Way Down Deep (10 page)

“But didn't you say she was eaten by a panther?” the sheriff said, obviously bewildered.

“That's what they figured,” Ruby said, “but nobody knew for sure. There was never a trace of her found.”

The sheriff's face lit up.

“Oh! Oh! I get it!” he cried out. “You're wondering if . . . if . . . I see! Maybe she wadn't eaten up by a panther a'tall!”

Ruby nodded.

“And maybe she was you?”

Ruby nodded again.

The sheriff looked at Miss Arbutus and smiled as if seeking her approval for his cleverness. Miss Arbutus
stared out the window at Busy Street and patted Rita's bare leg.

“But how would she get here?” the sheriff said to Ruby. “A little girl like that in the dark. Yonder Mountain is a good piece from here.”

Ruby shrugged. “How far is it?”

“A good piece,” the sheriff repeated. “And you said her name was Jolene. But your name is Ruby.”

“We don't really know my name, do we?” Ruby said. “I mean . . . I was only a toddler. I couldn't talk plain.”

The sheriff was trying to comprehend that statement, and it seemed that he was not having much luck.

“We don't have all the answers, Sheriff.” Miss Arbutus spoke up. “That's why we came to you. We thought you might want to investigate.”

“I do want to investigate,” the sheriff said without enthusiasm. “I mean . . . I reckon I should.”

Miss Arbutus kindly tried to help him out. “Maybe you should call the law over there in Virginia and see what you can learn.”

“Why, Miss Arbutus, that's a real good idea!” the sheriff said. “No matter what anybody else says,
I've
never thought you were dull-witted!”

The sheriff's words hung in the air like a bad odor, and he bit his lip as if he longed to take them back. But Miss Arbutus retained her calm demeanor.

“All righty!” The sheriff tried to sound cheerful. “Y'all go on home now, and I'll take care of everything.”

T
HAT VERY AFTERNOON A DETECTIVE BY THE NAME OF
Holland came from Buchanan County, Virginia, to see Ruby at The Roost. He was tall with a pleasant face, and he listened to Ruby's brief story without making a comment. In fact, Ruby thought he must have something else on his mind.

She figured a detective probably got leads every day, and if he followed all of them, he would be like a dog chasing its tail. So this Mr. Holland would probably treat her story as just another dead end. After asking her a few questions, he thanked her politely and left.

And that was that, Ruby thought with relief, and went back to helping Miss Arbutus make corn bread for supper.

Detective Holland, however, was not as uninterested as he seemed. He was, in fact, having trouble keeping his excitement concealed as he listened to Ruby's story. On leaving The Roost, he hurried to the courthouse to report to the sheriff.

“She looks exactly like her mother,” he said as he dropped himself in the same wingback chair Miss Arbutus had occupied earlier. “She was Jo Combs from Yonder Mountain—prettiest girl you ever saw. She married Clayton Hurley. We called him Clay. I went to school with both of them.”

Sheriff Reynolds was too flabbergasted to respond.

“The missing girl was named Ruby Jolene Hurley,” Detective Holland went on. “I would swear on a stack of Bibles she's the same child.”

“What . . . what should we do?” asked Sheriff Reynolds.

Holland stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at Busy Street.

“Maybe I'll bring her Uncle Christian over here to see her before we do anything.”

“Her uncle?”

“Yeah, her mama's brother, Christian Combs. He lives over there near Yonder Mountain.”

“What about her mama? Why not bring her? Or her daddy?”

The detective from Virginia sighed a long, weary sigh. “That's a sad story,” he said. “I won't go into it now.”

The next day, as Ruby was weeding the garden, Miss Arbutus came out and said to her softly, “Someone is here to see you, Ruby June. Do you want to go comb your hair and wash your face?”

“Do I need to?” Ruby said, wiping her hands on her shorts.

Miss Arbutus touched Ruby's hair with tenderness, and shook her head. “Not really. You look beautiful.”

“Who is it?” Ruby asked.

“A man from Yonder Mountain. His name is Christian Combs.”

