The Killing Tree (13 page)

“The ocean’s in Florida, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“We’ll go to Florida, then.” I smiled. I had Trout. I was escaping Father Heron. And I would see the ocean. There was nothing
else to wish for. Except maybe one thing. I remembered fourteen-year-old Della, trembling and clutching my hands.
Promise we’ll always take care of each other, Mercy. Girls like us have to love each other. Ain’t no one else around to do
it.

“Before we go to Florida, I’d like to see Della. Get her to come too.”

“Too risky,” he said, shaking his head. “Once we leave, we gotta stay gone. If they caught you sneakin’ back, we’d both have
hell to pay.”

“I’d be careful. Besides, I don’t got much choice.”

“Last time I saw Della she was doin’ fine on her own. Seemed awful happy to me too, lovin’ up on some man in a necktie.”

“But I promised her I’d take her with me, years ago, long before I met you.” It happened my freshman year. Della’d sneak me
out of study hall and over to the football stands where we’d practice trying to smoke without coughing or our eyes watering.
But then the week came when she didn’t show. Every morning I’d stand by her locker until long after the tardy bell rang. When
Friday came and still no Della, I walked out of school to find her. I hadn’t ever been to her house before, but I knew where
she lived. Couple of rich girls, always jealous of the way boys leered after Della, liked to sniff their noses when they passed
her.
Sniff sniff, I smell trailer trash. Della DeMar must be close.
Then they’d laugh and Della’s face would flush as red as her hair, all while she mumbled cuss words so nasty I knew the only
place a young girl could learn them was if she really did live in the trailer park.

I was on my way there when I heard the rumble of an El Camino and the squeal of its tires coming to a stop. Even in all the
dust it kicked up, I could see her red hair. And hear her scream as the door flew open and out she rolled. Then the car took
off, and there she was. Cussing, sobbing, and still laying in the dirt. I helped her up, her looking at me with no surprise.
Just like she expected to find me there picking her up out of the road, instead of being in school like I was supposed to.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” I asked her, hands on my hips, sounding like a momma.

“Lies,” she said, shaking her head. “Same thing every time.”

“Who was that in the car?”

“Cecil.”

“Y’all fighting?”

“We was leaving this hellhole,” she said.

“Leaving?” I whispered.

“Yep,” she said. “Been in Kentucky these past four days. Said he was going to take me to New York, or even Hollywood. Put
my picture in the magazines. Made me pose for him just for practice, working on different looks.
Look sexy
, he’d yell, then click click with his camera.
Look sassy!
Click, click.
Look pouty!
Click, click. And then,
Look happy!
That was the one that messed everything up. When he’d shout,
Look happy
, I’d just smile same way I always do. Maybe toss my hair, or stick out a hip. He’d study pictures and bring ’em to me, of
girls rolling around in bikinis grinning like they was having the time of their lives.
Look at their happy eyes!
he’d yell.
And how easy their smiles seem!
It was no use, though. Smiles don’t come easy to me. I told him as much, and I said maybe once we got to New York he’d make
me so happy that it’d shine through in my pictures. But he said if I couldn’t smile right, without looking like my face was
gonna break with the strain of it, there was nothing he could do for me.
You could love me
, I says to him. Next thing I know we were headed back south and he was pushing me out of his car.”

I took her home. And I could tell she was impressed with the house. With its square shape, instead of the thin rectangle of
her trailer. I tried to look at it through her wide eyes. The wooden walls, instead of tin ones. The heart of pine floors,
instead of vinyl. I ran her a bath.
We just got a stand-up shower
, she whispered.
It’s got real fine water pressure, though
, she added quickly. I nodded my head, and added two more capfuls of the bubble bath I was usually so stingy with. Only half
a capful for myself. But for a girl that never got a hot bath, four capfuls of Lavender Bliss was nothing. While she bathed
I searched the kitchen for some food. I found some leftover chicken and heated up some molasses to pour over cornbread. I
had her lay in my bed and propped her up with my pillow so she could eat. I was treating her the way I had imagined a momma
would. Cleaning her up, filling her belly, and making sure she was warm.

“You’re spoiling me,” she said with a laugh when she finished. “I hadn’t eaten in almost two days. Money ran out in Kentucky.
Cecil spent it all on film.”

