Touched (14 page)

“JoHanna, that’s awful.”

“I haven’t done without much.” She shrugged, careful not to awaken Duncan. “Don’t feel bad for me, Mattie, I’ve had a good life. Very good. Except for a few misfortunes, I’ve been very lucky. I never knew the money before it was gone, so I didn’t regret it that much. Just at times.” Her smile was even tireder. “Just at times when I think it could do some good. But …” She shook her head, dismissing the rest of whatever she was going to say. “I think someone killed Mr. Senseney. Folks said he was a crook and that he ran off with the money, but I never believed it.”

“The law didn’t hunt for him?”

JoHanna’s smile was hardly a smile at all. “The law is only as good as the community it serves.”

“And Fitler was an evil place?” To hear JoHanna talk about it, Fitler was wild, but she’d never led me to believe it was corrupt.

“Jexville became the county seat. The sheriff was here. There wasn’t a lot of interest in what had happened to Mr. Senseney.”

“Because it was to the benefit of Jexville.” It didn’t take a bloodhound to track down that trail.

Floyd picked up the last of the sandwiches and bit into it. He chewed and swallowed. “They say Mr. Senseney’s ghost walks the old main street of Fitler. JoHanna and Duncan are gonna take me one night to see. I’ll bet I can talk to him.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, Floyd. You’re an innocent, and spirits know to trust you.” JoHanna reached around the tree and patted his arm. “Now Mr. Moses is going to expect you to get back to the shop and work this evening to make up for being gone today. Remember, you can’t tell anyone about Mattie being here. It’s our secret.”

“Mattie’s gonna stay out here with you and Will?” Floyd grinned at me. “Maybe I can stay, too.”

“I have to go home to Elikah,” I told him. “Tomorrow.”

“I have to go to work.” He stood up and began to pick up the picnic things. “Let me take Duncan,” he said as JoHanna tried to rise holding her. He lifted the child up into his arms as if she were made of fluff. Her little legs dangled, pale and fragile-looking with a few blotched scars, but she slept like a rock. The fact that she had made no progress during her exercises this morning had disappointed her greatly.

JoHanna caught one lifeless foot in her hand and held it, as if she were examining it for the first time. “Duncan had the dream again.”

Floyd looked down at her. “No one will hurt her, JoHanna. I’d never let them hurt Duncan.”

JoHanna rose. “I know, Floyd. You and Pecos are her guardian angels.”

“Duncan helps me with my work.” Floyd tilted Duncan into his arms so he could look at her face. “She tells me things.”

“I’m sure she does.” JoHanna sounded slightly skeptical.

“She gave Floyd a design.” I felt some strange need to take his side, to be sure that JoHanna knew he was telling the truth, not just making it up. “It’s beautiful. For one of the boots he’s making.”

JoHanna brushed Duncan’s head, the fine, dark hair rippling like sleek cat’s fur. “Maybe Duncan will be a painter.”

“Or a dancer,” I said. “When her legs are well.”

“Or a storyteller,” Floyd added.

Johanna lightly kissed Duncan’s head. “We don’t care, do we, as long as she’s happy.”

“She can be anything she wants, as long as she’s happy,” Floyd said.

JoHanna picked up the picnic basket, nudged Pecos with her knee, and motioned for me to take the lead with her as Floyd carried Duncan home in his arms.

Thirteen

J
OHANNA turned on the path, laughing at something Floyd had said about Pecos as we came out of the woods. I was the first one to see Will’s car. It was parked beneath the chinaberry tree, a gleaming red monster of a car.

Two thoughts struck me almost at once. Will was home, and JoHanna would be able to take me to the doctor in Mobile. I felt as if all the air had disappeared out of my lungs and all the sounds of the earth had stopped. There was only the pounding silence, the heat and sunlight, white-hot light, that danced on the hood of that red car.

“Mattie!” JoHanna’s hand caught my elbow, shoring me up as Floyd came up behind me and put a hand between my shoulder blades.

The sounds came back and the light dimmed and I could breathe again. “I’m okay.”

“I didn’t expect Will until much later.” JoHanna sounded worried and excited.

“You want me to put Duncan in the hammock or take her to bed?” Floyd asked. He looked toward the road. “I’d better head back. Mr. Moses will be thinking I left for good.”

“The hammock will be fine.” JoHanna looked again at the back door, as if she expected Will to appear.

“Thanks for the picnic,” Floyd said as he eased Duncan into the hand-knotted sling that was tied between the chinaberry tree and a much smaller grancy graybeard. Both trees cast thick shade, lowering the temperature by a good ten degrees. A mockingbird squalled an insult at us for interrupting her privacy.

“Thanks for the story, Floyd.” I answered because JoHanna was looking at the back door again. “Go on. I’ll stay here and watch Duncan.”

