Gone South (22 page)

Voices brought him back to the land of the living.

“Ma’am? I believe Mr. Krenshaw’s awake by now. Can I tell him who you are?”

“Just tell him Arden. He’ll know.”

“Yes ma’am.” There was the sound of rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

Dan opened his eyes and looked out the nearest window. Violet light was showing at the horizon. Nearing six o’clock, he figured. His mouth was as dry as a dust bowl. He saw a water fountain a few steps away, and he summoned his strength and sat up, his joints as stiff as rusty hinges. The girl was still sitting in the chair, her face turned toward a corridor that went off past the reception desk. She’d opened her purse, Dan noted, and she had removed the small pink drawstring bag from it. The bag was in her lap, both her hands clutched together around it in an attitude that struck Dan as being either of protection or prayer. As he stood up to walk to the water fountain, he saw her pull the drawstring tight and push it into her purse again. Then she rose to her feet as well, because someone was coming along the corridor.

There were two people, one standing and one sitting. A brown-haired woman in a white uniform was pushing a wheelchair, her shoes squeaking with every step, and in the wheelchair sat a frail-looking black man wearing a red-checked robe and slippers with yellow-and-green argyle socks. Dan took a drink of water and watched Arden walk forward to meet the man she’d come so far to see.

Jupiter was seventy-eight years old now, his face was a cracked riverbed of wrinkles, and his white hair had dwindled to a few remaining tufts. Arden was sure she’d changed just as much, but he would have to be blind not to know her, and the stroke he’d suffered two years before had not robbed him of his eyes. They were ashine, and their excitement jumped into Arden like an electric spark. His nephew had told Arden about the stroke, which had happened just five months after the death of Jupiter’s wife, and so Arden had been prepared for the palsy of his head and hands and the severe downturn of the right side of his mouth. Still, it was hard because she remembered how he used to be, and ten years could do a lot of damage. She took the few last steps to meet him, grasped one of his palsied hands as he reached up for her, and with an effort he opened his mouth to speak.

“Miz Arden,” he said. His voice was like a gasp, almost painful to hear. “Done growed up.”

She gave him the best smile she had. “Hello, Jupiter. How’re they treatin’ you?”

“Like I’m worn out. Which I
ain’t.
Gone be back to work again soon as I get on my feet.” He shook his head with wonder, his hand still gripping Arden’s. “My, my! You have surely become a young lady! Doreen would be so proud to see you!”

“I heard what happened. I’m sorry.”

“I was awful down at first. Awful down. But Doreen’s the pride of the angels now, and I’m happy for her. Gone get on my feet again. Louis thinks I’m worn out can’t do a thing for m’self.” He snorted. “I said you gimme the money they chargin’ you, I’ll show you how a man can pull hisself up. I ain’t through, no ma’am.” Jupiter’s rheumy eyes slid toward Dan. “Who is that there? I can’t —” He caught his breath. “Lord have mercy! Is that … is that Mr. Richards?”

“That’s the man who brought me —”

“Mr.
Richards!”
The old man let go of Arden and wheeled himself toward Dan before the nurse could stop him. Dan stepped back, but the wheelchair was suddenly right there in front of him and the old man’s crooked mouth was split by an ecstatic grin. “You come to see me, too?”

“Uh … I think you’ve got me mixed up with some—”

“Don’t you worry, now I
know
I’m gone get up out this thing! My, my, this is a happy day! Mr. Richards, you still got that horse eats oranges skin and all? I was thinkin’ ’bout that horse th’other day. Name right on the tip of my tongue, right there it was but I couldn’t spit it out. What was that horse’s name?”

“Jupiter?” Arden said quietly, coming up behind him. She put a hand on one of his thin shoulders. “That’s not Mr. Richards.”

“Well, sure it is! Right here he is, flesh and bone! I may be down, but I ain’t out! Mr. Richards, what was the name of that horse eats oranges skin and all?”

Dan looked into Arden’s face, seeking help. It was obvious the old man had decided he was someone else, and to him the matter was settled. Arden said, “I think the horse’s name was Fortune.”

“Fortune! That’s it!” Jupiter nodded, his eyes fixed on Dan. “You still got that ol’ wicked horse?”

“I’m not who you —” But Dan paused before he went any further. There seemed to be no point in it. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”

“I’ll teach him some manners! God may make the horse, but I’m the one takes off the rough edges, ain’t that right, Miz Arden?”

