The Killing Tree (29 page)

“No I’m not,” I said too cheerfully, forcing a stiff smile.

“You must be cold,” he said. “Standing out here kissing in the middle of winter. Let me get you home.”

We walked home with his arm around me. It felt strong and supportive, and warm. And that made me want to cry even more. That
I would be left alone having to find support and strength in Rusty. My hands didn’t leave my belly for the rest of the night.
I laid in bed cradling the part of me that still held Trout. It was my living link to him.

I began seeing Rusty every Friday night. And the more I saw of Rusty, the less I saw Father Heron. I still hid from him. Rising
before dawn and going to Della’s. Or sleeping in until he had left. But he didn’t seek me now that I was making myself a respectable
woman. I was sprinkling the blood of my heart in circles around that mountain. And it was throwing Father Heron off track.

Dating Rusty wasn’t the worst thing. It was better than thinking about Trout in jail. It was better than fearing that Father
Heron would want to snoop out what I did with my days. Rusty the man was different than Rusty the boss. He was less assuming
and less assured. And I was doing a good job hiding the truth from him. When he pulled me close, so that our bodies pressed
against one another, he felt my belly. Round and firm. I even let him put his hand there, covering Trout’s baby.

“Mercy, have you . . .” he began, his eyes tensing into little slits.

“Yes.” I laughed. “And it’s not nice of you to bring it up. Yes, I have put on a few pounds this winter. Must be all those
dinners I cook for you.”

His face relaxed and he began to tease me, calling me his little dumpling. It was gross, but it was safe. I wasn’t going to
tell him until the moment I had to.

That moment came when he surprised me with a “special” date. He had cleared the diner out early. There were little pink carnations
on the center table. And candles. He pulled a chair out for me, and laid a napkin in my lap. He was treating me like a lady.
If he only knew.

“I cooked this meal myself,” he said, as he walked back to the kitchen. He came and arranged a covered dish in front of me.
Then he lifted the lid.

“I hope you like it,” he said softly.

Smoked pork ribs. The best part of the pig. Perfectly charred and basted. But as I looked at it, gray flesh in red paste,
and smelled it, there was no damming the river. I bolted from the table to the bathroom. I didn’t even have time to shut the
door. As I knelt, retching, I felt his hands lift my hair, and a cool washcloth cover my forehead.

I started crying. Sobbing right into the toilet. I wished he wasn’t so good to me. It only made me ache for Trout even more.
It only made me remember when life itself had been good.

“Mercy,” he said, kneeling down beside me in the bathroom. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

“Don’t you know?” I sobbed. “Can’t you see?”

“What?” he asked.

“Why are you so good to me? You don’t know me,” I cried. I was shaking all over.

“What is it? I thought we were having a good time. Me and you, hanging out together. I thought we were having fun.”

“You thought this was fun?” I cried. I was angry with him for being so nice to me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again, his hand grabbing mine.

I sat up and looked at him. How could I tell him that I had used him? How could I tell him that I could never, would never,
be his? That all of his efforts were wasted? How could I tell him that I was beyond redeeming?

“Mercy?” he whispered.

I lifted my shirt. I lifted it high, exposing my roundness and my heavy breasts. I took his hand and laid it on my belly.
His eyes wrinkled again, into little slits. I shook my head yes. He pulled his hand away and sat back on his heels.

“When?” he whispered.

“Late spring, I think.”

“Is it the mat—” he began.

“Yes. It’s his.”

He sat there looking dumbfounded. Shaking his head no.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“What are you gonna do now? Now that you know?”

He sat quiet. Looking at me. Looking at my belly.

“Well, I’m gonna take you home,” he said calmly.

He didn’t open the truck door for me, the way he normally did. But he did ask if I was cold. And he turned his heater vents
in my direction, to help warm me. We sat in silence the whole drive home. When he pulled up to my house, I started to speak.

“Russ, I . . .”

“Just run along inside now. Just go on inside,” he said lowly, without looking at me. I walked inside and packed a bag. I
emptied my jelly jar into it. I had to be ready to run for my life in case he told Father Heron.

Two days later as I slept in, trying to avoid seeing Father Heron, he called through the door.

