Let Me Die in His Footsteps (26 page)

“Good Lord, I don’t know.” Abraham smells of the spicy cologne he sometimes wears when he comes to the house for Sunday supper, and his shirt is buttoned up under his chin and tucked into his belted pants and he wears a tan jacket. He’s dressed to go to town, where he was meaning to meet Miss Watson just like she said. He glances back at her. She must still be standing on the other side of the fence behind Daddy. “Just an old deck of cards. Have no idea where they come from.”

“Not just an old deck,” Ellis says. “You took them off Dale Crowley.”

“Let’s send the girls on home, Ellis,” Daddy says. “Then we’ll talk this through.”

“How’d you come to have those cards, Abe? Last time I’m asking.”

“Tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it. Just let these girls go on.”

“Tell me you took them off Dale Crowley the day he disappeared.”

“What’s he talking about, Abe?” It’s Miss Watson. From the sound of her voice, closer now than it was before, Miss Watson has squatted behind the fence. She must be peeking over like Annie did as a little girl.

“The day Dale Crowley disappeared, Joseph Carl give him a deck of playing cards,” Ellis says. “He told me that. Told the sheriff the same. And now they somehow end up with Abe. Seems to me, you having those cards means you know something about what really happened to Dale Crowley.”

“I remember,” Daddy says, shuffling his feet and trapping Annie against the rocks. “Joseph Carl, he said he gave a deck to Dale that day. Never did find them on the boy though. Figured they washed away. Probably, they were just lost.”

“Didn’t wash away,” Ellis says. He raises the gun’s barrel and points it at Abraham. “Found them sitting in the middle of your kitchen table, John. Joseph Carl had that deck since we was boys. No mistaking that deck belonged to Joseph Carl. Started off thinking it was you, John, had some sort of hand in all this. Turns out,” Ellis says, jabbing the gun in Abraham’s direction, “Abe, here, has had them cards all these years.”

“I don’t get why we’re talking about this,” Abraham says, his eyes jumping from Ellis to Daddy to Miss Watson. “Christ, so I have a favorite deck. Why you bringing up Joseph Carl after all this time?”

“Bringing it up because you fellows hung that boy for something it’s looking like you did.”

“Come on, now,” Daddy says. “Put the gun down. Too many years have passed to be talking like this.”

“Too many for you maybe,” Ellis says. “Not too many for me.”

“You know Joseph Carl confessed,” Daddy says. “Told us where Dale would be found. How do you figure Abraham had any part in that?”

“Never heard Joseph Carl say any such thing,” Ellis says. With his thumb, he slides the safety off. He readies his finger on the trigger. “You hear him say it, Abe?”

Ellis squints through one eye to get a better look down the barrel of his gun. Daddy’s boots press up next to Annie. The black toes are covered with dust where he’s kicked up the fine, dry dirt, and one lace hangs loose.

“Dale didn’t have no cards when I seen him.” It’s Abraham’s voice. He spits out the first few words, but as he continues to talk, he slows and speaks not so loudly, because Ellis Baine has lowered his gun. “Best I can remember, he didn’t have no cards.”

“You seen the boy that day?” Ellis asks.

“He was with Juna and me. But it was early in the day. Had to be before Joseph Carl come along because the boy was with us. Juna, she was fine.” Abraham holds his hands out to the side. “I swear, Ellis. Juna and I, we had our place. We went there that day. Told the boy to wait for us.” And then, because Juna Crowley is Annie’s mama and Abraham thinks Annie will care most, he looks to her. “I loved her. Loved your Aunt Juna. Thought she’d be my wife one day. She didn’t want nobody knowing what we was up to. Most especially her daddy. She said he’d put an end to it right quick. We told the boy to wait. It was shady and nice there by the river. Told the boy to wait and mind his business. Don’t remember no deck of playing cards.”

Abraham has always talked about loving Aunt Juna and that his was the face she saw down in the well. Annie shifts on her knees, braces her hands on the ground. She wants to stand so she and Daddy can go home. She never knew Dale Crowley or Joseph Carl or any of these people, but now she knows Abraham is her real father. She wants Daddy to take her home and she’ll pour iced tea and Mama will start supper soon, probably something that won’t need to go in the oven because it’ll heat up the house and it’s so darn hot outside as it is. She wants to stand, tries to stand, but Daddy is pinning her against the rocks. The jagged edges bite into her right shoulder and knee. She looks up to say something, and she sees it. The gun is pointed at her now. Ellis Baine is staring down, and the slender tip is pointed at Annie.