Floyd waved and took off, his long legs moving with pantherlike grace, completely unaware that his body rippled with a signal his mind did not comprehend.

“I’ll be back in a moment.” JoHanna walked to the clothesline, where she rested her left hand. Her eyes were trained on the kitchen window. “Would you mind keeping an eye on Duncan?”

JoHanna acted nervous, almost afraid. Had she and Will had a fight? “Go on and see about Will.” I went over to the hammock and took a seat on the ground, bracing against the smooth bark of the chinaberry to the further fury of the bird. I ignored the squawking and focused on Duncan. Whatever nightmare had tormented her this morning, there was no trace of it on her face now. Her eyes were softly closed, her mouth pursed in the rosebud of innocence.

JoHanna watched me and Duncan for a minute, then let go of the line. She hesitated a moment like a doe at a branch when she smells a human approaching, then started forward to the door. Once she was in motion, there was no doubt, no weighing of alternative actions.

“Will?” she spoke his name as she went up the steps and opened the screen door. He stepped out of the shadows, caught her against him and picked her up with a growl.

They seemed to struggle, and I half rose from my position on the ground. My hand closed around a piece of lighter that someone had put in the yard with the intention of splitting. The screen door slammed with terrific force, and they disappeared into the kitchen. There was the sound of the oven slamming shut. I stood up slowly, the wood in my grip, and made sure that Duncan was still asleep. I heard them again.

“You bastard! You’ve been in my pot roast. No wonder you were so quiet coming home! You didn’t even come looking for us!”

“A good wife would have been here to feed me.”

“Good wife, is it? Is that what you want, a good wife?” JoHanna’s voice escalated with the question. I looked over at Duncan again. She was still sound asleep, and I still held the wood in my hand.

Will’s laughter was sudden, loud. “If I’d wanted a good wife, I would never have married you.”

“Do you want roast, or do you want this?”

JoHanna’s voice held a challenge, an edge of something that was wild and daring. I knew without looking what she was offering him, and I sat back down under the tree, my legs weak with relief.

“You’re a shameless hussy,” Will said, laughing again. “I hope you haven’t been corrupting Mattie with such behavior.”

“Ah, Mattie.” JoHanna’s laughter died, and her voice dropped to a level that I could not hear.

I leaned back against the tree, my fingers releasing the wood. A small splinter had lodged itself under the skin of my thumb, and I set about trying to pick it out.

There was the sound of the oven slamming again, the murmur of voices, but I no longer needed to hear what they said. What JoHanna told Will about me, I didn’t want to know. My gaze fell on Duncan’s sleeping face. JoHanna had been thirty-nine when Duncan was born. Her first child. Her only child, as far as I knew.

Duncan had JoHanna’s nose and eyebrows, and Will’s jaw and eyes. She had his thick, black eyelashes, too. And JoHanna’s spirit. She was a perfect blend of the two McVays, a creature unique. I reached out and touched the soft fuzz of her hair where it was growing back. In her sleep she smiled at me.

My hand was trembling, and I withdrew it before she woke up. The sunlight filtered through the lacy chinaberry leaves and warmed her skin to a pale cream. She was a beautiful child, engaging and alive. I looked down at her legs, a paler shade and marbled with blue, as if there was no circulation. The burns had healed, and the scars were slowly fading. Perhaps they would eventually fade completely. Even as I looked, her foot twitched.

I felt her staring at me, and I looked back into her brown eyes.

“My legs are getting well,” she said. “I want to go to Fitler and swim in the river. Mama says the water is magic.”

“I’m sure JoHanna will take you back up to visit your aunt. She seems to like staying in Fitler more than staying in Jexville.”

“Where’s Mama and Daddy?”

“Inside.”

Duncan smiled. “They fighting?”

“I thought they were at first, but I don’t think so.”

Duncan’s smile widened. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Sometimes they act like they’re going to tear each other apart.” She saw my expression. “No, really. I’m not making it up. One time Daddy tore her blouse right off her. She was standing at the kitchen sink and he came in and—”

“Duncan, I don’t think—”

“But it’s just them. Mama told me that a man and woman should have passion for each other. Of course, Daddy thought I was spending the night with Aunt Sadie.” She rolled her eyes. “He was very funny. All apologetic.”

I couldn’t help myself. “He tore her blouse off? What did she do? Hit him?”

Duncan laughed. “She tore his shirt off him. Then they started kissing real hard and he was leaning her down on the kitchen table when I came in the back door.” She grinned at me. “They broke a bunch of plates and glasses. Shocking, isn’t it?”

Her grin was infectious. “Yeah, it is.”

“Tell me a story, Mattie.”

