Let Me Die in His Footsteps (18 page)

Where the rows of lavender end, Annie stops, closes her eyes, listens, and draws a deep breath in through her nose. She wouldn’t have known before that Aunt Juna is a smoker, but after finding all those cigarettes, she knows. She inhales again and yet again. No stain of cigarette smoke in the air. Opening her eyes, she looks toward the dark barn. No orange tip glowing in the doorway.

She’s come at midnight, same as last time. Her heart is beating hard and fast in her chest. If she finds someone, it’ll likely be her mother, her real mother, and Annie is ready to tell her to go. She’ll tell Aunt Juna every Baine isn’t gone like she thought. Ellis Baine is back, and so she has to go. And if Aunt Juna already knows that and if that’s the reason she’s sneaking around instead of walking right up to the door and knocking and saying hello, then she should go because no one wants her here.

The envelopes Annie took from Mama’s bedside table are hidden under Annie’s pillow. She had planned to read the letters, every one of them from the first to the last, while everyone else was busy eating ice cream and spice cake. Pulling each letter from inside its card and pressing it flat, Annie had studied it for a date. Most had at least a year scribbled in the top margin. A few were dated only by the numbers Mama wrote on the back of the card. Annie sorted the letters into a single pile, the most recent on the bottom, and the one dated December 1937 on the top. And that’s where she had begun.

She drew her fingers over the slanted writing as she read the first letter. Some of the ink words were more faded than others. She held the thin yellow paper lightly and read only as far as the second line. Annie would have barely turned one when that letter arrived. Caroline would have just been born. Mama likes to say, whenever Annie or Caroline has a birthday, that she and Daddy loved Annie so much, they couldn’t wait to get started on Caroline.

In those first few lines, Aunt Juna wrote her congratulations to Mama and Daddy for having another perfectly lovely daughter. How blessed you are, Aunt Juna wrote. And then Annie stopped reading the letter, folded it over, the one letter and the rest of the pile, and slid them and the stack of cards under her pillow.

Annie had been a baby, probably not yet able to walk or talk, and Aunt Juna had done nothing more than write a letter. She hadn’t bothered with a visit or a gift. Or maybe that wasn’t what made Annie put the letters away. Maybe those few lines, written by Aunt Juna’s own hand, had changed her from a legend to an ordinary person for maybe the first time in Annie’s life. Tomorrow, Annie will return the cards and letters to their envelopes and slip them back in Mama’s bedside table before she has a chance to miss them.

It’s not such a long walk from the end of the lavender field to the barn, but the ground isn’t plowed and smooth and the walking is harder. Several times, an ankle nearly gives way, and Annie stumbles twice before reaching the barn’s open door. Her breathing is heavier now, and she can’t hear as well as she’d like. She draws in one deep breath, holds it, and leans into the barn. Still no hint of a cigarette. Not a sound. She swallows and exhales.

“That Annie in there?”

Annie swings around but doesn’t step from the barn’s doorway. It’s a man’s voice. She remembers it well enough. Rough, like it’s rolling over gravel.

“Yes.”

She waits for something more. Her blood is racing, and her breath and her heartbeat too, and she can’t still any of it.

“Yes,” she says again.

She takes one step outside the barn, and she hears it. Down below, down near the house, a dog is barking. Maybe it just started, or maybe she just now heard it. She takes another step, looks across the rock fence, and sees nothing. It was Ellis Baine she heard calling out to her. It had to be, but he’s gone now.

That’s definitely a barking dog. Backing away from the rock fence, Annie lifts the hem of her nightgown up to her knees, turns, and starts to run. Halfway down the hill, the smell of lavender lifting up around her, the barking gets louder. It sounds like Abraham’s dog, but Abraham had unhooked her leash when he and Miss Watson left, lowered the gate on the back of his truck, and whistled for Tilly to hop on.

Annie runs faster, gets closer still. That’s Abraham’s truck parked on the far side of the drive. He’s come back. She would have heard him if he’d only now arrived, so he must have been parked there when she snuck out of the house. The porch light switches on. The drive brightens, and that’s Tilly in the front seat, jumping and barking. By the time Annie reaches the bottom of the hill, Daddy appears in the drive. He’s running from the house toward Abraham’s truck, a shotgun in one hand.

