The Steep and Thorny Way (14 page)

“You must have been breathing wrong.”

“How much farther should we go?” I asked. “
Where
should we go?”

“I don't know.” He set down his lantern, which had long since blown out, and dropped his bag of clothing beside it.

“What are we even doing, Joe? What the hell are we—?”

“Shh!” Joe put out a hand. “A car.”

We both stiffened, even though we no longer stood within sight of the road. I held my breath, and my ribs ached all the more from tightening my muscles.

The automobile in question neared us, no more than fifty yards beyond the trees beside us. I heard the
pop-pop-pop
of a motor, and my heart pumped my blood in a staccato rhythm. I imagined the screeching of brakes, car doors opening, bloodhounds barking, Deputy Fortaine charging toward us with a rifle and bared teeth.

We stood as still as the trees surrounding us, not breathing, not flinching. Beyond the wide green firs, the automobile chugged by and rattled off to the south, toward the crossroads where I'd spoken with my father just the night before.

“Come on.” Joe picked up the lantern and wheeled back around toward the trail. “Let's keep going and find someplace to sleep overnight, before it gets any darker.”

“Am I safe with you?” I asked, not budging.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “I'm not going to touch you, Hanalee.”

“Are you sure? You're not just making up that thing you said about yourself so you can—?”

Joe's mouth tautened.

“After those men attacked Mrs. Downs a couple years ago,” I said, “I just . . . I want to watch out for myself.”

“I'm not going to hurt you. You can sleep with your gun pointing straight at my face if you want, but I'm not planning to attack anyone besides Clyde Koning. Come on.” He turned back around to the path ahead of us. “We're wasting time.”

He continued onward, this time with steps that made mere whispers of sound against the pine needles that littered the forest floor. I grabbed the basket and blanket and followed.

THE WOODS SLOPED UPWARD IN A DIRECTION THAT I
believed to be the north, although the darkness settling over our surroundings proved disorienting. My stomach dipped with the sensation that we were nearing the territory of unkind people.

“How far do you think we are from the road?” I asked. “There are houses up here in the hills. Swanky ones.”

“I know.” Joe kept walking. “I think we're still far enough away to avoid seeing anyone. I don't hear any dogs or other signs of civilization.”

I stopped, set down his belongings, and drew the pistol out of my holster.

Joe spun around, and his shoulders jerked. “Jesus! Why are you bringing
that
out right now?”

“I've got to be honest with you, Joe.” I held the derringer by my side, the muzzle pointed toward the ground. “You're not safe at all. Fleur told me that Laurence, the Wittens, and some of the other local fellows want to do terrible things to you because they
know . . .” I nodded through the words I didn't know how to say.

Joe leaned back on his left foot. “Who told them about me?”

“I don't know. Fleur suspects Laurence has been hiding you so he can brag about leading the others to you.”

Joe tightened his grip on his bag and scanned the forest with his eyes.

“You ever shoot a gun before?” I asked.

He blinked. “No.”

“I had to store the pistol in a hiding spot in a log,” I said, “instead of sneaking it back to my bedroom. I didn't have time to replace the bullet I shot past your head.”

Joe grimaced.

“So there's only one left,” I continued. “I'll use it if we're desperate.”

He swallowed. “Put that gun back in your holster. I don't want you tripping and shooting me in the back by mistake.”

A twig snapped behind me. I flinched and turned and nearly cocked and fired. A deer leapt into view and zigzagged off into the distance, leaves swishing behind its hooves.

“I said, put that gun back into your holster!” snapped Joe. “You almost fired it, didn't you?”

I hiked up my skirt and struggled to fit the pistol back inside the leather casing. My hands trembled from coming so close to shooting that bullet. I couldn't breathe quite right.

“We'll make this work.” Joe stepped toward me. “We'll stay safe.”

I lowered my skirt. “How?”