I listened to the silence of the house for a few seconds, determining if it was best for me and Duncan to stay. The image of Will, torn white blouse in his hands, wouldn’t get out of my head. My skin felt overheated and I didn’t want to leave the shade of the trees. The laughter had stilled inside the house. There was only the breeze rattling the leaves above us and the irregular anger of the mockingbird. We were okay where we were. “I don’t know any good stories like Floyd does. Where I grew up, there weren’t any stories that I knew about the town and such. Mama used to tell us a little about living up in West Virginia, where her daddy was killed when a coal mine caved in.” Mama had loved her daddy, and it seemed to comfort her some to talk about him, to describe how he’d walk the road up to the mine every morning, his lunch pail in his hand. But it wasn’t something Duncan needed to hear, a story about thirty-seven men being buried alive beneath a mountain of dirt.

To me, whenever I imagined it, I just thought of Grandpa walking up a road into a grave. The opening of the cave was shaped just like a coffin standing on end. And I could see him walking, walking, slowly walking, up to the opening and disappearing in the dark and never coming out. I’d never known him, of course, but I could see him clearly.

“Her daddy was buried alive?” Duncan had caught hold of the morbid and was giving it a good gnaw.

“Uh-huh. Why don’t I tell you a story that I read in a book?” I’d forgotten about the library books I could check out for free. There had been one red one, leather bound and filled with stories from all over the world. I loved that book. I checked it out so many times the librarian said I couldn’t have it again for six months. When I went back, someone had stolen it.

“I have a lot of books.” Duncan’s brown eyes were considering. “Maybe you’d like to borrow some of them.”

“That would be great.” I didn’t care that they were books for a nine-year-old. My reading was good, but I loved any kind of story.

“Tell me one you read.”

So I told her “Walissa the Beautiful,” a story about a hut on legs and a little girl who got trapped in it. She liked that so much I told her about three men who traveled the country with magical abilities. Their names were Longshanks, Girth, and Keen. The names tickled her, and she listened closely.

“You don’t tell stories like Floyd, but I like yours, too. In a different way.”

“Why don’t you tell me one?” I suggested. The afternoon was passing, but there had not been a sound or a movement in the house. I cast a quick look at Duncan, but she had no interest in her parents.

“Mattie, will you stay in Jexville forever now that you’re married to Mr. Mills?”

Her question caught me by surprise. I didn’t like to think about the future. Particularly not about forever. I couldn’t really even think about going home. With a lie or two, JoHanna had bought me an afternoon and evening in her home. After that? The answer to that question brought on a feeling of blankness that was scarier than pain.

“You don’t like Jexville, do you?” Duncan asked.

“I haven’t really been here long enough to say.” I didn’t want to talk about this. “How long have you had Pecos?”

“I guess you don’t want to talk about yourself.” She nodded. “I got Pecos when I was eight. Daddy got him at the feed store.”

“From the Leatherwoods?” I was surprised. I suppose I’d given Pecos a more exotic heritage than Jexville Feed and Seed.

“He had a broken leg and Daddy took him. Mr. Leatherwood was going to kill him.”

“Will set his leg?”

“Mama. She knows things about how to make animals heal. And people, too.” Duncan reached down and touched her legs. “I’m going to get better. She told me so. Each time we go to Fitler, I can feel my legs getting stronger.” She rubbed the top of her foot. “I can feel more.”

The house remained silent, and for the first time since I could remember, I didn’t have a long list of chores to finish. Since I wasn’t going home, there wasn’t anything I had to do. Just me and Duncan and Pecos in the yard.

“Look.” Duncan pointed to her left foot. “See. I can make it point and flex.”

“Point and flex?”

“It’s ballet. Or it’s something a ballerina does. An exercise. Mama was showing me before I got struck.”

“Ballet?” JoHanna was an endless surprise.

“Well, Mama said it was her version. It was just for fun.”

“Maybe when you’re well, she’ll show both of us.” That would truly send Elikah over the edge. The idea that I was dancing ballet. It would make him hate me in that dark way that frightened me and also gave me a sense of power. The power was worth the fear.

“Mattie, will you take me inside?”

I hesitated. “Maybe we should wait out here until JoHanna gives us the word.”

“Don’t be silly. Whatever they’re doing, we won’t bother them. They go in their room and shut the door, and I leave them alone. We have a deal. Sometimes I can hear them laughing, but I’ve never knocked on the door.”

“Why don’t we get the wagon and go for a ride? I’ll pull you.” I didn’t want to hear Will’s laughter or imagine him without a shirt.

Duncan considered the idea. “Okay. When we get back, we’ll get Mama to make us some lemonade. I haven’t had any in a long time, and I know Daddy brought me back some lemons.” She looked up at me. “He never forgets.”