“That’s right,” she said.

Jupiter grunted, satisfied with the answer. He turned his attention away from Dan and stared out the window. “Sun’s comin’ up directly. Be dry and hot. Horses need extra water today, can’t work ’em too hard.”

Arden motioned the nurse aside for a moment and spoke to her, and the nurse nodded agreement and withdrew to give them privacy. Dan started to move away, too, but the old man reached out with steely fingers and caught his wrist. “Louis don’t think I’m worth a damn no more,” he confided. “You talk to Louis?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“My nephew. Put me in here. I said Louis, you gimme the money they’re chargin’ you, I’ll show you how a man can pull hisself up.”

Arden drew up a chair beside the old man and sat down. Through the window the sky was becoming streaked with pink. “You always did like to watch the sun rise, didn’t you?”

“Got to get an early start, you want to make somethin’ of you’self. Mr. Richards knows that’s gospel. Water them horses good today, yessir.”

“You want me to step outside?” Dan asked the girl. But Jupiter didn’t let go of him, and Arden shook her head. Dan frowned; he felt as if he’d walked on stage in the middle of a play without knowing the title or what the damn thing was about.

“I am so pleased,” Jupiter said, “that you both come to see me. I think a lot ’bout them days. I dream ’bout ’em. I close my eyes and I can see everythin’, just like it was. It was a golden time, that’s what I believe. A golden time.” He drew a long, ragged breath. “Well, I ain’t done yet. I may be down, but I ain’t out!”

Arden took Jupiter’s other hand. “I came to see you,” she said, “because I need your help.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, and Arden thought he hadn’t heard. But then Jupiter’s head turned and he stared quizzically at her. “My help?”

She nodded. “I’m goin’ to find the Bright Girl.”

Jupiter’s mouth slowly opened, as if he were about to speak, but nothing came out.

“I remember the stories you used to tell me,” Arden went on. “I never forgot ’em, all this time. Instead of fadin’ away, they kept gettin’ more and more real. Especially what you told me about the Bright Girl. Jupiter, I need to find her. You remember, you told me what she could do for me? You used to say she could touch my face and the mark would come off on her hands. Then she’d wash her hands with water and it’d be gone forever and ever.”

The birthmark, Dan realized she was talking about. He stared at Arden, but her whole being seemed to be focused on the old man.

“Where is she?” Arden urged.

“Where she always was,” Jupiter answered. “Where she always will be. Road runs out, meets the swamp. Bright Girl’s in there.”

“I remember you used to tell me about growin’ up in LaPierre. Is that where I need to start from?”

“LaPierre,” he repeated, and he nodded. “That’s right. Start from LaPierre. They know ’bout the Bright Girl there, they’ll tell you.”

“Beg pardon,” Dan said, “but can I ask who ya’ll are talkin’ about?”

“The Bright Girl’s a faith healer,” Arden told him. “She lives in the swamp south of where Jupiter grew up.”

It came clear to Dan. Arden was searching for a faith healer to take the birthmark off her face, and she’d come to see this old man to help point the way. Dan was tired and cranky, his joints hurt, and his head was throbbing; it frankly pissed him off that he’d taken a detour and risked traveling on the interstate because of such nonsense. “What is she, some kind of voodoo woman lights incense and throws bones around?”

“It’s not voodoo,” Arden said testily. “She’s a holy woman.”

“Holy, yes she is. Carries the lamp of God,” Jupiter said to no one in particular.

“I had you figured for a sensible person. There’s no such thing as a faith healer.” A thought struck Dan like an ax between the eyes. “Is that why Joey left you? ’Cause he figured out you were chasin’ a fairy tale?”