The barking dog woke Daddy. He’ll have heard it first, before Mama, and will have jumped out of bed, run down the hall, and thrown open Annie’s door. “You both here?” Daddy will have said, bracing himself with one hand on the door frame and leaning into the room. “Annie, you here?” Caroline will have sat up, looked at Annie’s empty bed, and known Annie lied. “She went to look for Aunt Juna,” Caroline will have said.

Daddy keeps a gun on the top shelf of the linen closet where no one but he and Annie are tall enough to see it. He’ll have grabbed the gun. Mama will have run after, calling out, “Please, John. It’s nothing. No guns, please.”

“Annie,” Daddy shouts as he runs toward Abraham’s truck.

Grandma appears next, running as best she can around the side of the house. “Annie,” she cries. The sound of her voice frightens Annie most. It’s a fear she’s not heard before. “Good Lord, Annie, where are you?”

“I’m here,” Annie says, running from the dark of the lavender field into the lit drive. “What is it? I’m here, Grandma.”

Daddy sees Annie first. He stops at the side of Abraham’s truck, looks Annie over long enough to know she’s well, and then pulls open the passenger door. Tilly leaps from the car and runs toward Annie.

“Grandma, I’m here,” Annie calls out again because Grandma has not stopped. Her long white hair hangs over her shoulders and in her face, and her robe flaps open, the thin belt hanging loose and trailing behind. “Stop, Grandma. I’m fine.”

Maybe it’s Tilly jumping up on Grandma, or maybe it’s that grandmas don’t run so well, but before Grandma can stop herself, she stumbles and falls, both hands flying out. She lands near Annie’s feet and cries out again, but it’s a different sort of cry.

Daddy pushes off Abraham’s truck, leaving the passenger door open, and runs toward Grandma. Mama comes running too.

“God damn, Annie,” Daddy says. “What in all hell are you doing out here?” He reaches down with both hands to lift Grandma. He gets her to her knees, squats, and looks up into her face. “You hurt?”

Mama runs up, seeming to float in her white nightgown, grabs for Tilly’s collar, and hollers at her to be still. When she has a good hold of the collar, Mama drops down next to Daddy.

Grandma looks from Daddy to Mama and then settles her eyes on Annie. She smiles and swats at Daddy’s hands so he’ll let loose of her. “Oh, good Lord,” she says, “I’m fine. But get that creature away from me.”

Mama stands and drags Tilly toward the tree where Abraham chains her.

“You’re cut here, Mother,” Daddy says, touching Grandma’s cheek. “And your hands.” He takes both and rolls them over. “You see here, Annie? See here what you done?”

“Oh, hush,” Grandma says, swatting at Daddy again and pushing herself to her feet.

“Is Abraham all right?” Mama says, chaining Tilly and telling her to hush and be still. “What’s he doing here?” And then she hurries back to Grandma with a tissue in hand and starts blotting at Grandma’s cuts. “Go help your father, Annie,” Mama says without looking Annie in the eyes. “Go on. I’ll see to your grandmother.”

Annie walks and then jogs toward Abraham’s truck. Behind her, Grandma is telling Mama to stop it and leave her be and go see to Annie.

“What is it?” Annie asks, glancing back to see Mama still fussing over Grandma and Grandma still swatting Mama away. “Is he hurt?”

Abraham is bent over the steering wheel, his head resting on his crossed arms. Even standing outside the truck, Annie can smell the whiskey.

“Sleeping,” Daddy says. “He’s sleeping it off.” And then louder, so Grandma and Mama can hear, he says the same.

“I wasn’t up to nothing, Daddy,” Annie says as Daddy walks around the truck to open the driver’s side door. “I wanted to see—”

“Not another word,” Daddy says. “You know how your grandmother worries. You have to be more mindful.”

They only call Grandma “Grandmother” when times are serious. At a funeral, a wedding, while visiting a sick friend in the hospital.

“Yes, sir,” Annie says. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m just real sorry.”

Annie wants to ask Daddy what Abraham is doing here, parked outside the house, but she really doesn’t have to. Besides knowing it’ll make Daddy all the more angry, she already knows the answer. She knows exactly why Abraham is here. He believes Annie, is maybe the only one other than Grandma who does. He believes Aunt Juna was here last night. He believes what Annie said about the cigarettes and the spark and that she knows something is coming, and he believes Aunt Juna has come home, even thought she might come again tonight.

