Man in the Blue Moon (28 page)

The sheriff held up his hands like he might be preaching. “Now, Ella, you’re not in trouble. We just need to talk to the drifter.”

Jack-Ray eased down the side of the barn and behind the patch of sunflowers. He pulled from his pants waist a long-barreled pistol with the letter
J
engraved on the handle.

“Listen to us, Ella,” Clive said. He walked up the stairs. His words were as soft as his steps. “I want to help you. I really do. Now a schoolgirl crush is one thing, but harboring a fugitive is quite another. Listen to this man. He knows what he’s talking about. His sister and his wife were killed by this man friend of yours. You don’t want to be the next victim here. Now if I didn’t truly care about you, I’d—”

The popping sound was shrill and the flash crisp. The noise came from the side of the pasture where Earl sat on a tree stump, steadily holding his hunting rifle. Like a streak of lightning, the bullet ripped through the side of Clive’s head. Blood and gray mixed together and flew in the air like paint being thrown on a canvas. It splattered the side of the porch and the length of Ella’s dress. The eye that was left in Clive’s head looked at Ella in shocked wonder before he tumbled down and landed across the stair rail.

The front door flew open. With the butt of his gun, Samuel knocked Lanier against the foyer wall. He ran out of the house, hunkered down and firing. A bullet shattered the headlight of the Troxlers’ car, and another ricocheted off the grille. Ella screamed at Samuel but it was too late for words. Only deeds mattered now.

Jack-Ray ran into the patch of sunflowers, and Parker took cover behind the car. Sheriff Bissell looked toward the field and raised his arm in self-defense. A bullet grazed his forearm and left a burned spot on the sleeve of his shirt. He had just taken the gun out from his holster when Earl fired a second shot, piercing the left side of Sheriff Bissell’s chest. Bits of khaki cloth and fatty skin flew up in the air and dotted the circle of sand where Macon had played earlier that morning.

Lanier reached out from the open front door and jerked Ella inside. All the while she was screaming and clawing at this madman she should have feared all along. Lanier then grabbed the shotgun she had propped against the doorjamb. “Get inside,” he yelled to Samuel.

J.D. Troxler bent down on one knee behind an azalea bush next to the porch and fired the shot that blew out the glass window above the door. Glass rained down on Samuel, and he dropped the gun, covering himself with his hands. Slithering around on the porch to reach the gun that was lodged under the leg of the porch chair, Samuel left a trail of blood flowing from his cut hand. Rising up with his pistol gripped in one hand, J.D. Troxler aimed directly at Samuel. The scream of bullets pierced the air. With a lurch forward, J.D. dropped his gun and gripped his neck. His body tilted back and forth while the branches of the azalea bush shook. Blood ran from the cracks of his fingers and down onto his pressed white shirt. He landed backward, spread across the hood of the truck, his gaze slightly downward toward the door where the shot had been fired.

Lanier stood at the door with smoke coming from his shotgun. Reaching down, he yanked Samuel by the collar of his shirt and pulled him inside.

Inside the house, glass popped and sprayed across the room while Keaton and Narsissa scrambled to the side of the dining room. They took positions under the open windows. Narsissa stuck the rifle barrel through the opening and fired, missing Jack-Ray but slicing a branch from the azalea bush.

Ella was kneeling in the foyer, looking at the glass like she thought she could piece it back together. She grabbed the gun that was lying on the floor and pointed it straight at Lanier. Her hands twitched, and his eyes pleaded. “I’m a good man,” he yelled before a bullet ripped through the wood of the front door and caused him to tumble on top of her. She pulled herself out from under him and scrambled for the shotgun.

Outside Jack-Ray eased down the rows of sunflowers and then ran unnoticed toward the back of the house. Stationed behind the car, Parker Troxler fired at will and shattered the glass out of the living room windows. Pale-yellow curtains danced in the breeze, the top portions dotted with bullet holes. When he rose up behind the car and positioned his gun on the roof, Earl moved out from the pasture and trotted toward him. Parker fired a shot that shattered the window where Keaton hid. The boy then lifted himself up and had glass tangled in his hair. He screamed in a high, pierced way—a boy caught between manhood and youth. His shot hit the rear window of the car and caused Parker to fall to the ground. Rolling over, Parker gripped the gun with both hands. Keaton was still looking back at the car, not noticing that his threat had moved.

