The Killing Tree (21 page)

“Please come, Trout,” I whispered to the bit of moon peeking through the woods. “Please hurry. Please. Please. Please. Please
come now.” The moon didn’t answer me. And Trout didn’t come.

It was a noisy night. Branches creaked from the squirrels that scampered across them. Something large and unknown rustled
in the brush. My ears strained for the sounds of the path. Any minute they might hear footsteps. I dozed in and out of consciousness.
Sleeping until a noise would wake me. The snap of a branch. “Trout?” I would call out into the darkness. My voice sounding
small and hollow. No answer. And no more noise. So I would doze again. Until another snap. “Trout? Is that you?” No answer.
Sleep finally pulled me from my misery.

I was walking through a field. And soon I was standing by a pool of water. Looking into it. There was baby’s breath in my
hair. And a light. At the very bottom. And it was swimming toward me. Closer and closer. A shimmering light, growing brighter.

So bright it woke me. Even through sleepy eyes I could still see the fading light. I sprang to my knees. Was it the fire trout?
A last sparkle. Then nothing. Had I imagined it all?

I knelt by the stream until dawn. Through hours so dark I couldn’t even see the water, but could only hear it. I was keeping
watch for the fire trout. When dawn returned, I knew I had to go to him.

Maybe he didn’t get the note. Maybe the Mexican man had only pretended to understand who Trout was. Maybe he was sick or hurt.
My mind held all the maybes, but it clung to what it knew. Wherever he was and regardless of why he didn’t come, he loved
me.

I traced my way back toward the valley. I wondered what happened to Della. If she waited by the river, just like I had at
the stream. I would make it all up to her. After I found Trout.

A car passed me and the driver waved. Was it someone I knew? Someone from First Baptist? Did they know I was on my way to
love the mater migrant? Would they call Father Heron? As panic began to take control, I told myself it didn’t even matter.
Because I couldn’t turn around. Even if Father Heron himself stood in my path.

I stood in the flatland and caught my breath. I started looking for his tent. I saw tents with gray rope. White rope. Brown
rope. Yellow rope. But no red rope.

“Trout?” I called outside the tents. “Where are you, Trout?”

He never answered. I began to feel sick. Everything seemed to be moving too slowly, like I was walking through molasses. Like
my mouth was filled with peanut butter. “Trrrrooooouuuttt,” it called thickly.

But then my eyes saw it. And my heart quickened so that I felt dizzy. The old brown truck. Worn and beaten, it was the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen. I ran to it. He wasn’t in it, but it meant he was still there somewhere. He had probably
just gone for a morning walk. Maybe he was headed toward our secret place at that moment. I sat down in the bed of the truck.
It was my anchor. My one solid link with Trout.

I sat there for a couple of hours. Until the other people in the tents began to stir. I imagined that Father Heron had heard
by now. I was back, and I was with the mater migrant. It was a thought that I decided to deal with later. I told myself I’d
suffer anything for Trout.
Anything
, if he would just come.

The migrants began to build small fires and brew coffee. My eyes darted from one face to another. Until I saw the Mexican
man that I had given the note to. Stirring his coffee, laughing over a joke with his friend.

I walked over to him. He looked at me curiously.

“
¿Trucha?
” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“Trout!
¡Trucha!
” I insisted.

He shook his head again.

I pointed to the brown truck.

“
¡Trucha!
” I said again, my voice grating with frustration.

He stared at me with calm eyes, and nodded.

“Gone.”

“You don’t understand. I need to see
Trucha
. I was just here with him a few days ago.”

“Gone.”

“For how long? A morning walk?”

He shook his head, and turned to walk away. I grabbed his arm. I would have held him forever to get my answers.

“No come back!” he insisted, his face very serious.

“There must be a mistake. His truck is here. Did you give him the note?”

“Gone. No come back,” he yelled as he reached in his pocket and pulled out my note. I stared at it, and I believed I would
die from the pain it brought.

I had seen death before. Once, I found a dead groundhog stretched stiff and cold beneath a peony bush. Like a stuffed animal,
or a cheap carnival prize. I stared at it and wondered what death would do to me. Would I become a plastic doll?