“Aw, it’s nothing,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “Just leftovers and a warm bath.” But what I wanted to say is,
I swear to you, Della DeMar, if you just won’t leave me again I’ll serve you like this all of my days.

“Mercy?” Father Heron called out.

“Stay here,” I told Della as I walked out to meet him.

I knew the minute I looked at him, I’d found trouble.

“Need something?” I whispered.

“Teacher called here today says you missed a test. Says she saw you walking straight out of the schoolhouse before the day
even got started.”

“Felt sick,” I said.

“Well, you didn’t come straight home. And you look well enough to me. Maybe I oughta give you something to feel sick about.”

I looked up and saw his face, and knew that before I could blink my eyes he was gonna make me feel sick and hurt all over.

But then the room lit up so bright I wondered if he had already hit me, and maybe my eyes were injured. Or my head. Then I
heard her yell.

“You touch her, you so much as leave one damned mark on that girl, and I swear this picture’s gonna go straight to the police,
the newspaper, and the church too!”

We both turned, me and Father Heron, our mouths hanging open in surprise, his hand still raised to hit me. Della stood there
in my pajamas swinging a camera by her side.

Father Heron didn’t say a word. He just gave me his
I’ll deal with you later
look and bolted from the house. We laughed about it all night. How she burned two men with that camera. Cecil, once he discovers
it’s gone. And Father Heron, simply by taking his picture. She laid next to me, us sharing my one pillow. It was the closest
thing to a slumber party I’d ever had. And right before dawn it hit me, how close I’d come to having none of that.

“You tried to leave,” I whispered. “And if you hadn’t come back, I’d be laying here black and blue, all alone on this mountain.”

“And if you hadn’t left school to find me I’d be laying in the road, hungry and dirty, and trying to figure out how to smile
the right way.”

That’s when her hand found mine and she whispered her promise to always look out for me, and made me promise the same. I wanted
to say something special. Wanted to tell her that that was the first time I could remember enjoying a night in that house.
Wanted to tell her that school was a scary place without her to walk the halls with me. And that I couldn’t remember how to
smoke and keep my eyes from tearing up without her to show me. But it was a slumber party, and that meant we were supposed
to gossip and giggle. So I just shrugged my shoulders and whispered, “Della, tell me the truth. Did I really look inside that
El Camino and see an old man with gray hair? You dating a grandpappy?” Her squeals of laughter answered everything.

I laughed softly inside Trout’s truck, remembering the sound of her giggles. “I gotta go back for her,” I whispered.

“ ’Cause of some promise you made as a kid?”

“Wasn’t a kid’s promise,” I said lowly. “It was a love promise. Same as the ones I’ve made to you. I can’t break this one
any easier than I could those.”

He sighed.

“I know my mountain. I know that valley. And more than anything, I know how to hide. I’ve done it my whole life.”

He shook his head. “At least give it a few weeks for our trail to go cold.”

I nodded. It was a fair deal.

“Where we gonna stay up in here?”

“Pick a spot.” He laughed. “Ain’t no motels.”

He drove further than we had earlier in the summer. We passed the spot where the naked boy in boots had stood, holding his
dead squirrel. Then we passed the place where we had parked to go fishing. I remembered how he had called me a part of the
“y’all” that hated people like him and the six and twenty milers. Now we were both exiles.

Soon it was dark, and the road was no longer dotted with shacks and old trailers. We were further in the holler than the six
and twenty milers themselves.

“Where’s this road lead?” I asked.

“Goes over the mountain. Rough way too. Never paved.”

“I never knew there was another way off this mountain. I just always thought there was the main road and that’s it. You sure
he can’t get us here?” I asked.

“Well, how’s this spot look?”

It looked like all the rest. Wild. Trees so thick I wondered how we could set the tent up. Or if we would even bother to.

“I guess fine,” I said. “Long as it’s hidden.”

“The ditch ends there. I can pull the truck up into the woods a little. He won’t come lookin’ in here. And if he did, he’d
have a hard time spottin’ us. Besides, there’s a stream nearby that’ll serve us well.”

We started walking into the woods, searching for a spot clear enough to pitch the tent.