Miss Arbutus led her into the common room, where a paunchy middle-aged man with thin red hair and a face full of large freckles sat on a couch beside Sheriff Reynolds. With straw hat in hand, the man stood up to greet Ruby. Detective Holland, who had been standing by the door watching the pansies dance in the sunshine, turned to face the room again.

When Ruby walked up to Christian Combs and said hello, the man's knees gave way on him, and he sank back onto the couch.

“You feel okay?” Ruby said with concern. “You don't look too good.”

“It's her,” Christian barely whispered. “I know it's her. It's like looking at Jo when she was a girl.”

“That was my first reaction exactly!” Holland agreed. “She's the spittin' image of her mama.”

“My mama?” Ruby squeaked.

“Yeah, honey,” Holland said. “If you're who I think you are, your mama was this man's sister. She was Jo Combs, and your daddy was Clay Hurley, a friend of mine. Your name is Ruby Jolene Hurley.”

Ruby could not speak. She turned to look at Miss Arbutus, who was still standing quietly in the doorway that led into the dining room, one hand in her apron pocket.

Miss Arbutus gave Ruby a sad, sweet smile, then faced the detective and said, “You have to have some proof.”

“Well, ma'am,” Holland said to her, “I think all the evidence we have so far—when she showed up here, her apparent age, her name, her appearance—all that would be about enough to convince anybody.”

“You have to have something else.”

“Such as?” Holland said.

“Information about what she was wearing that night.”

“She was in a homemade petticoat,” the sheriff blurted out. “Everybody saw that.”

“Something no one knows except me.”

Everybody stared at Miss Arbutus.

“And her mother. She would know,” Miss Arbutus added.

“Her mother is dead,” Christian Combs said bluntly.

“Dead?” Ruby's voice failed her.

“Yes, and your father, too,” he said more gently. “They died before you . . . before you got lost.”

Ruby could not absorb it all. She felt no pain, no grief for those people who had died. She did not know them. She was numb.

“Then who was that girl staying with?” Ruby asked.

“What girl?” Christian Combs said.

“That little Ruby Jolene Hurley.”

“With my mother, Goldie Combs, her grandma . . .
your
grandma.” Then he turned to Miss Arbutus. “Are you talking about a pair of little girl's blue cotton step-ins with
R-U-B-Y
embroidered in red across the bottom?”

Miss Arbutus's face paled, and she sank into a nearby chair, her hand still in her apron pocket.

“My mother had to describe to the law what the baby was wearing,” Christian said. “That's how she hung on to the memory. It was a habit of Jo's—to embroider Ruby's name on her things. When she was a girl herself, she embroidered her own name on her clothes.”

Slowly Miss Arbutus pulled her hand from her pocket and produced an item. Lovingly she spread it across her knee. It was a toddler's pair of underpants, blue in color, with
R-U-B-Y
prominently displayed in red across the bottom.

Ruby walked over and stood beside Miss Arbutus, gazing at the underpants. “I was wearing those?”

Miss Arbutus looked up into Ruby's eyes, so clear, so blue, so trusting. “Yes, nobody ever saw them but me and perhaps Mrs. Doctor,” she whispered. “I put them away that same day and brought them out again only now.”

Ruby turned to the detective. “But how did I get here?” she said earnestly, her face clouded with confusion. “How far away is Yonder Mountain?”

“Sixty miles,” Detective Holland said. “And that's the question all right. How did you get here?”

I
N THE FOLLOWING DAYS
R
UBY AND
M
ISS
A
RBUTUS TRAV
-eled with Sheriff Reynolds to Virginia, where they appeared before a judge, along with Detective Holland and Christian Combs. There Ruby's fate was decided, at least temporarily.

“She needs to ease herself gradually into this new situation,” the judge said kindly. “I suggest she be taken to Yonder Mountain for a visit before she is permanently removed from the only home she has ever known.”

Christian Combs stood up. “And after that, what?”

“Then she needs to come back and talk to me.”

Christian Combs continued. “Your honor, as you know, the girl's grandmother, Goldie Combs of Yonder Mountain, was not well enough to appear here today, but she has instructed me to say that she is the girl's legal guardian and she wants her returned unconditionally.”