“I—” He stopped in front of me and rubbed his left thumb
against the side of his face, while the lantern swung and squeaked from the rest of his fingers. “I don't know just yet. Let's find a place to sleep so we don't have to worry about anyone seeing us walking around. We'll talk about our plans after we've had some time to settle down and think.”

I grumbled, but I complied, and the woods turned dark and cold.

A HALF MILE OR SO FARTHER, I CAUGHT SIGHT OF A
stretch of water that glistened with moonlight between the trunks of spruces wider than Joe and me and at least two other people put together. In that same direction, hundreds of frogs croaked in a chorus that sounded frantic and urgent and gave me the chills. The world smelled of pines and dampness.

“Is that a lake I see up there,” I asked, “shining in the moonlight through the trees?”

Joe ducked down beneath an outstretched branch for a better look. “It's just the widest section of Engle Creek, I think. But . . . wait . . .” He slid beneath the branch and disappeared from view in the blackness ahead. “There's a building of some sort.”

I followed him and just barely made out the silhouette of a small log cabin. I inched up behind where Joe stood, and the warmth of his back permeated the chill in the moist night air.

“Do you think anyone's in there?” I asked in a whisper.

“I don't see any lights through the slats. I think it's probably a boathouse. Or maybe a place to store fishing gear, like Mr. Paulissen's shed used to be.”

“Or a whiskey still?”

“I doubt it. It's too quiet.” He edged down the low embankment, his soles scraping and sliding across the damp earth.

I cupped my hand over the holster against my thigh and followed him. My feet snagged on tree roots and other obstacles I couldn't see without any light.

At the bottom of the slope, I parked the picnic basket and blanket next to a bush. “Let me go ahead of you,” I whispered. “I've got the gun.”

“I don't want you shooting some poor raccoon.”

“I'll be careful.”

He snorted. “Like you were with that deer?”

“I didn't shoot that damn deer, did I?” My shoes squished through the soft soil, toward the direction of the door, and I kept my hand pressed against the holster.

The moment I reached the door, my gut told me to act, not to hesitate. I lifted the wooden latch and kicked the door open.

Darkness.

Deep-down-at-the-bottom-of-a-well darkness.

Something moved inside, and I could have sworn I heard my father whisper, “It's not safe here. Go!”

I jumped backward and bumped into Joe, who shrieked, which made me shriek.

“What's in there?” he asked.

“I don't know. I can't see a damn thing.”

“Why'd you jump?”

“I thought I heard my father warn it's not safe in there.” I rubbed my neck. “Christ, Joe, where are we? What are we doing out here? I'm scared to death.”

Joe crouched on the ground and shuffled around in his bag, but I could scarcely see him down there in the pitch-dark.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Looking for matches so I can light the lamp.”

He struck a match, and a flame hissed to life with a burst of light that illuminated his chin and his hands. I saw that scar on his lip again—the one that looked like a wound that had healed up all wrong. He turned a little apparatus that raised the lantern's glass chimney, and he set the burning end of the match to the flat cotton wick. The lantern awakened and glowed against the side of the cabin, revealing thick logs covered in moss and holes created by either woodpeckers or insects. Joe blew out the match and lowered the chimney.

“I'll go in and see what's there.” He rose to his feet.

“Be careful. I could have sworn I heard something.”

With cautious footsteps, he sidled his way into the cabin. The lantern's light fluttered against the uneven floorboards within.

“Joe?”

“It's empty,” he said. “Just some used-up bottles of booze and French postcards.”

I dared to step inside after him, and my eyes widened at the sight of naked white ladies—a half-dozen bare-breasted, bare-bottomed beauties—posing on postcards nailed to the log walls. The lamplight flickered across their smiles and flirty eyes and gave the impression that they were all winking at us. The air inside the cabin stank of whiskey and cigarettes. Fiction magazines and newspapers littered the floor in the far-right corner.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Don't know. But someone must come here to hide out and drink.” Joe wandered over to one of the empty bottles and picked it up for a sniff. “Moonshine—that's for certain.” He sniffed again. “Potent moonshine.”