1936—SARAH AND JUNA

THE ROAD NARROWS
as it nears the Baines’ place, or maybe it only feels that way because the poplars close in on a person, growing right up to the road’s edge. Before starting up the long drive that leads to the house, I stand still, pull my coat tight around my shoulders, and listen for someone coming up behind me. I’d hear the footsteps on the dirt road, rocks getting kicked about, and heavy breathing if John Holleran were running after me, trying to catch me before I ruined myself. But the night is quiet except for my own breath rushing in and out of my nose.

As I had passed by John Holleran’s house, I drifted to the far side of the road so he or his mama or daddy wouldn’t chance upon seeing me. They’ll be keeping an eye out, not for me but for the men who have come from all the newspapers. They are men with freshly sharpened pencils sticking out of their front shirt pockets and notepads clenched under their arms. They’ve come by car and train and a few by bus. Besides hearing about a woman sheriff and Juna with her black eyes—stories that made them scribble in their notepads and dip their heads to hide their smiles or douse the laughter they couldn’t contain—the men have heard stories of the Baine brothers, and so they must know better than to come here after dark.

The walk from the road to the Baines’ house is uphill, so I can’t see the place until I’m close enough to call out that I’m coming. But I don’t call out; I just keep walking. The house is dark. Still I know one of those brothers is waiting. Not waiting for me in particular. Just waiting. Waiting for some trouble, probably from Daddy or Abraham Pace or the men from the newspapers.

I’m a dozen paces away when a chair creaks. Whichever brother is sitting up there, he hears me coming and tips forward to ready himself. He is there on the porch, just ahead, thinking those are footsteps he hears but not yet able to see me. Behind him, the house is dark, the shutters drawn. Another creak and then the sound of a shotgun being pumped. I keep walking, rocks and gravel crunching under my boots.

My insides ache from the cold, damp air I suck in with each breath. Somewhere nearby, a fire burns. This time, it’s a rifle I hear. The second gun is behind me. A bolt flips up, slides forward. I stop. I can picture Daddy when he wrapped Dale’s hands around a rifle, forced his finger into the right spot, showed him how to brace it against his chest because he was too small to hold it to his shoulder.

“I want Ellis,” I say, wishing straightaway I’d said it differently. But that’s why I’ve come. “Just want Ellis.”

The chair creaks again. I keep walking, never stop because if I do, I might never get going again and I’ll end up back in my house, Daddy sleeping next to the lamp, Juna sleeping a quiet, dreamless sleep even though Dale’s dead. I walk up the stairs, not looking to see which brother sits in that chair, push open the door, and step into the kitchen.

Cousins and nephews and uncles must have come from outside the county. A half dozen men or more sleep in chairs and on the floor. Their snores rise and fall, one right over the top of the next. A small black stove sits in the far corner, the fire inside burning strong and steady, will have been since sunset. Smoky cedar fills the room, and the fire’s yellow glow flickers and bounces off the sleeping bodies, throwing long, rounded shadows on the walls.

Next to the stove, a boy sits on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest. So many nights, that had been Dale’s job—to keep the fire from going out. Daddy never liked to bother with starting a fire from scratch, but Dale wasn’t much good at knowing which pieces of wood were dry or which were too big or which would smoke. The boy tips his head in the direction of the only other room. Everyone knows my desire, even this boy.

Not wanting to hear the sound of another shell falling into its chamber, I say his name as I open the door. I walk in, not thinking about John Holleran back at his house. Since the day we buried Dale and I pushed his hands from me, John has stayed away. I hear him outside the house some days, asking Daddy what needs doing. Daddy is a shameless man, so he gives John plenty of work. I never come out to say hello, and when I hear his truck coming up the road, which I always do, I go inside and pull the door closed. I walk into Ellis Baine’s bedroom, not thinking about what a good man John Holleran is or the fine husband he’ll one day make for someone. I don’t think about the baby growing inside Juna, and I close the door behind me.

A small window lets in just enough light. Fully clothed in long trousers and a heavy shirt, Ellis is lying on the narrow bed, legs crossed, boots on his feet. A shotgun rests on his chest. He draws in a deep breath, but I don’t hear him let it out.