As Parker pulled back on the trigger, he glanced up to find Earl standing over him. His lanky shadow cast across Parker’s face and shoulders. The shot was clean and quick and merciful, the way a farmer might do to a mule that had foundered and was no longer workable. A small hole pierced Parker’s blond hair. Blood seeped out under his head until it took the shape of a pillow.

Inside the house, smoke from the bullets lingered. Everyone lay still and silent. A muffled cry streamed out from the bedroom where Macon lay under the bed, gripping the bedposts and crying.

“Is it over?” Samuel yelled from the living room. Macon’s cries from the bedroom echoed throughout the house and tangled with the sound of the oxen calling outside.

Ella looked down at the blood on her hand and wondered if it was hers or Clive’s. There was no noise, only the sound of birds chirping in the distance and the flap of curtains through the open windows.

“Is it over?” Samuel yelled again. He tried to stand, but Lanier reached over and pulled him down. He motioned for him to stay quiet.

Narsissa rolled onto her side, and slivers of glass crunched at her weight. She looked back into the kitchen and saw Jack-Ray standing at the doorway. Before she could reach for her gun, he put a bullet through the center of her chest. Keaton scrambled through the glass and landed on one foot in the foyer before sliding into the living room. He lined the wall with the others and let Ella grip his head against her chest.

Smoke was still billowing from Jack-Ray’s gun when he turned toward the room where Ella had at one time hoped to have social gatherings. The sound of his boots echoed down the hallway. Lanier leaned against the wall that separated the foyer from the living room and stuck his gun out and fired. The bullet missed Jack-Ray and broke a lantern that hung on the wall. “You know what they say about dead or alive,” Jack-Ray said as he walked over glass.

When Jack-Ray made it to the edge of the living room, the floor creaked against his weight. The sound of the family’s jagged breathing seemed to fill the room the same as the echoes of bullets that still remained. Samuel jumped from behind the love seat and fired. The oval picture frame holding the photograph of Ella and Harlan on their wedding day shattered into pieces. Ella saw the panic on Samuel’s face and the methodical way that Jack-Ray walked toward him with his pistol drawn, inching forward the way he would stalk a rabbit that was perched on a stump ready to be shot. Ella screamed, “The one you came for is over there.” She pointed toward Lanier, who stood in the corner of the room next to a coat rack. When Jack-Ray turned to fire, Ella lifted the shotgun and shot a hole through the side of his pants. He bounded over a small coffee table and kicked the gun from her hands.

Turning his gun in Ella’s direction, Jack-Ray stared at her and calmly pointed the gun at her. There was neither pain nor fury in his eyes. There was only a blank darkness, the same as if someone had cut out his eyes and replaced them with pieces of coal. When Lanier fired, Jack-Ray leaped sideways, never losing the grip of his gun. Lanier lifted the gun to fire again, but it only clicked, empty of bullets. Keaton scrambled across the floor for his gun. Jack-Ray aimed right for Lanier’s temple and grinned when he did it.

The firing of the gun caused his head to jerk backward in a snapping motion. When he landed on his knees, Jack-Ray was missing the portion of his face where the letter
J
had been carved. Lanier struggled to breathe. Blood, like sores, covered his face as he kept gathering unused bullets that were scattered on the floor. He never noticed Earl, the father of a simpleton locked away for the town’s safety, standing in the foyer. All any of them could see that day was the smoke that billowed from the room, the bullet holes that riddled the walls, and the blood that would forever stain the floor of their home.

Against the weight of his boots, broken glass crackled as Earl walked out of the splintered front door. He eased down porch steps speckled with flesh and headed deeper into the woods, where sane people knew better than to venture.

Narsissa was buried on a Tuesday, the day after Clive Gillespie’s funeral and two days after the town dressed in black for Sheriff Bissell’s service.