“Mercy?”

“Yes.”

“Saw Rusty in town yesterday.”

My feet hit the floor. I reached under my bed for my getaway bag.

“Good thing you’re spending time with him. He’s a good one.”

He hadn’t told. Even after I had used him. Even after he learned I could never be his. His goodness made me seem bad. I had
imagined that Rusty was almost as evil as Father Heron. But the truth was that Rusty was good to me. He was kind to me. The
reason Crooktop called him decent and respectable was because he
was
. And he was still being good to me. He was still letting Father Heron think that I couldn’t be out whoring myself because
I was with Crooktop’s best. And I don’t know why. He owed me nothing. And I found myself owing him a lot.

I felt guilty, but I didn’t regret it. Because dating Rusty was the only thing I did that was good for my baby. I didn’t protect
myself from the cold. I didn’t let myself feel the hunger. And I couldn’t stop the flow of grief and hate. Mamma Rutha had
told me to, but she hadn’t told me how. And it was everywhere in me. It flowed from my heart to my belly. Nothing could survive
it. My belly was the reservoir of everything miserable. The place where my baby eventually drowned.

I
t was a wild winter night, with snow and ice and cutting winds. I lay in my bed touching the expanse of my belly. A firm round
growth. I was thankful it was winter. I could walk to the valley with my big puffy coat on, zipped up and covering my middle.

I hadn’t seen Father Heron in over a week. I would spend entire days in my room to avoid having to see him. I would pee in
a jar beneath my bed, so that I wouldn’t have to open my door to go to the bathroom. At night while he slept, I would sneak
to the kitchen. Steal scraps of food and fill a thermos with water, just enough to last another day in hiding. I didn’t even
go to church anymore. And he hadn’t tried to make me. He was content to leave my redemption to Rusty.

But with the snow and the ice, Father Heron would be trapped inside. So I hid in my room and prayed for the snow to stop.
But the weather wasn’t my only worry that night. I touched my belly with more than curiosity. I touched it with worry. The
baby hadn’t moved in so long.

“Just give me a little kick,” I asked it. “Will you squirm just a little for me?”

But there was nothing. For hours I lay there begging it to move. I scolded it. “Don’t worry your momma like this. That’s not
a nice thing to do.” I bribed it. “If you’ll move, I’ll make biscuits and gravy for breakfast.” I begged it. “Please move.
I haven’t felt you in days. Please let me know you’re there.”

I waited and waited, but nothing came. I had drowned it. It wasn’t Father Heron that had killed it. It was me with my bitterness,
hate, and grief.

“No,” I sobbed into my pillow. “No. No. No. Not this, God. I can’t take this. Just let me have my baby.”

I cried into the night. My sobs covered by the winds that whipped around the house. Tears shaking my body as the weather shook
the house. There was no life in my belly and no rest for me. I didn’t think there would ever be again.

At some point in the night, as I lay crying and moaning to my baby, begging it to move, Mamma Rutha came in and stretched
her hands over my belly.

“Something’s wrong,” she said with worried eyes.

“I killed it. Not Father Heron. I fed it my grief and I killed my baby,” I cried.

“Put your coat on,” she said in a low stern voice. “Get out of that bed and put your shoes and coat on now!”

“I can’t move, Mamma Rutha. I killed my baby. Don’t make me move,” I sobbed.

Her rough hands jerked me up.

“Mercy baby, you listen to me. You put your shoes and coat on now. Now!” she screamed, her eyes glowing.

She had never spoken to me that way before. She wasn’t asking or pleading. She was ordering.

As I pulled my socks on I told her that a doctor was no use because I could feel its dead body, floating lifeless within me.

“You do as I say now. You’re right. Ain’t no doctor that can fix this. But you just do as I say,” she said, helping me put
my shoes on.

She dragged me out into a night of bitter, stinging snow. The flakes weren’t big and soft like in Christmas movies. They were
small, scaly bits that blinded me.

“Hold my hand,” she commanded as she pulled me into the woods.

We walked straight up the mountain. Up and up and up. Until I collapsed on the ground.

“I can’t go no further, Mamma Rutha. I can’t even feel my feet I’m so cold,” I cried.

