off your hoods and run to my house for help.” I rose to my feet. “Tell my parents there's going to be a murder.”

“Hanalee—”

“I know that's you, Laurence. Take your goddamned KKK friend here and go get Dr. Koning. Tell him blood will be spilled at the Dock tonight.”

“But—”

“If you don't want the blood to be yours”—I lowered the gun to the direction of his groin, figuring he might value that area even more than his head—“then go now and fetch Dr. Koning—quickly!”

Laurence and his friend remained frozen and hidden beneath their sheets.

I cocked the hammer and fired at the ground next to Laurence's left foot, scattering leaves and dirt in all directions. “Now!”

Both Klansmen jumped into the air and skedaddled in the direction of my house.