They must all know. Daddy, Mama, and Grandma too. Once Annie started to sprout, they must have realized Abraham was her father. She should have seen it long before now. And it’s not just the height. Annie has Abraham’s square face too. Caroline has a delicate chin like Mama, and both have a face shaped much like the hearts Caroline is all the time drawing on her notebooks. More and more, Mama will cup Annie’s face on a Sunday morning when she’s dressed for church or when she’s fresh out of the tub and wrapped up in a towel, her hair still damp. She’ll rest a hand on Annie’s face and say striking, just striking. They must all know, Abraham included, that Abraham is Annie’s daddy.

“That ain’t all,” Ellis says again, still looking at Annie, directly into her black eyes. “You go on and tell.”

“I swear to God, Ellis,” Abraham says, dropping his head and shaking it side to side. “I don’t know nothing else. Juna sent me on my way soon as we was done. She didn’t like no one seeing us coming and going together. She and the boy, they was going back to work. Next thing I know, Abigail come to tell me Dale was gone and Juna’d been hurt. I swear to God, that’s all I know.”

“Christ in heaven, Ellis.” It’s Daddy. “Turn that thing away.”

Annie hugs her knees, the rocks still cutting into her shoulder and the back of her head.

Next, it’s Abraham. “Ellis, please. She ain’t got nothing to do with this.”

“Then you better tell right about now.” Ellis squeezes that one eye closed again. The one that is open does not move. It’s set on Annie. No matter which way Daddy moves or how closely he stands over Annie, that eye does not move.

It’s hard seeing through the tears. They pool in Annie’s eyes, spill onto her cheeks. They turn Ellis Baine into little more than a smear, and Abraham the same. Her nose runs, and her hair sticks to her neck and the sides of her face. She dips her head and swipes her eyes with the back of one hand. Off to the right, Abraham is sliding one foot toward Ellis and holding both hands out to the side as if to prove he doesn’t have any gun of his own.

“What else do you want to know, Ellis?” Abraham says. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything.”

Ellis looks down on Annie again, the gun still pointed at her. “You let them bury him like he was a crazy man. Let them bury him where he’d never find a moment’s rest.”

Annie shakes her head, though she knows Ellis isn’t talking to her.

“That’s not so,” Daddy says, his arms stretched out to the side to better protect Annie. “That ain’t what happened, Ellis. Joseph Carl ain’t buried there.”

Ellis pulls away from the gun, but that single eye and the barrel are still aimed at Annie.

“He’s buried out back of your house,” Daddy says, shuffling to the right and nearly tripping over Annie. “We did it. A handful of us. Best I remember, we tied together a few logs and that’s what’s buried there in town. Ain’t Joseph Carl. We waited a time and then buried him out back. Your mama, she fashioned a marker of sorts, I think. We tried to do right by the boy,” Daddy says. “Didn’t want to believe he done those things. Don’t really guess I ever did much believe it. Have always kept my own girls close, figuring there was someone still out there.”

Daddy’s always said if it looks like a Baine, choose a different path. Maybe he’s always thought another one of the Baines left Uncle Dale for dead.

Ellis Baine is still staring at Annie through that one eye, and the gun is still lifted in his hands, but the barrel has started to dip toward the ground. To the right, Abraham has slid a few steps closer to Ellis. As Daddy starts to talk again, Abraham slips his right hand behind him and up under his jacket.

“You let me know if you can’t find it,” Daddy says, inching ever so slowly to the right. “Guess I figured your mama would have told you about it, else I would have told you long before now.”

Abraham grabs hold of something and slips it from under his jacket. It’s silver and catches the sunlight. Still holding it in his hand, whatever it is, Abraham lets it hang down alongside his leg and Annie can no longer see it. But she knows enough. Even though Daddy has never been much for guns and rifles, Annie knows enough.

“I’ve a pretty good memory,” Daddy is saying. “Could help you track it down. It’s just out back of your house.”

“You still ain’t explained how you came to have those cards, Abe,” Ellis says, lifting the gun again and settling it on Annie. “Thinking there must be a reason you won’t tell.”

“Miss Watson,” Annie says. It’s almost a whisper, so maybe no one hears.

The tip of the shotgun doesn’t move, but Ellis stops squinting through that one eye and looks at Annie with both. It’s barely a movement, but it’s enough. Ellis Baine knows. Annie is remembering Abraham in the kitchen. He had tossed the cards into the air, making them spin end over end, and hollered up to Miss Watson that they’d found the cards they’d been looking for.