“Oh, Mr. Richards sir!” Jupiter’s hand squeezed Dan’s harder. “Bright Girl ain’t no fair’ tale! She’s as real as you and me! Been livin’ in that swamp long ’fore my daddy was a li’l boy, and she’ll be there long after my bones done blowed away. I seen her when I was eight year old. Here come the Bright Girl down the street!” He smiled at the memory, the warm pink light of the early sun settling into the lines of his face. “Young white girl, pretty as you please. That’s why she called bright. But she carries a lamp, too. Carries a lamp from God that burns inside her, and that’s how she gets her healin’ touch. Yessir, here come the Bright Girl down the street and a crowd of people followin’ her. She on the way to Miz Wardell’s house, Miz Wardell so sick with cancer she just lyin’ in bed, waitin’ to die. She see me standin’ there and she smile under her big purple hat and I know who she is, ’cause my mama say Bright Girl was comin’. I sing out Bright Girl! Bright Girl! and she touch my hand when I reach for her. I feel that lamp she carryin’ in her, that healin’ lamp from God.” He lifted his eyes to Dan’s face. “I never felt such light before, Mr. Richards. Never felt it since. They said the Bright Girl laid her hands on Miz Wardell and up come the black bile, all that cancer flowin’ out. Said it took two days and two nights, and when it was done the Bright Girl was so tired she had to be carried back to her boat. But Miz Wardell outlived two husbands and was dancin’ when she was ninety. And that ain’t all the Bright Girl did for people ’round LaPierre, neither. You ask ’em down there, they’ll tell you ’bout all the folks she healed of cancers, tumors, and sicknesses. So nosir, all due respect, but Bright Girl ain’t no fair’ tale ’cause I seen her with my own livin’ eyes.”

“I believe you,” Arden said. “I always did.”

“That’s the first step,” he answered. “You go to LaPierre. Go south, you’ll find her. She’ll touch your face and make things right. You won’t never see that mark no more.”

“I want things made right. More than any thin’ in this world, I do.”

“Miz Arden,” Jupiter said, “I ’member how you used to fret ’bout you’self, and how them others treated you. I ’member them names they called you, them names that made you cry. Then you’d wipe your eyes, stick your chin out again, and keep on goin’. But it seems to me you might still be cryin’ on the inside.” He looked earnestly up at Dan. “You gone take care of Miz Arden?”

“Listen,” Dan said. “I’m not who you think I am.”

“I know who you are,” Jupiter replied. “You the man God sent Miz Arden.”

“Come again?”

“That’s right. You the man God provided to take Miz Arden to the Bright Girl. You His hands, you gone have to steer her the right direction.”

Dan didn’t know what to say, but he’d had enough of this. He pulled loose from the old man’s spidery fingers. “I’ll be waitin’ outside,” he growled at Arden, and he turned toward the door.

“Good-bye!” Jupiter called after him. “You heed what I say now, hear?”

Outside, the eastern horizon was the color of burnished copper. Already the air smelled of wet, agonizing heat. Dan stalked to the station wagon, got behind the wheel, and sat there while the sweat began to bloom from his pores. Again he pondered ditching her suitcase and hitting the road, but the heat chased such thoughts away; in his present condition he wouldn’t get more than a few miles before he fell asleep at the wheel. He was nodding off when the girl opened the passenger door. “You look pretty bad,” she said. “Want me to drive?”

“No,” he said. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. Weaving all over the road was a sure way to get stopped by a police car. “Wait,” he said as she started to climb in. “Yeah, I think you’d better drive.”

They started off, Arden retracing the way they’d come. To Dan’s aching bones the pitch arid sway of the station wagon’s creaking frame was pure torture. “Gonna have to pull over,” he said when they were back on Darcy Avenue. He made out a small motel coming up on the right; its sign proclaimed it the Rest Well Inn, which sounded mighty good to him. “Turn in there.”

She did as he said, and she drove up under a green awning in front of the motel’s office. A sign in the window said that all rooms were ten dollars a night, there were phones in all of them, and the cable TV was free. “You want me to check us in?”

Dan narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you mean, check
us
in? We ain’t a couple.”

“I meant separate rooms. I could do with some sleep, too.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay. Fine with me.”

She cut the engine and got out. “What’s your last name?”

“Huh?”

“Your last name. They’ll want it on the register.”

“Farrow,” he said. “From Shreveport, if they need that, too.”

“Back in a couple of minutes.”

Dan leaned his head back and waited. Stopping here seemed the only thing to do; he wouldn’t have driven the rest of the way to Vermilion in daylight even if he’d felt able. He was fading fast. That crazy old man, he thought. Here come the Bright Girl down the street. Laid her hands on Miz Wardell. All that cancer flowin’ out. I never felt such light before, Mr. Rich—

“Here’s your key.”

Dan got his eyes open and took the key Arden offered. The sun had gotten brighter. Arden drove them a short distance, and then somehow he was fitting the key into a door and walking into a small but clean room with beige-painted cinder-block walls. He locked the door behind him, walked right to the bed, and climbed onto it without removing his cap or shoes. If the police were to suddenly burst into the room, they would’ve had to pour him into handcuffs.