The small group, made up of neighbors and Neva Clarkson, assembled in the section of the cemetery segregated for Indians. Moss and rotting tree limbs littered the plot of land. Ella stood next to an anthill and listened to Reverend Simpson piece together a woman he only knew from what others in the community said about her. The magnolia casket that Lanier had stayed up for two days working on now gleamed in the afternoon sun. Ella rubbed the ends of the fish-scale necklace and wished that it really had magical properties. If so, she would turn back time and turn Lanier Stillis away from her farm.

“Jesus promises peace not like the world gives, but eternal peace.” Reverend Simpson closed his Bible and looked straight at Ella. “May your beloved Narsissa have peace.” Then he reached for Ella’s hands. “May you finally have peace.”

Lanier did not join the group that circled around the casket he had made. He chose to stay behind, telling Ella that he didn’t want to draw more attention than had already been given. “I’m an innocent man,” Lanier kept saying long after Sheriff Loring had returned to Bainbridge, taking the bodies of the Troxler brothers to the cemetery where their sister and father awaited them in death. The yellowed papers that J.D. claimed verified Lanier’s mental instability were found, torn from bullets, inside his coat jacket pocket. They were the death certificates of his wife and sister—war tokens, more or less.

Earl’s argument for innocence would turn out to be as riddled with holes as Ella’s home the day he walked out of it. After Deputy Ronnie took testimony from everyone, he wrote up the whole affair as “self-defense and justifiable homicide.” Sheriff Bissell would be memorialized in popular opinion as a fallen hero who had been ambushed by the brothers from Bainbridge. Judge Takerton, the man Clive Gillespie had helped elect, split the report the deputy wrote right down the middle with a pewter envelope opener. “Justice is blind in my courtroom. She has equal balance. A crime is a crime is a crime,” he said the day he signed off on the verdict to send Earl to Raiford Prison.

Even after the bodies were identified, the floors cleaned, and the curtains and windows replaced, the events of that day would hover over Ella and her sons like an estranged relative whose memory never truly goes away.

Riding in the wagon back home after Narsissa’s funeral, Ella and her sons were trapped in their scattered thoughts. A fox darted out in front of them before running back through the high grass that led to a broken-down farmhouse. The gray, rotted porch floor was cracked right down the middle.

Samuel popped the reins a little too hard, and the mule shook his head.

“It’s not his fault,” Ella said.

Samuel popped the reins again, and once more the mule shook his head, causing the bridle to make a jingling noise.

“Samuel, you’re too rough with the reins.”

The wagon wheel dipped into a rut, and Ella was jostled up against her oldest son. His muscles were taut, and he snapped the reins again, harder, until the mule called out.

Snatching the reins away, Ella shouted, “Stop it.”

He balled up his fist like he might hit her, but she never turned away. Ella only gripped the reins tighter and leaned away from her son.

Samuel kicked the floor of the wagon, folded his arms, and simmered until they reached the corner of their property.

Lanier was at the water pump, priming the handle, when the wagon headed up the path toward the barn.

“Samuel,” Ella yelled.

Before the wagon could stop, Samuel had leaped from the seat.

Lanier halfway turned and was knocked backward toward the sunflowers by Samuel’s fist. Sunflower stalks bent in submission.

“You killed her,” Samuel yelled through gritted teeth. He slammed his fist on Lanier’s head twice before Lanier rebounded and swung his weight, flipping Samuel down on his back. Samuel, pinned to the ground by Lanier’s grip on his wrists, kept yelling. “You killed her. You killed her. You killed her.”

Beneath Lanier’s weight, Samuel writhed and jerked like a wild animal being held captive. “You killed her,” he screamed.

Ella pulled Lanier off her son, and Keaton tried in vain to hold his brother back. Samuel bounded forward and bumped into Ella as he tried to get to Lanier. “I said stop,” Ella shouted. When Samuel failed to listen to her, Ella pushed her way in between the two of them.