I had my answer. When he said that word.
Gone.
When he showed me that note. I looked up to see the peony branches. To smell their sweet flowers hanging over me. And all
of the things a doll can’t do fell upon me. A doll can’t stand on its own. So my legs gave way, pulling me to the ground.
Dolls can’t have blood coursing through their veins. So thick red love spilled out of me. Dolls can’t cry. So my wet eyes
were replaced with empty ones, that couldn’t even blink. Trout was gone. And so was Mercy.

S
o there I lay, beneath the peonies. With eyes that only saw glimpses. Of the rough weathered hands that carried me. With ears
that only heard prayers. Pleading for mercy.
Mercy for the Mercy doll.

I had a doll once when I was little. A plastic baby doll with fuzzy yellow hair. How I loved her. I named her Sally, after
a beautiful lady at church. I would rock her. Sing to her. Pretend to feed her. I took her everywhere with me. Even to church.
And that’s why Father Heron killed her too. He said she was an idol. That I loved her more than Jesus.
Maybe I did.
I was only eight, and at least I could see Sally. It was hard to see Jesus, with Father Heron always standing in front of
him.

He burned her. In the backyard after church. He built a big hot fire and made me throw her into it. “No!” I cried. “Don’t
make me burn Sally!” We ran away. Me and Sally. We hid behind the tiller in the shed. “Don’t cry, Sally,” I whispered to her.
“We’ll stay here forever so you won’t get burned up.” But he sniffed us out, his nose smelling our fear. And when he found
us, he made me wish that my limbs were unfeeling plastic things like Sally’s. I cradled her in my arms. One last time. I smelled
her fuzzy hair. It smelled like baby powder. I kissed my baby.

“I love you, Sally,” I whispered.

“Throw her,” he said.

“No!” I screamed. “I’m not gonna let you kill her!” And then he took my arm, the arm that clutched my Sally, and held it over
the fire.

“Let go or burn with her.”

It felt cold at first. Like he was holding my arm down in icy water. Then the pain came, and I knew that I was burning. The
tiny hairs on my arm singed and withered. He watched in silence as I cried. I looked at Sally, her pink skin blackened by
smoke. And then I let go.

She fell down into the hot red flames. I turned to run, but he held me there and made me watch my baby burn. Her fuzzy yellow
hair turned black, and then gray, and then fell off. Her eyes were open staring straight at me. “Close your eyes,” I begged
her. But she just looked at me, asking why must Sally burn? Her eyes sagged and drooped until they were little colored pools
of melted plastic. Her twisting body made a shrill hiss as it withered into ash. My baby was screaming for its momma.

And now I was somebody’s doll.
Don’t love me more than Jesus
, I wanted to tell her.
Or he might burn me too!
Then I’d be a melted pool of plastic. My stringy hair would turn black, then gray, then fall off. And my eyes would droop
and sag. If only my plastic lips could move, I would tell those rough hands,
Please don’t love me more than Jesus.

Eternal Peacein Glory

S
omeone was singing my song. “
I awakened you under an apple tree, la la la . . . There your mother brought you forth, la la di di la . . . Now set her as
a seal upon your heart, for love is as strong as death
.” As strong as. Why didn’t it say stronger? Wasn’t it love that was making my plastic hands begin to tingle and move?

Just as Crooktop had its hour of tricks, I had one too. And I had been stuck in mine. Waffling somewhere between life and
death. Plastic and flesh. I couldn’t make the decision the way the mountain did every morning, choosing sunny or cloudy, dead
or alive. All I could do was lay there beneath the peonies, feeling plastic.

Someone else decided, though. Rough hands and bitter herbs pulled me from beneath the peonies. My limbs were bent and stretched
until they could feel the blood pumping through them. Colors were flashed before my eyes, making them blink. I stopped gagging
and began to swallow. All of it, proof that I wasn’t plastic. When my eyes began to see again, I couldn’t help but wonder.
Look at it all, I thought. Legs. Arms. Chest. Belly. I had felt it disappear, but it was all still there.

I didn’t know where I was. Treetops swayed over me, and clouds peeked through the leaves. I could hear the rustling of animals
nearby. And birds were singing all around me.
I’m in heaven
, I thought at first.
Heaven is a mountain with no pain.
But soon my back began to ache from laying on the hard ground, and my skin shivered from the chill in the air. I knew then,
I was still on Crooktop.