Mamma Rutha took off her socks and pulled them over my shoes. “That should help some,” she said, pulling me up.

We walked until I forgot that we were walking. I was being pulled through a dark stinging woods, but I didn’t know it. The
cold, the exhaustion, the grief, had eaten me alive. When I awoke I was lying on a dirt floor.

“Drink this,” Mamma Rutha said as she poured something hot into my mouth.

I blinked the melted snow out of my eyes and looked around. I was in a one-room shack, but it was sturdily built, keeping
most of the bitter wind outside.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“You’re at the top of the mountain, Mercy baby, the very top.”

“This is where you go?”

She smiled.

“Are there other people here? The rumors in the valley, are they true?” I asked.

“You can’t ever tell anybody that you were up here. Promise me,” she said solemnly.

I nodded my head.

A tall woman walked in the shack.

“This is her,” Mamma Rutha said to the woman. “She needs his help.”

The woman eyed me suspiciously. “She from the valley?”

“No. She’s from me. My granddaughter. I’d be indebted to you for his help,” Mamma Rutha said.

The woman nodded and walked out of the cabin.

“You rest here,” Mamma Rutha said as she pulled off my shoes and began to rub my feet. “Just close your eyes and rest now.
Mamma Rutha’s gonna take good care of you.”

When I opened my eyes again, there was a man standing over me. He had long gray hair and a clean-shaven face. He smelled like
Christmas. Like pine trees and candle wax.

“She needs your help,” Mamma Rutha said to him.

He nodded his head and knelt by me. He was staring at my belly. His eyes peering and intense. He pulled my coat back and he
lifted up my shirt. My skin glowed in the firelight. He stared deep and hard. Did he see my baby, hanging lifelessly inside
of me? He leaned over my belly and whispered to it, then sat back up and watched. Waiting for something. He leaned over again
to whisper. And then he nodded. Had it answered him?

He spit into his hands and rubbed them together. Then he held his palms open, over my belly. I felt a strange warmth from
them. Like I was standing with my naked belly near a fire. His hands moved closer, and the heat grew. And then closer. Until
it was burning me. I began to whimper in pain. And felt rough hands hold me down. The open palms were burning me up. Inches
from my skin. Then they touched me. His wet palms laid flat across my stomach.

I screamed as I felt my flesh melt and the heat pierce through my body. It was as though I had swallowed hot coals. And then
my baby leapt. Filled with the heat it squirmed and kicked.

He smiled at me. A full, toothless smile. “Your baby good now.”

I held my stomach with both hands. “You came back,” I whispered to it. “You came back to me.”

I was crying and laughing. Crazy joy had taken over me.

“Sleep now,” Mamma Rutha told me. “Your baby needs you to sleep now.”

I obeyed. I slept deep and hard until my baby woke me. Wriggling its little body. Still feeling warm. I knew then that it
hadn’t been a dream. Life stirred again within me.

I was ravenous. I hadn’t felt the hunger of most women during my pregnancy. So much of me had been trapped in the cage of
my heart, unconnected to my body. But my baby had escaped the cage, and was reminding me of its hunger.

I rummaged around for food, but I didn’t find any. I walked outside and squatted on the ground, my round belly sticking out
as I stuffed my face with snow. A girl, almost my age, stood watching me.

She looked like me too. Dark brown hair and black eyes. But she was younger, and happier.

“Hi,” I said.

She smiled, her shy eyes darting away from me.

“My name’s Mercy.”

She smiled. “You came with her, the Song Lady.”

I nodded. The Song Lady, that was certainly Mamma Rutha.

“She brought you to the seventh son,” she said.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The healer.”

“What?”

“The gift of the seventh son is the healing gift. It only happens when there are seven sons, and then the seventh son himself
has seven sons.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, the first seventh son, he doesn’t have the gift. He just has the ability to pass it on. But if he has seven sons, then
his seventh son will have the gift. That man you saw last night, he was the seventh son of a man that was a seventh son. So
he had the gift. Lucky for your baby too.”

“What’s it mean, the gift of healing?”

“You know.” She smiled. “You had it last night. You know what it means.”

It meant life. It meant a squirming baby that demanded that I feed it snow.