The hat she wore was knocked askew, and a reddening spot showed where Samuel’s shoulder had landed when he bumped her aside to get to Lanier. Ella kept pulling at Samuel’s face, trying to hold his head still. He thrashed and spat, cursing Lanier. When words failed, Ella struck him square on his face. The crimson shape of her fingers remained on his cheek.

“He killed her,” Samuel said, heaving out the words. “He good as killed her.” Slumping to the ground, Samuel cried harder than he had since his father disappeared.

No one took Lanier his supper that night, and he didn’t venture out of the barn to request it.

Ella opened the door of Narsissa’s cabin. The hinges creaked when it opened, and for a moment, she stood there in the darkness, taking in the smell of herbs that Narsissa kept in the dresser that Ella had given her as a hand-me-down. Never bothering to close the door, Ella lit the lamp and looked in the corner where Narsissa’s bed sat.

The pattern quilt that Narsissa had made out of discarded baby clothing worn by Ella’s sons was laid neatly across the mattress. Ella folded the quilt the same way a soldier might handle a flag and sat down on the edge of the bed. The picture of Narsissa with the man who was once her husband was next to the small nicked and stained nightstand that Ella had replaced in her own home with a nicer version. She looked at the picture and tried to imagine the woman Narsissa must have been at that time. A woman who would follow a man to a distant land. A woman, not unlike herself, who was at one time intoxicated with a love that leaves the mind and spirit hungover. Pressing the quilt against her, she inhaled the scent and for the first time cried harder than she had when Harlan deserted her.

“I’m sorry.” Lanier stood in the doorway with the light striking the side of his body in a glow.

Ella jumped from the bed and wiped her eyes.

When he stepped inside, an owl called out beyond the door. Ella moved to the other side of the room. “Everything’s fine.” She looked around the cabin, seeking a distraction.

His words were crisp and excited, like a schoolchild seeking approval. “I made some more dolls. They’re in the store. Just inside the door.”

A hot breeze stirred through the open door, and the light in the lamp swayed. “There must be a thunderstorm heading our way,” she said and ran her hand across the quilt. “Narsissa could predict the weather as good as any steamboat captain.”

“I’m sorry,” he said yet another time. “Out there today in the yard . . .”

“The shipment from Pensacola came in today. I’ll need to start restocking tomorrow.” She stared down at the woven rug next to the bed that covered Narsissa’s secret compartment.

“I’m sorry . . . about everything.”

“Your dolls are still selling, healing or no healing,” Ella said and then sighed. “I guess everybody is still holding out some hope.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hush!” Ella shouted.

Crickets and bullfrogs called out as a distant symphony. Stepping backward, Lanier turned to go but stopped. “Know one thing. . . . I never meant to bring you trouble.”

“It’s more complicated than apologies.”

“I hate it. I just wish I’d kept going on to New Orleans.”

Ella sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the open door. She didn’t want Lanier to come any closer but didn’t want to tell him so either. “We both know that if you hadn’t ended up here, my sons and I would be in the poorhouse, begging for our next meal. My son might even be dead. You know that. Just the same as if Narsissa wouldn’t have wound up here, I’d be in the poorhouse. I couldn’t take care of myself. I guess I never have.”

“Yes, you could have.”

Her mouth twisted to the side. “No, I couldn’t have. I needed you just like I needed Narsissa. She paid the price in all of this.”

“The price?”

“I cost Narsissa her life by not being able to manage. If I was as strong as her, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I would have let you stay the night in the barn and then Samuel would have taken you to the steamboat the next morning. You’d be in New Orleans, and Narsissa would still be here.”

“This has nothing to do with you. It was . . . I don’t know, timing. . . . Fate. . . . Whatever you want to call it.”

“Of course it’s about me. It is
always
about me. Always has been.” Ella fluttered her hand and then balled it into a fist. “I’ve been dependent my entire life. I’ve been selfish . . . just waiting for the next person to swoop in and take care of me.” Her voice broke again.

He took a step closer, and she slid farther down the bed. “Don’t,” she said.

“I wish I’d left after we made the cut.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t have let you.”

“Because we’re partners.”

“Partners? I’m married.”

“Partners in business, is what I meant to say.”

