A Question of Mercy (23 page)

When Jess left the house a few minutes later, she went back toward the woods with a satchel and some food. Calder believed she was taking these things to Adam. Maybe she would meet him downriver. Maybe she was helping him to escape the trip to Cadwell. He hoped so. If she did that, he would help her.

A month ago, after Clementine told him she would send Adam to Cadwell, he visited the institution, and immediately tried to persuade Clementine not to send him there. “Don't do it,” he had pleaded. “He can't live there.”

“You don't know.” Clementine railed at him. “You haven't been here all these years.”

Calder could tell she was crying on the phone. “But Clementine, I've seen what they do.”

“Those doctors can help Adam.” Her voice turned high-pitched. “They said they could help him. And maybe he can come home afterwards. But …” she stopped. “They have to take him for a while.”

“Clementine?” he said. “Are you going to let them operate on him?”

“They might. Yes.”

“Oh, Clementine.”

“You'd rather he be in jail? With no one to take care of him? The doctors will take care of him.”

Calder made a sound in his throat. He had no right to make a big decision like this, unless he could take Adam himself. But Calder had remarried and knew his new wife would not be willing to bear the responsibility of Adam; and he knew that he could not work and care for Adam on a daily basis by himself. Clementine had done a remarkable job with him, and Edward Booker, a patient, loving man, was footing much of the bill for Cadwell. Still, Calder wanted to take Adam away. Maybe Jess was helping him do just that. So he tried to find Jess and Adam by going downriver, trying to see where they would meet.

The next day he called Clementine, because she would be expecting him to come by the house. She sounded hysterical as she told Calder that both Jess and Adam had been gone all night.

“Jess took him away. She didn't want him to go there,” Clementine said.

“We'll find them. Let me talk with Edward.”

“Hello,” Edward said.

“Have you reported them missing?” Calder asked.

“Yes. The police are searching for them. They're hiding somewhere. We're checking the houses of Jess's friends.”

“Should I come?”

“No. No. We'll call you when we find them. We'll have to reschedule the trip to Cadwell.” He cleared his throat. “I'm afraid this will just make it harder, though.”

Calder heard Clementine yell something in the background.

“We'll call you when we find them.”

Calder followed Jess, guessing she would try to get a ride and that she would go south. He saw her first on highway 53 going toward Rome. She was outside a grocery store, but he didn't know if it was Jess. She looked different, her hair shorter, something. He looked to see if Adam was with her, but did
not see him anywhere. He saw Jess again in a shopping center, as she stole a bag of oranges from a cart. But, still, no Adam. He wanted to offer his help, but was waiting to see Adam. He wanted to be sure. After a couple of weeks Calder could no longer find Jess and went back home. He told his wife about Adam and Jess. He said he might go looking for them again. Then the day came when Clementine called to say that Adam had drowned in the river, and Calder had to rethink everything.

“They found his body near Sudderth Creek. A man named Bobby Coe found him.” She sounded as if she had memorized the information. He pictured her face set in stone. “The service will be held in the Methodist Church next Wednesday.”

At the funeral the church was full of townspeople, men from the garages, school kids and parents, and others Clementine did not know. Calder insisted on paying for everything himself, especially the gravestone. He followed Clementine's instructions of engraving Adam's name, his nickname “Hubcap,” and the date of birth and death.

At the cemetery Calder and his new wife stood beside Clementine and Edward as they lowered Adam's body into the ground. The crowd sang a hymn, their voices rising up through the trees. Calder sobbed as he remembered Adam riding his bike, playing ball—all the things that made Adam seem normal, though Calder's real sadness came in the realization that he had never known Adam as the son he actually was, but only the way Calder had wanted to see him.

“I was always afraid of that river,” Clementine said, as they left the graveside. “I always thought something bad could happen there.”

Over the next month Calder renewed his search for Jess. He asked at gas stations and stores, and had almost given up when he saw her walking on a back road near Georgia 20, which went toward Alabama. He followed her ragged trail toward Lula. When he asked at Honey's Last Stop, someone said she worked there. He waited, then confronted her; but she was so frightened of him he decided to leave. He hadn't planned what he would say to her, but had said the wrong thing.