“The locals’ll come callin’ any minute,” Trout said.

“How come?”

“This is their holler. Nothin’ hides from ’em. They’ve been on this land long ’fore the valley began. They know when every
old tree falls. So they sure as hell will know we’re here.”

“Think they’ll tell anybody?”

“Who’d listen to ’em?” He shrugged.

We found a small clearing near the stream and pitched the tent. Trout built a fire and started fishing. Then we ate together,
picking bites off the same smoked fish. There was a crate of tomatoes in the bed of his truck, so we roasted a couple and
ate them as well.

“We’ll never be hungry,” he said proudly. “This mountain feeds me better’n my momma ever did.”

“My Mamma Rutha wasn’t too good at feeding me either. Wonder if I’ll ever see her again.”

“You never can know. When I joined the migrants I didn’t think I’d ever see my momma again. Did though, just a couple years
ago after some cowboy cops did a big sweep of the mater camp. They was aimin’ to scare off the Mexicans, but didn’t mind gettin’
to round a white boy up neither.”

“You go to jail?”

“Yep. Longest two months of my life.”

“Because you were all caged up?”

“That was bad.” He nodded. “But the worst of it was how I’d miss little things. Like rain. I didn’t have a window, but I could
smell it on the guards. They’d walk by, and I’d know that outside was a rain I’d never get the chance to see. It was like
pieces of the mountain were dyin’ all around me.”

“Was your momma in jail too?”

“No. Fella from over near home was in there with me. He got out, went and told her ’bout me. ‘Hello son,’ she said. Don’t
think she ever called me by a name. And when I got to thinkin’ ’bout it, I couldn’t remember her name neither. For a long
time we just sat there and looked at each other. ‘Know what I thought about the other day?’ she asked. ‘ ’Bout that time you
et a whole sweet potatuh pie.’ ”

He shook his head slowly. “Of all the days we shared, we couldn’t remember the same ones. She remembered pie. And I couldn’t
remember a day she ever fed me. ‘You scared in here, son?’ she asked, her mouth puckerin’ a little, like she bit an early
persimmon. She was grown. It was the first time I ever seen her growed up. Little lines around her eyes. Little lines around
her mouth. ‘I ain’t,’ I lied.”

“How come you lied?” I asked.

“She needed to hear it.” He shrugged his shoulders. “She died a little while ago. Got word from a girl she used to run ’round
with. Said in her last moments she called for her baby boy.” He shook his head. “Wished I was there.”

“Why? You couldn’t have done anything.”

“I would’ve known what it was like for her to want me. And I would’ve told her it was awright. That I was awright.” He laughed
softly. “My momma wasn’t near the woman yours is.”

I shook my head. “She’s dead. Father Heron killed her.”

“No, not that one. The one that’s raised you up.”

“Mamma Rutha,” I said, feeling tense. “How do you know her?”

“Followed you home one night. Paced behind you, watchin’ the way you walked. Like the mountain pulled you up it. Watchin’
the way you crept up to the house, like you was scared of it.”

“Why’d you do that? I told you not to,” I said, as color flooded my face.

“I was jealous. There was a part of you hid up on that mountain. And I wanted that part too. You went inside, through the
back door. And then I saw her. Naked in the moonlight. Skin shinin’ like dew. Hair swingin’ down to her waist. Like you, all
growed up. ‘Chop down the apple tree,’ she sang to me. I looked to where she pointed but I couldn’t see a tree. The night
was too black. ‘Chop down the apple tree,’ she sang again. The only thing I could think to say is, ‘Yes ma’am, bring me an
axe.’ Then she smiled. Lord that woman took my breath. Beautiful. Like you are, like you will be.”

He circled me in his arms. “Yes, Mercy, you are that woman’s daughter. No denyin’ it. Never could figure what she meant about
the apple tree, though.”

“This,” I whispered. “Saving me from him. That apple tree wants my blood.”

T
hey’re here, Mercy. They done found us.”

I sat up quickly and listened. We’d only set up our tent a couple hours before. I heard a bird singing in the distance, and
the sound of the stream running past us. I heard Trout’s breath, slow and even.

“Don’t hear nobody,” I said.