“They’re Miss Watson’s cards,” Annie says again.

It’s louder than most anything Annie has ever heard. Louder than the backfire from the old truck Daddy once drove. Louder than the shed door when the wind catches it and slams it shut. Before the echo of it has faded, Daddy is on top of her, his body forcing her flat on the ground. The rock fence is beside her, though she can no longer feel its sharp edges. One cheek is pressed into the dirt, the other buried beneath Daddy’s chest. His heart beats against her face. His chest lifts and lowers with each breath he takes, and she can’t inhale under the weight of him.

When Daddy finally moves, he scrambles to his knees, gathers Annie up, and drops her over the fence. He yells something at her. She knows because his mouth moves, but his voice is muffled, his words unclear. He presses one hand flat, which means to stay put, stay there on the ground. Abigail Watson is there next to Annie. She huddles on the ground, her hands over her head. Abraham Pace appears next, still holding the handgun. He does the same as Daddy, though his voice is a bit sharper.

“Stay put,” he says. “Everything’ll be fine. Stay put.”

•   •   •

ANNIE PUSHES UP
to her knees, sits back on her heels, and rests there, her head lowered, her hands pressed to the ground. Her hind end hurts from her being dropped over the fence, and the palm of each hand burns. Miss Watson stands.

“Abigail?” Abraham says. His voice sounds as if coming from far away.

“I guess I’d forgotten,” Miss Watson says. She looks down on Annie when she says it.

Annie starts to stand, but Daddy appears above her and tells her to stay put again. Slowly, she shifts herself around so she’s sitting on her hind end, even though it aches. She pulls her skirt over her knees and wraps her arms around her legs.

Daddy and Abraham are moving about on the other side of the fence, and Miss Watson is watching them. She steps back, nearly tripping, when Daddy jumps over the fence. He leans into Annie.

“You stay here with Abraham,” he says. “Stay put.”

Then Daddy runs down the hill, through the lavender, not bothering to be careful of the slender stems.

“What is it you done, Abigail?” Abraham says. He’s standing across from Miss Watson.

Still hugging her knees, Annie looks up at them from her place on the ground. Daddy said to stay put. He doesn’t want her seeing what’s on the Baines’ side of the fence.

“He was peeking, Abey,” Miss Watson says. “From up there in a tree. I climbed alongside him, and Dale, he was peeking. I saw you, you and Juna. He said he done it all the time. All the time peeking on you.”

Abraham glances over his shoulder, closes his eyes, and his chest lifts up and out as he takes a deep breath.

“You was there?” Abraham says. “You was there near the river?”

Miss Watson turns to Annie again. “Sarah’s the one told me where to find Dale. Your mama, she’s the one. Said he was off with Juna. I’d been there to that spot with Dale before but never to peek. I never knew he peeked like that.”

Abraham stares down at his hands, and like Daddy after he slapped Annie, he looks as if he doesn’t know what to do next.

“What did you do to Dale?” Annie says because Abraham won’t ask. Annie never knew her Uncle Dale. He had been beaten and left for dead by Joseph Carl Baine. That part of the legend never much got talked about.

“He gave me those cards for safekeeping so he could climb on out a bit farther for a better look. Said a fellow gave him those cards and he wanted to keep them nice. He was laughing at Abey.” Miss Watson squats before Annie and wraps her arms around her knees, same as Annie. “He said for me to be real quiet, and if the water was low enough and slow enough, we’d hear Abey grunting and such. He was laughing at Abe.”

Abraham had been wrong about the time Joseph Carl passed through that day. He’d already come and gone before Abraham ever met up with Juna. Joseph Carl had given those cards to Dale and then gone on his way, and that was all. He didn’t hurt anyone or leave anyone for dead. Maybe it’s because of the know-how, or maybe it’s because there’s only one thing that could come next, but Annie knows what Miss Watson will say.

“I pushed him so he’d stop his laughing,” Miss Watson whispers to Annie. “I didn’t think about it being so far of a drop.”

Abraham is staring at Miss Watson. “You pushed the boy.”

“Juna’s the one said I couldn’t tell what I’d done,” Miss Watson says and stands to face Abraham again. “She found Dale and me too. Said Dale was dead and there wasn’t nothing we could do. Said her daddy would send you away, Abey, maybe kill you, and he’d put Juna out of the house because he’d think it was your fault and hers. She said nothing was more important than a man’s son and he’d see to it you’d be punished, her too. She told me to go on back to her house and ask after Dale again. She said I’d lose you if I told.”