When Calder called Clementine, Edward told him that she had moved out two weeks after the funeral. “She's living in town. In an apartment,” he said. “She's made a formal accusation against Jess.”

“Do you know where Jess is?” Calder knew that Edward would be waiting to hear if Jess had been washed up on the riverbank, like Adam. He would tell Edward where she was. He was surprised at Edward's answer.

“Yes. She's with an old friend in Lula, Alabama.”

— 32 —

W
ill Brennan liked to carry a shoehorn in his pocket, but had to remove it when he sat at the dinner table. Tonight, as he placed the shoehorn on the floor beside him, Ray picked it up to inspect its shiny curve. Will said that Ray could keep it for a couple of days while he was out of town. “I'm leaving tomorrow to see my son in Virginia.” Ray rubbed his thumb in the curve of the shoehorn and asked, if he blew it, would it sound like a horn?

Shooter didn't want Will to go. “What if Ray gets scared at night?” Shooter said.

“I don't get scared.” Ray hit Shooter's arm, and Shooter dropped a roll into his soup. He said a bad word.

“You shouldn't say things like that.” Miss Tutwiler looked at both Shooter and Frank. “You've been hanging around Frank, I'll bet.” She started to say more when Shooter spoke up.

“Mr. Will says bad words, sometimes.”

“No, I don't,” Will said defensively. “Where did you get a notion like that?”

“You did too. Remember?” Shooter pointed accusingly. “You were telling me about that war you were in.”

Will remembered, he remembered exactly where they were.

He had taken Shooter to dig for worms. They put them in a tobacco can for fishing, and Shooter said he wanted to be a soldier someday. It was early in the morning, and they had brought some apples to eat. Will had his coffee in a black thermos.

Shooter kept talking about the war in Korea and how he wanted to go, to wear a uniform, and to carry a gun. Finally he held up a worm three inches long, and whooed. He said, “I could kill me some people.”

Hearing those words come from Shooter unlocked something in Will. Without thought or plan, he began to speak. He shook his head hard. “Son,
you don't want that. Not unless you like the idea a being out in some field thick with mud, and deer flies landing on you like fucking birds, eating you up. Welts come up on your neck and arms, itching and stinging.” He took a deep breath and looked straight at Shooter. He was teaching this boy about war. “Then the man beside you, who's your good buddy, he gets hit. The incoming falling so fast and you didn't hear anything, it was so loud, everything so loud.”

He was looking far off now. “Son-of-a-bitch coming at you, and you might see his face, and you might not even
want
to shoot him, but you got to. See? And then, afterwards, you gonna always see his face hit, exploding like some kinda god-damn balloon, and him falling and his blood all around.” Will leaned back, his eyes bright as marbles. “And you can't help wondering about his life.”

Shooter did not say a word.

“But after that first one, you don't think on it anymore. You kill men like swatting flies. And that friend of yours, he just fell and you can't believe it, 'cause, when you look, his arm's not on his body, but off in some bush ten yards away. And your buddy's saying your name. Then he's dead, and you carry him out over your neck like an animal. And you been shot too, but you can't think about it.”

Shooter hadn't moved, just listened and waited. “And besides that, you're in another country and nobody says anything you can understand, but their voices say
Hate
, say
Kill
. Then you think about that day the rest of your life. Nightmares too. You won't ever be the same.” He took another long breath and let it out slow. “That's all I'm gonna say now. Give me some of that coffee.”

Shooter handed the thermos to Will and unscrewed the top for him. “Did you really do that?” he asked.

Will poured coffee, black, into the cup-top. “Yes.”

“Was he your friend?”

Will drank a long gulp. “Hell, we were all friends.”

The rest of that morning Will seemed to have gone somewhere else in his head, his face ringed with sadness. He had said more about the war to Shooter in those moments than he had said to anyone in years.