I start with my jacket, pull it off, and leave it to drop at my feet. Next I unlace my boots with fingers still stiff from the cold. My knuckles and the tips of my fingers ache. I can feel Ellis watching, but that’s why I’ve come here. I’ve come so he’ll see me, at least this once.

Toe to heel, I pry off each boot and sit them side by side on the floor. Under my coat, I wear only a dressing gown. A draft runs through the room, and the thin fabric flutters against my stomach and the front of each leg. If the light is reaching me, Ellis will see the shape of me now.

Juna is beautiful in the face and striking with her black eyes, but her body is hard because she works every day picking berries or chopping wood or topping tobacco. I’m the softer of us two. Daddy’s always said it. A man wants a woman with a soft place he can rest his head. He wants a woman who will stroke his hair and tell him he’s a good man who does good things and does things good. He wants a woman who will be warm when she lies next to him at night but who will stay out of his way when the sun rises. I’m all of those things, but Ellis will never know because at dawn Joseph Carl will hang.

Long before I slipped past Daddy and Juna, I decided where I’d be going and what I’d be doing. Since I first started thinking about wanting a man, I have wanted Ellis Baine. He knows things. He knows how to burn the fields for his tobacco and will stand over his land, sniffing the soil, rubbing it between his fingers, knowing just when the rain will come and leave the ground soft enough to set the tender plants. He doesn’t meet with the other fellows to talk about what is best. He always knows. He knows because he stands in the middle of his fields and feels something strong inside. That’s what I want—someone who feels something, anything, strong. Feels it so strong it fills him up and keeps him from eating proper or caring about hair grown too long. I want to feel things like that, to have things swell up inside me like they swell up inside Ellis Baine.

Slowly, I tug the twine holding my gown closed at the neckline. It will fall open, and this thing will happen. The bow unravels. The neckline of my gown falls open wide enough that I can tip one shoulder and then the other and it drops to my feet. He can see all of me now—the hidden dark places, the curves that dip and lift. My chest rises and falls more quickly than before. The light from the window and the shadows shift with every breath. Ellis’s head rolls forward and then back—a nod. I hadn’t seen the men, sitting there on the floor, leaning against the wall. Two more nephews, cousins, or uncles, both of them seeing all of me.

They stand. One of them makes a noise as if clearing his throat. They are slow about it. They pull on their boots, lace them up, take the time to tuck their shirts, and when finally they pass me by, their sleeves brush against my bare shoulders. One carries a jacket draped over his arm, heavy wool, sour like the doctor’s had been because it’s never able to dry through and through. They move slowly, knowing they’re allowed to look.

And they do. They look. They don’t bother with my face or hair or shoulders. Their eyes settle on me, on whichever spot is to their liking. One stands to the side of me, one to the back. Those eyes stay on me until the bed creaks beneath Ellis, and then the men move on. A burst of warm air fills the room when they open the door. It closes again, and Ellis exhales that deep breath.

“Why you here?” he says.

“I need to explain?”

He smiles. Not that I can see it on his face, but I can feel it. I’m sure I can feel it. I wait for him to call me to his bed. That would be his way. He’s one to call a person to him, never one to cross the distance himself. But he doesn’t. He swings his feet over the edge of the mattress. His boots hit the floor with a thud. The thin planks rattle beneath my bare feet. He groans as he stands, like maybe it’ll be some effort to have me. He takes a step in my direction and stops.

Outside the door, chairs topple; more heavy boots hit the floor. Someone bangs on the door to the small bedroom. It shakes in its frame. Footsteps pound across the room; voices shout. Maybe one sounds like John Holleran.

I bend to grab the thin cotton gown pooled at my feet, but before I can gather it and thread my arms through its sleeves, Ellis reaches for me and lifts me. He grabs me by my shoulders, slides his hands down my arms, and tugs the gown from me. Outside the room, there is more shouting, more banging on the door. Ellis stands before me, holds one wrist at my side, and lifts his other hand to my breast. He rests it there, not moving it. The door behind me opens, and in two steps, John Holleran is in the room.