“I know that, Mr. Combs,” the judge snapped. “But wouldn't you agree this is a peculiar case? I don't want to make a hasty decision with the child's life.”

Christian Combs sat down without saying more.

“Now do as I say. Take her to Yonder Mountain for a visit.”

Then the judge turned to Detective Holland and instructed him to continue his investigation into Ruby's disappearance.

“I would like to know what happened to this girl that night on the mountain.”

“So would I,” Holland said.

 

Now it was the first day of summer once again, the day Ruby and Miss Arbutus had always celebrated as Ruby's birthday because it was the day she had showed up at the courthouse. But on this birthday Ruby found herself sitting in the front seat of Christian Combs's green DeSoto, heading out of Way Down Deep onto the highway toward Yonder Mountain. She could see the road winding between the hills toward Virginia. The air was heavy and the sky looked like rain.

“You can call me Uncle Chris,” Christian Combs said. “I guess you want to hear about Jo and Clay—your mama and daddy.”

Ruby felt like her heart was too battered and bruised to go on beating. Hearing about Jo and Clay would only damage it further. She said nothing, but studied her uncle's face.

This man had known her mama as a little girl and as a teenager and as a grownup married woman, too. And he
had known her father. She should want to know about that. But still her mind would not go there. It kept going back to the place she had left behind.

“My sister and Clay met at the county high school and courted for about two years before they ran away and eloped on an Easter weekend,” Uncle Chris began.

“Why did they run away?”

“Because Mama thought they were too young to marry.”

“How old were they?”

“Only seventeen. Clay seemed older because he had kinda raised himself, you see. He grew up in an orphanage and never knew who his people were.”

Uncle Chris glanced over at Ruby. She was reading the Burma-Shave signs that appeared at intervals by the roadside.

Don't take

 A curve at
   Sixty per
    We hate to lose
     A customer
      ****BURMA-SHAVE****

But Ruby was also thinking very hard. And she kept coming back to one question: How could she possibly take on another life and toss away the past like a pair of worn-out shoes?

“They set up housekeeping in a shack down at the foot of the mountain,” Uncle Chris went on. “Clay started working in the coal mines, and Jo didn't like that a bit because it was bad for his lungs. He had asthma. She kept after him to find something else, and I'll have to say, he did try, but there was nothing else to be found. Then you came along, and—”

“When is my birthday?” Ruby interrupted him.

Uncle Chris scratched his head. “You know, I'm not real sure. I'm not good at remembering dates. But your grandma will know. She remembers stuff like that.”

“Well, how old am I?”

Her uncle scratched his head again. “Twelve, thirteen maybe. I'm not sure, Ruby Jo.”

“Was that what everybody called me—Ruby Jo?”

“No, that's the name your folks gave you, but it seemed like everybody had a different name for you. Your mama and daddy just called you Ruby, but after they died, your grandma, well, she didn't like that name, Ruby, so she started calling you Jolene. That was your mama's whole name, you know.”

There was silence for a moment in the car. Ruby was thinking that she liked Ruby Jo better than just Ruby or just Jolene. Ruby Jo had something of her mother, and was also not so different from Ruby June.

“Yeah, your grandma wouldn't call you anything but Jolene,” Uncle Chris said. “And after you went to live with her, she insisted that everybody else call you Jolene, too.”

Uncle Chris lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window. Ruby's mind went back to Miss Arbutus.

“We'll celebrate your birthday when you find out the real date,” Miss Arbutus had said.

“That sounds good,” Ruby said as she and Miss Arbutus packed a few clothes and personal belongings in her suitcase. “And I don't want to say goodbye to anybody before I leave!”

“I understand,” Miss Arbutus said softly. “You don't need their sadness dragging you down.”

“That's exactly right!” Ruby said. She sat on the suitcase and snapped it shut. “You can tell them whatever you want, but make sure they understand I am coming back soon. I know for sure I am coming home for Kids' Day, and even before then if possible.”

“If these people are not good to you, you don't have to stay that long!” Miss Arbutus told her. “Just let me know and I will send somebody for you.”