But, now, Will turned to Shooter and Ray at the table. “Miss Tut's right about that kind of bad talk, and though I admit to sometimes falling backwards, she's taught me that it's wrong.” Zella came in and mentioned dessert, which was lemon pie.

In this way the matter was closed.

After supper Jess helped Zella wash the dishes; Frank, in a hopeful mood, came in behind Jess and offered to dry. Miss Tutwiler and Will cleared dishes from the table and collected the napkins. They were openly affectionate now.

Zella was going out tonight, but complained about how much it cost to go anywhere. “Barely have enough to go out anymore.” She had been plugging for a raise, and Miss Tutwiler knew that, eventually, she would have to give in. Then Zella said, “One person I knew growing up gave away
all
they's money.”

“All of it?” Will asked.

“Well most, anyhow. They had to move to a little old place, hardly nothing compared to living in a big two-story house. They learned to live real spare.”

“Now that is
good
folks,” said Miss Tutwiler.

“Or stupid,” said Frank.

“He owned a restaurant in town,” said Zella.

“Did he keep the restaurant?” asked Frank.

“Nope. Give it away too.”

“That sounds crazy to me.” Frank dropped the plate he was drying, but caught it.

“Uh-uh, they just got the Spirit,” explained Zella. “Spirit said, ‘Sell what you have and give to the poor.' Wife never was too happy about it, but she didn't leave him. They still living down there. Old now. Live on Sweetmilk Creek.” She paused wiping the counter, then placed the rag neatly over the faucet. She shrugged. “Seem happy whenever I see them.”

“Maybe people don't need as much money as they think,” Miss Tutwiler said. “People always asking for more money, seems to me.” Jess looked up. She had heard the women arguing over Zella's raise, and enjoyed seeing Zella work her way toward the final closing.

“They need enough to live on, though,” Zella said. “What I'm talking about is a gen-er-ous spirit.” She paused. “People can always go somewhere else to work, I guess.”

“Well, I wouldn't want that,” Miss Tutwiler relented, and Jess knew the raise was solid.

Will stood to go upstairs.

“Where're you going, Will?” Miss Tutwiler asked.

“To bed. Unless you got a better offer.”

“I might,” she said, and motioned for him to follow her onto the porch where she had a bucket of ice cold beer.

Will had three grown children who constantly asked him to come live with them. Miss Tut was afraid that one day he might leave the boardinghouse. She wanted him to stay.

He leaned to lift a beer, and give one to Miss Tut. “Well,” he said. “I thought you were going to propose.”

She patted a place for him to sit beside her on the swing. She wiped her neck and forehead with a handkerchief and slipped the white lace cloth between her breasts. She looked like a woman who had decided something, as though the Tut and Anti-Tut faced each other, deciding whether or not to love Will.

“So, are you proposing?” Will said again. “Soon as I say I'm leaving for a few of days, you want to marry me.”

“You wear me out,” she said. “You just keep on ‘til you wear me down.”

“I'll take what I can.” He took a long sip of beer. “I'm tired of chasing after women.”

“I thought you just chased after me. I thought I was the only one.”

“Well, that's what I'm tired of.”

“Don't get tired, Will. Christmas is coming.” She smiled to let him know she remembered their time in the pantry.

“I might be dead by then,” he said.

She lifted another beer and gave it to him. Jess loved hearing their banter and could see them falling in love through these pointed remarks.

“You gonna wash up before you kiss me goodnight?” Miss Tutwiler asked.

“Do I offend you, Tut?”

“Not so much,” she smiled. “I like a man to smell like the earth.”

Jess came out with Frank following her. “Are we interrupting anything?” Jess asked.

“Yes,” Will said.

When Jess sat in the rocker, the orange cat jumped onto her lap.

Zella came out to say she was leaving for the night. “What do you suppose happen to that cat's tail?”

Miss Tutwiler turned to inspect the kitty.

“She's still pretty though,” Frank urged. “Look how clean she keeps herself. Didn't you ever have a cat when you were a girl, Miss Tut?”

“I did, as a matter of fact.” Miss Tutwiler's face broke into a smile.