I crept over to the pile of reading material to see if the contents would offer any clues about the inhabitants. A few editions of the crime-and-adventure magazine
Black Mask
lay on the floor in front of the toes of my shoes, but my eyes veered straightaway to a copy of a newspaper called the
Western American
. The front page featured illustrations of Klansmen in hoods and robes gazing at the Statue of Liberty. Beside the newspaper rested a pamphlet the color of porridge that bore the words T
HE
T
RUTH
A
BOUT THE
J
UNIOR
O
RDER OF
K
LANSMEN
.

My stomach dropped.

I knelt down and picked up the pamphlet with the very tips of my fingers, as if the paper might singe and blister my skin. Down at the bottom of the front page I found a series of handwritten notes, scribbled in pencil.

Konklave, July 2, 1923. New members needed. White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen
.

Initiation planned. Necktie party?

The problem of Joe Adder. Moral degenerate
.

Pancake breakfast set for Saturday at the Dry Dock. Money raised will repair potholes on Main Street
.

“Joe,” I said in a suddenly raspy voice. “Look.” I stood up and stuck out my hand with the pamphlet.

Joe walked over and took the paper.

“Do you know anything about the Junior Order of Klansmen?” I asked.

His eyes dropped down to the notes penciled in at the bottom. His breathing quickened, which made me breathe twice as fast as usual, and the combined sounds of our panting gave the unsettling impression that a dozen other people crowded around us.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

He plunked the lantern onto the ground and ripped the paper down the middle.

“No!” I clamped a hand around his wrist. “That's evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” he asked. “My future beatings? My murder?”

“I don't know, but”—I grabbed the pamphlet and crumpled it down into one of my dress pockets—“I'm keeping it.”

“This place makes me sick.” He kicked aside a cigarette butt and stumbled out of the cabin with the light from the lantern skittering across the walls.

I followed, and everything outside in the dark—the breeze in the branches, the splash of an animal in the creek, even the damn croaking frogs—spooked me into thinking an entire mob of Elston residents shuffled around in the bushes, spying on us. People our own age.
White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen
.

I blinked to adjust my eyes to the lack of light, and then I grabbed the blanket and basket and trailed Joe and the lantern up the slope. “Where do you think we should go now?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” he said. The lantern swung by his side, casting erratic streaks of light that made our surroundings seem to shake and grow.

“Do you think Laurence and the Wittens are in that Junior Order?” I asked.

“Laurence probably is.” He veered to his left at the top of the slope and brushed a thick branch out of his way. “He's been speaking highly of the Klan and one hundred percent Americanism.”

“Fleur said he's been after her and her mother to spend more time with church groups, to mind how they look in the community.” I pushed the branch away, too, and sap smeared across my hand. “He hasn't said a kind word to me in well over a year, not since he befriended those Wittens. Since Uncle Clyde barged his way into our lives.”

“You see what I mean?” Joe stopped, for one of his pant legs had gotten snared on a bush. “The local Klan is more than just a group that hosts baseball games and prints anti-Catholic pamphlets. And even if they did just promote anti-Catholicism, what makes you think their hatred would stop with one group?” He shook his leg free of the branch. “I witnessed it in prison, and I'm feeling it out here—there's a powerful movement to cleanse this country of the wrong sorts of people.”

I came to a stop near the same bush that had grabbed him. “If they're as hateful as you believe—”

“
Hate
doesn't even begin to describe what's happening.” Joe turned back around with the lantern shining across his eyes. “People in this state are controlling who can and can't breed, Hanalee. They're eradicating those of us who aren't white, Protestant, American-born, or sexually normal in their eyes. They're ‘purifying' Oregon.”

“Oh, God.” I dropped the basket to the ground and crouched into a ball, holding my arms around myself.

Joe knelt down in front of me. “I know. I'm scared to death, too.” He raised the lantern so we could better see each other's faces. “But if those of us who are being threatened join together and fight back, there will eventually be enough of us to stop them.”