I pull back, wanting to cover myself, but Ellis won’t let go. He pinches my wrist to hold me in place, lifts his hand from my breast, turns that hand over, and strokes my bare skin with the back of his fingers. Maybe John was going to raise his shotgun, maybe he was going to throw a fist, but the sight of Ellis Baine touching me that way—or, worse still, me standing in that room alone with the man—stops him. My clothes don’t lie torn and shredded on the floor. My boots sit neatly, side by side near the bed. He knows I’ve come here because I wanted to, and it breaks him somehow.

“Will wait outside to see you home,” John says.

He leaves as quickly as he came. Someone closes the door. When the voices and all the knocking about quiet in the next room, Ellis takes his hand from my chest, unwraps his fingers from my wrist, and as he waves at my clothes still lying on the ground, he turns away.

When I am dressed and have buttoned up my jacket, Ellis walks from the room. He says nothing, but I follow. We pass through the kitchen full of men, most of them scattered across the floor, their heads resting on rolled-up jackets or blankets, a few sitting at the table, where they lean on their elbows. Ellis pushes open the door and walks through ahead of me. At the stone block leading off the porch, he stands aside so I can pass by.

A full moon lights up the path ahead just enough that I can make out John Holleran leaning against the back of a truck. Outside the house, I take deep breaths of the cold, fresh air. John never lifts his head to see it is me walking his way, and he doesn’t stand until I have passed.

“See to it she don’t come back,” Ellis calls out from the porch. “What’s left is yours.”

•   •   •

THEY BUILT THE
gallows from scrap wood, used threepenny nails instead of screws, and they’ll hang Joseph Carl when the first orange sliver of sun breaks the horizon. It’s another cold morning, damp, sodden. This is what I’ll remember, the dampness and the dark and how I wiggle my fingers inside my cotton gloves to fend off the stiffness. I’ll remember the ache in my knuckles, the numbness in my toes, our warm breath, Juna’s and mine, that turns smoky when it hits the cold morning air.

It’s as if the whole of Kentucky has come to see Joseph Carl hang. With not enough rooms to rent, these visitors to town have stayed the night in their cars or on the ground, and a few thought to bring tents and wooden cots. They’ve built fires to grill their food. I’ll remember this too, the smell of frying bacon. It’s like a perfume, sweet and greasy. As we walk among the crowd, Daddy forcing a path for us, we pass through the smell of it. I can’t stop the ache in my stomach, the way I inhale, the way my eyes flutter and then close, the way I slow my step to smell it a few moments more. I can almost remember the taste of it and how it would fill me up. I’ll remember this always—the grease popping in a dry cast-iron skillet, the rumbling in my stomach—and I’ll never eat bacon again.

Their faces are unshaven, these people who have come from Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia and as far away as California. Their clothes are creased and unkempt, and yet they’ve worn their finest. The men wear ties, pulled loose after many long hours of travel and more still of waiting until dawn. The ladies wear skirts and jackets and have pinned their hats in place. They’ve stayed awake all night, fighting one another for a spot. Even now, one man will shout out, pushing another, and yet another will stumble between and point to the gallows that rise high above them so all will have a good view.

At the top of the rise overlooking the field where we’ve gathered, cars are parked, each one with its headlights pointed at the spot where Joseph Carl will hang. People stand in truck beds or sit on the rooftops of cars, their feet dangling over the windshields, shifting about ever so carefully so as to not cause a dent. Tipping a bottle or sucking on the end of a cigar, they look down on the gathering, a few pointing at Juna and me as the crowd parts to make room for us.

We’ve fought through the onlookers until we’ve reached the front. It’s a place of honor, a place our family has earned. That’s how Daddy told it as he parted folks, pushed them aside with his gloved hands, cleared a spot big enough for Juna and me. It’s a place the Crowley family has damn sure earned.

At first, as we fought through these many strangers, they didn’t realize it was Juna Crowley passing them by, but then she would look one of them square in the eye and he or she would call out. It’s her. It’s Juna Crowley. That’s the one. It happened over and over as we stumbled and tripped and bounced through the crowd. That’s her. That’s Juna Crowley. They say she’s evil, you know. Evil through and through. And then they’d laugh, some out loud. Others would turn away, but their shoulders would shake; they’d lay their heads back and shove the next fellow so he’d not miss out on the joke. But as Juna continued to stare at them with her black eyes, and as she cradled her belly and they saw the signs of the child who grew inside, the laughter would quiet and they’d turn a shoulder or step from her path.