I sat up and saw Mamma Rutha kneeling by a tree, whispering softly. I watched as her lips mouthed my name, and wondered what
she prayed for.

“Mamma Rutha,” I said, my voice breaking from lack of use. I watched as she inhaled slowly, and then sighed.

“Oh Mercy baby.”

“What is this place?”

“Where wounded things go to heal.”

I looked around more carefully, searching for the healing. I noticed that I was in a nearly perfect circle of emptiness. Just
dried leaves on hard mountain ground. While large old trees pressed together to frame me, like they were holding hands.

“How’d you find me?” I whispered.

“Heard you.”

“You weren’t close enough.”

She shrugged her shoulders gently. “I’m very old, Mercy baby. My ears don’t work so good anymore. I’ve learned to listen other
ways.”

“And what about him? Can you hear him?” I begged. She shook her head, and I could see the pity on her face. It was like looking
in a mirror. I was the picture of misery.

I rolled over, a weak effort to hide myself. I was angry with her for no reason. Except maybe that she didn’t leave me to
die. Or maybe that she was able to find me with her crazy ways, but couldn’t tell me where Trout was.

“I know you met him,” I whispered. “That night in the garden. He told me all about it.”

“I remember.”

“He thought you were beautiful. He said he hoped I’d look just like you one day.” I started sobbing.

“Shhh. Don’t fight the healing.”

I looked down at my hands. I had to stare a long time before I could see any red. “I’ve been here a long time, haven’t I?”

“Can’t measure grief in weeks.”

“No,” I whispered. “I’ve got a whole life’s worth.”

“That’s why I brought you here.”

“But we’re still on the mountain,” I said defiantly. “Don’t know exactly where, but I can feel it, Crooktop sucking away my
breath. This mountain will strangle me one day.”

“It’s different here. Found it when I was a little girl. I’d come across a doe with buckshot through its hind leg. And I followed
her up the mountain, dragging her useless leg, a trail of blood dripping to the ground. I wished she would stop fighting her
death.
I’ll ease the death pain
, I promised her. But up the mountain she drug herself. ’Til she came to this clearing. She laid down in the middle, her breathing
slowed, and I thought she died. But I walked to her and saw the soft rise of her belly. She was alive. I watched her through
the evening. And into the dawn of the next day. I went home, gathered some bandages, some salve for her. But when I got back,
she was gone. All that was left of her was the dried blood on the fallen leaves.”

Mamma Rutha picked up a handful of leaves and scattered them around us.

“I knew then she didn’t drag herself here to die,” she continued. “She came here to heal. To hide in the tree circle, and
lay on the soft bed of leaves. Wasn’t a month later, I became that doe. My momma had just pulled a pone of cornbread from
the oven. I was hungry, and too little to know the danger of a hot iron skillet. When I wrapped my fist around the handle
I heard my flesh melt before I felt it. The singe and sizzle. And when I dropped the skillet, the skin of my palm stayed on
the handle. See that?” she asked, holding up her left palm, which even after all the years was several shades darker than
the other. “Weren’t no doctors to come by. Didn’t know of any healers then.
Poor Ruthie
, I heard folks whisper.
That hand won’t never heal.
I asked my momma to fix it, when the pain nearly drove me crazy.
Ain’t nothing can fix that kind of burn
, she said. Then I remembered that doe. And I pulled myself up the mountain, and laid down in my crazy pain on this soft bed
of leaves.”

“What happened?”

“Still got my hand, don’t I?” she said, laughing. “When I come back home, the fire had left me. My hand had scarred up nicely
and was ready to heal. Over the years I’ve tracked many a wounded animal to this place. They don’t always live. But this is
the ground for last battles.”

“No mountain ground can put out my fire,” I whispered.

I spent the next few days sleeping, and eating the food and herbs that Mamma Rutha brought. My body was recovering from the
hard work of the rows. But my heart wasn’t healing. And I didn’t even hope it would. Mamma Rutha was always singing around
me. Touching me and blessing me. It was like we were holding church. Only I didn’t want to be saved.