Ella dropped her chin and looked at him in a way that would not let him circle the truth.

Lanier ran his hand through his hair. “Look, I feel terrible about all of this.”

“I’m still married. The law won’t let me forget it. And people won’t either.”

“I ain’t gonna stand here and let you beat yourself up like this.” The light illuminated the back of his head. “You helped me just like you helped Narsissa.”

“I helped you all right.” Ella toyed at a loose thread on the quilt before twisting it around her finger and yanking it free.

“Ella, do you want me to leave? Is that what you’re aiming for?”

“What I want and what I need are two different things.”

He reached out and stroked the back of her hair. This time she didn’t move. “Ella, deep down, what do
you
want? Be honest, now. If you’re ever going to be honest with yourself, now’s the time.” The box springs on the bed squeaked when he sat down.

For the first time that evening she exhaled long and deep. Part of her wanted to fall back on the bed and sink into the feather mattress. “I might not care what these people around here think of me anymore, but I still care about the opinion of my boys.”

“There were no boys in my question.”

“The truth is, Lanier, I want you to stay.”

Lanier’s fingers brushed against her shoulder.

“But right now a bigger part of me wants you to leave.”

The sting of her words etched across his face.

Ella lay across the side of the bed with her back to Lanier. She could feel the shift in the mattress and the creak of the springs when he got up. Tucking her hands underneath the heavy quilt, she forced herself to stay still. She heard his boots tap on the floor as he made his way out the door. The crunching sound of his weight against the broken limbs and leaves outside the cabin was soon overpowered by the cry of the owl. Up until now, she had never thought of the bird’s call as mournful.

Fog canopied the road in front of the store, and dew sprinkled like diamonds across the grass on Ella’s yard. Clouds hung so low that the earth and sky became one. Ella stood at her bedroom window and could only make out the azalea bush at the edge of her porch. A spider’s web, dotted with drops of water from the mist, hung from the corner of the porch banister. Ella studied the intricate design that looked like lace and wondered how long it had been there without her ever noticing.

Slipping on her robe, Ella felt the cold surface of the floor on her bare feet and hoped the sensation would jolt the numbness that blanketed her mind. The hallway floor creaked, and she knocked on the door of the boys’ room. “Morning,” she said without opening the door. She said the greeting again, this time forcing herself to add a cheerful lift to her voice.

In the kitchen she pulled the skillet from the cabinet and scooped out the lard that Narsissa had put into a canister.
Today will be a good day,
she told herself and then prayed for the strength to make it so.

After the boys had dressed for school and eaten, they went about their morning chores. Ella cleaned the kitchen and watched them from the window. They wove in and out of the fog like they were actors coming on and off a stage between scenes.

Scrubbing the skillet faster and faster, Ella jumped when Keaton called her name. He was standing at the back door of the kitchen, his hands placed on the sides like he was holding up the frame. “Mama,” he said. His eyes were as wide as they had been the day Lanier climbed out of the box. “He’s gone.”

Holding the grease-stained rag, Ella looked at him. Her full lips parted slightly as if she were in the middle of forming a word that was now locked in her throat.

“Lanier’s gone.”

Out in the barn, they all stood around the spot where Lanier had made his bed. They stared at the ground the same way they would have if he had shrunk and they were seeking him in the scatter of hay. The mule looked up at them with slivers of hay hanging from his whiskers and then returned to his breakfast.

Macon was the one who found three twenty-dollar bills tucked underneath an oak box that rested on the workbench. He tried to open the lid but Samuel took it from him and completed the job. Inside there were pencils, tubes of paint, a canvas, and three long paintbrushes. “He must have ordered this with that shipment he unpacked yesterday,” Samuel said. He pulled out a piece of parchment paper. With one of the pencils, Lanier had written a note that Samuel read out loud. “I’ve said enough. I’ve done enough. I appreciate everything that has been done to help me but it’s time for me to set out to where I started. I’m going to New Orleans to start fresh. I hope you all will think of me from time to time. Not about the bad things but about the good ones. We natural-born worked, but we did it. We did it. Paint a picture and think of me sometime.”